The kid should know better, but the fact of the matter is that we’re still living in a time where there’s still a ridiculous amount of bigotry aimed at queer people—we’re getting better for sure, especially in the USA, but it’s not surprising. I just hope he’s able to grow up and learn and be better. Plenty of people…

Seconding this!

I think there’s a bit more to the gacha problem than just spending a few dollars a month on them (even as someone who plays Genshin Impact). Kotaku’s covered it before, as have other outlets, but it’s not as simple as “just pay a few dollars a month,” especially when impulse control (particularly for younger players)…

I’m glad that you guys changed the headline. I responded to Patricia on Twitter—I hope respectfully—but a large part of why I’ve visited Kotaku almost daily for 8+ years is that, no matter who’s writing, there’s not a lot of hyperbole. There’s snark, profanity, ridiculousness, honesty; you don’t pull your punches, but…

I was coming here to say something similar. I know the “godly” comment is because it mentions religion, but using “perfect” with it just sounds like they’re applauding Jamie Lynn Spears for clapping back when a)this is a situation about Britney Spears’s autonomy and mistreatment at the hands of multiple people…

Let’s be real here, it’s not actually that useful. It only lets you go from wherever you’re at up to the sky or from the sky to a statue; it’s not a function that allows you to travel to just any bird statue. The game has a ton of statues already, to the point that I remember leaving multiple statues untouched other…

I was literally mid-reply when I saw yours—I get the worrying about locking game content behind physical purchases, especially when it’s not a toys-to-life game like Skylanders or Disney Infinity, but fast travel has always been in the game, and the statues are pretty much never more than an enemy away.

If it helps, check out Binbok! My boyfriend finds the Joycons uncomfortable, and the most widely-available third-party ones are made solely for handheld mode. The Binbok controllers seem to be pretty decent quality; I used ‘em for a few days to make sure I wouldn’t have to return them, but they’re bigger and probably…

Yeah, it’s bizarre. The game definitely has its flaws, but I feel like a lot of Zelda fans like to insist it’s somehow the worst game ever, that there are no redeeming qualities, etc. It’s like Zelda fans are the opposite of Final Fantasy fans: the new games are always great and the old ones (save for Link to the Past…

Nah. The game that came out in the West as “Revelations: Persona” on PS1 changed character names (and races, in at least one case), locked a side-story quest away, and was made a bit easier than the Japanese release (fewer random battles, increased exp), but the gameplay and general storyline remained the same.

I mean, the version we got initially left out the Snow Queen side-story, but it’s not like they changed the combat or the main storyline overall. The game was made easier for the original US release (fewer encounters, increased experience), but if someone didn’t like the gameplay then, chances are they won’t like it…

Maybe I’m just getting old at the ripe age of 30, but I feel like Discord servers for these situations should be supplementary, not the main avenue of engagement. Being able to interact with people in realtime is great, but especially for something as big and diverse as just “video games,” I feel like message boards…

Oh god, vagina bones. I’m tired just thinking about it. Make a teenager less sexy and it’s nothing but cries about censorship, but any other changes? Nothing, almost always. Makes it really hard to give a shit when the “censorship in gaming” crowd gets going since any other form of censorship is routinely ignored...

Eh, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens less often than you might think. Japan’s one of those societies where people take a lot more care when it comes to the things around them--it’s part of why the country as a whole is so clean, why the crime rate is so low, things like that. Obviously the population isn’t a…

Welcome back, Patricia! I’m excited to see where the site goes with all of this in mind—I feel like it’s a natural progression for any form of gaming coverage considering how widespread video games are and how diverse gamers are as a group. They’ve always been that way (hell, the winner of the first-ever video game…

Yeah, at that point it’s pretty much just an issue of not being used to it. It’s just another thing to learn and get used to--it doesn’t have to sound normal to you right away, and it’s not like you have to be perfect about using it all the time, but making an effort goes a long way. Like someone else said, it’s all…

Oh, absolutely, yeah, I’m not disputing its importance, just wanting to highlight that the disconnect means that it might not be *quite* as impactful as it would here. Either way, I hope this can really help queer people over there feel even just a little more seen.

I don’t have a source for it (I can’t find any info about it atm), but I could have sworn I read somewhere years ago that Utada’s use of katakana is because of her dual citizenship. Not the legality of her being a US and Japanese citizen, but the way that it’s seen as separate from just being a Japanese person, even…

I mean, there’s more to gendered language than just pronouns and word endings. Utada themselves mentions forms and such where you’re required to fill in gender or you’re referred to in specific ways, though that’s mostly outside of Japanese, but there are still gendered words in Japanese—like in English, there’s a…

Maybe it’s just something to get used to? Even without the historical usage of it, we still use it nowadays (other than for non-binary people); if you hear a loud noise that you can’t see the source of, you might say “What are they doing over there?”, or if something goes wrong, you might say “I guess someone isn’t…