If they were to do a current gen HD remake of VII, I would only accept the glorious original design for Cloud, complete with sleeveless turtleneck, high-waisted relaxed fit work pants, and suspenders and a belt.

Have you ever listened to Takeharu Ishimoto's soundtrack for Crisis Core? It's fucking terrific. I've never even played the game, but I downloaded the soundtrack anyway, it's that good. There are a lot of lovingly remade tracks from the original game, and the original material is really great as well. A taster's…

The only thing that weirds me out about the cooking is the occasional reference to real world cuisine. Like, some characters like "Japanese" or "Chinese" or "Western" food. Like what, how do they know about China, exactly how do you get to Japan from this magical world full of talking dogs

Suikoden II's cooking is terrific. I especially love that it's used to give a random selection of the supporting characters a little extra characterization when they appear as judges. Learning that so-and-so prefers mild food or such-and-such has a sweet tooth or whoever-else prefers fish to meat gives them that…

Triple Triad nothing, the true king of Final Fantasy minigames is Chocobo Hot and Cold. I swear that on my every IX playthrough I spend at least as much time playing CH&C as I do pursuing the main story. Every time I play I learn new neat little tricks and shortcuts too. It's possible to get some preposterously good…

Argh, that reminds me, I wanted to thrown in my own Final Fantasy ranking, but I haven't played them all, and after my top 5 or so I always just want to go "aaaaand the rest," because I don't want to spend too much time agonizing over which of my least favourite games in the series are more my least favourite than the…

Apparently it's possible to complete Clive's sidequest without missing anything in the main game by strategically exploring only those areas that become inaccessible later and leaving everything that can wait until after the quest is finished. The quest itself just seems way too stressful and sustained though. A little…

It weirds me out too for sure, and it earns a second black mark for the almost unforgivably bad design of the series' first female Cid, but for what it's worth the cast is actually really charming. I hope the party gets an injection of gender diversity in the full game, though, since Square is usually really good…

I heard someone say Suikoden and I came as fast as I could.

1) True. Depending on the setting and tone they're usually either straight up road trips or the high fantasy equivalent. Treks? What I'm loving about XV so far, or at least the sense I get of it from the demo, is that it's really going to draw a line under the whole "it's the journey not the destination" platitude.…

Bravely Default was seriously my GOTY contender for its first half, but as soon as I hit that second half all the affection I had for it drained right out of me. It plays like a dream, and it does some absolutely genius things with the JRPG formula, but that "now do it again but properly this time" story twist was…

I've been debating picking up Monster Hunter 4 myself. I've never played a Monster Hunter game before, but the last time I jumped into a series I had never played just to investigate the hype it was Dragon Age: Inquistion, a game that I'm already replaying a second time and have two more replays already planned for…

Man I have really got to go back to Dishonoured some day. I played it for about six hours back when it first came out, and liked it enough, but I was trying to go for a pure pacifist stealth run my first time through and the mechanics clearly lean more towards strike-from-the-shadows style stealth. I kept learning all…

I was actually having some thoughts in this vein while continuing my current DA: Inquisition playthrough. I locked in the Dorian romance not long ago, so I've now seen two of the game's "sex" scenes, and they're a massive improvement over previous Bioware titles. I put sex in sarcastic air quotes because, well,…

The PS3 port of Mass Effect is a bit of a creaking disaster, really. It always feels like it's a hair's breadth from crashing altogether, and it often does. My last time playing it I struggled with Saren as well. I could get through the entire boss fight no problem, but the ending just would not load properly. What's…

When I first finished Dragon Age: Inquisition a few weeks back I hit the internet to dig up some old conversations, theories, art, general fan shit, and found instead probably the highest density of complaints I've ever seen on the internet. I seriously don't understand it, Bioware is, as far as I'm concerned, one of…

All of this reminds me that TCAF is around the corner again. I met D.G. and Gran there a couple of years back, and got a couple of sketches off them. I was too ashamed to tell D.G. that my favourite work of hers is still her rinky-dink little Metal Gear comics she made back when she was called hiimdaisy, I imagine…

At the time I was missing out on all of them, although I've since gone back and played most of the all-time greats. I got to Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger through their GBA/DS versions (both great. The hype is real!) and played a lot of Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island at Uni. Through the Virtual Console I…

I would probably have to go waaaaay back. I talk a big Sega Genesis game, but my first ever console was actually a NES, and my NES library was a bit shameful. I had a couple of rippers- Mario 1 and 3, Duck Hunt, that Rescue Rangers game- but also a lot of dross- Bayou Billy, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, etc. If I…

I feel the exact same way about Mass Effect. I didn't play the series until Mass Effect Trilogy came out for the PS3, and I didn't pay much attention to the series when I wasn't playing it. I was aware of the ME3 ending whining, because avoiding the topic was impossible for a while there, but I didn't really feel that…