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
December 3, 2025 • 148 mins
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What could Nintendo possibly do to follow up the game that "saved gaming" for me? Well, they simply iterated on and evolved everything about Breath of the Wild to make one of the most creativity and freedom-focused games ever. It's s...
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November 26, 2025 • 133 mins
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Some games just stand out from the pack, and with its episodic anime structure, QTE-heavy cutscenes and South Asian religious inspirations, there is nothing quite like Asura's Wrath (CyberConnect2, Capcom, 2012). A quintessential fla...
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November 19, 2025 • 155 mins
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Ever have one of those games that sits in your library, untouched for years, until something finally gives you the push to play it...and you end up kicking yourself for waiting so long? That's Heaven's Vault, and without our communit...
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November 12, 2025 • 164 mins
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Modern Pokémon games are divisive, but rarely due to technical performance. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (Game Freak, 2022) released in an embarrassing state, and are hoping for a comeback with their recent Switch 2 editions. So now th...
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November 5, 2025 • 112 mins
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Pseudoregalia (Rittzler, 2023) represents a few things that are either making a resurgence or breaking out within indie games lately- retro PS1/N64 style graphics, megastructures, and 3D platformers. Combining incredibly tight and ex...
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October 29, 2025 • 167 mins
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Nobody is more skeptical of a new Soulslike on the block than me. Too often, Soulslikes build around the superficial qualities of FromSoftware's hits and neglect the secret sauce (or miss it entirely). Luckily for me and those who fe...
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October 22, 2025 • 130 mins
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As I said way back in The Outer Wilds episode, I respect the hell out of that game and think it's a miracle, but I didn't love it as much as others, and I kind of wish I could Eternal Sunshine that game out of my mind and try again. ...
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October 15, 2025 • 173 mins
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Sometimes a game's reputation precedes it in a way that makes you question whether you want to play it at all, and Fear & Hunger (Miro Haverinen, 2018) certainly fits that bill. Punishing difficulty, harsh teaching, extreme content w...
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October 8, 2025 • 126 mins
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It's been a real joy working my way through the Silent Hill series alongside doing this show, starting all the way back in episode 10(!) with Silent Hill 2. Today, I'm playing the sequel to Silent Hill 1, which is NOT Silent Hill 2.....
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October 1, 2025 • 122 mins
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This year, we're kicking off horror month with a first- a visual novel! It's the first one I've covered on the show, though I enjoy them from time to time, and Slay the Princess (Black Tabby Games, 2023) is certainly an interesting o...
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September 24, 2025 • 135 mins
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Sometimes, all it takes to grab your attention is a single screenshot, and Ultros (Hadoque, Kepler Interactive, 2024) is definitely one of those games. Every screenshot drips with color and is so rich with detail, it beckons you to c...
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September 17, 2025 • 119 mins
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There are more than enough sports games to go around out there, but the culture of sports does not begin and end on the field of play. There is an entire culture surrounding sports, and I've never played a game that tackles that cult...
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September 10, 2025 • 88 mins
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Sometimes a game you'd never heard of will break out with a 90+ on the review aggregator websites and immediately turn heads, and that's exactly what happened to me with Bionic Bay (Mureena Oy, Psychoflow Studio, 2025). One screensho...
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September 3, 2025 • 158 mins
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Everybody has that game they played a hundred times as a kid and therefore can't be objective about anymore, and for us, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is NOT one of those! Both my guest Ty and I both tried the game at vario...
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August 27, 2025 • 170 mins
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Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (Don't Nod, 2023) represents a different type of game that Don't Nod has been making alongside their popular choice-based narrative games like Life is Strange and Lost Records: Bloom and Rage. With 2018'...
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August 20, 2025 • 161 mins
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You know a game is good when it kicks off a new round of discourse about genre names, right? Regardless, Blue Prince (Dogubomb, 2025) is the latest hit in a type of knowledge-is-power game that is really appealing to certain types of...
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August 13, 2025 • 160 mins
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Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
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A good friend of mine likes to say "every game is somebody's favorite game", but I'm always intrigued when some oddball picks enter those conversations, and DoubleFine's Psychonauts is mentioned often enough that I felt like I had to...
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August 6, 2025 • 116 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
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Hazelight Studios were already on the map before their Game of the Year winner It Takes Two, but that game was so much fun that everyone, including me, was waiting to see what their next offering would be like. And it turns out, 2025...
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July 30, 2025 • 161 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server (https://discord.gg/bptGyEWbk7)
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I didn't hear about Dragon Quest for a very long time, probably an embarrassingly long time, and once I played one, I didn't....get it. It all seemed too plain, too simple, too lacking in complexity, and while a part of me was rel...
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July 23, 2025 • 157 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server! (https://discord.gg/bptGyEWbk7)
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Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has risen to the gaming mainstream with its beloved Like a Dragon series, and when a hot streak occurs, a heat check often follows, and there is no bigger heat check than a game where you play through a Hawai...
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