Coming Next: February 2026
Mapping Out The Month
Week 1
Midweek Read: Switch 2 VS PS5
Long time followers of Scanlines’ Journal will know that I got the Switch 2 on launch day and posted a substantial article soon after with my first-impressions including a full review of Mario Kart World.
About a month ago, thanks to some hefty UK sales and an influx of cash, I also bought myself a PS5. A lot of bullshit and fanboyism permeates the console gaming discourse online and being an enjoyer of both platforms I’d like to compare Nintendo and Sony’s flagship machines and contrast the ways in which they differ, what both have to offer and to give my opinion on which is the better purchase.
Main Post: Ocarina Of Time Review + Memories
Ocarina Of Time made me a gamer.
I’ve been playing this game since I was 4-5 years old and it never loses its magic for me. This month, as I cross into the second half of my 20’s I’m going to be replaying OoT, as I always do this time of year and taking you along for the ride. I’ll be talking about my earliest memories with Ocarina, what it does well, some of its blemishes, how the 3 main versions stack up and why the ‘Has it aged well?’ question is difficult to answer.
Retro man does an Ocarina Of Time retrospective, how original.
Week 2: The Hardest Game I’ve Ever Played (Rondo Of Blood Review)
Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood is peak lockdown nostalgia for me. Every night for several weeks I would sit, DualShock 4 in-hand doing my very best to conquer this beast with no save states. Rondo Of Blood is fun, atmospheric, well-balanced and above all else: really fucking difficult. This month I want to go back as a more experienced retro gamer and try to conquer it again in a week and to give it the review it deserves; Rondo is completely overshadowed by Symphony Of The Night in popular memory but it is every bit as good.
Week 3: The Most Nostalgic Video Games
I try to avoid nostalgia as best I can here on the Journal: it clouds judgements, warps memories and makes people put obviously flawed pieces of entertainment on a pedestal but in this month’s list… I’m going to allow it in. This will be a list not just of games that I find personally nostalgic but of games that evoke the feeling of nostalgia even if you’ve never played them; certain games make us long for a world we’ve never known or pine for experiences we wish we’d had when they were fresh.
Week 4: ??? Off-Topic
I’m feeling non-committal with my monthly non-gaming posts; I have plenty of ideas but at this point in my Substack life, I’m beginning to miss the days where I could zig-zag from topic to topic and niche to niche without one of my posts getting 20% the normal number of views; you’re all amazing and incredibly supportive, especially my subscribers but the Journal definitely isn’t as grass-roots as it once was, people expect certain things from a Scanlines’ Journal article now, hell I expect myself to uphold a certain tone and level of detail.
What I’m trying to say is, I’m going to write about whatever I want. It might be about books, it might be about goth music, it might be about a trip out and about or it might be a think piece on the merits of skinning influencers alive, you never know!