back on my bullshit

A few years ago I decided to exclusively play Hack and Slash games. Bayonetta 3 was coming out, I had loved the first one on Xbox 360 and since Nintendo had decided to resurrect that IP from the clutches of obscurity, it slowly became a favorite of mine. I guess Bayonetta was the original gateway drug for me! I had played some other classics in my years of gaming but Bayonetta was the one that really dug her heels in.

After the year of the hack & slash (YotHS), I continued to play games that were related to auteurs and studios that I admired. In 2024 I wanted to do the same thing but accumulated a wrist injury that really set me back.

Since then I’ve learned to love a theme. Or at least some kind of connecting thread to guide my hand from game to game. It gives me something to review, comparisons to make, rabbit holes to burrow into all cozy like. So I’ve decided that this year I’m getting BACK ON MY BULLSHIT and I made a graphical list of games that I’m ready to tackle! And god damn is it some dank shit.

I cheated and this was started in December of 2024 but for all practical purposes this is going to be known as BACK ON MY BULLSHIT 2025, or BOMBS25. Let’s take a look at the games!

Row 1

• Drakengard (With the NieR series my all-time favs and having beat D3’s infamous ending I have to play these finally)
• Drakengard 2
• Blood+ One Night Kiss (This and SC:S are Suda51 games I’ve yet to play)
• Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked
• Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z (I liked the art style of this, despite not having loved NG. Plus this is an outcast of the series and that’s my bread and butter.)

Row 2

• Wet (The action in this game looks really unique)
• Bullet Witch (Guns and witches, where have I heard that before?)
• Binary Domain
• Onimusha 3: Demon Night (With a new Onimusha on the way I need to play the insane 3rd entry and go trapse around France with Jean Reno.)
• Dead to Rights (Added this after adding Max Payne 1&2)

Row 3

• P.N. 03 (I’ve been fascinated by the Capcom 5 for a long time and have always wanted to play this.)
• God Hand
• Bloodrayne 2: Revamped (I played the 1st and liked it & now more than ever we need to kill nazis for sport)
• Gravity Rush
• Gravity Rush 2 (The art style alone sold me on these PS Vita gems)

Row 4

• Samurai Western
• Rising Zan: The Samurai Gunman (I consider this the real deal first proto “hack & slash”)
• X-Blades
• Maken X (I started this on Dreamcast and really didn’t interface with the character swapping enough so I want to start again.)
• Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death (6 hour long action game? Sign me up)

Row 5

• Heavenly Sword (PS3 Hack & Slash)
• Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
• Devil May Cry 4 (Need to keep going on the DMC series!)
• Remember Me (French character action witha weird memory remix mechanic)
• DmC: Devil May Cry (Another entry in a series that’s been cast out by fans)

Row 6

• Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
• Vanquish (A Platinumgames title I’ve yet to play)
• Max Payne (I want to play more Remedy games and figured I should start here!)
• Otogi: Myth of Demons (FromSoftware’s OG Xbox character action game with 2 entries!)
• Muramasa: Demon Blad (Will probably play this on the Wii)

Row 7

• The Bouncer (Squeenix Beat-em-up, I think?)
• Dark Cloud 2 (I’ve messed around with this and it’s a tech marvel on the PS2)
• Policenauts (After playing Snatcher I’ve need to expand my Kojima knowledge)
• Yakuza 4 Remastered I’m playing through the Yakuza series (slowly) with friend of the channel, Rappy in our gameclub.
• Tokyo Jungle (dank ass ps3 game)

Row 8

• The Last Guardian (See below)
• Flower, Sun and Rain (I need my DS, a notebook and a copy of the Lospass guide)
• Drakan: The Ancients’ Gates (This weird ass PC game still has a following to this day)
• Giants: Citizen Kabuto (Weird game about giant guys, perfect!)
• Elemental Gimmick Gear (I need to finish this, Dreamcast Zelda-like that has an incredible art style)

Row 9

• Sunset Overdrive (Xbox weirdness)
• Slitterhead (A dank ass game that came out in 2024)
• Chibi-Robo! (I’ve never played this!)
• Jet Force Gemini (I was more excited about this when I thought it was co-op, just like everyone)

What a list of games! Mostly these were added after conversations or some reminder of their existence. Since I’m only human and I started this in December, and it is currently January of 2025, I’ve finished two games and started (and abandoned) one other. The first game I played was a French game by developer, Don’t Nod called Remember Me. I had done a quick write-up on this over on bluesky which I’ll port over here at some point. Generally when I do a writeup for a game on twitter bluesky, I’m adapting a longer piece that I then frantically chop up to make it fit the character limit. Sometimes those longer pieces get sacrificed in the process.

The second game I played was The Last Guardian. Back at the Game advertisements Awards in December, a brand new Ueda game was announced which was the thing that really kicked off the resurgence of gaming for me. I played through both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus before I had made this list. So here’s where we’re at:

Just like a lot of these threads I’ll continue to update this throughout the year!