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

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?

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

Tales From The Backlog

Love

Love Your Backlog 2021

763