As you likely know, videogames are very important to me. I've played them all my life, though I'm only good at a couple through a lot of focused practice. Sonic Adventure 2, Gi Joe: The Atlantis Factor, Super Mario World are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that I would say I've had mastered at one point or another, though I definitely haven't kept up.

There are a few videogames I never finished that I very much enjoy though. Usually longer ones that ended up being tossed aside during a depression spiral.

Well, I've decided to finish a few of them this year. Just to see it through.

At the top of my list is Ravenloft: Stone Prophet. This is the sequel to Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, and is a first person soft horror RPG based on the Ravenloft campaign setting for DnD.

The world of this game is an open desert with an ancient Egyptian aesthetic, wandering and battling horrible undead that wander the wastes while unraveling the puzzle of how to get home and save the denizens from a terrible plague.

It features a lot of cool characters to meet and scary dungeons full of horrible monsters. It's very primitive by modern standards, but it's a solid game.

I tried to finish it in the 7th grade, but the traumas of that year eventually built to a point that I couldn't maintain my concentration on anything, even things I enjoyed. I attempted to finish it again in 2015, but it stopped working on that computer for reasons I never figured out.

One thing that makes it challenging are how mazelike some of the dungeons are, how you have to collect a lot of small items and how easy it is to miss hidden door switches in the walls. But I think I remember where most of them are.

This one really shouldn't be on the list, as it would not take very long at all to finish, but I've just never taken the time. Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder is the arcade sequel to Golden Axe (as opposed to the console sequels which I have played profusely). It features some really nice graphics and is a bit more faster paced than the first Golden Axe.

It's very sword and sorcery in its aesthetic; Conan-esque. You can play as a giant with a dwarf on their back, a centaur witch, and some generic dudes I never paid attention to.

I played through a great deal of it back in 2011 or so, but ended up focusing on school and never finishing it, even though it would only take a couple hours. I love a good arcade brawler, but I have developed a bit of a challenge to staying focused on a game for an extended period. Luckily with emulation and save states I can take it very slowly.

So you would expect me to have finished this one long ago already, considering how big of a fan I am of the series. Final Fantasy V is a really good game, like most of the Final Fantasy games. They are always high quality with a lot of polish on top of a solid, well thought out design.

Final Fantasy V is no exception, from the moment you press the start button, you're embroiled in a charming lighthearted adventure with an interesting cast of characters. It may be a little dated, having more in common with Final Fantasy IV than VI, but is a fun romp nonetheless.

One of the reasons I never finished it is because when I first got into emulation in the late 90s, there was no English translation for it. FF5 was one of the games that did not have a localization at the time, and the fan translation community was in its infancy. A fairly primitive translation was released, but contained a lot of errors and odd choices. FF5 was eventually officially translated and released for the Playstation, and I borrowed it from another kid in the 8th grade, but the long loading times for a SNES game just served to annoy me, and a disk glitch in the graveyard of ships made me lose interest.

I tried playing the game again in 2017, when I was undergoing a particularly dark period of my life, and had gotten more than halfway through the game, but the computer I was using at the time had a malfunction and ceased to turn on.

I do look forward to it, I always get such a kick when you start the game and see the opening credits while the main character rides a chocobo through an open plain.

My anxiety has heightened recently because of "it all" but I have found it easier to focus on videogames as a result. It might be a good time to finish these stories after leaving them gathering dust for so long.