What I'm playing Feb-March 2026
Geez, I’m bad at regularly blogging, even when it’s about something I like, like games! Anyway!
I recently started using the website Backloggd in order to track my gaming. I figured this would be a good way to remember what to talk about, as my memory is so bad that two days after I’ve played something I’m not going to remember what I played recently! I use Bookmory for keeping track of my reading (and before that GoodReads) and that’s always worked well for me, so I thought I’d give it a try, and so far it’s working well! Though I recently started playing the game Retro Rewind: Video Store Simulator, and like, can I ever move it over to ‘played’? What do you do when a game doesn’t really have an ending? I’m sure people have already answered that question, so I’ll have to look into it.
But for now, what I’ve been playing!
Batman – NES
I finally played Batman start to finish on the NES! I’ve always like this game, but found it to get a bit tricky in the later levels and never really put in a real effort to reach the end. After watching the You Can Beat Video Games episode featuring Batman, I figured I’d give it another go. I really liked this game, and it has that great Sunsoft look and feel. They were really great at graphics and sound on NES games, they have such a distinct style. (I actually played this at the end of January and meant to write a bigger blog post about it, but I guess I left it half finished, so now it’s just here)
Crystalis – NES
After I finshed Batman I was really feeling like tackling another NES game, so I decided to try out Crystalis. This was a game that was strongly recommended to me by a coworker back when I worked at GameStop. So here we are, like almost 20 years later, and I finally got around to it, haha! And it’s pretty enjoyable. It has a very Zelda kind of feel to it as an action RPG, the world is pretty big, and there’s a good sense of progression as you acquire new skill and spells. I feel like the limited dialog doesn’t do enough to draw you into this post-apocalypse/fantasy earth they’ve made. And I wish they had a method for turning off your strongest attacks when they use your MP! It was always annoying to charge up my skill to its 2nd level only to have it go up to 3rd and use some of my MP accidentally!
Deadpool VR – Quest 3
I got this game at launch and have been playing it off and on and really enjoying it. I think it’s best played in shorter bursts, so I would usually play through a level, then come back to it later. This felt like a great AAA game on the Quest, with nice graphics, a great voice cast, and truly great VR ‘feel’ as you use guns, swords, a grappling gun, grenades, and just jump around killing everything coming at you. The writing is funny, the set pieces are memorable. Unfortunately by the time I finished the game, which was only like 2 months, the developers who made it, Twisted Pixel, had been shut down so it was a little bittersweet beating the game!
Oh right, and then there was…
Pokemon Pokopia – Switch 2
Yeah, this is the one that’s really taking up all my free time lately, and that’s not surprising. Or maybe it is, because I thought I’d like it, but I didn’t think I’d like it THIS much! The developers really nailed the feeling of wanting to stay in this world to just do one..more...thing. Talk to one more Pokemon, explore this cave a little more, just fix up one more habitat or house. You can lose so much time to this game it’s incredible! Before starting it, I was really worried the fact that you can’t fight or get hurt by enemies was going to be a sticking point, as games like Dragon Quest Builders have that and it really feels like it breaks up some of the slower parts. But this game doesn’t need it at all. I think part of that has to do with the great writing, as talking to Pokemon is a joy and you feel like you genuinely want to help them. The game is great and definitely earns all the high review marks it’s been getting, it’s one of the best Pokemon games I’ve played in a long time.
It’s so good in fact, that my wife has been playing my Switch 2 a lot so she can play as well! Which means I’ve had to sometimes play something else while she’s playing, so I also grabbed…
Retro Rewind: Video Store Simulator – Steam
I’ve been talking about how it’d be a good idea to open a video rental store around here now, as I’m sick of streaming services, and I’m sure plenty of others are as well. So when a game released that has me opening a new VHS rental store in the 90s, I was intrigued. After playing the demo I was a little worried that the whole ‘store simulator’ wasn’t for me (this is my first time in that genre) but I took the plunge and I’ve been finding it pretty fun. You start off small, but as you level up and get more money, you can add genres to your store, adding decorations and other services like candy and popcorn. I really love how customizable everything is, from the signs on top of the video shelves to the material and color of the walls. My store’s got some nice wood panel walls and bowling alley arcade style carpeting!
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been playing lately. Hopefully in the future I can actually succeed in making this more monthly instead of whenever I remember I should write this!