#tomyo's backlog Adventure

[tomyo]

Sonic Advance

Earlier this year I had gone to sell at a gaming convention that had a huge Sonic presence which inevitably influenced me to buy this game for a whopping $30. For a while I wanted to have access to the tiny Chao garden and me and con impulsiveness is real. The irony is I also couldn't play it due to not having a functioning backlit GBA player and then went out of my way to buy a JP DS that I thought didn't work until just recently (the plug I had it in wasn't working for it). Finally after all of that I found the game fully played. For those unaware, the first Advance will corrupt the chao garden if you delete the save file.

Now this isn't much of a problem, it just meant I have access to everything. But it also killed any sense of tangible progress. I basically was handed the 44? Levels for free.

In the end it wasn't much of a problem either as I have played through most of Sonic and Amy's stages in just about an hour's worth of time. When it comes to the idea of completion, I'm less worried about playing fully through a game but rather playing enough through like in the recent case of Minish Cap where I felt satisfied while still having two lands to visit.

I am not fully at a completion point but I get the feeling I will be in a little bit and I'm preemptively writing this for now. Something is maybe a little sad in the end because that means I spent $30 for roughly 2 hours of gameplay but I'm certain I will eventually also find value in the Chao Garden which in itself is worth a bit to me as well.

Even for what little I've played of it, I still found it an engaging pick up, I love the graphics and I actually like it's easy. The DS side houses Rush rn which I'm struggling to pass on the first level. At least I did while it was with the 3DS. I'm hoping by switching it up, I might be able to have better controls since there is no circle pad in the way.

Ratings are fake but it's a solid 8/10

[tomyo]

My 2025 Gaming Goals:

Fighting against my backlog of games is the fact I bought a PSP recently. While the goal was to play through a bunch of games, I think this year will be paired with buying a bunch so I have things for my PSP. That being said I'm trying to force myself into two challenges.

By far, the greatest amount of games I have to play are for Sonic (9-10) and Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons (13-16). For each of them, I've tried to set up a challenge of how many I have to play to buy some bigger games on the list. There's kinda like 3 stages; one that's just a bullshit 1 game requirement, one that a few games, and then close to or the full list of games to buy the grand prize game. For Sonic; Shadow the Hedgehog is currently the bullshit 1 game req due to some copies being accessible rn when it's probs on the verge of jumping in price, midway is Rivals 2, Rush Adventure, and Zero Gravity as they're usually pretty midrange price($20-35), and then the grand prize is Sonic Shuffle which usually hits $70. Not a particularly liked game and I have a bunk copy of it but it's more for the beauty of the style it has. As for HM; low entry is Boy & Girl mostly because there's a cheap cheap copy I might win the bid on, midrange will be Story of Seasons due to its availability for new still, and the really grand prize for all of this is Hero of Leaf Valley which also tends to be $70 for a copy. Like I said I really want games for my PSP so I'm hoping it can motivate me. However I'm not that type of masochist and I'm making it a 10 game entry because up to 16 Harvest Moon games might kill me on top of all the other life stuff I have going on. Either way, the hope is to help curb spending on games by blocking impulsive spending (hah, we'll see if that works).

Overall though, here's my game hunts for 2025:

Sonic Rush Adventure

Sonic Rivals 2

Harvest Moon Hero of Leaf Valley

Story of Seasons

Shadow the Hedgehog

Sonic Lost World

Sonic Riders Zero Gravity

Sonic Shuffle

Wii Party

Zelda 3ds Remakes

Sega Dreamcast Collection

ZombiU

Amiibo Festival

The Sonic Olympic Series

Sims 1 expansions

For PSP Specifically:

Sims 2 Pets

Sims 2 Castaway

Kingdom Hearts 365/2

Innocent Life

Little Big Planet

A handful of Japanese VNs

That one weird warioware knockoff

And the 2024 carry over:

Just Dance Kinect Series (2014-2019)

Nicola Series

Endless Ocean 1+2

Another Code R

Pokemon Dash

Ultra Sun (easy mode)

Fire Red/Leaf Green at a good price (impossible)

Black/BW2 at a decent price (impossible)

HM Magical Melody Wii

Wii Play Motion

World ends with you

Wii U twilight princess

DuckTales wiiu

Finally for what I actually think I'll actually want to buy in 2025 from the above:

Little Big Planet

Sims 2 Pets

Sims 2 Castaway

Innocent Life

Hero of Leaf Valley

Story of Season

Sonic Rivals 2

Sonic Lost World

Shadow the Hedgehog

Sonic Riders Zero Gravity

Dreamcast Collection

Amiibo Festival

ZombiU

Whatever unintentional finds of Sims, Just Dance or Pokemon Sun might be made.

I really want to utilize my PSP next year to which admittedly I'm a little embarrassed how little of games I want to play on it. Games like Rivals 2 and LBP only made it out of a need for cartoony games.

Anyway that's my ramble into the void. I feel I've thought more about gaming than actually gaming.

[tomyo]

LoZ Minish Cap

I've been really thinking about my backlog again over as I've moved on from Harvest Moon game collecting into Sonic game over collecting and figured it was time to revisit what I currently owned on my Wii U.

So yeah, Minish Cap. Gorgeous game. To be honest I only stopped playing it because I got stuck and this time I had to look up a guide because I couldn't even remember what was wrong.

From my previous session I had just passed the Minish dungeon and at this point I've ended up just before the Hylia section. All in all, that's....two more dungeons? LoZ and I have always struggled with this love hate relationship. I love the design, hate the gameplay. I am not a gamer despite what this adventure may or may not inform you about me. I feel tense whenever basic combat comes into play. In fact I loved the switch saga simply because I could do the elements I found fun while avoiding puzzles and being lean on combat. I think it says a lot I have never challenged a dungeon or boss in either game too.

However, every time an online store goes down I'm confronted with suddenly needing to wisely spend a large sum of money across a large catalog of games, dlc, skins, and avatar goods. Side tangent but I deeply regret not buying a digital copy of Sonic 06 now realizing my og copy might be showing signs of disk rot. Either way, the 8th gen Nintendo console closing led me to a lot of retro game downloads and Minish Cap made the cut.

Why did it? I think most obviously the graphics. I am that person who romantacises my Gaelic heritage and no other Zelda game leans into the aesthetic more. A lot of the Celtic braiding, the kin stones, the Minish, and so forth. But even beyond that, the pixel art is some of the most stunning work on the GBA. It's not too surprising since it's coming out of Capcom who also produced the disgustingly gorgeous Oracle games. The singular graphical complaint I have is for Link himself who looks a little like they based him off a 3D model . Did they? I don't know. It's still amazing that his tiny form manages to work so well though so we can look past it all. The tiny segments though, fucking masterpieces.

Gameplay again, isn't bad it just isn't me. I think I've hit my put down point and it's not the game's fault but I don't think I'm particularly worried about playing more at the moment. As far as I can tell I'm halfway through with 3 more dungeons before the finale. Like usual though, Zelda's side quests shined amazing and the kin stones and gacha were my favourite part of the experience. I liked the feeling I was changing the space of the game though stones and there was calculated strategy what to choose. The gacha however is this somewhat vindictive task because I happened to see a guy talk about how unfair it was and while I'm not saying he's wrong, I just want to prove a point. Currently I have 50/130 with just what I had on me at the time. If I finish this game, it's to spite that video.

What can I say, it was a solid experience but not really me.

[tomyo]

Summer Backlog Game Plans:

Harvest Moon A New Beginning

Story of Seasons Trio of Towns

Harvest Moon Animal Parade

Zelda Minish Cap

Harvest Moon GBC 3

Nintendoland

Pokemon Channel

Waku Waku Sweets

Wrap Ups:

HM My Little Shop

Wild World

Kinectimals

Eye Play

Just Dance 4

Sword of Hope

Quick Plays:

Love Hero

Sky Peace

Fairune

Fairune 2

Legend of the Dark Witch

Legend of the Dark Witch 2

Potentials??:

Space Channel 5

Sonic Adventure

Sonic Free Riders

Sonic 06

Sonic Rush

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning (its trans)

So I've finally hit a point where I feel like I can breathe again which means its time to get back into my backlog made majorly of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games. Admittedly the moment I get into the DS era and beyond, I get overwhelmed by all the mechanics but I spent....a dumb amount of money on these games and I have to push myself to try. Between Trio of Towns and A New Beginning, I chose ANB for two reasons; 1.It might be simpler to jump into 2.You can back door hack yourself into being gay....kinda.

You see the thing is you still can only date hetrosexually BUT you can just change your character to basically look completely like a girl. Trans rights??? Except you'll get misgendered all the time...unless this is a transmasc story instead for the fuckers like me that like to be he/him'd while in full femme mode. Either way, time to romance Yuri!

So admittedly this is a little bit mixed of a guide slash person road map, I am using a Fogu guide but that doesn't necessarily make it easy. So, I'm only on spring 14 but here's what to know thus far:

The game is as handholdy as ACNL/NH and will slowly dole out mechanics over thankfully in game days. Only worry about mechanics as they come.

You will spend per usual a good part of the start will be foraging. Sell the bugs but save flowers/herbs/mushrooms. You will need moon drops for the start of the town restoration. Also save Honey Bees for the second part of it too. Blue flowers are for Emma to befriend her. Hold onto all logs and stones for when Iroha comes.

Talk to all villagers to increase friendship, show them an animal as well but be careful of preferences. Most villager friendship is required to progress to more stores/upgrades.

When you unlock crops, only buy two things of grass. You are given all you need for most of your farm already. Plant and water the grass in the barn area so you'll have fodder in time for the free cow you get a few days later.

Work on shipping tons of potatoes in spring, this will be a headstart for Town Restoration #4 where you need to ship 30 of them.

Events Process: You arrive>>You unlock crops>>Neil arrives and gives you a cow>>Iroha arrives and gives you an Axe and Hammer>> Rebecca arrives and needs house help which unlocks blueprints>> Town Restoration #1>> Town Restoration #2>> Town Restoration #3 start>> Tailor Shop Blue print should unlock if you befriended Emma enough.

Yuri also seems extremely easy to woo honestly, her special like is one of the early recipes which is also important to eat regularly. In general I just love her and its a crime she can't be romanced same sexly but its okay because again, we are transing ourselves which she and Allen will help with. Wow! What a little gay gender affirming circle that is lmao.

The goal is to get Yuri in my town by early to mid fall, the biggest road block is during restoration 2 you need to ship 10 honey which will take 6 days to make so the more hives the better from the start. Clearing out the farm during summer is imperative. Hives are made out of small lumber and honey combs which is why collecting as much as possible is important (and collecting bees for them too!).

After Yuri is unlocked, the only goals are to raise a lot of sheep for wool. hatch 10 chicks, and get one yak when the chance is given. Side goals include birthing three Cows, sheep, and Alpaca during my second year. Most of Restoration 3 and beyond involves mining and wool so I expect to spend winter doing a lot of digging while also being aware that I'll probably not complete the storyline until at least late into year 2. There's more focus on festivals in the final two restorations as well as a lot of odd gems.

Post main plot is for clothing, house decoration, and child rearing. Emma, Neil, Olivia, Sanjay, and the travel location people are important towards gift exchanges. Outfits will just unlock as I go thanks to Yuri. I might also do a split save before marrying Yuri simply because Witch Princess is always kinda cool but is so late game that having to rebuild everything to marry her might honestly kill me.

It seems partially ridiculous to be so early in the game and to be writing so much already but its one of those series where you need a huge planning stage before you even start anything. To which I find fun the preplan. Admittedly also because the current game play is so repetitive; Watering and animal care in the morning, chasing after Emma for her daily gift, and then wrapping around foraging a couple of times before the night watering. It doesn't help either that there is no quality of life improvements as you go, apparently not even power berries this time.

The path to repairing a town is kind of a fun mechanic to be real; ACNH widely disappointed me for not really being the civilization maker it promised, Hometown story is interesting for a similar was in how it runs, Pioneers of Olive Town sometimes is the perfect amount of town rebuilder, and of course the ever popular stardew valley is great for slowly building up additions to an already pretty sound townspace, and I yearn for easier access to Animal Parade for how lovely the area is even if a bit of a travelling nightmare at points. I don't expect ANB to be revolutionary necessarily but I'm excited to GET to the point where I can suddenly dish out a bunch of town support. It's kind of cool how there's barely love interests as well because of it.

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon My Little Shop

So I've been trying to burn through my Harvest Moon collection and I figured it was time to mess around with My Little Shop.

Sadly for me, it's daily events so I'm gonna have to do long term run through of the game. That being said, it's pretty cute already. A lot of the aesthetic is peak Harvest Moon style. The cut out mixed with 3D gives that nostalgic feel everyone has been trying to do with like, PS1 graphics. I love my happy little kid character too.

So far it lets me do Juice and Egg Decorating. I could probably play more in just one sitting and unlock everything but it's pretty repetitive very fast, especially when I'm not good at the egg mini games. When I bought it for my system I also bought the strawberry cow upgrade so presumably I will also be able to play dlc games soon too.

Sadly there's not really any picture taking features with this one nor can you get it anymore so I'm sorry for the small group of people in this game that I will not be helping towards. I can say it is totally worth pirating but you're basically getting a cooking mama type minigame with very light HM/SoS elements on top.

[tomyo]

Tomyo's backlog master post

DS/3DS

Style Savvy

Wappy Dog

Big Brain Academy

Sonic Rush

Harvest Moon DS Cute Replay

Harvest Moon Island of Happiness

Harvest Moon Sunshine Islands

Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns

Harvest Moon A New Beginning

Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns

Hometown Story

Nintendogs+cats

Corpse Party

Kid Icarus

Animal Crossing New Leaf Second Town #

Pokemon Pearl

Pokemon Y

Pokemon Omega Ruby

3DS VC+Digital

Pokemon Crystal

Pokemon Silver

Pokemon Puzzle League

Pokemon Dream Radar

Harvest Moon 3

Sword of Hope

Zelda Links Awakening DX

Zelda Link to the Past

Earthbound

Shantae

Shantae Pirate's Curse

Xtreme Sports

Mighty Switch Force

Mighty Switch Force 2

Dillon's Deadheat Breakers

Waku Waku Sweets

Konbeni Dream

Love Hero

Sky peace

Fairune

Fairune 2

Legend of the Dark Witch

Legend of the Dark Witch 2

GC/Wii/WiiVC/WiiU/WiiU VC

Sonic Riders

Pokemon Colosseum Replay

Pokemon Channel Replay?

Harvest Moon Magical Melody Replay

Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility

Harvest Moon Animal Parade

Harvest Moon My Little Shop

Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon 64

Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town

Harvest Moon More Friends of Mineral Town

Cooking Mama Cook Off #

Nights into Dreams Replay

Udraw

Zelda Ocarina of Time

Zelda Majora's Mask

Zelda Minish Cap

Pokemon Battle Revolution

Pokemon Snap

Animal Crossing Wild World

Nintendoland

Others

Space Channel 5

Time Stalkers

Shenmue #

Sonic Adventure #

Sonic 06

Sonic Free Riders

Just Dance 4

Kinectimals

GTA5

Kingdom Hearts 3

Harvest Moon Save the Homeland

Harvest Moon AWL SE

Pokemon Emerald #

Eye Play 1+2

[tomyo]

Sonic Riders

This was another game I recently employed the 'if I have my friends play it in front of me then it counts' rule. Tonio and D were extremely excited to get their hands on this one and gasp, I even played some.

Maybe the funniest thing about this game is I had it since 2008 and yet never touched it. Apparently also bought it for $5.

It's hard not to make Snapcube jokes while watching it.

Anyways I made everything above ~a year ago and then apparently forgot everything about the play through which I think says enough. It's a fun game if you are good at it but I am not and I struggled a shit ton. Boy howdy, can't wait to pull out free riders!

[tomyo]

Tomyo's Backlog Adventure: 1 Year Later

How it's going

It's been a little over a year since I made the backlog list. Admittedly I did not get through it much simply because I was extremely busy as an artist all that time. Initially I think I hoped I'd get a decent chunk through the DS games only to really never break through much.

What I got/played since

So what are the games I haven't listed?

Well let's see; Sonic and The Black Knight, Wii Music, Pokemon Pearl, Some Japanese Gameboy games of Hamtaro and Tamagotchi, the Dream Eye, Style Savvy Trendsetters, and as of this week, Tomodachi Collection and a substantial amount of Sim 3's content. (Edit: I can't remember if the islands HM DS games and sonic free riders were added on since) There is also a number of switch content that I just refuse to mentally process. Part of making the list was to address how I had gone feral with game collection but was not actually playing the games. I would say in some ways having that list helped me curb my unchecked spending which as you can guess got widely ignored for switch downloads. The irony is I would say I did a lot of switch gaming as well. Notable releases like Sonic Frontiers and Tears of the Kingdom were some of the games I ended up borrowing from the library and spending way too much time on. During the start of the year I was heavily gaming Splatoon 1 only to fail at my mission to collect all the gear before the servers went defunct. There's also been a part of me that spend the last 6 or so months hyper fixating on Tamagotchis. While not traditional games, they do indeed simply function as mini game systems and part of me sees the progression in them as my "gaming time".

What I want to get

Admittedly the urge to buy is flickering in me somewhat. Why? The rise is 3DS game costs. Now with the e shop closed, there is a renewed interest in content that had gone untouched for a while. The big wake up call for me was hearing Tomodachi life now goes for around $100 these days. My other experience in the last year is hunger for 3 things; The sonic games I missed during the GameCube/Wii era, Cooking Mama, and the Japanese series model debut. So here's my list:

Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask remakes

Legend of Zelda: A link between Worlds

Project Mirai with Cards

Nintendogs 3DS (while I have a digital download, I want physical)

Yet another copy of New Leaf

Story of Seasons

Pokemon Sun and Ultra Sun (the only two 3ds games I don't have from the mainline)

Pretty much every Cooking Mama game

Smash for 3DS and Wii U

ZombiU

Ducktales Remaster

Sonic Riders Zero Gravity

Shadow the Hedgehog

Sonic Shuffle

Loosely a few Japanese games like the soul eater one or the switch model debuts

Fashion Dreamer

Various Tamagotchis and Gigapets

Pocket Sakura

That Sega Eyetoy game

What I want to do

Some of the biggest hurdles are playing through Pokemon and Bokumono games on my list for very different reasons. Bokumono games are always a struggle because the require time being set aside to both plan out the game period and to marathon game days, especially during the 3DS era where this is a lot of mechanics to juggle. On the opposite end there is Pokemon to which most of the games on the list I want to stream my playthroughs as it's in part a ribbon master challenge. Pokemon games will probably stay put aside for an undetermined amount of time but I do want to clear out a lot of Bokumonos.

Right now I have been working through ANB to dizzying results. At some point recently I became very frustrated with the loop and set it aside leading to a hyper focus on FoMT's remake which is super easy and will likely hit my clear in just a day or two more of gameplay(my majors goals are to go through mining and fishing in the upcoming winter season and return to go for endgame houses and achievements at a later time). Admittedly I want to return to the battle that is ANB despite its frustration; feeling like I'm creating the progress is half the enjoyment is the struggle. Part of me even forgets what my end goal reach is for that one but my best guess at the moment is mainline story completion, yuri romancing, and full transition.

Onwards from that would likely be tackling either Trio of Towns or Animal Parade. Animal parade is certainly the harder of the two to pick up since it often requires the most effort to set up but of the two, I find it the more accessible story wise as simply every trio of Towns is overwhelming.

As for the casual dailies; Wild World and My Little Shop have been hard to call finished but also do not really have enough to move forward with. MLS is a pretty repetitive mini game series with a vague end goal of achieving clovers so I might just declare it finished with anyways. Wild World slowed to a crawl simply because I missed certain bug and fish seasons and on top of that is hard to enjoy when there is so little to do in game for progression outside of nonstop fishing/bug catching. Wild World might end up ending prematurely with just the encyclopedia completions since the act of endless money making for a house/charity doesn't appeal deeply to me when it is just an end goal. What might start up instead is a series on Nintendo's (and friends) various fitness trackers; My personal trainer walking, my weight loss coach, Wii fit U, the pokewalker, pocket Pikachu, pocket hello kitty, Pokemon go pikmin bloom, and for funsies the Fitbit and my phone's step tracker cuz it's cute. There's a personal love that Miiblr just exists here there's a good number of fitness things that exists around the miis. Part of me can loose the idea that I enjou watching the meters go up on these devices as the gameify walking. My Wii fit U meter has been carried with me for a while now as the goal to see the distance walked and the heights climbed is a huge enjoyment. Seeing as there are other counters, I see myself wanting to just reach a point carrying all of them for the fun of it.

Some games to stream; Pokemon Channel, Wii Music, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure, shenmue, and Time Stalkers all make the cut. As obviously mentioned so would most of my Pokemon games if not for being put on the back burner. Possibly towards the end of the month, I might return to some tiktok streaming with Wii Music and Pokemon channel (especially since this one is pretty camp themed). The dreamcast games are a little more tricky because I have a set up in mind but it's just hard to achieve currently. The other thing preventing streaming is my aforementioned job which takes up most of my nights these days. While most of these games are pretty easy to play in one sitting, the bigger rpgs might have difficulty.

And then finally friend plays; sonic 06 has been long on hold as I keep not visiting the very friend that lent me his PS4. At the same time, the latest game has not been decided for my yearly D trip yet; the choices stand as almost certainly Sonic Free Riders, Time Stalkers, Nintendoland, and shenmue.

As it stands I'd like to get out of the way 14-20 games on the list this year; a bunch already half played, some simply shallow games to begin with, 2-4 with the power of friendship, and about 4-7 requiring actual time investment. Additionally out of the 76 on the OG list; at least 7 of them are going to be shelved for now (the Pokemon ribbon master play throughs). Of that 69 (nice) left, 7 are known hold off, 6 are wrap ups, 3 require additional meddling, and 12 simply required setting aside time to play. There's still tons of games but since my art career is a bit on hold atm, I would like to delve into these games more this year.

[tomyo]

Conveni Dream

I picked up this guy tonight and I'd say I'm already pretty satisfied with how far I've gone in it to be real.

I whole goal is to run a shop and then keep making the shop bigger and sell more as you go with as far as I can tell the final goal being to reach level 99 and complete all the tasks.

However that's somewhat annoying to do when you have to watch out for unruly customers while having time speeds of normal, fast, hard mode, and impossible to keep watch upon things. I got to level 15 before I was bored.

It's fun in concept or for a mid 2010's phone game but otherwise the lack of end goal just didn't keep me invested.

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon GBC 3

While I’ve been staying with my friends this week, I’ve basically been limited to time off! I love it. I have basically nothing I’m required to do hahahaha. It seemed the right time to dive into some of my 3DS games each day I’ve been waiting for people to come home for Nights Journey of Dreams or Sonic Riders or when I had them play my copy of Splat 3.

Harvest Moon was finally calling me. I picked up 3 because admittedly I’m still intimidated by the 3DS era as much as I want to play A New Beginning.

Harvest Moon 3 is definitely a lot more relaxing especially with how it limits me on chore work atm. There’s not a lot of foragables on the island and I don’t have the rod yet so my days are mostly limited to instructing my partner, caring for my cow, picking berries, saying hi to villagers and shoveling the ground until I fix Pete’s work. That in itself is mostly just watering the plants right now. I’ve read he gets better as I go so I try to wait out before I interfere.

A lot of my pause in other bokumonos tends to result from choice paralysis and worrying I’ll never get everything done optimally but that’s less of a worry this time. I only really need to win over Billy and Elza, I am not marrying Pete, and there’s so little work to do that I have to work to reduce my stamina.

When I do it’s mostly to dig for change. I’d say digging is maybe even the most reliable way for money as it stands. Since I can’t buy seeds right now more than once a week and I only have one cow, money is minimal most days. However I don’t need for much either. I’ve already dug up the six first power berries so already my attention is on refriending Billy and Elza the most since travel will result in the most game access as well as open me up to Marla and Fishing storylines.

Like a lot of games I’m still in the early stage of this play through but my focus right now is on my 30 turnip job and growing grass to get more livestock. Probably some chickens and cows before grabbing sheep and horses.

[tomyo]

NiGHTS

So I forced my friend who previously beat this game to play it for me instead. Thanks Tonio.

I always played as Helen first to which the fish was horrible to fight. Ironically to learn how different two characters bosses are. The game is also surprisingly short with very little story bits or maybe that's just from coming off of KH3 not too long ago.

The gameplay is rough, in game graphics are a weird mix and the music is god tier. The funniest thing is that gets to me about the graphics is Helen looks horrible in the in game engine but will looks sort of better? If he were supposed to look like a Japanese boy it'd be fine but it's definitely likely he was supposed to be white. However the CG modelers rendered him with defining Japanese features in his cheeks and mouth that I couldn't get over, I jokingly kept calling him Kohei and his dad Yusuke. I promise this is mostly out of adoration for how artists will reference what they are familiar with which even on a professional level results in a blonde haired blue eyed Japanese boy.

The character designs also distinctly bring me back to the era where everyone was trying to be Square Enix. Sega had already been doing particularly well rendered CG scenes but the over designing of Helen especially hits home how games like Sonic 06, Twilight Princess and so on probably took on these traits to catch up with the popularity of final fantasy and Kingdom Hearts to some extent. Helen's playthrough unlocks the artbook and I'm a little sad I'm missing some pieces as the art is fun to look at in all its crunchy glory.

I didn't grow up with the original Nights but the second game definitely came out when I was Will and Helens age which is funny to say since I always perceived myself older than characters like them. Now that I'm an adult I definitely look to the very gender Nights who's playful and essentially a disappointment to their parents in more honor. My first experience with this series was the lovingly rendered key art plastered on Nintendo Power which was possibly also my first one. I remember being enchanted by the reflection in night's eyes. All the more funny to see how old the graphics feel even for the Wii era in comparison to that cover art. But I loved every moment of Nights being almost a fun loving big sibling and annoyed at the idea they should play their role for wiseman.

That being said and it could be because we played Will second, there is like, an air of sexism with Will and Helen. I read up that Nights had some intent for the original kids to represent the masculine womanhood and the feminine manhood and while the clothing they wear or the interests they have represented in their worlds being so gendered isn't as much my issue, the narrative value is. Helen gets the short end being that she is made bad for doubting Nights like Will did but where Will overheard Nights was a nightmaren and was comforted by the owl, Helen hears this from Reala who also paints Nights as on the nightmaren side. It felt a little off equating these two experiences as the same. Nights also only fights Reala in Will's dreams. And while they gave a recent reason for Helen struggling in Will's more straight forward dungeon, there was an ick that Helen was always the one to fall in gameplay to be saved by Will. Like I said I was the one actually playing either so my experience in that is a little limited but Tonio did point out that Will did things on his own in Bellbridge that Helen needed Will's help for. It seems to suggest Helen can't stand on her own and that just sucks.

Considering the in spiritual successor, Balan Wonder world, gave it's female lead no active factor like previous protags (a sport or physical hobby) in a game about theatrical performance, it seems to be a worsening issue. A full tangent on that but if you give the male lead the role of a dancer then why not make the girl a singer???? The other half of theatrical performance????? So weird.

[tomyo]

I know I suddenly posted a lot of backlog adventure stuff back to back haha but just a little lore building here. I felt some energy to actually try games after the rush of playing KH3. At the same time, games are hard alone bleh.

Next week though, I'm briefly staying with a friend who I might try to play through with on Sonic Riders and Nights. Last year when I visited him, I brought my Dreamcast down and we went through Jet Set Radio on it so this is the next playthrough together I guess hahaha.

I would of liked to play more Dreamcast games soon, however a lot of mine don't actually work at the moment. Shenmue and Sonic adventure need to be polished which is big oof anxiety and to a much less extent, Cooking Mama cook off. Might even trade that one in to be real. I think it'd probably be the most fun for us to one day attempt a Dream Cast Binge together. Shenmue will certainly be....a heavy meal of a game and other games like Time Stalkers and Space Channel 5 would just be fun with friends. I might even bring the 360 at some point so I can force him to do Free Riders with me too hahaha.

In general since basically buying every Harvest Moon game out there (as I write this I may or may not be getting grand bazaar and hero of leaf valley 💀) my attention jumped to my Sonic collection. Basically my biggest gap is with Wii era games surprisingly. When I was in elementary to early high school I was pretty big on the games and bought a lot of them for the sub $15 the GameCube ones cost at that time. There is a distinct pain over the fact the copy of Adventure XD I had I had to return for being to scratched given the prices now and for personal reasons, there's someone who I've wanted to be the one to give me their old copy of even though it won't ever happened hahaha. My biggest desires right now are to get my hands on Black Knight but I've also wanted a 360 copy of Unleashed, Generations, Zero Gravity, and Shadow the Hedgehog. Rush adventure and Shuffle also catch my eye but my wallet hurts enough as is. I really need to stop getting into game collecting.

Part of the reason to bring Sonic up is also because I'll probably be playing a replay of Sonic 06 with the friend who leant me his PS4. He apparently never played it but wants to and I love just... Backseat gaming rather than actually playing. Hahahah. Games can be magical but art takes up too much time in my life now. The switch has been helpful for my more on the go lifestyle these days but I often still run short on free time. Even now Ive been wasting work hours to do KH3 this past weekend.

I guess my final little ramble is back to my HM collection. God it's kinda scary how many games I had suddenly bought at once. I keep meaning to play but I know they're the kinda games I have to secretly dedicate a lot of time towards. If I do end up getting the two aforementioned with my recent impulse gets, I've pretty much achieved most major versions of the game. My biggest other missing ones probs come down to the Og Story of Seasons, A version of Back to Nature, and the FoMT remake. Another wonderful life is on there but I'm starting to question my need for that one when I hate all the bachelors which I'm required to marry. Overall though I've reached what feels like a pretty doable conclusion from all of those.

Playing them however.....is a separate case hahaha. I had briefly started a AWLSE run which I might try to pick up, I want to return to Animal Parade as well over the winter, and a Save the Homeland run should??? Be quick??? I just started a my little shop attempt which is a pretty pick up and put down game so I will likely do that daily with Animal Parade when I play that. Overall I think my biggest scare is the handheld games. They should be easier but they feel harder. I want to do A New beginning the most but the game mechanics are daunting. The DS cute Skye playthrough might end up being the better choice from those right now. Which leads me to question how long will I take to go through all those games since I haven't been playing them over the years like they were meant for.

I think if I do go through end of the year as I intend to, recovering from surgery, I will try to go through a bunch of them.

[tomyo]

Kingdom hearts 3, finally finishing it 4 years later

A game I honestly didn't think would be off this list for a while. I bought the game when it came out and then never finished it because I was using my roommate's PS4.

Recently a friend lent me his PS4 now that the PS5 exists and after months of con season I finally sat down with it. I had intended to start from scratch until I learnt the several hours I played on the guest account where erased and my sanity would not allow several hours of tutorial again.

In the end, I bought a psn membership and reached out to that old roommate which was a nice experience. I missed them but have always just been to much in my bullshit to reach out until apparently *this*.

Maybe the funniest thing to say about all of this is this is my first and only time I've played a kingdom hearts game meaning my gameplay expectations were average. I had a goofy fun time after not having to play Olympus a third time and I relate to smooth brained Sora a lot, vaguely I get what's going on but I don't give too many shits. Yeah the start of the key blade war was a mess but my little gay ass cried at every XIII trio and co moment. That ending CG cutscenes was too short but I could easily wax on about how these characters have constantly sacrificed and gone through tragedy often in the name of each other and the hope that those in front of them could move forward. The prequel trio went through tragedy, the main trio constantly just out of reach from each other, the XIII trio stuck in an amnesiatic limbo and so forth. The fact most of them got to literally do fun kind shit together was a nice miracle.

Also bawled at the union cross cameos even though I barely played it. I love tragedy and I did earlier this weekend stop to let my avatar cry scared at their own death in the middle of war so the idea that maybe some actual users got to see their names on screen attacking the enemies but hard. Even though I haven't played the series, it's a permanent part of my life just from the cultural zeitgeist it caused in my adolescence. I wish they gave it more impact if anything but I get it, it wasn't something everyone was for.

Obviously though the biggest issue is Kairi per usual. Utada's song are sort of like a thematic tone to each chapter in the series with a theory that Kairi's designs being inspired from Utada's image at each point. Chikai is not just a love song but a wedding song, the progression from an immature and insecure relationship in the first one to one stubbornly proclaiming it's now or never with your devotion to me. It's a song meant to stand at the end of everything, it's someone waiting for you to meet them in the distance. I remember desperately trying to avoid spoilers for these past four years but being suggested from what I couldn't avoid that Kairi had proposed marriage to Sora at the end. It's also usually Kairi who gets a lot of attention in the CG openings and endings. The natural idea of this all is that it's sealing the idea of Sora and Kairi recognizing each other as a couple and potentially a maturing relationship from when they were children even though like, I don't even think two years have passed in world??? Either way she gets worse than nerfed at the end. You don't get to play as her, she doesn't get to do A N Y T H I N G aside from being said to still believe in Sora and be his emotional angst. And then she is kidnapped and killed. The worst is it failed to make it matter to me. The are a lot of reasons why everything with Kairi just did not hit any emotional level whatsoever as a Kairi stan. Riku had more romantic tension with himself on the beach honestly. And yes, I acknowledge there was literally a gay rainbow bonded key blade. I didn't really ever ship anything with kingdom hearts but I now believe in Sora and Riku I guess. Also the old dudes probably making out. Yeah, wasn't even pissed at that anticlimactic heel turn with the big baddie. Side note, buying the game was 100% worth it to have the immersive experience of Goofy and Donald call out for my from the controller. A+. Just, man, Kairi was more blank than wood this game despite them trying to say she was important. I think for a series so central on the bond of it's trios, keeping her out of the main fights was such a bummer.

Also I am not paying $30 for the dlc when I have already given the game $70+ of my money. I will absolutely watch a video of that instead.

Either way I'm happy I can finally watch videos that sat in my YouTube watch later since 2019 and I happily look forward to KH4. Bitches who know me know I'm a sucker for Shibuya and honestly I should have bought the world ends with us in the ds when i had the chance. Might come on my lists because street style is so big in that game.

With that one of the two most intensive games on this list can be crossed off. The other being GTA 5 but I also don't really plan to jump on that anytime soon. More concerned with playing the Kinect games on my 360 lmao.

[tomyo]

Animal Crossing Wild World Part 1

While going through this game backlog, naturally wild world is a hard one to decide a relative level of completion at. The goals of this really isn't as much to complete these game as so to just get enough of the experience out through them. Wappy Dog for instance was a pretty much one session situation. Wild World meanwhile is meant to be played in longer goals so I have to make those goals. I think the main focus will end up being to finish the museum which is something I've never committed to before New Horizons. So lets see my overall goals:

Finish the museum's fish, bug, and dinosaur sections

Attempt to finish the paintings section

Fully Upgraded Nooks

Full Boondox Coverage

Fully Upgraded house

In the end, I think the thing I will end up focusing on most is the museum and probably the boondox coverage. I think it'd also be fun to try and fully deck myself out in rainbow wear so add finding the rainbow shirt in there.

Obviously since this game is meant to be played slow, I imagine I'll also take the longest with this one.

[tomyo]

Pokemon Snap

For years now this had been one of those games I decided I'd buy for virtual console. I don't really see myself as a collector of games but the problem is is you fall into game collecting by virtue of wanting to enjoy an experience. Snap was one of those games I knew I'd be annoyed with if I didn't own and overall I've tried to avoid more consoles in my life. Outside of handheld consoles, I already live my life with a Dreamcast, Gamecube, PS2, Wii, Xbox 360, Wii U, and now Switch. I know for a lot of people that isn't a lot of anything but I do have a ridiculous amount of other collections, lots of odd electronics and old school toys and and figures and pokemon merch and an ungodly amount of books. Which in itself isn't actually that much when you see how people collect those things but fuck it, I am an independent artist who lives majorly in a 10x10 ft space. As much as I'd love to own a special edition 64, I try to keep my ownership to a minimum which is ironically why I bought my Wii U last year. It just takes up less space and gives me more right now. To be honest I still regret not buying snap on the wii when I had the chance for the sake of the wii board feature but oh well.

The actual game itself I'd say gives for what its worth. As suggested, I didn't actually grow up playing this game and by now it finally got the sequel everyone was screaming for it to be on with the Wii U. Honestly I think there was a lot missed that it in fact hadn't ended up on the Wii U. I don't think it'd be surprising to say based on the list of games in this backlog adventure that I'm much more involved with handheld than home consoles. Even most of my Wii U usage is through its screen. In some ways systems like the Switch have been a great means to catch up on a lot of those games I've missed growing up because it's often the grounding to a TV that stops me from playing many of them.

At the same time I've come to realize a flaw when it comes to the size of graphics now. Would I have played Snap if it wasn't basically handheld on my wii u? No, probably not. Is it an enjoyable experience from the handheld? Kinda also not. I think I could've made it a more engaging experience if I had been playing it on a large tv. Imagining what it would have been like if I had done so all this time or what it would've been like playing as a kid with a tube tv just sounds so much much more appealing.

Currently I'm not really invested in playing beyond the cave level. The biggest thing is knowing some photos aren't good enough to unlock more in it but I can't save the photos I've taken outside of the game. I adore the photo of Jigglypuff I've taken but I'm aware there are higher scoring photos I could take to progress. Again if I could've saved these photos outside of the game I wouldn't be as heartbroken as I kind of feel. In hindsight, the wii u one is the worst port for being the only one that can't allow it.

Outside of that, the experience is fun and easy to pick up. There's just things in my head now telling me how much more I likely would have loved it if I had played it when I was younger. Not as much to say it isn't an enjoyable adult experience as much as how used I am now to smaller screens. Might keep this in mind when playing earthbound and go for playing it on my docked switch more than through the 3ds copy I bought.