What’s up, everyone?
It’s already September!
It’s been a gruesomely hot summer, and while I’ve spent the last two months hacking away at the illustrious Final Fantasy Tactics for PlayStation, I am greatly excited for late September to bring in the cool air and a new season.
My wife is quite the fan of “spooky season”, a newish term dubbed from the Autumn season and Halloween holiday. She’s already started decorating the house in appropriate seasonal attire.
Yeah, she’s obsessed with that time of year. That’s when she gets a power boost and starts counting down the days to her favorite holiday.
Not to mention, her birthday is that month, too.
Being the husband to someone with such a special affection towards color-changing leaves, horror flick marathons, national cosplay day, and pumpkins everywhere — I can’t help but to have some of that passion rub off on me as well.
I’ve never been big on any particular holiday, but watching my wife get extraordinarily happy during the months of September to December for the last 10 years has had a significant affect on me.
Ever since October of 2021, I’ve made an effort to play more of my “horror” type games on my backlog.
Since I’m not super big on being scared absolutely shitless, I tend to play games that lean more on the celebration of the Halloween (spooky) season, rather than playing something straight up scary as hell.
As an example, I’ve played games more along the lines of Luigi’s Mansion and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask… games that are not “horror” genre, but still have dark tones.
This helps me appreciate the Halloween season without having to worry about pissing my pants while playing a game.
It also helps with chipping away at backlog titles that would be perfect for this time of year.
What I’m doing differently this year is easing my way into October with increasingly spookier games.
Starting off September, I’ve decided to play Dante’s Inferno.
While, by no means, a horror game, it deals with the concept of going into Hell and fighting damned creatures like minotaurs, demons, and most importantly… unbaptized babies… horrific infants with sharp blades as hands.
Even though it’s not a horror game, it’s still only early September. It’s a perfect game to start easing into the holidays as things become scarier, colder, and more orange outside.
Other thematic titles that would be perfect for this time of year would be series like the Castlevania, BioShock, Danganronpa, Mother, and Metroid games.
These games aren’t particularly horrifying in their own right, but still deal with dark themes such as death, super natural beings, isolation, and extraterrestrial invasion.
September is a fantastic month to get through some of those early semi-horror, dark, or disturbing games that don’t have jump scares or chase sequences that have you leaving your lights on at night.
I encourage everyone to begin celebrating the early spooky season with some lite-horror backlog games.
As we get closer and closer to Halloween, I’m hoping to squeeze in Resident Evil and Silent Hill… but only time will tell with Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai Infinity Strash launching September 29. The only scary thing about that is trying to squeeze it in before the REAL horror games enter my rotation.
What are you guys planning to play this Spooky Season?
Let me know!
