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[SpiceRacz]

5. Chrono Trigger - This is a replay for me. A friend randomly mentioned it and I got the itch to go back and play it again. Went with Chrono, Magus, and Robo for the final fight all 3 at level 50. No triple techs between the 3. Lavos was a breeze. Total time 18 hours. Not going to write a paragraph about the greatness of this game. It's as good today as it was in 1995. Still my favorite RPG alongside Earthbound.

 

[Bogtron]

First year attempting, claiming my spot.

 

[SpiceRacz]

6. Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA) - This is a deceptively fun puzzle game. You guide a spinning stick through mazes trying to get to the end goal. You take damage when you touch walls and you're given a 3 hit limit. Sounds simplistic, but it's more addicting than you would think. My only complaint is there's not more of it. I was able to beat it in one sitting.


Here's a gif for reference:

 

[BusierDonkey]

Games 1-6

This is going to be out of order because I played some beat 'em ups in the middle of my Devil May Cry project.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge
2-player co-op playthrough using the two new character, Mondo Gecko and Mona Lisa

This was the fourth time I've played through this game and honestly, I can see myself playing through this every year. I love the pixel art, the animation, the music, the bosses, the environments, it's just all-around a great game and I think it may be the best game in this genre.

River City Girls
2-player New Game + playthrough

I played this back when it first launched and eventually dropped it because of the never-ending grinding and spongy enemies. Fortunately, my brother finished it, and we sat down for a new game + session. This game has some great pixel art, fantastic music and the gameplay is the right level of complex without being overly complicated, that is except for the grinding and enemies that never stay down on your first playthrough. The problem with enemies taking so many his is that it drags you out of the adventure part of the game and by the time you're done you just want it to be over. I avoided that by starting at level 30, making the game much more fun to play despite the fact ng+ ramps up the difficulty.

River City Girls 2
2-Player New Game + playthrough

This game looks identical to the first, the music is very similar to the first and basically everything here is an extension of the first game. That's not to say there isn't anything new. The combat has been expanded, but still not over-complicated. The map is significantly larger despite being the same location. There are more enemy types, more music, more of everything. Unfortunately, there's more grinding and more spongey enemies so once again I played with my brother who took the time to unlock ng+ so we could run through the game more quickly. Quickly isn't a thing in this game, even starting at level 30 and having already unlocked all the hidden items, the game took 11 hours. 11 hours in a beat 'em up is an eternity. I think this game could have shed a few areas and would have been better for it. The game also has a tendency to send you on fetch quests through areas you just passed through quite often, padding the time even more.

Devil May Cry 3
Completed playthrough

This game was just great. I enjoyed DMC and despite hearing it was a complete pile of shit I actually didn't mind DMC 2. DMC 3 is a prequel to those games featuring a younger, absolutely insane version of Dante. He's a complete goof of a character (in a good way) who is constantly cracking jokes and doing hilarious stuff. At one point you fight a big-veiny-boobed vampire demon and after winning she turns into a guitar which Dante actually goes on to play in a cutscene (image related). Combat in this game was great, lots of moves to string together and plenty of enemies and bosses to use them on. I'd rate the game higher but unfortunately, I played this through the Devil May Cry HD Collection which was cobbled together by monkeys who put zero effort into these ports, so the game has zero settings, 1080p resolution cap, 240p cutscenes and menus designed for the PS2 era. Absolutely great game, but it needs to be played outside this collection on its own.

Devil May Cry 4
Completed playthrough

This game is better than a 75 but this version of the game isn't. I actually really enjoyed it, but the Steam version of the game is broken for Win11 users. In order to even launch the game, I had to download a hex editor and modify the game. Then to change the resolution to match my 1440p monitor I also had to make changes using the hex editor. After that, the game would sometimes hang when cutscenes started, so after killing a boss I'd often get an infinite loading screen. The game itself looks great, plays great, the world is once again fun to explore and find secrets in. The characters are fantastic, and the boss fights are almost all great. Nero's evolution throughout the game as he discovers the truth about the organization he works with was done well. Dante is older now than in DMC 2 so he's a bit more reserved, though still quick with the one-liners. The combat is more fluid than earlier games. Traversal can get a bit annoying; Nero has a grappling ability that's a bit janky but it's not game-breaking. The game's worst offender is the last boss. I had no idea what the game wanted me to do and spent way too much time getting slammed by massive fists before I figured it out. In a game that is nothing but smooth boss fights one after another, the boss is way out of place.

Devil May Cry 5
Completed playthrough

The RE Engine is such a great engine. This game looks phenomenal and despite my hardware being pretty outdated, I ran this at 1440p/120fps locked with no upscaling and max settings with a ReShade running and my PC barely cared. On top of looking good, the combat has been polished to an incredible level. Everything is moving lightning fast on screen, with characters teleporting around constantly but at no point did I lose track of my character. Combos are slick and rewarding to pull off, attacks blend seamlessly into each other, and the fights are just fun. The boss fight are massive events, incorporating the surrounding areas, destroying buildings, using the level as part of the fight itself. All of the character (that actually matter) return, and the new characters are great. Nico was especially fun, a complete yokel of a girl who speaks like that one kid in everyone's elementary school that was kind of an asshole, but everyone liked them anyway. I also really got a kick out of the attention to detail and care in the game. In one of the boss fights, the boss had an answer to every attack I pulled off. At one point he stole the hat off my head and wore it, I used my motorcycle swords (yes you read that right) and when I combined them to launch a motorcycle as a missile he cut my bike in half, he broke the blade off my sword, he tangled my nunchucks up, he deflected my rocket launcher, it was awesome. The biggest negative I could come up with for the game was that the exploration, that to me was a staple in earlier entries, was kind of just gone from this game. It was mostly point A to B traversal with a lot of battles in between. Given the genre it's not the end of the world, but I did miss it. The other glaring issue with DMC 5 is whatever they did to Trish and Lady's faces. Trish especially looks like a gargoyle on meth. Luckily mods exist so in my game their faces looked more like they did in DMC 4. This is a truly great action game, even if you never played the earlier games there is a synopsis of the events leading up to DMC5 on the title screen, though I would recommend playing at least DMC3 and 4 as well.

 

[marcincz]

Game 3 - Neva (PS5) - 05h 03m
Beat 08/01/2026 - my score: 8/10

Game 4 - Earthion (PS5) - 01h 47m
Beat 10/01/2026 - my score: 8/10

Game 5 - The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe (PS5) - 04h 16m
Beat 11/01/2026 - my score: 9/10

Beat another short 3 titles.
Especially Stanley was great.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Game 7

Daemon X Machina
Completed Playthrough

This game was a rough one for me and such a disappointment. On one hand I'm a massive mecha fan, building plastic models of robots is my other big hobby. The Arsenal designs in the game are great, done by Shoji Kawamori (Patlabor, Escaflowne, Eureka Seven, Armored Core, etc) and a lot of the art was nice, though the visuals in this game really could have run on the Gamecube, I know this is a Switch game, but how hard would it have been to polish up the graphics just a little? Controlling the mechs was mostly good, movement was fast, gliding along the ground was easily the best part of the gameplay. Unfortunately, things like targeting are dumbed down to the point you really don't have to aim with most weapons. Running out of robot stamina is annoying, causing you to slowly meander around until it refills, not always a dumb mechanic but the bar is so small here. The control layout was a bit odd as well, but I got used to it quickly enough. The mech customization was really good; there are a ton of parts for the Arsenals allowing you to fully swap out every main section of the body and its attachments. Unfortunately, specs are tied to specific parts with no option to alter those specs, so if you put together a design you really like, it might actually be a pile of crap. There's also no ability to save an Arsenal's design, you have the one Arsenal it's equipped as is, any changes can only be reverted manually. This carries over to the pilot; there is a decent character creator, but as you advance in the game augmenting your stats forces cybernetic implants that completely obscure your character, making the creator pointless. It's not too big of a deal I suppose since your character doesn't speak a line of dialogue. It's a bit of a blessing given the sheer amount of dialogue and characters crammed into this mess. This brings me to this game's absolute downfall. What were the devs thinking here? In this 20-hour-long game I swear there is about 15 hours of talking heads with dialogue boxes and cutscenes featuring pilots sitting in black cockpits babbling on for an eternity. It never ends, they'll even repeat themselves multiple times in the same cutscene. They all talk so slowly too, like they all had lobotomies or something. The worst of it is that I'd be in the middle of a battle having fun and multiple times the gameplay would get cut off for more talking heads, completely ruining the flow. I wasn't expecting perfection with this game but it still disappointed me in the end.

 

[SpiceRacz]

7. The Last Guardian - Last Guardian has been on my radar for years. After finally playing through it, my feelings are mixed. It shares the same DNA of Ico and Shadow of The Colossus and that's both good and bad. You get the good - emotional storytelling, distinct atmosphere, beautiful environments and cinematography. But you also get the bad that comes along with their style of games. Commanding Trico can be inconsistent and you're fighting with the controls and camera a large part of the game. By the end, I wanted to throw my controller out the fucking window. The payoff with the ending is worth it though. Happy I played it. I loved the story, visuals, and characters. Would never do a replay.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Game 8

LEGO Bricktales
100% complete, all achievements

This kind of game is dangerous for someone like me. The game itself is probably closer to 15 hours long, but for me it was a 50-hour game and could have been longer. If a game lets me build stuff, I'm going to build something cool. No matter how simple the game's request, I overbuilt everything and I was going to go back and rebuild everything with the new bricks I unlocked before I stopped myself. The game itself can best be described as a puzzle adventure. There is zero combat in this game, just exploration, puzzles and the ability to build LEGO structures and vehicles. The puzzles are not exactly difficult, they mostly require finding hidden switches and items, but the puzzles were fun to complete. The exploration was great, everything in the game is made of LEGO, just like the movies and it all looks pretty good. There are multiple dimensions comprised of different biomes and matching LEGO set pieces. It's a fun little adventure traveling through dimensions helping your scientist grandpa rebuild an old amusement park before the mayor tears it down. The builder itself lets you build many things and is decently comprehensive, but it doesn't allow any special attachments, just stacking, which limits the things you can produce which is unfortunate. If you're looking for a comfy time killer, this is a great pick.

 

[SpiceRacz]

8. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (mGBA emulator) - This was a breeze and a perfect game for just shutting my brain off while drinking some beers and watching movies in the background. I might try 2 & 3 next. I played through the Virtual Boy game and Wario Land 4 years ago and thought those were excellent. Cheers!

 

[Skeptical]

Reserving a spot. Although after doing it for 2 years straight, I do not expect to continue my streak. And I am not going to stress out about it or plan my game time around it. I've put off too many long games already. So if I only hit 30 or whatever, so be it. But I'll still take the time to document my games here anyway.

 

[SpiceRacz]

9. Ridge Racer (PS5) - I have very little experience with this series, but I do remember this on PS1 back in the day. Playing it now, I don't think it's aged well. The drift mechanics are weird. On one hand, it feels really good to nail a drift on a turn, but on the other hand you can spin out if you don't do it correctly. This only bothers me because it feels like it's some mish mash of arcade physics and realism. The controls are oversensitive with the joystick and I played exclusively with the Dpad. The true remedy for this is to just play with the 3rd and 4th cars. They lack the maneuverability of the others and that that essentially translates to tighter, normal steering. If I'm comparing this to the other arcade racing games of the time, I don't think this holds a candle to Sega Rally or Daytona USA in terms of visuals, music, and controls. Still a nice racing game though.

 

[SpiceRacz]

10. Viewfinder (PS5) - Short and creative first person puzzle game that requires messing with perspectives and cameras. Among other things. There's some obvious Portal and Talos Principle inspiration here, but it's very much it's own thing. It's an easier game than both of those and I appreciated that. I don't always want to be banging my head against the wall trying to figure shit out. Especially coming off playing Blue Prince last month. There is a narrative here. You're being sent through some sort of ancient simulation in order to find a way to bring vegetation and plant life back on Earth. Didn't care and I found most of the dialogue to be distracting. If you have an itch for a first person puzzle game that isn't 15+ hours long, you should give this a shot. I think it took me all of 4 hours and it was a blast.

 

[marcincz]

Game 6 - The Invincible (PS5) - 07h 41m
Beat 14/01/2026 - my score: 8/10

Game 7 - Pillars of Eternity - dlc The White March part II (PS4) - 08h 47m
Beat 19/01/2026 - my score: 7/10

Game 8 - Bloodshore (PS5) - 01h 21m
Beat 22/01/2026 - my score: 5/10

Added another 3 games this month.
Invincible is nice walking sim.
Bloodshore is a battle royale FMV, but unfortunately very mediocre.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Played a couple games that are free on Steam. My experience with these free games has been largely positive. While most are very short, sometimes that's exactly what I'm looking for. Often times though, I'll find a game like Bloody Hell that unexpectedly devours an entire week of my free time.

Games 9-10

Ascent DX
100% Complete

This is a very short but very sweet Metroidvania title. You're a scientist that crash lands on another planet and has to try to find a way home. As you progress and pick up physical upgrades to access new areas your body changes and you start to question not only if you ever get home, but if you'll even be able to remain human. The whole thing is under an hour long, but it accomplishes what it needs to in that time. The music was great, really only one track running but it's a really good track so listening to it play for the duration of the game wasn't an issue. The visuals are unfortunately pixelshit. While it's remarkable that everything is actually conveyed at a 64x64 resolution, it just makes me think of how great it would look with more pixels. Sometimes pixels are too pixeled. There are way worse ways to spend an hour of your time.

Bloody Hell
Completed playthrough

This game caught me completely off-guard. It's a top-down twin stick shooter where you play as a pigeon sent by God to kill Satan. I was expecting this game to be one or two hours long, but this thing is full of secrets and a gradually ramping difficulty that requires you to constantly upgrade. I ended up dumping way too much time into this thing trying to 100% it but in the end, I pulled the ripcord. When you die you lose half of your money which is always a frustrating mechanic. Imagine if you worked your whole life stashing away money and when you die something just took half of it! Oh wait... You can't retrieve what you lost so grinding for an hour to raise money for a particularly worthwhile upgrade can get wiped out if you step into an arena and get overwhelmed which happens often. Things like health and weapon upgrades are multi-stage; you pick up a cursed heart to add to your life bar, but that heart doesn't work until you remove the curse. Similarly, weapon and ability upgrades come in vials that you sort in the menu on a grid, but you must activate blocks for the vials to actually work. The combat in the game is simple enough, one stick shoots, the other moves you. As you progress and the difficulty ramps up, enemies fire more and move quicker, eventually teleporting around constantly while spamming projectiles. Luckily your upgrades are very useful, allowing you to match the enemies as they ramp up throughout the game. The boss fights in this game are brutal fights that take time and patience to overcome.

 

[Pantz]

January Report:
Only 3 games finished. Damn! I'm really close to finishing the original Project Gotham Racing but some of the last races are really difficult to get golds.

Finished:
01/09 - Slay the Spire (PC/Steam)
Finished with The Defect. It's a really well balanced game that requires just a bit of luck. Very satisfying to finish it for the first time. I'll return to it in the future to complete it with other characters. Looking forward to trying the sequel.

01/25 - Secret Kiss is Sweet and Tender (Switch 2)
Pretty straight forward VN about teacher and student lesbians. Interesting that it's exclusive to Switch and GOG. I played it while walking to get exercise while playing. It's pretty easy to walk and read.

01/29 - Bishoujo Battle Cyber Panic! (Switch 2)
One of those $1 games you find on the eSHop. Simple gameplay of drawing a line to cutout and reveal the artwork and avoid getting hit while doing so. The artwork is relevant to my interests, anime girls x military equipment. I played this while walking too and it seems that I'm able to play simplistic games while walking too. I'm going to get a lot of exercise.

 

[SpiceRacz]

January Report:
Only 3 games finished. Damn! I'm really close to finishing the original Project Gotham Racing but some of the last races are really difficult to get golds.

Finished:
01/09 - Slay the Spire (PC/Steam)
Finished with The Defect. It's a really well balanced game that requires just a bit of luck. Very satisfying to finish it for the first time. I'll return to it in the future to complete it with other characters. Looking forward to trying the sequel.

01/25 - Secret Kiss is Sweet and Tender (Switch 2)
Pretty straight forward VN about teacher and student lesbians. Interesting that it's exclusive to Switch and GOG. I played it while walking to get exercise while playing. It's pretty easy to walk and read.

01/29 - Bishoujo Battle Cyber Panic! (Switch 2)
One of those $1 games you find on the eSHop. Simple gameplay of drawing a line to cutout and reveal the artwork and avoid getting hit while doing so. The artwork is relevant to my interests, anime girls x military equipment. I played this while walking too and it seems that I'm able to play simplistic games while walking too. I'm going to get a lot of exercise.

I wanted to include Slay the Spire to my list, but I never actually finished it. I probably put in 20 hours and still couldn't get over the hump at the end. Felt like there's an element of luck involved that just never swung my way. Great game though.

 

[marcincz]

Game 9 - Dave the Diver (NS) - 23h 45m
Beat 29/01/2026 - my score: 9/10

Last game of January.
Brilliant title, with incredible variety of mechanics.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Game 7

Daemon X Machina
Completed Playthrough
This game was a rough one for me and such a disappointment.

Massive disappointment for me too. Characters that looked straight out of Concord, nonsense story (you are basically a wildcard between many mercenaries groups so you never get affinity with any of them), boring battle mechanisms, upgrades that were hard to calculate, etc. I also hate the Mario64 style of returning to a hub after every mission, it feels more like many consecutive small stages (just like God Eater 3, Nights of Azure 2) than a huge campaign like Hogwarts Legacy. I was told Daemon x Machina 2 is somewhat different.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Gonna reserve this spot but have little aim to complete all 52 (since I primarily aim to platinum every game I play).

Somehow I managed it last year but I intend to scale back to somewhere in the 30s for 2026.

 

[Glass Prison]

January Update

Off to a great start in my opinion, I may have outdone myself with this one. I usually can't finish this many games in one month, mainly due to lack of time/exhaustion, but it never felt like 'too much' this time and I had a lot of fun in the process. Here are a few words on each of the games I played.

---

#1

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

10 Hours

Steam

January 1st

I'm currently playing the entire Splinter Cell franchise (won't include Splinter Cell 1 on this list since I beat it in December), but wow it's so good to be back to these games. I miss the simplicity, and how there was absolutely no bloat at all. The game is straight up to the point and concise, it doesn't waste your time with pointless things to do around a huge map, and also lets you think for yourself and find your own solutions.
Pandora Tomorrow was my favorite SC as a child and I have some fond memories of it. Replaying it did make me realise some of its shortcomings and problems, but overall PT is a good evolution of Splinter Cell 1 and added some much needed variety to the levels, while also improving many of the core mechanics introduced in the first game.

---

#2

BallisticNG

41 Hours

Steam

January 10th

This thing is Wipeout on crack. Superb game. Fast as hell, challenging, great variety of tracks and vehicles. If you want to scratch that PS1/N64 Wipeout itch this game is definitely the way to go, and I think I would rather recommend it over the remasters of Wipeout on PS4. It comes with a built-in track creator that you can do almost anything you want, for fucks sake. This game is awesome and deserves more praise.

---

#3

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

26 Hours

Steam

January 12th

I don't remember why, but I skipped this game back when it was released, maybe I was already eyeing the next gen consoles and this went over my head, I don't know, but Chaos Theory is awesome, and in my opinion the perfect Splinter Cell game. Level design stands out and is really well done with more freedom of choice and approach.
Sam's movements are incredibly precise and fluid. They fixed that clunkiness feeling of the first two games, so hiding in the shadows and picking off the enemies makes you feel like a lynx pouncing on its prey.

---

#4

Onimusha: Warlords

6 Hours

Steam

January 17th

Onimusha Way of the Sword is one of my most anticipated games this year, so I decided to play the first three games before its release. First of all I was really surprised how short Warlords is - not considering the deaths, and the times I left the game open while doing something else (I have this bad habit), I think my save file had a little bit over 3 hours. Not complaining, though, the game is still awesome and highly replayable.
It was a bit difficult trying to figure out the controls, especially how to pull-off the Issen move, but once I got the hang of it it's so satisfying. I really enjoy the fact that the game rewards a more precise combat, waiting for the enemies mover first rather than button mashing all the time.
Puzzles are also fun and reminded me of old school Resident Evil. Well it is Capcom after all. The story is wacky but I was expecting it already, I had some experience with Onimusha 3 on the PS2 lol.

---

#5

Ace Combat 7: Skies Uknown

11 Hours

Steam

January 18th

This game, hell dude. I used to play Ace Combat 2 on the PS1 with my cousin back when we were kids. I don't know how to explain, but AC7 is just like I remember AC2 being, while playing as a kid. It's so fucking good. The perfect arcade game and exactly what I was hoping it to be. I just finished the campaign for now, but I want to hop back for the DLC soon. Ace Combat 8 can't come soon enough.

---

#6

Splinter Cell: Double Agent

16 Hours

Steam

January 25th

Splinter Cell Double Agent on Steam is NOT the game I remember playing on the 360 LOL. This port is a glitchy mess, crashes all the time, enemies see you through walls sometimes, Sam gets stuck in the meshes… it's just terrible. My first bad game of the year, and I had really good memories of it when I played it back when it was released. Was it always this bad and I never noticed?
I plan on playing the PS2 version which was developed by Ubisoft Montreal. I think this is the definitive version of the game, and it's a completely different game than this one.

---

#7

The Exit 8

2 Hours

PS5

January 27th​

I wasn't planning on playing this game, just downloaded it through PS+ to give it a test and ended up finishing it. Also I debated myself if I would include it in this list or not, but damnit it's a paid game and I need as many games as I can get to finish this challenge, so it's in lol.
Kidding aside, Exit 8 is a lot better than I expected. It's short, sure, but effective. I think the fact that I started out looking for minuscule changes in the scene made my skin crawl whenever I got a really obvious change.

---

#8

Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny

10 Hours

Steam

January 31st​

I don't know how I feel about Samurai's Destiny to be honest. On one hand, it's just like Warlords with new weapons, characters, story, and puzzles. On the other hand, it has so many unnecessary things like giving presents to your allies so they help you in battles, and depending on your choices you get different endings and cutscenes. I mean, ok, nothing wrong with that if it was an RPG or something, but do I really want to replay it all over again and collect gifts just to watch Jubei being blue-balled by Oyu? Not really.
I think the game is great when it's being Onimusha and not trying to be something else. Aside from the last boss which is just stupid - constantly spamming attacks while being out of reach… 2nd phase is even more stupid with that proto-bullet hell section. I don't know. Warlords is a lot better.