Justin Mikos

Different topic, playing Ghost of Yotei tonight and was doing one of the wolf team up missions and as I was riding on my horse into the enemy camp following the wolf a bear randomly joined us and we then took out the enemies together. It was awesome lol.

I have two questions about the baptism.

1: Why there as the water is notoriously unhealthy from runoff?

2: Why didn’t they wait while the guy was rescuing the dog basically right in front of them?

I mean I guess answer 1 potentially informs answer 2, but still lol.

Was at a friend’s birthday party yesterday by the ocean and a family wasn’t watching their dog swim farther out as boats and jet skis rushed by. A stranger went in to rescue the dog, then needed rescuing himself, and thankfully a boat helped. Even wilder, a baptism randomly happened during this lol.

I started Ghost of Yotei briefly yesterday and I’m about seven hours in now. It’s absolutely fantastic so far! I love how after the brutal prologue you get dropped into the world and choose entirely yourself how you want to explore it. The story and tone is much better so far compared to Tsushima.

“Hey! Care to trade?”

I played and finished Sly 4 this weekend. It was great fun! Closer to Sly 2 than Sly 3 as the focus moved back toward the big maps and platforming a bit more. I had forgotten I had the game through PS+ so I’m glad I got to play it before my subscription lapsed. Shame the series ended there.

Last night I finished the Trails in the Sky remake after 70 hours of playing. I basically did a full 100% run. It doesn’t replace the original, but it is a terrific, transformative remake of my favorite RPG. Falcom did a tremendous job. The ending got me misty eyed all over again.

My topsters top 30 favorite games 2025 edition chart. Same one I shared in September. Top five includes Super Mario 64, Super Metroid, Trails in the Sky, Magia Record, and Final Fantasy VI.

Awesome chart! I made an updated version of my top 30 games on my birthday last month which I view similarly as a get to know me list. Had a lot of fun putting it together.

I finished the last episode of CITY tonight. It was an absolutely joyous spectacle for the ending. I definitely dug Nichijou more, but the highs of CITY were amazing. I can’t believe how much love went into this show, it is absolutely overflowing with it.

Sad Rock Band 4 is getting delisted. Sorted through all of the available DLC to buy my last songs and download some of the free stuff I missed. End of an era 🥲

Having an awesome time with the new Trails in the Sky remake so far. Aside from some sloppiness in the new script, everything else has been just excellent. Falcom truly captured the energy of the original and the rad new battle system makes exploration so much fun! Entering Bose now 10 hours in.

It’s really fun! It’s Monopoly with the stock market attached and if you set the rules right it gets very competitive with the right crowd. I mostly play with friends, but the Wii version does have some very silly writing for the Mario and Dragon Quest characters.

Chart showing my top 30 games, 2025 edition. 1 Super Mario 64 2 Super Metroid 3 Trails in the Sky 4 Magia Record 5 Final Fantasy VI 6 Chrono Trigger 7 Super Mario Galaxy 2 8 Shadow of the Colossus 9 StarCraft 10 Kingdom Hearts II 11 Metroid Prime 12 Odin Sphere 13 Kirby Super Star 14 Smash Bros Ultimate 15 BlazBlue Central Fiction 16 Super Mario RPG 17 The World Ends With You 18 Xenoblade 3 19 Neo The World Ends With You 20 Xenoblade Chronicles 21 Zelda Link to the Past 22 Zelda Breath of the Wild 23 Rock Band 4 24 Perfect Dark 25 Trails Into Reverie 26 Uncharted 2 27 Cave Story 28 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 29 Halo 3 30 Fortune Street

Awesome list Luna! Here’s my updated one :)

Last night I finished Breath of Fire IV. It has a really good adventurous spirit with a lot of more fantastical elements which is something I had wanted more from the series. In two of the last dungeons the combat system comes together and is put to the test properly. Great time! Easily my fav BOF!

Atlus combat usually has too much nonsense in it especially with the one hit random kills paired with the party leader dying causing you to instantly lose which makes no sense. When hitting elemental weaknesses is so powerful above most options that makes combat boring. P5 basically had a win button

I love RPGs. I never go for grinding unless there’s something very specific I want immediately which is rare. Most give you enough stuff to work with where you should never feel obligated to grind and can adapt when the plan starts falling apart.

Separately though not a fan of most Atlus combat lol

Personally loved it a ton! The train story in particular with the multiple factions set to chaotically destroy each other and a “monster” running amok is just super fun. Also pretty fun to piece together what’s going on. It’s a short 13 + 3 episodes that ends well enough and leaves you wanting more.

I finished Lost Soul Aside. It was a blast to play and totally lived up to the rad demo I played at PSX eight years. When you are fighting bosses especially the game rocks. Wish the story was more than just serviceable, but other than that I definitely recommend it to character action game fans.

Wanted to bump this for the afternoon crowd. I posted a new blog late last night about some of the highlights from tackling my PS3 backlog. Check it out if you haven’t :)

Highlights From My PS3 Backlog Part 1 For the past year or so especially, I’ve been making a focused effort to clear out my PS3 backlog. When I first started, I had a list of over forty games to either play through or decide to retire...

I posted a new blog today! I wrote about some of the highlights from tackling my PS3 backlog over the past year or so including Atelier Rorona Plus, Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 6, and Suikoden II. Check it out :)

www.justinmikos.com/blog/highlig...

Had been looking forward to Lost Soul Aside for years ever since I played a rad demo at a PSX. Was a bit iffy on the prologue, but I just cleared Chapter 1 and that was the kind of awesome flashy Devil May Cry-like experience I wanted. Boss fights have been a big highlight and there are many of them

Tonight I finished Kirby Star-Crossed Worlds. It was fairly short as just 12 new levels, new final bosses, and a new extra hard arena cup, but as someone who really wanted more Forgotten Land, it was exactly what I wanted. Just a super delightful and excellent time from start to finish.

Forgot to tweet yesterday I finished No Sleep For Kaname Date. Had a great time with it. Felt like one of the good anime franchise original movies, but a video game. Lots of fun times with characters I love and the increasingly elaborate escape rooms ruled. The character swapping stuff was so cool.

Raz and Pipo standing next to each other. Raz develops a strong emotional attachment to Pipo and mourns his later death shouting “PIPOOOOO!” as the camera pulls back.

“I can’t figure this thing out. It’s just too complicated.” Raz says…about an on and off switch. Pipo has to flip the switch to solve the puzzle.

The rad laser knife you get from flipping that switch Raz claims is just too complicated to figure out. You lose this knife in a cutscene defending yourself from a monster even though realistically there is nothing stopping Raz from removing it.

Raz and Millie crouching in a room together back to back. The crouching pose is goofy looking especially as characters are making finger guns at all times.

Yesterday I started a new playthrough and finished OverBlood as part of my PS3 backlog. It’s not a good video game, but everything is working in concert to make it such a silly experience from start to finish from the animations, voice acting / script, over the top deaths, etc. Glad I played it.

I finished Suikoden II! Was surprised the gameplay is so similar to the original for better and for worse, but I really dug the story. It loses momentum after you beat the main villain, but it still has some great scenes afterwards. So maybe didn’t live up to its reputation, but I had a lot of fun!

Same! Hoping Square and Konami get more on board in particular. They have a lot of classic games stuck on PS3 and Vita.

I’m really glad they’ve been honoring past purchases for these as they super slowly drip out. Knock on wood, PS5 games should be backwards compatible for a great while so these versions should be.

I’m tackling my PS3 backlog currently and I’m glad these two got added so I can save them for later.

Kind of spontaneously, I decided to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters tonight. Was a little skeptical that it was more of a musical than I thought walking in, but the heart, style, and songs won me over. Not too surprised I loved it, it’s basically Symphogear crossed with Spiderverse both of which I adore.

Since I finished The Hundred Line I’ve started playing Suikoden II. I’m about four hours in and the four back to back massacres by the main villain is pretty shocking and does a good job of establishing stakes. The game feel in contrast remains cozy which is what I wanted when I decided to start it.

My save file showing I finished all one hundred endings for The Hundred Line. Ending 55 was my last one incidentally which was fantastic.

I definitely need to write some extended thoughts down somewhere down the road, but I’m happy to say that while I’m very exhausted / relieved, I’m also fully satisfied that I finished The Hundred Line with all 100 endings after 165+ hours. One of the best games of the year. Truly an achievement.