Despite the title, Sleptember doesn’t deal with games that involve sleeping or dreaming, but instead games that were slept on: poor sales, no series or franchises, and no popular characters. It’s a hidden-gem month, baby! All of the games that that were nominated (including all three winners) followed these rules, hopefully giving us some unique gaming experiences and stories this month.
GotX is the Retro Handheld Discord‘s version of a book club, and this month we’re playing games that hopefully don’t suck. So come on in, sit down, and press Start!
What is GotX?
GotX is short for “Games of the X“, which can be split into three categories: Game of the Month (GotM), Game of the Quarter (GotQ), and Game of the Week (GotW). Games of the Month are chosen according to a theme selected by community users who have previously beaten a GotM game for the prior month, aka “GotM Champions”.
Three games in total are selected, each falling within a range of release dates, nominated and voted upon by the GotM Champions. Winners each receive their own thread in the GotM channels in the Retro Handhelds Discord, where discussions, arguments, and ultimately fun are had by all.
Game of the Quarter and Game of the Week are selected independently in styles that are slightly different from Game of the Month, and they also don’t follow the same theme as the Games of the Month. Games in these two categories have either a runtime of under two hours (GotW) or a minimum runtime of 25 hours (GotQ), according to HowLongToBeat.
Completing a game (by posting a screenshot with ending credits, a date, and your Discord username) gets you an imaginary internet point that can be redeemed towards very real merch on the RH Store.
Game of the Month (Pre-1996) – Shadowrun
- Console: Genesis
- Genre: Action RPG
- Time to Beat: 19 hours
An Action RPG developed by BluSky and published by Sega, Shadowrun is an adaptation of a tabletop RPG set in Seattle, WA. Joshua, a rookie shadowrunner (freelance operatives or mercenaries) is investigating the murder of his brother Michael. While technically the second in a series, behind Shadowrun released on the SNES, the games have no ties other than sharing the same universe.
Players must navigate a sandbox-style world, tackling randomized quests such as escort missions, package delivery, ghoul hunting, and matric hacking to earn money and experience. Players can choose from three archetypes – Samurai, Decker, or Shaman – to take on increasingly difficult combat encounters and side missions.
Game of the Month (1996-2001) – The Misadventures of Tron Bonne
- Console: PlayStation 1
- Genre: Action Adventure
- Time to Beat: 8 hours
Developed by Capcom, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne has players taking control of Tron Bonne – the antagonist from the Mega Man Legends game – as she and her servbots battle to rescue her brothers Teisei and Bon from the evil loan shark Lex Loath. Serving as a prequel to Mega Man Legends, Tron must lead her crew through criminal exploits such as bank robberies, raids, and treasure hunting, to earn the ransom to free her brothers.
Players will experience multiple stage types involving puzzles, action-adventure sequences, and even some light-collectathon gameplay. Along the way, Tron’s faithful Servbots will assist her in accomplishing these tasks. The Servbots comes with their own traits, are able to ransack houses or defeat minor enemies, and can even disobey Tron if they’re feeling a bit lazy. Tron can alter her Servbots’ skills through minigames, including a torture room (she is technically an antagonist).
Game of the Month (2002 and Later) – Shadow Hearts
- Console: PlayStation 2
- Genre: JRPG
- Time to Beat: 25 hours
The first game in a trilogy, Shadow Hearts is set in the early 1910s, and has players controlling Yuri Hyuga – a human with the ability to capture and transform into monsters – as he travels through China and Europe with Alice Elliot and others, battling Lovecraftian horrors attempting to remake the world. Players will travel through a variety of locales and environments, completing NPC-given quests and story-centric missions.
Shadow Hearts is a Japanese Role-Playing game, and as such involves turn-based battles consisting of a party of up to three members. Battles are triggered through random encounters, and involve a unique mechanic known as the Judgement Ring. Represented as a disc with different-colored areas, players will attempt to hit these areas as a spinning pointer passes over them. Each area has a specific effect, and missing them can weaken or cancel an action entirely. Spells and items can affect how the Judgement Ring looks and acts, potentially altering interactions and outcomes.
Game of the Quarter – Pokémon Diamond and Pearl
If you’re looking for a meatier game to sink your teeth into, then the Game of the Quarter has you covered. GotQ consists of games that meet a minimum criterion of at least 25 hours to beat according to HLTB. Each quarter, four games are pulled at random from an extensive list of games that meet the minimum criterion, and then community users vote on which game they’d like to play for the next three months.
Completing a GotQ will still net you a single point, but there is also an opportunity to earn two additional points if you manage to 100% the game by completing all of the achievements through RetroAchievements and posting this as an additional screenshot.
- Console: Nintendo DS
- Genre: Role-Playing
- Time to Beat: 26 Hours
For quarter three of 2026, we’re continuing to play Pokémon Diamond and Pearl (don’t worry, you only have to beat one). Pokémon Diamond and Pearl have you play as a new trainer traveling through the Sinnoh region, capturing and training Pokémon, while also thwarting the plans of the evil Team Galactic.
Along with new Pokémon to capture, Diamond and Pearl were the first Pokémon entries to introduce the physical/special split for Pokémon moves, a mechanic that would become a staple for generations to come. These were also the first Pokémon games on the Nintendo DS, followed shortly by the (vastly improved) Pokémon Platinum. These games also expanded on Pokémon abilities with passive effects, Pokémon Natures for further stat and growth customization, and were the first games to introduce Wi-Fi connectivity for global battling and trading!
Game of the Week, aka RetroBits
If short games and easy points are more your speed, then each Saturday at 5 PM PST, a new GotW is announced. Each game comes with a completion time of 2 hours or less, according to HowLongToBeat, and must be completed before the new GotW is announced the following Saturday.
Completion of the GotM and GotQ will earn you one point (three if you 100% the latter), but GotW will only net you half a point. Unlike the aforementioned GotM and GotQ, the GotW is chosen entirely at random by the GotX overlord Rapid99, selected from a large database of sub-two-hour games.
Above is an example of the four most recent GotW games that we’ve played in the Retro Handhelds Discord. Megaman: Battle & Chase is the most recent, and we’re still playing it from August 29, 2026, to September 5, 2026.
