Good write-up, but oof, it’s rare for me to react so viscerally to an opening paragraph. I’m shocked that there are people who dislike 3D world. It’s honestly within my top 3 Mario games.

FYI the character’s name is Sakata Gintoki

I have a quick question about fusing personas--is it as extensive as in the mainline Persona games?  Or is the selection a bit more streamlined?

His comment on the camera controls also felt a little off to me. Like, the point of the game was that it was giving us a 2D-esque experience within a 3D world, so it makes perfect sense that we’d be given carefully curated camera angles instead of a free-range camera.

I’m probably an extreme minority but I really enjoyed the endgame of BD1.  As you said, it was a really neat idea...and I guess the gameplay didn’t bug me like it seemed to do for most other players.  I think what maybe a lot of people who bounced off the game didn’t realize is that they really change up the boss…

Your point about cold Chicago pizza might be an acquired taste.  As a lifelong Chicago resident, I (and all of my friends/family) will absolutely chow down on cold leftover deep-dish for breakfast.

Didn’t realize that Gawker Media was the Phantom Thieves.  Joking aside, congrats on a great run, Stephen!

Remember when Yoko Taro asked people to send him screenshots of 2B’s butthole?

Haha, wow, “condescending and *terrible*” was not what I was going for, but to each their own! To be fair, I simplified a lot of what’s actually going on...like, utilizing Cloud’s Operator and Punisher modes is pretty nuanced, and stacking Tifa’s skills can make her standard attacks hit like a ton of bricks. It…

Take this from another old man yelling at the clouds for more turn-based JRPGs—7R *is* turn-based. None of the commands are based on button combinations. Everything is chosen from a menu (sure, you can map commands to various button combinations but it’s not necessary—I completely skipped out on that, for example).…

So the big question is, will Ash play through it all in the last week it’s available?

I guess I’ll start dumping money into Coinye

I spent the better part of 2020 playing through Yakuzas 0-6, and the jump from Kiwami 2 to 3 was rough.  Muscled through it because the story was cool, but it was far from a pleasant experience.  4 and 5 were definitely improvements.

Yeah, for sure.  It’s like we’re being penalized for actually supporting the WiiU

Man, this needs to be a standalone download

Shenmue 3, which I’m about halfway through and is not nearly as bad as people made it out to be.  It’s not great, mind you--just not the complete disaster the internet has made it out to be

Fantastic use of that gif lol.  I wholeheartedly agree!

I’m in a similar boat.  I would love to be able to buy Bowser’s Fury by itself.  3D World was really good, but I don’t have much of a desire to buy/play it again.

I would highly recommend the Donkey Kong Country race.  Very tight race (the runners were within 5 seconds of each other for the vast majority of the race)--very exciting!  And fantastic commentary by two of the standouts in the community.

Nice article, but WOW I did not need to think about Yoshi’s cloaca.