March 2025 Recap

On 04/01/2025 at 11:55 AM by daftman

Games Beaten

-Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (PS5)

There is a lot to like about Reverie Under the Moonlight. The pixel art is beautiful and very expressive and establishes the bleak gothic atmosphere of the game well (the music supports that atmosphere even if it is forgettable). The combat is fluid and responsive and you find several meaningful upgrades during the adventure. Save points are the only spots of interest the map shows you but it is a relatively small map. The game is not so much difficult as it is unforgiving. You must pay attention! I wish the story coalesced better. Several interesting characters feel completely wasted. But overall a good game and not long.

Games Bought

Paying for games was not a thing for me in March. The only pick ups I made were the PS+ games. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection was an ironic inclusion since I had just played the Game Boy TMNT III game on my Switch version of the collection about a month earlier. Sonic Colors Ultimate is the HD remaster of my favorite Sonic game but I never bought it because I have already played it and still have it on the Wii. Well, maybe I'll go back to it now. Rounding out the line up is Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Considering its tumultuous development, it ought to be a terrible game but it turned out to be a perfectly serviceable fantasy RPG. The fact that it is on PS+ so soon after its release no doubt speaks to its struggle to find an audience, and that's too bad. My wife is excited to play it though. She loves the Dragon Age games.

Games Being Played

-Cat Quest III (Switch)

I have been sporadically playing this with my ten-year-old. I have thoughts on it but I'll save those for next month.

-Undertale (Vita)

This game is so beloved by the internet and I...am bored. At this point I am just trying to finish it to finish it.

-Picross S Namco Legendary Edition (Switch)

Progress continues on this mountain of puzzles!

-Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak (Switch)

We are into Master Rank now.

-Destiny 2 (PS5)

We played through the new dungeon recently. That was pretty cool.

Cary Woodham

04/02/2025 at 07:50 AM

So I saw on the Nintendo Switch eShop channel that there's a new Picross S game and it has a theme, too. The theme is characters from a famous Japanese manga artist(s) and some you might've heard of, like Doraemon. I probably won't be getting the game myself, because while Doraemon is cool, it's not cool enough to buy a game of for me. I wonder if the characters from Q-Taro are in the Picross game, too? The guy who created Pac-Man cited the Q-Taro characters as inspiration to how he created the Pac-Man ghosts.

daftman

04/02/2025 at 02:06 PM

Cool! I added it to the wishlist. I see there is also one from last year themed about some Shield Hero anime? It's going in the wishlist too! It's always more fun having a theme.

04/02/2025 at 07:54 PM

Yeah but for me it needs to be a theme I would be interested in.

KnightDriver

04/04/2025 at 12:30 PM

I curious about all the Sonic games right now. One of them might appeal to me more than original 3 like Colors.

I'm also probably going to try the TMNT games again. The Cowabunga collection is pretty comprehensive and I love collections like that.

04/11/2025 at 10:44 PM

When I played Sonic Mania I finally realized that I just don't particularly like 2D Sonic games. I haven't played a ton of 3D Sonic games but I definitely enjoy those more. Sonic Colors mixes both perspectives with smartly implemented power ups and clever level design that kept me engaged the whole time. (There was one boss fight near the end that I found frustrating but that was my only real complaint.) I have not played Sonic Generations (and the new version is supposedly very good) but I hear it does very similar things, just without the colored wisp power ups.

Sonic Colors was so good that I eagerly bought its follow up, Sonic: Lost World for the Wii U. It even brings over the wisp power ups! But that game has dull levels and poor use of the power ups. Definitely skip that one.

The Cowabunga Collection is great! I have not played all the games on it yet but I have a huge soft spot for the second Game Boy game, Back from the Sewers. I think it is an excellent GB beat-'em-up. But even the games on there that aren't great are at least interesting and you can power through any of them either with infinite continues or by abusing the save state and rewind features. But Turtles in Time—the SNES version, specifically—is one of the best beat-'em-ups ever made. Hands down. So at the very least, be sure to play that one.

04/18/2025 at 12:49 PM

Me neither. I tried Sonic Adventure back when I had a Dreamcast, and liked it, but not enough to finish it. I'm keen on a game called Tales Adventure which I think was a Game Gear spinoff title collected on Sonic Origins Plus which I'm renting from my library soon.

I've played, and not finished, many of the TMNT games before, but I'd like to revisit them, especially that Game Boy game you mentioned. That collection seems to have them all.

Ranger1

04/05/2025 at 03:12 PM

I...have played none of those games. I have the first two Cat Quest games, but I never made it very far. As for Picross, I love Picross games, so maybe I need to check this one out.

04/11/2025 at 10:51 PM

The first Cat Quest game is kind of like baby—er, I mean, kitten's first RPG. Very simple but charming and fun. The second one is a great sequel in that it meaninfully expands on the original (and has co-op, if you can wrangle a buddy to play with). But if those didn't click with you, the third one isn't going to change your mind.

Picross! The Switch has plenty of Picross options. The main thing I don't like about this one is the music. They pulled old arcade ditties for everything, it seems, and they get old fast.

PixlBit