Gaming Report Q3 2026
The lineup of games this quarter is roughly the same size as usual, but my total playtime over the past few months has been far lower due to a number of factors. Most of these are games that didn’t require big committments; or if they were, I didn’t actually commit much time to them. Nothing really shook me by the shoulders and shouted “PLAY ME!!!”. Well, anyway, let’s take a look at what I did play.
Final Fantasy
Wow, did I only finish this game three months ago? Feels like it’s been ages. I had a lot more fun than I expected to. Maybe I should play more of these!
Final Fantasy II
…Oh. All the weapons and armors and spells have their own experience level now? Well now I’m worried that I’m leveling wrong so I hate it and I’ll never play any of these games again.
Mixtape
I finally went back, started this over from the beginning, and actually played it through this time. And thus, I can say with certainty: yeeeup, I was right, this one’s an all-timer.
Very few games have me grinning like an idiot the whole way through. THE WHOLE WAY.
Star Fox 64
I don’t think the Switch 2 remaster influenced my decision to play this, but maybe it did. I’ve seen a little footage of the remaster and it LOOKS gorgeous; but the gameplay also appears to be 100% identical to the original in every way, so for something I can play in my sleep, it’s kind of a hard sell. Besides, they entirely redid all the voice chatter, so what’s even the point (I still haven’t forgiven them for rewriting one of Falco’s lines in the 3DS remaster). I’ll be sticking with the original.
Although one thing the remaster has given us is Star Fox Commits Fraud, which is the first internet video I’ve found myself obsessed with in many, many years.
Ex-Zodiac
Then I moved onto this, because hey! We’re finally getting some indie Star Fox-likes! It’s about time, really. Ex-Zodiac bases its visuals on the SNES original but its gameplay on 64, and I think it feels pretty good! Room for improvement—landing hits could use some better feedback—but I blazed through the existing content in a day. I hadn’t realized it was early access; as I understand it, it’s currently about 75% finished and is short a few levels yet. Might have to check back in with this one later, because it does some things well—bombs feel snappy, having multiple lock-on shots makes combat more strategic, and there is more incentive to use the brake/boost mechanics. Scratches the itch! Speaking of which…
Scritchy Scratchy
Though I haven’t given in to Cookie Clicker yet, I do get sucked into an incremental game from time to time. In this entry into the genre, the theme was lottery scratch-offs. It was addicting at first, but kind of grew into a slog after a while. There are multiple automations you can purchase and upgrade, but the timing between them always seemed off no matter what I did. The only surefire way to prevent a bottleneck in the process was to not fully upgrade everything, so the output wasn’t optimal. Some parts of the automation are unlocked so late that, although there are perks that let you start your runs with them, you can’t upgrade their speed until late in the run so they’re mostly worthless until then anyway. A couple late-game upgrades also require you to click them many times to activate them; there’s absolutely no reason for this and they are incredibly annoying to use. Stopped being fun after a while.
Leafy Corner
A cozy game where you grow plants and sell them. There’s really not that much to it, and sometimes, that’s okay.
Ratchet & Clank Randomizer
I’ve seen randomizers in games like Ocarina of Time, and I thought the idea sounded really fun, but wasn’t sure there were any games I knew well enough to not struggle with. Then I discovered beloved childhood classic Ratchet & Clank had one, and I had to try it.
Uh, it’s janky as hell. First off, there isn’t a standalone randomizer mod; you instead need to run a multiplayer mod with a randomizer option. Which also means to play the game, you have to connect to a multiplayer server. Connecting to an online server didn’t work for me, so I had to run one locally. So I’m running two different programs in addition to the game to get everything to work; I have to start all three and enter my IP and credentials each time I play. Really a pain in the ass to get working. Oh, and I had to reorganize my in-game Quick Select dial every time I started again, too.
Despite all effort involved, it definitely gave the game an interesting challenge. I started out getting dumped on the ice planet Hoven—one of the later levels—with nothing but the starting Wrench and Bomb Glove, and boy was that main path tricky to clear. I unlocked the Gold Tesla Claw and Thruster Pack pretty early on, though, so there was little the game could do to stop me (aside from the dang Trespasser doors; I didn’t find that until almost the end). Still, fun to consider what options are open to you at any given time as you hop from level to level. I’d do this again.
Strange Jigsaws
These jigsaws were, indeed, strange. In a good way.
Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll
I started this a few months ago but didn’t find it interesting enough to keep with, but gave it a second try and enjoyed quite a lot more. It bills itself as an adventure-platformer, and it has a few elements of challenge (but not much) and a little bit of Metroidvania (but not much). Overall, it’s a solid platformer—which are oddly rare on the Playdate—and generally feels pretty good to play; I enjoy how engaging it is without possessing any enemies or combat. Also, it’s hard to convey a sense of atmosphere with only two colors and a small resolution, so I’m impressed by how well this game pulls it off.
I was less impressed by the ending, which kind of went “Oh, you’re here, but you need to go collect a few things, but you already have them, maybe the world will get better now, bye!”. It was very abrupt; I believe it ties in to a collectible called Echoes that you can seek out on your journey, and it’s likely I would have been sent back if I hadn’t collected enough of them. “Enough of them” is not “all of them”, so at this point I’m trying to see if collecting the full set earns me anything, but one of them is locked behind a riddle I’ve been fixated on for days without having so much as a halfway-decent guess. Maybe I’ll never know what happens.
And, for a game that otherwise seems to run well, it sure crashes my Playdate A LOT.
Lazy Kickers
A second incremental game this quarter; you can really tell how low-committment I was feeling. This one is about growing soccer balls and scoring them for coins so you can grow and score more balls faster. It looks like a blast, but I found myself disappointed fairly quickly. As you progress through the rankings, you get more options for generating balls, scoring, and fending off an increasing number of hinderances, but I think the problem is that your output is entirely reliant on your players to perform actions. You can assign each player a role which essentially tells them what action they perform, but the only metric that impacts their output is their speed.
The number of players and their speed both increase linearly, and are absolutely never multiplied; meanwhile, their cost increases exponentially. This means that as the game progresses, you have to sit around waiting for your money to build up so you can buy a new player or increase the speed one point, which might increase efficiency by a fraction of a percent. At one point, I’m growing balls so quickly that I can’t possibly score them fast enough; then I clear another hurdle and the game goes “hey, this upgrade delivers more balls to you!”, and I’m yelling at the screen that balls aren’t my problem. Every single match progresses the same way: I buy all the upgrades I can, assign my players roles, and then sit back and wait ten minutes until I’ve earned enough money to move on. I could buy more players or things during the match, but I might only be able to afford maybe five more before they become too expensive; and when I already have 150 players, those extra five aren’t going to make a huge difference. Most of the game is just sitting around and waiting, and you can totally check out.
I am, at least, impressed at just how many entities can be rendered without affecting performance. These matches get chaotic.
Given how scattered Q3 has been, I have basically no information to offer on what’s coming up in Q4. There still isn’t anything really calling to me right now. The strongest pull has been from Star Wars Zero Company, which sounded exciting at first, but the longer I’ve sat on it the less sure I am that I want to grind through a tactical combat game like that. Twice I stared at the store page and couldn’t will myself into pressing “buy”.
All that to say: stay tuned, I guess!