I promise to continue Sparks of Hope tomorrow. It’s been two weeks now and I just haven’t had time. And it doesn’t help that Arkham Knight is in that post-game challenge phase were you can just play short bursts, but end up getting trapped by “Just one more” Syndrome. I’m done with all Batman challenges, now it’s Robin’s turn. And it’s immediately obvious how much Batman’s “Disarm & Destroy” move turns all combat challenges into easy mode. Some Predator Maps get really big, too. I just spent 10 minutes clearing out more than a dozen enemies out of a four-story map without being allowed to use Detective Mode or Floor Grates, with barely any useful perches to hide on.

I usually don’t talk about what I do on YouTube, but I have to shine a spotlight on a game I’ve been playing for five months now. It’s a Japan-exclusive Super Nintendo game called Genjuu Ryodan and it’s basically Advance Wars in a fantasy setting. The only fan translation that exists only translates the two main menus you interact with, but there’s no characters or dialogue to worry about and the game is very good at slowly introducing new units. You don’t have to understand it to figure it out, and the variety in maps and units is tremendous! My only complaint is that there’s no way to get newly built units to the front quickly. The summoning circles around your starting area are all you’re going to get, so the late game usually becomes quite the slog on bigger maps. But if you like Advance Wars and don’t mind having to experiment a bit to climb over the knee-high language-barrier, this game is worth looking into!