Picking up where I left off

Behold, it is I, the guy who continues to play new shiny videogames instead of sticking to my ongoing playthroughs.

I’ve written before about my ongoing games, which games I would start over instead of resuming, why I abandoned them, and the like.

This post will be different. Not a list of games, not excuses as to why I stopped playing them. My plan is to share with you exactly where I stopped playing and trying to remember what I was doing and where I was going! So, an excercise on my own memory, I guess.

It should be obvious but I won’t actually look at gameplay videos or guides and such, this is just what my brain remembers and I’ll share it with you here. Of course, there may be spoilers in case you haven’t played these videogames, but you may also not care, and I could also be wrong!

If you are okay with being exposed to some sections of the story of these, let’s go! Think of them as the memories of some old hermit or something, if you wish.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition

Last Played: June 20, 2025

I literally stopped at a perfect spot, in my opinion. I have been searching for the location of Ygddrasil, the giant magic tree of the world in Dragon Quest, and I have been looking for some special orbs of energy or something that will let me access it!

I am not completely sure if I already have all of the orbs or not right now, but after countless, wonderful adventures and thirty hours of gameplay, I’ve made it to a magical city, which is where the twin sisters that are members of my party—one of them shrinked by some curse at the moment—were born.

At this point, the guy in charge, who is wise or something, just told me the story of my ancestors who saved the world in what I guess would be, the “Elusive Age” of the game’s title! The story was told by showing some beautiful art engraved on the walls in some sort of sanctuary.

After all of that was done, the guy finally opened the door, which should, lead me right through to Ygddrasil at last.

My theory of course is that something will stop me before I do that, and all of what I’ve gathered, including my party members, will be dispersed somehow by some bigger evil. I may be wrong though, I am probably just affected by one of the games in here…

Final Fantasy VII

Last Played: May 2, 2025

We have been on the run from Shinra for quite a while now, and I’m not totally sure of where I’m at story-wise, I may be telling stuff that happened much earlier, but I’ll write away…

I believe last I played, I managed to escape from Rocket Town, it was a place where a giant Rocket—if the town’s name wasn’t clear enough—failed to launch or something. We saw some of the backstory, shared by a guy who was there, it was very traumatic I guess and he is taking care of—or being cared for by—some lady who was also there back then…

Anyway, Shinra showed up—they are the bad guys by the way—and I ended up stealing—or borrowing maybe—a flying airplane! This was super cool because I thought I would finally be able to explore the whole world. But it’s way too early in the story, so of course I was shot by some missiles and my plane lost the ability to fly, landing on the sea. So, now I have a way to travel by sea using a broken airplane!

I believe I headed to some place where all of my powers got stolen by one of the characters in the game. I was super weak and not ready for that at all, so I decided to reload my save and head elsewhere—I think I looked online and that was a sidequest I could save for later either way. Instead I went to some other place where there was this ugly forest, and then a cutscene telling me I would get lost if I didn’t have some item…

So then I went to the place where I can play games and there are bets and casino stuff and I talked to some guy who gave me that item, I think. So I think I should simply go back to the other place and try to walk through that mysterious forest to continue the story.

Outer Wilds

Last Played: January 23, 2026

This game is absolutely ruined by spoilers, go ahead and skip this if you want to play it. Please play it first, it’s absolutely worth it after 11 hours of playtime and I’m just a silly person who refuses to continue it with no reason, proceed with caution

I’m literally only writing this so the people playing this game can get excited I mention it and then email me to say I’m missing out, basically provoking them to interact with my post and bring more traffic to my website

On this game there are a lot of options and paths for me to take, so there’s really no right way for me to proceed as far as I know.

Last I played, I was visiting a twin planet, which fills with sand over time. The most interesting places there are some underground cities that slowly fill up with said sand as time progresses.

I think I was trying to get to some weird fossil that was there, which I could see through a crevice in a wall. Apparently, reaching that fossil will provide me with information, which I will need to progress in a different planet. I expect this information to be useful in multiple places, which is something that has happened before playing this game. My theory is I will be able to go beyond the electrical field that protects the core of the sea planet.

Another interesting path to take would be the weird non-euclidean seed thing that seems to be playing music and go on infinitely. I launched a scout inside that seed and it really did go on forever… I don’t know how to get in there myself, because the entrance is too small for me, but I’m definitely curious and also extremely scared by it.

There’s another dead end that I’m yet to reach, in the planet that is slowly devoured by a black hole. There is this weird mining structure, that I can’t really reach for some reason. I have been trying through multiple angles, and it just stays too far away for me… There seems to be some way to reach it if I step in one of those stones that reverse the gravity, but I can’t find the path just yet. I also want to get inside the Tower of Knowledge or Wisdom or something like that, can’t recall the name.

Don’t give me any clues, by the way.

Suikoden II

Last Played: Around 2020

This game was absolutely awesome, but I think I got lost for a bit longer than I liked.

I believe that I had been in a city for a while, and then one of the main characters or a main character’s friend tried to take the life of the leader of the resistance, or something like that—the resistance to some sort of conqueror who is probably the main villain of the game, I’ve heard he is a very popular antagonist but I don’t know.

Anyway, I think the attempt failed, or maybe it worked and then some other guys showed up to help keep things afloat while I escape or something.

So I went to another city which is near a coast, and I am supposed to take a boat or something, I think, or maybe to talk with some character that will tell me what to do next.

This is the kind of game where you can get a bunch of characters to be part of your party rotation, kind of like Pokémon I guess, so I was also trying to find interesting looking sprites that would probably end up as allies.

In any case, I believe I got annoyed because I couldn’t figure out where to go from where I was, I even recall returning to previous cities in the map trying to find out a way to go.

I am honestly really liking the story of this game, it was very interesting and deep! And the trauma of the main character seemed rather interesting.

Xenogears

Last Played: Around 2021

Oh yeah… now this brings me back…

I don’t think I have mentioned Xenogears very much, but along Suikoden II (and most PS1 games I’ve played), it survived the transfer from my PSP to my current handheld emulator and it’s still there waiting for my return.

Last time I played I think I was escaping from some sort of forest. It was only the opening hours in the game so there’s not a lot to spoil yet. I remember being extremely confused by the rotating camera controls, but eventually going to some last boss fight that blocked my path to the exit of the forest.

I believe the boss fight was against some giant dinosaur or something? It would be quite cringe to be wrong about this, maybe it was just a regular mecha, or a mecha dinosaur! I really can’t remember well.

In any case, we managed to exit the forest and met some new member for the party, I believe, and headed outside.

We ended up in a desert, with some oasis city in the middle full of merchants and stuff, I believe I was even warned by one of my companions to not trust their word or something…

Triangle Strategy

Last Played: March 2, 2025

I have an overarching idea of what was going on, but this game is so full of twists and turns and dialogue, I actually don’t remember what was going on last time I played!

I remember there were these factions fighting for resources, I remember I took certain decisions too. I saved the Prince of my kingdom and I refused to surrender him to the enemies.

I believe I even went through a battle where a lot of my people—I am a Lord or something in charge of them—ended up losing their houses to enemy fire and the like.

From there, the Prince who is also my best friend decided to escape, maybe to surrender himself or something. Now maybe this was not actually what happened and it was only one of the many choices available that I am yet to take. It’s weird how I really have no idea.

Seriously there are so many narratives going on at once I don’t recall a single one, but I will still continue where I left off if I ever pick it back up.

Parasite Eve

Last Played: Around 2024

I had to end with a banger right? Even though last time I touched this game was in 2024, that really is only because I took my time to transfer the PSP save to my Anbernic handheld yet again. I opened the game and I was surprised to see it still working!

You see, I was playing a Spanish translation ages ago, and I wanted to switch to English, and to use the Chicago Font romhack just because. I was surprised to see my save worked perfectly fine despite the language and romhack change, it was cool to have no problems caused by that.

Story-wise, I was visiting the hospital and learning more about mythochondria, I was just about done with the part where I realize that I received a kidney transplant from a japanese girl or something. There’s also this weird ghost of a different little girl, who is guiding me through the hospital to the roof top. Of course there’s enemies everywhere and they have this annoying bouncy projectile that keeps hitting me.

It turns out that Eve, the antagonist of the game is up at the roof, and she is now a giant naked lady with spider legs. I believe my weapon set needed a lot of upgrades though, so I was unable to beat her.

I know what happens after that because I got spoiled by some playthrough on YouTube a while back, but I still want to see what happens with my own eyes!

Finishing up

If you read through all of that without playing any of the games mentioned, I gotta give kudos to you, I really feel like I sound like some weirdo telling stories by the campfire of lives I never lived or something.

In any case, those are games with a story and with stuff going on that I remember somewhat. There are plenty of other games that I haven’t completed either but don’t really have a plot, such as Lumines or Ridge Racer , so I obviously skipped those.

Now, in case the opposite case is true, and you have played through a few or many of the games on this post, what are your thoughts? Does my memory fail, or was yours reawakened? Let me know which one should I continue or maybe start over, one of these days, or months…

This is day 10 of #100DaysToOffload and day 5 of #Blaugust2026