PWB September 2026

No-one's started this yet this month so let's go.

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Final Fantasy XIV - still absolutely loving this. It's the kind of game that elbows almost everything else off the agenda, because there's always stuff to do and whatever kind of mood you are, there will be something that fits the bill. I'm partway into Stormblood now, which I know is thought to be one of the weaker expansions but I'm still having a great time.

However I have found time for a couple of Fire Emblem games, here and there: Path of Radiance on the GameCube, via NSO, and Fates on the 3DS (my reliable holiday companion). They're both good, in slightly different ways: Path of Radiance is fun but very simplistic, with a linear campaign, while Fates is much more involved to the point of having a little too much fluff and stuff to do around the good bits. Neither have the "oh shit" rewind feature that Three Houses had, though, which means I spend a troubling amount of time playing levels twice to undo obvious fuck-ups.

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And following on from the above, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is out in a week or two, at which point I'll probably move over to that. It looks great, and I am assured by Mart that there is loads of stuff in there that hasn't even been touched upon in the previews. Three Houses was probably my favourite Switch game overall so I am expecting great things from this.

And, still in a strategy mood, Star Wars: Zero Company looks great: I like XCOM, I like Star Wars, I even like The Clone Wars, so this is getting bought sooner rather than later.

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I hate to say it, but probably Game Pass? I'm paid up until next year but I'm using it less and less: I'm not sure if the game selection is getting weaker or they're simply not getting word of mouth out any more, but I scan over the list of recent titles and I have no idea what any of them are and no-one seems to talk about them like they used to. The various discovery tasks that used to be part of Microsoft Rewards did a huge amount in terms of encouraging people to try games out, and since they removed those it's just a list of titles you don't recognise. Now they're introducing a farcical 15 hours a month limit for their cloud streaming (a feature I do actually use), there's increasingly little reason to keep it going. When my sub runs out I might just knock it down to Core and keep playing the games I've bought that I actually want to play.

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The Big Walk continues! It's so good, but remains quite hard to describe in a way that really captures it. Last night, for example, we spent a long time collecting buttons from hidden spots around the landscape, then wandered into a tunnel and found a hidden underground disco room.

On a whim, we also started a run on Return to Moria. Not entirely sure on it yet, but I'm in a big co-op headspace at the moment, and it's doing double-duty scratching a Lord of the Rings itch, too. We're still very much in tutorial phase, I think - it's been pretty low-stakes so far, and we've only had to fight orcs once yet. Sarah has ambitions of restoring and/or remodelling the entire of Khazad-dûm, but I suspect that might be beyond the game's scope…

Overwatch.

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Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 remains top of The List, even though (I think) I still have a couple of missions left in the original. I'll have to see if I can scare up a last hurrah to get those done while waiting for a discount on the new one.

Not much on my radar besides; I watched (most of) Sony's State of Play thing the other night and came away fairly underwhelmed. I saw someone, somewhere gushing over Rhapsody in Scarlet, but it looks like a HD remaster of a Vita game to me. The only thing that piqued any interest at all as Hunter's Moon, which is sort of a folk-horror Sir, You Are Being Hunted by way of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.

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I continue to be astonished that It hasn't happened yet.

Glad to hear Mart's still around.

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Not much being played. I just got my Retroid Pocket Nova and a good enough SD card for it. So I guess I'm mostly playing set up this month.

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So I'm looking forward to playing a bunch of stuff on the Nova. Lots of JRPGs, some Dreamcast classics which I've never gotten around to, old PS2 favourites.

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I picked up Chrono Trigger the other day but after leaving it for a few weeks I've totally forgotten where I was supposed to be going and I don't think I care anymore. It's probably the shortest JRPG I've ever played and twice now I've not managed to get half way through it.

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Onimusha 3: Demon's Siege
This is the most 'Resident Evil' this series has ever felt, with the Samurai sent to modern day France and Jean Reno sent to Sengoku era Japan, you eventually stop alternating between their sections of the game and have to actively solve puzzles in the same area but in respective time zones to help each other by manually jumping between them at will. It's not hard, it's actually pretty cool.

Final Fantasy Resonance - the demo is out and I'm not too far in it but…I'm basically sold, solid looking game.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - This is so much better than MGS4 already, and I'm not even that far again but it's just so fun even if the premise of ballooning enemies up into your gunship to recruit them is silly, it's a game kind of silly and I like it. It's clearly a PSP game and if we're looking at it like that it's got to be like one of the Top 5 games on the system, but even playing it on a console the handheld 'bite sized' design still ends well to short bursts of play. That said, with you being able to buy this separately from MGS4 and Ghost Babel, there's no reason I couldn't just get it on the Switch 2 and get the option to play handheld OR TV, oh well….

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If I can beat Onimusha 3 tonight I might buy the new one, Onimusha 4 will have to wait I guess. Also I will try replay FF7 Remake and Rebirth for sure before the new one is out

Mart's second last post was telling me to fuck off, so I assume his departure was down to me. Ban me to get him back? (and Hapimeses).

I think my Play's are fairly similar to last time. I'm really enjoying Star Wars: Zero Company - though I have to concede it isn't quite as coherent as XCOM 2. I think performance has slightly improved for me on PC, but i know the studio was gutted, so I doubt it'll get a lot of patches. One area it does suffer is enemy variety, and it also has a lot of systems that have a lot of words and bluster, but don't really add a lot to the game. But it generally is really well done - and I'd hope an XCOM3 leans into some of the design decisions on the narrative and story side.

Final Fantasy 7 the remake? As I've said many times, my first important FF was really FFX, I was never a console gamer around the time 7 came out. So, the story and setting is novel (though I know the beats). What has really been impressing me about this is how well the story is delivered and the pacing of it. You know in games how everything has to be really RUSHED and SHIT HAS TO HAPPEN ALL THE TIME. The opening sequence, where you blow a power plant and then the long section afterwards are genius. I don't think I've blown many things up in a videogame (ayooooo!) and then seen the civilian response to it. How that would be reported on the news. And how kids might view it. It's really skilfully delivered, with a few lashings of bat shit insane Japanese characterisation over the top.

Also, been continuing a few things on the Switch 2 (MK: World, always good for a blast), Everybody's Golf (always fun), Bananza (I think this will be appreciated in the future as an underrated classic), Splatoon Raiders (just brilliantly designed), Unicorn Overlord (I wish this would come to PC).

Oh, I am also obsessed with playing SpellBee, an Android word puzzle game (a bit like the NYT spelling hive) every day. I'm trying to stave off Alzheimer's, but I'm not sure it's helping.

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Even though I feel dirty - Deadzone Rogue 2. The company is shifty as fuck. it really should just be an expansion to the first game. But the gun feel in this game is just top tier and the game loop is like crack. The builds you can make are just bonkers. I grudgingly want it.

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Ball X Pit - I have given this a serious try a couple of times. I just don't like it. I should like it, but there's something about the gameplay loop that doesn't work for me.

And I guess we should all be binning ACTUAL FUCKING FASCISM. Blackshirts blocking the M20. Women assulted at the Reform conference as people laugh about it. Far right coming back to power in Germany. Fucking Trump. At this stage what is the fucking point of teaching anyone history in school. Jfw.

As far as FF7 and the Reactor bombing goes I really dislike how the Remake tried to clean the hands of Avalanche by making Shinra responsible for the blast getting out of hand, in the original that does not happen and any collateral was on their hands. Even if you go with the thinking that Avalanche believe they were responsible and still carry on, we know they weren't so we don't have any moral dilemma.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is really fun, but it's a bit of a departure from the original trilogy on PS2, it's like if Sekiro and Nioh had a baby and the baby grew up to be a fan Onimusha. And absolutely unlike either game, it's pretty damn easy so far. The combat is so good that it's selling the game to me alone, especially against the boss fights which are an incredibly satisfying dance of parries and counters, yes this is what the kids these days are calling Parryslop but this is actually nothing the PS2 games didn't already have before Sekiro was a thing…so I think that's fair game right?

It has a bad start though in my opinion, the part where Miyamoto is chased by a mob of Samurai is very entertaining and extremely well choreographed, but it quickly starts to feel like a Sony Game™ with forced walk and talk, no combat and long ass exposition cutscenes…then you reach the demo section and it's been pretty solid action so far although it IS a hub world based game with side quests so there's…that

Speaking of Musashi, easily the best main character Onimusha has ever had? He's animated incredibly well and he's got the rubbery face expressions to go with it. He acts like a bit of joker at times but when he's cornered in a fight he becomes a sort of chaotic grim reaper, you might get cut down or you might get kicked in the balls. I think this tracks in gameplay too because when you master your defensive options he hits like a truck and moves in a way that makes the enemy feel like they're hitting nothing but air.

Capcom have once again made another banger, after Pragmata and Requiem, they're on god damn fire.

I've played a bit of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy but I'm not sure I'll stick with it. The previous two games in this series were basically stealth games where you needed to solve various light-based puzzles to avoid being eaten by swarms of rats - they also had a really strong and atmospheric medieval setting that really lifted them apart from the competition. This prequel is an Uncharted-alike with a much more generic ancient Greek flavour and a combat system based around annoyingly precise parries. It looks absolutely spectacular but honestly this isn't my thing, it's competing in a very crowded marketplace and it's probably not going to make much impact overall. A shame.

As far as FF7 and the Reactor bombing goes I really dislike how the Remake tried to clean the hands of Avalanche by making Shinra responsible for the blast getting out of hand, in the original that does not happen and any collateral was on their hands. Even if you go with the thinking that Avalanche believe they were responsible and still carry on, we know they weren't so we don't have any moral dilemma.

Interesting - I have no frame of reference, so I think I was more struck by the fact it was commented on at all. I'm sure most modern games would be like PRESS A TO MAKE THING HAPPEN OR PRESS B TO MAKE OTHER THING HAPPEN the world notes your choice and then nothing further would be said about it, and nobody would react at all. Like I was playing one of the EA Jedi games, where stuff just happens all the time with no wider consequence.

I've played a bit of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy but I'm not sure I'll stick with it. The previous two games in this series were basically stealth games where you needed to solve various light-based puzzles to avoid being eaten by swarms of rats - they also had a really strong and atmospheric medieval setting that really lifted them apart from the competition. This prequel is an Uncharted-alike with a much more generic ancient Greek flavour and a combat system based around annoyingly precise parries. It looks absolutely spectacular but honestly this isn't my thing, it's competing in a very crowded marketplace and it's probably not going to make much impact overall. A shame.

Apart from knowing these games are full of rats, I've never tried one. It's another one of those reasons why I too am considering Gamepass. I can play all three games in a series I have no interest in, for free. Woo hoo!

Played more Onimusha and I'm not sure why the difficulty is still dominating the discourse on the game when IMO the far bigger problem is them taking a series that was unique and running it through the Ubisoft machine. It's not QUITE as bad as that sounds, the map isn't cluttered with endless checklist icons or anything but I did just get a sidequest from a woman to find her puppies littered around the Kyoto hub, if I don't want to do that I can hunt for some chests!

The sad thing is, there are actual levels where you leave Kyoto to something far more focused like older games…and it's amazing, the combat truly gets to shine which is where this game really pops off, with which the boss fights just get better and better. I don't know why the game is just that, I really don't like the idea that I need to find cloth, Iron and wool to get the next incremental upgrade for my armour.

All that aside, I think this is a great game but I'm not sure I'd want to do all this again.