I like this list since it focuses on the game adding more variety, and it isn’t about complaining about the weapon durability in Breath of the Wild.

Always glad to see you as the weekend editor, Peter, since you usually post a bunch of articles about older games. I haven’t played Crystalis (and probably never will), but it was a good read.

I actually thought that the Mana series, if it hadn’t died off, should’ve evolved into something akin to Ys VIII, so I was happily surprised to see the new Trials of Mana reminiscent of recent Ys games.

I don’t think that lack of awareness really explains why those listed franchises have died off. I’m sure that Japanese developers realize that Chrono is popular, but things got messy between Square and Masato Kato after Chrono Cross, and nothing has gone forward since. The Ogre series lost its steam after Matsuno…

It’s hard to say. No one could’ve imagined that Chris Bosh’s career would be cut short by blood clots. However, LeBron’s general managers (perhaps pressured by LeBron) all made win-now trades and signings that helped the teams in the immediate future but led to the eventual dysfunction I referred to earlier.

Jordan is the closest (and did it twice!), but I can think of no top player on a championship leaving for another team the very next season. However, Jordan retired, and he did come back to Chicago after the first retirement. LeBron left both Miami and Cleveland after winning championships, but not right after winning…

I wonder how many times Ichiro was only one home run short of a cycle.

No, I think people will forget that the Raptors beat an injury-stricken Warriors team...eventually. How well do most people today remember the context for the 1987 NBA Finals? What about the 1964 Finals? I feel like people are already starting to forget that the Warriors had a lot of good fortune when they beat the…

I’m no master of hacking games, but couldn’t Square just reverse-engineer code for their games based on online ROMs of their old stuff?

I’d say getting what is essentially a brand new game here is a sufficient feature...That said, I’m not buying it at its current price and will wait for a sale.

And it’s how easy to find instructions for these games online?

I’m a big Breath of the Wild fan, but it’s not exactly universally regarded as the best in the series, as it has many naysayers. I’m not sure there even is a Zelda game that’s definitively considered the best.

It is a new Zelda game. It’s just based on the same engine as the previous one. Anyway, sorry if you don’t especially like Breath of the Wild, but a Zelda in a totally new engine is not happening any time soon. You’ll have to wait five years or more for that, most likely. That said, I think it’s a bit early to get…

And it turned out the next one is Banjo-Kazooie.

When I replay Final Fantasy VII, I easily finish the Midgar section in less than five hours. What kind of ridiculous filler will they put in the game to stretch five hours into twenty or thirty or more?

I don’t recall Square making Baldur’s Gate II.

And yet somehow the original FFVII appealed to a wide audience with its turn-based combat. Obviously, no turn-based combat games are going to be the top sellers if top-name developers don’t even try to make turn-based games. In this case, it’s the Final Fantasy VII name that will sell the game, not the combat, be it…

In other news:

Even if you get the PS4 versions of Cold Steel 1 and 2, there are no carryover plot options to Cold Steel 3, so you don’t have to buy the older games again. The game doesn’t start with a default romance, either, as far as I know.

The game credits in Cold Steel 2 just name Avery as “Production Coordinator,” but I was looking at her resume which lists her roles for Cold Steel 2 as “production manager, lead editor, marketing assistant, voiceover director,” etc. While resume credits are generally credited, I imagine what she put on her resume in…