I love the month of February.

The days getting longer, the weather warming up, the shortness of it— it’s great!

Shortly into this month I felt bloated on media— games specifically. So I took a short weeklong break. It didn’t change a whole lot, but it reminded me that I don’t need to rush through games. It also reminded me that Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is a good book (that I really want to read more often).

Anyway, these are all the things I watched or played in February 2025.

I want to watch more movies, but shows and games are much easier to get into (even thought they’re much longer)

Zelphia and I celebrated Valentine’s day by getting take out, building a blanket fort, and watching (500) Days of Summer. We both really enjoyed the movie and thought it had a lot of creative flare.

I love how they brought together the thoughts she is my destiny and Love isn’t real. I remember being the she is my destiny guy and watching this movie was hard because it reminded me how horrible that kind of thinking can be.

I really enjoyed this movie! It’s funny, but not too funny, and it’s serious, but not too serious. It’s strikes a great balance between comedy and drama.

The first shot of the movie is a man and his son standing over the coffin of their deceased mother and wife (respectively). That’s pretty grim, but where some movies would try to twist the knife, this one just states the facts. There’s no big dramatic scene of Tom Hank’s character weeping or acting out while he grieves. It’s just what he has to deal with.

While all that is happening, there are some funny moments all throughout. Meg Ryan’s character having to deal with her immune-deficient fiance, and Tom Hank’s character talking to his son about dating.

The whole thing is great, and I recommend it!

Zelphia and I are in the habit of watching an episode of something on most nights. We’re currently watching Severance, and on occasion Grey’s Anatomy. Zelphia also just finished Night Agent. I didn’t pay attention during that one and mostly gamed next to her with it on.

Woah, what’s up with Apple TV+ making the best stuff?

This show is about a society of people that live in an underground silo.

This is a good show and that’s all I’ll say. Discover it for yourself.

I took a bit of a break from games this month. It wasn’t long, but for a while I didn’t engage in my usual lunch-time gaming. I enjoyed the time away enough, but it didn’t help with productivity and focus as I thought it would.

I finished a run in Advance Wars and whoooodoggy this game something.

You play as as someone who is helping the commanding officers of the nation Red Star. You command their units as they engage in… war!

This is a great lunch-time game. I’m able to eat with one hand and play with the other, but it is a big brain game. It has the classic Fire Emblem thing of X is strong against Y is strong against Z is strong against X, but it’s way bigger than that.

You have to manage 18 unit types that play different roles, have different weaknesses, and can do different things. This was the biggest learning curve; there is a lot to keep track of.

This game is the most gamey game I’ve played in a while. It really feels like moving pieces on a board and looking for openings in the enemies tactics.

This game is also built to be played through multiple times. There are three main character COs and on some missions you can choose to play as any of them. I only played as Andy who has the easiest missions, and now that I finished his campaign I might not jump back in. There’s just way too much I want to play, but if there’s another good time to jump in, I’d love it!

This is such a funny game to me. They used scenes from the movie and cutscenes that use the in-game models. So it’s transitioning between goofy looking models and low quality videos from the movie.

My absolute favorite thing about this game is that as you play you unlock interviews from from the movie actors. They did the voice acting for the game and it’s a really good touch.

My favorite interview bit was when Ian Mckellen said: “I’ve never played a video game in my life, I can never understand the rules.”

I started this in April 2024, and stuck with it for about a month. It’s just so good and I don’t feel the need to rush through it.

That being said, I don’t like having half finished games in my cabinet. For the last month and a half this has been my early morning/sitting-on-the-couch-while-we-watch-grey’s-anatomy game.

Tears of the Kingdom takes what made Breath of the Wild good and blows it up. Literally, everything blows up.

To me, Breath of the wild felt like an empty world with pockets of growth. There was something to do around every corner, but it was a solitary experience. In Tears of the Kingdom, there are communities popping up everywhere. There are so many people to meet and so much to do.

I love how difficult this game is compared to predecessors. Monsters hit HARD and you really need to manage your health moreso than anything else. This difficulty could be due to the fact that I didn’t find a great faerie until 60 hours into the game after I finished up the four dungeons, but I’ve heard other people comment on it too.

I could talk more about how this game teaches players to engage in the world while simultaneously leaving room for experimentation, but I don’t have the time. Maybe in a full review?

I only buy Call of Duty so I can play with my friends. The last COD that I got into was Modern Warfare (the 2019 not the 2007 one). I played a lot with one of my good friends during quarantine and I liked it alot.

Now, most of my long-distant friends are into the game so obviously I had to tag along. I have conflicting thoughts about the game itself, but being able to chat with friends while running around has been a blast!

The UI here is utterly atrocious and the fact that AI was used for many of the game’s player icons and such is a real shame, but hey, I get to hang out with friends!

A very dear friend of mine came to visit over the holiday weekend. We spent it playing board games, Magic, and video games. It was a super fun time!

We played a game of Mario Party 4, the Mario Party of my childhood. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the boards and heard the music. I didn’t know I had this much nostalgia for this game.

Mario Party is often looked down on cause it can be so random. The joke is that Mario Party breaks up friendships and ruins people’s lives. I’m not that interested in playing competitve games with friends so this one is perfect for me.

I played it on the RP5 and had it plugged into the TV. It looked so good!