/comfort on Ramuh. 3,500,000 HP, comes with his own radiant shield that hits on every action (including defend), LOVES to spam -1 En-Earth, AND he can debuff your own heals by 50% in a key moment. At least everyone says he’s the toughest one of the 6* magicite bunch. That’s somewhat reassuring.

Yeah, fighting games aren’t really my thing either. From my limited perspective as a veritable outsider to the genre, I can only wholeheartedly recommend Street Fighter Alpha III once you hit the late ‘90s because there’s a pseudo adventure mode that lets you RPG up your stats to your liking, and the ‘isms boosts…

Re: Golden Axe, yeah, /comfort, a lot of brawlers hit a plateau in terms of design imagination pretty early on in their years and then settled there far too long. That’s probably a big reason why, sans the occasional River City Ransom/River City Girls homage or Dragon’s Crown or that blessed The Friends of Ringo Ishika…

That game sounds pretty darn cool. But I still want a Die Hard Monopoly entry.

Yep yep, so true. To me Corey is as integral to Shenmue as David Hayter is to Snake during the majority of MGS and Doug Cockle is to Geralt throughout the Witcher series. Those worlds just wouldn’t be the same without them. 

Thanks! Agreed completely on the many joys of Shenmue III. Even when the game gives you a progression barrier as stringent and old as the NES era RPG blockades, this gem still never loses its charm, nor the village its vibrant personality. “OK, maybe I’ll just go fishing for awhile or chop wood. Oh look, X has a…

Should you return one day to the Shenmue series, I hope you have a lot of fun with it. You’re not incorrect about the inherent dissonance of Ryo’s quest for vengeance being drowned out by the mundane world around which he traverses. It’s just that Shenmue’s deal is, that world IS the game. The vengeance is just a…

Too bad you can’t reply to the angry Sith Lords with this song’s chorus, huh?

hahaha, /comfort on the Labyrinth Zone. You’re not alone. So many kids back then were traumatized by Sonic suffocating while that timer went down over and over and over again. ~dun dun dah dah DUN DUN DAH DAH DUN DUN DAH DAH DUNNNN DUNNN DAHHH DAHHHH dundundundahdahdah DAH~!

Well said and I agree completely. There’s never been a lowkey detective game quite like the Shenmue series before, even after all these years, for better and for worse to the industry as a whole. Slice-of-life meets martial arts movie meets open world low scale mystery game CAN be more engaging and engrossing (see: Yak…

/comfort on the forklift racing sequence. Yeah, I think the forklift/Mad Angels section could have worked if it followed suit with the rest of the original Shenmue’s virtues. If you had just had a fun, uneventful mini-game and really got to know Mark and Goro and other harbor employees better. Instead, it’s... well...…

I ended up having to set my PSX up on its side when its CD lens started to degrade. And agreed on the off-brand cards’ questionable quality over time. I had that happen to me. I switched immediately afterwards to just uploading my PSX saves to my PC and converting them over manually on a game-by-game basis if I ever…

Congrats on slaying Dragon Quest/Warrior IV! Agreed 100% on how stellar that wagon system is for the final chapter. I also remember how impressed I was that the game went in depth for its villain’s backstory and motivations. Made them feel like a real person and not just an obstacle for the player to knock over and…

Best of fortune with Return of the Obra Dinn. I concur 100%. It really is a ton of sleuthin’ fun. And as a lot of others have said since it’s release, it’s so amazing how it captures the “feel” of those old Macintosh era computer games without ACTUALLY representing them 100% to the point that they’d turn people off.…

Salutations~!

Yeah, /cheer to that. That’s a real ingenious strategy. Unfortunately I do not possess Bartz’s USB3 either. I’m definitely 1-2 relics shy of victory here. Which is totally fine. Sooner or later the scales will tip to the other side. Thanks for the info on the Samurai skill boost to attack though. That’s a really great…

/comfort on 6* Titan. Yeah, that Phase 3 tank mode is a pain in the ass scenario, right? I’ve ALMOST got enough to finish him, but I need a little more oomph for Cloud/Zack (I’ve got everything BUT Awakenings for them). Hopefully next week’s Black Friday free relic draws will help to that regard so I can claim my four…

I’m very glad to be of assistance! ^^ And yep yep, I concur. Kojima is especially evoking David Cage with his writing in Death Stranding. So many expository ass-pulls necessitating blind acceptance of nebulous supernatural components. And forsaking solid character development and nuance at every step and turn in the…

Thanks! Best of fortune with your run through of the finale. It’s quite a wild ride. 

Salutations~!