Mario's the perfect example. There are quite a few excellent Mario games (or entire Mario series!) that are not hop-n-bop platformers. As a Mario fan, I felt no sense of betrayal when Mario Kart, Mario RPG, and the various Mario sports games came out.

Your previous understanding of Japanese culture suggested to you that they wouldn't embrace Tingle to the point of giving him a spinoff?

"As a result, the game focuses more on action than heart, which would be fine for a new series, but taking this approach with the established Chibi-Robo is akin to making a Zelda game that fixates on playing music over talking to villagers and exploring dungeons. Chibi fights aliens much in the way Link always seems…

That's exactly the company it belongs in!

Looking forward to checking these out later!

I enjoyed "Hidden Salt Mine" and look forward to trying some other venerable Venerable Monk productions!

Great sequence!

Fortunately, I'm home now and don't need to worry about remembering my Nintendo ID and password!

As best I can tell from Wikipedia, something like this did in fact happen! At least, Andy Summers seems to have been offended that he wasn't contacted (but he isn't a credited writer on the song… is it typical to contact everyone who performed on a track when getting sample clearance?).

Mario Maker and Super Mario RPG for me! But I am having one of the rare Fridays where I actually have to get up and go, so no rambling from me today!

Wait, is the author under the impression that there's controversy over whether Puff Daddy "ripped off" The Police?

This is true and I will take responsibility for launching said thread for subsequent WAYPTW columns!

This is true, but also exactly what I had in mind when I said I was content to just read about it!

Excellent! I would try to say something thoughtful about the levels I've already tried, because I know I tried some and they were all great, but I did a big run of Gameologorino-levels last Friday night so it's hard for me to remember who did what and why I liked it!

I think they're mainly intended for online play: get three people together, hack and slash your way through a challenge.

Haha, I just meant that if the item was "Golden Sword" or something a little more generic, then "Rainbow Egg" would be an eccentric combination of words to grab at!

Man, are the Chalice Dungeons ever repetitive! First time I was ever content to just read about what was in them online and then not bother finding out for myself.

Looking forward to trying some of these! Do you mind if I ask you to remind me what your Mii's name is? I believe I'm following you but that you aren't "TheSingingBrakeman" on there…

This. Even just watching my girlfriend (because I cannot bring myself to slog through the last fifteen hours or so of the game) play through it (repeatedly, because she can't bring herself to not slog through the game with a new character every couple weeks), I can confirm that it's a much better ending for the game…

I remember being very proud of myself as a child when I worked out how to use Gwaelin's love to find the… magic item whose name I can't remember. Part of me wants to say Rainbow Egg, which is a really strange thing to guess if it isn't right.