The Atari 2600 was the console that got me started in the world of video games, but the Genesis was the console to truly solidify a lifelong love of the medium in me. Longtime readers know my story with the Genesis already, but to sum it up in one sentence, my mom got one sometime in 1993 after our Atari stopped working, it was my main console for the entirety of the rest of the decade until I became a Game Boy Color owner for Christmas 2000, and I've adored video games ever since. In recent years, our Genesis collection was mostly inaccessible, partly due to the cartridges beginning to fail and partly due to migrating to modern TVs that the Genesis couldn't connect to. I was still able to play some of our old favorites due to them getting modern ports on the Switch, such as the Sonic games, Castlevania Bloodlines, and Streets Of Rage 2, but many others remained off-limits unless I wanted to emulate, and these days I usually only emulate to play things like fan translations and rom hacks that aren't accessible any other way. In February 2026, though, I had some money saved up and decided to splurge on a solution, buying a clone console called the Mega Retron HD that can connect to modern TVs right out of the box and also picking up a flash cart to replace the legions of old cartridges that refuse to boot. I love physical media, but it's not the cure-all to game preservation that some people say it is. Carts fail and die eventually, and they'll only get rarer and rarer as the supply of 35-year-old plastic carts steadily dwindles, making secondhand market prices skyrocket and making old games on cartridges nearly as inaccessible as delisted digital titles. But I do love the feeling of playing games on the TV with a controller, so the flash cart was a happy medium. Plus, the one I bought came with hundreds of games pre-loaded onto the included micro SD card, meaning I was free to try just about any game in the Genesis library, removing the barrier to entry that downloading all that stuff myself presented. With the help of the Mega Retron HD and the flash cart, I began revisiting some old favorites and trying a few new games as well.
But the Mega Retron HD wasn't the only "new" console to join the family this past year. There was also a little indie thing called the Switch 2 that rolled into town. I've played a handful of Switch 2 games in the past year, all of them major releases like Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokemon Legends ZA. I mostly like the Switch 2, with the improved game performance and faster loading being one of my favorite things about it. I'm at the point where I'd much rather have smooth, clean, fast-loading games than ones that look a little prettier in screenshots. That said, I do see why some people complain that it doesn't feel like a huge jump from the Switch 1. This is a simple evolution, not a complete reinvention, and that's okay. I didn't want gimmicks anyway, just games (The Switch 2's mouse mode could not possibly be less exciting to me, and I frequently forget it even exists).
I've also continued the trend I began a couple years ago of replaying old games, even ones I'd already completed. Some of those games were reviewed by me many years ago, others I never reviewed properly, but in every case I wrote something up and added them to the post.
Lastly, I think this year's blog sports the highest average length of a review. I didn't play a ton of different games this last year (there are 28 reviews here in total), but I had plenty to say about most of the ones that I did play, resulting in a very long blog. Enjoy!
