Yes, I’m still alive.

I’d intended to write a few more things last month, but I was sick so I took several days to recover while I was bedridden. I’m incredibly thankful that I can do that, though I did spend the last few days looking after wifey since she caught whatever I had.

Having said that, I’ve got a few updates.

Firstly, no Ender Mag review is coming. I know I said I would write something about it in my last Month in Review, but I got bored of playing it. I still think it’s something that Metroidvania fans will enjoy, but there wasn’t enough there to keep me going. Apparently, I’ve really fallen off the wagon with this subgenre over the years.

Second, I’m sorry about the number of notifications, or emails that you received on March 10th, 2025. I originally wrote my Nine Sols Boss Guide as 1 giant post with several pages. However, I needed to split it up into several smaller posts in the end so that it was easier to manage because the WordPress editor doesn’t play nice with long-form content. The guides are collectively around 20k words, and the editor kept shitting itself whenever I’d try to make minor revisions to a specific section of the guide. Ergo, it was easier to split it into 9 distinct pieces, and manage everything separately.

Again, sorry. If I’d figured that out sooner, I’d have rolled them out over the course of a week instead of slamming your inbox all in 1 day.

If it makes you feel any better, my mom did let me know all about it the last time I talked to her. And yes, she is subscribed to my site.

Finally, I originally had a written section in here for The Roottrees are Dead, but have since removed it because I’ll be publishing a review within the next week instead. Unlike with Ender Magnolia, the review for Roottrees is partially written so it shouldn’t disappear. I could publish what I’ve already got, but I’m not happy with it yet. Give me a couple more days to fiddle with it some more, and then I’ll likely be happy even though it’ll largely read the same.

Anyway, here’s the rest of what I was playing throughout March:

Oh my God. This is going to be a long one, isn’t it?

Fire Emblem Awakening

In keeping with last month, where I spent the majority of my time replaying older games, I started off March by replaying Fire Emblem Awakening. It was my first Fire Emblem game, and if you’d asked me what my favourite 3DS game was back in 2017, I’d have probably answered with it. Awakening isn’t without its flaws, but I really enjoy it despite all of those shortcomings. Heck, in some cases I actually appreciate it because of them.

Regardless, I picked up Awakening again because of a video series that was written, and produced by Ellery. They have numerous guides that talk about how to approach Awakening on its highest difficulty (Lunatic+), and that convinced me to give Awakening another shot on Lunatic difficulty. You can read about how that went here, but the express version is that I had a very good time.

I also wrote a really long postmortem for my Lunatic playthrough like I did for my last playthrough of Conquest. I really enjoy the process of dissecting how a given Fire Emblem campaign went, so I think I might continue to do that with future playthroughs of games in the franchise. I’ve been jonesing to play through Conquest again, and my brother-in-law has offered to lend me his (or his partner’s?) copy of Engage, so I’ll definitely be writing about Fire Emblem again in the future.

Just…uh…don’t hold your breath waiting for that coverage. I have no idea when I’ll eventually get around to doing either playthrough.

Minishoot’ Adventures

Next up in March was Minishoot’ Adventures.

I remembered playing a demo for Minishoot during a Steam Next Fest, but it appears I didn’t actually write about it. Or any games from that particular Next Fest. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was present at the Next Fest right before I started doing my multi-part coverage of the events.

Either way, Minishoot’ Adventures is really fun.

The simplest way that I can describe it is as follows: what if The Legend of Zelda was a Shoot’m Up? Those 2 different gameplay styles sound totally incompatible, but Minishoot blends them beautifully into a cohesive package. It turns out there is a lot of unexplored territory for powerups when you go beyond the scope of being a person with a melee weapon.

Speaking of power-ups, the sense of progression that Minishoot maintains throughout its runtime as players acquire those new power-ups was my favourite part of it. You start off unable to do much besides move, and shoot. This keeps you locked into a fairly small section of the overall map. However, as you collect those aforementioned power-ups, your ability to traverse the world increases exponentially, as does the speed that you can move around in it. By the end of Minishoot, it’s possible to speed from 1 side of the island to the other in less time than it took you to explore the starting area. That adds a tangible weight to your progression that I find many other games lack. Plus, it feels really cool to zip around the map at such high speeds.

Minishoot also has multiple options for increasing its approachability, so that players of all aptitudes can enjoy it. I played with limited aim-assist, but there’s also a mode where the game locks onto targets like older 3D Zelda titles, and the Metroid Prime games. I think that’d help a lot of folks who aren’t as familiar with Shoot’m Up combat to enjoy Minishoot since dodging a flurry of enemy projectiles can feel incredibly overwhelming when you’re new to the genre.

I know I say this quite often in my Month in Review series, but give Minishoot’ Adventures a look, doubly so if you enjoy 2D Zelda games. It’s not as puzzle focused as its inspiration, but I found Minishoot hits a lot of the same chords. With only 5000 reviews on Steam, Minishoot feels like one of those genuine hidden gem indie games, and I think more people need to hear about it so they can play it for themselves.

Mini Motorways

I can already hear what some of you are asking: why Mini Motorways when there was so many great new games releasing in March?

Good question.

I just wanted to play it again?

Originally, I played Mini Motorways back around its launch in the summer of 2021. Though, I was playing on my wife’s Steam account. We’ve since set up account sharing, so I was able to play through the game properly on my own Steam account. As such, I’ve been working my way through the whole game over the past several weeks.

For those who aren’t already aware of what it is: Mini Motorways is a puzzle game where you build roadways. Coloured houses, and destination buildings will spawn around a map, and you’ll need to connect them up so that cars can drive to and from the destinations. You’re scored based on how many round trips your city can complete, and the game ends when a destination can’t field trips quickly enough because of traffic congestion. Ergo, efficiency is the name of the game as you compete for high scores on Mini Motorways’ online leaderboards.

It’ll come as no surprise to many of you that I got into another pissing contest with people because of those aforementioned leaderboards. Naithin, and Magi have both played Mini Motorways before, so I went through the whole game beating their best scores on every single level. I informed them as much after finishing the first few levels, and this spurred the both of them to play the game a bit alongside me. At the time of writing, Naithin has me totally bested on Los Angeles with a score of 5.2k. I don’t think I have the fortitude to take that one back from him if I’m being honest.

Our ramblings back, and forth in the Blaugust discord also inspired a few other folks to join in, which was really cool to see. I always like sharing a thing that I’m enjoying, and having other people join in.

I’ve also got a guide written for Mini Motorways, but I’ve been sitting on it until I finish all of the levels. The purpose of that delay is so that I can fact check my work, and gather a few more screenshots to use across the guide. Having to update my guides because of a new update is 1 thing, but I really don’t like revising them because of inaccuracy, so that’ll be out the door once I’m sufficiently convinced that everything I’ve written holds up under scrutiny.

Yes. I take guide writing unnecessarily seriously. I’ve always got my serious slacks on.

Wanderstop

You know, I don’t think I have a lot more to say about Wanderstop beyond what I already wrote about it in a preview after playing its Next Fest demo. It’s been such an emotionally draining game to play that I can usually only handle about an hour of it at a time before I need to put it down. Then I’ll end up avoiding it for a few days before playing another hour.

The thing is, I don’t think any of that is a bad thing. Some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced were ones that hurt me to play through. Heck, I just finished a book last night by Laura Kay titled Making It, and cried multiple times during the final 60-70 pages. I think that book is amazing even though it really hurt me to finish reading it.

So, while Wanderstop keeps hitting a little too close to home, I’m glad that it does. It makes me feel seen, and stands as a reminder that there are others out there who are struggling with the same feelings I have on a daily basis. Knowing you’re not alone is a really powerful feeling – one that I never would have anticipated I’d experience from a cutesy looking game about making herbal teas in the middle of the woods.

Hades 2

If you don’t already know what Hades (the game) is – what’s wrong with you? How did you avoid hearing about 1 of 2020’s most popular indie games in the year when half the world spent every hour of their day online, or playing video games? Were you also stuck working through the pandemic like I was? If so – I’m sorry. I know how much that sucked.

Either way, I started playing Hades 2 a few weeks ago, and ho-ly Moses. What a game. I’m actually in disbelief that it hasn’t been released out of Early Access yet. It already feels like a complete game, sans the part where the story comes to an abrupt stop once you finish a run. Seriously. No bullshit. SuperGiant could release Hades 2 right now, and everyone would cream their jeans over it.

That said, I have 1 partially written article about Hades 2, and another thing I’d like to discuss about it in a separate article. Again, I’ve actually got 1200 words penned already so the first article will actually manifest at some point in April, instead of being a repeat of Ender Mag. No promises on the other article, though I think it’s the more interesting of the 2 topics so I should be able to write it into existence before losing interest.

The only other stray thought that I wanted to cover, which otherwise wouldn’t fit into 1 of my existing article ideas, was mentioning a particular song from Hades 2’s soundtrack.

If you want to avoid everything about the game until it’s released then skip this next bit.

The second boss of the game, Scylla leads a trope of Sirens, and they actively play their boss theme while you’re fighting them. They even stop playing certain parts of the song when you knock-out a member of the band, which is such a cool little detail.

However, the singer Scylla eventually becomes annoyed with you for repeatedly ruining their performances, and writes an alternative song to sing the next time you show up. This song, I’m Going to Claw (Out Your Eyes Then Drown You to Death), is hilarious.

I’ve included it below so you can give it a listen. I’m not sure if it’ll hit the same without the context of the game, but I was laughing out loud the first time I heard this while fighting Scylla.

LOK Digital

I covered LOK Digital in a Steam Next Fest preview last year, and finally got around to buying and playing it in March.

As with Duck Detective, I’m a little ashamed that it’s taken me that long to get to it, especially because LOK seemed like it was going to be something special. After having played it, I can indeed confirm that LOK Digital is a masterclass logic puzzle game. 

The basic premise is that you’re presented with a white gameboard, and you have to turn all of the tiles dark. If I had to make a comparison, I’d say LOK is kind of like the intersection between Crossword, and Sudoku. It’s filled to the brim with logic puzzles that’ll twist your brain into knots in all the right ways.

LOK also features a fairly interesting hint system that I think I might reference in future articles on the subject of game difficulty. 1 of the primary mechanics of LOK is combining letter tiles to form words, and the hint system tells you which words you need to make, and in which order. The thing is, you’re only given 1 word at a time, so you’re able to control how much help you receive on a given level. That gives players a lot of control over how difficult LOK actually is to finish, which I thought was really cool. Doubly so since I really struggled with some of the game’s later puzzles. Heck, I had the full word list for some, and it still took me 10 minutes to figure out the solution.

If you’re in the market for a new puzzle game, I can’t recommend LOK Digital enough. I think the hint system makes it way more approachable than a lot of other logic puzzle games, which makes it a great game to pick up regardless of your level of skill at logic puzzles. Plus, for those of you that are puzzle-wizards there are additional levels after you roll credits that are even more challenging.

Seriously, go play LOK. It is fantastic.

Spilled!

Last, but certainly not least, we’ve got Spilled!

Spilled! is a game in the same vein as A Short Hike wherein you can sit down, and complete it in an hour. It’s running almost entirely on vibes, but that doesn’t make it any less satisfying to play.

The basic premise of Spilled! is that a bunch of tankers have polluted the local waterways, and scared all of the wildlife away. You’re tasked with going around in your trusty houseboat to clean up all of the nastiness, and restore the water back to nature. This’ll involve scooping up oil spills, trawling for barrels, and spraying down some particularly vertical oil spills.

There’s not much in the way of challenge here because that’s not really the point. Instead, Spilled! is a meditative experience, and lets you clean up the waterways at your own pace.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, give Spilled! a look. It’s neat. It also has a demo.

And with Spilled! that’ll be it for March. I feel like there won’t be many surprises in the coming weeks since I announced several upcoming articles here to look forward to. There’d be fewer backlogged articles if I hadn’t gotten sick, but that just sorta is what it is at this point. 

Thank you for your patience, especially if you’ve ever supported my work financially. I appreciate that more than I can ever put into words.

Stay safe out there, and I’ll see you in the next one.

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