Welcome to the first ever Byte-Sized Blog Play Log!

This is the first of what I intend to be a weekly series of posts chronicling what I've been playing over the course of the past week, and calling attention to any stand out experiences I had, whether it be a particularly memorable moment, a fun multiplayer session, a noteworthy accomplishment, finishing a game, or anything else I feel like bringing up.

My goal with this series is not just to create a record of my experiences, but also to give you, the readers, an insight into my gaming life and keep you up to date on exactly what I'm playing and where I am in certain games.

Usually, I intend to post these every Monday, as I'll be tracking my play data from each week from Monday through Sunday. This week's log is an exception because I was flying home from seeing family and simply didn't have the time to get it written up. But going forwards, barring any other real life complications or me simply not feeling like it/forgetting (I'm sure it'll happen at some point), future entries in this series should consistently see publication on Monday.

Longwinded introduction out of the way, let's jump right into this first play log, which covers the week starting on July 13th, 2026.

Below is a chart displaying every game I played this past week, no matter how long I played it for, as well as what days I played it on and for how long. Below that, we'll get into some of the specific highlights from the week, as well as exactly what I was doing in each of these games.

• Ordered by first play of the week.
• All Switch/Switch 2 play data on my console is sourced from the Nintendo Store mobile app.
• All 3DS play data sourced from the 3DS Activity Log application.
• Play data marked with a * is estimated.

By looking at this chart, right away the story of my gaming experiences from this past week starts to take shape. In the first half of the week, up to and including when I left for vacation on Thursday, I was mainly playing a pair of games in the Rhythm Heaven series, with Metroid Samus Returns taking up the majority of play time throughout the rest of the week. There were some other titles sprinkled in here and there for a variety of reasons, but Groove, Megamix, and Samus Returns took up the bulk of my time last week.

Let's dive in deeper, shall we?

Tetris 99 (NS on NS2)

• Played on Monday for ~30 minutes

I only had about an hour and a half to play on Monday once I had wrapped up all my responsibilities for the day and finally sat down in front of the TV, so I ended up splitting that short amount of time between this and a short Tears of the Kingdom session.

The sole reason I was playing Tetris 99 last Monday was because I had suddenly realized the Star Fox event was ending later that night and I had completely forgotten about it despite intending to get to it over the weekend. I try to unlock all the event themes in Tetris 99 whenever I can remember, so I decided to just play some matches until I unlocked the Star Fox theme. Thankfully, it didn't take too long, as I had a couple deep matches where I lasted into the top 25 which helped speed the process along, allowing me to spend the remainder of the evening elsewhere. Which leads me to...

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition (NS2)

• Played on Monday for ~45 minutes

One thing you should know about me is my complete and utter inability to finish this game. Despite having been super hyped for its release and buying the expensive Collector's Edition and the special Pro Controller on day one, I've only completed two of the game's dungeons, both within the past year despite the game now being over three years old.

Yeah, it's basically part of my personality at this point. Expect to see Tears showing up intermittently throughout these logs. One week I'll play nothing but, the next few weeks it'll be nowhere to be seen. It's been a very stop and go playthrough since launch.

That being said, what exactly did I accomplish in those 45 minutes? Not a ton, as is typical at this point.

Since beating the Fire Temple back in May, I've been doing side quests and just exploring in the Goron City area. I've basically done everything I wanted to do, so this session was really all about moving on to the next area I want to explore: the Eldin depths. The thing is, this was something I'd been holding back for one pretty dumb reason: I wanted to see the Death Mountain crater dive on our big 4K HDR TV after having previously done it while playing on the smaller, lower resolution TV in my bedroom.

Is this at all conducive to my goal of eventually finishing this game someday? Absolutely not. Was it worth it? ...I can't lie it kinda was.

So yeah, this session was essentially just getting that over with, then spending the rest of the time I had starting to explore that area of the depths before going to sleep for the night.

Rhythm Heaven Groove (NS on NS2)

• Played on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for an approx. total of ~5 hrs 30 mins

This may appear to be far and away my most played game of the week, but that 3 hrs 45 mins on Wednesday is deceptive, as most of that time wasn't actually spent playing the game. Rather, a good chunk of that was me using the in-game music player to listen to the game's incredible soundtrack while working on this blog.

That's not to say I didn't spend any time actually playing the game. In fact, it was on Tuesday night that I finished going through the 80 single player rhythm games, which I see as essentially 'beating' the main game. I'm far from finished with the game, though, as I'm currently trying to get 'Amazing'/'Superb' ratings on all the games and attempting Perfects whenever they pop up, and I still have most of the Beatspell mode to play through, alongside almost the entirety of the multiplayer side of the game to check out. So, with a lot left to see and accomplish, it doesn't seem I'll be finished with Groove anytime soon.

Rhythm Heaven Megamix (3DS)

• Played on Thursday for 3 hrs 17 mins

Now that I've finally played a Rhythm Heaven game and fallen in love with the series, I want to go back and consume as much of the series as I can. Thankfully, I had the foresight to grab both Megamix and Fever off the 3DS and Wii U eShops respectively before they shut down in 2023, so I can hop into both titles without having to jump through a lot of hoops or resort to less... legal and official means.

So, with a 6-8 hour car ride to sit through last Thursday, I decided to jump into Megamix on my 3DS, and it's a blast. Being a compilation title that brings together rhythm games from throughout the series, in a similar vein to the also excellent WarioWare Gold on the same console, it's serving as a neat crash course in Rhythm Heaven history, allowing me to experience games from the GBA and DS entries without seeking out expensive physical copies of the original games, as well as giving me a sneak peek at what to expect from Fever when I get around to it.

I only had the one lengthy play session of Megamix during the car ride, but it seems quite content rich, and it's definitely a game I plan to continue working away at.

Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)

• Played on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for an approx total of ~2 hrs 31 mins

So you know those Box Art Quizzes that periodically show up on Nintendo Today! every now and then? Probably not, but, one of the first ones I remember seeing back in May of this year was for Metroid: Samus Returns. I don't know why, but that suddenly gave me the urge to play it.

We happened to have another lengthy car ride ahead at the time, so I decided it was finally time to open the still sealed copy of the game that had been sitting on my shelf since I received it for Christmas in 2021 and popped it into my 3DS to start playing in the car. And wow am I glad I did, because it's an incredible game.

Whenever I've had the opportunity to play my 3DS over the past two months or so, it's primarily been to play Samus Returns (though I'm splitting time between it and Megamix now), and I've been slowly progressing through the game little by little and having a blast the whole time. The lack of story and dialogue, combined with the emphasis on exploration, combat, and puzzles make it easy to pick up and play in most situations. Almost every time I pick it up, I manage to accomplish something, whether it's finding a missile upgrade, exploring an untouched corner of the map, finding and defeating a Metroid, reaching the next save point, or making more significant progress with major upgrades, reaching new areas, or beating bosses. I intend to do a full review of the game once I finish it, which I think I'm very close to doing, but for now, I'm absolutely loving my time with it.

During our vacation, I played it whenever there was downtime, mainly in the mornings while getting ready for the day. And while those morning sessions were fairly short, they were incredibly productive, as they saw me acquire a handful of key late game upgrades, namely the Super Missiles, Gravity Suit, and Screwattack. The longer session on Saturday was mainly just using those new abilities to collect as many of the items I'd missed in Area 5 as possible before advancing to Area 6, which is where I would remain through the end of the week. As you can probably decipher from the 1 minute on Sunday, I intended to play it that day, but didn't get too deep into a session before having to put the system away.

My hope is to finish the game this week, and then decide whether I want to go for 100%. I'll report on the progress I make in next week's play log!

Mario Tennis Fever (NS2)

• Played on Thursday for a few mins

Now we're getting into those handful of titles that I briefly touched on over the course of my vacation.

Mario Tennis Fever received an update last week, so I made sure to install the update before the trip. When we were getting close to our destination and my 3DS was getting low on battery, I decided to whip out Fever to check out the new Galaxy Court Match, which was a really neat homage to Mario Galaxy, but otherwise nothing too terribly special. I also continued playing through the Trial Towers mode just to give my fingers something to do for a bit. I considered spending a bit more time with it, maybe even hopping back into Adventure Mode, but that ultimately didn't happen. If I'll return to this game anytime soon, I'm not sure, but I can't say I didn't enjoy spending a few minutes going back to it, even if it was just to give myself SOMETHING to do towards the end of the car ride.

Dr. Mario & Puzzle League (GBA: NC on NS2)

• Played on Thursday for ~15 minutes

I'm sure many of you have been there before. You're sitting in bed, late at night, scrolling through your library of games, looking for something low-energy to play for a few minutes before going to sleep. That was me Thursday night after spending the evening with family, then coming back to our hotel room for the night.

Ultimately, I decided to check out Dr. Mario & Puzzle League, which had been added to the GBA Nintendo Classics library earlier in the month, as I had intended to check it out, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. I love Panel de Pon, which is by far my most played game in any of the Nintendo Classics libraries thanks to me being somewhat addicted to it when it first arrived on the SNES app in 2020. I haven't played it in a while, though, so I enjoyed revisiting the Puzzle League gameplay I fell in love with a few years ago.

This version of Puzzle League is pretty neat, filled with different modes and a ridiculous amount of visual options that allow you to alter the look and behavior of the background. I made it so the background scrolls really fast to the point it was hard to look at. Funny stuff like that. Other than that, it's more of the same that I loved about Panel de Pon, just without the fairy characters.

I did briefly try the Dr. Mario half of the package out too, and I don't remember liking it much. I usually love Dr. Mario, but something about this version just felt wrong to me. I'd have to play it again to put my finger on it, but I didn't spend much time with Dr. Mario. Also, there aren't nearly as many different modes as Puzzle League offers.

Mario's Picross (GB: NC on NS2)

• Played on Thursday for a few mins

I love picross, I've purchased multiple of the Picross S games on Switch, and it's the perfect thing to jump into when I need a quick fix of, just, something. Boot up, solve a puzzle, feel satisfied, move on with my day. That's basically what this was.

Once I finished playing Dr. Mario & Puzzle League, I still had a bit more in me, so I combed through the Game Boy library and decided to spend a bit on Mario's Picross, a game I routinely come back to every now and then when I'm in the mood for Picross or just have nothing better to do (the latter in this case). This time, I solved one puzzle before deciding to call it a day and go to sleep.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (NS)

• Played on Sunday for approximately 15-20 mins

And finally, we have what ended up being my last session of the week. I had challenged someone to a round of Mario Kart, so on Sunday evening, we played through a Grand Prix in 8 Deluxe. Despite the best efforts of my Mario Kart World muscle memory (there were a lot of airborne trick button presses that did nothing), I managed to readjust pretty quickly and perform quite well.

Not much more to it than that, other than the struggles we had starting the game due to Virtual Game Card shenanigans, which led to me booting up Mario Kart World on my Switch 2 as a backup plan. I almost decided to be cheeky about this and include World in this log, labelled as 'played for a few seconds', but ultimately decided not to. Also, I feel it's worth mentioning that the estimated play time is a result of this not happening on my Switch, so I don't have access to the play time data. In situations like this and going forwards, I'll simply estimate how long I played for.

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And that should just about do it for the inaugural Byte-Sized Blog play log! This ended up being far more long winded than I anticipated, but that's just because I had a lot I wanted to say, even about the games I only played for a few minutes. It was a lot of fun reflecting on the time I spent playing games this past week and recalling not just the experiences I had, but the context of those experiences. I think it's not only interesting to talk about what I experienced, but where, why, and/or when I was having that experience. I'd say it adds another, personal layer to the conversation, and I hope it makes it as enjoyable to read as it was for me to write.

I'll be back next Monday for another one of these, hopefully having beaten Samus Returns, as well as providing some early impressions on Splatoon Raiders, which is due out in just a couple days!

Until then, happy gaming!