Ah man, I really wish this game worked better.  I've been trying to get my friends to try CK2 for years but the sheer learning curve and complexity was a turnoff for them.  So I was hoping a simplified boardgame that captured the essence of the game would be great, but looks like this isn't it.

I don’t disagree with your overall commentary, that adding unnecessary system complexity makes an overall system more likely to catastrophically fail, than a simple system where failure is obvious and immediately detectable (thus less likely to be catastrophic).

The Postman was a terrible nonsensical movie.  Haven’t played Death Stranding yet.

It’s funny, as a guy who only had time to play 5 or 6 titles a year and plays almost exclusively RPGs or strategy titles, 2019 seemed like an amazing year.

From a culinary perspective, the unfortunate thing about Italy is that they are closed minded about eating anything but Italian food, so the international food scene sucks ass. There was a poll that indicated that like 60% of Italians have never eaten anything BUT Italian food in their entire lives, and many more many…

Tie Fighter was better than X Wing. It was amazing, and the only game I think comes close to competing with KOTOR. The narrative was really interesting and fundamentally different from almost any other Star Wars video game, in that it unabashedly presents you as a true believer on the “bad” side, who never switches…

The post-fight resemblance is uncanny.

Luz Long was more than kind to Owens. In defiance of other Nazi athletes routinely ignoring or belittling their non-Aryan competitors, Long hugged Owens after Owens beat his mark to win Gold, locked arms with Owens to walk him to the locker room, and held his shoulder congratulating him in front of the international…

I generally agree with this viewpoint, but there’s a few important distinctions that make the rising sun flag marginally more defensible than the Swastika.

Speaking as a Japanese dude, you have no idea what you’re talking about. The rising sun motif is a major source of controversy between Japan, Korea, and China in particular. Whether in popular culture or anything else, anything that includes the rising motif is subject to huge backlash in Korea in particular, where it…

Drew Magary did a fantastic profile of Stephen A over at GQ.

Tbf, I do recall Jemele Hill referring to Stephen A a number of times as a friend.

Btw,if you haven’t played the Trails series, you are seriously missing out. Trails of Cold Steel was right in my wheelhouse, Jason described it on Kotaku as “Persona meets Suikoden” which I think is a very apt description.

Funny enough, it’s definitely not a voice acting problem, since I’m playing the game 100% in Japanese, including Japanese text. English is actually my second language, I’m Japanese-American (yes a Japanese 30-something who’s never played Dragon Quest).

I didnt mean that the game requires you to grind, but that non boss battles feel like a grind. Everytime I got pulled into a battle, I was like ugh...

I just had a really hard time getting into DQXI. I am a big JRPG fan, but I never played DQ games before, and I heard so many good things about the franchise I had high Hope’s.

Condolences, wishing you the best.

That’s definitely not true of Japan, having lived in Japan and the US. There are many things that work way better in Japan (affordable high speed internet, great healthcare for everyone), but consumer protections is something Japan does very poorly.

That’s largely correct, although there’s been a move in both Western Europe and Japan to gradually introduce similar concepts.  Basically, class actions are really good for consumer protection--without it, it’s a lot easier for corporations to get away with cheating their consumers by nickle and diming.

I gotta be honest, when Deadspin went down, that was a rough couple of days.