What I read, played, and bought over the course of March!!
Wow, who would’ve thought that doing a monthly series would show how fast a month goes by? Surely, not I, the person who has to draft these posts half a month in advance.
And you’re probably wondering, how do you draft a post about what you played and read in a month when you haven’t experienced the full month yet? And to that I say, very carefully. A lot of it is guesswork, and I clean up what actually ended up happening a few days before the end of the months.
March, though, was an incredibly refreshing month in terms of gaming and reading, by all accounts. I feel like I really got to play what I wanted to play and read what I wanted to read, without feeling pressured to finish something just because the month’s end was coming up. Which is…very important in backlog completing. Let’s get into it!
Books I’ve Read
Alright, I’ll be up front: I read one (1) book in March. But, to be fair, it was 800 pages. Essentially, my goal for March and on is to not stress about my Libby holds, because it felt like I was sprinting to finish a book just because my next hold was coming up. Not ideal, when you want to really enjoy a book. If a hold came in and I wanted to read it, I suspended the hold. I mean, Libby gives you a full 365 days to unsuspend it, so it’s not like I had to panic and drop all other book plans. I still don’t, I have until February of next year to unsuspend my holds.
I did intend to read two books, but the further I got into the 800-page book, the more unlikely it was for me to read both books at the same time. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon became my priority read for the month. No other books to focus on, just this 800-page behemoth of a book.
And man, what a book it was. I’m so glad I read it, because it really proves my point in my Iron Gold review where I mentioned that the POVs felt incredibly disjointed and borderline unnecessary, because POTOT has four POVs as well, and yet every single one was incredibly crucial to the world-building and overarching narrative that not a single one could be removed without the entire story collapsing. Iron Gold is the coughing baby to POTOT’s hydrogen bomb, it seems.
Upcoming Reading Plans
So, because I spent the month focused on The Priory of the Orange Tree, my book-of-choice to be focused on for April is going to be Dark Age by Pierce Brown. Since finishing POTOT, I’ve kind of taken a bit of a break from reading, mostly because going from an 800-page book to a 700-page book might put me in a reading slump, but my brother insists that Dark Age will be a quick read, so I guess I’m reading it next.
This choice is also slightly being affected by the fact that my friends are starting a book club, so since I’m going to be busy with that, I should probably just get Dark Age and eventually Light Bringer over with.
And speaking of the book club, that does mean I’m going to be reading This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone as well. This is technically a re-read for me, and it’s only 200 pages, so I’m not like super pressed to finish it as quick as I can.
As for my plans to finish as many books on my physical TBR as I can this year, it’s also going to have to be put on hiatus for a little bit. Unless my TBR plans overlap with my book club, it’s likely not going to happen. If I can barely focus on two books at a time, I don’t think reading three is going to be a good idea. So, likely, once I finish Dark Age and Light Bringer, I’m gonna hope that Red God isn’t out by then and I can start something smaller from my physical TBR around then. Which will be like June, at this rate.
Games I’ve Played
Guys, I’ve figured it out: gaming doesn’t have to suck! Who would’ve thought! After a month of feel incredibly jaded and tired of the games I was playing, I was hesitant to go into March with a completely new lineup of games. Generally, this never goes well, and I end up prioritizing one format of gaming over another.
But, shockingly, this wasn’t the case this time! I managed to start a lot of games this month, and keep up with them relatively consistently, and it frankly all starts with a new addition to my backlog list: I added a “Last Played” date on my Backlog Docket spreadsheet for my “Currently Playing” games. The background turns red if it’s been over a week since I’ve last played it, and green if it’s within the week. Which like, frankly? A simple addition that completely changes the game.
It’s not a date saying that I have to finish this game by this date. It’s telling me “hey, you haven’t played this game in a week, are you sure you want to play it right now?” If my answer to that is “yes,” then I can prioritize the game and figure out when would be the best time to play it. If it’s “no,” then it goes back onto my “Up Next Games” category, and the date gets removed. If it’s been on my “Up Next Games” list for a while and I just can’t get around to it yet, then it gets removed from the Docket entirely. No harm, no foul. It is shocking how well this works for my brain. Because of it, March ended up being a huge month for gaming.
Console Gaming
More or less, I’m still not really playing too many console games. My priority game for the month was Metroid Prime 4, which I will have a review on in due time once I finish it. But like, holy shit. I can’t express to you in a way that matters how much of a fresh breath of air this is compared to Prime 3. Prime 3 was a prison to me; it was my personal nightmare, my personal hell, built solely to piss me the fuck off forever and always. But Prime 4? Holy shit, a good game! A game doesn’t suck! It has it’s flaws, it has so many flaws, but I’m having a good time? It feels like Prime? Wild!
I’ve been having this issue since Prime 2, where the games don’t feel right to me. Like there’s something missing that I can’t put my finger on regarding it. And like, I played Prime 1 in early 2024; I don’t really remember how it played. But I remember the feeling of playing Prime 1. I remember the vibes, if you will. And those vibes just weren’t present in Prime 2, and absolutely completely gone in Prime 3. But, booting up Prime 4 and seeing Viewros for the first time…chills, actual chills. It feels like Metroid Prime 1 in a way that Prime 2 and 3 just couldn’t emulate well at all, to me.
And then they put a bunch of weird shit in it. We’ll get to this in the review, but Prime 4 hasn’t disappointed me (yet).
Ideally, I’d like to play something on my PS3 more consistently going into April, something like Borderlands or God of War, but my PS3 is hooked up to a TV in my basement, and like, I’m not really down there that much. We will change this!! Maybe!!
Handheld Gaming
First up, I finished Kirby Planet Robobot pretty early into the month. I still feel like I haven’t played enough Kirby games to be able to properly rate them, but I liked what Planet Robobot had to offer.
And don’t worry! My modded 3DS hasn’t collected dust yet! I finally picked up Animal Crossing: New Leaf again after like a month off, and the grind began yet again! A close friend of mine modded their 3DS, so like I would be lying if I said that didn’t influence my own 3DS gaming, but like, I’m also not consistently playing this.
Outside of that, I haven’t really figured out what I want to play next in the handheld gaming department. I’d like to play more Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, but I’ve been having a hell of a time getting into it. It’s kinda slow compared to Harmony of Dissonance because you have a lot less movement, and I’m a little lost, but I’ll probably figure it out.
And in all honesty, I really want to get Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones done sometime soon. I have my save file in mGBA so I can savescum my way through Chapter 15, and hopefully Chapter 16 isn’t just as ass, or else I’ll likely drop FE8 for FE7 for April.
Laptop Gaming
This category is going to extend to mean all gaming done on my laptop, because I have a lot of other gaming that’s been doing a lot more gaming on my laptop. If it’s Archipelago, or emulated, or itch.io, or a Steam game, those games will go here.
Anyway, this month, my friends ran another Archipelago session. Being Spring Break and all meant having the time to game again, and thus I pulled up with Metroid Fusion once more, and we were off to the races. I also played FE8 to Chapter 8 randomized just to feel something, and finished it within the first five hours; man, that game continues to elude me. It’s fun to randomize FE8, but holy shit, the run I did for this Archipelago was incredibly ass. It wasn’t as bad as like Eirika, Seth, and/or Franz being a healer levels of ass, but I had a lot of axe-wielders with shit hit percentages, and every chapter felt increasingly stupid. Fusion, on the other hand, went as solid as Fusion ever goes. Waiting for days on end for your friend to grab the upgrade you’ve been waiting on, only for another friend to give you the ability to end the game in the meantime. Incredible.
Other friend-based gaming this month actually includes a game on my backlog! Holy shit, the backlog is backlogging! My friends started up a randomized Nuzlocke of Pokemon Black/White, and have been experiencing the Horrors all month. Though, I haven’t ever played Pokemon White, despite it being on my backlog. So, this is my first playthrough of it. And every Pokemon is randomized. And if a Pokemon dies in the game, they die in real life. I’m gonna be honest, I think if I get close to the end of this game and I wipe, I might just turn it into a normal randomized Pokemon run. I might restart the Nuzlocke with a different seed, but like, I want to actually beat Pokemon White. Even though I don’t have a way to transport it to my actual cartridge, and I don’t know if that’d work logistically because it’s randomized, I still want to beat the game, y’know?
Outside of that, I also did get some Steam gaming done. I ended up spending a lot of time focusing on Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It, which is a free murder mystery visual novel. Well, frankly, I don’t think “murder mystery” is a good description of it, but it’s about as good as you can get without spoiling. Go play it, it’s free and incredibly captivating.
And since it was Spring Steam Fest this past week or so, I finally picked up Hollow Knight! Which has been a humbling experience, frankly. I thought I was getting better at Metroidvanias to handle it, but man, when they say “difficult,” they weren’t kidding. Nothing is more frustrating than finally beating a boss, getting a lot of money for it, then dying to the worst combo of basic enemies imaginable and losing the money instantly. I’m going to have to take my time with this or else I’m gonna get so pissed so quick, I can feel it in my bones.
Any Pick Ups This Month?
I almost made it through a third month without any physical pick-ups, but I did purchase something this month! I am now the proud owner of The God of War Collection for PS3! Yipppeee!!
This is mostly because I had a feeling that the God of War Trilogy probably should be played in order, since it’s, y’know…a trilogy. Those things tend to relate to one another (generally, she says, grimacing at the Apollo Justice trilogy). So, starting with God of War 3 didn’t feel right to me. I actually got it for free because I forgot I had in-store credit at my Local Game Store, which also led to me buying MTG cards.
Book-wise, I had a lot more pick-ups. I picked up Volume 14 of Witch Hat Atelier, as expected, but I also grabbed the first three volumes of One Piece because I’m insane and I want to get into the manga. They’re cooking something with that live action show, and I refuse to watch the anime, so manga it is! I also picked up a physical copy of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo finally! Frankly, that was inevitable; I’m shocked it took me so long.
But yeah! That’s about all for pick-ups this month! Pretty solid all around; much more than expected, but always welcome. Even though getting into MTG has taken a lot of my focus, I’m still getting somewhere with my book and game collections. We’ll see where it takes me in April, especially with Tomodachi Life 2 releasing.
And that’s about it! What did you read in March? What games did you play? What was your favorite? Least favorite? Anything you picked up that you’re super excited about? Lemme know in the comments below!
March was a pretty long ass month, I’ll be so honest. Never-ending, who thought it was a good idea to give March five weeks? Rude as hell…
Man, what a strange final week to March. Suddenly bombarding you with posts because I guess that’s how my schedule played out. Tomorrow (yes, you heard me right, tomorrow, as in 4/1), I will have a post going up on the main Substack about the Weird DS Games of the generation! Which, I guess is pretty on par for April Fools. That post will be my last one of this like sudden uptick in uploads, so stay tuned for that!
And as always, see you next time!
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