I'm excited to say I finally have a new video to share today! Its been forever and I'm glad I was finally able to get my Echoes of Wisdom review out to share with everyone after working on it on and off for a good chunk of this year! Hope all of you interested enjoy! :)



Even though it took me awhile, I'd say the process of making this went mostly smoothly, my only problem being my computer kept crashing while working on my intro skit 😅. One thing I noticed while making this is that while I largely didn't notice performance issues while playing the game, once I was editing the footage I noticed multiple moments where the frame rate would drop for me. I've never been too picky when it comes to that unless its really bad, and since I never noticed while playing it didn't hinder the experience at all.

Since my last update I did finish Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and have already started work on the video! I also played Viewfinder in September, which while I don't plan on making a full video on it I will be including it in my end of the year ranking! There's a couple more short games I hope to get in soon, but I've been hesitant to start or get back into anything major since I know I want to play Pokémon Legends Z-A when it comes out soon! I have been wanting to dive back into Tears of the Kingdom though, and I also have an urge to continue my unfinished second playthrough of Three Houses since the reveal of Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. So I might play those some here and there but not sure since Z-A will probably be my main gaming focus. Which I also started the surprise mobile drop Fire Emblem Shadows, but I'm not too thrilled about it to be honest so I'm not sure if I'll power through to see the story or retire it.

Now that I've finished this review, I am very eager to jump into my next two! I decided to record them both already, and since they are both shorter and less skit intensive than this one I'm hoping I can get them done quicker. My goal is to have them both out before the year ends, as well as the year end ranking, so I might be feeling a bit too ambitious there with the time I have available, but I definitely want to try and get myself to a point where I can have a fresh start for the new year!

That's all for today, hope to see you all again soon with hopefully another video! And as always would love to hear your thoughts on the video too!

Priority Videos:
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Script Recorded
Split Fiction - Script Recorded

Shelved Videos (for now):
Return of the Obra Dinn - Editing had started but had been paused
Astro Bot - Script written
Octodad: Dadliest Catch - Script Recording had started but had been paused

Games Currently Playing:
Fortnite - Doing Daily missions in hope of reaching level 200 before season ends (Currently level 124 I think)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Continuing pause, but might randomly pick back up if I want
Pokémon White 2 - Continues to be paused, won't touch till after Legends Z-A, so will keep off list until I continue more
Fire Emblem Shadows - A little into Light Story, might retire though

I am also a part of the one completion club! 😂

9/17 - Viewfinder (PS5) - 4h 32m

Got this free from PS Plus and played it all in one day when I was sick, was a lot of fun and definitely mind bending for sure, but not as difficult as I imagined from the concept.

Only 2 more completions until I hit my goal of 12 for the year, which I think I can easily hit! And hopefully more!

I’m definitely hyped for the new Fire Emblem!

Haven't had this occur in awhile, but I had 4 completions this month! Thought about sneaking in a short 5th but I think I'll save playing that for another night since I'm tired. But here they are:

8/20 - The Simpson Arcade Game (Arcade)
8/20 - The House of the Dead 4 (Arcade)
8/20 - Time Crisis 5 (Arcade)
8/24 - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube) - 63h 15m

The first three were all in the same day, which me and my girlfriend went to an arcade where the machines were in Free Play mode, so we could push our way through to the end without having to input tokens to continue. Definitely was a fun time, none of the games we beat were particularly phenomenal, but they were fun and I enjoyed the experience! Path of Radiance I have had going on and off since last year, so I'm glad to have finally beaten it, definitely was a top tier game in the series I felt!

I’m wanting to nominate Katamari Damacy Reroll this month! It’s shorter from what I see and I’ve been wanting to start it and it winning would give me a good excuse!

No video today still but wanted to update! I’ll start off with my gaming first! Last month me and my girlfriend completed Split Fiction, which we had a blast with! I’ll definitely want to make a video on that one since I’ve already done A Way Out and It Takes Two in the past! I also only have a few chapters left of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, which is another I very much want to make a video on! I had been diving back into Tears of the Kingdom a bit too back in June but I sort of accidentally put it on pause again since July for Fire Emblem, but I plan on getting back into it again after as my main game. On a more casual side I’ve been playing Fortnite again since I want the Power Rangers stuff from this season, which takes a bit of playing to get so I’m trying to get the exp in from daily challenges.

As for my videos, I have been making progress on my Echoes of Wisdom review, about 7/13 of my recorded paragraphs are edited! I do reference a few other Zelda’s in the video, so at some point I’m going to briefly play a couple of those for footage since I don’t have any, but that’ll be a fun blast from the past revisiting those for a moment. I’m hoping that’ll be finished and released at either the end of the month or next! However I am working on a few projects around the house too so probably more likely the latter. Admittedly once I finish Path of Radiance I’m going to want to really dive into that one because I want to hopefully release that video before they put it on the GameCube app on the Switch 2, so I’m not sure if I should prioritize it over the Zelda video if it’s not finished yet. I do think I should finish Zelda first and that’s probably what I’ll do, but I do go back and forth in my mind a bit.

Admittedly I’ve been feeling a bit discouraged again about my pace with my videos. I know when I first started I wanted to review everything I played, and I wanted a video out every other week. Sometimes I’m bummed I couldn’t live up to my ambitious goal there, maybe a few years ago after I graduated college or at the height of the pandemic I could’ve, but at the moment there’s too much going on in my life to focus on them a lot so it’s hard to make a lot of time for it. I’m not giving up, I love it too much, but I’m definitely going to be even more selective on what I choose to make a full video on in the future. I’ll definitely want to make videos for when I play some of my favorite series, like The Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, and Pokémon. And I’ll want to do videos on Star Wars and Jurassic Park games still too since I love those franchises as well. And I do hope to have a spontaneous one I play or new releases here and there too, but for the most part I’ll probably just put most of what I play in year end ranking video. I’m hoping this will allow me to 1.) Catch up on my reviews, I’ve been behind from the get go 😅 2.) Make the non review video ideas I have 3.) Be more intentional with what games I make videos on. I know I’ve had a lot of games I’ve wanted to revisit and play for a video, but usually the backlog of both videos and games I have discourage me, so I’m hoping if I don’t feel so much pressure to keep up with making a video on each, it’ll be easier for me to do more of the videos I really want to do!

So right now I have the big 3 reviews I’m wanting to work on to feel caught up, and the others I’ve shelved to maybe return to on a rainy day or something. I know I do have 2 games ongoing right now I’d want to make videos for, but it’ll be awhile before I finish those so hopefully I can catch up by then! I think this plan in my head is relieving sone of the self made pressure I was feeling and I’m excited to hopefully have my next video out soonish, this is probably my longest drought of not having a major video out since I’ve started 😅. But I think that’s all my thoughts for today, so see you all next time! :)

Priority Videos:
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - Editing
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Almost done with game
Split Fiction - Script Written

Shelved Videos (for now):
Return of the Obra Dinn: Editing
Astro Bot: Script written
Octodad: Dadliest Catch - Recording Script

Games Currently Playing:
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - On Chapter 27
Fortnite - Want to unlock Green and White Rangers from Battle Pass
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Paused until Fire Emblem is completed
Pokémon White 2 - Has been paused for probably a year now 😅, but definitely coming back to it at some point!

Site Update:

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Just saw this! Thanks for the addition there, definitely will be really helpful! :)

One completion by me this month!

7/12 - Split Fiction (PS5) - 16h 39m

Had a great time playing this with my girlfriend! It lived up to our hype and I'd say its on par with It Takes Two! I'm not sure if it'll win game of the year this time since it seems theres some strong contenders this year, but I definitely had a blast and its so far my favorite this year for me!

I’ve been wondering, would it be possible to add the button to jump to the most recent page of the blog on the profile page like there is on the forum?

I rarely ever decide to retire a game in the moment. Most of my retired games are games I'd be interested in returning to maybe someday, but compared to my backlog they're ok in my mind to leave as is and I'm not bothered by not completing them. Most of my retired list is childhood games I never beat because I was not great at completing them. But occasionally new things get added after I stop playing them for awhile, like Octopath Travelers which I put down for a few years and tried to get back in but was lost at what to do and didn't want to start a new playthrough any time soon. Or there's cases like Horizon Zero Dawn which I started a couple times because the story intrigued me but I wasn't in the mood for the gameplay. Only example of a game I can think of at the moment I retired on the spot after trying out is Rayman for PS1, which I did not enjoy much 😅.

Funny how keeping records on things I do helps me stick to programs. I'm playing and finishing more games thanks to keeping track on progress via HLTB. I'm reading more books thanks to Goodreads. And - rather new on the list - I'm doing more sports thanks to keeping track on my workout history with a website.

Long story short, I've finally managed to stick to going to the gym and did my fiftieth workout today!*

* basically within this year. I started tracking my times in the end of December 2024.

Before I would from time to time sign up to a gym, go maybe 8-15 times within a short time frame and then stop going altogether or maybe go once every other month.

What website are you using? I want to get back into working out again at some point and I can definitely see something like that motivating me to keep up with it too!

No completions for me this month, although was really close to getting Split Fiction done last night I think with my girlfriend but didn't get there yet. Probably could've thrown in a a short game or two I wanted to play but maybe I'll do them in July now!

Think I’m going to throw in a wildcard since it’s summer with Just A To the Moon Series Beach Episode

As brought up by @Phantasia I thought this would be a fun topic too!

First I'll try and remember every first game I played on each system I owned!

NES- Either Super Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt
SNES- Street Fighter 2 at a vacation home, not sure when I eventually got the SNES mini myself
N64- Probably Banjo and Kazooie when it was at my grandmother's, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time though once I owned it myself
GameCube- Super Smash Bros. Melee both at a friends house and also when I bought the game myself a few years ago as my first GameCube game
Wii- Wii Sports probably
Wii U- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Switch- Super Mario Odyssey I believe
Gameboy- Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!
GBA- Batman: Vengence
DS- Nintendogs
3DS- I think The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds but I have to check on my system at some point.
PS1- Crash Bandicoot
PS2- Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers most likely, but also potentially Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando
PS3- Transformers: War for Cybertron
PS4- Call of Duty: Ghosts
PS5- Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
PC- This one I really don't know since I was so young but my guess would be Blue's Treasure Hunt
iPhone- Crazy Penguin Catapult

Second I'll put first completed on everything cause why not!

NES- The Legend of Zelda on 4/6/18
SNES- Donkey Kong Country on 5/20/18
N64- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on 10/11/14
Wii- Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga probably in 2008
Wii U- Super Smash Bros for Wii U in January 2015
Switch- Super Mario Odyssey on 10/6/18
GBA- Power Rangers Wild Force in 2003 probably
DS- Either Transformers Decepticons, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team, or Pokemon Diamond in 2007
3DS- Fire Emblem Awakening on 3/24/16
PS1- Spider-Man in 2004 probably
PS2- Tom and Jerry in The War of the Whiskers in 2004 probably
PS3- Call of Duty: Black Ops on 7/7/11
PS4- Call of Duty: Ghosts on 12/29/13
PS5- Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales on 1/2/21
PC- Either Dinosaur Adventure 3-D or Blue's Treasure Hunt in 2002
iPhone- Either Jurassic Park Builder or Angry Bird Star Wars in 2013 probably

I don't own any of my consoles anymore except for my busted PS2 which I keep as a souvenir and most of my HLTB completions are on PC, so it is difficult to place a date on my consoles. I have a pretty good idea and memory of the last games I played on each and how they went out though. Games played on friends' consoles and emulator not included.

PS1 (gave to friend): Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit
GBC (lost): Pokemon Silver
GBA SP (water damage): This is either one of the Megaman Battle Network / Sonic Advance games or Pokemon Emerald, not sure.
PS2 Slim (disc reader dead): Ratchet: Deadlocked - I remember playing the online multiplayer for this game before the PS2 servers shutdown in 2012.
Xbox 360 (RROD): - Halo: Reach - One of many to receive RROD on the fat 360, but I'm very sure I would of been grinding Halo: Reach before it happened.
DS Lite (lost): Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
PSP (gave to friend): Persona 3 Portable
PS3 Slim (sold): Ace Combat Infinity
n3DS XL (sold): Monster Hunter XX
Steam Deck OLED: Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
PC: Silent Hill 2 Remake

The last time I owned a mainline console was the PS3 Slim before I sold it back in 2016 to help upgrade my PC to a GTX 1080, but really the time period where I fell off from the main consoles and into PC was after my Xbox 360 RROD'd. This list has made me realize I have always had a handheld on the side. Another topic for the first game we've played on every console would be interesting as well.

Another topic for the first game we've played on every console would be interesting as well.

Definitely a good idea there, going to make a thread for that now too!

Apologies I haven't updated in awhile, I recently just bought a house with my girlfriend, so that's consumed my life a bit and prevented me from gaming or working on my review videos much. But now that we're slowly starting to get settled in, I am finding that I have time to game and work on my videos some again, so definitely excited about that! Still probably won't be at full pace since I still have a lot to do with the house, and still haven't gotten myself a new desk so I don't really have a space to record my dialogue yet, but I'm trying to work on the pieces I can for the time being! And I actually feel I have time to sit down and just game again too which I haven't been able to do much at all the past few months as we were going through the process.

Before things got super busy with the house situation I did get a few completions in with Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, Astro Bot, and Metroid: Zero Mission! I also randomly completed Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket recently too! Admittedly I don't plan on making a full review video on most of those besides Astro Bot since it'd be too hard to catch up at this point I feel, but I will talk about them all in my end of the year ranking video!

And now that I'm able to game again Tears of the Kingdom and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance are the big ones I want to attack! Me and my girlfriend have been playing Split Fiction too and that might be the next game I beat since its near the end, and I'll definitely want to make a video on it! I want to get into Pokemon White 2 again too at some point soonish! I also might be playing Ark: Survival Ascended with my friends some too? I played once with them the other day and want to play more when I can if the momentum doesn't die in the group for the game. I also got Civilization 7 and want to start it, but I feel I should wait until I finish a couple other things first since I know I can get addicted to Civ.

Not sure when my next video will be and if it will be Obra Dinn or Zelda, but I hope it'll be in the next couple months and I'm excited to get back into it again! Until next time! :)

Video Reviews Backlog:
Return of the Obra Dinn (Started editing and thumbnail made) - Lower Priority
Octodad: Dadliest Catch (Started Recording Script) - Lower Priority, might cancel?
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Started Recording Script and thumbnail made) - Higher Priority
Astro Bot - Writing Script

Games Currently Ongoing:
Split Fiction (with my girlfriend)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Pokémon White 2
Ark: Survival Ascended? (with friends)

So I was watching the most recent episode of the HLTB podcast and there was a quick pondering of last games played on a console, which got me thinking that for myself and now starting this thread. I think for myself I'm going to put last completion from each since last played would be harder to remember, but you guys can do it the way you want! I also might have two for some because I'm not sure if I want to count last completed on the actual console or last physical copy of a game played on a future console through backwards compatibility so I decided I'll do both!

NES: Castlevania on 10/15/22
SNES: Kirby Super Star on 10/2/21
N64: Super Mario 64 on 10/18/19
Wii: Super Smash Bros. Brawl on 5/6/17
Wii U: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild - The Champions' Ballad DLC on 5/29/20
Switch: Metroid: Zero Mission via Nintendo Online on 3/25/25
GBA: Power Rangers Wild Force on 3/31/23
DS: Pokémon SoulSilver on actual DS on 5/20/10
Chrono Trigger via 3DS on 5/21/19
3DS: Pokémon Silver via Virtual Console on 11/5/22
PS1: Tekken 3 on 7/4/21
PS2: Ratchet and Clank on 5/23/18
PS3: Assassin's Creed: Rogue on 11/5/20
PS4: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on actual console on 12/11/20
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion via PS5 on 2/17/25
PS5: Astro Bot on 3/1/25
PC: Constricted on 8/20/22
iPhone: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket on 5/23/25

One thing I'm noticing after this exercise is a lot of my consoles have not had a completion in awhile, even though I do like to play them time to time, it seems I've been slacking on actually completing anything on a bit the past few years 😅. Seems like Wii is the longest since I've had a completion, was thinking it was going to be PS2 before going through everything.

Edit: I kind of want to see what I can remember last literally just playing on each too, so going to try that!

NES: Bubble Bobble with my girlfriend
SNES: Probably Street Fighter 2 with my girlfriend
N64: Same as completed
Gamecube: Super Smash Bros. Melee
Wii: Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Wii U: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon I think to get gameplay footage for video
Switch: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom literally last night
GBA: I think I tested out my copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance?
DS: Pokémon White 2 (although played on 3DS)
3DS: Fire Emblem Awakening I think for gameplay footage for video
PS1: Civilization II (played on PS2 though)
PS2: Shrek SuperSlam
PS3: I think LittleBigPlanet for game footage?
PS4: Minecraft probably
PS5: Ark: Survival Ascended two days ago
PC: Content Warning back on 1/17/25
Iphone: Same as completed, today

Despite barely gaming this month, to the surprise of myself I got a completion in from a game I wasn't anticipating on reaching that point!

5/23 - Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket (IOS)

I've been playing this one rather casually every day since early this year and had no plans to officially complete it since its endless, but after finishing all the battles released at the beginning I realized I had reached a point I could consider this game completed. So I guess I got a little bonus completion in I didn't really expect in a month I haven't really had time to game so that's nice!

I've been on this game for a while myself as well. I don't tend to add mobile games here since I tried for a bit and I found it just muddled my lists and what I use HLTB for so I don't tend to think about these kind of issues.

That being said, I would say marking TCGP as completed when finishing all the Genetic Apex single battles is as good a metric as any. The goal I have for this game is both doing all battles and completing the card dex as much as possible. And between the two, I'd agree that clearing all battles is way more "completion-y" than the card dex. Both because cards are way more rng and that it can be completed without interacting with much of the game (particularly if you are trading).

For games that keep adding content I normally do what that is available at the time and just say on the notes "All battles until X date" or "Y Version" or "Z Update", or something like that.

Not sure why level 50 in particular would be the cut off point, but that also works. Is level 50 the max level? If so, I didn't know that!

Yeah I don’t play a lot of mobile games, and I very much don’t track my playtime for them so I usually throw them on my endless list and not give them much attention on here until I realize I’ve reached a completion point.

And yeah level 50 is the max from what I’ve seen and heard! But from hearing your thoughts I think battles makes the most sense to me to mark as completed, since maxing out the level is just something that happens eventually once we’ve played enough and doesn’t require doing anything other than opening packs, while the battles are more something under our control. So I’m going to go with that for now and mark it as completed!

So a few days ago I finished up all the battles available when the game initially released, and that made me wonder, did I complete it? In the grand scheme this is an endless ongoing game, so it can never truly be completed and I’m not planning on stopping anytime soon, but it definitely got me wondering if now I’d want to mark it as completed in my lists. I know with other endless mobile games I’ll mark it as completed once I reach a milestone, usually when I finish content originally available at the start, so hence why I’m thinking now might be the time for this game.

But my train of thought is there can be three ways points I can choose to mark this as completed for myself. One is completing the battles for Genetic Apex which I’ve done. The other could be getting all the cards initially at release from Genetic Apex, but that would probably be the hardest feat for me as a free to play player as there’s a lot of rng involved there. Lastly there’s reaching level 50, which I think is doable for me and also involves more to the game outside of just the initial content.

I think I’m leaning towards waiting to mark it as completed in at level 50 currently, but I am curious to hear other people’s thoughts as well!

https://howlongtobeat.com/user/meme01

Looks like they’ve struck again

Out of the three Fallout games I’ve played (the others being 3 and 4) New Vegas is the only one I never finished. That’s said I was enjoying the game, I just wasn’t able to beat it before going off to college in 2015 and leaving my ps3 at home. I did try and return to my play through a few years ago but quickly realized I couldn’t remember anything going on and would have to restart. I haven’t gotten around to that yet but I definitely want to at some point, but it won’t be this month unfortunately.

Even though my memory of the game is fuzzy I do remember the ghouls going to space quest and also the Elvis group. I remember some of the main story too once I made it to New Vegas too, but not much and I didn’t progress much further than that 😅. I remember I did like how you could aim down your sights on your gun unlike Fallout 3. I think my main follower I had was a girl from the Brotherhood of Steel too, can’t remember if that’s a minor spoiler or not.

No completions for me this month.

Definitely is a very busy time at the moment for me, had about 5 hours of gameplay this month, mostly in Split Fiction. Probably going to be like this for me next month too, maybe longer.

I haven't done a deep dive into any of this, but a co worker just told me that reverse compatibility is paywalled. Is that true? Someone explain things to me like I'm five.

Either way, I won't be getting a switch 2 for some time, if at all. There are too many phenomenal games already in existence for me to be drawn in by the new shinies. I only would want one for the more powerful machine and reverse compatibility for my existing switch library.

To my knowledge I don’t think there’s a paywall to play Switch 1 games on it. You’d have to pay if you want to get the Switch 2 edition upgrade for some games though from what I saw in the direct.

Edit: I believe some of the upgrades come included with the Online + Expansion pack, but not all.