Now that 2025 is over and the reflections on its best games are done, the time has finally come to look ahead to what’s coming down the pike this year. I’m not yet sure how 2026 will stack up against the past couple of years, but it’s definitely got potential. There’s a ton that I…
Category: Listmas
Listmas 2025: Five False Starts Worth Revisiting
Like most folks who play video games, I maintain a perennial backlog of games that I want to play…someday. In recent years, a growing portion of my backlog is becoming populated with games that I started but never finished. Sometime me and the game at hand didn’t click; other times, I dropped these titles in…
Listmas 2025: Ranking the Bosses of Kingdom Hearts
As you can no doubt tell, I’m in a big Kingdom Hearts mood, which means I’m ending my Listmas posts with yet another KH list! Today, I’ll be ranking the boss battles from the first game, ranging from the absolute worst to the most fun. Pretty simple, right? Except, since there are so many bosses,…
Listmas 2025: Five Consoles That Felt Like Magic
I’m more or less current with my game equipment and enjoy it all quite a bit, but this time of year has a way of turning my attention towards and the game consoles of yesteryear. I don’t always revisit these the past systems every time December rolls around, but I still think of them and…
Listmas 2025: Top Songs from Games Played This Year
One of the newest additions to my music roster is a playlist of favorite songs from games. It’s something that was a long time coming, too! I listen to gaming soundtracks regularly, but until recently, I had never put together a playlist of individual songs from them that stood out from the rest. It contains…
Listmas 2025: Ranking KH2.5’s Data Battles
Keeping with the Kingdom Hearts theme, I have been playing the Final Mix versions of the first two numbered games in the series, which features new boss fights, including battles against the members of Organization XIII who had originally appeared (and perished) in Chain of Memories. This is great because I never enjoyed CoM’s card-based…
Listmas 2025: My Favorite Levels for Donkey Kong December
It’s not officially Donkey Kong December here at Virtual Bastion, but it’s something I wind up observing on my own every year regardless. Well, it’s more like “retro” Donkey Kong December now, as those are the games that pull me back year after year. It’s not necessarily that I play all the old games all…
Listmas 2025: Four Flaws Applied (and One I’m Trying for) in The Outer Worlds 2
Whenever I play an RPG, especially for the first time, I tend to err on the sides of advantage and power when it comes to skills. That’s to say, I pick skills/abilities/etc. that will give my character a leg up in battle and make them the most powerful person in the room. This means I’ll…
Listmas 2025: Kingdom Hearts 2 World Ranking
Last week, I wrote a world ranking about the very first Kingdom Hearts game, and now it’s time to cover its even more impressive sequel, the aptly named Kingdom Hearts 2. This game has some really good worlds…and some really dull ones. I’ll be ranking these based off of everything, the general theming, the story,…
Listmas: Places I’d like to Visit for Christmas
During Listmases past, I’m pretty sure I’ve touched on the games that were either the most Christmas-y of had the best winter levels. There’s absolutely Something to be said for overall atmosphere and feel, but those don’t necessarily make for a place that’d be fun to visit. So, what would be a fun place to…
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