Spooky season is here, and to celebrate we are kicking off October with a look at one of the oldest horror themed video game franchises (that also just celebrated a 40th anniversary) - Ghosts 'n Goblins! We cover the early games on NES, Genesis, and SNES that everyone knows and loves. Wait, does everyone love them? I thought so, but maybe not... We then cover some of the spin-off games with the Gargoyle's Quest and Maximo series before getting back into the more recent traditional releases on PSP and modern consoles.

And if that's not enough Ghosts 'n Goblins content for you, we dive really deep into some obscure offshoots with some True or False trivia. So grab your dagger, and your - oh shoot I accidentally grabbed my torch. No one likes the torch. Well anyway, keep playing until the dagger shows back up and then join us for this deep dive - of Ghosts 'n Goblins!

For our 5 year anniversary special we took a look at our backlogs and voted a single game for each person to finally beat and cross off the list. On this episode we see what everyone's true colors are and if they actually stood by their word to play those games. Does Brian finally beat Elden Ring? Does Darkside finally play Metal Gear Solid 4? Does Sonic Frontier have a chance of meeting Melbro's hype game expectations? Tune in to find out all that and more!

But before we get into all that, we take some time to look at our fantasy bracket and how our games list of 2025 releases is doing. For some of us, it's not going too well. Who would have know The Hobbit: Tales from the Shire would be a bust? If you want to check out our Fantasy roster, please check us out by going to www.fantasycritic.games and searching for 'The Beats'.

The Beat of the Month crew is back with 8 playable characters! We go over the fighting games that we played during July - some good, some bad, some TOASTY! We are joined this episode with friend of the show Smoo who shares some of his fighting game wisdom. So get ready to spam Hadoukens and build up that Special Meter as we beat each other into submission!

Shooting, killing, mayhem - you won't find any of that here. The Beat of the Month crew decided to take it easy this month and focus on playing games that we found relaxing. We cover a variety of relaxing games such as A Short Hike, LocoRoco 2, Ori Will of the Wisps, and more! So take a break from the pressures of every day life, and come relax with us as we talk about games old and new.

The Beat of the Month Crew finally make our way into Hades and live to tell the tale! We start off with a general overview of the game, get into some of our favorite strategies, and have a somewhat heated discussion on if Hades is deserving of its Game of the Year accolades. We round things off with some Hell themed trivia as well. Whether you are excited to finally be able to play on Playstation or Xbox or you've escaped dozens of times already on Switch or PC, you'll find something to enjoy!