"Women singing you back to sleep" is honestly one of the weirdest, most loaded categories I've ever heard of for anything. I'm grateful that you shared that with us.

Oh, this does sound appealing! I've been hit or miss on challenge in Zelda games, as Zelda 2 and Link To The Past felt too hard, but some, like Wind Waker, felt too easy. Twilight Princess on Hero Mode was just right, so I'll look into LBW on Hero and see if it's similarly well-balanced.

Me too! I had virtually ignored the series outside of a couple entries prior to the last year or so. Now I'm making up for lost time, haha.

It's very cool to see how these games play outside the cultural moment when they were published. Some are impacted pretty dramatically by that - I couldn't stand Link To The Past and loved Phantom Hourglass, for example - while others remain classics appraised with very similar takes to their original release - Zelda…

Wow, apparently you and I have almost identical Zelda lists for newcomers to the series. I guess there is something of a consensus there. What would your next tier be? Mine would be A Link Between Worlds, Phantom Hourglass, and Minish Cap.

If you could only play one, Ocarina of Time would probably be the one to play since it represents what is broadly thought of as the high point of the series, or at least the most revolutionary of the games. I'm not super-fond of it myself, and would make the case that Twilight Princess is effectively the same game…

Cool, a bold take on best game in the Zelda series! I remember liking A Link Between Worlds (more than the game to which it is a direct sequel, surprisingly enough), but found the art direction a bit of a mixed bag. Definitely in my Top Ten Zelda Games, which is a list that I'm happy can exist! Funny enough, back when…

Oh my goodness, I think I had either missed it or forgotten that Ravio was the Lorule Link. That's a fun fact, and I'm glad you reminded me/told me something new. I've been playing through the whole series ahead of Breath of the Wild, and only have Legend of Zelda, Oracle of Seasons, Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword…

That unfortunate i3/i5 situation is indeed pretty poetic. I guess time moves on for us all, eh?

What, that's what that gauge-filling does in Fire Emblem: Fates?! Would you believe I played through all of Birthright and Conquest, and part of Revelations, and still didn't know what it did? Not my proudest moment.

Having just read up on it over at PC Gamer, I'm pretty disappointed that they didn't at least upgrade the character models. I guess I'll hold off for now, though it might be a purchase if it actually comes to the Nintendo Switch.

Good call. It does feel a bit ridiculous to make the case for a boycott or something, but I tend to feel pretty annoyed when companies treat their audiences badly, rather than a potential customer to be won over. It always strikes me as a bit condescending for a company to consider itself big enough that it no longer…

Good point on Halloween Weekend. I'm going to two parties, so I'm hoping to make it through the weekend intact. One of them is a friend's 30th birthday party too; I fear my Sunday will be primarily spent recovering.

Bethesda is rapidly crumbling in the eyes of the public - you really have to wonder where the increasingly consumer-hostile decisions are coming from. Heaven knows that their last few games have sold well, so it can't be an attempt to recoup lost funds. Between this move against mods and their recent declaration that…

Okeydokey, this weekend I'll be wrapping up Paper Mario: Color Splash. I ranted and raved about the game (in a positive way) on Reasonable Discussions, so I won't duplicate that here, but I will say that I've absolutely loved the game. Particularly given that the initial reveal didn't excite me at all, it's staggering…

Before figuring out how scripted it was, I kept trying to find a way to simply arrest criminals. Given the game's otherwise lifelike presentation, it felt extremely jarring to just be gunning people down on the streets of LA. Alas, non-violent conflict resolution was not built into the mechanics…

Much of this is down to how faithfully and carefully the emulation is done. For example, the Mega Man games have been re-released over the years in various packages, recently on the Virtual Console, but none of the re-releases look as good as the Legacy Collection published by Capcom this year. Playing on the 3DS, in…

I suspect there are a variety of factors at play. The most significant one is screen resolution obscuring blurry textures and jagged edges - these are the features that stand out most significantly as negative attributes when reviewing pre-HD games (i.e. 480p and below) from a post-HD vantage point. That said, I…

Wow, that's fascinating. This comment section is a real roller coaster ride with regard to how well the game put its ideas across. It sounds like an ambitious project that was hampered by some design issues standard to the period in which it was released. I suspect we'll say many of the same things about ambitious…

That seems like the perfect way to experience a perfect movie. I'm jealous!