I think the S/M comparison is a very good one. There are other clubs that people can go to if they don’t want to and there are certain things that people come to games for that wouldn’t be satisfied by easier games.

this was me with Xenoblade 2, because there is no codex on lore or mechanics (both of which are absurdly overcomplicated) anywhere within the game itself.  After a couple of weeks away, I had to restart the game.

This is the first time I’ve seen NME’s gaming coverage quoted.  Are they more respected in this field than I was aware of, or did Rolling Stone’s piece not run on time?

I’m coming to this because I want it to make me miserable and beaten in the short term. There should *absolutely* be easier options for players who want them, but if I’m not metaphorically pushing a boulder up a spiked mountain without shoes on, the game can get fucked and I’ll go play Tetris or something instead. I…

All that and he never really gave a definition of ‘highly processed’ any more than anyone gives one of ‘processed’

I thought it was just pandemic malaise, but no.  It just wasn’t very compelling.

Platinum is 100% the gold standard for gaming companies (jokes fully intended). They know their thing, they do it well and they’re more about quality product than artificial growth or trends. One of the only companies whose name will get me interested in a product.

I always equated this album to Scott Walker’s final works. Not in any specific song or sound, but in the way it sounds so disturbing and unbound by genre. Also, there are parallels to how it fits into the context of their career, I feel. Shame that Walker had 3 or 4 records like this and it seems like Portishead will…

Kinda funny that this relic system, which seems to be the biggest difference from Hades (at least the way that it’s described), sounds an awful lot like the system used in Transistor, a previous Supergiant title.

I believe Steam was mentioned at one point in the article.  But I can’t find it off the top of my head.

to be fair, the first one was a well-done smoothie of pretty familiar mid-’10s gameplay elements that got shoved into the blender that is Sony. I don’t understand the logic of it being revolutionary. But the Dinobots looked cool, so I guess that gave it a little bit of a novel shine.

I had been wondering about this, actually. I figured the odds were pretty high that this would be the case—after all, can’t you play on DLC-linked stages for Smash? I thought you could, but I haven’t played Smash in forever.

No, but her ex- was.... and he was pretty steamed when she left him.  Ever heard of the cock-blockchain?

I wish they’d shown the game “in action”. I’m more eager to see if and how they’ve cleaned up Xenoblade’s perpetually overly complicated, chaotic and repetitive gameplay systems. I do enjoy it— it is glorious overstim... but it is an absolute fucking mess and at best, you are surfing a wave that you have no control…

Torna was so much better than XC2 that it confused me.  Some of the improvements were so obvious that it made me feel like they were holding back on the main game.  I’d actually say it’s better than XC1.  

Exactly. The bones of 8 are extremely solid. I’m sure part of the reason for making the Deluxe version was greed/laziness, but it definitely wasn’t all of it, you know? I don’t know what 9 would bring to the table, and it’s possible that it would end up being a dumbass idea like ‘cars turning into tanks’ that just…

I had no idea.  That’s impressive.

Only thing I’d want from a sequel is new tracks.  This is new tracks for half the cost.  It’s a win.

That’s a pretty fair point.

Yes! That’s the one. I know it’ll never happen, but I really love it when Nintendo takes weird chances on their offbeat IP and I will encourage them to do so at every opportunity.