Tales from the Backlog
A video games podcast where Dave Jackson and guests break down and discuss the games they play. Each episode looks at one game in depth, focusing on mechanics, story, music and other aspects, with no spoilers until a clearly marked spoiler wall in the middle.
Episodes
Video games have the power to connect with players to tell stories, but have you ever considered the role that video games had in shaping your taste in music? From sports games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Madden and FIFA to rhythm games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Fuser, and even non-licensed soundtracks like Mega Man, The Last of Us and Final Fantasy...video games have had a big role in shaping the type of music we like. That...
Mark as Played
May 8, 2024 • 109 mins
Transistor, by Supergiant Games, is an interesting game to go back to after playing Hades. You can see a lot of ideas that started here in Transistor and made their way all the way to Hades, with Transistor still being a really engaging and strategic game in its own right. I loved revisiting this game, and am glad it won the poll on Patreon to appear on the show!
Joining me to discuss Transistor is Alex from Low Five Gaming! Low Fi...
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May 1, 2024 • 197 mins
Xenogears, by Square, is one of the big RPGs of this era that I wanted to check off. As a fan of the Xenoblade Chronicles games and JRPGs in general, going back to the root of the series felt like an interesting trip back through history. A few things had initially put me off, like all of the talk about an unfinished second disc and heavy use of religious and philosophical material that I would have to research outside of the game....
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April 24, 2024 • 124 mins
Our Baldur's Gate 3 recording ran so long, I had to split it up into two episodes. This is the full-spoiler discussion, where we talk about the decisions we made, how we solved our quests, how things turned out in our games, and much more. In particular, Jim's evil and Dark Urge playthroughs brought about some wild results that you'll love to hear about! You can find the non-spoiler portion of this episode in Episode 114 (https://t...
Mark as Played
April 24, 2024 • 126 mins
Sometimes I try to write clever little descriptions about the games on the show, but this week's game doesn't feel like it needs it.** Baldur's Gate 3, by **Larian Studios, excels in just about everything it sets out to do. It has impressive writing, almost unparalleled choice-based storytelling, memorable characters, a deep and engaging combat system, and tons of immersive sim elements that make each playthrough really feel like y...
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April 17, 2024 • 125 mins
During the first few months after Baldur's Gate 3 released, I heard a similar refrain coming from my friends and people on social media- people would say something like "I normally don't play RPGs like this, but I love Baldur's Gate 3! Flash forward 6 months and now Baldur's Gate 3 has swept the major award shows and broken into the top 10 most-played list on Steam. How did a game from such a niche genre break into the mainstream?
...
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April 10, 2024 • 117 mins
From the first time I saw a screenshot of The Case of the Golden Idol, by Color Gray Games, I was struck by these caricaturish portraits and knew I'd have to follow up on it someday. Then the comparisons to a favorite of mine, Return of the Obra Dinn, started rolling in and I knew I would have to play it sooner rather than later. And a big shoutout to community member Soccr for buying this for me in our Discord server Secret Santa!...
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April 3, 2024 • 82 mins
Sunset Overdrive feels like a game that's been lost to time, doomed to a life of only being mentioned when a new game comes out that reminds people of it, despite being made by one of the industry's heavyweights (Insomniac Games) in the not so distant past. It's got a goofy tone, a bangin punk rock soundtrack, and an exquisite movement system that never gets old, but its mission design starts to wear thin long before the credits ro...
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March 29, 2024 • 80 mins
SURPRISE! Balatro comes for us all. Developed by solo developer LocalThunk and published by Playstack, the poker-themed roguelike deckbuilder has singlehandedly caused productivity to drop by 7% worldwide since its 2024 release. Thank you to Playstack and LocalThunk for providing me with a review code so that I could become a statistic! Joining me to talk about the game, its strengths and weaknesses, our favorite strategies and beg...
Mark as Played
March 27, 2024 • 43 mins
This is the PAX East 2024 retrospective and run-through of all of the games I played! Woooo!
Games featured:
Animal Well (https://store.steampowered.com/app/813230/ANIMAL_WELL/):
The Art of Flight (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1706800/The_Art_Of_Flight/)
Duck Paradox (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2058150/Duck_Paradox/)
Enter the Chronosphere (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1969810/Enter_the_Chronosphere/)
Fallen Ace...
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March 20, 2024 • 153 mins
Titanfall 2, developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by EA, is one of those unfortunate games that seems to be universally beloved, but apparently didn't sell well enough for them to continue the series. Instead, Respawn is stuck in the Apex Legends and Star Wars mines for the foreseeable future, and we're left to replay this wonderful campaign (and multiplayer for some) and wonder what might have been. Titanfall 2 lives u...
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March 13, 2024 • 175 mins
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Support Tales from the Backlog on Patreon! (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson) or buy me a coffee on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson)!
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server! (https://discord.gg/V3ZHz3vYQR)
Social Media:
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/talesfromthebacklog/)
Twitter (https://twitter.com/tftblpod)
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TalesfromtheBacklog/)
Cover art by Jack Allen- find him at h...
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March 6, 2024 • 162 mins
How do you follow up a story that ends the way that Final Fantasy X did? Well, Square decided that Final Fantasy X-2 needed to shake things up. Most sequels escalate, but that wasn't really an option here, and so the girlpower J-Pop Final Fantasy game was born. This game gets a lot of hate out there, but not for the reasons that I think deserve it. Joining me to discuss Final Fantasy X-2 is Adam from The Good, The Bad & The Backlog...
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February 28, 2024 • 158 mins
In this discussion, Dave is joined by Chris Coplien (Retro Hangover podcast (https://linktr.ee/retrohangover)), Rick Firestone (Pixel Project Radio podcast (https://linktr.ee/pixelprojectradio)) and Andre (Fine Time podcast (https://linktr.ee/FineTimePodcast)) to discuss the challenges and our personal approaches to evaluating retro games. In this episode, we discuss our perspectives and some specific games like Rocket Knight Adven...
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February 21, 2024 • 140 mins
How do you remake one of the most beloved games of all time? How do you fend off the masses who want to hold you to every decision made over 20 years ago? Well, in our opinion, Square Enix figured out the way with Final Fantasy VII Remake. This is a shining example of how a remake can update the graphics, completely revamp the gameplay, add voice acting, re-orchestrate the music....and still keep the heart and soul of the original ...
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February 14, 2024 • 156 mins
This War of Mine, by 11 Bit Studios is often labeled not only as a good game, but also as an important game, especially as countries are invaded and lives are turned upside down in the same ways, over and over again. Because of how forever relevant this game is, and with a little pushing from friend of the show Randall on our "Games in Real-World Settings" episode a few months back, I was eager to give this a try- and it ended up w...
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February 7, 2024 • 163 mins
Boy am I glad that I disregarded all of the "Metal Gear Solid 2 is the worst one, just skip it" chatter out there. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, by Hideo Kojima and Konami, is a step up in almost every way from the first Metal Gear Solid game, and does a ton of interesting things in the process. Its biggest issue is that it takes a long time setting up, and then the payoff hits you with too much all at once. But once I've ha...
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January 31, 2024 • 113 mins
If you grew up alongside South Park like I did, and you loved video games, then you were probably let down by the licensed South Park games in the early years. All of that changed with 2013's South Park: The Stick of Truth by Obsidian Entertainment and South Park Studios. It looked like an episode of the show, it sounded like an episode of the show, the story was fun, and it introduced turn-based combat into the mix. It was a slam ...
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January 24, 2024 • 80 mins
From a better era of licensed games comes The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (PS2, GameCube, Xbox version). No live service nonsense, no microtransactions, just good arcadey fun reliving the best action scenes from the movie, along with tons of little goodies for fans of the movies. This was a blast, and I hope you enjoy reliving this game with us. Joining me for this episode is Chris Dominguez, one of the hosts of A Novel C...
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102: Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (with Matt aka Stormageddon & Flora Merigold)
January 17, 2024 • 184 mins
The day a new Yakuza / Like a Dragon game drops is like a holiday for me. Imagine my surprise and delight when I realized that we don't have to wait years for new games in the series anymore, as we got the Like a Dragon Ishin! remaster earlier in 2023, and then the connecting game, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name to set up the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Na...
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