Mals' Gaming Reviews

📄︱March 2026 Recap

Coming to the end of this March, I think this month had been the worst month of this year so far. Whereas January and February were mostly playing some new games―revising some other ones as well as college work being apart of such, this month felt... Stressful, annoying, and strenuous. Almost every non-college day, I was doing the same thing over and over again, with the afterthought that I could be doing something productive, such as working on the programming for my indie games, or drafting some ideas for games I want to review. I didn't even have much to think about in terms of such! I think the reason for this burnout is because of the higher priorities maintaining good grades on college work this time and around, but man this is so stressful to deal with. I did go to my local library to help me focus on what I need to focus on the most regarding my college work as well as gettng some ideas of reviews to work on, but sometimes the visits didn't even do much to help. Overall, I just think that this month was all just a nothingburger and a whole thirty-one days of emptiness...

...until the reveal of Arle in Sonic Racing Crossworlds.

※ Arle's Sudden Inclusion in Sonic Racing Crossworlds

March 16th, a Monday within the middle half of the gaming month saw an announcement that changed everything. It was some characters that will be appearing in one of Sega's recent spinoffs: Sonic Racing Crossworlds. If I recall correctly, it was Red from Angry Birds (though it uses the movie model and not the classic one), some character from Yakuza, and most importantly, Arle from the Puyo Puyo series. The other two were fine additions, but Arle'sinclusion was more remarkable than the others. You'll understand if you're a Puyo Puyo fan reading this.

But for those who require additional context, I'll refer back to my last monthly blog post where I've discussed how there was this Puyo Puyo 30th anniversary stream that showed some new stuff coming to the series but gave absolutely nothing in terms of interesting content such as new games in the series or something that everyone can latch and participate in without it being exclusive to Japan. The only "major" thing that occured was that Arle was going to be put as a decal in Sonic Racing Crossworlds, and this upset fans of the series like myself Puyo Puyo has never had proper representation in any of Sega's other franchises. As a result of this, fans started a #Arle4Crossworlds tag on Twitter and other places in hopes that Sega will listen to this (since the creators of Puyo Puyo don't have control over what happens with Crossworlds) and put her in the game. And fast forward to the aforementioned date, I get a ping from my friend about Arle's Inclusion in Crossworlds.

Arle from Puyo Puyo
The last time I've ever been this excited for something was the March 2025 Nintendo Direct with BOTH the release of Gradius Origins and Rhythm Heaven Miracle Stars.

Her inclusion in Crossworlds changed the scope of March for me; It was if I've had a massive mental shift in my brain for how exited... no ESTATIC I was for seeing one of my favorite franchises of all time finally having proper representation in a IP of Sega's be applied cause of the things I've mentioned. Sure, Puyo Puyo originally wasn't a Sega IP at first, but at some point Sega took the rights to the Puyos and the characters, whcih meant they had control over what games she has and appears in, and now that I think about Crossowlrds, she can finally DRIVE IN THE SAME GAME THAT STEVE FROM MINECRAFT AND SAGE FROM SONIC FRONTIERS IS IN. I don't even have Crossworlds, but due to her inclusion in this game, it honestly makes me which to have it and have more hope for Sega caring more about their second most money making franchises of all time than anything else I do or don't have high hopes for. With her includion in Crossworlds, it literally changed how the rest of March went for me with everything I've said in the beginning be completely redundant.

New Games, Revisited Games, and New Discoveries

After the big announcement, I've started working more on the Puyo Puyo Tetris review and the Steam Spring Sale occured. Despite that, I didn't have enough money to get the games that really mattered to me, so I unfourtanately had to resort through other means to get some fo the games on my wishlist, with the intention of purchasing them again once I DO have the money since I won't ever do this for malicious reasons. One of the games I've gotten was Gradius Origins since as I've said, that's been something I've been wishing for since the Nintendo direct where its been announced. I got it specifically for Salamander III, and after going through my first loop, I already had a bunch of things to say about the game, enough for me to make a quick review on it, posting it on my Bear Blog as per usual. I also finished Super Mario Galaxy shortly after, and as for the other games I'm going to play throughout April, I'm going to finish the ones I've revisited and maybe tackle Galaxy 2 at some point later down the road since I have other priorities. I do also want to mention that Transiruby was one of the other games I've gotten since that's another Skipmore game, but I don't have much thoughts about that one just yet. Still looking forward for it though, but that's pretty much all I have to say for this blog for now.

NEW/Revisited Games I've played and/or reviewed this month:

Note: I've started playing these games in date order.

New

Revisited