Ugh, have you played Dark Souls 3? Those… crab/spider/sewer ladies may be the grossest, creepiest creatures to appear in a Miyazaki game. I never stopped appreciating the efficacy of that design, while being legitimately horrified and trying to move on quickly whenever they popped up (which, of course, was quite…

Gosh, Miyazaki and his staff do design better than almost anyone else in the medium, don't they? It's so tough to convey a sense of wonder, a sense of loss, and a sense of disgust, particularly in such close proximity. I just played through Dark Souls 3 back in January and it was a masterpiece of environmental and…

Have you tried any of the recent Zelda games? Pumping those up to Hero Mode approximates Souls-esque difficulty (not quite, but close enough) while also offering a broader color palate and more approachable world; Breath of the Wild, in particular, is rumored to be both beautiful and quite challenging. I say this as a…

You showed 'em! Showed 'em good.

It's funny that I used to dislike this style of game, but have grown to appreciate it so much more over the years. I still appreciate the occasional interconnected world - Dark Souls is, of course, the most immediate example that comes to mind - but overall tend to prefer games with discrete, separated environments…

Weirdly, I found the combat in The Witcher 3 (early on, as I quit during the Bloody Baron questline) to be harder than Dark Souls. I just never got the hang of dodging, parrying, using magic, which one of the two swords to use, which potion to apply, how to consistently heal, etc., whereas the combat in DS was tough…

This is delightful!

I like the Mario one, but I'm not crazy about Link. I think it's his weird nose poking out.

That boss door thing sounds like quite a drag. I didn't realize how critical the fog doors were in the Souls games, but it is quite frustrating to happen across a boss battle in a game where your progression is tenuous and (even moreso) when winning the boss fight carries with it some issues.

Weird, I didn't think supply-side issues still occurred much with software.

This is what actually got me out of the Pokemon series. The whole min/max-ing culture really reduced the fun for me. Of course, this was not something that was required, and I discovered with the online content in X and Y that I could still have fun playing with others while not engaging in, as you put it, a…

Great review! Though this sounds like the definition of a game that I wouldn't enjoy playing. It has the difficulty of Dark Souls, but is overly complex in terms of systems to manage while fighting. Additionally, it has the maddening loot mechanic of needing to soak up every item that you find and use those to craft…

Cool! I had no idea.

Having played Hyrule Warriors before Twilight Princess, I was delighted when I found her in that game because she's such a minor, one-off NPC. What led the designers of Hyrule Warriors to feature her as a playable character (albeit an extremely useless one) is quite the mystery.

Ah crap - did not mean to spoil that for you. I'd forgotten that the bug quest was begun before you even meet the person to whom you give those bugs. Sorry about that.

The bug quest is strangely compelling in Twilight Princess. I think it would have been super-irritating without the audio cues. Having Agitha is helpful too, of course, since she's so, so weird.

I can dig this, but I think there's something valuable in hearing a take on some of the less noticeable design choices in Twilight Princess. I'd actually credit TP a little bit more, based on Brown's analysis, in that it does what most of the great visual art pulls off - through creative visual design, it overcomes…

Wow, that take on the Granny Baker thing is top-notch, @Spergatory.

Good heavens, if I did what those folks wanted I'd have bought a Mario Party game for a portable and a version of Mario Maker with no ability to curate the online content. It's so hard to tell what the heck they're thinking sometimes (besides BUY BUY BUY).

Uh-oh - I trust your opinion on Mario titles quite a bit. To be honest, I wasn't interested at all until I'd heard such glowing things from some quarters of the gaming press. Was there anything in particular that rubbed you the wrong way about it?