Ever since I first started streaming, I have done casual replays of some favorite RPGs or new games as they are released as a break from speedrun content.  However, I only started highlighting my casual playthroughs starting in December 2016, so several of my past playthroughs are lost to the void.  These casual runs are listed chronologically from oldest to newest for historical purposes.

Game Lagoon low% and TAS replay
Platform SNES
Start Date October 3, 2016
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 475-sub incentive. One playthrough of Lagoon under low% conditions: cannot collect any item that is not strictly required to beat the game.  This means no armor, no healing items, and only 3 total swords.  This would be followed by a replay of OmnipotentEntity’s old TAS with commentary.
Links SMG1
Game 7th Saga Lejes solo run salty runback
Platform SNES
Start Date October 5, 2016
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 500-sub incentive. The Lejes solo playthrough during my Week of 7th Saga in early 2016 did not actually finish due to atrocious luck. This run is a rematch on the same save file on the same cartridge, and with the same filename.
Links Part 1
Game Secret of Evermore (100%)
Platform SNES
Start Date October 13, 2016
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 525-sub incentive. Secret of Evermore is an excellent game that I haven’t played in ages. This is an incentive for a casual 100% playthrough. Unfortunately, the VOD for the 2nd half of this playthrough was lost and cannot be recovered.
Links SoE
Game Terranigma
Platform SNES (PAL)
Start Date October 28, 2016
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 550-sub incentive. I have an Australian copy of Terranigma (PAL, english) and a PAL SNES. This playthrough just played through the entire game with no particular restrictions. Just playing to enjoy it!
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (120 & 242 stars)
Platform Nintendo Wii
Start Date December 13, 2016
Status Complete!
Details I loved the Galaxy games when I first played them, but I never actually managed to 100% SMG2.  I decided to dedicate one weekend to replaying the Galaxy games, collecting all 120 stars in Galaxy 1 again, and collecting all 242 stars in Galaxy 2 for the first time.  The two playthroughs were done in one sitting each on consecutive days.
Links SMG1 SMG2
Game Lufia 2
Platform SNES
Start Date December 16, 2016
Status Complete!
Details Lufia 2 is a classic SNES RPG that I never played before. In fact, I had never played any Lufia game before. This was an exceptionally fun playthrough! I collected and fully upgraded all the capsule monsters, but didn’t open every chest or do Ancient Cave. Sadly, Twitch lost the final part of this playthrough, which included The World’s Hardest Puzzle.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Final Fantasy VI (US)
Platform SNES
Start Date February 4, 2017
Status Complete!
Details FF6 US (or FF3 SNES, whatever) is a childhood favorite of mine.  I hadn’t played through this since I was a kid, so I felt it was time to revisit it.  This playthrough was as close to 100% as I cared to get.  I got every Esper and character, all Lores, Dances, Blitzes, SwdTechs, and side-quests, and I think I got every piece of equipment.  I also stole Shadow’s dog.  I was hoping to get all Rages but missed a few extra rare enemies in the WoB so I gave up.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Final Fantasy X HD remaster
Platform Steam
Start Date April 4, 2017
Status Complete!
Details The last Final Fantasy game I played as a kid was FFIX, and I didn’t finish that one.  I didn’t get a PS2 until 2013 and was told that I wouldn’t like FFX so I never bothered checking it.  After this playthrough, I really regret not playing it sooner!  I had a blast with this game.  I did not 100% this; I caught 10 of every monster, fought some of the superbosses, and got all the blue magic for Kitty Boo-boo.  I missed a lot of stuff but didn’t want to use a guide.  Haha.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Game Breath of Fire III (100%)
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date May 24, 2017
Status Complete!
Details BoF3 is one of my favorite RPGs of all time.  My last playthrough in 2013 was streamed but not highlighted, so I decided to play through again and true 100% it (all items, all skills/masters, max fishing score).  I also decided to use a caster build for Ryu, tank Peco, and physical attacker Momo.  It was a really fun playthrough!  I separated the main game from the post-game content in these tables.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Game Alwa’s Awakening
Platform Steam
Start Date March 24, 2017
Status Complete!
Details Alwa’s Awakening is a super good platformer released in early 2017.  The controls are really tight and there quite a few different movement tricks available for creative exploration.  This was a very rewarding game to 100%.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Donkey Kong 64 (101%)
Platform N64
Start Date March 31, 2017
Status Complete!
Details DK64 is without a doubt my favorite N64 game.  In 2017, I decided to make this my birthday stream special!  This playthrough was my 3rd time getting 101%, and it was as fun as always, with the exception of Beaver Bother…
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Wario World (100%)
Platform Gamecube (played on Wii)
Start Date March 17, 2017
Status Complete!
Details I had Wario World as a kid and was amused by it, but never finished it.  It feels really good!  The controls are super responsive and you have so many movement tools.  It’s a really great game!  This playthrough managed to collect everything, but not without some extreme difficulty and frustration in the final world.
Links Part 1
Game Snake Pass (100%)
Platform XBone
Start Date July 14, 2017
Status Complete!
Details Snake Pass is easily my favorite non-Odyssey game from 2017.  Absolutely beautiful game and a really innovative concept.  David Wise soundtrack certainly doesn’t hurt, either.  Definitely a consideration for a future speedrun.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game SaGa Frontier (T-260G campaign)
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date July 29, 2017
Status Complete!
Details I’ve never played any SaGa game, but this was highly recommended and I was sent a copy with the guide.  After a bit of a rocky start not understanding how the game worked or where to go, I very rapidly grew to love this game!  I had no particular goals for this playthrough besides to finish with T-260G.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6
Game Breath of Fire III postgame
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date June 15, 2017
Status In progress, technically
Details Since the grind for rare items would likely have given me 20+ extra levels, I decided to finish the game when I got there and then continue afterwards to grind for items and fish.  These videos contain all of the postgame content.  I still have to catch a max-size barandy, whale, and manillo, but I gave up after catching 370 barandies without finding a single one that was 200cm.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game Landstalker
Platform Genesis
Start Date August 15, 2017
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 600-sub incentive. Landstalker is an isometric action RPG for the Sega Genesis. This was a very frequently requested game for me to play, not only because it is isometric, but also because it is apparently awesome. They were apparently wrong. This was not enjoyable.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Lagoon (Sharp X68000)
Platform Sharp X68000, emulator
Start Date August 25, 2017
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 625-sub incentive. Lagoon was originally released for a Japan-exclusive PC engine called the Sharp X68000. I’d never played it before, but it is likely the most common request I receive.  This was quite a fun playthrough!
Links Part 1
Game Super Mario Sunshine (“120”-shine)
Platform Gamecube
Start Date August 29, 2017
Status Complete…?
Details This was my original 650-sub incentive. I played Sunshine as a kid and neither got every shine nor completed it. I got too angry at it and stopped playing. I thought I’d like to finally play through it and get all 120 shines. Unfortunately, this playthrough was also cut short near the very end. I think this got 86 shines and 220 blue coins before I gave up.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Final Fantasy VIII (100%)
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date September 5, 2017
Status Complete!
Details Contrary to most people, I absolutely adore FFVIII.  I was overdue for a replay of this.  As usual, this is a 100% playthrough (all cards, final weapon upgrade, all GFs, all GF abilities learned, level 100, all limit breaks, Omega Weapon defeated).  Zell is a menace.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13
Game SaGa Frontier (Red campaign)
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date August 21, 2017
Status Complete!
Details Since T-260G was so much fun and there are 6 other campaigns, I decided to try Red!  This was a lot more structured than T-260G’s, and also gave me a chance to experiment with some other weapon and magic types.  Really great fun!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6
Game Alundra (100%)
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date October 10, 2017
Status Complete!
Details I grew up with Alundra 2, but never played the original before!  This was easily the single greatest PS1 game I never played.  What an outstanding piece of work!  Beautiful presentation, graphically and musically, excellent controls, and a unique plot to follow.  I managed to collect all items, upgrades, and gilded falcons without using a guide on my first pass through (with the exception of Legend Sword, which is nonsense).  Loved every minute, including the casino.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
Game Super Mario Odyssey (100%)
Platform Nintendo Switch
Start Date October 24, 2017
Status Complete!
Details I literally cannot say enough good things about this game.  Absolutely outstanding in every way.  My final video leaves off with one missing moon which I later collected off-stream.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game Final Fantasy IX (100%)
Platform PS1 (played on slim PS2)
Start Date November 16, 2017
Status Complete!
Details When I was younger, I played this to disc 3.  I let my friend borrow my copy for a short while, and while he had it, his dog Zeke ate disc 3.  I never got a replacement copy until recently.  For this playthrough, my goal was to get every piece of equipment and learn every ability (including blue magic), and fight all the super bosses.  I had no interest in attempting to get every card.  Besides a really annoying start and some irritating things here and there, this was a lot of fun.  The best part of this game is easily Chocobo Hot & Cold, followed by Quina’s dialogue.  Part 15 link no longer works because Twitch lost the VOD.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Game Castlevania: Circle of the Moon “all modes”
Platform GBA
Start Date January 21, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 725-sub incentive. I played through all modes of CotM (Vampire Killer, Magician, Fighter, Shooter, Thief). Vampire Killer mode was a 100% playthrough (all items, all collectibles, all DSS cards) without using glitches. The other modes are anything-goes!
Links Twitch link Twitch link Twitch link Twitch link
Game Final Fantasy 1 (NES) viewers’ choice
Platform NES
Start Date February 1, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 750-sub incentive. Chat picks the party! Chat also had minor control over the progression of the game (which items to purchase, equipment to use, magic to purchase). Final party was BORD (thief), SORD (red mage), FIST (white mage), and FOOT (black belt).
Links Twitch link Twitch link
Game Elnard triple playthrough (JP 7th Saga)
Platform SNES
Start Date February 24, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 700-sub incentive. The JP version of 7th Saga has significantly better stat growth, allowing for a significantly more fluid playthrough. To most clearly illustrate the contrast, I did a run with the worst character (Kamil), then the best magic user (Esuna), and finally the most supreme character in the cast (Wilme). All three runs were done in one sitting.
Links Part 1
Game Secret of Mana remake
Platform Steam
Start Date February 15, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This is a playthrough of the HD remake of Secret of Mana on Steam.  This was close to a 100% playthrough; I got every weapon orb and maxed out every weapon with the boy, and every mana spirit for both the girl and the sprite.  I got many of the rare equipment drops, but not all.  I had played this game to death as a kid and loved every minute, so I was pretty curious about this remake.  Overall it was a lot of fun!  It gets a lot of hate from a lot of people but I had a blast.  It made a lot of really noteworthy quality-of-life improvements over the SNES version, but some things are not quite as good.  It also crashes quite a lot.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game Alundra 2 (almost-100%)
Platform PS1 (played on PS2)
Start Date March 8, 2018
Status Complete…?
Details I played Alundra 2 as a kid and loved it but never finished it.  I felt I was overdue for a revisit.  My goal with this playthrough was to get all puzzle pieces and all equipment, but I did not get the final pieces of equipment that required playing an excessive amount of darts or casino games.  I may return to get these in the future. Overall this was a very conflicting playthrough; this has excellent puzzles and really amusing cutscenes, but the combat is horrible.  The boss fights and forced combat really hurt what was otherwise a fun playthrough.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6
Game Shantae GBC (100%)
Platform 3DS Virtual Console
Start Date March 31, 2018
Status Complete!
Details For this year’s birthday special, I decided to play through all 4 Shantae games finally!  I had never played any of these before so this was a fun endeavor.  The original Game Boy Color version of Shantae was immensely fun, and I do not regret a single minute of playing this.  Absolute masterpiece for this platform.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Shantae: Risky’s Revenge (100%)
Platform Steam
Start Date April 3, 2018
Status Complete!
Details Risky’s Revenge is by far the weakest of the Shantae series.  It is still a pretty game overall, but lacks the polish and depth of the other games.  As this was originally planned to be part one of a trilogy, I can forgive the scope of the game, but it simply did not feel as tight as the others.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (100%)
Platform Steam
Start Date April 7, 2018
Status Complete!
Details Really excellent game!  This is widely regarded as the best Shantae game, and I can definitely see why.  The controls feel much better than the previous two games, but it lacks any of the transformations that make Shantae a unique series.  In my mind, this is an exceptional platformer, but not a great Shantae game.  It felt really good and the upgrades were nice, but the transformations are what make Shantae such a unique and interesting experience.  Still absolutely worth playing.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (100% story mode and officer mode)
Platform Steam
Start Date April 10, 2018
Status In progress.
Details This is by far the most impressive Shantae entry.  This game has everything: beautifully improved aesthetic, fantastic and responsive controls, a large variety of transformations (new and old), a good variety of collectibles and clear collectible tracking, and many additional modes to try after completing story mode.  I have almost no complaints about this.  It is an absolute slam-dunk.  I played through and 100%’d the main story mode and officer mode, and plan to try the others in the future.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Kirby: Planet Robobot
Platform 3DS
Start Date March 19, 2018
Status In progress.
Details What a fun game!  Holy smokes.  I had an absolute riot playing through this.  So far I have 100%’d the main story mode and played none of the additional modes, and I am also missing several plain puzzle pieces.  The new powers in this game are really fun and feel very different, and the robots are a super unique addition to the game.  I was worried that the robots would trivialize the game too much, but they felt great.  Everything flowed really well!  I’ll definitely be returning to 100% this.  I am unsure if I’ll stream the rest or not, so this is tentatively “in progress”.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Kirby Star Allies (100% co-op with romscout)
Platform Nintendo Switch
Start Date April 19, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was played co-op with romscoutTwitch linkTwitter link for the entire game, including bonus games.  I don’t think this would be nearly as fun single-player as it was co-op, but we had a blast!  The new powers were hilarious and worked really well, and the returning powers were given a fresh new purpose in the form of combination attacks.  I was very impressed by this!  There were a lot of complaints about the scope of the game, but it honestly didn’t feel as short as people were claiming.  It had pretty much exactly as much content as I was expecting for a Kirby game.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Earthbound
Platform SNES
Start Date May 11, 2018
Status Complete!
Details I grew up with Earthbound and somehow managed to finish it when I was younger.  However, it had been probably 15 years since I last played it and I never did manage to get the Sword of Kings or Gaia Beam back then.  This playthrough had several purposes: get those items because I always wanted them; serve as a substitute for Tales of Vesperia; take some time to enjoy myself because I was getting really mad at Bionic Commando attempts.  This was a resounding success.  I had an absolute blast playing through this game again!  I loved every minute of it, including the rough difficulty spikes.  I do not regret this at all.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Yooka-Laylee (“Max%” flightless)
Platform Xbox One
Start Date May 25, 2018
Status Complete!
Details I really enjoyed my first playthrough of Yooka-Laylee last year and was craving another go at it lately.  My first playthrough was a bit soured by the fact that the “flight” powerup existed, though; I felt that such a powerup really cheapened the design of the levels and the fun of revisiting the expanded worlds.  For this playthrough, therefore, I decided that I would collect everything that I could without ever learning “flight”.  The final level presented a substantial problem, but with some creativity and lot of stubbornness, I was able to overcome most of the obstacles.  In all, I collected all but 6 pagies, 16 quills, and 1 mollycool.  Very fun playthrough!  Worth noting that this series of videos omits the final boss fight; while it is possible to beat him without flight, I simply stopped having fun and didn’t feel the need to finish.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (all modes/endings)
Platform Nintendo Switch
Start Date June 3, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This is easily the best new retro-style game I’ve played recently.  I would put this above Shovel Knight, even.  They totally nailed the feel and design of the old Castlevania games.  I played through this game 6 consecutive times, playing through every mode and seeing every ending.  I will definitely be playing this more in the future, and recommend it to anybody who is into these types of games.
Links Part 1
Game Legend of Mana
Platform PS1 (on PSTV)
Start Date June 4, 2018
Status Complete!
Details I had a chance to buy this at one point when I was younger and never did.  I’ve regretted it ever since, and always wanted to give it a shot.  Thankfully, it won Super Baseball Simulator Tournament #10 and I had an excuse to play it!  For this first playthrough, I played without any hints, guides, or intentions of completing all the quests or getting all the skills.  I just played to enjoy the experience.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Legend of Mana (all quests/abilities)
Platform PS1 (PSTV)
Start Date June 13, 2018
Status Temporarily shelved
Details I LOVED my first playthrough of Legend of Mana, and immediately wanted to see what else the game had to offer.  I am following a map/events guide for this playthrough so I won’t get locked out of any quests, and I am unlocking every ability with every weapon to experience more of the combat system.  This game is a gem. Unfortunately, I lost steam in this particular playthrough due to having to follow a guide every step of the way. I am 39 quests in and plan to finish eventually, but I am taking a break from it for now.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Banjo-Kazooie (100%)
Platform 360 (Rare Replay on Xbone)
Start Date July 4, 2018
Status Complete!
Details I wanted to play Nuts & Bolts again, but I needed to make a new account to do so; this reset the progress on my Stop ‘n Swop items, which meant I couldn’t use Googly Eyes.  That is obviously unacceptable, so I decided to do a quick 100% playthrough to unlock them on my new account.
Links Part 1
Game Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts “alphabet challenge”
Platform 360 (Rare Replay on Xbone)
Start Date July 5, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This game is super fun and I really wanted to play through story mode again, especially since my first playthrough wasn’t archived.  To spice things up, this playthrough was using one additional restriction: every vehicle I made must look like a letter of the alphabet.  Letters were randomly selected by my bot, and orientation of the letter was decided based on the challenge.  I did manage to 100% this playthrough as well, for my first time in this game!  I was not expecting this challenge playthrough to be as fun as it was, so I was pleasantly surprised!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
Game Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow “all souls”
Platform DS (via 3DS)
Start Date July 15, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 800-sub incentive. Dawn of Sorrow is a really fun game, but I never finished it before.  I previously made it to Puppet Master but couldn’t kill him because my old DS was unable to register the seal properly.  This playthrough gets 100% souls and 100% map, and sees every ending.  I really enjoyed playing this, but I liked Portrait of Ruin much better.  Needles MVP.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Shift Happens (100%) co-op with Murphagator
Platform Steam
Start Date July 22, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This game looked pretty neat when I saw it before, but I never played it or saw much in recent years.  Thankfully I was able to trick Murph into playing it with me.  This is actually a remarkably fun game!  The puzzles are interesting and the level design is really good.  The netcode is just a bit unstable, which makes things difficult to handle sometimes.  Really big fan of this, regardless.
Links Part 1
Game Quest 64 (fire-wind playthrough)
Platform N64
Start Date July 26, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 825-sub incentive. I love Quest 64! I hadn’t played it since I was a kid, and really got the itch to play it again. This playthrough maxes fire first, then wind, and all remaining points go into earth.  I am basically playing through without using the two most important skills in the game: magic barrier and healing.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Final Fantasy VII (100%)
Platform PS1
Start Date August 22, 2018
Status Complete!
Details It had been an extremely long time since I’ve played FF7 and I really got the itch to play it as a break from other things. This playthrough got and used every limit break, collected all materia and made one set of master materia, mastered all 4 enemy skill materia, and got one of every piece of equipment. I also killed Emerald and Ruby Weapon. This was a super fun playthrough and I’m really glad I took some time to play it again.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Game Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls
Platform N64
Start Date September 17, 2018
Status Shelved
Details This was my original 850-sub incentive. This is a surprisingly good game! I really enjoyed playing this, though the video may not show it. Very unique concept and good execution.
I will almost definitely finish this, but likely off-stream.
Links Part 1
Game Paper Mario 64
Platform N64
Start Date September 10, 2018
Status Complete!
Details This was my original 875-sub incentive. I’d rented Paper Mario 64 when I was younger but never finished. I really enjoyed playing through this finally! This is a tremendous entry in the Mario RPGs series; I enjoyed this significantly more than Paper Mario TTYD. I abandoned the plan to collect all badges/star pieces in the final segment when I realized how many quizzes I’d have to take.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Final Fantasy XII (Zodiac Age)
Platform Steam
Start Date October 26, 2018
Status In progress
Details I have never played FFXII before but the game mechanics looked intriguing to me so I’m giving it a shot.  My main lineup is Fran (party leader, Foebreaker/Shikari), Balthier (Monk/Time Battlemage), and Basch (Red Battlemage/Archer).  I was really enjoying this until the very end.  I’ve done 44 of the hunts and collected 11 espers, but Zodiark just completely murdered my motivation to continue.  “Immune to damage” is not a fun gimmick and it seems to be the only one they know.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13
Game Banjo-Tooie (100%)
Platform Xbone (Rare Replay)
Start Date November 28, 2018
Status Complete!
Details Banjo-Tooie is one of my favorite N64 games, and I like to do a 100% playthrough every few years. I needed to reset my sleep schedule for the upcoming Twitch Rivals event and it had been a few years since my last BT playthrough, so it seemed like a perfect fit. Done in one sitting, with a brief interrupt due to internet issues.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Valkyria Chronicles
Platform Steam
Start Date January 23, 2019
Status Complete!
Details This was the winner of Baseball Tournament #11, and so we’ve begun a playthrough.  This is a super cool game with a lot of really interesting mechanics and concepts, but there are some extraordinarily bad/long missions, as to be expected with most SRPGs.  Overall I really enjoyed playing through this.  I don’t think I’ve ever had such a hot & cold experience with an RPG, though.  The highs were really great, and the lows were unbearable.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game World of Final Fantasy Maxima (100%)
Platform Nintendo Switch
Start Date January 31, 2019
Status Complete!
Details Valkyria Chronicles finished much quicker than anticipated and I didn’t want to run a baseball tournament so soon after the most recent one, so I decided to finally play through this in the meantime.  I knew nothing about this except that it is super adorable, but the mechanics are also really fun!  This was a very enjoyable playthrough, and I was shocked by how good it was.  So many options for builds and monsters, and all of them seem viable!  Also, the monsters are really cute.  Ended up completing all optional content and catching every mirage.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12Part 13 Part 14
Game Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts “Katamari challenge”
Platform 360 (Rare Replay on Xbone)
Start Date March 11, 2019
Status Complete!
Details I really like this game and the possibilities it offers for really dumb challenges. The theme of this one is simple: I have to use one single, ever-growing vehicle for every challenge that I play. Every time I use this vehicle in a challenge, I had to add 5 pieces to the previous version of the vehicle, and cannot edit it in any other way. I’ll likely make a page for this in the Nuts & Bolts page in the future.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Mega Man: The Wily Wars (MM1-3 + Wily Tower)
Platform Sega Genesis
Start Date March 18, 2019
Status Complete!
Details Wily Wars is a brilliant concept with incredibly poor execution. This is a collection of the first 3 classic Mega Man games, plus a bonus mode with original levels and the ability to bring any weapon from the first three games with you. I love the concept of this game but it is pretty lacking. This playthrough included all three games plus Wily Tower in one sitting, with viewers picking which weapons I took with me to Wily Tower.
Links Part 1
Game Final Fantasy Legend III
Platform Gameboy (via Super Gameboy 2 on SNES)
Start Date March 18, 2019
Status In progress
Details This was the winner of baseball tournament #12. This is a really neat game, and will continue to be even more fun as I understand the mechanics more. I really like a lot of things this was trying.
Links Part 1
Game Yoshi’s Crafted World (100%)
Platform Nintendo Switch
Start Date April 4, 2019
Status Complete!
Details Super adorable game with really great controls and super interesting levels. I really loved playing this and trying to get all the costumes and crafts (requiring all flowers). I am very impressed by the level design and variation in this; of the 43 levels, there’s really only one that I think is actually bad. Looking forward to playing this co-op sometime!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Final Fantasy 2 US (All summons)
Platform SNES
Start Date June 17, 2019
Status Complete!
Details I’m playing on the US SNES version for this playthrough, the original copy I had as a kid.  I never got all the enemy summon drops in this when I was younger, but always wanted them.  My goal with this playthrough is to collect those (Imp, Mage, and Bomb) and the Pink Tail, and defeat all bosses and whatnot.  The main point of interest is the summon drops.  I did finally succeed in getting the three summon drops I needed, after around 25 hours of farming for them!  My plan moving forward is to slowly do pieces of the Pink Tail grind and separate that into its own post-game section here.  This playthrough killed the final boss and is “concluded”.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game 6-year sub anniversary: All mainline Mega Man (first X7 and X8)
Platform NES, SNES, Switch
Start Date September 4, 2019
Status Complete!
Details For my 6-year subscriber anniversary, I decided to play through all the Mega Man games, roughly in order. This included some challenge runs of the mainline games, and ended with my first ever playthroughs of Mega Man X7 and X8.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (100%)
Platform Steam
Start Date August 18, 2019
Status Complete!
Details I figured Bloodstained had received enough stability patches for me to finally play it, and I am not disappointed!
This game is outstanding; great controls, really good equipment balance (and incentives to use the less-optimal weapons of each class), interesting and useful shards/abilities, and a very nice aesthetic. Some of the plot triggers are incredibly obtuse, but I really love it overall! The first 5 parts are my 100% playthrough of normal difficulty. I will eventually replay on hard and nightmare NG+ and max grade on all souls.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (NG+)
Platform Steam
Start Date September 13, 2019
Status Complete!
Details Bloodstained is amazing.  This is the Hard mode playthrough, limiting my weapons to only guns and shards.  I actually had a lot more fun with guns than I was expecting!  They can be pretty interesting, especially with Buer.  I decided to max out my shard grade/rank and character/Buer levels in this playthrough, and get all boss medals.  In the future I’ll do the other 7 playthroughs to max the boss shard grade, but that might be done offline.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Bahamut Lagoon
Platform SNES
Start Date October 7, 2019
Status Complete!
Details I played this as a kid but stopped about halfway through because it got too tedious and slow. I happened to be looking for a tedious and slow game, so I decided to try it again! It is a really fun game with a wonderful aesthetic and music, but has horrendous design and pacing (all the elements are useless, most equipment upgrades are pointless, dragons are way too strong, etc).  Overall, I really enjoyed playing through this and I’m glad I did!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Mega Man Battle Network 2 (100%/4-stars)
Platform GBA
Start Date September 27, 2019
Status Complete!
Details I played MMBN1 as a kid and really enjoyed the mechanics, but it turned into an insufferable slog with terrible boss design and encounter balance. I heard good things about the others, and that they learned from the mistakes of MMBN1, so I decided to give 2 a chance.  It improved on the already-great mechanics and has a nice new variety of useful chips, but it still has excruciatingly poor plot triggers and terrible boss design.  Overall, I had a blast with this game and I’m very glad I played it.  After adjusting to the terrible boss balance and plot sequences, it was a great experience!  I decided to collect all chips, S-rank all bosses, and discover all Program Advances and don’t regret it.  Post-game content begins in part 7.
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Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Game Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue (100%/7-stars)
Platform GBA
Start Date November 14, 2019
Status Complete!
Details I really enjoyed my playthrough of MMBN2, so I decided to give this one a whirl!  It was pretty fun, though it really just feels like a worse BN2 in most places.  Some of the chip variety is better, but it really feels lacking in most other places.  The V3 Navi fights are more awkward to find and have half the drop chance of BN2, which really sucks.  The style system feels more cumbersome, though gives more depth to the NaviCust system, which admittedly is often burdened by forced use of programs for plot purposes.  Overall pretty fun but I’m very disappointed in a lot of their decisions. Post-game content begins in part 10.
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Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Chariot (100%, co-op with Mecha Richter)
Platform Steam
Start Date November 25, 2019
Status Completed!
Details Mecha and I played this at PAX East in 2015 and loved it, but it doesn’t have online co-op so we never got to play it again.  Since Steam rolled out the remote play feature, we decided to give it a whirl and unleash hell.  We managed to clear every stage with 100% map completion, all blueprints, and all skulls (including the secret stage).  We did not do the speedrun challenges do we’re missing some completion percentage from those, but I imagine we’ll do those in the future.
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Part 6
Game Chrono Cross
Platform PS1 (via PSTV)
Start Date December 6, 2019
Status Completed!
Details I started this game twice when I was younger and both times either got lost or bored. I’ve always wanted to get back to it, but was unsure if I’d like it as an adult. As it turns out, it is even more enjoyable now! CC has excellent pacing for a PS1-era RPG, and although the plot is mostly rubbish and impossible to follow, the gameplay and battle mechanics are outstanding. There are tons of characters and it is easy to get distracted by them all, but it also gives us a lot of different options for ways to build the party. I loved this playthrough.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6
Game Mega Man X6 “Reverse Pacifist”
Platform Switch (via MMX Legacy Collection 2)
Start Date December 29, 2019
Status Complete!
Details The goal of this playthrough is to kill as many reploids as possible and then finish the game. They need to be infected by a nightmare before they are able to be killed and only some nightmares are actually able to infect reploids, so this has some really tricky escort quests to bring a nightmare to the reploids. Since reploids are what unlock parts, I am not allowed to use any of those in this playthrough. With current knowledge, I believe I can kill 103 reploids (25 reploids will be left uninfected), and will be missing one E-tank, one heart tank, and one shadow armor piece (all in Heatnix stage). Detailed breakdown.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon (100%)
Platform GBA
Start Date January 18, 2020
Status Complete!
Details I am pleasantly surprised by this game! This got nothing but negative remarks during the playthroughs of 2 and 3, but I wanted to give it a shot anyways. This might actually be my favorite entry in the series so far! Besides the final boss, I think I prefer everything in this to MMBN3: more fun chips, better counter system, better style system, more useful NaviCust, maps are easier to navigate and plot triggers are more clear, Navi fights are more interesting, etc. The damage balance in this is really weak, though; the enemies (normal and Navis) have enormous health pools and the chips and PAs are not nearly as strong in this.  Loop 2 begins in part 5, loop 3 begins in part 9, “post-game” content is entirely in part 13.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13
Game Final Fantasy Tactics
Platform PS1
Start Date January 28, 2020
Status Aborted
Details I did not particularly enjoy this as a kid, but thought maybe my tastes had changed since then.  I was wrong.  This game has no balance at all.  You either abuse OP builds to win battles instantly, powerlevel like crazy so storyline battles are half your level, or lose the battles instantly.  In close to half of the storyline battles in just the first two chapters, the enemy is able to first-turn kill my healer.  Zodiac signs are randomized so sometimes you do no damage to enemy units and get murdered on a reload of the same battle.  It is pointlessly tedious, lacks any semblance of balance, and is slow as hell.  Not enjoyable for me to play.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Valkyria Chronicles 4
Platform Switch
Start Date January 29, 2020
Status In progress
Details VC1 was super hot & cold for me. The good parts were amazing and the bad parts were excruciating. I was told that VC4 is basically more of the same, except the bad parts are far less bad and there are some additional QoL improvements. I’m hoping they’re right!
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Platform DS
Start Date March 2, 2020
Status Complete!
Details This was the last DSvania I hadn’t played, and I was really looking forward to it.  I was super into a lot of the changes they made, loved the village, and enjoyed the way they presented the map system.  However, the maps themselves were incredibly repetitive and stale, enemy AI lacked variety, bosses were horrendous, and the item collection was tedious and random.  This is the only Castlevania game I’ve never had any desire to try to 100%.
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Game Borderlands 1 “Brick only, melee only” co-op with Murphagator
Platform Steam (remastered GOTY edition)
Start Date February 1, 2020
Status Complete, somehow!
Details Awhile ago, Murphagator Twitch link Twitter link and I had a terrible idea to try to clear Borderlands 1 co-op with both of using Brick and only melee attack and action skill.  We expected to make it maybe an hour before it got too tedious, but it actually ended up working really well and we cleared the entire game and all quests!  This is unironically the most fun I’ve had playing BL1.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Platform Nintendo Switch
Start Date March 23, 2020
Status Ongoing
Details I had never played an Animal Crossing game before, but really felt like it was what I needed now. I was right. It is a really fun and relaxing game where I can be stupid with friends. This will be ongoing here and there, and progress is likely going to be sporadic and slow. Aside from the rapid development in the first few sessions, I mostly just check up on flowers and move stuff around.
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Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20
Game Breath of Fire 1
Platform SNES
Start Date April 20, 2020
Status Complete!
Details I loved BoF1 as a kid, and have been itching to play through it again for a long while. It was a participant in the Baseball Simulator Tournaments for awhile and never was even close to winning. I decided that I was tired of waiting and just started it on my own. I wanted to try to use Ox as much as possible, and this game gives us a lot more power than I remembered, so I decided to do this playthrough without using Karn’s fusions.  I really had a great time with this, and was not expecting to!  It holds up much better than I remembered.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Mystic Ark
Platform SNES
Start Date July 3, 2020
Status Complete!
This is a spiritual successor to 7th Saga, my favorite RPG.  I have played this to completion twice before but I got the itch to play again, so here we are.  As there are 6 partners to choose from as you play, and you can use 2 of them at a time, I used the two partners that I neglected in my other playthroughs: Kamiwoo the ogre and Miriene the witch.  I managed to use only these two partners for the entire playthrough (except when one of them was dead), instead of needing to use the healer for the later portions of the game as before.  The burden of damage/healing/support shifted between all three party members as the game progressed this time, which was an interesting dynamic!  I also used the monster arena to get a really good shield for Miriene, which I’ve never toyed around with before.  Very fun playthrough, and outstanding game.
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Part 6
Game Illusion of Gaia (100%)
Platform SNES
Start Date July 13, 2020
Status Complete!
Details Illusion of Gaia is a masterpiece and I really enjoy playing through it.  This is just another normal 100% playthrough, with I guess the added stipulation of not using Herbs while in combat?  I wasn’t really planning on this restriction, but Bowie showed up and said he’d be disappointed if I used one, and I can’t have that!  Love this game still.  100% for these purposes includes all 50 red jewels, the bonus dungeon, killing most of the dungeon enemies (doesn’t matter at all, but I cleared every room except for 2 in Sky Garden), and waiting in line for the extra 1 HP in Euro.
Links Part 1
Game Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team Colonel (100%)
Platform GBA
Start Date August 8, 2020
Status Complete!
Details I decided to jump right into MMBN5 (Colonel because I hate Protoman) after finishing 4, and don’t regret it. This kept a lot of the features I loved in 4 (full synchro, counterattacks, double soul), and the new feature that they added (liberation missions) is mostly fun too. The main playthrough has some really interesting new chips, good chip variety and health balance, and the story progression is paced pretty well. The maps are much worse than 4 (maybe on-par with 2 and better than 3), so navigation is a bit rough, but the post-game is the worst of the entire series; it was perhaps the least enjoyable and least satisfying 100% I’ve done for an RPG yet. Post-game content starts in part 10.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16
Game Full Metal Furies (100%, co-op with Murphagator)
Platform Steam
Start Date August 16, 2020
Status In progress
Details Murphagator and I 100%’d this a few years ago, but I never highlighted it for some reason. This game has a heavy emphasis on puzzles, which we fought through without guides on our first playthrough, but as many of those puzzles were nonsense or had some dumb meta solutions we decided to just look up the solutions online this time. Last playthrough I used the red and blue characters and Murph used primarily sniper, so I decided to switch it up this time and try to use green. This is a super fun game and is surprisingly well-balanced. Part 1 is the entirety of the first playthrough, and the others are NG+.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Final Fantasy XIII
Platform Steam
Start Date September 25, 2020
Status Main game complete!
Details XIII is one of the few remaining FF games that I haven’t played and have a non-zero interest in playing.  It was on sale on Steam so I decided to finally give it a whirl.  I closely watched my roommate play the first few hours of this when it first came out, and have seen some other footage here and there, but am otherwise blind on this playthrough.  I really like the mechanics, but have some problems with the way that some things are handled, mostly with the forced parties leading up to Chapter 11.  I also hate Hope, so I’ve committed to never investing even a single Crystogen Point into him.  Main game was finished in part 11, post-game continues after.  Overall I really enjoyed playing this, but it is remarkably slow and tedious.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Brain Lord (punch only)
Platform SNES
Start Date November 1, 2020
Status Complete!
Details I really like Brain Lord, and wanted a new way to experience it.  In this playthrough, I only allowed myself to attack via my unarmed fist or the shield.  I had to use magic to kill one trap chest in the Tower and the Wizzrobes in the Ruins, but otherwise I only use melee attacks.  I did the Rotayo Skip to rush into Ice Castle for some early mid-level defensive gear and power/guard-boosting items, and then went back and did the dungeons in order.  This was a lot of fun and much more doable than I anticipated!
Links Part 1
Game Rockman 7 EP (romhack)
Platform SNES
Start Date November 2, 2020
Status Complete!
Details This is the first full romhack of Mega Man 7, and I was pumped to give it a whirl.  This was made by Puresabe, and the IPS patch can be downloaded here if you want to try it for yourself.  This is a really impressive romhack and tech demo, but it is a pain of a chore to play.  There are a ton of autoscrollers and forced battle rooms that take way too long, and the final few fights are horrendous.  I still really enjoyed the playthrough, but it is unlikely that I do anything more with it.
Links Part 1
Game Mega Man Battle Network 6 Cybeast Falzar
Platform GBA
Start Date November 18, 2020
Status In progress
Details This is the last of the GBA Battle Network games that I haven’t played, and it is wonderful!  The new chips are really interesting and the balance feels good.  The new style system is much more versatile than the previous game, and there haven’t been any horrible gimmick dungeons yet.  Everything feels really good so far except traveling between towns, but that is a pretty minor QoL downgrade from 4 and 5.  Hoping it keeps up!
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Game Trials of Mana Remake (Hard mode)
Platform Switch
Start Date January 21, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I love the original SNES SD3/Trials of Mana, so I was super excited when this game was announced.  This is my first playthrough of the game, using Duran/Riesz/Angela and playing on Hard mode.  This game did a great job of addressing many of the SNES version’s issues (instant unavoidable party wipes from the wolves/ninjas/some bosses, most of the stats being broken, class strikes triggering death counters from the bosses), but it has some extreme problems with camera/targetting and ally AI.  Allies refuse to dodge most attacks, so you spend most of the time trying to heal them in boss fights, which puts you in danger.  Sometimes boss attacks aren’t even visible until it’s too late to dodge.  Overall it was a fantastic game and a lot of fun.  The new ability system is amazing, the new classes and revamped old classes are great, the music and graphics are wonderful, the new cactus system is amazing, and the post-game content is ok.  Looking forward to NG+ with other teams and other difficulties!
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Part 6
Game Grandia (HD Remaster)
Platform Steam
Start Date February 12, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I’ve never played any Grandia game, and I’ve only briefly seen these from watching elmagus, so I decided to give it a try!  It’s a really cool game, but suffers a bit from the classic PS1 experience of mechanics that aren’t explained anywhere.  I assume the manual helps, but I don’t have one.  It was fun enough to play through the confusion, and once I did understand the mechanics it really turned into a great experience!  The end of the game kind of overstayed its welcome; the last 4-5 hours were pretty repetitive and tedious, but I still loved the game.
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Part 6 Part 7
Game Super Mario 3D World & Bowser’s Fury (100%)
Platform Switch
Start Date May 25, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I’ve been wanting to play SM3DW for so long but absolutely was not going to buy a Wii U for it.  This port solved my dilemma!  This game is incredibly strong.  Fantastic design and controls, powerup system, stamp/star placement, etc.  I was blown away by the polish of this.  My only complaint is that the final bonus world (just 3 levels) is immeasurably horrible, just like the other 3D Mario games.  Not bad enough to ruin the game for me, but real bad.  I got all 380 shines and all stamps except for 4 (did full clear with Toad, but none of the others).  Bowser’s Fury was a neat side game and I got all shines, but I definitely was growing tired of its gimmick after an hour of so.
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Game Mega Man ZX (100%)
Platform Steam (Zero/ZX Collection)
Start Date June 2, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I hated the MMZ games but I saw Tiki do runs of this game years ago and it looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a shot.  I am super glad that I did.  This is an outstanding game!  The levels are interesting and short enough to not overstay their welcome, the save points and teleporters are spaced conveniently, the controls are awesome and the new forms you can use all feel useful.  The bosses have interesting attack patterns and farming them for rank was an interesting challenge (except for Fistleo).  Really loved this.  The worst part was that you can’t take multiple sidequests at once and many collectibles required talking to the same NPC multiple times in a row without indication.  Map was a bit awkward to use but navigation was fine after some time.
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Game Mega Man ZX Advent
Platform Steam (Zero/ZX Collection)
Start Date June 8, 2021
Status Complete!
Details With ZX being so good, I was thrilled to try ZX:A!  This game is worse in almost every way, but still a fun game taken on its own.  You can have multiple missions active at once, which is great, but navigation is SO much more tedious and the maps are far less interesting.  You unlock 15 different forms instead of 6 like the previous, but most of the forms feel terrible.  I basically used the starting form for the entire game, changing to others just to break blocks or jump higher.  Felt really bad to not want to use the main mechanic of the game.  Was considering 100% until I realized what the requirements were for the boss medals.  Vulturon’s gold medal would take literally 7.5 *minutes* with perfect play.
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Game Mega Man Battle Network 1
Platform GBA
Start Date June 22, 2021
Status In progress?
Details The one that started it all.  I tried playing this when I was younger, got lost deep in the internet, and gave up.  This game has a million problems, but after having played through the rest of the series with 100% collection, I felt compelled to give it a try again.  I was going to play on GCN on cart, but my Gamecube refused to allow this to happen.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game The Lost Vikings
Platform SNES
Start Date July 1, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I always liked this game as a kid but the puzzles got too hard for me.  For some reason, I got the itch to finally try to finish it, and did!  It’s such a cool game concept and has some really incredible puzzles.  I was pretty unhappy about some of the later levels that require really unnecessary precision at the very end of 5-10 minute long puzzles, and I lost power twice in the final few stages, but overall I really enjoyed this.  No regrets.
Links Part 1
Game Enter the Gungeon
Platform PC
Start Date July 12, 2021
Status Ongoing
Details I was in the mood for some mindless grindy game, and this one looked pretty fun.  I decided to actually highlight these unlike Hades, because I generally enjoyed it more and I feel it made for a better watch.  This game is *much* more skill-based than some other roguelikes I tried, in that you can still finish the game with a terrible build or on early attempts (my first ever attempt made it to the last floor, and my third attempt made it to last phase of the final boss).  I was getting pretty tired of a lot of the hidden mechanics/bonus content requirements, but still really like the way this game is designed.  I took a long break after session 9 and then resumed with fresh eyes and a fresh mindset.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Breath of Fire IV (100%)
Platform PS1
Start Date August 25, 2021
Status In progress
Details I loved my playthrough of this from like 6 years ago, but it wasn’t highlighted.  I decided to play through again, and get 100% again (all items, max fishing score, all skills, etc), but this time focusing on building Ershin and Ursula.  I was making pretty good progress but got a bit distracted.  I’ll definitely finish it but probably will be taking some breaks.
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Part 6
Game Final Fantasy 2j Pixel Remaster
Platform Steam
Start Date September 18, 2021
Status Completed!
Details Played for my 8-year subscriber special! I had played this game on the GBA very briefly before but lost that save file to stupid decisions, so I was excited to give this a proper chance. I’m super glad I did because I had a blast! I think the pixel remaster rebalanced some things in the player’s favor, so I got incredibly out of hand in a hurry and could no longer be threatened, but it was still fun. This playthrough, like all the pixel remasters, attempted to get all achievements.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Final Fantasy 3j Pixel Remaster
Platform Steam
Start Date October 10, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I played this game for a bit on the DS years ago, but gave my copy away so I was never able to continue.  This version is exceptionally good, and this game is outstanding.  Definitely one of my favorites now and am looking forward to doing more playthroughs in the future.  I finished this one with all achievements (all chests, hidden items, summons, etc), but deliberately avoided using Ninja or Sage for a bit of an extra challenge.  Finished with Viking/Dragoon/Magus/Evoker.
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Game Final Fantasy 3j 3D
Platform Steam
Start Date October 13, 2021
Status In progress…?
Details After finished the pixel remaster, I still had the FF3j itch, and wanted to try other classes.  I didn’t want to just replay the same version though, so I decided to try to play the 3D version again.  This is uhh…much much slower.  This is agonizingly slow.  I still love the game, but the pacing is a real bummer after just playing through the pixel remaster.  I’ll likely continue this in the future, but lost interest for the time being.
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Game Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Platform GBA
Start Date November 18, 2021
Status Completed!
Details FFT is perhaps my least favorite Final Fantasy game, but I heard that FFTA fixed a lot of the problems that were in that so I decided to give it a try.  They were correct.  I really like this game, even though the law system is a pain in the ass to deal with (it is tedious to have to check and remember laws every battle, and sometimes you can just get really screwed).  This one has some super interesting and bizarre jobs, and I have taken full advantage of it this playthrough.  Blue Mage, Morpher, and Gadgeteer require a lot of time investment/setup to make worthwhile, but they are a riot once they get going.  Super happy that I decided to try this, and will definitely give FFTA2 a go in the future.  We finish the game and start post-game in part 9.  I didn’t continue with post-game though, because the dispatch missions require grinding unit levels and I cannot accept any other missions until those are done.  Don’t want to spend 20 hours grinding levels and walking around the map just to unlock a few more battles.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Game Bravely Default 2 (100%, hard mode)
Platform Switch
Start Date December 28, 2021
Status Complete!
Details I was in the mood for another job-based RPG playthrough and this both looked excellent and was on sale! I was extremely impressed by this game overall. Really good pacing and super interesting jobs. Some of the fights are pretty bullshit on hard mode (especially early) but it’s ok when you consider them more as puzzles than as normal RPG bosses. My issue was that the job synergies get way too powerful and not particularly difficult to spot.  Once you unlock a certain job in chapter 4, the entire game falls apart.  There are multiple ways to get infinite turns, my build can apply any status effect with 100% hit rate so no boss ever gets to take an action, and even if that wasn’t the case, my team is basically invincible anyways.  It is borderline insulting how strong they made some of these jobs, and it made the game painfully boring.  After a very long break, I came back to this and finished 100%: all jobs, all items, all sidequests, all cards, completed bestiary, true ending, etc.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16 Part 17
Game Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Platform DS
Start Date February 10, 2022
Status Main story complete, post-game remains
Details I loved FFTA, so naturally I wanted to give this one a go.  In short, I think it is a step back from TA1.  This keeps the same ability system, changed the shop inventory system into a crafting system (really cool!), introduced a bunch of new classes and races to add variety and fix the Bangaa’s monotony, and changed the law system to essentially remove penalties but give rewards for following the laws.  However, the early-game pacing is atrocious (really poor equipment/job selection for the first ~20 hours or so, no chance to recruit new units for awhile), the dispatch quest system has been completely ruined, and the early combat balance feels really bad.  Most quests are fun, but several have been 50+ minutes of agony.  One quest failed because a limit break prevented me from selecting the winning action.  Overall I really enjoyed this, and it got better and better as I got further and unlocked more, but the early game is very rough.  Finished main story in part 21.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20
Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24
Game Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus (~100%)
Platform DS
Start Date March 5, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I really liked the Battle Network games when I revisited them in the past year(s), so I decided to give the Star Force games on DS a shot!  I like how they handle the changes to the combat system in this.  It’s a really interesting digression from the standard model, even though it is quite a bit more simplistic.  My major complaint is that the mid-late game bosses are excessively fast and have true unblockables.  Even with pause buffering, one boss managed to teleport and attack in the space between unpausing (~6 frames).  This playthrough stopped one chip short of 100% because I was tired of dealing with the unblockable on the final post-game fight.  Overall I really like what this game did, but the tuning of the enemies and distribution of chips (40% of the library was from enemies in the last 2 maps) was a bit rough.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Game Bloodstained (RotN) NG Nightmare
Platform Steam
Start Date March 17, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I was having some internet trouble for awhile so I decided to play this as a short diversion from the RPGs.  I didn’t want to do another NG+ playthrough with my old file so we started fresh and on Nightmare!  This is basically level 1 hard mode.  Quite a tough beginning but it has gotten a little easier with progression.  Still extremely punishing, and allows me to comfortably farm for loot without fear of getting overleveled.  I quite like this mode!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Game Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Platform Switch
Start Date April 3, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I’m a really big fan of Kirby games, so naturally I was excited to try this one.  Overall, I am extremely disappointed.  I really liked the levels and think it is really cute in general, but Mouthful Mode is gross and not particularly fun.  The powers are really limited, and even though the powerup system is pretty interesting, it takes away all the intrigue that Kirby games have.  It isn’t exciting anymore to see what powers might be in the next stage, because you already have the 8 that can show up.  Combat feels *horrible*.  The boss fights really drag, and the timed arena challenges on the Treasure Roads are awful.  I saved all the Waddle Dees and quit.  I have no interest in continuing to try to 100% this, and likely won’t play it again.
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Game Kirby Star Allies: “Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!” mode
Platform Switch
Start Date May 6, 2022
Status Complete!
Details Star Allies is arguably my favorite Kirby game (maybe just behind Superstar), and ever since I played through it with romscout 4 years ago, I wanted to clear this mode with every power.  The Guest Star etc mode, despite having the worst title I’ve ever seen, is a really interesting mode.  You don’t play as Kirby; you pick a power (helper, rather) or guest star to start with and keep them for the entire game.  You can still recruit 3 other helpers, but I forced myself to only use duplicates for this.  This mode plays through 5 stages, which are each an abbreviated version of the world of the same number.  Each starting helper/guest gets a slightly different path with puzzles that are solvable with that ability.  In total there are 37 different starting helpers or guest stars, and I cleared this with every single one.  Some were less fun than others, but overall it was a really fun and relaxing investment of time.  Which I will never do again.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Young Souls (co-op with Murphagator)
Platform Steam (via remote play)
Start Date June 1, 2022
Status Complete!
Details Murphagator is always on the lookout for interesting-looking beat-em-ups, so he picked this one up.  It uhh….it had some really interesting potential, but unfortunately it didn’t pan out really well.  The core mechanic (parrying) was an interesting idea but became so cumbersome and difficult to use after a few hours that it was literally better to completely ignore it and damage bosses via clever aggro trading instead.  The equipment you get from bosses is orders of magnitude better than anything you can find, so drops were largely pointless.  Getting the best weapon of a class unlocks the ability to buy much much worse weapons.  Really weird system.  Overall we enjoyed it but have no interest in playing more/again.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Castlevania: Dracula X
Platform SNES
Start Date November 14, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I found a really good deal for this game complete in box in college and bought it.  I fucking hate this game.  I never beat it, and it feels like a crime to own such an expensive game without having finished it.  Today was the day to fix that.  This is just the standard any% clear, not any of the fancy endings.
Links Part 1
Game Tom & Jerry, Daffy Duck: The Marvin Missions, Phalanx, The Incredible Crash Dummies
Platform SNES
Start Date November 15, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I had a lot of SNES games from my childhood or college that I never finished for some reason or another.  That “some reason” for three of these is that they are fucking awful.  Phalanx is a legit fantastic game, though, so I’m glad I finally beat that.
Links Part 1
Game Donkey Kong Country 3 (105%)
Platform SNES
Start Date November 16, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I really like this game and wanted to play it again, so here we are.  I previously got 103%, so I decided to go for 10% this time.  The only difference between the two is that you need to 103% clear the game on hard mode (no DK barrels, no checkpoints) to get 105%.  Overall I still really enjoyed this!  Easily my favorite of the DKC trilogy.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope
Platform Switch
Start Date October 29, 2022
Status Abandoned
Details I played the first game but was disappointed because it was advertised as having co-op, but really didn’t.  Overall I thought it was a cool concept, so I gave this one a try.  I was really pleased with the beginning of this game and the potential it had, but very very quickly lost enthusiasm.  The worlds were a tremendous pain to explore, and the combat quickly got tiresome.  I think it is probably a fine game, but it started to head in a direction that i wasn’t fond of, so I decided to stop instead of getting increasingly sour.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Pokemon Scarlet
Platform Switch
Start Date November 20, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I love Pokemon but I gave up on playing them after getting bored with Moon.  This game looked interesting enough and had co-op story mode, so I decided to go for it.  This is perhaps my favorite Pokemon game yet.  The free-roaming is fantastic, it is super entertaining, and the pokemon and move pools are really interesting.  This is the first time I’ve ever actually completed the Pokedex, and even did some shiny hunting.  I don’t know if I’ll ever stream this again, but I had a blast with it and will likely do raids and stuff offline.  I am super super happy that they finally gave Hariyama a movepool worth a damn.  He and Iron Hands are tremendous in this, and I am thrilled.  Teal Mask DLC begins in part 11, featuring Secret Team: a team with the most possible unique 4x weaknesses.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20
Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25
Part 26 Part 27
Game Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker
Platform DS
Start Date December 30, 2022
Status Shelved
Details I had the MMBN itch but the collection launches in 4 months, so it’s Star Force time.  I liked the first one well enough, so I was excited to try 2.  This is the Zerker x Ninja version, but I chose Zerker at the start so idk what that means for version.  I am shelving this playthrough because there were a lot of things that I think we going to start being very irritating very soon.  All the navi chips that are available so far are repeats from SF1, the navi fights are just as bad, if not worse (can’t react to attacks, can’t block, etc), and the main new gimmick (star chips) is not available for higher tier chips without codes.  I like these games but I was going to get very mad at this very soon.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster (4 white mage)
Platform Steam
Start Date December 31, 2022
Status Complete!
Details I love Final Fantasy 1 and wanted to play it again, but didn’t want to dedicate a lot of time to a normal playthrough on NES.  I decided to play the amazing Pixel Remaster version again, with a team of 4 white mages.  This team is always joked about, but they’re a super competent squad, especially with the fixes in FF1PR.  This was a pretty comfy playthrough spread across a few days.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Final Fantasy 2 Pixel Remaster (white magic only)
Platform Steam
Start Date April 7, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I really enjoy FF2j and wanted an excuse to play it again, but given how easy it is to get enormously powerful, I needed to think hard for some interesting restriction.  This playthrough played the game without ever doing anything except defending, running away, or using white magic.  I allowed myself to use items only if the item itself casted white magic (i.e. Esuna Tome was allowed, but the Soft item was not).  Since you don’t start with offensive white magic and can’t earn money without winning combat, I had to resort to creative methods to farm up for Holy and Teleport.  Once this team got started, it was unbelievably strong.  This was a super fun playthrough!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Platform Steam
Start Date January 25, 2023
Status Abandoned
Details Disappointed.  I understand how a lot of people would like this game, because it has an excruciating amount of cutscenes to round out the characters’ personalities and such, but it is just agonizing to play for me.  It is unbearably slow.  Cutscenes will often just lead to another inconsequential cutscene and then a forced walking section and then another 5 minute cutscene.  In one 8-hour session, I think I had about 2 hours of interaction with the game.  If the combat was really good it’d be worth it, but the combat is janky as shit.  Only two of the four characters are engaging beyond “hold the X button”, there’s little to no feedback when you get hit and little to no way to avoid damage, and the stagger mechanic (the entire cornerstone of the combat) doesn’t work on most of the bosses.  After realizing I just wasn’t going to have fun with this, I had to force myself to stop.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Golden Sun (all Djinni)
Platform GBA
Start Date February 12, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I bought Golden Sun TLA specifically to have something to play while I waited overnight for the Wii launch in 2007.  I really enjoyed it but didn’t play it again after I got the Wii.  With Nintendo announcing that Golden Sun would make it to the Switch online subscription, I got the itch to play it and away I went.  This game is unnecessarily verbose, but is really charming.  Fantastic music, good combat mechanics, really great battle animations.  Late-game balance is a bit stale, but the game is short enough that it doesn’t get old.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game All mainline Kirby games on Nintendo Switch Online service: Dreamland 1, 2, 3, Superstar, K64.
Platform Switch
Start Date March 31, 2023
Status Complete!
Details For my birthday this year I just wanted to spend some time playing fun games, and Kirby scratches that itch.  There are a ton of them on the Switch’s online service for free, so that was an easy way to choose which ones to play.  I’d never play Dreamland 1 or 2 before, so it was fun to get to experience those again, and to replay the others.  When Amazing Mirror gets added to the Nintendo Switch Online service, I’ll do that one, too.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Mega Man Battle Network 2 (100%) – Legacy Collection
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date April 15, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I fucking love these games, and Capcom launched the Legacy Collection in April 2023, so I’m going to play through all of these 100% again, beginning with 2.  My goal with this game, since there isn’t another version to try like 3-6, is to avoid using the things I did before: Guts Man, Proto Man, HeavyStamp PA, Muramasa.  I used an AquaBall/AirMan folder for most of the game once I assembled it, and it was a riot.  I eventually transitioned to HeatBall/CutMan with Team style to use 8 copies of CutMan and it was an absolutely degenerate build with extreme trouble against normal encounters.  In the very end, I finally assembled a Snake folder and saw the ungodly power firsthand for the first time. Brilliant game, had a blast with this again.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game Mega Man Battle Network 3 White (7-stars) – Legacy Collection
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date April 26, 2023
Status Complete!
Details Working through the BN games again on this collection, 3 White was next on my list.  I had high hopes for this playthrough because I was mostly positive on it before, but this was a very different story.  I refused to use the broken Flash/Plant centric folders, and instead opted for this really amusing and powerful NO.Beam-centric folder.  I also tried to force myself into styles I don’t normally use (Ground, Guts) to get new NaviCust programs and try new things.  Overall, this was a surprisingly effective folder, though impossible to use, and I was really enjoying trying to use all these different styles/programs.  I managed to get all 7 stars (100%), though I had to switch to a DarkMan folder for Bass and Serenade Omega..  If you’re not using broken shit and trying to play this game honestly, it is horrendous; there’s not enough space here to vent all my frustrations.  The Navis move too fast for human reactions, and sometimes too fast even with pause buffering.  The top 5 worst Navi fights in the series are probably entirely from this game.  Really disappointed with this game this time around.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun (100%)
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date May 8, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I fucking love MMBN4, so I was really pumped to try the other version!  I’m happy to report that I’m having just as much fun this time, if not more.  The double souls in this game are extremely good and have a lot of potential, and I’ve been avoiding using T or a late-game V folder so I don’t repeat the same strats.  I used a GutsSoul-centric build with Magnum and some other strong staple chips for the first two loops, and then a FireSoul folder with fire-based D chips.  At the very end of loop 3 I switched to an O folder with ThunderSoul and used sheep, binder, twinfang, elecshok, and some other low-tier chips.  This folder was absolutely devastating, and had no trouble S-ranking all the navis and finishing the content.  I’ll likely trade navis with the Blue Moon version sometime to unlock those, and then either do more loops or Higsby’s tournament to get the special chips.  Not done with this game forever, but done for now!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12
Game Mega Man Battle Network 4: Blue Moon (100%) “Evil Mega Man”
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date September 5, 2023
Status Complete!
Details This is probably my fav BN game, and I wanted to try to do a playthrough where I run my max HP to 1 using dark chips, force Mega Man to become evil (cannot activate Full Synchro, can’t use link souls, can’t use Navi SP chips or several other kinds of chips, but have access to dark chips in every battle except Duo), and then try to 100% the game under those conditions.  There are a handful of evil-only chips (all Navi DS chips, BlackWing, Anubis, Muramasa, ElemDark, and Static), but the main power in this setup is using dark chips and Static, and stacking the Navi Customizer with at least 3 different bugs to boost its area of effect.  This playthrough was a riot, and was actually the first time I beat the true 100% boss, Golden Duo.  Fantastic game.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
Game Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Proto
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date June 3, 2023
Status Maybe complete…?
Details I was not a big fan of BN5 when I played it the first time, but I wanted to try the other version. I still really like the concept of the liberation missions, and I like the navis in this game more than Team Colonel.  This game is still just…rather boring to me.  I did finish the main story, using primarily cactus ball and eventually NapalmSoul, but I’m not sure if I want to suffer through the post-game again.  I really wanted to make a tornado folder and use GyroSoul but I’m not sure if it want to do it again.  Main story is completed in part 6 and post-game, if it does begin, will be in part 7.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6
Game Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar (100%)
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date June 17, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I enjoyed BN6 when I first played Falzar a few years ago, but I didn’t finish because I was bored by the extreme power level.  Regrettably, I felt the same way about it this time.  Everything is too easy and too powerful, the cross forms are not interesting and too simple to activate, etc. Tag system makes PA’s too easy to roll.  The higher-tier chips are generally less useful because you can use fewer in your deck and the low tier chips are already so strong, so deck-building is less fun.  I used CornSht for basically the entire game as a joke, and then made a Corn + ChargeMan folder for what criminally little post-game there was.  “Post-game” began in part 7, and there was basically nothing to do for it.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
Game Mega Man Battle Network 1 (100%)
Platform Switch, MMBN Legacy Collection
Start Date October 7, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I got permanently lost in this game when playing as a kid, and when I returned to this a few years ago, my playthrough fizzled out somewhere.  This time I was determined to finish the game, and I did!  Honestly, this game is a lot of fun.  The encounters are ruthless, but if you’re prepared for that, it is just funny instead of frustrating.  Navigation is extremely difficult, and the Power Plant scenario is awful, but the navis are good, the chip selection is decent and they’re strong and satisfying to use, and the pacing/length is reasonable.  Overall I rate this game pretty highly in this series!  I put it above 3 and 5, personally.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Final Fantasy 3j Pixel Remaster (Thief/Dark Knight/Ranger/Bard)
Platform Steam
Start Date July 8, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I really love the pixel remaster of FF3j so I wanted to do a third playthrough (second streamed playthrough).  I try to use different jobs each time, so this was left with scraps: thief, dark knight, ranger, bard.  Bard was my only healing source outside of elixirs for the end-game, I switched to Dark Knight asap, so he had no equipment for most of the game, but Thief was outstanding and Ranger was really impressive.  I really enjoyed this, though I regret advancing to Ahriman before doing more leveling.  Definitely tough without good healing.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Final Fantasy 2j Pixel Remaster (black magic only)
Platform Steam
Start Date July 25, 2023
Status Complete!
Details Really big fan of FF2j PR, and was super curious about doing a “black magic only” run of this after we were chatting about it during my completion of the “white magic only” run.  In short, this run needs to grind a rare drop from a rare encounter in Fynn Castle to learn Flare, since that is the only black magic that can defeat Red Soul.  It took more time to farm that drop than it did for me to clear the entirety of the game afterwards.  Hahaha.  Drain, Flare, Osmose, and Stun carried my ass to the final boss, and some super good luck and high damage rolls defeated him on the first try.  Had a lot of fun with this!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Minecraft v1.20
Platform PC (Java)
Start Date June 9, 2023
Status In progress
Details Minecraft is fun.  I never highlighted any previous sessions, but we’re doing some real dumb shit in this world (new world for this patch!), and people like the VODs as background noise so I thought I’d highlight these sessions this time.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Platform GBA, via Switch Online service
Start Date August 15, 2023
Status Complete!
Details It was about time to finally give this Mario RPG a shot, and it so far has not disappointed.  I didn’t enjoy the first few hours, because there is a lot of control/UI jank and dumb trial & error in combat, but I really enjoyed this playthrough after that (with the exception of the final boss and some other stuff)!  This playthrough took Stache points for every level, Stache-boosting equipment whenever possible, and only used one of each stat-boosting drink.  Neat game.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Grandia II HD Remaster
Platform Steam
Start Date October 22, 2023
Status Abandoned
Details I really enjoyed Grandia I, so naturally I wanted to give 2 a try.  Unfortunately, this game misses the mark for me in basically every way.  I didn’t really like any of the characters, and I really disliked the change to the ability/tech learning system.  Being able to buy upgrades in any order you want just completely breaks the game, especially with the free +50 stats and +100% damage multipliers you can also buy without restriction.  I very quickly trivialized combat and then got bored and decided to stop.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Satisfactory (Updates 7 and 8)
Platform Steam
Start Date November 7, 2023
Status In progress
Details Satisfactory is awesome.  Murphagator and I decided to restart on a new world this time, since it is like 2.5 years since the first time we played.  We started on Update 7, and it updated to Update 8 after a few sessions.  Murph mostly does the base building stuff, and I mostly go off exploring to scout resources and collect hard drives and power slugs, etc.  I did more work on the power generation this time than I did in the first attempt, but that might change again going forward.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Youtube Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game Final Fantasy 3j Pixel Remaster (4 Onion Knights)
Platform Steam
Start Date November 12, 2023
Status Complete!
Details Oh my god.  So, I wanted some mindless stuff to stream because I was having a rough time, and I love FF3j, so I decided to try this challenge.  The goal was to play through the entirety of FF3j without ever changing jobs.  Onion Knight can only attack, defend, and use items, and they can’t use really any equipment from between the 2nd town in the game and the final dungeon.  A majority of this playthrough was about managing my attacking items, choosing which characters to use and whether to petrify some, etc, and when it would be best to try to advance to the next grinding set or next equipment upgrade.  We needed to farm antarctic winds to kill Rat, and we needed to get an extremely rare raven’s yawn drop to even have a chance to kill Garuda.  After getting the Nautilus, we were able to get Protect Rings and extremely slowly win some high-value encounters with Great Bow.

Our win condition relied entirely on accumulating a massive stockpile of attacking items (~35 of them) and using all of them to kill a yellow dragon, hoping we got an onion sword drop, and resetting if we didn’t.  In the end, it took us 62 yellow dragons before the onion sword dropped, and then we were able to “comfortably” farm dragons to get the rest of the onion gear.  In total, we killed 190 dragons (80 yellow, 80 green, 30 red) and ended with 5 swords, 10 shields, 4 helmets, 7 gauntlets, and 4 armors.  Once we were armed, I was able to kill all the optional bosses and finish the game comfortably.  This playthrough was incredibly fun, and much more interesting than I expected!

Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Game Super Mario Wonder (100%)
Platform Switch
Start Date December 10, 2023
Status Complete!
Details This game is unbelievably good.  I don’t even know what else to say.  The level design is really unique and the gimmicks of each stage/world don’t overstay their welcome, there are good options for making the game as easy or as hard as you want, the music and powerups are really great, etc. I can’t say it’s a real difficult game, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  Absolute masterpiece, and one I’ll be playing again in the future.  This playthrough used the cap badge for the first world, but then switched over to the auto-run badge to make things more difficult and entertaining for myself.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Castlevania Advance Collection (100%)
Platform Switch
Start Date December 28, 2023
Status Complete!
Details I bought the CV Advance Collection awhile ago but got frustrated trying to use the Switch Pro Controller with it because of its horrible Diagonals.  I recently figured out how to get my SNES controller to work on Switch, so I decided to revisit them!  It’s been a few years since I played Aria and CotM and I’ve never played HoD, so I decided to 100% every mode in each of the games.  HoD was much better than I expected; I was pleasantly surprised.  I don’t like the air physics and I hate Maxim mode, but it has some really neat concepts.  Aria was much more enjoyable now that I know the gimmicks and traps, but still not my favorite.  CotM is always a pleasure and always will be.
CotM Links VampireKiller Magician Fighter Shooter part 1 Shooter part 2 Thief
HoD Links Part 1 Part 2
Aria Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (1000%, all items)
Platform DS (via 3DS)
Start Date December 30, 2023
Status Complete!
Details Portrait is easily my favorite of the DSvanias, but I never streamed my 100% playthrough of it years ago.  I wanted to play it again, so this was a good opportunity to remedy that situation!  With the exception of some really cruel rooms in Den of Evil (double Frankie….) I absolutely adore this game.  This playthrough fills 100% of everything: every map, every item, every piece of equipment, all skills (mastered when applicable), all quests, full bestiary and every drop from each enemy.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Game Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster (4 thieves, no class change)
Platform Steam
Start Date December 31, 2023
Status Complete!
Details A year prior to this, I did a 4 white mage/wizard playthrough of this version for New Year’s Eve.  I decided to play this game again for NYE, but this time using 4 thieves and adding the condition of no class change.  Thieves have extremely limited equipment and no magic, so I wasn’t really sure how this would pan out in the end game.  Surprisingly, we steamrolled this entire game up until Chaos.  Thieves are pretty strong in this version, even with limited equipment, but we needed an extra handful of levels to have a chance against him.  In the end, it was still much smoother and more fun than anticipated, though we got quite lucky in our eventual successful Chaos attempt.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Breath of Fire 2 (Sten)
Platform SNES
Start Date January 22, 2024
Status Complete!
Details I needed some more low-brain content and my other streamed BoF2 playthrough wasn’t highlighted so this seemed like a good idea.  Even though it is my least favorite of the series, I still rather enjoy playing through this game.  In my other playthrough, I fed all my resources on Rand, and used his shaman transformation in addition to Bow and demon-form Katt.  This time, I really wanted to give Sten a chance to shine because I’ve always neglected him.  We went all-out and used the money duplication glitch and the weapon glitch to illegally equip him with a MoonDrop (normally a healing item, but in this case, it is a holy-element attack that hits twice), and used his genie shaman form.  I also used non-transformed Nina and both mushroom- and onion-form Spar.  I played through Infinity twice in order to make it to the final bosses in shaman form and unleash the full power of Chim Hazard Chim.  This was a super fun playthrough!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Game World of Final Fantasy: Maxima (no items, 99%)
Platform Switch
Start Date February 1, 2024
Status Complete!
Details WoFF is easily a top 3 FF game for me and I’ve really been itching to play through it again.  I’d gotten the itch to replay this a few times over the years, but was unsure if it’d be stale on a replay after seeing all the mirages and the story already.  To make things a little more interesting, I committed to getting as close to 100% as possible without using any items (except for Seeds and such that affect the mirage boards and not my characters directly).  Items are extremely powerful in this, and allow you to bring access to every elemental attack and every status effect to every battle, in addition to unlimited healing.  Without access to those, I’m forced to carefully construct stacks and level mirages that will allow me to survive battles and still have the coverage I need to catch mirages.  In the end, I managed to collect every mirage except for Boko (required using Gysahl Greens!), and finished every quest and defeated every boss except for the refight with Brandelis.  I made it to the DPS race phase of his fight and lost; in that phase, he becomes 200% weak to a single element, and I basically need that element to be Dark otherwise I am guaranteed to lose.  While the fight is definitely possible, I didn’t want to throw 30-minute attempts at it until I won a 12.5% roll.  Overall this was a super fun playthrough and I was shocked at how effective my mirage selection was and how sustainable my end-game fights were.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: T-260G Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date April 18, 2021
Status Complete!
Details When the remaster came out, I decided to finally give it another shot at clearing all the campaigns in this game, and I started with my previous favorite, T-260G.  Mecs in this game are so much fun, and this campaign is really silly.  This time through, I decided to use 4 robots in my final team (plus Gen), which presented some real struggles with healing.  I just had to take advantage of my overwhelming power to rush the final boss before things got bad.  Really enjoy this campaign!
Links Part 1
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: Riki Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date March 18, 2024
Status Complete!
Details When this game launched, I started a playthrough of this campaign, but eventually got walled, stopped playing, and it became impossible to resume.  When I came back to this game, I decided to just completely restart this campaign fresh.  Riki is a monster (race), and they are quite difficult to make effective use of in this game, it seems.  For every unique move you learn by absorbing monsters, you get 4 more HP, but the rest of your stats are based on the monster form you take (which itself is based on what moves you currently have).  I think by the end I finally got the hang of it, but it was a real struggle.  I took Sei (form of Skullasaur), and Riki (form of Kraken), in addition to Gen, Fei-On, and Lute.  Overall, this was a really fun campaign and had some really funny dialogue/events.  I think monsters are the worst of the races, but it was nice to try to make them useful.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: Emilia Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date March 20, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Decided to go with Emilia as my next campaign, and it was a pretty smooth playthrough.  Though her story was a bit of a heavier theme, it was still pretty comical because of the writing.  I love the pacing and style of this game.  Her starting party, which you are forced to use for a lot of the game, is extremely strong and learns good abilities quickly, so this was a pretty easy experience.  I just kind of cruised to the end and then had a miraculous final fight that ended on the very last turn that I had resources for.  Final team was Emilia, Annie (sword), Liza (grapple), Zozma (mostly healing), and Rouge (light/realm magic).
Links Part 1
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: Asellus Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date March 22, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Asellus is a mystic, which I’ve never used before.  Pure mystics don’t get stat growth except HP, and instead get their stats by absorbing a single monster into mystic items.  Asellus is half-human so she gets normal stat growths in addition to mystic items.  I really enjoyed playing around with them this time, and also was really amused by the progression of this campaign which amounted mostly to “run around and wait to be ambushed 6 times”.  I got unbelievably powerful extremely early in this run, with a Black Dragon form for Sei, two extremely strong Mystics, and Gen; I really steamrolled through this one without much issue.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: Blue Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date March 25, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Blue’s campaign entails collecting as many magic gifts as you can, and then defeating yourself in the form of Rouge.  Once you absorb him, you realize you made an oopsie and go to Hell to do something or other and then The End.  The story/dialogue in this is much less interesting than others, and Blue is really just an asshole.  It’s fun to end the game with such an abundance of JP and every single magic spell, but a little less interesting than the others I think.  I used Riki (form of Black Dragon again), T260, Gen (non-grappling martial arts), and Silence (the Shadow-gift-path mystic).  My setup was incredibly powerful, but in the end I think Blue would’ve been just as strong on his own if I optimized him a little better.
Links Blue's campaign
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: Lute Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date April 16, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Lute’s campaign is pretty silly because you can essentially go straight to the final boss and get your ass kicked if you want.  It is really open-ended so you can get whoever you want and do whatever you want.  This time I tried to mix things up a bit and turned Lute into a grappler with DSC, turned Gen into a caster with time magic, used EngineerCar with multislash, and two dual-wield gun users.  This was quite a fun playthrough!
Links Lute's campaign
Game SaGa Frontier Remastered: Red Campaign
Platform Switch
Start Date April 17, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Red’s campaign is an absolute riot, I love this one.  This playthrough in particular got unstoppably powerful really early on and it just snowballed from there.  I sparked Al-Phoenix from like the third battle in the playthrough, recruited Cotton, and he learned Sphinx’s Riddle from the very next battle.  We grabbed two robots and killed earth dragon like 2 hours in, with 4 party members.  We also happened to stumble onto unicorn spawns, so we turned Cotton into a unicorn.  This is probably the strongest party I’ve had.
Links Red's campaign p1 Red's campaign p2
Game Kirby handheld games (Mirror, Squeak, Canvas, Robobot)
Platform Switch, 3DS
Start Date March 31, 2024
Status Complete!
Details I decided to play some more Kirby for this year’s birthday festivities, this time focusing on 100%ing some handheld Kirby games I’ve never played before.  Amazing Mirror is an absolutely fantastic game, and probably even more fun co-op with friends.  I really liked the concept of Canvas Curse and was enjoying it for awhile, but the later worlds got to be pretty rough and I left it there. Squeak Squad is fantastic. Some really fun new powers (metal and ghost are fantastic) and the returning powers had some nice changes. Really easy game and pretty short, but that’s not a bad thing. I ended with Planet Robobot, and actually getting true 100% this time by getting platinum on all the side games and collecting all the stickers. Robobot is a masterpiece, and definitely a top 3 Kirby game for me. True Arena is really awful, but Circus carried me through.
Amazing Mirror AmazingMirror
Canvas Curse CanvasCurse
Squeak Squad SqueakSquad
Planet Robobot Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom
Platform Steam
Start Date April 20, 2024
Status Complete!
Details This is a wild 3D collectathon where you play as a taxi cab.  I really, really loved this game for the first half or so, but the finals levels squashed basically all my enthusiasm.  I’m still overall positive on it but won’t continue to 100% it.  I skipped quite a few levels in this playthrough by doing some wacky physics abuse and collected a lot of things early.  Really fun physics to tinker with!
Links Red's campaign p1 Red's campaign p2
Game Claymates
Platform SNES, via Switch Online
Start Date May 1, 2024
Status Complete!
Details I have a soft spot in my heart for Claymates, but it is a brutally unforgiving game.  I played it a little as a kid and had fun but never made it very far, and I thought it was about time I gave it a proper shot.  I actually really enjoyed my experience with this!  It helped a lot that I watched Mecha Richter play this a few years ago, so I was prepared for a lot of the bullshit this game pulls.  I fell for a lot of the same traps, but being mentally prepared to get clobbered was very beneficial.  Might look into speedrunning this.
Links Claymates
Game Final Fantasy 5 Pixel Remaster
Platform Steam
Start Date May 4, 2024
Status Complete!
Details FF5 is pretty low on my list of preferred FF games now, and I have had some really bad experiences with this in recent years (bad attempt at streaming a Quadzerker playthrough years ago, and a horrible 4jf comp last year).  However, it is still a really good game and one that I used to like (and my hands were too sore for speedgame stuff), so I decided to just do a casual “all achievements” playthrough of the pixel remaster without any real restrictions.  There are so many really funny strats in this game, so I had a great time using some things I normally avoid (unarmed/staff swords dancing, some weird mixes and blue magics, bard/beastmaster, skipping summons for better !Call odds, killing Gogo with a harp, etc).  Learned a lot in this playthrough and had a lot of fun!  Probably won’t play this again for awhile, though.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Game Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Remake (100%)
Platform Switch
Start Date May 28, 2024
Status Complete!
Details loved TTYD as a kid, and got every badge/shine/star sprite when I was in high school, but I didn’t get a full Tattle Log so I always felt there was unfinished business.  With the remake coming out, I decided now was the time to do it properly!  I’m always a bit leery returning to games I liked when I was younger, in case they really aren’t as good as I remembered, but this game is better if anything.  Absolutely phenomenal game, loved every minute.  I have some fundamental problems with multi-hit attacks in games like these, so I limited myself to never using a Jump attack in battle (or Yoshi/Goombella’s attacks) for this playthrough.  I also took BP for every levelup.  It turns out, this was not much of a hindrance at all.  Hammers are extremely strong, and low-health evasion strats are ridiculous.  I pretty comfortably sailed through everything, and had an absolute blast doing so.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
Game Game Boy Mega Man I, II, III, IV, V on Nintendo Switch Online
Platform Switch
Start Date June 8, 2024
Status Complete!
Details All 5 Game Boy Mega Man games were released for the Nintendo Switch Online catalog, so I decided to finally play these for the first time!  Well, maybe.  I’ve played V before, but I don’t remember if I actually played the others or just watched other people play them.  Overall, they’re a ton of fun and the ports feel really good!  I didn’t expect to enjoy them nearly as much as I did.  III and IV are so ridiculously cruel that you can’t help but applaud them for it.  Dust Man’s stage is an absolute legend.  I’ll definitely be playing these more.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game FF3j Pixel Remaster Four Job Fiesta (RDM/THF/GEO/SUM)
Platform Steam
Start Date June 17, 2024
Status Complete!
Details It’s Four Job Fiesta season, but I don’t want to play FF5 again and I do want to play more FF3j, so I decided to try it for this game instead.  The risk, obviously, is that Garuda exists and late-game healing is an absolute necessity so if you get a bad team you’re in for trouble.  I rolled Red Mage first, which is extremely nice for the early to mid game (healing, damaging spells for Giant Rat, aero and cura for Garuda, good equipment).  Thief is really good in this game even if stealing itself isn’t, so I was happy to see that.  Geomancer is decent free damage.  For earth crystal, I did not include Sage or Ninja, and Onion Knight was added to every crystal’s pool, so we were quite lucky to get Summoner.  Our only source of healing for end game was a single Red Mage’s Curaga (which I only had 4 charges of), and Summoner didn’t help that, but Summoner did give us some ridiculous damage and fast grinding.  Really fun playthrough!  Will do more runs.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game FF3j Pixel Remaster Four Job Fiesta #2 (WAR/SCH/BB/OK)
Platform Steam
Start Date June 21, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Decided to do a bunch of these runs so I could get a better feel for how they work and if the challenge is viable.  This run started with Warrior, which is a powerhouse early-mid game and even carries decently into late game.  The only snag is having to farm for items for Giant Rat.  Scholar helps get passed Garuda and some decent end-game healing, and Black Belt absolutely destroys the end game.  Rolling Onion Knight last is a shame, so I farmed for an Onion Shield for him and turned him into a tanky healer.  Fun team comp!
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game FF3j Pixel Remaster Four Job Fiesta #3 (OK/THF/VIK/MAG)
Platform Steam
Start Date June 22, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Third run!  Onion Knight into Thief is a rough start.  I need to level a lot to get passed fire crystal with Onion Knights, and they have bad HP growth so it hurts my end-game potential.  I decided to leave one character dead to level as a higher-HP growth job later, but that makes the beginning even worse.  Thief isn’t a big power spike, but the steal rate for arctic winds and other attacking items is fantastic after job level 31 and 71, so Garuda ended up being ok.  Viking was the saving grace here, since it let the dead character skyrocket his HP, and then Magus gave us the power we were missing.  The main discovery here is that Viking gets some unbelievable damage reduction at critical health; most attacks were doing 1 damage, twin-headed dragon hit me for 70 damage, particle beam was doing 180.  Really interesting run.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game FF3j Pixel Remaster Four Job Fiesta #4 (WHM/THF/DRG/OK)
Platform Steam
Start Date June 25, 2024
Status Complete!
Details White Mage is the best starting job in this game, so this run was won just a few minutes in.  Then we got Dragoon, which is probably the best overall job in the game, and it was really over.  White Mage only had 3 curaja charges and 7 curaga charges, so I needed to farm for a few elixirs to make sure I had enough healing for the end bosses, but otherwise no sweat.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game FF3j Pixel Remaster Four Job Fiesta #5 (WHM/RNG/BB/SGE)
Platform Steam
Start Date July 1, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Hard to even think of a better team composition than this.  Unbelievable damage, and two healers.  Sage is a monster, Black Belt has absurd HP growth and incredible damage, Ranger is also extremely competent but absolutely inconsequential in this team.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game Heroes of Hammerwatch
Platform Steam
Start Date July 2, 2024
Status Ongoing?
Details I loved this game and started two files in this previously, but didn’t stream most of them.  I got the itch again and decided to start fresh and stream the entire thing, and try to actually make progress instead of giving up.  I was diligent about streaming every time I played this game, but I started doing some more offline runs as I got farther.  I got at least a few classes to NG+3 and cleared the Pyramid with all of them I think.  I unlocked all blueprints, so I think I’ve reached the “end”.  I’m not sure how much more I’ll play or push it, but I really enjoyed this one.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12
Game Dragon Warrior (NES)
Platform NES
Start Date July 9, 2024
Status Complete!
Details I tried Dragon Warrior (NES) as a kid after already having played Final Fantasy 1, 4, and 6, and I hated it.  It was pretty solidly my least favorite game on the NES, and it ruined the entire franchise for me.  I felt like I was doing the franchise a disservice by not going back and giving it a proper chance, though, so I set a subscriber goal to play through it.  With adjusted expectations and a fresh perspective, this game is actually pretty fun!  There is some charm to the simplicity, and the NPCs give clear enough hints to pretty smoothly guide me through the game and collect all the best equipment.  The early gold curve is pretty harsh, and there are a few snags with the power scaling (transitioning from one level grinding spot to another), but it was overall pretty enjoyable.  I’m definitely interested in trying more of the series.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Final Fantasy VIII (Steam) “GF only”
Platform Steam
Start Date August 5, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Oh man.  So, any excuse is a good excuse to play FF8, my favorite Final Fantasy game.  This time I decided to play the Steam version (not remastered) because it has Chocobo World integration, which I’d never used before.  A complication is that the UI framerate in this version is capped at 15fps, which means our GF boosting capability is capped at 6-7%/second.  To make things a bit more interesting and take full advantage of Chocobo World, this playthrough was only allowed to choose GF in battle or use abilities that summoned GFs (like Minimog and MoombaMoomba, though I tried not to use the latter).  I could use any passive abilities granted by the GF (like cover and counter and return damage), I could junction, and I could run from battle (run isn’t a command!).  I permitted myself to draw GFs, because I think that violation is in spirit with the goal.  I managed to beat every boss with these restrictions except for Omega Weapon (including Adel and starting with Tiamat in Ultimecia’s castle!), and I think that fight is doable with a specific setup that I didn’t want to grind for.  It was a lot more strategically interesting and engaging than I expected!  Planning how to equip the GFs to maximize the experience and junctions for the critical GFs Shiva, Siren, Tonberry, and later Bahamut and Eden) without getting overleveled myself was a good challenge.  Surprisingly fun playthrough!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11
Game Visions of Mana
Platform Steam
Start Date September 1, 2024
Status Abandoned
Details I was really excited to have a new Mana game to play, but really disappointed in this one.  It is an extremely slow game with a plot that cannot be understood, the VA direction is distractingly bad, and the decision-making of the characters in this universe is so nonsensical that I can’t really relate to it or get immersed at all.  If the mechanics were a slam dunk I’d be able to get over all of that, but the movement and controls are super clunky, the mechanics are really inconsistent (when there is and isn’t an indicator for an attack, etc), and the quick travel system is agonizing for a game that has so much backtracking.  There are some really cool ideas that I liked, but unfortunately all of those just…vanished halfway through the game and I was just with just sludge.  Couldn’t bring myself to finish.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Game Satisfactory 1.0 co-op with Murphagator
Platform Steam
Start Date September 11, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Satisfactory is so good, man.  This is the third time Murphagator and I started a playthrough, and since this is the release version, this time we actually finished it!  We used the same basic distribution of labor, where I went and looked for shit while Murph did all the building.  I did a little bit more construction this time, though very inefficiently, and made some oil and nuclear power, but since the Somersloops and Mercer spheres are so overwhelmingly powerful in this version it was generally more beneficial to just hunt for those.  The final phase was a bit of a letdown, but hardly took away from how good this game was.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12
Youtube Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part 11 Part 12
Playlist Playlist
Game FF3j Four Job Fiesta #1 Oct’24 (WAR/RNG/VIK/MAG)
Platform Steam
Start Date October 7, 2024
Status Complete!
Details FF3j had an official Four Job Fiesta campaign in October 2024, so naturally I felt obligated to do a few runs!  Also, I wanted to.  By default, all jobs were revealed at the start of run when signing up through the website, so this playthrough was influenced a bit by that.  Warrior is a really fun start and is powerful for most of the game, ranger is a monster, and I’ve had viking/magus runs before so this was just a cozy playthrough.
Links Part 1 Part 2
Game FF3j Four Job Fiesta #2 Oct’24 (MNK/SCH/VIK/NIN)
Platform Steam
Start Date October 21, 2024
Status Complete!
Details Second run!  Never used monk before, so I was very excited to see that roll.  Monk/scholar actually have fantastic synergy and steamrolled a lot of this game.  Viking and scholar have a sort of anti-synergy because of the way the critical health toughness works out, but it was a lot better than I expected.  I also never rolled a ninja before, so this was really interesting.  It was a bit tricky getting to Eureka and killing Scylla to unlock it, but we were off to the races afterwards.  Ninja is unbelievable, even if I chose to not use shurikens.  I also finally learned how to use viking properly for Cloud of Darkness, and equipped all the magic defense gear I had.  This got particle beam’s damage down to ~80, which is essentially a free win if you have any damage dealer.  Fun run!
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game FF3j Four Job Fiesta #3 Oct’24 (WAR/ONION/EVO/MAG)
Platform Steam
Start Date October 28, 2024
Status Complete!
Details My last run of the event, and it was a blast.  I really enjoy the warrior start, and fire crystal is the least punishing place to draw onion knight.  Most importantly, I got evoker for water crystal, which is my favorite job.  It is such an absolute riot.  Ifrit’s heal is so enormous that it really doesn’t matter too much if you don’t roll it every turn.  I ran two evokers until earth crystal, which is ridiculously powerful.  No bosses really gave us any issue.  I also learned to greatly appreciate the value of a full-party reflect from Odin, since it guarantees several free turns from problematic bosses (like Ahriman and Echidna).  The main issue with those fights is that you never get a break to recover your party, so even just rolling one reflect buys so much flexibility there.  A high-level magus can solo the entire end-game with enough elixirs, so there wasn’t really any pressure.  Any Ifrit heals that we got against Cloud of Darkness just helped speed up the process.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Game Crystal Project
Platform Steam
Start Date November 4, 2024
Status Abandoned
Details I’m going to start by saying that I think this is a great game, and definitely recommend picking it up.  It was made by one person and has a really impressive scope and depth of mechanics.  I have a lot of complaints with it, but I went into this game knowing that there was a lot I wouldn’t like from my limited exposure to it.  I’m not a fan of this type of aesthetic and I think the platforming is a bit too punishing and involved for what it could be.  There are a lot of different interactions and synergies to explore with the classes, and a ton of different classes to find and experiment with, but I found that the more complicated fights still boiled down to the same strategy and I got a bit tired of that.  I had a great deal of fun exploring and finding things out of sequence and trying to brute force victories against fights I shouldn’t win, but ultimately stopped because the remaining content seems to require either Quintar breeding (which is not great) or visiting the depths of the ocean, which I refuse to do.  I’m still missing Beastmaster and the other job, so there’s probably a lot of other approachable areas to visit, but I’m pretty content with stopping here I think.
Links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8