I recently returned home from Super MAGFest and finally had some time to try out a new game! I think I spent more on a Pepsi at that convention than I did on Toree Saturn when I bought it last holiday season. I’ve also probably poured a glass of Pepsi that lasted me longer than Toree’s story mode did. Thankfully, Toree Saturn is a shining example of quality over quantity; as far as budget gaming goes, this was more than worth skipping a soda or two for.
I don’t have any prior experience with the Toree series, but from what I understand, this one plays a bit different from previous entries. Toree Saturn leans a lot heavier into speed and momentum, taking obvious inspiration from the Sonic Adventure games. In my experience the “momentum-based platformer with shmovement” style of game tends to miss the mark as to what is appealing about the concept, but Toree captures the idea pretty well!
It manages to accomplish a lot with very little; you have a jump and homing attack on one button, a sort of ground-pound-dash move on the other button, and that's pretty much it. This rocks, and is one of my favorite things about Toree. The actions and inputs are very simple, but there is hidden depth to the ways you can go about using them to save time in levels. Like I said, Toree Saturn is an excruciatingly short game—even at a leisurely pace you can finish the story in well under a half hour—so a lot of the value stems from mastering the nuances of the controls and mechanics. I had a ton of fun grinding to get all the Shiny S Ranks and grabbing every collectible.
The general aesthetic is delightful too; I've noticed a rise in these early, low-poly Sega Saturn/PlayStation type art styles as of late, and I kinda eat that shit up despite having no nostalgia for it whatsoever. The soundtrack is shockingly fantastic too. I just met Johnny Gioeli with @teddydeer at MAGFest and completely forgot he's on one of the songs in this game, so when it came up we were popping off.
There is a surprising amount of side-stuff to do in Toree, most of it stemming from the collectibles. Most of it is cute for what it is, but pretty underbaked and not anything you'll check out more than once. Its inclusion is appreciated in a tiny game like this though, I don't think any of it needed to be much more than a quick reward or distraction. The different costumes you get as rewards for doing stuff were my favorite, they all looked very cool. My favorite was the ORIGINAL VILLAIN (pictured below!)
I really think Toree Saturn is a perfectly good game; it doesn't aspire to anything beyond being a couple hours of good fun, and it succeeds excellently at that. I liked it enough to fully 100% it and get the best ranks on every level, which only took me about three hours. It was a good time and I am perfectly satisfied with my time spent on it! I kinda hope this team hones in on what makes this game bang, and elaborates on it to make a really strong and polished game with a little bit more to it; I could see them knocking a larger scale game similar to this out of the park. As a bite-sized love letter to one of my favorite games ever, I like this for what it is, and I hope more people check it out!
"On the back of a motorbike
With your arms outstretched, trying to take flight, leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed, we couldn't break from the concrete
In the city where we still reside"
#1. Plans, by Death Cab for Cutie (2005) 🔁
If you asked me a few years back who my favorite band was, there's a chance I would have fumbled my way into admitting it was Death Cab for Cutie. Since then, my music taste has been in constant flux and impossible for me to pin down, and Death Cab almost entirely fell out of my rotation as I scramble to figure out what I actually like (still working on that!)
That's not to say I ever stopped liking them, far from it honestly; I still care enough to see them in concert on their Transatlanticism anniversary tour twice. I think I just needed a nice, long detox. I didn't anticipate giving them the honor of "first album I listened to this year," and I definitely didn't anticipate it being this particular album, either—I almost went with We Have the Facts or The Photo Album instead. It just kinda happened this way on a whim!
Revisiting Plans was as much a bludgeoning of my emotions as it was a warm greeting and hug from a long-lost friend. The time spent away from this band and album did wonders to sharpen these songs that I'd previously worn out from constant usage. This shit hurt me bad in the best kind of way, the way they cut me up like they did when I was in college. I've always liked Plans, but this listen totally reaffirmed to me how great Plans really is.
This record has always read as very transitional to me; it's the binding tie between their early independent records and their major label releases to follow (this was their first release after getting signed), and also represents the beginning of a subtle shift in sound and writing style that really starts to manifest on their following record, Narrow Stairs. Positioned right in the middle of all this change, Plans simultaneously serves as a time-capsule and the final imprint of what the Death Cab for Cutie was, as well as the early draft for what Death Cab for Cutie would become. I think this might be the thing that stands out to me most about the album, the way it manages to marry the soul of their past with their vision of the future, in an effortless and uncompromising way. It captures the liminal space between the old and the new so strongly to where it slots in perfectly with either half of their discography, while being fully realized and standalone in its own right.
Much like how Death Cab was my go-to answer to "what's your favorite band", Transatlanticism has been my go-to choice for favorite album for a while now. And as much as I love that album with my whole heart, man there are some rough lyrics here and there. I think Ben Gibbard grew significantly as a songwriter in the year and change between writing for that record and this one. I think I feel confident in saying that Plans is his absolute best work as a lyricist. His story telling is laser-focused here, thoughtful observations painted by beautifully painful imagery. Even the more jarring lines that still pop up now and again feel a little more intentional in their rough impact on the ear. What I'm trying to say is when he barks "PISS" at you in What Sarah Said it somehow works and doesn't detract from the poignancy of that in any way. That is an insane feat of songwriting.
On the whole, Plans has a very cohesive and strong tracklist. I think just about everything on here ranges from good to great, with a few true standouts. For me, its always been the one-two punch of the aforementioned What Sarah Said and Brothers on a Hotel Bed that break me. Both are genuine masterpieces in my eyes; Sarah has an earth-shattering sense of scale and anxiety to its larger-than-life thoughts on love and death, juxtaposed perfectly against Brothers' quiet melancholic reflection on life and love long faded to time. Two absolute titans of their discography that both fully weaponize a newfound focus on piano that permeates through much of Plans. I feel like I don't see Brothers on a Hotel Bed get its flower very often, but it's probably my favorite song they ever did outside of Transatlanticism, it's seriously incredible. Much like with "PISS," it is truly remarkable how repeating the line "like brothers on a hotel bed" never starts to feel embarrassing like it easily could have, it's just gorgeously tragic imagery of lost passion that's always stuck with me.
The only bumps in the road for me are a very minor one with Someday You Will Be Loved, which Gibbard has famously cited as probably his least favorite song he ever wrote for Death Cab. I think that context is really funny, but ultimately the song's decent, definitely not a major hiccup. The closing song, Stable Song, is one that gets a lot of love from fans, but it's just never really done it for me. It's not bad (believe me, I'd tell you if I thought it was,) it's just kind of fine to me. It's a good finale thematically, I like what it's saying about moving forward, but I just can't get into it. I've heard people criticize the album and the band as a whole for being plodding and boring, and this is maybe the one time on Plans I can kinda see it. I'm not any bigger a fan of the twelve and a half minute "full-length version" of this song either. I know I'm wrong for it, but I wish the album ended on a song I like more, because as it is I kinda check mentally as soon as Brothers on a Hotel Bed ends. I'm sorry for who I am, I will not be fixing it 🤷
Plans is a really great album, and catching up with it was a very exciting and inspiring way for me to start off my year. It moved me in a way that most of the music I listened to last year, both old and new, simply did not. I think I might need to spin a few more of their early records again in the near future—hell, I might need to spin this one again in like, a week or so, I almost feel like I'm snubbing it with that 8 out of 10. As they say, ratings and rankings are arbitrary and reductive, but as I say, my brain loves giving things numbers so I'm gonna do it anyway. I reserve the right to change it when I realize I'm wrong.
Oh and I Will Follow You into the Dark is, uh, pretty good!
8+ / 10 💖
Favorite tracks: Brothers on a Hotel Bed, What Sarah Said, Summer Skin, Marching Bands of Manhattan
Least favorite: Stable Song
I started this playthrough at the tail end of last year, but I finished it this year, so I might as well talk about it!
I'll admit that I used to be a little bit of a Sinnoh hater, even though Diamond was probably my favorite Pokemon game as a kid. Part of growing up, for me, was realizing that Diamond and Pearl are kind of a mess! I never felt compelled to play Platinum at that time either, because it looked more or less like the same game with the Distortion World tacked on.
Fortunately, an even more essential part of growing up for me was realizing that I am an idiot! Pokemon Platinum, as it turns out, is an excellent game, and the fully realized version of my childhood favorite that I've been missing out for years!
I first learned this in 2024 when I did a nuzlocke alongside some friends. I left that experience very impressed by how good Platinum really was, so I was excited to get another opportunity to play it from a more casual perspective. I recently hosted a Draft Playthrough with another group of friends, where everyone took turns claiming evolution lines until we were all left with a small pool of Pokemon to rely on for an entire run. Thank you again to Danni, Nick, Maggie, Nolan, and Christina for indulging me on this idea!
If anything, Platinum got even better on a replay. The Sinnoh region's gotta be a top all-time setting for a Pokemon game—usually not something I think too much about while playing, but this is a noticeably pleasant and well-structured place to explore. Johto will probably always remain the king of this in my mind, but Sinnoh’s an easy second for me. A different facet that Platinum easily reigns supreme in is its difficulty; I think this is the platonic, romantic, and perhaps even sexual ideal of difficulty in a mainline Pokemon game. There are some tough fights that require effort and an intentionally constructed team, but still offers plenty of wiggle room to be manageable by a team of glup shittos (you'll just have to work a little harder to compensate.)
I think the Pokemon variety in Platinum is something that really got to shine this time around, thanks to the draft format. Most of us went into it with the mindset of picking guys that we've never really used much before, and I think I got a pretty unique team out of it! To my surprise, this game is structured in a way where experience points are distributed really nicely. I had a rotating party of eight or so Pokemon for a lot of the playthrough, and I never felt like I had to stop and grind if I made good use of the resources the game offers up. I think the one time this decidedly isn't the case is at the very very end—admittedly, the grind to prepare a competent team for the Cynthia fight is a little stupid, but as an issue that only came up with the very last challenge in the game, it's not the end of the world to me.
On the subject of the end of the world, the Distortion World sure does exist! Really cool idea, I like that it exists in the lore (expanding the universe of Pokemon is something the Sinnoh games did really well from the start,) but wow do I not have any desire to explore it again! I'm pretty take it or leave it with a lot of the changes Platinum makes to the plot of Diamond and Pearl, but it doesn't ever get to the point of bogging the playthrough down with extended cutscenes (except when Looker shows up,) so it's mostly fine with me. I was definitely missing out as a kid from passing up Platinum, but all these types of changes were not really the reason why.
The drawn-out grind for Cynthia is still kinda emblematic of the one major, overarching, central fault of the Gen 4 Sinnoh experience: for as much as Platinum fixes the shortcomings of Diamond and Pearl, it could not solve the game speed. Battles are slow, text boxes move at a crawl even on the fastest speed, friendship evolutions are often Slow to achieve; you move Slow in the Snow, you move Slow in the Swamp, the grind for Cynthia is Slow, you have to wait Hours in Real Time for your random honey tree encounter, Looker shows up and locks you into cutscenes only to contribute absolutely nothing and leave which all just kinda wastes your time... these games are very, very slow moving! Much of this is a non-issue for the large contingent of people not playing it on official hardware, but it's the one thing that I wish I could change about it. I also think that the requirements for obtaining certain Pokemon are batshit absurd, but I just choose not to concern myself with Munchlax, or Spiritomb, or (*checks notes*) "the fossil Pokemon that does not correspond to my odd-numbered trainer ID and instead requires an even-numbered trainer ID"... and the problem disappears.
Now that I'm done bitching about a game I really like, I'd like to show off my Hall of Fame team for the class! I went with the theme of "baseball icons" for nicknames; usually I don't like to stick to a rigid theme for my nicknames, but I had fun with it this time around. And now I'm going to go overly in-depth about them because this is my sleepover and I get to decide who has fun:
DELVECCHIO — Named after Angela Delvecchio, two-way player for the Backyard Sports franchise. Willed her way into being a strong Thunderbolt bot despite societal pressures to be a physical attacker. The team would not have been functional in big matches without her Intimidate support. Went pivot beast-mode on Bertha's Rhyperior, eating Megahorn after Megahorn to help make the fight winnable, and honest to god was probably the MVP of the Cynthia fight. OHKOd Milotic and managed to get Garchomp down to -5 before fainting. Happy I got to use Luxray for the first time, it was Cool and Helpful.
FREELAND — Named after Kyle Freeland, starting pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. The Rollercoaster Ride Pokemon. Was shockingly beast as a Chingling, but frustrated me by taking forever to evolve. Was good for a while once it evolved, but Psywave is a fucking awful move and made it borderline unusable for a while. Yawn / Protect / Dream Eater is maybe one of my favorite movesets I've ever used (definitely the funniest), but its frailty and middling speed had it keeling over and dying to shit on the Yawn turn way too often. I loved this Pokemon, and I hated this Pokemon. MVP of the Bertha fight, but really botched some pivotal moments against Lucian and Cynthia so I exit the playthrough mad at her (I'll come back around in time.)
DONOVAN — Named after Brendan Donovan, second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. MVP for the whole run easily. The team genuinely does not function without his presence, dual screens and encore support were the battery that powered this machine. This playthrough solidified Encore as the funniest move of all time in my mind, the dopamine I got from locking someone into a move and switching in someone with a type immunity cannot be understated. Unsung hero of the Elite Four run, literally led off every fight except Aaron and set us up for success. Epic Pokemon and he ain't even in his fairy type prime yet.
BECKY — Named after Becky Fox, assistant manager for the Tulips in MLB Power Pros. I am insanely impressed by this thing's performance, I truly wasn't familiar with Houndoom's game. Regularly snagged OHKOs I never in a million years would've expected it to, and put up an all-timer Elite Four performance, effortlessly sweeping Aaron and taking insanely clutch kills vs Lucian's Bronzong and Cynthia's Lucario. I will say after staring at the back of your head for upwards of 30 hours, I do wish you had ears.
BIG DUMPER — Named after Cal "Big Dumper" Raleigh, catcher for the Seattle Mariners. Properly joined the team kinda late, but Dumper's impact was felt. He went kinda nuts in the Elite Four; he was clutch in the closer role against Bertha and stunted on Flint, and would've clutched up against Cynthia had he not got confusion haxed. Thank you for your service Big Dumper.
MERRILL — Named after Merrill Kelly, starting pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks. I wish she got to come online earlier. She was insanely useful and strong for the last stretch of game leading up to the Elite Four, but didn't get to contribute almost anything once we actually got there. Definitely a shame, cool Pokemon but joined the team too late to really make the impact she could have.
Some of the earlier games in the series still hold a more special place in my heart, but stepping back, I think Platinum was far and away the best Pokemon game ever made at the time of its release (I don't think its particularly close.) It still manages to hold up as one of the best to ever to do it, all these years later. Incredible region to explore, amazing Pokemon variety, perfectly tuned difficulty, and solid pacing despite the sluggish game speed. Platinum has the sauce. Diamond was my childhood classic, but I'm glad I can look to Platinum as the fully realized, definitive version of the games I thought Diamond and Pearl were as a kid. I'll probably revisit it again a few years from now, and I look forward to it!
My name is Brandon, and I am really bad at doing new things. Let's try to fix that!
I recently had the thought when trying and failing to compile one of those Topsters lists of my favorite albums. I thought to myself, "man, I am bored of always listening to the same things. I've listened to the same things for the past seven years. How do I tell which ones are my favorites anymore, they all sound exactly the same!" So, I decided then, that going into 2025, I would wipe the slate clean.
As far as my "favorite albums of all time" list concerned, as of right now, I have never listened to a single album in my life!
This year, I'm going to attempt to listen to a ton of stuff, old and new, and completely rebuild a catalogue of music from scratch. If I haven't listened to it since the ball dropped, it doesn't exist to me yet! This tumblr blog is for keeping a journal of everything I listen to this year and beyond, new finds and relistens alike.
And for fun, we're throwing games, movies, and tv shows in the mix as well. We're just gonna keep track of everything old and new that I get to this year. This is the place for my unfiltered thoughts on whatever. This truly exists for nobody but me, but maybe you will find something worth sticking around for. I wouldn't count on it, but either way, you're more than welcome to tag along for this journey of discovery / rediscovery!
Here's a list of the most important tags I'll be using to group my posts, as well as a reference key for any little icons that may pop up from time to time!
Tags:
#music - music listening journal, mostly albums
#games - video game backlog catalogue
#movies - feature length films
#shows - tv shows, cartoons, anime
#brandoncore - collection of the most essential, personal favorite things I've posted about
#whocanrelate! - intrusive thoughts in the form of bars
Icons:
✨ is for post subjects that are new to me, I am experiencing them for the first time!
🔁 is for post subjects that I am relistening to, rewatching, or replaying!
💖 is for subjects that are officially, professionally certified #brandoncore, and find their way into the pantheon of brandoncore things.
I really considered not giving anything number scores, because I feel like people put too much stock into the number signifying how "good" something is. Unfortunately, my brain truly just loves to rank things and give them ratings, so we're committing to that.
To give you an idea of what to expect, I think I'm generally a lot more positive on the shows and movies I watch, since I'm criminally underexposed to a lot of what's on offer in those mediums. Games and music are definitely where I'm more critical and harder to please, I'd say. Some have called me a hater in the past, but really, I only hate because I love so passionately... there needs to be a balance to everything!
Everybody's internal scale operates differently, so for transparency sake, I'll be outlining my exact (loose) definition for the vibes of my own score scale:
Occasionally I might add a + or - modifier to a score to further adjust and represent my exact thoughts on something. This just means that within its number rating, I lean a smidge higher or lower on it than its peers.
Like everything else with the scores though, its all just silly and for my own brain's enjoyment, and the easiest, fastest way to sum up my feelings on something. A lot of the time the most personally resonant things for my are the 7s and 8s of the world, my little imperfect masterpieces. There's more to the story than just a score :)
Well, that's me! And that's what this is! I hope you find something of value here if you went out of your way to read all of this! Special thanks to @teddydeer for the lovely visuals on this post, I spent two days trying to make it look good myself and uh, she blew mine out of the water in the space of about an hour >_<
Funny story about this, I actually did end up fulfilling my goal of doing new things last year! I just didn't post almost any of it!! Let's try to fix that!
In 2025, I...
Listened to 55 new albums (103 total!)
Played 25 new games (50 total!)
Watched 4 new movies... (9 total)
Finished 8 new shows (9 total)
As far as my usual standards are concerned, it was a pretty solid year of doing things™! I'm happy with how much I did in the music and games department, but definitely slacked as far as movies go.
A decent chunk of the stuff I did is stuff that I think'll stick with me moving into the new year and beyond, though surprisingly I think I kinda biffed it in the new music department—there was a lot that I thought was good, but very little that made a larger impact. I intend to address this year! I want to find new music that blows my mind like my high school favorites did!
I fell off posting by the end of January this year, which sucks, but I've wiped the slate clean and will start fresh for 2026! This year, I'm committed to not forcing myself to write a ton of words just share my thoughts about stuff. Some posts will be long, many posts will be short, but most importantly, There Will Be Posts.
I am making a strong effort to move my life further forward this year, and one of my biggest goals is to Keep Doing Things™ despite more life responsibilities and less free time. I hope that I can use this blog to keep me held accountable in that regard!
My name is Brandon, and I am really bad at doing new things. Let's try to fix that!
I recently had the thought when trying and failing to compile one of those Topsters lists of my favorite albums. I thought to myself, "man, I am bored of always listening to the same things. I've listened to the same things for the past seven years. How do I tell which ones are my favorites anymore, they all sound exactly the same!" So, I decided then, that going into 2025, I would wipe the slate clean.
As far as my "favorite albums of all time" list concerned, as of right now, I have never listened to a single album in my life!
This year, I'm going to attempt to listen to a ton of stuff, old and new, and completely rebuild a catalogue of music from scratch. If I haven't listened to it since the ball dropped, it doesn't exist to me yet! This tumblr blog is for keeping a journal of everything I listen to this year and beyond, new finds and relistens alike.
And for fun, we're throwing games, movies, and tv shows in the mix as well. We're just gonna keep track of everything old and new that I get to this year. This is the place for my unfiltered thoughts on whatever. This truly exists for nobody but me, but maybe you will find something worth sticking around for. I wouldn't count on it, but either way, you're more than welcome to tag along for this journey of discovery / rediscovery!
Here's a list of the most important tags I'll be using to group my posts, as well as a reference key for any little icons that may pop up from time to time!
Tags:
#music - music listening journal, mostly albums
#games - video game backlog catalogue
#movies - feature length films
#shows - tv shows, cartoons, anime
#brandoncore - collection of the most essential, personal favorite things I've posted about
#whocanrelate! - intrusive thoughts in the form of bars
Icons:
✨ is for post subjects that are new to me, I am experiencing them for the first time!
🔁 is for post subjects that I am relistening to, rewatching, or replaying!
💖 is for subjects that are officially, professionally certified #brandoncore, and find their way into the pantheon of brandoncore things.
I really considered not giving anything number scores, because I feel like people put too much stock into the number signifying how "good" something is. Unfortunately, my brain truly just loves to rank things and give them ratings, so we're committing to that.
To give you an idea of what to expect, I think I'm generally a lot more positive on the shows and movies I watch, since I'm criminally underexposed to a lot of what's on offer in those mediums. Games and music are definitely where I'm more critical and harder to please, I'd say. Some have called me a hater in the past, but really, I only hate because I love so passionately... there needs to be a balance to everything!
Everybody's internal scale operates differently, so for transparency sake, I'll be outlining my exact (loose) definition for the vibes of my own score scale:
Occasionally I might add a + or - modifier to a score to further adjust and represent my exact thoughts on something. This just means that within its number rating, I lean a smidge higher or lower on it than its peers.
Like everything else with the scores though, its all just silly and for my own brain's enjoyment, and the easiest, fastest way to sum up my feelings on something. A lot of the time the most personally resonant things for my are the 7s and 8s of the world, my little imperfect masterpieces. There's more to the story than just a score :)
Well, that's me! And that's what this is! I hope you find something of value here if you went out of your way to read all of this! Special thanks to @teddydeer for the lovely visuals on this post, I spent two days trying to make it look good myself and uh, she blew mine out of the water in the space of about an hour >_<
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