They’re always survivable until the story says they aren't.

I mean, I would argue that Marvel hasn’t really known what to do with the character for a long time, so the fact that they killed her off to show how serious the bad guy is seemed like an obvious (if disappointing and cliched) outcome.

Oh see while I used to play whatever the equivalent of “Ranked” was in Halo 3 (even getting to level 45 in one of the playlists, though I can’t remember which) I’ve long given up on that and just play in social/casual playlists these days. I’m not great but I feel pretty good about the number of matches I win and even…

Yeah, I mean, little Mario has always looked a little weird so I guess it’s par for the course but in the 2D games I feel like a lot of the time they either completely redesigned his head or just attached his full-size head onto a little body and I think both options work better than just squashing the entire model…

Feels like today’s Vulture article about how Phil Lord kept changing final & approved scenes over and over again leading to crazy crunch is probably worth adding to the discourse here: https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/spider-verse-animation-four-artists-on-making-the-sequel.html

Yeah I watched it for the first time a couple years back and it was a good time.

SPOILERS, I guess????

That’s fair, though I think that outside of Majora’s Mask and Breath of the Wild, few other games in the series have felt like Link is just one person in a much larger world

I’m pretty sure Sam Fisher actually shows up because I remember seeing some video clip where he’s chatting with the player character (and I think references Solid Snake???).

Yes! I was saying this elsewhere.

Look, I haven’t played the game since 2007 but I seem to recall having a gambit setup that made Vaan steal at the beginning of every battle before shifting into his combat instructions and I seem to remember that being because every monster had items that could be stolen. It led to me having tons of loot and easily…

Because we know how awful similar acquisitions have been not just in gaming but in countless other industries.

I mean, there is additional risk and cost to releasing a game on multiple platforms. It’s not like it was back in the day when a game was coming out on 7 different platforms at once but there is still a meaningful difference. I know you say there’s a “relatively small increase of cost” but it feels like that’s…

See, you should’ve challenged him to meet you on the Blitzball court.

Man I dunno what you were like at 17 but everybody I knew was a hugely awkward dork, and that includes everybody both in relationships and not. FFVIII still stumbles a little bit into the trope of “we’ll call them teenagers but basically just treat them as ‘cool’ adults” but when it comes to the romance subplot it…

Man, the Garden vs Garden set piece is still one of my favorites in the series.

See I think the point when you leave Midgar is exactly when FFVII starts dropping in quality though I won’t deny it’s a bit of a shock when you finally first step out onto the world map.

Aww I like the opera scene specifically for how ridiculous it is. Haven’t you read/seen plenty of other stories where one of the main characters miraculously looks like somebody that’s going to be kidnapped, so they swap them which leads to (often embarrassing) hijinx? The hardened soldier pretending to be a dancer or…

Ugh I forgot how annoying it was having to juggle your junctions every time the party changes. Having to change equipment and whatever is bad in every RPG when you change parties but it was worse with junctioning because of how granular the setups could be.

Vaan is very much the protagonist of the DS spin-off, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.