Thanks! I'm quite proud of them, though the new set is a little on the short side. Hopefully I can open up a bit more in World 5. It's been nice to grow slightly more experimental with my second game after sticking to the fundamentals with the 2015 edition.

As proud as I am of my own levels, I really have to advocate for those of Brick101. You can find one here. They are some of the coolest courses you'll play, especially if you've enjoyed Super Mario 64.

Ahhhhhh how could you?! Hahaha, kidding. Metroid Prime is a really incredible experience, and likely superior to Skyward Sword. It's actually the only other game (besides Skyward Sword) in which I've enjoyed motion controls. Funny enough, I too got the Trilogy on sale for Wii U and got within a hair's breadth of…

I kind of bounced off it too, about a year ago. I'll have to give it another shot someday in 2017, especially given the love its received in this community.

Hooray, a new Youtuber to follow! I've found these arts/entertainment exploration videos very compelling to watch while working out, so I've been burning through Mark Brown, Boundary Break, and DidYouKnow Gaming/Movies at a furious clip over the past six months. Thanks to you and Doctuar for the recommendation.

I still think back to the days when my wife and I rented a basement from a guy who paid for the utilities and it almost brings me to tears. I just keep telling myself "this is an investment, this is an investment," haha.

Yeah, that's a bummer. As a perpetual (and at this point, tenuous) optimist, I figured the early results were a blip and didn't get terrified until around 11.

Ugh, mortgages suck. At this point I'm just counting down the days until my stupid eschrow shortage is reassessed in February - in 2016 the shortage led to a monthly increase of $150, so it'll be nice to get that reduced in 2017.

I actually didn't know that! Thanks for sharing - I guess this is why it took so long to make, eh?

I suspect you've not made choices as poor as me - I saw the title, figured it was a book on moving from agrarian to currency-based economies IRL and was excited; when I discovered it was game related, I deflated a bit. Hahaha.

Well, he does have that iconic hat.

This is how I was with Final Fantasy XII. Despite it being one of my favorite entries in the series for the environments and gameplay alone, I genuinely can't recall almost any details about the story. Ashe was a princess, Basch was a bodyguard or something, and they were trying to take back a kingdom… beyond that I'm…

Good luck with the Retropie. N64 emulation is notoriously challenging for reasons that I (as a non-techie) don't fully grasp. I think one of the big hurdles will be finding a way to adjust settings for specific games. Mystical Ninja is something of a white whale for me, and nobody seems to be interested in…

It's ironic, because my favorite times with the game were spent in the Hinterlands. That said, I likely suffered from the same burnout as others and never got any further after the major shakeup at the player's base early on. I've lately been thinking about revisiting it, so maybe this time I'll skip the Hinterlands…

It's funny, but in spite of the controversy and lukewarm reception, Color Splash is duelling The Witness for my favorite game of the year. I really loved it at the time, but upon reflection it really holds up as a coherent, hilarious, tightly paced experience. I loaned it to a friend, but I might just replay it from…

Holy crap, the addition of Captain Toad to Mario Kart isn't even something I'd considered. I'll tell you this - much as Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was (bafflingly) what caused my to buy a Wii U, Captain Toad in Mario Kart would render Switch a Day One purchase for me, finances willing.

Oh my goodness, the entire Ghost trial was extremely challenging for me. I'd brought along a hopeless team that relied (more than I had realized) on Normal and Fighting moves. My veteran monsters were all tied to moves that wouldn't do anything to the ghosts, and the remainder of my team was weak enough to be…

I universally prefer a single modern controller. Ideally that would be the Wii U Pro Controller, as it's the finest input mechanism I've had the pleasure of using, but there's just a touch more involvement in activating it for any given session, so I typically default to my Xbox One wired controller. It's actually…

He's a regular Richard I

It's a truly odd choice in The Last Guardian, since (a) Team Ico doesn't typically do those kinds of overt tutorializing things, and (b) there's already a narrator added to help focus the experience and teach players what to do. I guess they thought the game was atypical enough to warrant some strong hand-holding…