2026

Happy new year!

I hope you guys have been enjoying the holidays, and the recent batch of blog posts -- mainly Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual reviews and my let's play of Pokemon Legends Z-A. Most of them were pre-written in October and November, and I do think that I've been quite transparent about having a bit of a backlog for those projects. In the upcoming year, I think the same style of writing will have to continue due to a lot of changing schedules on my end. I just simply don't have a lot of time to both consume and write new material; and I honestly do find writing long-form articles to be a lot more fun to write and post. So expect that to continue. 

Let's Play / Pokemon:

Gameplay wise, I actually finished up the finale of the base game of Legends Z-A a couple of days ago, which is probably an indicator of what my buffer looks like. I scribble down a lot of notes and write them up as I go. I will be covering Legends Z-A all the way through the postgame and the DLC, although expect a bit of longer gaps between episodes of the DLC playthrough. 

After that, if Generation X isn't out by then, I'll be doing a playthrough of Mystery Dungeon DX, of which I have actually done part of but shelved when Legends Z-A came out. 

I am slowly doing a "Let's Review 'Em All" segment for all the new mega evolutions introduced in Legends Z-A, but I will withhold publishing it until I've experienced all the mega evolutions from the DLC, and also for at least some modicum of official artwork to be released. 

In the new year, I also want to properly continue my 'reviewing moves' series, which is halfway-done. I know it's not the most well-received one, especially compared to other monster reviews, but I don't like leaving that project half-done. I wouldn't be opposed to remastering my older reviews the way I did for D&D Monster Manual, at least redoing Generations I-VII, but that'll probably be 2027 at the earliest. 

Monster Reviews:

I do have all of the rest of the Monster Manual done, so enjoy my coverage of the 2024 5th Edition Monster Manual as they release over the first couple of weeks of January. I will then finish with my own coverage of Elden Ring, which was put into hiatus, as I go on. I have completed the game maybe in September, but the reviews take a bit of time to write. I am slightly into the Shadows of the Erdtree DLC, but Pokemon and general work kind of distracted the heck out of me, so expect a delay of when I'm ready to publish the DLC reviews.

After that, I will be 'remastering' the two bestiary books of 5th Edition in the same vein as the 2024 Monster Manual -- Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes; collected together and remastered for the 5.5E rules in Modernkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse. It will probably be a bit faster because the statblocks and lore are essentially unchanged between 5E and 5.5E, but expect some expansion regardless, similar to what I did to the 5.5E Monster Manual. I really did find that in the past I was quite intent on trying to cram as many monsters and getting all the books done as fast as possible, and we're going for quality over quantity and speed this time. 

Depending on the schedules, this will alternate with my much-more-condensed mastery of the rest of the adventures... which will be a lot faster due to adventures tending to have a lot less monster lore compared to bestiaries. 

Something that I have mentioned in my Monster Manual reviews is that I've gotten a very well-maintained copy of the 2E AD&D Monstrous Manual, and I'll probably at some point also do a 'readthrough/review' of it. Having done an extensive review of the 'core' monsters in 5E for D&D will make it easier to not have something to refer to as a baseline comparison. 

MTG reviews are still slowly ongoing, despite the lack of updates on that front. Mirage is just a bit of a slower set for me to go through, but also D&D and other stuff are getting in the way, you know? MTG is probably going to be a bit of my 'ultimate' gotcha once I get all the way to the pre-Universes-Beyond expansion. 

Other Stuff I'm Doing...

I'm doing a bunch of other video games on the side for destressing, but not all of them are good for content here. I'm replaying Darkest Dungeon, this time with all DLC's installed, and there is a small chance I remaster the 'reviewing monsters' for that game the way I did for Devil May Cry V. 

I'm also still slowly catching up to Genshin Impact; but I am intentionally putting off the monster review until more patches for Nod-Krai have come out. 

One Piece manga coverage will continue as normal; and I do plan to review Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War as it comes out. Probably will do the Netflix live-action One Piece season 2 reviews, but for both of these, I'll probably take it a lot more easier. 

Other Reviews:

I do know that the past year did give a lot of sequels to other projects that I've done reviews for, but I am very much behind on... on everything. And I also want to have time to just... sit down and enjoy my media without the tension of having to know that I'll write up reviews. The following, in particular, I'm probably not doing:

• Stranger Things... I might do a full season review and just call it a day to leave it there. If I do it. It is the last season, but to be frank with season 4 I really ended up feeling a lot less invested with the Vecna storyline and everything. 
• Alien Earth: I have been technically reviewing the Alien series, but if I do this one, I'll probably do it as a season. But probably not. 
• MCU stuff: I have partially-written reviews for some of the TV shows (Marvel Zombies and Ironheart) but they will get released way later. Movies (I think I only have Fantastic Four left?) (never mind, I actually have done it in September lol) will take a bit more time to write, mostly because I just don't have the motivation at the moment despite actually enjoying a fair bit of their newer content. I'll try to get them done done before Doomsday, at least. 
• Other standalone superhero movies... I keep sitting on a half-written draft of Beyond the Spider-Verse and Superman. Enjoyed both a lot, but found it hard to really sit down and write their reviews, especially after the 'vibe' is a bit gone. X-Men '97 is also another one I enjoyed a lot, but didn't have the time to write it. 
• One Piece anime: I know 'season 1' (heh) is over, and Egghead isn't that long, but it's just such a huge commitment to have something to say about every episode and the changes done in each episode. Even if I do this, it's probably not going to be in the first half of 2026. 
• JJBA Part VII: Steel Ball Run: I love JoJo and I love Steel Ball Run. Unfortunately, probably this is going to be pushed backwards until I've got a bit more time, and be a bit slower. 
• My Hero Academia anime: I'm probably going to go through all the anime since the series is over in animated format, but I don't think it's going to be any time soon. And while I watched JJK season 2, I don't really think I have much to add beyond 'good adaptation' and 'action is rendered well, wow'. Ditto for Overlord season... 4? 5? I guess anime adaptations just isn't all that exciting for me to write for anymore? I tried doing a couple of episodes when I watched the adaptations for Demon Slayer and Dandadan earlier this year, but just couldn't get motivated to write for them. 
• CW shows: I haven't caught up with most of them, and if I do, I'll maybe do seasonal reviews. 

Which is to say, I do think that the last couple of years have really helped me focus what I'm happy to write for, and what I'm motivated to write for... and what's good to read.