Feb 2026
Lots of Buildup and Anticipation Towards RE9
In Progress:
FFXIV
FFXI
Benefitship
Very short VN involving newly acquainted roommates that quickly engage in romance through accidental encounters and unexpected anatomy. The characters and interactions are actually pretty believable with great voice acting. Some of the progression though is a bit abrupt as after the end of an incident it will immediately cut to a time skip. Scenes are solid and help fill the demand for this niche fetish.
If you're into this sort of thing, definitely recommend as it's cheap and pretty good for what there is.
Space Comedy AVN with surprisingly tame scenes but some genuine writing. The humor is can be borderline juvenile at times but that doesn't mean it didn't still make me laugh here and there. There's also some genuinely great interactions and writing when growing with your teammates and learning about their own struggles/dreams. Unfortunately the better writing can easily be missed when choosing the more renegade options as they often just outright skip dialogue with little to no repercussions other than maybe missed scenes. In fact, the whole stat system (choosing kindness, witty, or rude) doesn't seem to pay off from memory. No real lockouts or changes in story other than the immediate conversation. A wide variety of death scenes in case you choose really poorly which are often more of a funny moment than a bad end especially since you can quickly return to the question before your demise.
Despite being particularly vanilla, scenes are still animated well and offer a decent variety of partners to engage with. Of course, if you are not interested in seeing the scenes at all you are more than able to refuse them and continue the story without issue. Still I am pretty remiss that the scenes were as basic as they are considering you are working through quite a bit of story between them.
All in all, a fairly decent reading experience with just enough rewarding scenes to get you through. Humor can be excessive and low bar, but not necessarily bad. The overall story progression can be a bit of a slow burn at the beginning and feels a bit of an abrupt end. Definitely going to be checking out Season 2 with some hopes of spicier scenes and expanding upon the solid character developments they have set up.
In anticipation for RE9, I thought I’d go back to a RE game and play through it once more. Since I’ve only ever done the base platinum for RE7 on the PS4, now was an opportunity to go through it on Steam and do the update content as well. Boy oh boy was that a challenge. The base games hardest difficulty, Madhouse, is fairly challenging but not too bad outside of key parts (or specific enemies I should say). The update hardest difficulties (Not a Hero: Professional and End of Zoe: Joe Must Die) are pretty diabolical. More enemies, crazy trap placements, and just about anything will kill you (with the added difficulty of limited saves). EoZ being the worst due to the swamps, plethora of traps, and just the nature of the content. It also renewed my disgust towards the smaller faster molded that seem to take a magnum shot even on the easiest difficulty and still walk away despite the supposed lower health pool. Then there’s the ultimate challenge… Ethan Must Die. A specially rigged mode that has you make it through the house to unlock and fight Marguerite with nothing but a knife and randomized item drops. It is brutal and takes a lot of attempts just to learn each step forward before actually getting to the end zone. Luckily your dead body will leave behind a randomized item from your last run… but it won’t always be enough to save you. Even on my successful run I had nothing but a knife to my name and a dream in the final moments.
So, what did this completion mean for me? Well, RE7 is definitely a welcome return to survival horror and a great game… but the flaws have only become more apparent. Enemy variety and balancing sucks. Both visually and gameplay. The first person is neat but the running speed feels really SLOW. Almost no skippable cutscenes. The flashlight usage is determined by the character, not you.
SPOILERS: I’d also like to take the time to note that the complaints that RE8 advertised with Lady D despite only being only the first quarter(ish) of the game… but the same can be said for Jack. They both serve a pursuer role and are dealt with in a very early stage of the game (with a slight but minimal exception with a later RE7 segment). Mostly just saying this because it seems like a very common complaint but RE7 would have a similar issue but isn’t held to the same standard.
Decided to take my chance on the PC version in anticipation for RE9. Quite happy this managed to run on my system. Looking as good as it does it still manages to run well on a 1070 GPU. In no way does this replace the original but it absolutely creates a fun new way to re-experience with fast pace action, satisfying parry system, and a wonderfully chosen cast of actors. Despite choosing a darker and debatable more serious tone, the game is surprisingly faithful to most of it's set pieces and the changes that are made were fairly welcome. I do think we don't get enough interactions with the major villains and miss the back and forth from the original. New weapons can be hit or miss. Bolt thrower (essentially the mine thrower) is nearly an essential piece in a run while others can feel under performing or useless. Though very few and far in between I have died due to falling through the map or a boss triggering phase causing me to get killed off screen.
Genuinely an amazing game and the PC version is not only efficient in terms of hardware requirements but has great potential for continued support from fans.
Fairly standard match-3 with a furry focus. I was fairly surprised to find that it is not one greater story but a collection of smaller stories that imitate very stereotypical scenes. You'll read through a section which is followed by a match 3 segment where you must meet certain requirements to continue the story (clear x types of tiles, exceed a score, etc.) Once a criteria is met you can then choose to go down that story path or try for an alternate one. Unfortunately, once all criteria are met you are forced to pick even if you have extra moves to use. Some of the criteria are pretty hard to get and almost demand you use your limited power ups which can only be bought through the shop with earned money. The scenes themselves are mostly solid with decent animations and limited voice work. A couple of scenes have some wonky perspectives and art but overall do well.
Pleasantly surprised, though I wish the match 3 felt more engaging and rewarding instead of relying on what feels like luck of the drop. Otherwise a pretty okay game.
March 2026
RE9, FFXIV, and That Was Pretty Much It
From a very casual standpoint this is very similar to Guilty Gear X2 #Reload in that it has a similar story mode, arcade mode, and cast of characters. This seemingly has a few more characters added that even get their own selectable (albeit shorter) story chapters. I could not say if the story sections are particularly different as I ended up playing different characters and the final boss was the same for arcade though I did try to play all the bonus characters and as many side characters as I felt comfortable with. I will note that the sound design wasn’t particularly great. Cutscene audio was crunchy and some move sounds sounded like a jet flying overhead.
Recommend? Yes, As far as I can tell, this is the definitive way to play the XX series of GG.
Fighter of Choice: I-No
Resident Evil Requiem 
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When I first saw details of the game I thought it was simply a combination of the classic RE games with the more action focus it took on post RE4. However, this game is so much more and is best described as “The Greatest Hits of Resident Evil”. It takes so much from the entire series including many of the non-numbered and spin offs. Truly, it is a game for the fans despite some having very strong preferences though it is not without issue.
Bad news first, always. Much like most of the RE series, the story can be a little ridiculous. So much so that some of it is tied together by a single or few threads barely keeping it together so long as you don’t think about it too much. Though I didn’t nearly have as much of a problem with the ending or reasoning behind it, I can at least admit that there is quite a bit of happenstance that drives the plot. Though I do think there was room for one more boss fight at the end (if you know, you know). Despite being the length of a RE game, it does FEEL short. This is largely because the game is split between to gameplay styles. Grace’s classic Survival Horror RE gameplay and Leon’s action-focused “modern” RE gameplay. This leaves each only getting half of a game’s worth of each type of play and leaves us wanting more… So much so that I almost think to scratch that itch the game would have to be nearly double a normal RE game’s playtime just to feel satisfied with the time spent with both types. In a way it’s not a bad thing to want more since the game clearly does both well but even just a bit more could have gone a long way. The UI is not great, often using very similar colors in maps and inventory giving a very muddled look. Inventory also has some misleading item notifications, questionable item stacks, and lacks a long time feature of being able to combine/use while grabbing an item. My greater and later critique is with Leon’s section. Specifically, not only can weapons not be stored in a box for later playthroughs (or even a current one) but upgrades also feel greatly limited. Doubly so for any bonus weapons as they have no upgrades at all. I enjoy seeing how a weapon performs as you go on, so getting a bonus weapon only for it to not evolve in any way feels… dissatisfying.
The GOOD. Well, like I said it is the greatest hits and boy do they hit. First off, I love having new protags (and antags/characters in general) in Survival Horror games so much that I’d argue that a survival horror series almost needs to be somewhat of an anthology of characters in that world. Grace Ashcroft has very quickly become one of my favorite RE characters. Her fear is so real and her struggling to get through this nightmare is quite immersive, yet her perseverance and quick thinking fits her character so well with her background. She probably has some of the most genuine dialogue (in general and with other characters) I have ever heard in the series and the voice actress deserves every commendation for her performance. Grace’s survival horror experience is such a nice return to form and I loved exploring her areas trying to figure out the best way to manage everything with interesting and diverse enemies that all have unique little quirks.
When Grace’s struggle for survival chapters end you get a palate cleansing moment to kick ass as Leon S. Kennedy. He retains a lot of his capabilities from 4 Remake but is enhanced as you can parry so much and durability is mitigated through on the spot (free) repairs to your axe. You get the greater inventory space, over the top melee, and diverse weapons to slay through your enemies. Admittedly it sometimes feels like Leon doesn’t get the same diversity in enemies; it is easily dismissable due to the diverse over the top situations Leon gets into. Leon’s story still has plenty of weight and you can feel his development stemming from RE2 to now as he carries his past with him. Victor proves to be a competent villain who not only stands on his own but shows interesting goals.
Recommend? Abso-abso-absolutely! Even with the issues it is an absolutely fantastic game made for the fans of RE. I only hope that the expansion content continues to do it justice and gives us the “more” that we’ve/I’ve been craving.
Starting by using Valentine’s Day to replay this I took a huge detour until March to finally reclear this game that is locked to the 360/PS3 consoles of gaming. Having replayed it… I realize why there is little attempt to bring it forward. Though I do appreciate the comic getting an adaptation with neat powers and genuine moments (like the apartment scene with Jenny), the game is really rough and aged poorly.
The rough parts are real rough. For starters the graphics are pretty generic and Jackie looks a bit like a dope but it’s not a total deal breaker either. The gameplay is a bit wonky with targeting often needing heavy aim assist and powers often having some level of inaccuracy or awkward controls. Navigation is by far the worst as there is little reason to let you free roam when really it mostly entails you triggering several loading screens just to confusingly ride/navigate the subway. It doesn’t help that the game gives you little direction as is and objectives aren’t always clearly labeled. Your minions have pretty terrible AI and often fail to do the task assigned to them outside of more scripted sections. You get a multitude of side quests that seemingly yield no rewards and only further waste time as you must travel the subway and smaller areas much much more. The collectibles and rewards you do get are mostly just numbers with weird little conversations followed by concept art unlocks.
Recommend? As much appreciation as I had for the game… it is a hard game to recommend, especially when the sequel does so much more and better.