Rambling About Random Games I've Played in 2025

Every June, I compensate for wasting my time playing random video games every day by writing about five of them. Hey it is not a bad opportunity cost if I carry my experience to something else! 

SCHIM 

The premise of SCHIM is a concept you would think would be a perfect video game. As a kid, I jumped on shadows as platforms, and SCHIM is that childhood enjoyment made into a game. 

Unfortunately, concept in of itself can't ensure good execution, and SCHIM leaves a lot to be desired. 

To its credit, you can tell it tried a little harder than indie platformers of this caliber. I always think of Gris in these scenarios. At least SCHIM tries to have interesting levels, and there is a sense of variety. It's at least fun jumping into shadows. 

 However, I think SCHIM has two failings that made for a mediocre experience. 

The first failing is that the game is very simple. We're talking simpler than the first Super Mario Bros. There is not much in skill expression. No power ups that change your character. Barely any variables that change up the formula. 

The second failing is that the story is also very simple. The premise feels like it was pulled from the rejection drawer at Pixar. You play as a shadow who loses his human, and we follow the human as he goes through this life. And this guy goes through all the fixings. He loses his job. He has trouble dating. It's almost like he is going through a story rather than some real struggle. 

It's very stock. One sequence that Ben Yahtzee pointed out now as a cliche is the video game void level. And yeah, SCHIM doesn't elevate the concept beyond the cliche. 

Now that I think about it, a Pixar film would at least have characters with personality and an interesting arc, and SCHIM doesn't have that either. Your playable character offers nothing in terms of character. Hell even the Pixar shorts have personality and an interesting arc. 

You know, fuck this game. This topic is more interesting. What Pixar Short would make for an interesting indie video game? 

Im pretty old school, so I want a platformer where you play as the snowman from Knick Knack, but he has to get out of an elaborately giant snowglobe. Make the snowglobe comparable to Pandora's Temple in the first God of War. That would be hilarious.  

Or oooo, Geri's Game. You might be thinking, "wouldn't that just be a chess video game?" But here's the catch. It's a rogue like where you get access to power ups. The kicker is that the power up you don't pick up is given to the other Geri. 

That's about the extent of what I have to say for SCHIM. I think if you found it on a Game Pass service and you are starving for some easy going platforming, I would recommend it. Otherwise, I would suggest looking elsewhere. Or hey, don't play this and play the last game on this list if you're needing an easy going platformer. It's grrrrrreat! 

Wait, that's Tony the Tiger. There is a tiger involved but not that tiger. You know, I saw a girl wearing a Tony the Tiger T-shirt. It made me realize I haven't seen any Tony the Tiger merch out in the wild. 

God, this is a new low in my rambling. I want to be anywhere but talking about SCHIM. Let's move on. 

Mother Bleeds Russia

Ok, so we have a fluke. Maybe this next game will be enjoyable. I heard about Mother Bleeds Russia a few years ago, and I was taken by the art style. A beat em up that has realistic violence and dives into the macabre of sex and drugs. 

The problem is that-oh God is this another great concept but bad execution???? 

A lack of creativity was what first stood out. You got a unique setting. And from the gameplay I initially saw, I thought the levels would be striking. For example, one level is a Russian night club. The background is littered with business and decor. I thought "this is really cool! I imagine all the other levels are just like it." Queue the conga line of sewers, slums, and other generic levels seen in practically every beat me up ever. It was so underwhelming. And story wise, it doesn't fare better. 

I played Mother Bleeds Russia shortly after finishing Streets of Rage 4. Now, it's a little unfair since Streets of Rage 4 has a higher production budget and pedigree compared to Mother Bleeds Russia which was made by a smaller studio. 

That being said, even taking that into account, Streets of Rage 4 does less with more. The story isn't bogged down by dialogue and shallow political commentary like Mother Bleeds Russia. Despite Streets of Rage 4 story being only told in brief slide shows in between levels, it manages to carry more heart and energy than Mother Bleeds Russia. And as for the visuals, despite Streets of Rage 4 having the typical sewers/city streets/etc., the game puts in little flourishes to make it interesting. Mother Bleeds Russia certainly looks nice. But outside the Russian night club, it lacks those creative flourishes to make it compelling. 

But to be fair, I don't play beat em ups for the sight seeing or the story. I play them to let out the aggression I carry from my job. Unfortunately, this isn't Streets of Rage 4, and the gameplay is lacking as well. Hit detection is inconsistent. Enemies including the bosses are very spongy, and a series of technical jank undermined any game feel the game had accomplished. 

And then, there is the final boss. Oh my God. 

Imagine all the problems I mentioned before plus a boss fight with three phases, tediously difficult attacks in each one, and infinitely respawning enemies to sap health. Oh, and the cherry on top, if you want the best ending, you have to do this entire fight without healing. And before you ask, there are no checkpoints between saves. 

The healing mechanic is practically the lifeblood that Mother Bleeds Russia uses to make its gameplay somewhat interesting. You have an injection of drugs you can use to heal or give yourself a temporary attack boost. It's in limited quantities, but you can refill them from the enemies you knock out. It leads to a decent test of resource management. If you are out of injections, you have to either wait for the encounter to end or take a risk and refill your injections in the middle of battle. 

So you got a decent core mechanic, and the final boss removes that interaction making the encounter a slog. You can make the argument that it has a thematic purpose. But with the game being about political resistance and atrocities perpetuated by the oligarchy, you are going to throw in a random thing about overcoming addiction? Wouldn't a better requirement be a simple one credit clear or some other mechanic typical of this genre? Why do these developers try to take out the core mechanic out of final bosses as if that's an interesting idea? 

This took my sentiment from meh to contempt. It's been a while since I disliked a game this much. And considering I don't seek out bad games, running into a game that I this viscerally dislike is a seldom experience. 

Dante's Inferno

Ok, two flukes in a row is not a good omen. Third time's the time. Who's behind this game. EA? Ah fuck. 

A few months back, I did a retrospect on the first God of War. I mention how the result of God of War's success was a string of imitators. Off the top of my head, Castlevania tried its hand at it. There's Heavenly Sword. I think Darksiders took a crack it, etc. 

The one I was most fascinated by was Dante's Inferno. It's a rare sight for a game to base itself on literature like this. It's a combat heavy medium. It would be tricky to adapt any book experience to a game outside of visual novels and graphic adventure games. Thankfully, Dante's Inferno had a solution. They just brute forced a combat system into it anyway. 

Naturally, this meant a retooling of a story that could have easily have been an excellent cinematic platformer, like Ico or Heart of Darkness, but what do I fucking know. So instead of Dante being just a regular guy, he is a morally bankrupt crusader who must confront the sins of the past. 

Now, I honestly haven't read any of Dante Alighieri's work on the Inferno beyond cliff notes and wikipedia articles. But, I argue the developers didn't read much of Dante either because the story is literally a rip of the original God of War. Almost one to one. Warrior gets tricked into committing atrocities through manipulating his drive and insecurities. Warrior is punished by losing the love of his life. Warrior tries to redeem himself by pursuing a virtually impossible task. And little by little, you get the full picture that the warrior is a real fuck up and deserves whats coming to him. 

The KEY differences are threefold. Well, one Kratos has an engaging personality and isn't a boring sack of crackers like Dante. Two, Kratos isn't bogged down by additional shit to make him more flawed. Through the course of the game, we are told Dante has exploited someone sexually, committed infidelity which damned his wife to an eternity of suffering, massacred prisoners of war, and let his brother take the fall for the aforementioned crime. Now granted, Kratos being a soldier of war during Ancient Greece likely committed some heinous acts of his own that weren't revealed to the player, but that is not revealed to the player because it doesn't matter! The story doesn't gain anything by revealing that, and Dante's Inferno gains nothing from it either. All it does is compel me to not root for the guy. 

And it's not like they can hold this guy accountable cause the rules of this universe don't make any fucking sense. Yeah, the theology and extent of God's power has been speculated and argued to the point that wars and schisms were caused because of it. But in Dante's Inferno, it is all willy nilly and loosy goosy with how God works. Why doesn't God even recognize that a random guy, who killed the Grim Reaper btw, is rampaging through hell? Why does then God quietly help Dante with shafts of light when they would recognize that (spoilers) Lucifer is using Dante to help escape and jumpstart a second Rebellion? Now in fairness, I have more reason to worry than God does. But Jesus Christ, as a story teller, you have to address these things. In a story, God is more than an almighty being. They're a character. And we, as an audience, are owed some level of understanding. Purposeless ambiguity is only going to make the storyteller seem like he didn't think things through or didn't have the confidence in the world they are portraying.

There is a reason the Divine Comedy is a 14th century tourist travel story and not a character action game aping off the success of a more popular franchise. You gloss over the gravity of having a high stakes situation involving an omnipotent entity. It is going to feel unrealistic. God of War 1 gets away with it because it's comparatively simpler and they wrote the exposition well enough to not produce that level of confusion. 

I considered doing a full review of this, but this game is not worth it. The gameplay is even more copy pasted from God of War and a slog to play through. Everyone has covered the infamous marketing campaign this game had that set the perception of gaming back a whole decade. 

I mentioned in my God of War review how games during this time were made strictly for the teenage boy demographic, and God of War brilliantly works around that demographic to tell a mature and interesting story. Dante's Inferno is what the reality would look like if God of War didn't have that care. I think of scenes with Lucifer such as the one where he is tongue kissing Beatrice. It's so gratuitous and offers no point other than fan service. And before you shits say Lucifer is mocking Dante, ask yourself how this riveting protagonist reacts? I can tell you it is not as interesting as you remember it. 

And that's Dante's Inferno, it is not as interesting as you remember it. 

Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

What feels like eons ago, I did a ranking of the Zelda series. I was going to do an update on that blog with a review of this and Tears of the Kingdom. But then, similar to my recent Spiderman blog, I didn't have much to say. I didn't get very far on Tears of the Kingdom. And while I like the story well enough, I found it to be basically similar to Breath of the Wild. 

So if you don't feel like reading my initial blog, here was how they were ranked. 

1. Wind Waker
2. Link Between Worlds
3. Ocarina of Time
4. Twilight Princess
5. Majora's Mask
6. Minish Cap
7. Oracle of Seasons/Ages
8. A Link to the Past
9. Link's Awakening
10. Zelda II
11. Skyward Sword
12. BoTW/ToTK
13. NES Zelda
14. Spirit Tracks
15. Triforce Heroes
16. Four Swords Adventures
17. Phantom Hour Glass

So how Echoes of Wisdom stack up? Is this a legendary once in a decade experience like Link Between Worlds? Or, is it a gimmicky mess that will join the leper camp that is the bottom half of the rankings? Is my reiterating the amount of flukes I played in this blog a good sign? 

I said in my Zelda blog that it's a testament to the quality of this series that I only consider a handful of titles as worse than the debut title. And now, we are one game closer to needing another hand. 

Echoes of Wisdom is in the Triforce Heroes category of a bad Zelda game. Compared to gaming as a whole, Ive played worse. The last game should be a good indicator of that. However, it lacks pretty much any of the qualities I associate with Zelda. 

It seems Echoes of Wisdom was a victim of having a really excellent pitch meeting. A Zelda game where every enemy, object, and tool is at your disposal. It's the kind of wild premise that made some of the entries some of the best games of all time. At least, it doesn't feel any more wild than wall meshing in Link Between Worlds and BoTW's open world structure. 

However, I got the sense that as they were developing it, they realized the concept had less legs than they expected. And rather than scrapping the project, they brute forced their way to shipping it. And now, we have the Legend of Zelda and the Sunk Cost Fallacy. 

I get that sense because the first few hours are quite fun. It was novel to summon iconic Zelda enemies to fight. The puzzles early on were enjoyable for what they were. It wasn't until the second dungeon that I felt the momentum immediately nosedive. 

And then, once the novelty wore off, all the problems became noticeable. The toylike diorama art style, which feels thematic appropriate for Links Awakening, feels generic here. Combat is a slog as it's a matter of summoning moblins repetitively until the encounter is complete, and there is very little you can do to speed up the process. And finally, the puzzles become frustrating as the UI gets more cluttered and the solution becomes samey.

This is the only game on this list I didn't finish. I got up one morning and headed to my Switch. I stopped and asked myself if I really wanted to play it. And yeah, this slog isn't worth the potential of a few extra points that would mostly like be complaints. Put this game between Four Swords Adventures and Phantom Hour Glass in the rankings, and let's move on. 

Tigger's Honey Hunt (N64 Version)

Alright, when all else fails, you got to dust off an artifact from your childhood. 

Tigger's Honey Hunt was a game I owned on the N64. You know those games from your childhood that you just had for some reason, and you don't remember why. It was this and Zapper. Yeah, what the fuck is Zapper you may ask. I don't fucking know. We'll have to explore that in next year's version of this blog. 

Anyway, Tigger's Honey Hunt is a 2D platformer. This is the only platformer Im aware of starring Tigger. The fact there isn't more platformers with Tigger (a character exclusively know for jumping) as the protagonist is shocking, but I digress. 

Tigger's Honey Hunt is a short and simple platformer. I would say too short. But in Tigger's defense, what else can you do? There are nine levels. Six of those if you exclude the mini-games. And going off my Winnie the Pooh expertise, all the settings of the Hundred Acre Wood are accounted for. Sure, you could probably shoehorn in some dream sequences, but that would likely clash of the honey hunt premise of Tigger's Honey Hunt. 

And to their credit, they try to make the most of the six levels. They're five collectables. Two of which are unlocked after beating the level through a special requirement. It forces the player to replay the level at least three times to 100% each level. Though Im not going lie, even with that it is still quite short. 

I guess, aside from nostalgia, the game's length is forgivable because the game does such a good job on the things that matter. You have a Winnie the Pooh game that feels like Winnie the Pooh. The visuals and music perfectly emulate the feel. The game contextualizes platforming challenges through falling leaves and blustery winds. The whole vibe of this game screams Winnie the Pooh. 

Much like how Sheep Raider is the best Looney Tunes game, this game is probably the best Winnie the Pooh game. I guess some will argue the Piglet game which is Winnie the Pooh meets Resident Evil. However, as awesome as that premise sounds, the quality doesn't match. 

And shit man, have you played licensed children games from this era? Unless you were Capcom, the chances of it being simply playable were slim. 

Im curious how the PS1 and PC version plays. The N64 version is an inferior version in some regards. I believe in the N64 version doesn't have voice acting. You also got a time trial challenge that was since rebalanced in other versions and was an ungodly difficulty spike. The game is an easy game except this time trial. I was getting PTSD flashbacks to the time trials in Crash Bandicoot. The margin for error is practically zero. I never thought I would have to learn speed running tricks for fucking Tigger's Honey Hunt. But I did it. I 100% Tigger's Honey Hunt. That should fill the hole in my heart....

So that's the 2025 Random Roundup. And like 2025, it fucking sucks.