Tales From The Backlog

New year, same-ish format. This month has been busy and slow for me as I’m still trying to figure out what I am doing this year. I don’t currently have, in a depressing way of saying it, something that excites me each day. I go with the flow of the day. I have come to learn that I am the type of person who needs some type of exciting project to get my motivation going. It is a character flaw that has negative effects. Eventually I will find something, but things are really dull without that “thing.”

On the writing front, I have slowed down on releasing posts just so I can have extra time to polish them. As I try more and more to reflect my voice in my writings, I also want to make things clearer on what I am saying. If my speech impairment already makes my normal speaking voice hard to understand, then I want to make sure that my writing is as clear as it can be. The old goal used to be to have a post ready every week, but now my goal is to post something every other week and make it the best that it can be. There are some games that I have finished that I haven’t talked about yet, some thoughts on gaming that I want to talk about, and a series that I’ve wanted to include for the longest time that I haven’t written anything about. This is the year that I want to produce the most content that I have since starting, and I want to see how far I can take it.

Now moving onto the games:

Finished This Month

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2

There was only one game that I finished this month. I choose Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 as the first game to finish on the first day of the year. It has been a tradition to finish a game on day one for a while now, and I chose this game since I didn’t have time to prepare the week before. Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 has some of the best locations in the series with actual destructible environments that the later games do not have. I will say that I am not a fan of this game for different reasons. I don’t like how you acquire skills in this game, and the amount of times your gundam feels like a ragdoll gave me multiple rage moments. The fact that giant gundam fights are still hard even on the easiest difficulty made the process much longer than it needed to be. Overall, I don’t see myself returning to complete all the achievements, but if I’m bored one day I may consider it.

New Additions

Yu Gi Oh! Forbidden Memories

I had the chance this month to attend an event where I could scout out some retro games. The first game I acquired was this; Yu Gi Oh! Forbidden Memories. I remember as a kid seeing this game in a promotional disk and wanting to play it. Alas, the game was only for PlayStation and I was a Nintendo kid. Getting this game now after it being off my radar for a while is like completing a task for younger me. I will give it a go in the near future and embrace all the jank it probably has.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

I saw this and decided that I should finally add this to my collection. I had some good times playing this game back in the day on band trips. We would play the multiplayer mode where we would pass the DS around for everyone to make their move. I don’t think we ever finished a match, but it was a good game to pass the time. I have never played the campaign mode in this game, so I’m looking forward to it.

Yu Gi Oh! The Falsehood Kingdom

I have never heard of this Yu Gi Oh! game before. I stumbled upon it while browsing a vendor’s wares, and my curiosity kept drawing me back. It doesn’t play like other Yu Gi Oh! games and seems to play like a team building strategy game. I don’t know what to expect, and I kinda want to keep it that way.

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

I was allowed to splurge on one item. Out of everything that I saw, I decided to splurge on this game. The Dragon Quest games on the DS escaped me when I didn’t have an interest in the series. I would have been content playing the mobile version one day, but I decided to treat myself for once and buy the complete copy they had. The only one missing out of my collection now is the sixth game, and I believe that is the rarest one of all.

Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny

I didn’t have any real plans on getting this soon, but when I was helping my brother buy a new game, I found this for a really good discount. I haven’t finished the last two Disgaea games, but I’m hoping this and the Makai Kingdom rerelease in a few months will get me back into the series.

Yu Gi Oh! Master Duel

I’m sensing a theme here. This free-to-play game came out to basically everything current gaming device out of the blue. It is a fun and frustrating game if you are a fan of the TCG and haven’t played in a while. I’m now just getting the hang of the new meta and finding a playstyle that works best for me and not just copying the best decks out there (you freaking unoriginal POS). I don’t know when I will consider myself “done” with this since content will keep coming out for it, but it does provide a nice secondary game when I need a break from what I’m currently working on.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

I have a lot to say about this game. While I was left disappointed by the Diamond & Pearl remake, this game has exceeded my expectations from a gameplay perspective. The visuals and graphics could definitely be better, but it doesn’t offend me. If I don’t finish Trials of Cold Steel IV it will be because of this game and the fact that I am having more fun playing this over that.

Currently Playing

I am getting closer to finishing The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV. It is my own fault that I’m taking so long to finish it since I am trying to get as much done on my first playthrough as possible. This will help when I replay all four games to get all the achievements. Turbo speed and skipping cutscenes that I don’t need to see again will help make that process go by quicker. I have to get this done before Horizon: Forbidden West comes out and Kat kicks me off the PS5 so she can play it.

As I mentioned before, Yu Gi Oh! Master Duel will continue to be my secondary casual game when I need a break from the current list. I will probably play it less often once I reach the highest ranking and drop in and out as events and new seasons get started. Pokémon Legends: Arceus will definitely get done this month and that will prepare me for the next two games on my list.

I also forgot to mention at one point I was playing SaGa Frontier: Remastered. When my in-laws came to visit during the holiday season, I couldn’t hide myself in my gaming room. So I brought my Switch downstairs to play games with the family, and for some reason I started SaGa Frontier. My father-in-law was interested in watching me play it, so I did and finished one character’s story while they were visiting. Since each story doesn’t take long to beat (just some grinding to prepare for final boss), I am going to count this game “finished” when I go through all eight stories. Seeing as it took me a week to finish one character and you get to keep stats and weapons to the next story, I don’t see this taking a lot of time.

Plans for Next Month

My plan after finishing Trails of Cold Steel IV is to start Tales of Destiny. This is the first Tales of game that I want to play to finish off my Tales of games. I have a tendency to finish older JRPGs faster, so I’m hoping that it will take me less than a month to finish this.

While I’m banished from the PS5, I do have the next big release already planned out. Elden Ring comes out on the 25th of February, and I will be enjoying that on my PC. I’ve asked a friend of mine if we wanted to play it simultaneously that day and share our experience since we have not been keeping up with the details. We are really looking forward to it and I can’t wait to experience this new hellhole.

Now that the PC crowd has had a chance to play Monster Hunter Rise, I kinda want to get back into playing it. I finished the game real fast when it came out on Switch and haven’t had the drive to keep playing afterwards. With Sunbreaker coming out in the summer, this seems like the time to gear up and do some farming before G Rank/Master Rank/Whatever they are calling it this time comes out. Still don’t know if I’ll switch to the PC version if Capcom doesn’t want to add cross save.

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So that was January. Tune in next month when something else has taken over my life that prevents me from finishing Trials of Cold Steel IV. Until then,