Brought to you by Chunky, the feral cat.

So many people seemed to think themes have to be direct allegory or symbolism. :(

To add onto to all the spectacular unconfirmed game rumors, I want to call out one of my favorite places on the internet, World of Nintendo Fun Stuff section.

It's not necessarily about intentional themes put into stuff. Whenever anyone makes media, they're making something shaped by their own beliefs and ideas and baggage, subtly or not, and it can be interesting to suss that out and see how it affects the sorts of stories we tell. There are definitely richer games out…

…actually yeah, that's totally right. Though I guess it doesn't crop up until the absolute last minute in the first game, and the fear isn't really about the future of technology and what direction we're taking society. It's more like some ancient biblical threat. There's some thread there linking everything together…

Yes for Mario! Nothing is produced in a vacuum, and everything has some extra layer you can take away from it. The tired "Mario is like taking drugs" argument is boring, but you could totally read something into, maybe, the way it portrays a good kingdom versus an evil kingdom and whether there's any real difference,…

I'm most interested in the plateau that Legends reached, mostly because you don't see a lot of sci-fi that just shrugs at futuristic technology rather than treats it as a mystery, threat, or societal cure-all. It might help that Legends is sort of a post-civilization game that takes place in really isolated pockets of…

I really wanted to like those games, but I couldn't get more than halfway through Mega Man Zeno.

This has always been my fall pumpkin-patch-and-cider song, and now I think we have to fight to the death?

In the interest of more non-Nintendo, non-Final Fantasy choices, I present the menu theme from the 1997 Frogger reboot.

I've watched Deadfall for the Cage, and although he's at peak, sublime Cageosity, it's an absolute slog of a movie otherwise. The scenes without him are inert. Once Cage [spoilers] dies from being thrown into a deep fryer midway into the movie, we just turned it off. If you've seen the highlight reel, there's really…

There's a lot of reward in stopping to look through denser scenery, but I have to agree that speed and beauty aren't always exclusive. Games love to paint with big strokes, and I find that the level of detail in those game environments tends to be tailored to whatever the typical movement speed is, with natural breaks…

Yeah, I'd thought about that… Myst came out before enough people considered those issues, but I wonder if the remakes address it. (Probably not, but at least it's a learning example?)

At every intersection, there's a little sound that plays in the background indicating the right direction. For the first couple stretches, the layout makes it easier to figure out which path is correct (you get three different sounds in a row right at the start, with only one dead-end). It's really fun to follow audio…

I couldn't think of a good answer until I read this. Yes, Battletoads. The rewind feature in Rare Replay is essential.

God, I'm always the odd one out on this, but I LOVED the mazerunner. Maybe I just caught onto the audio cues quickly for some reason, but I always thought it was one of the more intuitive, clever puzzles in the games.

There's actually a game sort of like this! Pwn Adventure 3 is an MMO that can be played the normal way, but the server is purposely unsecured so players can go to town and do basically whatever they want.

The only thing I knew about this series was that it's colorful and happy, and I never expected it would get so heavy. It's amazing that the remake, rather than coasting on the bright imagery (which, like you said, is what it's known for now), actually leaned into psychological side of it. Nostalgia tends to flatten…

I had the same fear when I replayed it about 2-3 years ago. It's all quicker than I remembered, but it was still just as sweet at heart. The scenery, monsters, and so forth are also still a good level of outlandish and creepy.

Girard's right: still many puzzles, but they feel less… external, I guess? The games does have a supernatural element, but the events of the challenges of the game are usually practical situations (I've also only played the first one).