You, sir, just made me laugh out loud (l.o.l.) at my desk.

Whew, good heavens - congrats on the fifty minutes! I used to think of the games as roughly equivalent in length, but my recent plays of 1-3 disabused me of this notion. They increase significantly with each iteration, it seems. I wonder when they start leveling off.

Oh my goodness, I did not realize how many cool events were now programmed into Crusader Kings 2. I'd better get started on a new game!

Good call on Arcadia. Plays might actually offer the best comparison, especially in how the audience experiences them. A play could be read on a page (as I experienced Arcadia), but the interpretation provided by an on-stage performance could dramatically alter the audience's interpretation of the characters or events.

So glad to hear another person is deep in the Zelda pit. I've completed all of the games except a handful in the past two years, and am looking forward to wrapping up the remainder (Legend of Zelda, Oracle of Ages, Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword) over the coming months. <— Yes, for some reason i played Zelda 2 ahead…

Badge Arcade may be the most sinister / most satisfying implementation of F2P features I've ever encountered. Plus Arcade Bunny is adorable!

It's kind of surreal how short Mega Man games can be if you've got all of the skills programmed into muscle memory. I beat the original game in three hours a few weeks ago!

Not sure if you've seen this, but it's as good a case for the dedication and general loveliness of Yacht Club games as there exists. The idea of recreating all of the cool lost weirdness of international localization without losing the appeal of the original is a fascinating endeavor. Enjoy the game!

I've been playing this week. What drives me batty is that when I take my daily lunchtime walk out of the office, all I find are pidgeys and rattatas. My office is in a largely urban area, with oodles of Pokestops, but next to nothing for the catching. My home, in a comparatively suburban (but super-walkable) district,…

Ahhhhhh, this is the second consecutive week where a comment to which I replied was picked for Keyboard Geniuses. I'm so close, haha. What a great topic, though, and I'm glad the discussion provided so many nifty interpretations of a question I'd not considered before. As ever, thanks AVClub!

Badge Arcade is the best! I've recently been sucked back in, against my best judgment, thanks to the presence of Wind Waker and Mega Man badges. I have one version of my Home Screen that's Mega Man fighting ca. thirty robot masters (including Proto Man) and I love it!

Eh, I wouldn't worry about save-scumming. Though recently I've wondered how doing so effects my opinion of classic games. I think Zelda 2 comes across much better, for example, as a Virtual Console port than it did in its original incarnation, just because it would be unplayable if you had to return to the start after…

I like that the Spambot who replied to you has two upvotes. Like, I get that they tend to upvote themselves, but who the heck else clicked that little arrow? Disqus isn't showing me, so I'll never know, but it really makes you think…

Given that Amazon somehow managed to sell its entire run of DQVII copies prior to Day One, I suspect you are making the right call by picking up a copy. Mine's sitting at Best Buy right now!

Opportunities to break the more action-heavy sequences in games are typically hilarious. I recently did that on Fire Emblem: Birthright, and largely skipped a much-discussed mission (the opera house) by just flying the VIP character from the starting point to the ending point. The level is designed to challenge…

Someday we'll get an adventure / mystery game set in the world of Bioshock Infinite. I mean, a man can dream.

This is a great question, isn't it? In other formats, there is less "optional" information contained within the margins of the text. Maybe you could compare it to extra features on a DVD in how a film is interpreted? Or director's commentary? Neither of those feel like great comparisons.

I fear comparing Tales from the Borderland to Shadow of the Colossus is like comparing Spielberg to Kubrick; one is rock-solid entertainment and/or storytelling, while the other is an artist working at the peak of their medium. That said, I agree very much with all you've had to say on this.

Good catch on your observed trend. I don't think I had established it as a trope in my mind, partially because virtually all of my gaming post-Xbox 360 has been on less narrative-heavy titles, but you're right on the money. I do recall seeing this trend beginning in the Xbox 360 era, and I'd pin it as being a way to…

It's hard to imagine how this would work, given that many games rely on two screens, a touch interface and classic controls, but the folks who design those programs are a dedicated, crafty lot.