What Consoles Do I Collect For?

And other queries about my game collection and game collecting as a whole. 

 

Ever since writing my “How Emulation Changed My Life” post, I’ve been thinking more and more about my game collection and how I feel about it. Because I’ll be honest with you, I’m not really collecting anymore. I know! Shocking! Emulation really did change my life! That wasn’t clickbait! You can read that post here: 

I’ve been collecting games since late 2020, and it’s something that I’ll forever hold near and dear to my heart. I love seeing the stupid and weird aspects of video game history in the real, getting the chance to hold it in my hands and feel the weight of it. This brick that I now own was someone’s entire life, memories I couldn’t even begin to detail hidden in every crevice, a nostalgia so powerful that it makes me weep that someone would give it away so easily. Even the consoles I never personally grew up with still affect me in this way. Somebody loved this thing before me, and I will forever cherish that in their honor.

Or something like that; I care a lot about shitty, less-than-a-gigabyte games from 20+ years ago. It’s ingrained in my DNA.

But lately, I haven’t really felt that itch as much. Which, frankly, is great for my wallet, but a melancholic turn in my life I hadn’t really anticipated. I kinda want to delve into why game collecting has gone on the way side for me, what I was collecting, and what I’m collecting now.

Where Did the Fun of Game Collecting Go?

Back in 2020, I started collecting whatever I had access to. Which, for someone at my age, is a lot more than you’d expect. The Switch was relatively still new at the time, so I wasn’t really “collecting” for it, rather just picking up whatever games were releasing that I was interested in. I had a DS and 3DS, of course, but also a GBA, which gave me access to the entire Gameboy library. I also had a hand-me-down Xbox 360, one of the early ones that was susceptible to the “red ring of death” and also it’s disc drive was broken, and a Xbox One I despised. That was the extent of the consoles I, personally, owned.

My brother had a Wii that he had mostly forgotten about, and I found out through a “Scott the Woz” video that the version of the Wii he had had backwards compatibility with the GameCube. He also still had a PS4 plugged into a TV, so I made a PlayStation account and tried out a couple of games on there. My dad had a NES he got when he was 20 or so that just collected dust in the basement, along with an OG PS1 and PS2.

So, it’s safe to say I had access to a lot of the major consoles throughout the last 40 years of gaming, give or take. And I took advantage of that.

Throughout the years, I dedicated myself to certain consoles for certain periods of time, picking up new consoles I hadn’t had access to and getting more hand-me-downs. I bought a Wii U when I learned the EShop was going down; a GameCube so I didn’t have to rely on my brother’s Wii; a PS4 Slim when my brother’s old PS4 wasn’t powerful enough to run FFVII Remake; a PS Vita and a PSP, of which only the PSP is modded; a PS2 Slim when my other PS2 Slim stopped working (would you believe that my new PS2 Slim also doesn’t work? New is subjective at this point); an Xbox 360 Slim to replace my jank one from my childhood, though it has some connectivity issues; a Super Famicom when I got really into collecting Japanese consoles; an N64 I region unlocked with a Dremel tool; a Sega Genesis I keep forgetting I own because Genesis games are weirdly expensive and I only own NHL ‘94 for it; and my brother eventually gave me his PS3, with copies of Black Ops 1 & 2.

In all honesty, I now have the means to play every major game for every major console released since the NES. Except for SNES, I still haven’t figured out how to region unlock my Super Famicom without making incredible cosmetic alterations, and I don’t really want to buy an entire console for what will inevitably be a few games. And because I now have the means to collect for every console I’ve ever cared to collect for, I’ve kinda lost a lot of the thrill of the hunt that comes with game collecting. I can just pick up most games I want, or I have to wait until I can afford the really stupid expensive games. And waiting because you can’t afford a game is a lot different from waiting because you literally can’t play the game.

But that’s not even the real reason why it’s not as fun anymore. Well, it’s part of it. Games are too expensive to justify buying physical copies of when I can just download a ROM on my phone. Especially your NES, SNES, N64, and Gameboy line up of games. Why should I spend $40-$80 on a game I don’t even know if I’ll like if I can just download the ROM right now and see for myself? Why take up space on a shelf for a game I know I’ll probably not get to for a good handful of years? If I like it, like Metroid Fusion, I’ll probably then wait to get a copy when I can, but otherwise, I’m not super pressed to pick up games for those consoles. Unless it’s something really stupid, like NHL Blades of Steel ‘99 or Fighter’s Destiny.

Hell, since modding my 3DS and PSP, that kinda takes DS, 3DS, PS1, and PSP games out of the mix as well. Though I have a soft spot for DS and 3DS specifically since I grew up with those consoles, I’m still gonna check it out on my modded 3DS first to see if I want to buy a physical copy. And most of the games I want to play for PS1 specifically are JRPGs, so I’d rather play that on a console I can take on the go and easily pick up and play than play on official hardware tethered to a wall.

So what does that reliably leave me with? Gamecube and Wii? I could probably emulate that on my laptop, but emulating Wii specifically seems…I dunno. Unethical. Not right. Kinda cultish with those candles. Or Wii U, but like…come on, man. What about PS2 to PS4? I don’t have a functioning PS2, so really it’s PS3 and PS4. Or I hardmod my PS2 so I can actually run games on it again, but I’m pretty sure that’s emulating, too, unless I’m ripping games from their actual discs. I could also get a fat PS3 to run PS2 games on, but I really can’t see the justification of it when it’s significantly larger than my slim model that runs fine. Or there’s the OG Xbox? Xbox 360?

I guess with emulating, I’m kinda left with consoles I’m not as excited to collect for, more or less. Or I’m collecting for those consoles because I don’t have hardware powerful enough to emulate it. So what do I collect if there’s nothing to collect for anymore?

What Consoles Am I Currently Collecting For?

Currently, the console that’s the most fun to collect for, for me, is the PS3. The PS3 has a lot of fun and weird games on it, and brings a lot of PS2 games into HD so it sucks less to look at. Plus, it has some personal nostalgia bait for me in the form of Sonic Unleashed, so can’t go wrong with that. I’ve never really played a lot of consoles outside of Nintendo growing up, and the PS3 has a lot of the old classics and new classic series on it, like the OG God of War games, FFX and X-2, Borderlands, and Bioshock, which has been introducing me to a lot of series’ that I’ve always heard about but never got the chance to really try out.

Since collecting for the PS3, I’ve been eyeing OG Xbox and Xbox 360 games a bit more. There are a lot of cross-platform releases for those consoles, and while I prefer PS3 most of the time, some games just run better on Xbox 360. And since I can’t reliably play PS2 games, I have been eyeing the cross-platform releases of games on Xbox and/or GameCube as reasonable alternatives. Like Psychonauts. And Shadow the Hedgehog. And Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. But, then again, re-buying games I already own doesn’t sound ideal.

I’m also weirdly obsessed with the shitty Wii and DS games that released officially, if not apparent by both my “Weird Official Wii Games” and “Weird Official DS Games” posts, so I kinda keep my eye out for physical copies of those games when I’m out and about game hunting. Again, these games can run quite high in pricing, so I’m less pressed to pick them up if I see them in the wild. I’ve been watching a copy of Castlevania Judgement at my local game store for the last five months and it hasn’t been picked up by anyone in that time. I just don’t think higher priced Wii and DS games are as profitable, especially if it’s strange and unknown, so I’m fine waiting to pick those games up.

Also, I’m still kinda obsessed with collecting Japanese versions of games. There are shockingly, not-so-shockingly, a lot of games that released in Japan and never came over here, and since I’m already trying (and failing) to learn Japanese, I might as well pick up games in the language to force myself to study. If it’s cheap and I have the means to play it, I’ll probably pick it up. I’m still looking for a Japanese PS1 to play the OG Tekken they have at a local game shop near me, and I refuse to buy it until I have the means to play it. Since these games are far harder to find in person, I’ve learned to be chiller about my purchases in this regard. I don’t really want to become obsessed with buying games on Mercari all the time, that can only end poorly, so I’m fine with hunting with the small shelf of Japanese games at my local game store.

Essentially, I’m only really collecting for things I have plugged in, if it’s a console. Like my Xbox 360 and PS3, Switch, GameCube, and Wii/Wii U. I don’t really want to buy for a console I don’t already have plugged in, it’d be less accessible. Like my PS4, primarily, there’s a lot of games I want to collect for it, but I don’t want to plug it in. Hell, I’m considering unplugging my Wii U, so that’d take out Wii/Wii U games as well, but as long as Metroid Other M is still on the docket, that likely won’t be soon.

And that’s it. That’s all I really collect for nowadays. Which I guess is for the best, since I’m making much more rational purchases and not just buying whatever I have the means to play, simply because I can. But, since I’m making more rational purchases, I’m just not game hunting as frequently.

And I guess that is the point of game collecting: you collect what you want to collect and have fun collecting. If you think the NES is worth collecting for, then do it! If you only have modern consoles, then let that guide your purchases! I think in this new era of game collecting, where more and more people are open to playing older games, it’s important to remember that game collecting is supposed to be fun. Playing games as a whole is supposed to be fun. And if you’re not having fun, then stop doing it! Simple as that! There isn’t any true way to collect for games, there isn’t any correct way to play games; do whatever is the most fun for you.

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And that’s about it! I think game collecting will always be in my life, even when I’m playing more Steam games or emulating or I just don’t feel up to it as much, simply because it’s something I can always look fondly on.

Frankly, I think I’ve been collecting so much less because I’ve been collecting MTG cards lately, and just haven’t had the space in my brain to also think about game collecting. Since writing this post, I’ve gotten back into game collecting and re-found what I enjoyed about game collecting so much. It really isn’t about having a complete set for me, it’s about the thrill of the hunt and finding weird dumb bullshit no one remembers.

What consoles do you collect for? How did you start collecting games? Have a favorite game no one’s ever heard of? Lemme know in the comments below!

I would love to write more about my game collecting habits and collection as a whole, so hopefully this post starts a new thread of blogs on that. I’m actually going to write up a whole post about my game collecting habits compared to my book collecting habits for the SMS post this month, which is actually going to go up a week earlier than usually (only because I don’t think it’ll be a good idea to post MBS and SMS on the same day), so stay tuned for that! 

Debatably, that post might end up being a longer post, so we’ll have to see. I did get an actual job this past week, so my main post uploads might have to be less research-heavy going forward. If that’s chill, then stick around!

And as always, see you next time!

 

 

MBS: April 2026

 What I read, played, and bought over the course of April! 

Honestly, April was quite the month to experience, all things considered, so my backlog really took a hit. Frankly, I’d rather not get into it, but it was just a lot dumb shit happening to me on like a back to back basis, which meant very little time to chill until the very end of the month.

But, April was also my birth month, so at the very least, I got to celebrate my birthday in relatively high spirits despite…well, everything.

This month also brought Tomodachi Life back into my life through Living the Dream, and I may have gotten horrifically obsessed with it. Let’s see how much it affected my backlogs, shall we?

Books I’ve Read

I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t read much in April. I know, I know! I should’ve just jumped from the 800-page book to the 700-page book without building up the dread of it all, but frankly, that sounded awful and I needed to read something else.

For all intents and purposes, my friend group was going to meet for a book club, but April is the last full month of classes, so they barely had the time to read, on top of me experiencing my own personal Horrors, so the book club didn’t really happen. I did get some of This is How You Lose the Time War read, but I didn’t really finish it.

Outside of that, I became horrifically obsessed with rereading an incredibly long fanfiction this month, and that’s like the extent of reading in April for me. It was a re-telling of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but what if it was Dimitri who experienced the horrors instead. That’s about as much as I can explain of the plot without actively spoiling FE3H, so if you’ve suffered through all of the routes of that game, I highly recommend reading “An Eagle Among Lions” by AMX004_Qubeley on AO3. It’s so very good, you can read a million words of FE3H fanfiction, I believe in you.

Upcoming Reading Plans

I’m intending on getting back on track in May for reading. Ideally, I’m gonna finish This is How You Lose the Time War for sure. That will probably take less than a week to do. From there, it’s a toss up of if I want to read Dark Age or start something else new.

I did return to my Libby list toward the end of the month, so I’ve got a couple of books on the docket for possible next reads, but I still have to read a chapter or two of them to know if I want to read them. Most likely, May will be dedicated to Dark Age, if I’m fully honest.

Games I’ve Played

To no one’s surprise, April was a weird month for gaming as well. I didn’t really do much gaming up until the second half of the month, and most of the gaming I did in the second half was Tomodachi Life.

Listen, they cooked with Tomodachi Life. It’s peak. They created the perfect game, a game that is peak straight out of the box, no updates or DLC required. You can make whatever you want. You can terraform your island from the get-go, and terraforming is free. There’s no inventory limit. You can make 70 silly little guys interact with each other in increasingly dumb ways. It’s perfect.

But, I digress; gaming and I didn’t really mesh well this month, so let’s get into what I did get to game.

Console Gaming

Again, with console gaming, all I really played was Metroid Prime 4, and I still have not finished the game. I didn’t really pick it up until toward the end of the month, so I only really put a couple of hours into it. But, May will be my Prime 4 month! I’m gonna try to play it at least every other day so I can get closer to being done with it, and hopefully finish it by the end of the month.

I also desperately want to play a PS3 game, so May will be a PS3 game month as well. I’m still debating between Borderlands and God of War, but considering I’m usually not an FPS gamer, it’s likely gonna be God of War. Also so that I’m not playing two FPS games at the same time; I think that’d make me go insane if that was the case.

I did slightly forget about this, but I also picked up Xenoblade Chronicles this month, so I will be dedicating some time in May to XBC1 as well. Since it’s on Switch, it might be both in the console and handheld gaming categories, depending on what I’m doing in game (e.g. missions versus main storyline). This will likely be my chill game of May, ideally between playing Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life. But then again, this is all contingent on me having any amount of time to play games in May; I don’t think it’s gonna be much different than like March as a standard month. Hopefully.

Handheld Gaming

Shockingly, I did do quite a bit of handheld gaming. The first half of the month was dedicated to checking up on my Animal Crossing: New Leaf island, where I was consistently logging on once every day up until Tomodachi Life released. And then, well, you know what happened there.

Most likely, this is going to be what my handheld gaming will consist of until I get bored of Tomodachi Life or Animal Crossing. And/or, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow may join the mix, but honestly, since modding my 3DS, I highly prefer gaming on there to my phone, so we’ll see what happens. I’m not super far in Aria of Sorrow, so I might just figure out a way to play GBA games on my 3DS and get (a legal copy of) it downloaded on there.

Laptop Gaming

I continue to prove previous versions of me wrong by having my laptop gaming category be the longest category of the month, and frankly, I don’t know what changed to allow this. You could blame it on UNBEATABLE or of the Devil or Rabbit & Steel or Archipelago, but like 3/4 of these are because of my friends who play games on Steam more than console games. Cannot believe this, they’re turning me—me! a dedicated console game collector!—into a PC gamer…smh my head.

Anyway, I bought Super Battle Golf this month to play with my friends. It is such a stupid game, frankly the peak of friendslop gaming. I’m horrifically bad at golf, but at least I can prevent my friends from locking in by sending an orbital laser in their direction (in the game). It almost feels like mini golf, but the world is out to get you.

My brother got me a couple of games on Steam for my birthday this year, including Nine Sols, which I became instantly obsessed with. Nine Sols has a sauce to it in its early game that Hollow Knight lacks, making it an incredible game experience comparatively. And it’s literally all in the parrying mechanic. It’s like Metroid Dread, minus the literal dread.

Any Pick Ups This Month?

Despite the Horrors I experienced this month, I actually had a lot of pickups. Also, pretty much only games this time. It’s like an uneven split between digital and physical.

First up, I picked up Super Battle Golf, like I mentioned above. Since it’s pretty much exclusively a game to play with friends, it’s not going to go on the backlog to finish. My brother got me Nine Sols and Signalis for my birthday, which is incredibly hype of him. Nine Sols was a shock to me because I put it on my wishlist more recently and haven’t really looked into it much, but it also ended up being the object of my attention for a good chunk of the month. Absolute banger of a game. And Signalis will be my first survival horror game that I will be so brave about, and hopefully be able to finish because the story seems really cool. If I can do this, it’ll unlock a whole slew of games I’ve been too scared to attempt, which will be hella sick.

For physical pick ups, I got Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, which are both Switch games. Real ones would know that I had XBC1 on 3DS a while back, but it was such an awful game experience, I had to rent the Switch version at my library just to be certain it was the 3DS that made the game bad and not the game itself. Who would’ve though putting an RPG of such a caliber on such a limited device would be a bad idea?

And yes, the changes in my backlog this month through these purchases is NOT ideal, I don’t like gaining the ability to play so many new games in one go like this because it is very hard to split your very limited time between three games, let alone five.

And it sucks that when you finish one game, there’s always a replacement game to fill the missing slot, and that transition between games (or even books) is always the hardest in backlogging for me. Some part of me wants to sit with that world I left and appreciate it, and I should really listen to that part of me more often. But, ultimately, backlogging is meant to be fun, and that’s something that I have to remind myself frequently. I’m gonna play what I want to play, and it’s going to be impossible to finish the list in it’s entirety in any reasonable amount of time, so I might as well enjoy what I’m doing when I’m doing it, and spend as much time yapping about it as I want.

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And that’s about it! I feel like I’ve gotten in the habit of not doing anything with my backlog for the majority of the month, only to sprint through a couple books or games at the very end. Not ideal, to say the least. My productivity also took a major hit this month, outside of Substack I struggled to write literally anything. Here’s to hoping May is at least a little better!

How was your April? Did you pick up anything sick this month? Did you also fumble to finish anything, or did you slam through a game/book or two? What was your favorite? Least favorite? Lemme know in the comments below!

May will bring a couple interesting posts I’ve held out on for a while, which is kinda exciting because I’ve had a lot of time to cook on them and they’re really shaping up to be quite fun reads, so stay tuned for that!

And as always, see you next time!

How to Get Into the Ace Attorney Series

 Which games to play first? Which games to avoid until later? What even is the correct play order?

Ever seen the “Almost Christmas means it wasn’t Christmas” posts spring up every Christmas Eve and wonder what the context is? Or maybe, you’ve watched the series’ prices fluctuate on Steam over the last couple of years and wanted to know what it’s all about. Have you ever seen an image of Phoenix and Miles in the courtroom and wondered what series they came from and how to approach it?

Well, then this blog post is just for you!

Shockingly enough, Ace Attorney is a very easy series to get into, moreso now than ever before. If you have a Switch, or PS4, or Steam account, all—and I mean all—of the games are available on those platforms for you to play. And, if you’re looking at Steam, the Trilogy goes on sale for less than $10 quite frequently.

But, what even is the Trilogy? And where do you begin?

What is Ace Attorney?

First, I should probably quickly discuss what Ace Attorney is about for people who aren’t aware. Ace Attorney is a visual novel, point-and-click adventure game series. It stars Phoenix Wright, a fledgling defense attorney starting his career tackling wacky cases and the strange involved parties you meet along the way.

You might be thinking: “Law? Isn’t that boring?” Which, in most cases, is true, but what makes Ace Attorney unique is it’s characters. They’re often wacky people you interact with, and a lot of the time Phoenix’s inner monologue will provide you with sarcastic remarks about the case and the people involved. It’s more of a comedy, contrasting starkly against the heavy topics and themes involving, well, murder cases.

Trial sequences are lead by a judge who often acts as though he knows absolutely nothing about anything; detectives are often bumbling fools who you grow to love; prosecutors seem to have an air of confidence to them, but are just as baffled and distressed by the wacky witnesses as Phoenix is; and Phoenix…well, he thinks he’s the most sane person in the room, which most often just isn’t the case.

A lot of what makes Ace Attorney endearing is characters’ dialogue as well, noted by a common joke debate about ladders vs. stepladders, unnecessary feelings, and cross examining a parrot. If anything, Ace Attorney is as far from “normal court” as it can possibly get, which makes it fun!

Main Series: Ace Attorney 1-6

The core of Ace Attorney is comprised of six main games. These are split by Capcom into two trilogies, but this isn’t necessarily the most ideal way to view Ace Attorney’s main series. Instead, it’s more like Ace Attorney 1-3, Ace Attorney 4, then Ace Attorney 5-6.

You’ll want to start with the first trilogy titled Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. This goes over the first three games in the series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney: Justice for All, and Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (or, Ace Attorney 1, 2, and 3 respectively). These games build upon each other, taking notes from previous entries and expands upon them into a convoluted, yet enthralling story. You get to see Phoenix Wright rise to stardom in the Ace Attorney series, defend a myriad of wacky characters, and unravel the truth behind long forgotten cases. These are phenomenal games, and it’s highly recommended to play them in order. 

 

From there, you’ll go onto the second trilogy, or the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. Except, this is nowhere near a trilogy in the same sense as the original. I would start with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the fourth game in the series, and consider it it’s own standalone game, as it doesn’t really have anything to do with Ace Attorney 5 & 6 except for sharing a few characters. 

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney wasn’t initially planned. The creator of the Ace Attorney games, Shu Takumi, intended to be done with the series after the original trilogy, but it made good money for Capcom, so a fourth game was made. It’s more or less a series reboot, jumping seven years into the future from the end of Trials and Tribulations, creating a new protagonist, a new prosecutor, and essentially a whole new world to explore, with some returning characters from the original series. It is a very enjoyable story, but unfortunately one that doesn’t ever get resolved (for now, please Capcom I’m begging you).

A lot of people view this as a failure on Ace Attorney 4’s fault, especially once they move onto Ace Attorney 5 & 6 which have a more connected plot line, but I think that’s ultimately the problem of calling Ace Attorney 4 the beginning of a new trilogy.

From there, you can continue onto Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies and Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, Ace Attorney 5 & 6 respectively. These are generally considered not the greatest entries in the series, if not evident by how incredibly slow they can be. These games build upon each other and have some pretty strong plot lines, but ultimately retcons a lot of the characterizations of the original trilogy and Ace Attorney 4 characters, making it rough to play at times. I think you should still give them a chance since there are some fun cases sprinkled in between, but you might have to shut off the part of your brain that gets mad at mischaracterizations because Ace Attorney 5 & 6 are very good at mischaracterizing your favorite lawyers.

Spin-Offs: Investigations and The Great Ace Attorney

Of course, with a long withstanding series like Ace Attorney, there are bound to be spin-offs as well. In Ace Attorney, there are two spin-off duologies, both of which were stuck in Japan for the longest time and now have releases on Switch, PS4, and Steam.

First up, there is the Ace Attorney Investigations duology. These are games centered around Miles Edgeworth, the prosecutor in Ace Attorney 1, where you get to investigate crime scenes as him. It plays vastly different from the mainline series, more focused on investigation sequences over trial sequences. As such, you’ll get to actually walk around crime scenes, talk to relevant people, and use Edgeworth’s “Logic” to deduct what most likely happened during the crime. It’s incredibly funny to play after the original trilogy, getting to see how Edgeworth’s mind works in contrast to Phoenix’s. 

Since it’s a duology, you of course should play Investigations 1 (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth) before Investigations 2 (Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit). The collection title to look out for in this case is Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, which will have both of these titles.

One thing to note about the Investigations games is that it isn’t written by the original creator of Ace Attorney, and as such, the pacing takes a hit. There is a lot of fantastic characterizations of characters like Edgeworth, Gumshoe, and Franziska, and you get to meet some of the most unique characters in Ace Attorney history in these games, so if this ends of being something interesting to you, I highly recommend playing the Investigations duology. Plus, the sequel game gets much more nitty-gritty with the lore of the original trilogy, so if you end up liking the original trilogy and want to know more, Investigations is the game for you.

On the other hand, there is also The Great Ace Attorney (TGAA) duology. TGAA, essentially, takes us back in time to the turn of the 20th century with Phoenix Wright’s ancestor, Ryunosuke Naruhodo. It functions similarly to the mainline series, with investigations and trial sequences alike, traversing around London in 1900. Because of this, it’s also a much more standard Ace Attorney game compared to later entries in the series, where a lot of the magical realism from the series is not as present. Somewhat, mostly. 

 

One thing that TGAA brings to the table is multiple witnesses and a jury system. In the mainline series, there usually are not jurists to decide the guilt of a defendant. That job is solely placed upon the shoulders of the defense attorney. On top of that, you’re only ever given one witness at a time. With multiple witnesses, they can interact with one another, reacting to things the other says and allowing for you to press a witness on their reaction mid-cross examination. Being the most recent Ace Attorney games, and a spin-off at that, TGAA is probably the most unique games in the series, and also a good look at the future of Ace Attorney.

Being a duology, TGAA should also be played in order. Generally, you should start with TGAA 1 (The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures) and follow with TGAA 2 (The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve). Neither of the original releases of these games made it outside of Japan, so the only real way to play them is through the official collection on Switch, PS4, and Steam (titled The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles).

When to Play the Spin-Offs?

On a technical level, you can play TGAA whenever. Compared to Investigations, it’s a very true example of a “spin-off” in the sense that it’s plot doesn’t hinge on the main series, nor is it super connected to it in any way.

If you want to play TGAA first, frankly you could. The only thing to keep in mind is that TGAA doesn’t share any of the characters from the original series, and there are a couple of fan-bait moments that you’ll miss out on.

On the other hand, Investigations is a little more convoluted as to when you should play it. Chronologically, according to the canon timeline, the events of the Investigations duology happen directly after Ace Attorney 3. However, it released after Ace Attorney 4. There are a couple of moments across the Investigations duology that directly reference events and places in Ace Attorney 4. Even so, I think this is more similar to the fan-bait moments I mentioned in TGAA than being contingent events that will spoil Ace Attorney 4 in any way. The events of Investigations are tied closer to the original trilogy, after all. For that reason, I think it’s best to play Investigations after Ace Attorney 3, rather than 4.

What About the Professor Layton Crossover?

This is the question we are all asking: what about the Professor Layton Crossover? This game hasn’t been re-released yet, if it ever will, so it’s permanently stuck on the 3DS. And since the 3DS EShop is gone, the only way to play the Professor Layton Crossover is via emulation, hacking your 3DS, or buying a physical copy (which is incredibly expensive and can only sky rocket from here without a re-release).

The Professor Layton Crossover (titled Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) is considered non-canon, so it can be played whenever. I think, if it was part of the chronological timeline, it would slot somewhere between Ace Attorney 1 & 2, but for lore reasons, that doesn’t really make sense, hence why it’s considered non-canon.

It is a pretty good game and one that is heavily beloved so I would recommend checking it out eventually, but it isn’t as super important to play, even compared to the spin-offs. I wrote a mini spoiler-free review of the game, so if you wanna know what fans think of the game, check it out here. 

If you have the means to play it, it’s a pretty solid game, but if you don’t, there’s no pressure to play it to complete the series. Likely, if you play it, it might just end up being one of the last games to play in the series.

And as of right now, that’s all of the Ace Attorney games! Like I said, it’s a pretty straightforward series to get into. And sure, we haven’t had a new game since 2017, but there’s a real good chance we might get a new game sometime soon. Capcom announced back in December 2025 that they want to expand some games into core IPs, and Ace Attorney was on that list. Considering we have remakes of all of the games, something that has never been done before, the only direction from here is forward. So, if there’s ever been a good time to get into the series and catch up on the backlog, it’s now!

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And that’s about it! I may not yap about Ace Attorney nearly as much as I used to, but it forever lives in my head rent free. Even the games I don’t like nearly as much continue to persist in my brain; regardless of how I feel about them, they’re still good games.

Have you played any of the Ace Attorney games? Which were your favorites? Least favorites? Have a favorite case or character? What order would you play it in? Lemme know in the comments below!

Kind of a last minute pull on my part, since I originally had plans to post an essay on how gaming became more than rolling credits today, but I ran out of time. It’s gonna have a lot more research in it than any other post I’ve written, so it needs more time to cook. Also, tomorrow (yes, tomorrow as in 4/30), my April 2026 monthly backlog wrap-up will go live at noon EST, so stay tuned for that!

And as always, see you next time!

SMS: Looking Back at Old Writing

 The passage of time and winging your favorite hobby.

For this month’s Sunday Mini Stackin’ post, I wanted to yap about my older writing and how much my writing has changed, even in the shortest periods of time.

Because of course looking back on the fanfiction you wrote when you were 12 is going to make you cringe, you wrote it when you didn’t really have a good grasp on interesting storytelling or writing conventions.

But looking back on writing I wrote 4 years ago, 2 years, hell even last year, feels like it’s astronomically different from my writing now.

Where even does change happen when you’re writing? Is it really just a matter of practice making perfect? Does it have to do with reading more books? Did my degree help shape it? Or is it innate?

A month ago, a newer friend of mine asked me how I write dialogue. How do you write good dialogue, and how do you make it sound realistic? But the thing is, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know if my dialogue sounds realistic or good at any given moment. I’m not even sure if my writing in general is “good.” I know it’s better than it was before, but to what extent? How do I really know it’s good, if good writing is more or less subjective?

And I’ll see people write up blogs about their process, instructional videos on how to not suck at writing, tips and tricks of the trade, and like, yeah, these are things I employ, but I’m not really thinking about doing it. I just do it. I don’t know how people can take that step back from their writing and explain their entire process.

Maybe that’s why I never talk about my process. I don’t step back and think about it. I don’t know what I’m doing that’s working. All I’m doing is writing the words that come into my brain, sometimes laugh at my own jokes, or lose my mind when my brain comes up with a plot twist so insane, even I couldn’t predict it happening.

I had this conversation with a closer friend of mine, and honestly, the conclusion I came to was that I don’t prep enough for my writing. I don’t write outlines, I don’t create character sheets, I don’t really even draft out the story arc structure. And that’s like…not good. Not good at all, really. It’s hard to keep track of plot points, locations, and character names when it’s only in my brain.

Like, this is ultimately the cause from a novel draft I’ve been working on for the last six years, where I’ve done so much prep and redrafting to the point that it’s almost draining to work with that old prep work. It is so hard to sort through four plot rewrites and six years of work that I almost want to scrap everything and start fresh, but doing that feels like a disservice to the amount of prep work I’ve already put in. But what’s the point of prep work if I’m constantly prepping, constantly reworking the outlines, and I still can’t figure out how I want the middle of the novel to play out?

I guess it’s there where balance is needed. I can’t not prep at all, or else I confuse myself on the plot and make it horrifically convoluted because I only really understand the main character’s motivations and that’s it, but I also can’t prep so much that I lose the plot in the process either. And sometimes I just want to write the damn thing, and sometimes while I’m writing, I’m planning ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of if I hadn’t just starting writing it.

The issue with all of this is that when I hope to start work as a narrative designer, or writing creatively for a job, I worry that I might not have the structural understanding of writing for a team to help other people understand the mess of my ideas. And like, I’m going to be writing for my friends’ game projects come May, so like, these fears are going to have to be addressed soon. But also, where do I even begin with this? Do I sit down and create a bunch of characters, outlining motives and flaws? Do I start drafting flash fiction pieces of these characters to understand the characters’ mental processes as well? I don’t really know. If I do that, maybe, I can start understanding how to write different voices and different themes, instead of writing in the same voice all of the time. Not like my voice is bad, just not great for working as a narrative designer who needs to understand many types of voices on the fly.

This is essentially what I think of when I look back on my old writing. What led me to writing this? How much prep work did I do before finishing it? And ultimately, would I be able to write in this character’s voice again, even years removed from writing the initial work?

Despite all of this, I can still tell that my writing has improved over the years. One would hope so, given the fact that I did get a degree in writing or something, like you can only hope it wasn’t a complete waste of time, stress, and money, right? Right? I still can look back at writing from just a year ago and feel like my writing process has gotten significantly better. Hell, look at “Turnabout Transposed!” This shit has been my magnum opus for like most of my adult life thus far, and it, too, went through multiple phases of rewriting, is currently in perpetual editing hell, and even still, if you read the first chapters, it’s not nearly comparable to my most recent writing!

It has the bones of the writing voice that I currently have, but it doesn’t have the levity that my current writing voice has. It doesn’t have that desperation that’s so common in my writing. It’s kinda lackluster.

Take the opening lines of the second chapter, for example:

"The ride to the office was tense, unsure. More tense than Miles had ever known it to be between the two of them. There was something Phoenix wanted to say about Miles’ abnormal behavior, though his eyes stayed focused on the road in front of him.

Bated breaths were shared between the two as Miles pulled into a parking spot in front of the building, the way the voice inside his head had informed him of doing: in front of what seemed to be Wright Anything Agency, though its sign clearly stated “Edgeworth & Co. Law Offices.”

Your father is alive, Miles, the voice urged, a sensation Miles wasn’t aware of. I can’t explain why just yet, but he’s leading a revered law office. Don’t be shocked.

That’s not a very easy thing to do. Miles has spent the better part of his life without his father, a feat that seemed impossible when he was young. If this was truly a dream, it’s becoming more and more uncomfortable as time progresses. Though, that’s not unusual for Miles’ dreams.

He stepped out of the car along with Phoenix, the sun beating down on his back as his adrenaline built up. He’d be lying if meeting his dad again after twenty-odd years wasn’t a dream of his. It was always wishful thinking, but the possibility of seeing him now, be it in a dream or not, overwhelmed him.

Truthfully, Miles hadn’t thought of his father in a while. Though, attempting to search his memories for when he last thought of him caused his migraine to bloom through his skull once more. It was infuriating, this pain. Unrelenting and unbothered by Miles’ anguish. Miles slammed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, rubbing at the pain to alleviate it.

It wasn’t helping. His eyes burned, his limbs felt numb, and he could feel hands pressing around his neck. His vision faltered, the sun’s light seeming far too bright. He couldn’t breathe.

“Shit,” someone said beside him as he crumpled to the sidewalk. The cool concrete unrelenting. “Mia! Mr. Edgeworth! Someone! Come down here!”

That was the last thing Miles could hear before the pain took over."

This is really bad. I’ll admit it. It mostly just tells you whats going on without really showing you how Miles is feeling. It tells you that he’s infuriated. It tells you he’s lamenting the death of his father. It tells you that there’s tension between Miles and Phoenix without really justifying it; you just should feel that tension. It tells you Miles is in pain, and as like a last minute thought, decides to show you that pain instead. And the icing on the disaster of a cake is the very final line before a fade-to-black, one of my least favorite writing techniques of all time: “That was the last thing ___ could hear before the world faded.” Like?? Tell me you don’t know how to progress to the next scene without telling me, good LORD.

And this shit is my most popular fic on AO3! As of writing this, 6,752 people have viewed this writing, and 308 people have liked it. Why? Like I’m obviously very grateful for people enjoying my writing, but why did this one have to be the one that took off? Why not any of my other writing that is significantly and objectively better? Is my perception of my own writing worse than it objectively is? And if that’s the case, then how do I know what of my writing is good and what of it is bad?

But, this was written three years ago. What about my writing from last year?

Let’s take a look at the opening sequence of my unpublished short story, “As Long As I’ve Lasted”:

"Winter. I’ve always hated that season. It enjoys its stay for far too long every time the leaves fall from the trees, and it seems to never end. Not until the sun shines for longer than a week. Not until the trees start budding and flowers start blooming.

This winter was the same—long, harsh, and relentless—until something piqued my curiosity. Something found its way back home to me, appearing out of the snow-swept blizzard and carefully stepping onto my front porch. As if I wouldn’t notice. As if I wouldn’t care.

Frankly, she’s always been a bit too nonchalant. I’ve tried desperately to ingrain it in her head that apathy wasn’t a good quality to have. She wouldn’t listen. She never listens.

When the doorbell rang, I rose with my cane in hand. My roommate Cody would probably attempt to answer the door for me, but I saw through the window who it was, and I needed to be the one to answer. She was out of breath when I opened the door, her hand resting on the porch’s railing. Her eyes were wide when she stared up at me, her brows knitted tightly together.

“Hello?” I ventured, prompting an answer. Prompting her to say anything to me.

She bit her lip, worrying the skin between her teeth, and said, “Hi, Mom.” It was the nicest thing she had ever said to me in over 15 years.

The sun had set just moments before. I let her into my house without question. My daughter, exhausted after hours behind the wheel, flopped into the recliner I had left vacant. She was tall and worryingly skinny, with long brown hair billowing past her shoulders that was stringy and forgotten. Her chocolatey brown eyes—the beautiful ones she got from me—looked hazy and distant. Jaw clenched, I urged myself not to complain about her appearance or her posture. She only just got here, after all. I didn’t want to turn her away immediately, but the remarks sat at the tip of my tongue."

Ultimately, the first thing to notice is that I graduated from third-person limited to first-person. You can do a lot of funky inner monologue stuff in third-person limited, which can be a lot of fun, but the inner monologue writing that first-person provides is truly like none other.

Secondly, you can easily realize that my writing is better. It leaves more room for guessing, it’s much more varied in sentence length making it a more enjoyable reading experience, and the character’s voice is much louder and more apparent than the sample from “Turnabout Transposed.” Hell, I feel like I’m even using better word choice and adjectives here!

But again, I think this is the case for my writing. I think it sounds better to me. But, comparably, I have no idea if it sounds good to other people. I don’t know if other people would read this and think that “As Long As I’ve Lasted” is worse than “Turnabout Transposed.” How could I? I can only really work with my own interpretation here, especially when “As Long As I’ve Lasted” is unpublished and has not been read by anyone other than myself, the college professor I wrote this for, and like maybe a couple of literary journal editors. That’s not a lot of people to work with and make a sound decision on whether or not it’s good. I can only work with my own understanding of writing, my own understanding of good storytelling, and hope that translates well.

And I guess that’s another take-away: Storytelling is meant for other people to enjoy, but if you don’t enjoy it yourself, then it loses a lot of the fun behind writing.

At the end of the day, if you don’t view your writing as “good enough,” then the writing process ends up becoming much harder to enjoy.

My inspirations helped me improve my writing. Reading more helped me improve my writing because I could better understand what I like reading in a story. But also, years and years of practice, constantly throwing myself at walls and hoping something sticks, helped me improve my writing as well. And I can try to explain what I liked in my writing and what I don’t like, but at the end of the day, it’s all practice. Most of it doesn’t get read. Most of it probably shouldn’t be read. But, because I wrote it, I got to learn something about myself, my writing process, and my voice.

I’m learning something about myself every time I write. And it might not have words to describe, but I understand it and I can use that to further improve my writing. And I’ll keep improving my writing, either expressively or internally, forever. Ultimately, that is the goal, is it not?

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And that’s about it! Thanks for reading my inane ramblings about writing, writing tips, and my writing process. Hopefully it explains something as to why I struggle so much on writing about my writing. And also, hopefully going forward, I can write more about my writing process, be it creative, blog writing, or narrative design. Because like, let’s be real: all of those types of writing use vastly different parts of my brain and require different ways of thinking.

What’s your writing process? Do you have any writing tips that really helped shape your writing? Do you have fears about your writing that you can’t voice, and thus don’t know where to begin to fix the issue? Lemme know in the comments below!

This week’s kind of a busy one, yet again. We’ve got this Sunday Mini Stackin’ post which you’re currently reading, then on Wednesday (4/29 at 3 PM EST), I’ve got a new entry in the “How To:” series, this time going over the Ace Attorney series, and following that on Thursday (4/30 at noon EST) is my MBS post for April, so stay tuned for that!

And as always, see you next time!

How UNBEATABLE Perfectly Subverts Expectations

And how it caters to the underlying narrative, answering the question "What is UNBEATABLE?"

To describe UNBEATABLE in one sentence is a herculean task because there is so much that comprises this $30 game that any summary doesn’t seem adequate enough. It’s not only a rhythm game but a visual novel, an adventure game, a puzzle game, a home to the strangest mini games you will ever play—including evil pool, a hellish DDR rip off, a VA-11 Hall-A-esque bartending mini-game, and evil baseball—and one of the saddest, most endearing, well-thought out conclusions to a game I have ever played.

It’s so much more than “music is illegal and you do crimes,” and yet that truly is the best summary you can give without spoiling the entire thing outright.

To be up front, this is going to have massive UNBEATABLE spoilers, so if you haven’t played UNBEATABLE or if this is your first time hearing of the game, please ignore this post and go play it. I’m genuinely not joking, you should play it first. And if you start playing and drop it because it’s “too slow” or you don’t “get what’s going on,” I beg of you to finish it. It isn’t a 30-hour campaign; playing it to the end won’t feel like a waste of time. I promise.

Here’s the Steam link if you’ve made it this far and haven’t played it yet. You should either buy and play it right now or click off this post; I’m warning you!

Alright, now that all of the real gamers are here, let’s get into it.