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Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

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broodwars:
Well, as one of the few still using the forums these days and one of the bigger contributors to this event each year, I figured I'd step in and do hosting duties this year while the regular hosts are otherwise occupied. Figured I might as well post the thread a little early, or I'll just keep putting it off.

It's been an eventful year so far, and certainly one fit for reflecting on the road not traveled as we see companies like Sony lining up to strip us of one of the things that allows us to do this event every year: physical games. In fact, I hooked up and updated my PS3 a few weeks back in anticipation of defending my 2 time Backlaugust title, so bring it on! I have a few games lined up already to kick off the festivities.  ;)

The points don't matter and the rules are arbitrary, but here the usual ones with some modifications:

1. Play whatever you want, wherever you want. - If there's a game you want to play, play it. It can be any console, PC, main game or DLC.

2. You are done when you feel you are done - If you want to call it when you roll credits, great. If you want to be a lunatic like me and 100% it, welcome to the club.

3. Please keep it on the forums if you care about your completion scores - You're welcome to chat about the games you're playing on the Discord and elsewhere, but if you want your game to count towards the overall completion count, please post about your games in this thread. It's easier to keep track of that way.

This thread will be updated with a running tally of the completed games as we go along. Let's have some fun and get around to those games we've been putting off!

BACKLAUGUST 2026 GAMES

1. UNSIGHTED - Evan_B
2. The Legend of Zelda (NES) - Broodwars
3. Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories - Broodwars
4. Caravan SandWitch - Evan_B
5. Mouse: P.I. For Hire - Broodwars
6. Splatoon Raiders - M.K.Ultra
7. Splatoon Raiders - Broodwars
8. Rhythm Heaven Groove - M.K.Ultra
9. Pokémon Pokopia - Mop It Up
10. Star Trek: Resurgence - Broodwars
11. Kirby Air Riders - Broodwars
12. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando - M.K.Ultra
13. Ebenezer and the Invisible World - Broodwars
14. Sonic and the Black Knight - Mop It Up
15. Banjo-Kazooie - Khushrenada
16. Pikuniku - Khushrenada
17. Elec-Head - Khushrenada
18. Escapee Go! - Khushrenada
19. Dededede's Drum Dash Deluxe - Khushrenada
20. Hollow Knight - Decoyman
21. In Other Waters - Evan_B
22. Monster Crown - Evan_B
23. Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways (Remake) - Broodwars
24. Gemini: Heroes Reborn - Broodwars
25. Sonic the Hedgehog - Mop It Up
26. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Mop It Up
27. Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Mop It Up
28. Sonic CD - Mop It Up
29. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - ThePerm
30. Sonic the Hedgehog (Game Gear) - Mop It Up
31. Carrion (PS5) - Broodwars
32. BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! - Evan_B
33. Saturnalia - Evan_B
34. Contra III: The Alien Wars - M.K.Ultra
35. Disney Illusion Island - M.K.Ultra
36. Jumping Flash! - Broodwars
37. Wolfenstein 3D - Mop It Up
38. Carto - Khushrenada
39. Tokyo Crash Mobs - Khushrenada
40. Mega Man III (Game Boy) - Khushrenada
41. A Short Hike - Khushrenada
42. Catan: Console Edition - Khushrenada
43. Elea - Broodwars
44. Kirby Fighter Deluxe - Khushrenada
45. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Game Gear) - Mop It Up
46. Sonic Chaos - Mop It Up
47. What Remains of Edith Finch - Khushrenada
48. Star Fox (2026) - Broodwars
49. Blade Kitten (PS3) - Broodwars
50. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - ThePerm
51. Sonic Drift - Mop It Up
52. Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) - M.K.Ultra
53. Mega Man IV (Game Boy) - Khushrenada
54. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? - Khushrenada
55. Aero Porter - Khushrenada
56. Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble - Mop It Up
57. Sonic Blast - Mop It Up
58. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - Classic Edition - Broodwars
59. Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta - Evan_B
60. Sonic Labyrinth - Mop it Up
61. Sonic Tails Patrol - Mop It Up
62. Jurassic Park (NES) - Broodwars
63. Jurassic Park (Game Boy) - Broodwars
64. Jurassic Park (Genesis)  - Broodwars
65. Jurassic Park (SNES) - Broodwars
66. Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues (Game Boy) - Broodwars
67. Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition - Broodwars
68. Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues (SNES) - Broodwars
69. Tails Adventure - Mop It Up
70. Down in Bermuda - Decoyman
71. Super Monkey Ball 3D - Khushrenada
72. TOEM - Khushrenada
73. WarioWare: Move It - Khushrenada
74. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - Khushrenada
75. Onion Assault - Khushrenada

Backlaugust 2026 Total: 75 Games

Backlaugust 2026 Leaderboard

1. Broodwars - 22 games
2. Khushrenada - 20 games
3. Mop It Up - 16 games
4. Evan_B - 7 games
5. M.K.Ultra - 6 games
6. ThePerm - 2 games
7. Decoyman - 2 games

M.K.Ultra:
I am super excited for Backlaugust this year! I have mostly cleared the decks, though there is a game that will just cross the finish line tomorrow. I have been focusing on playing new releases as they come out instead of putting them at the back of the queue. To that end I am planning to play Rhythm Heaven Groove and Splatoon Raiders this month. I also got the switch 2 version of Xenoblade and as much as I want to play that now, it would really hurt my stats. Plenty of other games lined up that I will talk about as I get to them. Time to put Star Fox multiplayer on hold and just focus 8).

broodwars:

--- Quote from: M.K.Ultra on July 31, 2026, 08:36:54 PM ---I am super excited for Backlaugust this year! I have mostly cleared the decks, though there is a game that will just cross the finish line tomorrow. I have been focusing on playing new releases as they come out instead of putting them at the back of the queue. To that end I am planning to play Rhythm Heaven Groove and Splatoon Raiders this month. I also got the switch 2 version of Xenoblade and as much as I want to play that now, it would really hurt my stats. Plenty of other games lined up that I will talk about as I get to them. Time to put Star Fox multiplayer on hold and just focus 8).

--- End quote ---

I'm definitely leaning into what would be called "retro" this year, which to my disintegrating eyes' dismay includes games that came out just after I graduated college. In particular, I want to tackle a game that's been mocking me from my backlog ever since the PS4 came out and I gradually retired my PS3: Puppeteer. I loved that game when it came out, but for whatever reason I never finished it. Naturally, I'll be restarting it this time. I have hundreds of other games on my PS3 I could play at this point as well, including some PS1 games I forgot I even owned like the Parasite Eve games.

In more modern gaming, I'm also playing Splatoon Raiders and I really should get around to finishing Kirby Air Rider's Road Trip story mode as well as playing the Star Fox remake at all. I abandoned Mouse P.I. in July to finally get around to doing my Platinum run on the 1st Kingdom Hearts game, so I should get back to that 6/10 Too Much Cheese game.

And yes, I have 2 games set aside that I intend to finish line tomorrow to start things off, myself. All in all, it should be a good spread this month.

Evan_B:
So, I guess I’ll count my first finish, as I was up until 12:00 am last night closing it out: I just completed a “good ending” run of UNSIGHTED, which I had not done previously. This involves a late-game quest and new boss fights that are particularly brutal. I won’t lie- I did kick on “Explorer Mode” for additional stamina and more forgiving combat, as the game’s reliance on perfect parries and additional mobs in the final boss phase were a bit too much for me to handle. I have no qualms in admitting this.

I’ll circle back to my initial rating of the game in my own thread, but to be honest, I doubt it will change much.There’s some post game features that make the whole thing even more appealing from a NG+ perspective, and some extra modes that unlock as well (roguelike dungeon crawler mode?! Completely unnecessary but amazing) that make this easily one of the best top-down Metroidvanias (maybe also a Zelda-like?) I’ve ever played.

I have a few smaller games to tackle this month, and about a week and a half of decent down time where I can invest in them, so I’m hoping I can give some folks here a run for their money.

broodwars:
I'll go and throw a few of mine in that I finished this morning, both of which have been in the backlog for a very long time:



The Legend of Zelda (NES) - For around 40 years, I've been trying to get through this game, but for the life of me I could never stand to play this game for more than few dungeons. Ironic, really, considering that up until Breath of the Wild, Zelda was my favorite gaming series. Well, figured I'd finally take advantage of Switch Online and get it done.

Yeah...I'll give the original Zelda credit that it's much more fully formed than something like Metroid or Kid Icarus, but this game's execution is a real mess. You pretty much need a vintage Nintendo Power or the modern internet just to figure out how to progress in this game, and to my surprise that's not really due to needing to bomb every wall or burn every tree. Yes, there are a few secrets hidden that way, but only 1 dungeon and no progression-critical items. That said, I didn't appreciate this game having a fast travel system, but it's hidden behind a bracelet hidden underneath an armos I didn't know existed until I was trying to track down the last few items in my inventory.

The biggest hurdle to progression is just how the dungeons seem to be randomly scattered around, with no regard as to what players will have available to them, and the pure moon logic required to access some of them. For instance, there's one dungeon you can only find by playing the whistle in front of it, which is a dungeon item you might not have found and up to this point you've maybe only explicitly used to deal damage to one specific enemy. And in the overworld, this whistle largely works as a fast travel system, teleporting you to a random dungeon entrance. Who the **** would think that playing the whistle in front of a pond would do anything? The only hint an NPC gives you about it is "Ponds without Faeries hide secrets" or some such thing. Considering that pond is patrolled by a random Moblin, I thought this was where you maybe used the meat. Thank god for rewind.

You can definitely tell in the dungeons that this is a first attempt, as there are just some boneheaded design decisions. For instance, enemies seem to have fairly random movement patterns (especially the Wizzrobes) and hit like a truck (again, especially the Wizzrobes), and yet they almost never drop hearts. It's almost always nothing; ruppees; or the occasional bomb. You're basically required to find the item that unlocks the ability to buy potions from the witch by the 4th or so dungeon, because you just won't have the health. One of the dungeons (#4, I believe) has more locked doors than there are keys, so if you explore you'll actually run out of keys and will have to leave the dungeon to go find or buy more.

And why do you need to kill all the enemies in a room before moveable objects become moveable? It doesn't work that way in any other Zelda game.

And don't get me started on the cluster**** that is Dungeon 9, the final dungeon. I probably spent more time in that dungeon than the other 8 combined just because it's huge; full of bombable walls you need to open to proceed; and it loops back in on itself multiple times with one way doors and hidden stairwells. I never did find the ring that gives you the 75% damage reduction, but I sure did find Ganon before I found the Silver Arrows required to kill him or the map and compass that would have told me where he was. THAT sure was a fun discovery!

Overall, I'm glad I finally finished it, but like most NES games it really is more of a proof of concept.

And no, I've never finished Zelda 2, either (though I have gotten close) but I also really don't want to.

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