Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Bustafellows Season 2 Demo Out Now

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Feb 242025
 

There are always a bunch of demos that go live whenever Steam holds its Steam Next Fest celebration, and this time Bustafellows Season 2 is included.

Bustafellows Season 2 is the sequel to the mystery otome game Bustafellows, which we discussed back in 2023. Despite their use of “season” in the title, each is a full game.

I enjoyed Bustafellows enough to pick up the sequel, so I probably won’t play the demo.

After all, despite being called a “gameplay demo,” it’s a visual novel. A demo would only give a sample of the story and characters, and I already know I like the characters enough to see more of them. As for the story, while that was my biggest criticism of the original, a demo won’t be enough to draw any conclusions.

Bustafellows 2 is due out later this year. Although no release date has been given yet, its listing at VGP says it will be out on July 17.

(Meanwhile, I keep getting confused because DesperaDrops, another crime-focused otome that reminds me of Bustafellows, comes out on March 6.)

This year hasn’t been quite as packed with anticipated games for me as the past few years have been, but I still feel like all of these release dates are sneaking up on me and my slow backlog progress! It’s better than a lack of games, though!

Are you planning to try the Bustafellows 2 demo?

Pokémon Presents Announced for February 27

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Feb 202025
 

Can you believe it’s almost been a whole year since Pokémon Legends: Z-A was announced?

February 27 is always Pokémon Day, and there’s usually a Pokémon Presents on that day to celebrate.

2025 is no exception, as the next Pokémon Presents showcase has been announced for February 27 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET.

Last year, Game Freak took everyone by surprise when they announced not a new Johto or Unova game like rumors claimed they would, but a new Pokémon Legends game set in the Kalos region and seemingly involving Zygarde, Pokémon Legends: Z-A.

We still know almost nothing about this game, except that it will be out this year for the Nintendo Switch.

I absolutely loved Pokémon Legends: Arceus, so even though X/Y wasn’t one of my favorite Pokémon generations, I’ve been excited for Legends: Z-A ever since it was announced. Learning more about it at this Pokémon Presents feels almost like a guarantee, and it’s the one thing I’m looking forward to the most.

It would also be nice to see another spin-off announced, too, like a new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (no, I haven’t played the ones in my backlog yet) or a third game in the style of Detective Pikachu (I might be the only one cheering if that happens), although they tend to devote a lot of time in these presentations to their mobile game updates.

And is it too soon for them to announce the next gen? If they do, I wouldn’t expect more than a tiny teaser, to avoid distracting from Z-A.

What are you expecting or hoping to see from the Pokémon Presents?

Xenoblade Chronicles X Previews Reveal Promising Quality-of-Life Changes

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Feb 192025
 

Previews for the upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition went live today, and there are a lot of interesting details!

The biggest overview has come from RPG Site, which describes several quality of life improvements.

For me, the best piece of news is that you can change your party at any time. I mentioned before how tedious it was in the original X that you had to find your party members in the city and talk to them to switch them into your party – with 18 party members and a big city, I actually kept notes about each party member’s location. Being able to change party members from a menu is the one change I was hoping for, so I’m glad to have that confirmed.

The site also shows a screenshot of the party screen, which has spots for 22 party members. That means there’s four new party members being added, not just one or two?!

Blade level, Division points, and most Field Skills are also gone, which is a change I’m a little more indecisive toward. I like coming across things that I can’t interact with yet while exploring and needing to come back for them later. Still, that’s not such a terrible change that it outweighs the positives for me.

There are some other nice changes as well, like a gauge you can spend to ignore an Art’s cooldown time and exp gain for party members not in your active party. The preview from Destructoid also confirms multiple save slots, and a look at the settings from Shacknews reveals dual audio.

All in all, Xenoblade Chronicles X sounds like it will be a wonderful Definitive Edition. My biggest disappointment is that it doesn’t look like it’ll get a collector’s edition, but I’ll still hold out hope for a little longer.

What do you think of the new changes described in these previews?

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