The parent in me: alright, so you can beat this game in eight minutes, but did you have fun?

I literally disagree with his point, but I didn’t miss it. The fact that the movies were standalone means that they were produced one by one, and that affected the production time. For connected movies, some of them are produced one by one (Star Wars films, the Godfather) and some are produced all at once or as sets…

The point is that the delays between movies like The Dark Knight trilogy is explicitly because the sequels are not planned from the get go.

So you're going to be like that. OK.

No, I didn’t miss your point. Here’s why I focused my attention as I did.

I never played those! I did play Mass Effect though, and its development was envisioned as a trilogy from the start too.

I wouldn’t think they’d pursue this level of expansion for other parts of the game. Midgar as a location is exceptionally large and intricate, whereas Kalm and most other locations would not upscale nearly that much. Even Junon is (maybe) the size of a single sector of Midgar.

Right. The rest of disc 1 unfolds as a slow shaggy dog story with some standout locations. The center of focus remains Midgar, which is a setpiece for everything that is wrong with Shinra and the current state of affairs, as well as an extended snapshot into what Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aeris, and the others fight for.

And typically when you’re getting one long, connected story in a movie trilogy they come out on an annual basis (if not faster) and are filmed at one time.

So I’ve done the episodic thing before. Xenosaga was like that. Several other games have done similar things, like the Trails series. I won’t say that it was the most fun to wait for the story to continue, but I typically found those games and endings satisfying, provided they didn’t just end (Xenosaga Episode II). In…

More than anything, comments surrounding this game have reminded me that people have a deep-seated inclination to privilege one of two perspectives:

Yup. Or this ice-cold jam:

One of these games features a gorgeous and gradual deconstruction of the role of the boss in player narrative. The main character fights behemoths that seem to menace the player even as they have (perhaps, offscreen) a life of their own. Meanwhile, these bosses punctuate what otherwise appears at first glance to be…

The local Gamestop where I grew up smelled like something between an old Subway shop and a leather store.

Oh, that’s Candy Tails, the new candy product from Cinco!

Looks like all us X-Boneheads are going to trace some rays!

Why doesn’t body paint fit on Twitch?

I don’t see why you object to body paint streamers as a particular. Doesn’t Twitch as a whole partly profit off of “kids with mom’s credit card info?” If they’re not nude, and thus not in violation of the rules as written, merely profiting off of some kids who use parents’ credit info doesn’t justify their ban.

sighs in PS4

Who is blowing this out of proportion? Atlus chose to do this themselves. I support the choice because I don’t find homophobic stereotypes that funny and it’s a missed opportunity for a cool Mementos mission, but it’s small fry.