Backlog

Love Thy Backlog (Love Your Backlog 2023)

DaNamesX4 Comments
It almost looks like a face.

It is that time of the year everyone! Kim from Later Levels is back with Love Your Backlog Month! Thank you Kim for what is becoming one of my favorite holidays now. Since it is the namesake of my blog, you can probably guess that I have a very steep backlog in my collection. You would guess right since my gaming time has been reduced, but my collecting habit has never stopped. That is kind of a lie since I am reaching the point where I almost have all of the old games that I have been seeking (just the really expensive ones left).

I had to crunch the numbers yet again and made sure that I was as close to accurate. I have officially decided that I am not responsible for finishing any games that Kat has or bought since I did not purchase them myself. This helps take the edge off somethings and drastically brings my number down (even though I want that 1000+ badge…). This year’s grand total of unfinished games in my backlog is…

664!

It is a smaller number from last year! Removing the filler really helped. Since I like working with spreadsheets, I broke down every system that I own and recounted every finished and unfinished game for each. I also started taking liberties when it comes to multiple copies of a game that is either on another console or just a remaster/rerelease of an older game. I have decided that if I have finished it on one console, then I have finished every other version of it, unless it is a completely different game (story changes, mechanics). For example, I own Mega Man X on multiple systems (I love Mega Man X). Since I have finished the game once, I am counting every rerelease of the game as finished as well since it is the same game. This cleans things up a lot since there is no need for me to go out of my way to finish the game again but just on a different system. It also saves me time to play other games.

I am proud that my Game Boy collection is complete since the only one I haven’t played belongs to Kat. The numbers were looking good until I got to my Switch and PC collection. I was expecting my PC backlog to be huge, but I honestly forgot that I have some games since they are not on Steam. The Switch backlog took me by surprise until I realized that that number comes mostly from all the collection packs that are available for the system. The Switch is the perfect little system to bundle a bunch of old games on, and that is where the inflation comes from. The worst offender is the Sega Genesis Classics that has over 50 games in it. If I knew Nintendo was going to add Genesis games to their online service, I probably would not have gotten this pack. I should get around to playing the two games that I own on Wii U virtual console to complete that collection. I am also tempted to not buy or finish anymore GameCube or PSP games just so I can keep it perfectly balanced.

With some of that out of the way, it is time for the Q&A section of this post. I will try my best to not repeat my answers from previous years.

A Game You Are Eager To Play, But Haven’t Yet Started

So many choices, but I think I will have to go with Pandora’s Tower on the Nintendo Wii. We all know the story about Operation Rainfall which helped bring Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, & Pandora’s Tower over to the west. Out of those games, Pandora’s Tower is the only one that I haven’t played. I got it for Christmas a couple of years ago, but I have yet to sit down and play it. I don’t know the reason for this, except maybe I’m just lazy and don’t feel like hooking up my Wii. Will I get around to playing it this year? Maybe?

A Game You’ve Started Several Times But Haven’t Yet Finished

This is a fun question since I recently attempted to play it again a few months ago. That game is Final Fantasy XV.

I’ve had this game since it released on day one. I remember coming home from work excited to play this. During my first playthrough, I got as far as Chapter 2, and then stopped playing. It wasn’t because I wasn’t having a good time, but Kat wanted to play the game as well. So in order not to spoil each other, we would take turns playing to reach where the other one left off. If you are asking why we didn’t just pass the controller to each other, it is because we have different styles of playing games. While I wonder and do the things that I want to do, Kat will complete everything that she can before moving on to the next part. I think this is where things fell off. It also didn’t help that we both got distracted by other games that came out later like Tales of Berseria and Horizon Zero Dawn.

We decided to get a second copy of the game and play side by side when Kat upgraded to her PS4 Pro, but we never got around to it until last year. We stopped playing again because we were getting exhausted from doing all of the side quests to the point where almost ten hours in we still hadn’t progressed much in the main story. With Final Fantasy XVI coming soon, one of us will have to sit down and finish it (which most likely will be me since I want to finish all the mainline games).

The Oldest Game In Terms Of Release Date

I said Super Mario 64 the previous year, but that was inaccurate at the time. The correct answer was Pac-Man on the Game Boy, but I now have something even older than that. The Final Fantasy Adventure was released in September 1990, beating Pac-Man for the Game Boy by one year. This game marks the beginning of the SaGa franchise that Square has been reintroducing to the west for some time now. I have been digging into the SaGa franchise over the past year, but haven’t gone back as far as Romancing SaGa. At some point I would like to do an overview of the series and talk about why the series isn’t as popular as some of Square’s other RPGs.

The Most Recent Addition To Your Library

The last game that I got was the 20th anniversary edition of Final Fantasy II on the PSP. I found a copy of Final Fantasy for the PSP last year, but could never come across the second game in any of the stores I visit. Final Fantasy II may be one of the least popular titles in the series, but I actually enjoy it for what it is. It has flaws, but the music and scenario left an impression on me when I first played it years ago. Honestly, I just want to see if I can still use the Teleport spell to carry to the final boss again.

The Game Which Has Spent The Most Time On Your Backlog

I think it is the same answer as last time (Super Mario 64), so instead I will pick the game on my purchase tracker. All the way back in 2015, I bought Grand Theft Auto 5 for the PS3. I am not the type to play the story mode of a GTA title. I normally just goof around in the world and make up my own objectives as I go. Kat and I played online often when we were long-distance dating at the time. Good memories. Any who, this is the oldest from when I started recording, so it will remain old until I get around to that story mode.

The Person Responsible For You Adding The Most Entries To Your Backlog, Due To Their Good Recommendations

No one really influences my decision when purchasing games. I tend to just decide for myself if I am interested in playing something. The internet helps with this since I stay away from most things that are highly talked about (I wish Tears of the Kingdom would interest me). When I look at my PC list however, I will have to blame my friend E for the behemoth of a backlog that it is. He is the one who helped me build my first gaming PC, so it is completely his fault that I have so many unfinished games. He will recommend games that we can try out together and I will give it a try until something else would come up that he would want me to try. I’ve enjoyed his recommendations, but it is hard to finish one game when we keep jumping all over the place or can’t find time to play games in the evening. Even so, without his recommendations I wouldn’t be interested in some games like Total War, Borderlands, or Divinity.

As for what I want to do for Maybe in March, maybe I should do the story mode for GTA5. Knowing me, I doubt that will happen. I do however want to finish another GBA game since technically they have all been in my backlog longer than GTA5. Which one will that be? I guess you will just have to wait and see (I still need to figure it out).

That’s all I got. Thanks again Kim for hosting this event and I will see you all next month (or sooner since I have other things to write and talk about)!

Love Your Backlog 2021

DaNamesX1 Comment

Love Your Backlog month is back and it is slowly becoming one of my new favorite holidays. If you don’t know what this is, Kim from Later Levels and Genni from Ace Asunder created this event for all of us to celebrate the existence of our physical and digital mountain of joy. This event was created to celebrate something that is special to you and own it with pride. This is my second year participating in this event, and I wish I could say that I prepared for it. Well jokes on me, I kinda, sorta did when I decided to re-inventory my entire game collection last year. Being able to catalog all of my games all over again was an eye opening experience that helped me reconnect with some games that I completely forgot that I had, and some that I wonder why I have in the first place. Nevertheless, I cherish each game in my collection since I never thought I would have something like this in the past.

With the introductory paragraph out of the way now, I can start talking about my backlog! The pictures below shows how my collection grew from last year:

A whole new shelf had to be added last year. It’s kinda odd to see how it has exploded in what feels like a short time. I don’t want to spend a lot of time speculating how that happen, since this post would be even longer.

To also help visualize how much my collection has grown, I recreated my video game collection spreadsheet that I created back in 2015. This new version contains all of the games that me and Kat have currently in our physical and digital collection. This new version also fixes some issues that I had with the old spreadsheet (all of the different colors to start with). If you would like to view it, you can click the link above, the giant badge in this post, or the link on my homepage.

So, with all of my games recounted and accounted for, my new grand total of unfinished games is:

763

*Damn. I really wanted that 1000+ badge….

So. How did this happen? Last year I had reported that I only had 482 games in my backlog. How did I almost double that number!? I will answer that question towards the end of this post (the suspenseful hook!) For now, let’s answer some questions that Kim has prepared for us!

The effect that the 2020 apocalypse had on your backlog

Uh. I didn’t leave my house. Since I didn’t leave my house, I didn’t spend it all on eating out almost all the time. The result? I saved a bunch of money for gaming thanks to switching to isolation. The pandemic allowed me to save money and invest in a lot of things that I wanted. The biggest thing I was able to do was buy new components for my PC, so now I can play almost anything on PC comfortably. The sad thing is that I still haven’t touched most of my games on PC…

The oldest game in terms of release date

Um let’s see here….

Technically it would be Super Mario Bros 3, but my brother has that along with our Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games. In terms of what I currently have on the shelf, I think it is Super Mario 64, which is a shame because I don’t think I will finish it anytime soon. Not that I think it is a bad game, or its not for me, or I’ve seen my brother finish it a gazillion times, but because I don’t know if the cartridge works anymore. I think it does, but I haven’t checked in a while. *Edit: It does work!

A game you bought on day one, only to not play it

I surprisingly don’t do this a lot. The only exceptions is I buy it a day or week later and then don’t play it. I did found one game though that fits this bill, Persona 4 Golden on Steam. I remember being at my in-laws house when I heard the news that it got released on Steam. I immediately bought it after seeing the announcement since it was for only $15/$20 dollars, and have not touched it yet. I love that game, so playing it will happen soon.

The game which has spent the most time on your backlog

Oh boy. Here comes the hard question. The original purpose of my spreadsheet was to help me remember when I bought something. I like to think if I got this before starting college, then I’ve had it for a long time. With that, I’m going to nominate Yu Gi Oh! GX: Duel Academy. I would consider this my second favorite Yu Gi Oh! game, and it is one that I have not finished since it requires you to actually past test and be good at the game. I think with how simple this game is compared to the current ruleset, I might be able to reach King of Games now.

The most recent addition to your library

As of writing this, the last game that I bought was Fallout 76. It was during a Walmart purge I guess and they had tons of copies for just $15. We got two copies so Kat and I could share the wasteland shenanigans together.

The person responsible for adding the most entries to your backlog, due to their good recommendations

This is it! The answer you were all waiting for! If you have been waiting to find out why my backlog grew so much in a year, then I’m sorry that the answer is kinda anticlimactic. It goes back to my spreadsheet (where all bad decisions are made). I originally did not want to include Kat’s games in my collection, since there are some games that I’m just never going to play (I’m looking at you Neopets: The Darkest Faerie). But, there are some games that she has that we both want to play, but it just happens that she went out of her way to buy it and play it first. So, I changed my mind about not including her games as part of my collection. We both contribute to the shelves that might be worth a fortune down the road, so I will share in the burden of finishing it one day. Also blame my friend Eric for making me buy games on Steam that I’m never going to finish if I just keep playing Overwatch.

So that’s all I got. A special thanks to Kim and Genni for once again bringing this event back this year, and I will see you next month for part 2!

DanamesX

Why Can’t I Stick To Playing One Game At A Time?

DaNamesX1 Comment

Not to mislead anyone reading this post. This post is not about any disorders or research into any disorders. This is purely a self-examination of my personal self and habits.

This question is the bane of my gaming life. One moment I am enjoying a lengthy RPG and then the next minute I’m deep into a visual novel game. What is up with me not being able to commit myself to finishing one game at a time? There are several answers to this really, but out of all the possibilities, I want to identify my biggest reasons. After sitting down and reviewing my gaming habits from the past few months, I have come up with what I believe are my biggest factors when it comes to what I feel like playing. Some of these are obvious and may require me to break the habit, but some things are out of my control. Becoming more aware about my habits will hopefully make me recognize the patterns and work my way around them.

Stress

Definitely one of the biggest things that affects my gaming habits. Last year I went through a four and a half month long period where I was in a state of constant stress. From buying our first house to working on my Master’s degree, I had very little time to relax and do what I wanted to do. This affected my gaming habit greatly since I had to choose what I wanted to play based on the time I had. This made playing long RPGs difficult since I could only play for a couple of hours and could never set myself to keep up. This is where short, pick-up and play games came in handy. Games like Super Mario Maker 2 and Tetris 99 were great since I could just pick up and play anytime I wanted to. This was also a good time to play fighting games since I could play a few matches and not keep track of anything. I finally got into Tekken 7 and it reminded me why it is so popular. All in all, stress prevents me from committing my time to long stories and systems that I need to keep up with if I want to enjoy the full game.

Isolation

This is a new thing that I am dealing with. In the past I had no problem sitting in my room alone playing games for hours on end. This problem has two different factors to them that kinda makes sense to me. When I am completely alone at home, I have no issue making up my mind on what I want to play or for how long. However, if Kat is home with me but not in the same room, I immediately turn to mush. We both feel the same way about this, and for a while we had no explanation for it. The cause may come from the fact that ever since we started living together, we always lived in an apartment where we were always close to each other. Now that we live in a two-story house and keep doors closed to keep the cats out (until we finish cleaning), it brings this unsettling feeling that we are avoiding each other. While in this state, playing anything for too long seems like a waste and that something easy to digest is the best bet. This leads me to staring at all of my games and try to decide on what is best to play in this time frame. I also avoid playing anything online so if Kat needs me I can get to her as soon as I can. My focus also goes out of whack since the eerie quietness gets to me. The solution sounds obvious; open the doors and buy walkie-talkies (we really want to get walkie-talkies). I will have to just trust my small kitten to not destroy anything while I’m in the middle of a game.

The Big D(epression)

While most people experience seasonal depression around winter and during the holidays, I am completely opposite and experience it during the summer time (I really hate the summertime). You would think that during the less busy time of the year I would find the time to relax more frequently. I think it is due to my past where Summer was unpredictable with struggling income and being away from my classmates (I enjoyed going to school). Recently, those feelings never left and I still struggle during that time. Plus I hate the heat. I will take cold weather over the sweaty heat any day. How does this affect my gaming habits? A mix of the other reasons already mentioned. I start to feel guilty that I spend my time playing games when I could be doing “more important things.” What are those things? I don’t know, but my brain will come up with something.

Something Else Comes Along

Moving away from the psychological stuff now, let’s look at some practical reasons why games are left unfinished. A big obvious reason I stop playing things is because something new and shiny might come my way. I am already dreading the day Animal Crossing: New Horizons comes out because I know that me and my brother will be playing it nonstop. This tends to happen when a game that I am hype for comes out and I want to play it immediately. It does not happen often a lot anymore, but when the temptation is there I drop everything.

Influence

I sometimes like to watch YouTube videos while I am playing something; just to add some background noise. Most of the time it is let’s plays or old stream recordings. Sometimes when I’m watching these, I get a burst of inspiration to stop what I’m playing and play that game or something similar. Chances of this happening are low, but sometimes happen. Another big influence is watching whatever Kat is playing. Lately she has been replaying Final Fantasy X and now I want to play a Final Fantasy game (I said this once while playing Final Fantasy XIV). 

Lost/Roadblock/Frustration

I don’t have many games in this category, but it happens occasionally. Games that come to mind are the Dark Souls trilogy, Shin Megami Tensei IV (I got the neutral path, but missing all the quest I need to do), and Etrian Odyssey. If I could take the time to get better and focus on what I need to do, then this would not be an issue. However, as I have already pointed out, it is not always that simple.

Complete Lost of Interest

I hate losing interest in a game. I like to look past certain flaws and finish a game to the best of my ability. There are some games however that I go back and try, but I start to hate every minute of it. The games that immediately come to mind are Fire Emblem Fates and Rune Factory 4. Are they bad games? No. Do I dislike certain aspects of each game? Yes! I won’t go into full detail on why, but these two games just make me feel miserable when I try to play them. Will I finish them one day? Possibly. Will I force myself to do it? No. 

These are a few of the major issues that I have. There may be other factors that I am unaware of at this time. I may make a follow-up to this post if I notice any other habits. 

Thanks for reading,

DanamesX 

Love Your Backlog Week 2020

DaNamesX10 Comments

This Valentines’s week, most people will be thinking about the love they share with significant others or another substitution to fill the void. While I tend to not over celebrate the holiday, I do like interesting topics that revolve around the theme of love. Enter Love Your Backlog Week! This fun observation of our backlogs was created by the lovely Kim from Later Levels. Thank you Kim for giving me more reasons to talk about my backlog!

I originally created my site with my backlog in mind. I wanted to create a project to help motivate me to finish games on my backlog. At the time of writing this, I have completed a grand total of 5 games since starting my blog. A small number indeed, but with how busy my schedule was last year, I’m actually really proud of myself. Where does that leave me in the grand scheme of things? Well….

It’s Over 9000!……minus 8518.

If I am counting just games in my personal backlog, I am currently sitting at 482. This is big for me because I could have sworn that number was bigger. I have decided to exclude games that my wife owns, which would add an additional 206 games. I am not technically responsible for those that she has bought, but she does have a lot that I do want to play (all of the Suikoden, Dark Cloud, Wild Arms 3). I don’t expect to be below 500 for very long, but I will enjoy it while I can! With all of that out the way, Kim also provided us some questions to ask associated with our backlogs.

A Game You Are Eager To Play, But Haven’t Started

This was a tough choice since I have a lot of great contenders. Ultimately I will have to go with Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wing and the Lost Ocean. The Gamecube is home to some of my favorite games and I am a sucker for card base games. Baten Kaitos was one of those games that eluded me into wanting to try. At the time I heard mixed reviews about the card element, and it strayed me away from it for a while. Now that I am older and have opinions of my own, I am eager to try to play this one day. Like fine wine, I am waiting for the right moment to crack this bad boy open and enjoy it for what it is.

A Game You Have Started Several Time But Haven’t Yet Finished

There is one game that comes to mind, but I am saving it for a different category. My answer for this questions will have to be Dark Souls: Remastered. I own this game on three different platforms (PC, PS4, and Switch) and I have yet to get beat this game. I am further in the PS4 version, but stuck in Anor Londo fighting Ornstein and Smough. It is only a matter of time until I beat them, but every time I get over one struggle, another pops up that makes me put the game down for a while. Or in the current case, go play Dark Souls II or III for the time being. I will beat it one day and praise the sun for the rest of my life.

The Most Recent Addition To Your Library

Lucky, I keep a track list of all my purchases! After telling myself that I was not going to buy any new games this month (lols) I bought The World Ends With You: Final Remix. I have a good reason though! My GameStop had it on clearance for $21 USD! How could I have passed that up? I’ll tell you how, I didn’t. Not even Cat could stop me because she could not argue that price. On top of that, I had an active $5 coupon, bringing my total to $16 USD! I never felt this giddy buying a game since the time I bought Seikero when it first came out for only $10 USD. I have the DS version of the game, but I think I will start over with the Switch version since I did not get far to begin with.

The Game Which Has Spent The Most Time On Your Backlog

That is very hard to tell if I want to go technical. The oldest game I could come up with is Final Fantasy VI: Advance. I picked this game up on a whim one day and did not realize how popular (or valuable) it was. This would have to be one of the oldest games that I own that I have not finished; but for a good reason. My cartridge is very special in that the slightest tap will erase all the data on it. I have gotten to the second act of the game multiple times, only to have my data erased one way or another. For that reason, this is one game that I have not been able to finish (yet).

The Person Responsible For Adding The Most Entries To Your Backlog

Who are they? What person would do such a thing to me? What motive do they have for adding this responsibility to me? Does such a person exist? Do I know who is responsible for this?

Shocker!

Okay I admit. I have no one to blame but myself on this one. This was never the case in the past however. Growing up we did not have a lot of money to buy video games all the time. The games that we did get I had to share with my other two brothers. Since we only had a small collection for a while, it was easy to pick up a game that was not finished and play the crap out of it. It was also easier since we had all the time in the world when were not in school or band. Even when I got my own job and could start buying my own games, it wasn’t frequent that I would leave a game unfinished. The two contributing factors that started me on this past happened in the same year. My original PlayStation 3 died on me and took all the data I had saved on it with it. This caused me to start over on most of my games at the time; and me being me I did not want to start over on some of them. The second factor was around the same time. My friend gave me his old gaming PC and he taught me how to build a PC from the ground up. After that, games on Steam were no longer an obstacle and I planned on one point to do my main gaming on it. That did not pan out as well, and now my Steam library continues to build as I continue to play Final Fantasy XIV. It also doesn’t help that I like to find old games that I did not have the chance to play in the past. I get a rush finding difficult to find games and immediately snatch them up to add to my collection. Now if I can get around to play said games then I could be dominating my backlog.

For those interested in browsing my collection, I keep an “organized” spreadsheet that is kept up to date frequently. For Steam users, you can view my library here. 2020 is shaping up to be the year I tackle most out of my backlog and I am looking forward to see how far I can go!

Thanks for reading,

DanamesX