Speaking of local weather, I'll be in your neck of the woods in a couple of weekends if you want to try to come down to lovely Newton!

Thanks! That will be my motivation for finishing soon. (Heck, I might just buy it early, but we'll see…)

In Breath of the Wild, I definitely did more fast traveling as I got more familiar with the world and started to need specific things from specific areas. However, I still wandered regularly, and even surprised myself with paths I'd forgotten or hadn't seen.

Not me!

I think the one thing we do have that's truly special is we don't have a single "bad apple" that spoils the peck. Sure, we get the occasional commenter that is looking to bait someone into an argument, but the way this group, without dissent, universally rejects that behavior and lets them quietly fade away is…

A new season has begun: we are now in the midst of DL's Double-Down Summer (3DS)! Before I share details of how I'm celebrating, I should mention the big news that allows the 3DS to take the spotlight:

I've been trying to enjoy fighting games more in the last five years as well. Dead or Alive: Dimensions on 3DS actually had a campaign/story mode that tried to teach specific moves, techniques, and even different characters. With the zany story in between, it was fun even if it did sometimes get some "lucky button…

Yeah, it was apparently the romantic way to commit suicide back then.

That's the ending of "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather.

Great call on the Battle Mode this month! Wonderful way to showcase what makes DX unique.

Oh… you're confusing Hinoxes with the Taluses! A large Stone Talus was the first giant I met, and was subsequently able to defeat. The Hinox is the giant ogre-looking monsters. Still slow like a Talus, but are more dangerous at close range.

From the few I've discussed it with, yes, but only as a last resort, and only once all hope is lost.

Maybe you will backtrack, but if it's anything like Breath of the Wild, then you won't care, and it will be a dozen times.

My DS library has a few Japanese titles that makes it all the richer, but there are so many great tactics and puzzle games (and even a couple of FPS like Call of Duty and Metroid Prime Hunters), that still haven't been matched yet for 3DS.

You're mostly correct. We do need a "public" face beyond the discussion groups so we can be found. I found 1.0 because of a Google search, but I would change your word "insulate" to "isolate" in that instance. We have worked to "insulate" ourselves here, by ignoring bad actors and not giving them ammunition to use…

To keep the community together, we at least have some options. We have the Gameological Steam Group, the AVoCado site, and the Gameological Discord Channel at:
https://discord.gg/RMkFDH6

There is a voice channel called "Nintendo" that we've used for Mario Kart 8 and any other Nintendo games you want to share with Gameological folks!

I was not much for board games until these cooperative ones came along. I'm too competitive, so when hope is lost in a board game I check out mentally and it becomes a slog. These cooperative ones, which are basically tactical RPGs that run at full-speed to the end, really work well for me, and knowing I can play them…

The worst is they seem to only show up right as I'm close to a Guardian or Hinox or Silver Bokoblin on horseback…

Let us know which ones your 5 year old liked best! Sounds like a good weekend of good games. Curious to know if they still resonate with children…