joelchrono's blog

How I keep track of my gaming

2026-07-14T22:01:12-06:00

Every weeknote and monthly summary, I list all the videogames I played. There are a few things that I do to help myself keep track of it all. Some tools I’ve mentioned here and there, but never all in a single post.

I won’t really be making any specific tutorials, but leads in the right direction, in case you are interested on tracking your gaming like me.

I’ll be honest, while a lot of these tools are pretty easy to set-up, there’s still a lot of manual work required to have it all nice and tidy, there’s an argument to be made that I shouldn’t really be obsessed by how much I play videogames and keeping track of everything. However, having a full history of everything gaming brings me joy, where as trying to remember what happened in the past and being unable to, does not.

After all, it is a bit sad that I have no idea when I realized Parasive Eve was a game I was interested in playing. I don’t really remember the exact date I tried Chrono Trigger for the first time. I have no memory of when I completed Ocarina of Time. Yes I have rough estimates, but that’s it, and I also lack the context of it all, which is kind of important sometimes.

I just wish I had kept some sort of journal entry that helped me figure out things, like where my headspace was at the time, and at least how long I have played certain games.

Newer consoles have finally started to include some tools to know how much I play videogames. Platforms like Steam have a built-in playtime counters, and well, thanks to all the tools I mentioned here, I can bring it all to a single place.

Playtime per console

First, I wanted to write about how I keep track of the gaming I do on each of my gaming devices, as all of them have different setup, be it using custom firmware or a separate app. Only one of them has a feature complete built-in tool, but we’ll get to that later.

Nintendo Switch

While the Switch features a pretty basic Profile Activity screen, showing how much you have played the twenty most recent games. This is an approximate and it won’t even start counting the time reliably until you play from 5 to 10 hours of a game.

Have no fear though, the Switch Parental Controls app features a great inteface to display my gaming per day, with a monthly view as well! However, this app does not have the full playtime of each game, and it doesn’t provide a full history either, as data vanishes after a few months.

A great option to see the full playtime is Exophase, a website I connected to my Nintendo account, displaying the playtime of each game I play. You need to launch a game you want to track at least once after connecting your account so it gets synced with the website, it will not automatically scan every game in your library.

It is unfortunate that the Switch has never had a proper Activity Tracker, especially because their previous handheld console has one of the best implementations I’ve ever seen, we’ll talk about that later.

Emulator handhelds

A few months ago, there was no good way to keep track of the games in my handhelds. The only one that worked okay was my Miyoo Mini Plus running OnionOS, although sometimes I ended up with duplicated data and other issues when renaming ROMs. Nothing to worry about, I wrote a post on how to fix those issues!

Nowadays I use the Anbernic RG35XX SP, and I prefer to use the muOS software. They have finally added a built-in Activity Tracker screen, which is awesome, although not as feature complete as the upcoming trackers.

You can access a particular game’s data by simply using the select button while it’s highlighted on the screen. For some reason, this only works when viewing the game list from the Library, it doesn’t work on the History or Favorites screen.

Of course, the full Activity Tracker can be accessed from the Info screen where you can see the full list displaying playtimes and times opened of every game in the handheld. Pretty useful, if rather simple.

Nintendo 3DS

In case you did not know this, the Nintendo 3DS has literally the best activity tracker implementation I have ever seen, and it’s completely native to their OS: The Activity Log. There’s no hacking necessary to have access to it, it just works.

Not only does it track the total playtime and the times a game is opened. It also has a full timeline of every single day, divided by the hour in both a graphic and a list view. It also displays the steps you take while carrying the 3DS in sleep mode.

There’s little for me to add here, it’s genuinely impressive stuff and I wish the Nintendo Switch had implemented something half as good as what this is. Absolute top tier functionality and features.

The surprise: PSP!

However, the PSP is the real reason I wanted to write this post in the first place.

For years now I have been wondering why the PSP did not have a built-in activity tracker. The interface already let’s you access information about a game by pressing the triangle button, but it doesn’t really have anything regarding playtime, which always seemed like a missed opportunity for me.

Since I mostly play JRPGs, I usually knew my playtime based on the in-game info, which was good enough for me, but it was still not a given on every single game, and I had to take some extra steps in some videogames just to know how much I’ve played it. For example, on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I had to exit a mission, go back to the main menu, load a save, and only then I would know how much I had played it, taking into account the loading times, it was a bit painful.

Thankfully, a couple months ago developer OniMock released a homebrew application and plugin that that can track PS1 and PSP games running on the device. It’s called GameDiary, and it’s incredible. To get it to work you need to have a modded PSP of course. I recommend this guide as of mid-2026. It seems like version 5 of that custom firmware is being worked on, but it’s not as stable as ARK-4 yet.

Anyway, if you’ve installed a PSP plugin before it should be quite simple, but the instructions are found in the link I already shared.

For me the plugin worked great from the start, it didn’t affect performance in any noticeable way. The new application looks amazing as well, featuring playtime for a current session, as well as the total playtime and other stats, featuring the videogame artwork and a really pretty interface.

This is a feature I always wanted, and it truly competes with the 3DS’s built-in tracker! I highly recommend giving it a go.

Keeping track of everything with Backloggd

All of the tools I mentioned often work by themselves, with different interfaces and functionality to each, some are built-in, some required some setup, but at the end of the day, all the information on them ends up in different places, be it locally, on an app, or a certain website.

For better or worse, I consolidate everything by hand using Backloggd.

I have been using this website for a few years now, and I don’t see myself ever leaving it! It’s full of incredible features and an amazing stats page that I absolutely love.

I personally don’t care at all about putting in the work. Every single day I play something, I log it to to the game’s journal, write a short text of what happened and the amount of time I played. You can sort in all manner of ways, but my favorite is sorting by Most Recent Session, since it removes all duplicates and displays full playtime of each game logged in order.

You can also create lists and other useful things, but well, you should really give it a try if you are willing to put some work into it. I guess you can simply put start and end dates like a normal person instead of being like me, you do you!

Personally, I’m super proud of my journal, so please give it a look and let me know what you think of it! Of course, if you decide to make an account there, give me a follow!

This is day of #100DaysToOffload

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Commute to the gym & a gifted album - W28

2026-07-13T20:00:00-06:00

And well, here is another weeknote for y’all to update you on what I’m up to. I’m still following the World Cup, I have done a return to the gym and even went on a Saturday.

⚽ Norway lost against England, so now the stakes are clear. No Latinos want Argentina to win again for some reason, and same goes for me, if England took Mexico out, they better get to the finals and snatch that cup. You got this Bellingham.
🎨 Continued making a few more themes for the Nintendo 3DS, I made a theme for Terranigma—another SNES game I love—and another one based on TechDweeb’s iconic themes for retro handhelds!
🛡️Purchased some stuff from AliExpress which arrived today, including a case for my 3DS styled after Monster Hunter, a glass panel replacement for the upper screen, a screen protector and an analog stick cap replacement, in case the rubber of mine dies like it often happens.
🚲 Went to the gym on Saturday, and I did so riding my bike! Which means is the first time I left it locked without direct line of sight. I also had the bright idea of doing leg day. Riding back home was alright, but my legs and lower back have been achy for a while, send help.
📱 Wrote a blogpost already, but yeah, I lost my phone for a whole day, and it was quite the stressful time. It’s all in the past by now, almost as if nothing had ever happened, time sure is weird.
🛍️ Because of Summer vacation time, all of my family is now together yet again—so all the siblings are back here to annoy me!—that basically means we went window shopping to the mall again (and also buying some things too). My wallet is very light.
💿 Acquired a new album for my Bandcamp collection! Time Once Lost (Remastered) by Rozen. This was actually a gift from Bojidar because of my birthday—it took a while because Bandcamp screwed up—and it’s actually kind of crazy. It’s a bunch of remixes based on The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask and IT RULES. Listening to it as I type this post.
🎧 Besides that album I returned to a Welcome to Night Vale and some really interesting episodes of 99% Invisible

Gaming

This was a varied week when it comes to the devices I played. Playtime on my Nintendo 3DS, PSP, Nintendo Switch and my phone too!

Started

Black Rock Shooter is a PSP exclusive I saw mentioned for the first time on the TWG Discord, since its graphical artstyle is one of the best in the system. We play as a cute/edgy black-haired anime girl with amnesia who is Humanity’s last hope in an apocalyptic future where machines are taking over. The game is a sort of rail shooter RPG where I move across stages and get close to the enemies to enter combat, which consists of shooting at them with a huge gun that the protagonist effortlessly carries somehow. It seems to follow the rule of cool pretty well, I’m interested in the story too, as the stakes are rather high! only completed like 5 missions so far.

Ongoing

Fire Emblem Awakening has become much more complicated now that I realized how pairing up characters together to make them get married affects the events in the game! The story has become very interesting now with some revelations I kind of saw coming but with implications far bigger than I thought. For now, I’m having fun! But definitely needed a little break, which is why I started BRS.

Finished

Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores was another DLC of the original Monument Valley and I really love how different the theme of each level was. The artistic style of this title is unmatched and timeless. Beautiful isometric themes with super creative levels that really broke my brain even more than the original levels and Ida’s Dream. That final eight level was truly something else, I had to find help for a part of it, but other than that, basically a sequel in an on itself—I’ll definitely play the other two games too!
Transistor is over, and it was very, very good. This game came before Hades and you can tell how it inspired it. The gameplay was very good in my opinion, a weird mix of action and turn based combat that kind of felt like Into the Breach

Reading

Kingdom - Up to chapter 873. After finishing Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie I was missing something more focused on action stuff and decided to return here. As always, it does not dissapoint, the Hi Shin Unit is going on the offensive now, as well as some other armies, but the great general and enemy of Qin, Riboku, seems to have a plan to make everyone understand his true might as a strategist.
Blue Lock - Up to chapter 353. Blue Lock’s next opponent is England, and they continue to discuss how to face off against them. There’s a bit of an unexpected visit that shakes the team a bit, but fun stuff is happening!
Spy x Family - Up to chapter 137. After Loid manages to escape the hilarious scenario of the previous arc, he’s way too exhausted and ends up in the hospital, where her fellow spy coworker—who has a huge crush on him—ends up trying to fulfill some super dangerous mission to earn his attention, but Anya doesn’t want any of it, other than candy.

Watching

I wanted to watch the sheep detectives movie but my siblings watched it without me first and I haven’t had a chance to see it on my own. However, I saw another masterpiece.

Megamind - I already watched this film this year, but this is one of those films that you just can’t help but love. What a fantastic film this is, both hilarious and actually epic. The best animated superhero film after The Incredibles. Way better than Despicable Me.

Around the Web

Blog posts

i went to the world cup and all i got was my umbrella taken away - a thoughtful slice of life from tiramisu reflecting on the world cup, football and the experience of it all!
Holiday reading, mostly from Standard eBooks - Neil shares some rather curious reads he chose from the public domain, I just like seeing people mention Standard Ebooks in the wild.
Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? - An piece from Brennan that shares some wisdom I hadn’t seen worded in such a way, it definitely got me thinking and I think you should check it out as well.
I Know Everything About You - Lou shares some life experiences related to his skill—one I’m jealous of—to actually remember details about people and their life.
My Nintendo 3DS XL - Syl wrote a wonderful piece inspired by my own post on the 3DS. I loved the pictures and especially the pendants she shared, lots of personality in a single photo. I should get some charms for my handhelds too…

YouTube

I Made My LEGO Gameboy Actually Playable! - I am aware of Natalie’s design using real Game Boy parts, but this alternative isn’t bad either! Good stuff.
Designing My Dream Retro Handheld - Ross has made this epic video where he shares a wishlist of features for the ultimate 4:3 handheld. I agree with pretty much every single point. It will probably never happen.
Ammo Counters - Oh man, this challenge is always a joy, and this retrospective on videogame ammo counters was incredible. The whole evolution of the mechanic until the modern day.
Nintendo Was Right - After Sony announcing that physical media will die, it seems like, as bad as Nintendo is, they are the least bad of them all, which I guess deserves some respect nowadays.

This is day 96 of #100DaysToOffload

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Super Mario Bros Wonder

2026-07-10T09:00:00-06:00

This is a review for a game I finished in March 2025. I just felt compelled to write about it now, I guess.

It’s really weird that I chose not to review this one when I rolled credits on it, because it really is a fantastic return to form for the franchise. Super Mario Bros Wonder is a game I completed with my friends almost completely. A title that became one of many choices to try whenever my friends were up to the task.

For so long, the Mario 2D platformers were stuck in a weird place. All of them since the original DS title that added the “New” to the name felt like a rehash of what came before. The artistic direction just didn’t age very well and looked rather basic.

I played some of the original on a borrowed DS back in the day, out of an R4 card, I obviously tried the Wii version, which was rather popular. I remember giving it a go during a birthday party, in one of those fancy birthday places you can rent that come with gaming rooms and giant bouncy castles. There was a Wii there and I shared controllers with random kids beating a couple of levels together.

Years ago I also tried New Super Mario Bros U. A friend of mine had it at the time, and it was a period of my life where I only had my PSP. I wanted some multiplayer stuff and both this and Super Smash Bros U proved ideal. I have a faint memory of playing New Super Mario Bros 2 on a 3DS actually… but not much.

Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 look extremely different from each other, and the same goes for Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island! As long as the moustache and overalls are present, all of them were recognizable and iconic Mario Games.

While none of the “New” Super Mario titles were bad—in fact, they all had excellent level design and very fun mechanics!—all of them lacked an identity of their own.

Super Mario Bros Wonder gives everything a fresh coat of paint, it is fantastically animated and it does not really miss. Every little detail is wonderful and whimsical and made with passion. It’s noticeable everywhere and I can’t help but love it.

Another thing I enjoyed where the extra power ups, I liked becoming an Elephant and breaking blocks left and right. I never fully understood the Drill Mushroom, but going underground and to roof tops was actually fun and felt great, the classic power ups are there too, and the animations for them are a joy to watch. Trapping enemies in bubbles was funny, not gonna lie.

The game was also very approachable in the way you could complete levels, and replayable too, thanks to badges which gave you extra moves or helped you out in some way, like the Parachute Cap, that allowed you to control jumps better, the Wall Climb that was a lifesaver when you could barely reach a platform, and of course the Dolphin Kick, to swim super fast on underwater levels. There were many others that were fun to use.

The multiplayer was chaotic in the best of ways, and the wonder seeds only multiplied that feeling every time. Some times we played the online mode, and seeing other people running around was a joy. Everyone was actually helpful and I got saved by strangers more than once.

I wonder how many people still run through it today, I should visit some of the levels I didn’t fully finish to see!

Definitely a highlight of the Switch library. I really recommend it!

This is post 3 of 3 for day 95 of #100DaysToOffload

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TOEM

2026-07-10T08:55:00-06:00

This is a review for a game I finished in February 2025. I just felt compelled to write about it now, I guess.

This is one of those chill and cozy types, a photography game where there really is not a lot of pressure or challenge. It was the debut game from Something We Made and you are a young photographer who is tasked by mom (or grandma? can’t remember) to take a picture up a mountain of a phenomenon called “TOEM”.

To get to that mountain you have to take a bus, and to pay for the ticket you have get stamps, which you get by completing quests, all of them require you to photograph certain things in your current location, and the bus will give you a ride to a new place after you collect enough stamps.

This game was an absolute joy, it looks really nice, with a style similar to Paper Mario, where characters are flat and 2D, in a basic 3D environment. The whole thing is also in black and white.

I found the challenges to be extremely fun, the game has an isometric perspective, which you can rotate to reveal certain angles, and expose things hidden from plain sight. You can also use the camera mode to look in places the regular perspective won’t allow. For example, to photograph a balloon in the sky which is not visible otherwise.

There’s also a puzzle element aspect to things, with certain areas being unaccesible until you figure out how to get it. It often is as simply as bringing a photo of something, TOEM also features outfits, where you can style your character however you want, and of course, this is also a mechanic, of the game, where you will be required to disguise yourself, or to wear something specific to access an area.

The game is extremely short, but it really has a lot of charm, the dialogue is thoughtful and warm and the characters you meet, while simple, are still always nice to see. There’s some who you’ll see throughout the game, doing side quests with their own objectives for which they’ll often require your helps.

Since the quests are basically a to-do list, I actually felt compelled to do every single one of them, I got rewards and I felt great doing it. This is a game I got for free because of a Steam code, so I also played it on my laptop (a rare ocurrence) and got every single achievement for it, with some online help for the most obscure ones, not gonna lie.

At last, reaching the top of that mountain is definitely an wonderful experience you owe yourself to try, or maybe the journey is what it’s all about?

Highly recommended if you want a chill time, some nice music and a cozy vibe for a couple evenings, since it’s super short! This is post 2 of 3 for day 95 of #100DaysToOffload

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God of War: Chains of Olympus

2026-07-10T08:50:00-06:00

This is a review for a game I finished in February 2025. I just felt compelled to write about it now, I guess.

This is honestly a game that I don’t know how to explain that much. It’s God of War, everyone knows how a classic God of War plays right? Probably not everyone I guess.

If you don’t, God of War is a button masher, however, it is a button masher with a lot of style and combos! The game is known for its epic battles against hordes of enemies and is basically a power fantasy. You are literally the God of War, after all.

Kratos is a very angry character, and he is also kind of cool. He is tasked by the greek gods to do many things—I think he’s not the God of War yet or something?—and has to kill every enemy that crosses his path.

I know I just called it a button masher, but there’s an actual science behind it, there really are a lot of weapons and movesets you will be unlocking as the game goes on. Different enemies require very different appraoches, some can only be damaged in a certain way, some can entangle you and you need to break free from their grasp, and there are many of them! You can upgrade your weapons and moves, as well as obtain new ones as the story continues. Keep the hits coming, and you will gain extra points and XP and fill up meters and all of that good stuff that makes your brain happy!

The game also features a lot of locations, both real cities from Ancient Greece, as well as locations from greek myths, such as Tartarus or the fields of Elysium. I should note that the game is extremely linear, an adventure on rails that I actually really enjoyed. Not having to worry or get too lost was nice to see.

Besides the combat, the game contains plenty of puzzles, some of them kind of ingenious, but I have to say I found them a bit out of place sometimes, especially because certain things were just kind of slow to do, such as pushing blocks or using certain levers. They kind of got in the way of the fast paced action during combat, and Kratos’s prowess was relegated to pushing buttons in a specific way (some actions were a bit hard to trigger).

The art of the game is incredible, and the fact that it’s all running on a handheld from 2005 boggles my mind, it just looks gorgeous, even if it has a bit of that “everything is brown” problem that some older “realistic” games suffered from. Enemy design, the animation of every attack and combo, the art and statues all over the place, the fiels of Elysium itself or the giant structures you’ll fight through. It’s all just fantastic.

Again, story-wise, it’s not really weak, but it’s not really that important. I have seen video essays about this game, detailing the story of Kratos’ journey and downfall for revenge, and I guess it is there, but this is also a PSP game that happens between some other games that I have never played, so I had no real stakes to care about. There was one scene that was actually really interesting though, so I’ll not spoil it as it’s rather nice to see.

God of War: Chains of Olympus still plays like a charm, though Ghost of Sparte, the second title for the PSP is technically superior in everyway, this is only noticeable once you compare them. I really had fun with it and recommend giving it a try. Do make sure to level up and get good at the combos though, and keep your health in check, some fights in some checkpoints can get very tedious if you are stuck in a bad state and have to reload a previous save further back. I guess that’s my one complaint, but it’s part of the challenge anyway, lower the difficulty and enjoy the power fantasy if you want that instead.

This is post 1 of 3 for day 95 of #100DaysToOffload

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Why are you always happy?

2026-07-09T10:00:00-06:00

Yesterday at work something very weird happened. During our lunch break, the conversation focused on me, at least for a couple minutes.

My group sat next to another coworker, she’s older in age than most of my group, from another generation that would often work more than the others unprompted and at the same time complain that she’s doing too much and nobody else does anything. At least that’s what my coworkers say about her when she’s not present, but I don’t really see a reason to share the critiques.

She’s rather friendly at lunch time and my group and hers get along well, even if they throw shade at her, they do that for pretty much everyone—I suspect every single group at work gossips about each other in the same way.

Today, she made a question directed at me, the title of this post, and people started to give answers and share their thoughts about me.

They said things about how I eat carelessly and don’t really gain much weight. I am a bit fat but it’s true that I don’t look it, though people who know me for a long time can see my body has gotten bulkier than in my early college years. They also said I’m young and naive, even though I’m quite aware of some things they are not, and just because I rarely talk, doesn’t mean I don’t listen or think about things.

Perhaps, they said, is that my first job has been very acomodating, that I didn’t have to fight as much as them to get where I am. I never had a job where I was heavily pressured into things or shouted at or with the usual Mexican work culture of getting overworked and underpaid, and of course, I am in no danger of losing my position anytime soon.

Eventually they made a few questions and realized that I am not married, and that I still live with my parents. That ended up becoming a joke and sort of a final answer to close the topic. And well, it’s true, I can use my money in a lot of ways that bring me joy, and not having to worry about rent or buying groceries is a huge plus.

Many of these things are true, and some are not so true, but neither reason is why I’m always “happy.”

By the way, all the shade and critiques and jokes like these are very common in my country, we call it carrilla and while it can get close to bullying, it’s actually playful and friendly, and doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. Mexicans can be very offensive and is hard to accept for a lot of people, just wanted to mention it in case anyone here feels like this is wrong, abusive or something.

During the discussion I did answer questions, I laughed at some ridiculous claims, I acknowledged how I hadn’t gone to the gym for ages and many other things. I participated, but I never actually answered why I am like this most of the time.

Honestly, it’s kind of a corny answer, and it’s also an incomplete one. There are many factors that have made me into who I am.

I kind of wanted to reply in a playful manner, give them carrilla, point out how they’d be happier too if they stopped complaining about everything and actually did something they were passionate about, besides drinking or partying when they are all five years older than me!

Again, carrilla is not something serious, they’d get it, I obviously lack knowledge about their lives and ignore a lot of things, but we would laugh which is what matters.

Though a part of me finds it true. I wish conversations didn’t revolve around work gossip and complains sometimes.

A topic of conversation that popped up was about the new generations, how we are stuck to our phones, how we have so many means of communication yet we remain silent and shy. It was an interesting observation, and I wondered why that is.

I can’t easily bring up what videogame I am playing at work, it is difficult for me to share which book I’m reading, and even if I mention a somewhat popular TV show or movie, these adults just don’t seem to be aware of what’s new! Or they’d ridicule me for doing that instead of adult things, I guess.

Like, seriously, I would love to chat about things, anything that I am passionate about. Or listen about anything they are passionate about, but nobody seems to do anything interesting, or at least nobody is interested in opening up and talk about it.

And even then, when I am almost always silent and rarely talk about me, they can tell how happy I am all the time.

Of course this isn’t true, I am not always happy, I get stressed out about many things, I worry about the future of the world, I care about my friends and people around me going through difficult times, many losses have been had this year than I ever expected. I am sad when people get into dumb arguments online, I have cried because of moments like that before.

I’m human going through life and wants people to get along with. I guess focusing on different things, trying to see them through different angles. I also write, and that really is great, even if I can get a bit smug because of it. I’m not better than them, or superior in anyway due to this mindset.

I don’t know, it’s not just videogames or books, which I enjoy don’t get me wrong. I have true friendships, online, and in person. I have a hope that things will get better. I am content with what I have, and I have faith, which sustains me through it all.

I am curious, what is the impression you cause on other people? Are you also a cheerful person? or are you often seen as a grumpy one? It’s funny because I always thought I’d seem grumpy and serious, but I guess I’m just happy during lunch time because I get to eat!

In any case, it’s more than being single and living with my parents—but I can’t deny that helps a lot too.

This is day 94 of #100DaysToOffload

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RE: Screens ≠ Books

2026-07-08T15:45:00-06:00

Since JanerationX started a new blog on Pika a couple months ago, I have been enamoured by it. She is not afraid to express her thoughts and is refreshing to see.

I’ve been meaning to add her to my blogroll because of how cool she is, and I have wanted to comment on some of the posts, such as the one on the human houch, or another one about how social media is dead. So yeah, go read those! Can’t help but appreciate how raw her writing is and how unapologetic her opinions are.

To continue contributing to July Reply, I thought that this latest post would make for a nice reply from me. I’ll be trying to speak my mind about things as well in something that I love: Reading books, ereaders, and analog things!

First, it is absolutely true that the feeling of a book is a wonderful pleasure. A book that is well loved, or a book that is brand new, each has its charms and traits, and no piece of technology will ever equate to the analog sensation it provides.

After all, there’s a reason why I have a growing interest on writing by hand or listening to music offline, and I often still buy at least one physical book every couple of months.

The one thing that kind of irked me about the post, is not that books aren’t great, but that the screens of an e-reader and the screen of any other device are extremely different, and much less damaging than your average IPS/LED screen.

I felt like there were a few misconceptions, and I wanted to gently correct them, if I may do so in this little corner of the web I call my blog, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself, I had to share some good news!

First, e-ink screens do not need a backlight to function! I am unable to explain how the technology actually works, but it’s pretty much just a panel that prints information on itself and displays it in the same way a sheet of paper would. Think of it like an improved version of a calculator or a cheap digital watch display, they don’t really have a light—other than an LED in the corner that you can turn on for a second to see the time—that’s why the battery lasts so long!

Most ereaders do come with a backlight of course, but it’s just a useful bonus feature, and only really needed at night, otherwise, an e-ink screen can be lit up by any external light source just like a sheet of paper in a book needs light to be seen.

Also, when you do use the backlight, most have a blue light filter setting to avoid eye strain. Another funny thing is that you don’t need power to keep e-ink screens working, it can display the same thing indefinitely, you just need energy to change its state.

Of course, there’s other points and negatives to Kindles. Such as a false sense of ownership, with Amazon messing up and even modifying purchased ebooks from people without consent, altering personal libraries or even banning users, unable to access books they paid for!

However, it is also true that you can acquire digital books without any DRM, books which you can put in a hard drive or USB or any medium you personally own, and transfer to your device without a problem!

Physical books should always have a place, and it’s a shame to see some publishers cheapening out as they prefer to earn more selling on digital form, with proprietary platforms more often than not.

I guess I just wanted to say that e-ink screens and book pages have a lot more in common than one may think. As do digital and physical copies, as long as they can be owned by the individuals, or why not, through libraries thanks to services like Libby or Overdrive!

The real enemy is being unable to access the books you own, just because of the greed of some companies who don’t respect what should be our rights as a costumer. I think digital and physical ownership are of equal value, and books (or any media) you buy should belong to the person who paid for it!

In the end, screens aren’t equal to books, but e-ink isn’t too bad I’d say :3

This is day 92 of #100DaysToOffload.

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RE: On Form Factor

2026-07-07T15:25:00-06:00

Josh, a fellow member of the TWG server, wrote an awesome piece about the form factor of the devices and stuff he carries and how that affects the way he uses them! Since we are celebrating July Reply, this post seemed like the perfect way for me to reply to!.

In a way, what the premise boils down to is what properties should an object have in order to be used with intent and not ignored?

The way we can afford to spend time intentionally, playing videogames, reading a book or listening to music, is heavily dependant in the context of our lives.

Right now the most time I get to spend doing such activities is on my commutes to work, but going to the gym, arriving early to work, or simply being home, come with their own set of situations.

On commutes

During my commute, I have plenty of advantages. I have free time, I have nothing else to do, and I can carry a backpack with fun trinkets inside.

This means that I can bring my Nintendo Switch and play it the whole trip without any problem. Or any other device for that matter.

However, not all commutes are the same, bringing the Switch is only worth it if my commutes are long and if I really just go from home to work and viceversa.

Sometimes, my commute takes an hour—perfect for some Switch gaming!—but other times, it only takes about 25 minutes, and that makes things a bit more tight. Those shorter sessions are excellent and they were plenty of time for me to complete something like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker or Fire Emblem Awakening. However, I was lucky enough to have longer commutes when I played Metroid Prime Remastered.

Ocassionaly, I will get off the work bus on my way back home, and take the public transport, this happens when I’m heading to the gym, or to pick-up a delivery. In such a situation, I don’t dare to bring out my Nintendo Switch in public—I don’t want it stolen—and I won’t take out my PSP either, because the buses here are wild and if I drop it, the battery and its cover popping out who knows where.

Something like my Anbernic RG35XX SP is often ideal, much cheaper and smaller, and while not sturdier than the PSP overall, the battery doesn’t pop out—although the cheap plastic will definitely chip.

Of course, this is assuming I can sit. There are seasons where buses will be full of people all the time, and it’s in those moments where my Miyoo Mini Flip comes to the rescue! I actually haven’t used it that much, but when I know I’ll probably have to stand up among lots of people, using it to play one-handed-friendly games is awesome.

However, in that case, I may prefer to read some pages on my XTEINK X4. And yes, I am one of those weirdos that can actually read while on the move, even on a bus where I keep swaying in every direction at every stop.

Another reason I wouldn’t carry my Switch is because of the added space taken by it. A huge deterrent for me to go to the gym is carrying my extra clothing. I also don’t feel comfortable leaving such a device alone, even when there are locker rooms.

At the gym

I don’t use gaming handhelds at the gym. I probably shouldn’t care of what others may think if I did, but I do. Besides, it’s much easier for me to get distracted from the excercise by it, or slowing down my walking pace because of the game. Even if I feel justified when others spend that time on their phones resting for five whole minutes.

I simply stick to a podcast when at the gym, put my earphones and ignore everything else. My body focuses on the excercise and my mind is entertained by an episode of Wolf 359.

However, every once in a while I’ve been bold enough to take out my Kobo reader and read a whole chapter of The Expanse while using the threadmill. I have done the same thing with my XTEINK without much issues.

This is only really useful while on a walk or stationary bike, as most machinery lacks a decent place for me to place the ereader in a good position for me to read. Plus, getting stuck staring at a page I already completed because of an excercise would probably drive me mad.

Indeed, music and podcasts are best here, though the XTEINK’s form factor is nice to carry without feeling uncomfortable on my pocket for the rest of my routine. If it’s my Kobo, I’d have to bring it on hand, leave it on the floor or some other random surfaces, or store it in the locker after the warm-up.

At work

To be clear I do not play with my handheld consoles during work hours.

Fine, fine… maybe a casual session of Slice & Dice on my phone every once in a while.

Still, for the longest time the fact that the Kobo looks like paper allowed me to just have it by my side and read a few pages here and there. The form factor was ideal to pass off as a notebook—or maybe people knew sometimes but nobody cared.

Eventually, when the XTEINK came about, things got a lot easier! Although I still use both interchangeably, as it seems not many people mind about telling me to not read books at work…

Oh, right, outside of work hours, I do play with my handhelds sometimes, whenever my commute is short and I arrive early at my workplace! I only do this with smaller form factors, latest of which is my New Nintendo 3DS XL, that has been the largest of the bunch, but still slim enough for me to use before more people start showing up. The Nintendo Switch is way too big and I don’t need to bring attention to it, honestly.

At home

Tthe only thing that stops me from gaming, reading, or doing whatever I want, is the fact that I don’t live by myself!

Now, it’s not that I can’t do something I want, I am simply reminded of my responsibilities and aware of the fact that everyone in the house has to fulfill them for the sake of peace, harmony and love!

Because of this, I mostly stick to devices that allow me to have quick sessions, or some leisure time on the TV with my Nintendo Switch, when every duty of mine is taken care of—or when there’s nobody at home to stop me.

I rarely read at home using my Kobo or my XTEINK, if I’m honest, as I would rather spend my time doing things like playing longer games with a narrative that may end up too disjointed when split into short bursts.

This is also the one moment where I actually don’t mind reading a physical book as well, something different from my sci-fi novels or Manga. It’s where I get to read or study the bible, rather than entertainment.

Podcasts also win a lot of ground especially during chores here, great background noise when doing dishes or mopping the floor.

All in all, the form factor matters less when there’s no real limit to what I can do, I guess.

Finishing thoughts

Josh’s final paragraphs focused on the intentionality of choosing a specific device for a specific moment, for a specific use. Every gadget having a certain meaning, a form factor that makes it ideal for a time, a place, or a state of mind.

Especially so when so much out there is trying to convinced of how encompassing everything into a single point—the smartphone—is the ideal. In the end, it’s all too overwhelming, and overdependence on it only ends up hurting us, being a distraction to what matters in the moment.

That was some pretty good stuff, and I feel I sort of wandered off into what use every device of mine has in many situations. There’s a couple of other things I could have talked about, such as going out shopping or similar, but it’s clear that the tiniest devices are often great when they are meant to fill up empty spaces rather than being the focus.

At last, this is enough for a post, I’d say! I am also going to continue playing some Fire Emblem Awakening on my 3DS after I’m done with this.

This is day 92 of #100DaysToOffload.

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How I lost my phone

2026-07-07T09:20:00-06:00

Yesterday after work I got in the bus back home and proceeded to happily play on my Nintendo 3DS for the whole trip. I was about to finish a stage of Fire Emblem Awakening, leveling up a lot of characters, dodging attacks and surviving hits, all nice and well!

Then the ride was over, I noticed I was the last person left in the vehicle, I rushed to the exit and stepped out to the street. Ten seconds later, I realized I did not have my phone with me.

My workplace provides us with free transportation, so there are contacts and people in charge who may be able to help me out, I just didn’t know who they are.

Thankfully, I didn’t lose my work phone. I started messaging people from there, a coworker who may know someone, or another peer who uses the same bus.

I manage to join the WhatsApp group of the bus route, where I can finally contact the transport manager, but I got no reply back.

I decide to let my boss know, to see if he could help me find someone else to ask around, he told me he would look into it as well. I was stressed out of my mind.

Running back home like a madman, I dash to my room and my laptop and check to see if Google’s Find My Device works—I remembered my Google account was never logged in. Sometimes you wonder if a degoogled life is even worth it. LOL

Both Signal and WhatsApp can work without having the device online nowadays, so I was able to message a bunch of people and let them know I could be offline for a while, I may even have to change phone numbers because of this, but I wasn’t fully giving up yet.

Another advantage I had is that I still keep my older Xiaomi phone, and even though the power button was acting up, it decided to behave for once and turn on after a charge. I was able to log-in to my bank apps from there and keep an eye on them. That also meant that not every single picture was lost.

Oh, how many things I would have lost… My chat history, all the photos I’ve taken on my Nothing 3(a), my AntennaPod stats, one of my banking apps. I’d have to redownload all my music too, which is annoying.

Eventually, my boss tells me he gave my contact info to someone in HR, and few more minutes later I’m sent photos of the lost device. That brings me relief, as I’m told the transport supervisor has it and that I can check with him tomorrow—which is today now.

My phone is safe and sound, and now it’s back in my hands, peace of mind returns.

Clearly, it’s a bad idea not to check where your belongings are before getting out of a bus. It’s also not ideal to get too distracted by a videogame or to rush things—definitely double-checking from now on. This was honestly one of the most ideal scenarios ever, there are a lot of things that could have gone very very wrong.

I could have left my work phone there as well, my boss could have ignored me completely, I could have no access to Signal/WhatsApp on my laptop, or lack a secondary phone to check my bank accounts, I could have taken a public bus with no ties to my workplace, the bus driver could have kept the device for himself, or the bus manager, a simple lie is all it takes. Thank God it’s all over now, and nothing was lost.

Later I realized I do have Find My Device, I was using a blank Google account untied from anything but that specific phone, so I forgot. I did have the login info backed up, so in the future I can make use of this. Although it would probably have been stressful to see my phone somewhere without being able to do much about it.

Make your backups guys! And also, if you know some good way to track your device without using Google services, let me know!

At the very least, I guess that being able to not be glued to my phone for ten seconds is a good thing, so… win?

This is day 91 of #100DaysToOffload

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Return to the gym, 3DS theming, Mexico lost - W27

2026-07-06T11:30:00-06:00

Mexico was knocked out of the World Cup by England. You have no idea how much hope I had for this squad, the quality and resiliance Mexico had shown. Unfortunately we were unable to take advantage of the locality and it only took a couple of mistakes for England to put us in a very bad situation, two goals in just a couple minutes, and a third penalty due to one of the only errors our goalkeeper ever did. Quiñones helped us stay afloat, and a killer penalty kick from Jimenez too, but the game devolved into a battle of trying to get the ball in the area, when it was all filled by the brittish. The weirdest decision for me was taking out the creativity of Mora and the power of Quiñones, and relying on the same play.

Even with that, Mexico fought hard, so many attempts, many of them would have gone in, but the goalkeeper did his job very well. And now we lose, but it’s not the same as always for me. I believe in the new generation. Mora has a long way to go, I would have wanted to see more of la Hormiga, the inheritor of Chicharito’s 14. Rafa Marquez is the manager now, I’m hopeful that the Kaiser will do great for the future.

Oh right, week notes. Let’s see.

💪 I have returned to the gym! It was a long hiatus full of laziness and overeating, I went up two kilos since the last time I checked, so I decided to go back and try again to take better care of myself. I continue to be annoyed by the need to go at all, it just kinda feels like a trend for me and a bit of a timewaste. I really need to get that bycicle commute going, it has the potential to really change things for the bettter for me.
🎮 The Nintendo 2DS XL arrived and it was a bit dissapointing, if I’m honest. While the design is fun, the plastic feels much cheaper and the structural integrity feels lesser than the New 3DS XL. I packaged it up and requested to return it, I only turned it on once and didn’t even try any games on it.
🍿 Invited my friend to another movie! This time we arrived earlier and went window shopping for a bit, and also played some card games! We watched Supergirl, and it was honestly kind of weird. All in all, the point was to spend some time together and it was alright.
🚲 This weekend’s bike ride was a very functional one! I went a bit later than my usual morning because I wanted to visit a couple of places. I actually carried a backpack this time too!
- I headed to a delivery spot to return the Nintendo 2DS XL, I picked up a couple packages as well, then
- I went to the local game shop to look for any 3DS games, I had no carts and I wanted at least one! I chose the Ocarina of Time remake.
- I was supposed to go to the bike shop to buy fenders and a rack, but it was late already so it didn’t happen.
🍜 Went to a Japanese restaurant and had some ramen, this was a night out with a few friends, it was really nice! We pretty much only go here when these specific friends are in town, so I always enjoy it.
🎨 Spent a couple hours figuring out how to create themes for the Nintendo 3DS, and ended up making two! Of course they are based on some epic locations from Chrono Trigger, I will write a blogpost detailing the process and have already uploaded them to Theme Plaza, waiting for approval!
📱 I rarely use mainstream social media, but during the World Cup I keep visiting it to see the memes and the euphoria, and now the sadness of losing—and memes asking Haaland to avenge us. Until next time, México.

Gaming

Fire Emblem Awakening continues to be at the top for my gaming time, the story has picked up quite a bit, but the mechanics alone, and the challenge of each chapter have been formidable. I am currently on chapter 13, and some revelations have been made that caught my eye. I also love my party quite a bit now! I’ve managed to create a pretty decent team but I’m also trying to level up some weaker characters and also level up the support between characters, I love the conversations that happen between them. Looking forward to what this game has next!
Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones was played for a second. I remembered that I have a lot of handhelds, and my Miyoo Mini Flip had this one loaded up, I wanted to try a battle but didn’t even get far enough for that yet. I opened the game, saw the opening sequence, and got busy with something else.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate saw some action! and the best player of my friend group has started to struggle with the younglings, we are getting old, RIP.
Worms W.M.D - We did one battle of this as well, it was a fun time! We kinda forgot how to play Worms but picked things up in the end.

Watching

Avatar The Last Airbender (Live Action Season 2) - We are in the Earth Kingdom and they are actually pulling off a couple neat moments in great ways! Like, ways that could have worked on the original series rather well. It still has some very awkward things and bad pacing, but I’m invested a bit.
Supergirl (2026) - Went to the movies with my friend and family to see this one. It was good, but it wasn’t great. It really has a lot to say about society and stuff, but it felt mixed, and the music selection wasn’t that great. Too convoluted, and nobody in my group resonated with it that much. I really really wanted to like it, and I do, it just didn’t quite stick the landing for me.
Superman (2025) - Back at home, I thought I’d give a shot to the first movie in James Gunn’s DC universe. I enjoyed this one! It really questioned the nature of Superman and how it affects the politics of the world. Some moments felt over the top and had that characteristic style James Gunn has. I appreciate that the universe already exists and it doesn’t feel the need to hold our hand. However, the plot was predictable and with almost no surprises. Mr. Terrific was truly terrific though, great guy!
Yes Day - I watched this movie ages ago and only recognized Electra, watching it again, I also recognized Jenna Ortega. What a weird family movie. Entertaining enough but there’s better ways to spend your time.

Reading

Shikimori’s Not Just Cute is now complete! What a journey, a tiny bit rushed in the ending but still very nice! All in all this manga was a cozy read that had some great moments and hilarious situations. It was not life-changing or anything, but I’m glad it tied things nicely. I actually grew to love all the characters beyond the main couple quite a bit, which is something that got a bit overwhelming with Komi Can’t Communicate. The cast here was smaller but the roles were well defined and they all had a time to shine if only a bit. I will actually miss some of them! I ended up a little melancholic about it due to Mexico’s loss, and I am running out of romance manga to read too, which is a bit sad. Leave recommendations.

I didn’t read any of The Expanse at all because of the gaming I did.

Around the Web

Blog posts

A New Nintendo 3DS XL - Gabz also has a 3DS! Who would have thought I’d inspire him to return to it? I am happy to have caused that in him and a few other people too, very cool.
I’m playing the Zelda games in timeline order - Oh look! Andy is playing Zelda, that’s cool. I should try playing through a whole franchise sometime, I guess I’m kind of close with Resident Evil…
Being excited still about technology in 2026 - Neil continues to remind us that technology still has some good things going on. It’s not all doom and gloom!
My blog is not on the AT Protocol, standard.site is not for me - This. AT Protocol, to me, is not where it’s at, I added microformats and that feels much simple and universal to me, even then it feels a bit much, but it’s setup and forgotten and it’s okay!

YouTube

How To Make Your Own Custom 3DS Themes / Kame-Editor - This is the tutorial I followed to make my theme, although I had to figure out some things it didn’t explain especially for the image placement on static images (the tutorial is only about scrolling backgrounds).
The Reusable Water Bottle Trend is DEAD - Making good purchasing decisions hasn’t been my forte this year, but at least I know I won’t fall for energetic drinks any time soon.
Why Mexico v. England is already historic - This article from the Search Party channel shared a lot of awesome details on the history of the Azteca Stadium! I recommend giving it a watch as it had a lot of details I didn’t know about at all.
For Real this Time! - Someone seems to be working on a port of Twilight Princess for the Nintendo 3DS. I hope more GameCube games get ported to the handheld some day.
Dear Sony: You messed up - It seems like physical discs for Play Station will stop being a thing. This is disaster, but kind of expected. I hope things change some day.

This is day 90 of #100DaysToOffload

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Do you need a Nintendo 3DS?

2026-07-04T12:39:52-06:00

Probably not. I bought one anyway. Figured I’d write some of my memories surrounding it growing up, as well as how I set-up my own.

Some memories

The Nintendo 3DS was one of those consoles that I mostly admired from a distance. There are a few moments in time, sparsed throughout my youth where I interacted with one, an uncommon endeavor compared to my love for the PSP or even the older Game Boy Advance.

When it came out I was too poor to even consider it, it was super expensive when it released, and it was still super expensive when the price lowered. I saw very few of them during the first few years, I was simply aware of its existence and a year and a half later I owned a PSP, not thinking much of what I was missing out on. I had an itch for Ocarina of Time 3D but I also knew of emulation already, so there was no need for it.

Somewhere in 2013, I stayed for a few days with a friend in the US. It was my first time on a whole different country without my parents! I should write about this period at some point, but for now, the important bit is that my friend had a Nintendo 3DS, and… I don’t remember playing anything on it. I think he had Kid Icarus Uprising and maybe some other title, but I didn’t do much. He had a different console I played instead, the Wii U, I’ll write about it some other day.

I dit try to convince him to buy Ocarina of Time, and telling him it was a remake of the Nintendo 64 version. He was completely sure it was a fully new game. In any case, he never bought it, at least during my stay.

Eventually I saw some other kid playing that game in some church event, not sure if it was before or after that time, I just recall the ReDeads in the middle of the ruined streets of Hyrule, with Link frozen with a scream and eaten alive, or something.

Some other time, it was my turn to have a friend stay with us for a week or so, and during that whole ordeal he brought his Nintendo 3DS, it was the original Aqua Blue model again—all of them so far have been the Aqua Blue model—and he was playing Super Mario 3D Land, a fantastic title for the system. This was the longest amount of time I got to spend playing with one myself. The game was great and I completed a bunch of random levels.

My cousins which I interacted with during Christmas and the like also had a Nintendo 2DS each, both playing whatever Pokemon was popular at the time, like Sun & Moon, but I’m really ignorant of this. They continue that tradition with the Switch today, they are absolute Pokemon fans.

Weirdly enough, I just recalled some of my best friends that I saw every Sunday at church more than a decade ago owning one too, for some reason I didn’t remember this at all. I have more memories playing on the Xbox 360 with them, but I think I grabbed it a few times when I visited their house, though I can’t recall what games I played with it—this paragraph was written after everything around it, placed here for continuity’s sake.

Last but not least, when I moved to the city I live in today, I made a new friend who owned a couple of 3DS models! From the original to the New 3DS XL. I also stayed at his house for a couple days one time.

I had my PSP and I already was a huge fan of Monster Hunter. My friend owned Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, but he barely played it at all. I gave it a spin for a few hours and it was awesome—though I kept grumbling about how this game could have run on the PSP with just a couple of compromises and raised my fist at Capcom for abandoning the PSVita—which I never even owned—but whatever.

Other than that, I’ve been aware of 3DS emulation for a while, I even went ahead and setup multiplayer with Citra only a couple years ago! This time to play some Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate using the Madness Network servers. I talked about playing Monster Hunter online already, but somehow never mentioned trying 3DS entries. Only played about a day and my setup and save have been lost to some distro hop.

All in all, other than Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 and Face Raiders, the 3DS library remained unexplored for me. That was until a few years ago, when this blog was already a thing!

A friend allowed me to borrow his Nintendo 3DS for a couple weeks, I only played two games on it, Fire Emblem Awakening, which I tried for about four hours, and Metroid Samus Returns, which I finished soon after. That game was so awesome, it is what finally pushed me to write reviews on this site, and that was my last interaction with a 3DS in a while.

Recently

For many months already, since the AYN Thor and the Anbernic DS came out in the market, with comparisons and praise and people complaining about the prices or the performance of one or the other, and after being exposed to countless YouTube videos, and lots of discussion over on the TWG Discord server, the itch to acquire a device for this was bound to happen.

The hardware of the Thor is excellent for a huge percentage of the 3DS library, and for the price, it would allow me much more than the that, as it would let me have PS2 and GameCube, Switch and even light PC gaming via GameNative or GameHub; and even though the RGDS is weak for 3DS, at least I would have save states, fast forward and other features emulating the Nintendo DS with it, on an ideal form factor.

However, as small as the impact of the 3DS was on my life, I couldn’t help myself. It was something I had wanted for a while. With prices not going down anytime soon, and the Switch 2 tempting me every once in a while, I figured this would be a nice middleground.

I looked around for a bit, and eventually landed on a red New Nintendo 3DS XL for about 333 USD with shipping. There were cheaper alternatives out there, such as a regular 3DS XL or a 2DS XL, but this is the top of the line and you can tell the quality is up there once held.

As I write this today, I saw a posting selling the same model and color I got at $290! which is better though still expensive, but the week I had to return it is over and I’ve already played with it for a dozen hours, so whatever!

My set-up

My model already came pre-modded, I took some time to make sure the modding tools were up to date. The 3DS modding scene is as crazy as the PSP, and emulation for many systems is available. However, I own plenty of devices that are better at emulation at this point. What I really care about here is the existing library for the Nintendo 3DS, and the original Nintendo DS, as was seen on my current setup.

The first thing I did when I purchased it was check the alternative shop every modded 3DS is bound to have, and grabbed myself a few titles. I do not encourage piracy much nowadays, when buying titles officially is possible, but this is not the case here. Nintendo doesn’t sell carts and they have no digital shops, so whatever. here’s a list of things on my 3DS that will probably be expanded soon.

Nintendo 3DS titles

Ace Attorney Trilogy
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
Fire Emblem Awakening
Fire Emblem Echoes
Mario & Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser’s Jr’s Journey
Metroid Samus Returns
Pushmo
Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Nintendo DS titles

Dragon Quest IV
Dragon Quest V
Ghost Trick
Pokémon Black

Homebrew

3DSident
Anemone 3DS Theme Manager
Cave Story
FBI
FTPD
Luma3DS
NDS Forwarder Generator
The Hombrew Launcher
Univeral Updater
hShop

My experience so far has been awesome. Since it came modded I haven’t really had to thinker that much with it, instead, as of the time of writing, I have played about 20 hours of Fire Emblem Awakening—I just beat chapter 13 of the game—and honestly, the hardware is pretty nice! Due to the nature of the game I often quit and reopen it—I’m sorry I can’t handle permadeath—and the loading times are rather quick! I guess it’s up to the title and how well optimized it is, but still impressive. Buttons and battery life on my device have been really nice for me, but I lack a point of reference and I recharge it whenever needed.

I made a couple folders for the built-in software, all the homebrew and a couple GBA games I added but will probably delete. Either way I added it for now. I have installed a few themes using Anemone, right now I’m using a Parasite Eve theme, but I may try and do my own, and share it in the nearby future! I didn’t like any of the ones for Chrono Trigger, though some of the Final Fantasy ones were tempting. In any case. I’m really happy with how everything looks and feels!

This is day 89 of #100DaysToOffload

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My Nintendo 3DS XL by Syl

June 2026 Summary

2026-07-02T07:40:00-06:00

June is over! Did you know this month was my birthday? Yeah it’s kinda crazy, a lot has changed, I am twenty six now yet more than half the movies I watched were Direct-to-DVD 50 minute films made to sell action figures!

More things happened of course. The World Cup is going great for my country, Mexico has managed to break out of the group stage and win their first knockout game in 40 years, I am incredibly hyped to see the match against England next, to any readers from there, hope you guys have fun with the game! I know us Mexicans will absolutely party!

Anyway, my Summer Game Challenge is in full swing, with progress made for multiple games as well. I decided to also add an update to the music, which I often ignore because I listen to the same albums a lot, especially to sleep, or while reading The Expanse. Here’s the gist of it all.

Podcasts

Into The Aether wins with the regular weekly episodes. A lot of chatter about Mina The Hollower, Adventures of Elliot, and Brendon’s new gaming news site Overworld, really cool stuff.
Eye of the Duck was second with a couple of episodes focusing on The Chronicles of Narnia and also Spielberg’s Artificial Inteligence. Really interesting points were brought up.
Trash Taste made for some excellent background noise again, with many entertaining conversations about anime films and shows.
Boring Books for Bedtime Readings continues to deliver. H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World is super interesting and nice to sleep to.
99% Invisible showed up again! This time with one episode talking about the history of the Vuvuzuela and its rise during the 2010’s world cup.

Books

Completed

Tiamat’s Wrath really subverted my expectations with, changing what I didn’t know I expect fromThe Expanse, it was a roller coaster of emotions, there were losses I was not expecting and events I couldn’t see coming. I already wrote my thoughts on my review for it.

Ongoing

Clarkesworld Magazine #211 is still being poked at, but my focus on The Expanse kind of stopped me. The current sci-fi short story I’m reading for it is one of those absurdist ones that are interesting but not fully gripping me yet.

Started

Leviathan Falls already changed things in the very prologue of it all. This is the final book of The Expanse but I’ve heard both good and bad things, so I am going to get to it for July!

Videogames

Completed

Monument Valley: Ida’s Dream was an extra set of levels for Monument Valley that I found challenging and with some nice extra mechanics. It took me less than an hour to beat but I enjoyed it!
Metroid Prime Remastered grabbed me and didn’t let me know. The perfect transition for Metroid into a new dimension. It was a lovely game and I wrote a BUNCH of thoughts about it on my review already. Tl;dr: A must play on the Nintendo Switch.

Ongoing

Hollow Knight: Silksong finally saw some playtime! I finally have done what I need to unlock the quest that will then let me unlock the final act of the game, I am looking forward to it!
Full Metal Furies also saw some action, completing a couple of stages with friends!

Started

Transistor took me by surprise. I started it suddenly when I didn’t feel like going for a cartridge to play on my Switch and remembered this game from Supergiant existed before Hades was a thing. I have been delighted to play it and I’m very close to the end…
Fire Emblem Awakening however, also took me away from Transistor now that I have a New Nintendo 3DS XL that happens to be extremely easy to carry on my commutes compared to the Switch. The game is a delight and I’m glad to return to it after many years, when I tried it on a friend’s 3DS. With my experience playing The Blazing Blade, it’s quite great!

Manga

Thought it would be a good idea to split the Manga I’m reading between those that I follow on a weekly or monthly basis, and those that I often fly through because I have a backlog to catch up to, finished or not! Some of the ones I’m caught up with may be behind by a couple chapters, but nothign significant.

Caught up

Blue Lock - Chapter 351. The next match is about to unravel, though the team is going into a bit of a struggle as the Blue Lock ideology itself was challenged during the last match.
Spy x Family - Chapter 136. As fun as ever, this arc with Loid stuck in a party hosted by secret service agents was just hilarious. Loved how it only got crazier over time.
Heavenly Delusion - Chapter 82. The mystery going on is ever-growing, I kind of want to wait again to have some chapters to catch up with, because this is a monthly release and now I have to wait a bunch.
Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You - Chapter 62. Some very stressful events have been happening lately, the drama is growing, but I hope the protagonists manage to grow from this for the better!

Catching up

Shikimori’s Not Just Cute - Chapter 160. Super nice to return to this rom-com. I didn’t realize how I missed these characters, the main couple continues to be great and it has been more stable than Komi Can’t Communicate, though a bit more bland at times. Still great tho.
My Wife is from a Thousand Years Ago - Chapter 287. Some cute moments and a vacation trip. Some other things happened. Good manhua (Chinese comic) rom-com as always.

Anime

Blue Lock (Season 1) - Episode 2. Well this is just the anime of Blue Lock and I already know Blue Lock is great. The art is nowhere near the manga and this is supposed to be the best looking season. It’s still cool and the epic moments are hype with the music and the japanese dub.

TV Shows

Avatar The Last Airbender (Live Action Season 2) - Episode 3. I do like that Toph shows up, she fits well. I don’t really think I like the rest that much, a lot of the story has been butchered. No Library, no enchanted jungle, or forest spirit or anything, weird.

Movies

Disclosure Day - Spielberg does another movie with aliens and proves they are not AI generated.
The Martian - The most accurate sci-fi film ever? Probably, gotta read the book soon.
Mission to Mars - An honest attempt to do 2001: A Space Odyssey again, it wasn’t close but it tried.
Max Steel: Bio Crisis - Max gets a robot friend and saves a random island from radiation.
Max Steel vs The Mutant Menace - Max gets a new boss and recaptures an enemy he let get away.
Max Steel vs The Toxic Legion - Every enemy unites to wreak havoc, but Max’s best friend saves the day.
Max Steel: Makino’s Revenge - A guy makes Max famous, then cancels him, until Max exposes him instead.
Max Steel: Monstrous Alliance - Every enemy unites against Max, but the boss’s daughter saves the day.
Terminator Salvation - This is a pretty good film but not a good Terminator film.
Rocky - This is actually beautiful, cinema. An awesome slice-of-life with a boxing match in the end.
Toy Story 5 - This is a worthy sequel with a great and nuanced message and fantastic nods to previous movies. Go watch it.

Music

I pretty much just played these albums before going to sleep every night.

FTL Original Soundtrack by Ben Prunty
Outer Wilds Original Soundtrack by Andrew Prahlow
Into the Breach Soundtrack by Ben Prunty
Plants vs Zombies Original Soundtrack by Laura Shigihara
Minecraft - Volume Beta by C418

Finishing thoughts

This month was quite crazy, with a lot of things happening that altered the course of many plans. From my bike rides during the morning, making it so I listened to more music and podcasts, to my sister visiting and making me watch movies and shows I didn’t foresee.

Zero complaints though, the month was wild, the Summer Games Challenge is going quite well and the

Goals

As you can see, procrastinating is my second name

Finishing thoughts

It seems like my “goals” section remains stagnant, my bible reading definitely slowed down a bit, I didn’t listen to Wolf 359, and whatever else I missed.

Getting a 3DS definitely reshaped my last week or so, as I’ve spent some time configuring things and getting games for it.

I also need to setup my bike for a ride to work, I want to give it a go for once! Use it a bit more than just weekends. No promises, but I even returned to the gym after a two month long hiatus, I want to give it another shot. My muscles are sore! So that’s pretty good I’d say. I realized my weight went up by almost 3 kilos, I really need to get a grip on that.

All in all, a good month with lots of things going on, I am 26 years old now, and the fear of adulthood is kind of sinking in a bit more for some reason, we’ll see how things go.

This is day 88 of #100DaysToOffload

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Nintendo 3DS, to the movies, and a bad roll - W26

2026-06-30T09:40:00-06:00

I usually take pictures to remember what happens during the week. This was not the case for this one, so the notes themselves may not be as long as some of you may expect! Still, a lot of things happened.

This second paragraph is being written right after I was done with everything here, turned out to be just as long as usual so, I don’t want any complaints!

🕹️ I am now the proud owner of a red New Nintendo 3DS XL—Why did Nintendo thought adding “New” to the name was helpful?—and I love it! Some of my oldest readers may remember the time when I beat Metroid Samus Returns on one of these—though I never reviewed it properly, I think. Now I have the chance to play some other titles in the system. Right now: Fire Emblem Awakening.
🏴‍☠️ The device already came with some magic installed on it, so I’ve been able to acquire quite a few games and homebrew on it. Including a cool Chrono Trigger inspired theme. I may try and get it back to stuck, just to learn how to unlock it myself, but I may just keep using it as it, honestly.
📦 That wasn’t the only Nintendo system I ordered though. There’s also a 2DS XL—the last of the the 3DS family—that took longer to arrive. After using the N3DSXL, I don’t think I’ll keep it, though I really like its design, maybe I’ll give it to my sister who wanted one too, who knows. I’ll go pick it up today as of the writing of these notes
🍿 So I invited a friend to watch a movie with me and family—if you know you know—and it went well! She really enjoyed the film and we all chatted a bit about it and life and other things after we were done with it. We’ll watch another movie next Friday, actually, probably Supergirl.
🎮 I updated my Anbernic RG35XX SP to the latest version of MuOS, codenamed Funky Jacaranda. I am very happy to finally have a built-in Activity Tracker, even if it is a little barebones, I really appreciate its functionality. Speaking of, I didn’t know my 3DS had one too, it is so good!
🚲 This weekend’s bicyle trip was all about looking for a bike shop to find the fenders and bike I want to get installed. Unfortunately, everything is closed in the morning. I had a fun time commuting around downtown though, I went up some hills which required some effort, it felt good to overcome that. I actually wanted to try and pickup the 2DS XL, but same issue.
🛍️ It was Father’s Days a few days ago, but I didn’t get any gifts for him at the time—other than the event at church and a mug but still—so we went out shopping for some things and we also had a coffee together. We do have coffee together at home often, but its rare to go outside for one so, it was a good time.
🎲 We wanted to return to Land of Eem after a very big hiatus, but in the end, we couldn’t make it happen. Our first playthrough was great but there were a couple of players who haven’t been able to return or stay for a full session… We need to set a proper time for one. We did play Survidice again tho.

Gaming

Ongoing

Transistor - Close to the end now, the game has turned into a sort of psychodelic journey and there was this weird flip in my progress that I didn’t quite expect. The voice work, the soundtrack, everything has remained amazing, and the battles have only gotten more complex, I love the sort of real-time turn-based mix it has going and it has proven to be a true challenge as I approach the grand finale!
Terranigma - When dusting off my Anbernic handheld, I returned to this for about twenty minutes. I have advanced to chapter 2 of the story, turning the whole plot inside out once again. I am doing the first dungeon inside of a poisonous tree! It feels very Ocarina of Time, I must say. Though this game came out first!
Slice & Dice - Had some fun here. I am doing a pretty slow Blursed run (the same run during the last couple weeknotes), and yesterday I beat the twentieth battle at last! I used to reach 50 in a day before but, life goes on.

Started

Fire Emblem: Awakening - I tried this game on a borrowed 3DS from a friend, but now that I returned to it, after beating The Blazing Blade, I can’t help but truly love it even more! I played like seven hours of this already, and even decided to let someone die in battle for once. I’ll keep going, adding this to my Summer Game Challenge list—which seems to be changing every week.

Reading

Leviathan Falls - Up to chapter 9 - The grand finale continues, and it has NOT gone where I have expected it to so far, I am a little worried they are opening up new plotlines and won’t be able to be tied up by the end. Then again, they always manage to make everything converge so, I’ll just let myself be taken along for the ride.
Shikimori’s Not Just Cute - Up to chapter 160. It’s funny how I didn’t really care about returning to this series a couple weeks ago, and now that there’s only twenty chapters left I’m a bit sad that this will be over soon. We are on our last school festival event, after an awesome volleyball mini-arc.
Blue Lock - Up to chapter 351 - The new arc will be interesting, with one of the main players of the U-20 team out of the match, Yoichi will have to figure out a way to rethink his ego and skill as the number one striker of the team.

Watching

Toy Story 5 - I actually really enjoyed this movie, it’s the perfect blend of nostalgia with modernity in my opinion, as it deals with the clash between technology and toys in an very nuanced way. I loved it to bits. I am glad to have Jessie as a protagonist this time, she was absolutely awesome. Everything was great in my opinion.
Avatar The Last Airbender S2 (Live Action) - I love Toph, the actress nailed her performance. The show is entertaining, but I am not a fan of a lot of the changes they did. Things keep going a bit fast yet slow somehow. We will see how things go. I will watch it because of my sister though. She keeps shutting my mouth every time I raise a plothole lol.

Around the Web

Blog posts

There are been a lot of great posts on my rss aggregator lately, I actually read all these when they were published, instead of my usual approach, consisting of reading bunch of posts on a day to add them here.

stop asking writers about “AI” - Just yesterday Amin shared this to me and well, it’s a must-read. If you use AI, whatever, just don’t ask me to validate you.
Back, I Think - Syl is back! Her gaming blogposts (and other blogposts) have been a favorite of mine for almost a year now (remember Blaugust 2025?), she only really left like half a month, but I still missed her on my feed.
Lighten up, Eeyore - isa did some personality quizzes, reflected on her posts and their themes, not liking change but having to do so, and trying to write more about stuff she likes!
Internet works best in small dosages - This post was apparently inspired by me. Michal has done a lot to distance himself from the internet, from getting rid of most social media, to switching to an ink-screen phone. Great write-up and ramble!
Since You Asked - Some light-hearted life advice from Musings from a Tangled Mind, one of those blogs you just have to keep on your feed, always full of fun stuff like this. Get some snacks!
Everything Is a Computer. Nothing Is a Computer. - Jeremy decided to actually write for once, and he shared a fun life story plus reflections on technology today. Awesome to see.
What could you accomplish in sixty hours? - A last minute addition that didn’t go where I expected. Very much worth reading.

YouTube

Practicing intentional gaming during a heatwave (a vlog) - Laura’s channel has been one of my favorites when it comes to just chill gaming and life thoughts. This video doesn’t really have much going on, but isn’t that how life really is during those quiet times?
Should You Really Buy a 3DS in 2026? - I watched way too many 3DS videos, and many of them were excellent, but not many recognized the alternatives like this one does. There’s plenty of devices out there that are cheaper, have bigger libraries and are more capable than Nintendo’s dual screen device.
Why everyone’s Modding their Switch Again - The Nintendo Switch modding scene never really left, but with the Switch 2 becoming the focus, it continues to thrive! I am thinking about getting a chipmod for my own model one of these days.
the Spider-Man CGI Tier List - A fun rundown of every Spider-Man swing in film so far! I actually really liked the final list, and saw a few I didn’t know existed at all, cool.

This is day 87 of #100DaysToOffload

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A game I started playing. by Gabz
A New Nintendo 3DS XL by Gabz

What even is a date

2026-06-25T16:50:00-06:00

I have no idea what I’m going to say here and I don’t want to sound like I’m out of touch (but I really am out of touch so forgive me).

So there’s this girl I invited to watch a movie, and I do kind of like her, and I do know that my parents are already okay with it (which isn’t a must but it’s appreciated because I generally trust their judgement), so we’ll go tomorrow, and see how it goes from there.

But here’s the thing, my family will be there, my parents, my sibling, everyone will go to the movies.

Now, I don’t intend to be romantic, I simply invited her as a friend, should I be intentional and say I’d like something serious already? There is nothing wrong with that. I also know she likes my parents, and would happily chat with my mom forever. I get kinda embarrased about it.

Basically, she’s kind of a childhood friend I only met for like a month before she moved elsewhere more than a decade ago, and somehow we live relatively close now, and it’s kind of like everything has been served on a silver plate.

Due to the internet I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many people, many women included there who I’m happy to have as friends! I have some great connections but never really tried like, dating through this medium, or in any medium. Still, some of those friends have told me how dating is hard and such, and I won’t deny I have been interested on pursuing a long distance thing. But at the same time, I don’t really know how anything is supposed to be done.

When my dad met my mom, he was direct, he told her his intentions and that he wasn’t playing any games. But me? How can I be sure? Is the fact that I’m insecure about this a good or bad sign?

And now, just like it happened when I got my job, things seem to fit together like a puzzle, and, just like my job, I am not sure I’m comfortable with how it could go.

Maybe I am overthinking it? Maybe I am just blind and she already just sees me as a good friend and we will go nowhere anyway? I think her life is way better structured than mine, from what I’ve seen, so perhaps she will think I’m still like an adult kid and a good friend and leave it there.

Another problem is that she lives a city away, and I don’t drive. So if things actually go somewhere from here and we actually start something more than this sort-of-date-with-my-family-there. Would I have to get a car or just take a bus whenever, ask her to pick me up? That feels a bit too much.

Another thing, should I tell her I’m serious from the start? I want to be serious, I don’t really feel like getting into the “dating” people thing like some seem to be about. I have a feeling she’s serious about it too, like, whenever she dates she will not mess around either.

But I don’t know, I’m just a little worried and a bit excited, and also conflicted. I like her, perhaps, but I can’t deny I’ve liked others too, and there are so many things that I’m not sure I’ll be able to be without.

Like, I want someone to share my hobbies with, and while I feel like we will get along with anime and movies and the like, I’m not sure what her feelings are on videogames. Am I already thinking too far ahead, I guess I wouldn’t mind keeping those for myself.

Oh right, but my parents will be there. Is that good or bad?

Like, I know my mom will cause a lot of conversations to spark (she is super talkative) and I will technically get to know her through that. But should there be a moment where we just part ways for a bit just to talk between us? Or should I just not force that? Talk it out with my parents that I’d like to be left along? that I don’t want them to interfere? But also, what if I do? What if I can’t say enough by myself?

For some reason I also act like I don’t want my parents to realize I like her even when it’s kinda obvious. I actually messaged her out of nowhere last Monday, and we got to a call from there. It was after work, I stepped off the bus early and literally walked from downtown all the way to my house, for more than an hour, and we talked the whole time! So I can hold a conversation, yay!

But! I also did it, because I didn’t want to be in a phone call with her while at home. I didn’t want my parents to be like “tell her hi for us!”

During our conversation, I had to hang up for a bit, and when we returned she actually talked about how she was so surprised I reached out, that she told her mom about it. She told her mom I called her! Like, was it in a casual way?, was she so happy she had to let her know? I have no idea.

Why am I kind of ashamed of this? Oh right… I also feel like I could hurt someone else.

Yep, there’s another girl, and even though I only see her like once a year during some big church events, we are cool! We don’t really chat or anything, I’ve been shy to pursue anymore because she’s even farther away, but I’ve known her longer and feel like she likes me, maybe I do too. But still, we are just friends, maybe it’s all me. Also, they know each other, and they are good friends too, what am I even doing aargh.

The drama continues I guess. I won’t be posting this to my big account, an exclusive for avid readers of my RSS or my blog or those who may see it shared in a smaller account, feel free to reach out in private if you have some advice or thoughts. I have been told to not trust the internet when it comes to things like this though, so whatever.

Now, if you are someone who maybe has somehow developed a crush on me because of my blog and the posts I’ve shared, and you are interested on videogames and share a lot of the same hobbies and thoughts I’ve expressed here, and you were hoping to someday confess your feelings and that I would share the same interest on you. This is probably your last chance, who knows!!?? I don’t.

Until later. This post doesn’t count for #100DaysToOffload.

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More bike adventures

2026-06-25T09:20:00-06:00

I realized I didn’t provide a cycling update on my previous weeknotes, so I decided to write some more about my misadventures so far. I am yet to buy fenders and a rack, so I am yet to try commuting to work properly. Even so, I continue riding like so, as I don’t mind getting my back splashed that much during a weekend, washing my clothes is not too bad.

Anyway, I haven’t really gone to a lot of new places lately, but I have done and seen some cool things nonetheless.

Last weekend was the first time I put some air on my tires. They were already feeling low on my previous trip—I think that’s one of the reasons I couldn’t catch up to other commuters before—so I decided to check them today. In my country, there are quite a lot of vulcanizadoras. They are small workshops where cars can patch wheels, put air on them and some other basic car maintenance. They really can be super simple. The one I went to is literally just a roof, no walls, no nothing, just a couple of guys sitting on top of some wheels by the side of the road.

Something I realized about my bike is that the valves are different, and they have different stems. (I had to look that up, that’s the name of the hole through which you inflate them). I wasn’t sure if the place would have an adaptor, but things worked out in the end and it wasn’t even expensive, they let me pay whatever I wanted. I probably went beyond their expectations by at least a dollar or two, everything happened in just a couple minutes, and riding away felt so awesome with my wheels gripping much better and feeling swifter than before.

The streets were full of puddles and some mud too, but I went carefully—no fenders, remember?—and avoided most damage. There was another commuter there and I followed him up for a while, this time I managed to surpass them eventually.

I went through some big puddles rather slowly and got to stay balanced despite the slow spin, it was rather fun, to be able to do all that. I hope getting fenders gives me even more confidence in the future to just ride through it.

The ride was fun, went downtown again and even visited the shop where I got my bike from. I wanted to check right then and there if I could get the hardware I wanted, but they were closed. No big deal, I rode back home, following the same path I took the first time I got on this thing.

The bicycle culture I’ve gotten to see in my city has been rather pleasant. A week before inflating my tires, I wanted to go to the park downtown again. On the way there, I was among a cluster of commuters, three going my way, another two going in the opposite direction. It felt cool to be among so many bicycles for a brief moment, in the same street!

When I got to the park, I actually saw another bunch of bicyles parked together—none of them were locked. Even if they hadd been, they were leaning on the weakest possible fence ever, pretty much just wires. There was nobody around, nobody seemed to be worried at all.

I kept riding and saw the park was rather filled with people this time. Some were doing excercise, some people were jogging around the same road I cycled through, and there were a few other parked bikes inside.

I’m shameless and made sure to ride along every bicycle I see, I love to know, how many of them are fixies, how many of them have disc brakes, what brands are common, which ones are less known. My bike continues to be the only Fuji around. I have seen two Specialized, one looked like a mountain bike, the other was a city bike with a retro look. I have seen a bunch of Giant bikes too, with quite basic designs. There’s also Mercurio, Alubike, and some Green Plus—all of these seem to be Mexican bicycle brands. The latter is a bit of a higher tier, judging by the prices online.

After so many videos from Europe and the US, or about my own country, from Guadalajara or Mexico City and how bike theft is so abundant. Seeing my city be so non-chalant about it was a bit of a relief. I already had my suspicions this would be the case, as it feels like everyone here knows each other well.

As of now, I am yet to leave my bike parked for a significant amount of time without a direct line of sight, I don’t know if I’ll ever need to do that either way, but I feel confident knowing things are likely to go just fine.

After this many trips, I continue to be pleased by the culture in my city, the cars have been pretty respectful, although I’ve had a few close calls at slow speeds when I get careless. Nothing serious would have happened, other than the scare either way. Being aware of surroundings is still important, slowing down and looking at both sides of the road, stuff like that.

Still, the freedom of just going wherever I want by powering this machine, the spin of the wheels, the force of my legs multiplied and turning into motion. It’s all awesome, I love this. I want to do it more. I need to try that commute to work, I just fear getting sweaty at work.

Perhaps a change of clothes is all I need.

This is day 86 of #100DaysToOffload

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Junited 2026 by Ruben Verweij

My writing feels uninspired, so I ramble

2026-06-24T15:10:00-06:00

It’s weird when this happens but some months are just full of things that feel like tasks rather than something I wanted to do. All of June has been full of nothing but talking about things that happened, physical objects, events, notes, reviews, and rather tangible shenanigans, other than my bike rides, those are still fun.

These writings force me to write in a certain way, and I enjoy doing so, but it’s not the only way I like to write.

Some of my favorite artices here have been prompted by the most random things, I really appreciate getting to that state. Like sharing actual thoughts on things happening or on the message of a book or a series of videogames that go beyond what a review often has.

A part of me was going to reminisce on some of my favorite posts of that type, but that would just end up being another listicle, another task that would require me to do extra work. Like how game reviews need screenshots or categorizing critiques, or how weeknotes require me to check my gallery to see what I did.

I guess I just want to ramble again without any sort of defined path.

This post is just a short—future me here, not that short—acknowledgment of that. It has been happening for the whole month, so things don’t feel as fruitful as I’d like. It feels like I’m going through chores. Don’t get me wrong, those reviews are 2K words each because I had a lot to say about those videogames I loved, and because I am very happy when people put those games in their radar.

Writing those reviews and notes gives me joy, but it can feel daunting sometimes. I just want to write about writing for once, I get to do it every once in a while. I get to do it on my blog.

How have you been? What have you enjoyed? When was the last time you were in silence and contemplated the way you went through the motions of some task without any extra thing going on?

I keep reaching for podcasts, or some video in the background, or music, many times, but absolute silence while doing the dishes? Embracing boredom? It can be difficult today to do so.

As I write this though, I am in complete silence. A rare ocurrence for me lately, and it has been awesome. This paragraph is written on top of another five paragraphs I had already written, interestingly enough. I don’t always skip and write all over the place! I guess I really needed to ramble.

Yesterday I watched Rocky, one of those classic movies everyone should see some day, and I was surprised at how simple it is. There were a few scenes that happened in silence, with only some background noise and the characters doing things without saying anything. That morning scene where Rocky just swallows five raw eggs and goes to run actually hit hard, not joking! what a movie.

Reading reviews, I agreed with one of them saying it’s not really a boxing movie but a slice-of-life, that of a nobody who gets the chance of his life at challenging the champion. A lot of things happen just because Rocky decided to, he was not just going along either, but building himself up to train for this fight. Even then, he doesn’t think he can win, but he just wants to stay up for the whole 15 rounds.

And he went from a nobody, to the one guy who managed to resist Apollo Creed. He didn’t get the win, but he prevailed, and despite the fame and glory, he just went looking for Adrian, his girlfriend. Rocky didn’t care about winning or losing, he was conscious enough to call her name, and so he did, reunited with her again when credits rolled. What a finale, what a simple thing, simple storytelling is beautiful and rare, they don’t make movies like this anymore, do they?

Perhaps I am also tired of saving up spoilers on my reviews—sorry if I ruined the finale of Rocky just now, it’s still worth a watch—because it is through those bold choices in media, where I get to think the most, where I get to awe at what’s happening before my eyes. Maybe I should just do that from now on? A spoiler section where I get to gush about how unbelievable and awesome the art humans create can be?

Maybe that’s on order, not a list of things, not a top 5 or a favorites, just write about whatever things have gotten me to think just a bit more about this world, about hope, about how to keep moving forward.

There’s this sense of sadness when I begin to write about what I wish I could write about, but I am overall happy, because I’ve already written this much in the first place and writing is what matters to me, and for the most part, I love it.

This is all a ramble, but those are the kinds of posts I enjoy the most. Looking back, I think part of this was inspired by a post by isa where she talks about her personality affecting what she writes about, unable to write about what she likes because… idk? that’s just how it is sometimes? But she will try to do it in the future (maybe).

Funnily enough, I have the same problem sometimes. I already wrote about drafts that just don’t quite feel like something I want to publish. Part of that is the superficiality of it all.

Like, how I disallow myself from writing of some topics because of the sort of image of me it may create on a vacuum. When I shared my full physical Nintendo Switch collection, I kept thinking about how it probably makes me look like a guy with money to spare and a privileged life, meanwhile it’s just me with a stable job, still single and living with my parents. Even saying that feels like I am being a show off, I guess it’s true in a sense.

A long while ago I read about how X or Y is a privilege, and it feels wrong because privilege feels like a bad word nowadays. I have enough time to spend it writing here saying nothing, and I have done this dozens of times in the year, across more than 600 posts, and I keep going. Not many get to write like I do. I was about to go on a tangent on AI, but I won’t, moving on.

If you are still here, you may be about to say the same thing I’m already thinking: just write.

So, I am doing so, I am writing and considering where to go from here. To be honest, I’m already quite satisfied, I am just letting my thoughts flow and my fingers type and it’s working out pretty well. I wonder if I should add some breaks between these paragraphs, although there’s not so much of a theme between them, I wasn’t going to say more about LLMs, but they don’t get to top this raw aimless river of words, yay!

No need to remember what the book was about, no need to look for graphics or pictures to represent a theme. This is all just text, and there’s no point to it, and I love it so much.

Perhaps I should make a Junited post too, just for good measure. Or shut up, let you simmer these words in silence, get drifted away by something else, something worth your attention, or mine, and move on.

Enough, for now?

This is day 85 of #100DaysToOffload

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Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse #8)

2026-06-24T09:00:00-06:00

The eight book of The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. Spoilers ahead.

I’ve recently realized that I kind of spend too much time summarizing things without spoilers, but I’ll just share the summary from the website and then share my thoughts about stuff, I guess? By now, eight books later, you are not, or you should not, be reading this review unless you are already with me, or you read the book and want my thoughts, so yeah, whatever.

Tiamat’s Wrath finds the crew of the Rocinante fighting an underground war against a nearly invulnerable authoritarian empire, with James Holden a prisoner of the enemy.

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.

In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father’s godlike ambition, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn’t guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte’s authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia’s eternal rule—and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose—seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough. . .

The second book of the third trilogy was quite the read. There are a lot of things happening that I didn’t see coming, like at all.

Every character here is once again, separated from each other for half the book. This was an incredible choice, as well as the addition of Teresa, who gives us a look into how the Empire really works and how things develop from there. As young as she may be, the responsibilities on her shoulders are quite the burden, and it’s interesting how everything pans out through her choices.

This book barely features Holden’s perspective, as he’s trapped and unable to do a lot. Most of the time he’s just reacting to the choices of everyone else, completely oblivious, although he does make a play, and the way things go from there turn out to be extremely important for his survival.

Elvi is pretty important given her position as a scientist, it was nice to see her and Fayez again, I must admit. Her passion for science continues to be infectious, and through her chapters we will see the aliens at play once more. The cosmical events in this book were something I didn’t see coming at all. The alien artifacts and technology, the measures taken by the Laconian Empire to try and harness such power, and her involvement on a huge plot twist made her chapters truly remarkable to me!

Naomi continues to be an incredibly cool individual, and now her role is more important than ever as part of the Rebellion against the Empire. She really will be travelling all over the place avoiding the enemy, by herself. Dealing with all this without Holden gives way to some emotional moments too.

Bobbie will actually clash with Naomi as another leader, in a friendly enough way. As the captain of the one ship that could actually deal any damage to the Empire, her role will be quite vital on this story, aided by Alex.

Alas, Amos goes missing—said very early on the story—Alex is still a loyal, but tired pilot, and many other things happen.

The writing was as good as ever, the plot twists really got to me. It really felt kind of dark and hopeless and a bit sad at times, with a lot of writing decisions I didn’t see coming, including some unexpected losses or changes to the characters. Beware!

As much as I liked the writing, I think the story got a bit weird at times, like they setup a lot of stuff and powered up the bad guys on the previous book, and ended up backtracking quite a bit here. It makes sense within the story and it’s all justified, but a lot of things felt a little shoved aside to make things much more plausible. Still, I give it a pass.

With how things have gone, I am really looking forward to the finale, there’s still so much that needs to wrap up…

Good stuff.

Date	Pages	Time	%
2026-05-12	67	1:00:00	5.2
2026-05-14	50	0:35:21	9.1
2026-05-15	71	1:13:09	14.61
2026-05-17	18	0:20:07	16.01
2026-05-18	65	0:56:00	21.06
2026-05-19	60	0:57:53	25.72
2026-05-20	35	0:31:33	28.44
2026-05-21	74	1:01:49	34.19
2026-05-22	118	1:48:57	43.35
2026-05-23	26	0:25:34	45.37
2026-05-24	73	1:07:21	51.04
2026-05-25	98	1:35:15	58.65
2026-05-26	31	0:26:00	61.06
2026-05-27	92	1:20:09	68.2
2026-05-28	50	0:44:46	72.08
2026-05-31	44	0:36:23	75.5
2026-06-07	47	0:45:47	79.15
2026-06-08	83	1:34:08	85.59
2026-06-09	186	2:26:14	100
Total	1288	19:26:26	100

This is day 84 of #100DaysToOffload

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Father's Day and gifts for myself - W25

2026-06-23T11:10:00-06:00

This week was wild, one of the most hectic days at work, watching the World Cup at church, getting some late birthday presents for myself, taking pictures, maybe a date? I don’t know what’s going onnn.

Alas, here’s some notes on it all, from June 16 to 22, 2026. Let’s go!

👔 Happy Father’s day to the people fulfilling that role in the family. We had a fun time at church, every non-dad prepared some food to eat together at the end, which is always nice to have. There was also a fun photo shoot section where I took pics with dad and the family, things were cool.
✝️ An unexpected loss in a close friend’s family turned some things upside down. There have been way too many deaths this year. We went to the funeral early and mourned with them. The family appreciated the support. We share the same faith and the same hope. John 11:25-27.
🧑‍💻 We had this project at work that was incredibly time-consuming and required a bunch of people doing things, and it’s finally over. Everything was a chore but it only lasted half a day and it’s finally implemented in production. All good, all is good now.
⚽ My church streamed the Mexic vs South Korea game on the projector screen and we were all together watching the game. Mexico wins and is on the first position of the group! Super cool stuff.
🎶 I acquired some music from Bandcamp! The soundtracks for Faster Than Light and the original Zelda & Chill album.
⌚ Got a new member for my watch collection. For my birthday, I purchased a Casio AQ-S820W. A solar powered watch which has a pretty similar size to the G-Shock GA-2100—also known as the CasiOak. It has managed to replace my trusty Casio Royale for the whole week, which is quite nice. Loving it so far.
I have kinda been looking at more watches because of this and tempted by a few. I actually ordered a Casio MQ-24—the classic, cheapest analog they have—and well, I got a fake, not the first time this happens, but I just got a refund!
🕹️ Another interest of mine is being piqued… I plan to get a Nintendo 3DS soon, maybe a N3DS XL, maybe a 2DS XL, I am still pondering on it all. I’ll keep you updated though!
📷 I spent way too much time trying to make a nice knolling of my EDC gear. Yes, I am working on an updated post for that, I just haven’t written a single word because I’m too busy getting the thumbnail done.
📸 I also photographed my watch collection, because I think I’ll write a page to showcase them soon. Some day.
💻 I’m thinking about resurrecting my Raspberry Pi 4. I had done a lot of things with it back in the day, and I got a lot of ideas asking on the fediverse, but I would like recommendations for a proper case for it, a way to get it to safely shutdown during a power loss too—lots of rain where I live cause this often.
🍿 Remember the girl I kind of invited to watch movies but she couldn’t that day? I tried again, and plans were made, I wonder how it’ll go.

Gaming

I’ve been pretty much focusing on one game at a time lately, I think the Summer Game Challenge has me in a completionist mood.

Transistor - This game has been even more awesome this week. The mechanics are really strong, the semi-turn-based combat caught my fancy. There’s this sandbox area that is full of tests and it’s great, because I’ve learned a bunch of things at a pace that the combat during the main game doesn’t quite allow. There are challenges focused on certain aspects of the gameplay, so you have to get good at it to go through, which is really satisfying. The story itself has been really interesting as well, although there is still a lot of unknowns. I just fought a giant beast that haunted me for a whole bunch of the game until I reached the top of some tower, it was pretty epic.
Slice & Dice - I played this for an hour or so total this week. It still has a challenge but I’ve been distracted by other things while on my phone.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Just a quick match with friends, nothing too serious this time around.

Reading

Leviathan Falls - Up to chapter 3. The final chapter of the grand saga of The Expanse, by James S.A. Corey. As much as I know that Sotolf is no fan of the ending—please do not wreak havoc in the comments if you read this—I am still very excited about the way everything will play out!
Shikimori’s Not Just Cute - Up to chapter 140. Things have gotten a bit serious. The friend group has gotten into the last year of high school lately, and the future is full of possibilities. I know the manga will end in 40 or so chapters, so I am curious to see how things wrap up.
Spy X Family - Up to chapter 136. This grandiose mini-arc where Loid is invited to a party full of enemies was incredibly fun! It is over now and I am looking forward to more ridiculous misadventures.

Watching

I am finally done watching all of the Max Steel movies, post incoming!

Max Steel vs The Mutant Menace - Here we see Cytro back—the best robot friend ever!—now on the good side, and he is awesome from here on. We will face against Max Steel’s ultimate foe, Toxon, N-Tek’s best agent, fallen from grace after a radioactive explosion. As this villain awakens, he plans to contaminate all of the planet with poison, radiation and waste. This villain is so powerful, Max will need to upgrade once again (last time was on Max Steel: Countdown) to be able to face him. Epic movie, way too short.
Max Steel vs The Toxic Legion - This was the most epic thing known to me back then. Toxon leads once more, together with Extroyer and Elementor. Every villain teaming up against Max Steel, looking to create a giant toxic storm that will end life as known on Earth. The challenge is up! There’s a redemption arc, and a new villain as a result from this.
Max Steel: Makino’s Revenge - After Max stops the toxic storm, some residual waste mutated Mike (I forgot the last name) into Makino. He was an influencer and independent journalist, and will use those skills and his power to control machines and computers to difame and expose Max Steel’s work as an agent. The spin on how social media and news affect the way people see things was very interesting for the time. The villain is very cartoon-ish though unfortunately.
Max Steel: Monstrous Alliance - Another team-up where Toxon, Makino and Elementor work together to take on Max, and N-Tek’s most powerful base, a floating ship in the sky that would protect the innocent and end conflict (think Captain America’s The Winder Soldier). Of course, with Makino’s control of technology, Toxon plans to use this ship to deploy… you guessed it, toxins, all over the world. Max Steel will have to step up one last time to finally put an end to them.
Terminator: Salvation - Decided to watch this one on a whim. I actually quite enjoy this Terminator movie, it tries a bit of a different take on the usual formula, and it works out in my opinion. A lot of weird choices like the romance subplot and the exagerated screams from the protagonist looking in the style of Revenge of the Sith, but cool action and sequences nonetheless.

Around the web

Blogposts

I don’t like prompts - Interesting take by Tracy on writing prompts, I haven’t participated a lot on the Indieweb Carnival and similar, but I do enjoy writing challenges, quizzes or question challenges—except the AI one, I feel icky answering that one.
I Miss Streaming Music - In a way I miss how useful algorithms can be for discovery. At the same time, I kind of like asking people for recommendations more often and get out of the comfort zone.
Doomscrolling for a Game - The paradox of choice attacks once again. It’s weird because lately I’ve been on a “one game at a time” mood and it has actually worked for me, but things change.
Roadside Assistance - Love these musings that are about seemingly vain things. This one’s features wildlife, and it’s very cute!

YouTube

Improve the Casio F91 Backlight for Free - This little mod is actually pretty interesting. I might give it a go and report back, but no promises.
I Played as San Marino until I WON the WORLD CUP - Just some entertaining gameplay from a FIFA game I never played. I think I’m just nostalgic for the 2010 World Cup days.
Casio is ALL YOU NEED: The Perfect 3 Watch Collection - I have more than three watches so, and it’s impossible not to need more once you start buying…
I Tried 3D Printing for the First Time - Oh no, TechDweeb was infected by the 3D printing virus, am I in danger?

This is day 83 of #100DaysToOffload

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Metroid Prime Remastered

2026-06-19T11:50:00-06:00

I love Metroid.

While I was aware of emulation from a young age, thanks to Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64, I never quite understood that there’s more emulators out there besides the old Project 64 until an older friend showed me his computer running them.

Along Pokémon Fire Red and Final Fantasy I & II, Metroid Fusion was one of the first ever Game Boy Advance games I saw emulated. Fusion andZero Mission were some of the first games I ever completed, and Metroid Dread was the first game I ever finished with 100% items.

Back in the day, when I was less than ten years young. My mom would visit a friend of hers, and they would talk about whatever moms talk about. Mom’s friend babysit me when I was a youngling, she was older than mom and had a son who was also older than me. He had a Wii, and would let me play games like Wii Sports, and even Super Mario Galaxy.

There was one title there that I had seen, featuring that orange armored bounty hunter that I had seen in Super Smash Bros Brawl too, Samus. I remember clearly reading Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and reading the back of the case a few times. It looked interesting for sure, but I never got around to even ask for permission to play it.

Alas, it was one of many titles back then, but as I grew familiar with the mainline 2D games, I was interested on seeing this side of Metroid too, obviously starting from the first game.

While there are many unofficial ways to play the original trilogy, I have a Nintendo Switch and knew that Metroid Prime Remastered was praised as the ultimate way to play the first entry of the trilogy. With this in the back of my mind, I visited my local physical store one day, saw it, and bought it!—then realized it was much, much cheaper to buy online, but whatever.

Years went by and my collection kept growing, I decided I would give this title a go for the Summer Game Challenge, and I’m happy to say: I have experienced a masterpiece.

Story

Metroid Prime Remastered begins with Samus investigating a Space Pirate ship orbiting the planet Tallon IV. After an encounter with some mutated life forms, Samus is forced to escape when the ship’s self-destruct sequence is triggered—something that usually happens until the end of every game—and her power suit suffers some damage, causing her to lose most of her upgrades.

As she escapes she finds a familiar foe, Ridley, flying towards the planet. As weakened as Samus is, she is still fearless, and chases after him, about to begin a new adventure.

Samus will find her way through many environments and locations, to find out what the Space Pirates are doing here. The planet once housed a settlement of the Chozo civilization, but only ruins remain. She will be able to recover her powers by overcoming every obstacle that comes her way, defeating different bosses, and getting a bit lost, from time to time.

The Chozo are an ancient species who raised Samus in her youth. they expanded all over the galaxy, but they suddenly faded away. The game will feature plenty or murals portraying information and a backstory behind everything going on. The same is true for the Space Pirates, who will have logs of their research and plans. As the story continues, there are also mentions of Samus’ arrival and the actions taken by the enemy to try and counteract her progress.

I really, really enjoyed the way this title’s backstory is exposed, it felt like what Outer Wilds—a game I’m yet to beat but played for 11 hours—does for its own exploration. Letting you catch glimpses of what happened, not always in the right order, and allowing you to piece everything togeter until you have a full narrative.

You can find and read all these during the game, but they are also easy to miss and pretty much optional. The way things develop during the game is also interesting, as you see the planet change because of what’s going on, you can tell the influence of the Space Pirates and their plans in effect.

There’s basically no dialogue throughout the whole game, Samus is isolated the whole time. The bounty hunter will face her destiny, and Samus is not here to lose.

Gameplay

Nintendo called this a “First Person Adventure”, where the focus is not on shooting, but exploring your way around the planet. There are many areas to explore, the Chozo ruins, Tallon IV’s Overworld, the Magmoor Mines, the Phendrana Drifts, and many locations within those regions. It’s just a Metroidvania in first person okay?

For exploration, Samus counts with a variety of movement options, that will let you reach different areas of the map. Upgrades like the morph ball and the grapple beam are classic at this point, smooth and satisfying to use. There are many more upgrades and some movement options. I would rather not spoil them as some of them are unique to Metroid Prime. There was a lot of thought put into how these powers would be brought to the third dimension. I’d say all of them were adapted perfectly.

Another unique feature of Prime is the visor. The developers put a lot of care making sure the player is inmersed into their role as Samus. When something explodes, for example, the light will reflect and you’ll see a glimpse of your own face. When there is sand, or smoke, the visor will be obstructed or foggy. There are other conditions which affect your vision, and these are a highlight of the game worth experiencing.

The visor also has upgrades to unlock. The scan function allows you to investigate targets in your field of vision. This is essential to find clues to defeat enemies, translate writings on walls or decrypt computer logs. They are key to interacting with machinery, disabling enemy barriers and many other uses. Future visor upgrades will let you see behind walls or trace heat signatures.

The remaster features dual stick controls akin to Halo and modern FPS titles, but there’s also layouts that mimmick the original Game Cube or Wii. I played with the modern control scheme during the whole game.

As enemies can attack from every angle and come in a variety of sizes, there is an automatic lock-in system built into the game. Unlike regular shooters, trying to aim yourself is not really worth it. Instead, exploring your surroundings is encouraged. As you backtrack through areas, simply avoiding enemies becomes easier than trying to kill them all everytime, like classic 2D Metroid.

There is no denying this: Samus is slow as a tank, jumps are floaty and somewhat difficult to get used to. In Metroid Dread you can pretty much fly through the whole game at max speed and you feel like the most agile being in the galaxy, sliding under obstacles and running at fast speeds. Not here. However, upgrades will at least help you optimize some routes.

As an old title, some mechanics can put off players used to modern quality of life features. There is no autosave, there are no retries for rooms or boss fights, there are no quick travel options. The world will connect to areas and have have multiple ways to access them, but the trips won’t get any shorter. Some areas in the game will be true challenges, with barely any save rooms in between constant enemy fire. This game really wants to test your skill to make sure you are ready for the final moments, if you can’t make progress through those, you probably missed a lot of health or missile upgrades you could go search for.

The map is interesting. A full 3D representation of the world, divided in regions and then more detailed maps for each. You can see your location and your direction, as well as all the doors you’ve accessed and their colors indicating what unlocks them. The map will also show hints from time to time, indicating you where to go next, but you may not be able to get there yet, and you won’t know the exact path to take. This is a great feature in my opinion. The one miss here is the lack of any indication when a room has been fully explored and all the items in it have been taken. A bit annoying when hunting for upgrades and not knowing where they are.

Boss fights in the game were a bit of a mixed bag, because of the lock-in shooting, most of them are built around waiting and waiting around and avoiding attacks until a weak spot is exposed. Some weak spots will be invisible unless you use a special visor mode, and some of them require you to use a specific beam attack or missile. This requires constant switching around of the beam and visor modes, and it was part of my main struggles with the controls scheme of the game.

In Breath of the Wild switching weapons or equipment freezes the screen and lets you take choose what to do at your leisure. In Metroid Prime, you have to switch beams and visors while on the move, and there will be an animation of a few seconds between each change. I never quite learned the button combinations until the very end, and even then it was still a bit of a mess. The worst of this happens when the door to the next room also requires a different beam to be opened. Most 2D titles in the franchise stacked beam effects on top of one another, or would let you toggle them in the pause menu.

Honestly, I don’t hate this decision. There even are occasions when multiple enemies will appear that will require different beams to be beaten. Each encounter requires you to pay attention and be efficient with your attacks—or run away to the next door and ignore everything trying to avoid as much damage as possible. The mechanic is fun, I just wish the controls were a bit better. I am not sure what I would have done myself.

Overall, the classic Metroid gameplay was adapted to perfection to the 3D world, there’s a reason this game was the best sold Metroid until Metroid Dread came along. I loved playing through it, even if traversal especially because of backtracking, was a bit annoying.

The art and music

Despite all this, the truth of the matter is that exploring Tallon IV is an absolute delight.

Metroid Prime came out in 2002, and it already featured incredible graphics for the time. Metroid Prime Remastered manages to do the same in modern times, offering an incredible level of visuals and performance that I never thought possible on the Nintendo Switch. This is easily the best looking game I’ve played on the system, it runs at 60 FPS without any struggles at all.

This smooth as butter movement and camera controls were a blessing I didn’t expect, and I’m thankful for them.

Another highlight has to be the HUD, the interface around Samus’s helmet looks amazing. I already talked about how it reacts to the environment, but the overall design deserves a lot of praise as well. The stylization of the visorts is excellently done.

Same goes for the music. The score of this game has been familiar to me since 2012, when I first saw some of those YouTube playlists with a title like “Relaxing Nintendo Music to Study and Work”. When Nintendo released their Nintendo Music app, their Tallon IV Exploration playlist quickly became a favorite of mine. I recognized it as soon as the game booted up, and I was incredibly surprised at how much it fully immersed me into this world. When I first visited the Phendrana Drifts, I stood there in awe as the music played.

The score contains reinterpretations of classic Metroid soundtracks. It is very fitting and iconic to this day. This soundtrack is simply beautiful, some of the best atmospheric music ever.

The Remastered version also let’s you access a ton of extras. 3D Models of the characters and enemies, conceptual artwork of the original Metroid Prime and the Remastered, and the soundtrack can be unlocked too!

The good

The music is fantastic and very immersive, fading perfectly as you traverse the world.
The visor, the effects around it, its interface and everything truly make you feel like Samus.
The power-ups from the classic Metroid are expertly brought to the third dimension, and new powers that work great because of this.
If you are lost, there are helpful hints that trigger after some time, letting you know where to go next, but not how.
The lock-in shooting let’s you deal with enemies swiftly while strafing around them.
The world design is great, it’s fun to realize how everything connects.
The story shown through scans and logs is very interesting and adds a lot to Metroid’s lore.
Performance is smooth as butter, and mastering the movement and controls is satisfying.

The bad

The movement can be hard to get used to and feels slow at first.
Switching weapons/visor modes can be confusing and annoying in the heat of combat.
No quick travel options, backtracking can take a long time.
Scanning every room and looking for clues can be annoying.
No easy way to mark locations to remember any dead ends you may want to return to.
Some boss fights amount to waiting around a long time until you can shoot at a weakspot.
There are no indicators for rooms with missing items or upgrades.
You can only save via save rooms, no auto-save. This could be a positive for people looking for challenge

Some tips and tricks

Be ready to accept your defeat when you are far from a save spot. Also make sure to check for any enemy spawning areas to recover health easily.
Make sure to spot every door and truly analyze your surroundings. There are areas you can reach very early which you may still miss.
Screenshots! The Nintendo Switch let’s you easily take screenshots. Take one of your view and then the location in the map.
Each room in the map has a name! If you don’t fancy screenshots, just save a note somewhere to return there.
Be ready to shot at weird looking walls, and especially pillars! There are a few things that can be hidden there.
Keep scanning everything you see! There’s a progress percentage of your scans and a lot of story to read.
There is a difference in your jumps when you are targetting an enemy and when you are not, one is faster and to the sides, the normal one has more heights.
Most attacks are actually very easy to avoid, just stay at a safe distance and figure out patterns first.
Seriously, scan every boss you face. It will give you an idea of how to defeat it. Also scan any suspicious things in the arena itself, it might give you hints too.

Final thoughts

I loved this game so much! However there is a grave mistake I made that cost me hours of playtime. Make sure to always remember to look for every door. I already mentioned in the tips and tricks. But there was this area that exposed me to a lot of the early story, that I completely missed for like ten hours.

Most playthroughs of this game are about 12 hours long. Mine was 18 hours, and my playtime on Switch was about 25 hours.

To be clear. I loved pretty much everything about it. But having to drag myself across already visited areas because I missed some pretty obvious clues with items I needed to collect could have been a bit of a chore. Again, I was happy to do it, because I loved the movement by the end and the control I had of Samus and knowing my way around the world, but you may end up very annoyed by it all, or not as thrilled about the slowness of it all.

This game features the best graphics on the Nintendo Switch, the best performance, one of the most fantastic atmospheric music of all time. One of the best transitions to the third dimension in a franchise ever. The familiar sense of progression in the series that started its own genre. I am baffled I didn’t play this sooner, but I am extremely glad I did.

Yes some boss fights are meh and missing out on some scans is annoying. Backtracking will never be for everyone and the lack of a run button may cause some people to riot. Nonetheless, this is amazing stuff.

The original title has a score of 97 in Metacritic, while the remaster has a 94. No matter how you look at it, this is one of the greats! I highly, highly recommend giving it a go. It was a fantastic journey that gripped me the whole way through.

I’ve been able to play and focus on individual games lately, and I’m not sure if that is a change in my own mindset, or if the games are just that good. In any case, this was a blast. A contender for my favorites of the year.

This is day 82 of #100DaysToOffload

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Hades

2026-06-17T20:38:37-06:00

Back when I purchased my Nintendo Switch in 2023, there were only a few titles I cared about trying on it. Among the first games I purchased at the time was Hades, released in 2020, developed by Supergiant Games.

Hades had already made a name for itself, as a title that redefined the genre and the medium, in manners that only a few get to do. It happened with Ocarina of Time and 3D action combat, with Halo’s controller layout for FPS games, with Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, giving birth to a genre that has flourished with iconic titles known to all. It’s a work that left a mark this decade already.

Roguelikes have been around for ages, and I have tried and played a fair share of them, even if none have quite landed for me until now, I could appreciate what they do. I wrote a bit about roguelikes a while ago if you want some more thoughts about them. Some interesting comments on that post as well!

Alas, Hades is very different.

A roguelike is a game where you have to complete without dying. If you do, multiple elements of the game will be randomized and procedurally generated. Item locations, rooms, enemies. Every playthrough is unique, every death permanent.

Most roguelikes are very much focused on forcing you to get better at the game. Something like Spelunky will rely on your ability to understand its mechanics a little more run after run, the rooms and levels may change, but the way the world works is the same always. You have to help yourself, improve yourself, try things and learn as much as you can so if you die, it will be a bit easier and you will have mastered the game enough to complete it, earn the victory yourself. This is the same for many other classic roguelikes, like Dungeon Cralw Stone Soup, Shattered Pixel Dungeons or Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Something like Ember Knights, Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy will feature meta-progression. Items that will ease each run, with things like extra lives, more speed, better weapons, or regenerative health, benefits present in other roguelikes, but often lost forever by the next run. Some times those games may mix those benefits with caveats that add variation to each attempt too, and I’m sure others have tried to balance the game in similar ways.

One style can be way too difficult and repetitive for some players, while providing a true challenge and a real sense of getting good at it to others. While it can be unfair to lose hours of progress in a run, a game you will eventually complete because you keep unlocking new permanent upgrades and enemies don’t get any tougher, can end up feeling just as pointless.

Hades features meta-progression, choices and multiple paths to take so you can build up your moveset and make your way through rooms until you reach the end. But how does it justify this?

The story.

Most roguelikes have a very mild sense of story. Since you often die quickly, it doesn’t really matter, you just try again for no particular reason. This can be a deal breaker if the mechanics are not enough to hold your interest. This happened to me in the case of stuff like One Step From Eden, where I feel no reason to go through it, while others absolutely love the depth of its mechanics and nods to other games.

Hades has a story, where we follow Zagreus (or Zag), the son of Hades, ruler of the Underworld, as he attempts to reach Mount Olympus to reunite with the rest of his family. Going through every level of the Underworld, an endless maze of shuffling rooms and enemies that no mortal can escape from.

This is the basis on which everything is justified. Zag is escaping the house of Hades, everytime he tries to run away, the gods of Olympus aid him with boons: attack effects, better stats, more movement options, etc. There will also be rooms that reward you with weapon upgrades, or with different currencies to get permanent benefits.

Each god has something to say when giving you a boon, and each god will offer certain powers that can even synergize with those from other gods. They all have a different character and you will get to meet them better, as the story continues. Understanding the family dynamics of them all. Making for a really interesting form of story-telling.

Mechanically, each god is different too. Athena focuses on deflecting and defense, Poseidon can push away enemies with waves, Zeus has lightning chip damage that bounces through enemies, and the like.

There are plenty of other characters in each level of the Underworld, muses, fallen kings, forgotten warriors, people who will aid you in different ways. And of course, boss fights! I’ve already spoiled enough.

You can not actually die. Each time you lose, you are carried away by the Styx river, back to the House of Hades. And this is where the things get interesting. Since there is no fighting in the House, you can just interact and know characters there better, some who want to help you, some who are there to stop you.

These moments between runs are where most of the story will develop, where you will know why Zag wants to make it to the top, why the Olympians are aiding you at all, and understand more about the complicated relationship between Hades and his family. You can get to know and unlock more lore about each character, as well as obtain certain benefits by offering something to them in the game.

All of this is aided by some of the best artwork I have ever seen. Each character is portrayed in a fantastic way, and all of them are really cool. There is some fantastic voice work too, the talent and the effort put into all of this is amazing.

Featuring half a dozen weapons and a rather versatile moveset, each run is never the same, while at the same time, it kind of is. Here’s where Hades can make or break it for a player, as it essentially is a bit of a button masher when it comes to its gameplay…

You got your Dash, Attack, Special Attack and Cast, these are the four moves you get to do, each one varies depending on your weapon and there’s some combos for each, also affected by whatever weapon upgrade you may get during a run. The truth remains the same, most of the time you’ll dash dash attack, dash dash special, dash dash attack, cast cast cast, rinse and repeat.

This is not a bad thing by itself. The game will hook you and get you in a focus state where you will evade your way through everything and anihiliate everyone and you won’t even realize it. But that’s if you get good…

The game is also quite difficult. There are no one-hit kills or anything, but the environment and traps and constant damage will eventually get to you if you are not careful. This can be really rough, and will stop a lot of people on their tracks. It took me about thirty runs before I finally reached the end, and no, I did not win that final boss fight until later.

The game features one helpful feature for this: Godmode. A tickbox in the pause menu that increases your defense by 2% each time you die.

Of course, Hades wants you to die multiple times to keep seeing more of the story, and accepting each defeat as part of the cycle is kind of important. This is a game where reaching the final boss fight is not really the end goal. Even after you win, there will be reasons to keep going, and more interactions to be had after each death or victory.

The story is full of revelations and very interesting developments, there are also other side plots that make you care about some of the side characters you meet along the way. I reached the end of some of them, but not all, before I reached credits, and it’s one of the things that I am interested on returning to, if I’m honest.

Just like the artwork, the music is outstanding as well. A very epic score that gets the heart pumping during those epic battles. Where screens are full of enemies and projectiles fill up the screen. The game is excellently optimized for Nintendo Switch, running at 60 fps despite the amount of assets loaded up. It has a hiccup here and there, but nothing significant.

The bad

The gameplay can feel repetitive if you don’t change up weapons or strategy.
The difficulty can be really high if you don’t enable Godmode.
Difficult cannot be manually configured, no difficulty options.
Button mashing can end up actually hurting you if you go too hard with it.
Not all strategies and boons are as good as others, some runs will be just bad.
Meta-progression can be a deterrent for some people.

The good

The gameplay can hook you and get you into a flow state.
The challenge is always there and can be amped up later to counteract permanent upgrades.
Godmode allows you to ease the burdens of the game over time as you continue to experience the story.
The characters, writing, artwork, animation, music and overall production of this game is top notch.
You can choose a variety of weapons catering to different styles of play.
Meta-progression and Godmode ensures you can eventually get to the end of the game with some persistence.
The story is simply fantastic and worth experiencing.

Some tips and reminders

Athena’s boons are awesome, use them
Try every weapon, one is bound to be great for you, my favorite was the bow
Talk with everyone every time you die, you can technically skip this, but why would you deny yourself the awesome interactions?
If a run is bound to be bad, try to focus on resource gathering! It will often help you more.

Final thoughts

I played through the game in a span of three years, so even though I was never fully hooked by it, I was interested on trying it and getting to complete it, and I am glad I gave it the time. Even during the span of times where I didn’t touch the game at all, it remained in my memory, and every time I returned to it, I would often spend two or three hours in a day, making progress, it was just that sort of game for me.

What is there to say about Hades that hasn’t been said? It is a roguelike with excellent mechanics that are absolutely justified within the story, and because of that, it was never tiring for me to go through the motions. The gameplay did hook me for hours at a time, always going for two or three runs whenever I had the chance. I was not helplessly addicted to it like some people who played it like 400 hours, but I got about 40 hours of playtime myself before I finally reached the credits, and saw the conclusion of the story.

There is still an epilogue, it seems, that will tie up some more knots, and side plots I would like to conclude, but I am fine writing about the game by now. It was a wonderful time, and I really recommend giving it a go!

This is day 81 of #100DaysToOffload

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