Published: 2025-08-08

It's that time again, time to look back at what I played last month and share my thoughts, even if nobody cares. I finished more than a dozen games during the month of July, most of them short experiences easily completed in one sitting, and that's OK, sometimes one needs a break from epic, long adventures to put things into perspective.

As usual: SPOILER ALERT, I'll be talking about different games, and I might or might not spoil parts of the plot. Don't worry, I'll start each paragraph by mentioning the name of the game so you can decide if you want to keep reading or not before being spoiled.

As that Italian plumber once said: "Here we go."

Table of contents

What Color Was That Dragon Again?

The first game I finished was Blue Dragon, a game most famous for being one of the few JRPGs on the Xbox 360. Oh, it was also developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy, and the character designs were made by Akira Toriyama, but I don't really care about that. I mostly played this game during June, but it was early July when I managed to finish it.

This game is usually referred to as "a forgettable experience" by people who got it all wrong. The game is primarily aimed at kids, so, sorry if there's not enough political conflict and complex character arcs in here; it doesn't mean it's not good, it means it is not for you, and that's OK. Nobody compares Blue's Clues to The Sopranos; only an idiot would do that. What I'm trying to say is: shut the fuck up, it's just a game for kids, move on.

Behind its cartoony aesthetic and seen-before plot, there's a complex game, and I appreciate it for that. That being said, I have a confession to make: I didn't "finish" this game. I grinded for hours, made it to the final dungeon, beat the third-to-last boss, proceeded to the final boss chamber, and the game crashed. Did I mention you can only save in designated locations in this game? I didn't!? How silly of me.

Since I was over-leveled by about 20 levels and was definitely not going through that horrible maze of a dungeon again, I just watched the ending on YouTube and called it quits. Not a fan of doing this — like I'm not a fan of this game's bullshit — but that will have to do. I still marked it as finished.

First, It Was Seasons, Then Ages

And there it was, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, a game that has been in my mind since I first played Oracle of Seasons as a kid. There's a certain charm in portable Zelda games that's hard to describe. Of course, the king of them all is Link's Awakening, and I did like Oracle of Seasons better, but I still had a good time with this one. What's more, after finishing Oracle of Ages and inputting a password I got that time I finished Oracle of Seasons, I got to play the real ending of the game, so that's something.

Moving on.

We Have Super Mario World At Home

Let's all be honest here, calling it Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was a stupid idea, a marketing scheme, and a communist plot! Well, maybe not that last one, but it definitely was stupid.

I remember this game from my childhood, not because I owned it, but because a friend of mine used to play it all the time on his Game Boy Advance. I was just mesmerized by how colorful it was and how good it looked. I always wanted to play it, and finally got to.

Needless to say, it is not as good as Super Mario World, because it's its own thing, it excels at doing its own thing, but that thing ain't the thing when compared to Super Mario World, you follow?

Platformers make me way too stressed. I'd play one here and there, but they are surely not my thing. What else can I say? Kaiju baby Koopa at the end — that's how we call Bowser over here — was pretty neat.

Be Gentle, Mister Sega Saturn, It's My First Time

Next, I played Sakura Wars, the first Sega Saturn Game I ever play. I came to know about this game one day, when I was — as one usually does — browsing all the games published by Sega in Questlog, when suddenly the box art of this game caught my attention. It was so beautiful, it reminded me of the anime Rurouni Kenshin — which I keep telling myself I have to watch. Reading the game's summary made me want to play it even more "A graphic novel that mixes dating sim-like mechanics and tactical RPG elements? Oh, you're going to the top of the pile baby!" and that's how I got to play it over the other almost one hundred games I had in my backlog at that time.

Now, this game keeps being called a "dating sim," and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Yes, you play a guy surrounded by girls. Yes, you have to win their affection. And yes, you get the girl at the end. Despite all those things, this is not one of those games that makes you feel funny in your pants; au contraire, it's a game where horny prompts are discouraged, making you lose affinity points with the girls. Plus the story, and the combat sections are good enough to carry the game on their own. It's a damn shame Sakura Wars was never brought to the West, but thanks to a community translation, it can be played in its entirety without any issues.

You should play it, trust me, I'm a guy on the internet, of course I'm right.

The Horrors of War Were Never This Fun!

I continued my gaming escapades with Advance Wars, a game that had been sitting on my backlog for years, and that I came to hate almost immediately. Fog of war, who thought that was a good idea!? I can see why people like it, I liked it! I just didn't love it. I feel that if a strategy game forces you to play the same stage multiple times until you discover the right strategy to win, then it's not a great game; it can be a good game! Just not a great one.

Of course, when we talk about strategy games, Fire Emblem immediately comes to mind. I don't think comparing this game to Fire Emblem is fair — even if I find myself doing it all the time — but I can't help but wish it were more like it. It often feels like there is one and only one right way to complete a mission, and that makes the game a little less enjoyable for me.

Dinosaur

I'm not even trying to come up with a clever heading here; the game is Dinosaur for the Game Boy Color. It's not only notorious for having the most generic name in video game history, but also for being a game where you play as a monkey most of the time. Remember, the game is called Dinosaur.

There is really no reason to play this game in the year 2025. I did, because I had it as a kid, and even though I finished it, the ending was so anticlimactic that I wasn't even sure I actually did. And yes, the final screen literally says "Congratulations, you win," but I didn't know any English back then, cut me some slack, will ya?

I even watched the movie recently!

Please don't play this.

Unabomber's Big Space Adventure

Bomberman, the most famous terrorist in the history of video games. I'm not crazy about Bomberman, but when I heard of Bomberman Quest for the Game Boy Color, I said to myself, "I gotta play this!"

This game keeps being referred to as a Zelda-like adventure, but I have to disagree. Yes, Zelda was clearly one of the multiple inspirations for this game, but even the easiest dungeon in a Zelda game feels like an impossible task when compared to Bomberman Quest's ones.

I still like it. I love how self-aware the humor of the game is and how you can miss the true ending of the game if you get lazy, which I did, before going back and beating it for good.

A must-play for the Game Boy Color.

Underpowered Rocket, Underwhelming Power

Another Game Boy Color game I played solely because I owned it as a kid and wanted to see the end of it. Rocket Power: Gettin' Air is a collection of sports mini games with little variety and horrible controls.

I could say more about it, but it's honestly not worth the effort.

Drive To Survive

Now let's talk about Driver... again for the Game Boy Color. Sorry, I'm not that cool to play the PlayStation one, I tried once and couldn't get past the tutorial in the parking lot — true story.

I technically owned this game as a kid because I stoled it. I would borrow it from a kid at school, and one day I just traded it for Pokémon Yellow — such was my obsession with that game. Of course, somebody snitched on me, and I had to give him not only the Pokémon Yellow cartridge — which was trash to him — but also the Rocket Power: Gettin' Air one. The moral of the story is: never do drugs, kids.

Putting my youthful idiocy aside, this game is good! It's a top-down, arcade-like, gangsta game. There are fifteen short missions in three different cities with varied objectives, plus a roam-free mode!

I was so sad when I finished the game. I read online that there were forty-six missions, but apparently, that was for the PlayStation game. Bummer.

Go play this one if you are into Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.

The Adventures of Super Marino

Picture this: you're 8 years old, it's 6:00 PM, and your mom arrives from work. She comes to you and says with her sweet voice, "Hi, sweetie, guess what I got you?" And you go crazy, "What did you get me, Mom? What is it? What is it? Tell me." She reaches into her purse, takes something out, and enthusiastically says, "It's a Mario game!" Your little kid's face draws the biggest, most genuine smile for a second. And then you realize the box says "Super Marino World" or something along those lines. You know it's a buggy, rip-off, mess of a game, but you still play it, because you love your mom, and you don't want to hurt her feelings.

This is how I felt while playing Super Mario Land for the Game Boy. It's such a good game, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like Mario at all. For Pete's sake, there are side-scrolling shooting sections — which I loved — in the game!

The game probably felt so different because it was made by a different team without the involvement of Shigeru Miyamoto and the other ace developers. I'm guessing here, I see videogames — and movies — as experiences, and rarely care who got to work on them or not.

That doesn't mean the game is bad, not at all, it's a pretty enjoyable pocket adventure, and a must-play if you are going through the Game Boy library.

A.C.A.V. (All Cops Are Virtual)

For a change of pace, I played a PC Game, a retro PC game that is, Virtua Cop 2! If you know me, or at the very least are familiar with my gaming quirks, then you'll know I like playing games in release order; therefore, I should have played the original Virtua Cop, right? Not exactly. One exception to the rule is games I played as a kid and never got to beat, and Virtua Cop 2 was the game I could not beat as a kid.

I used to play it all the time at my aunt's, they had a computer since I can remember, when most people could not afford one, so hanging out with my cousin gave me access to this game — and probably others I neither remember nor care for. So when I saw it featured in a list of the best Sega Saturn games, all those memories came flooding back to me, and I said to myself, "I have to finish this game!" To my surprise, the game is abandonware and a pain in the ass to run on modern computers, but that wouldn't stop me from finishing it.

At first — as to be expected — I sucked, I couldn't complete the easiest mission, even after using my five credits, I could not reach the final boss of the stage. Then I kept playing, one game per day, no more, until I could finally complete any of the three missions with the five credits. The ultimate goal was to finish the three missions with the same five credits. If I could do that, I could mark this game as finished and sleep well at night, so I put my head down and got to it, one game per day, no more!

Finally, after coming close — real close — multiple times, I got it, I finished the three missions with the same five credits, I was ready to see the credits roll and put all this behind me, but then, something happened. A fourth mission was unlocked! "Holly, freakin' shit, I'm in my last credit and got what, three lives? I won't survive another mission!" I thought. Fortunately, the fourth mission was just a boss fight, a tough one, but nothing I couldn't manage.

I beat the game, the credits rolled, and that kids, it's how I met your mother.

Papier-mâché Spaceships And Narrow Tunnels

If there's a genre I am a total neophyte in, that would be Shoot 'em up, or how the cool kids call it "SHMUPs". I didn't grow up in a time-place where arcade machines were accessible and/or popular, plus, I was dirt poor — still am — so I couldn't experience this genre as it was intended to be. Sure, I got consoles here and there while growing up, but there were richer, more complex games to be enjoyed on those. I didn't want to play no stupid shooting game.

Whatever the case, I got to play R-Type for the Game Boy Color recently. It was good, I enjoyed it, but damn it, these games are stupid — I guess that made them the perfect fit for my "stupid video games roundup" then. The unfairness of enemies coming from all directions and taking a hundred bullets to be defeated, all the while, your ship will blow up into pieces if it gets hit even once! Why can't the intergalactic force afford sturdier ships? I can't save the galaxy like this!

A good deal of fun, but still not my thing.

He Does Not Live in a Garbage Can!

The last game I finished in July was Popeye 2 for the Game Boy, a game I grew up playing on my best friend's Game Boy back in the mid-2000s — yes, we poor people would play with whatever.

This was such a whatever game for me as a kid, but playing it now, I can appreciate how good of a platformer it really is, dare I say it's underrated? Whatever that means.

Go play it if you like short platformers; this one can be beaten in around an hour.

Fun fact: the first Popeye game was only released in Japan. What's up with that?

That's All Folks

And that concludes a month of gaming. I had a lot of fun with most — if not all — of these games, already looking forward to whatever I get to play in August, although I don't think I'll come close in hours played and/or number of games finished this time.

Go spend some time with your grandma, see you around!