It's intriguing to me that DS1 and DS3, while better games overall, feature a broadly declining quality of areas as they progress; DS2, on the other hand, largely improves in area design as you get further into it. Wonder why that is?

Happily, the game still has a number of unique experiences up its sleeve, in the West and Center of the map - heck, you haven't gotten yet to my favorite region of the game. Enjoy yourself, but don't be afraid to take a long break if you're feeling burnt out :)

That was my penultimate shrine, and along with my last one (also in the canyon area), the only one that I had to look up - I don't know how I would have found it naturally.

Ys is very weird to me for exactly the reason you cited - I've heard of it, and I even own one of the games on Steam, but have no idea what it's about or why it's noteworthy. It's very much a cult classic series, and I'm glad that's been enough to keep it alive.

This weekend I'll be playing Snake Pass and Shovel Knight. Might pick up either Wonderboy or Graceful Explosion Machine.

I haven't managed to find something else that feels quite as compelling as Breath of the Wild since finishing it a few weeks ago. Plus I found all of the shrines before beating Ganon, so the only remaining task in the game itself would be finding the Koroks, which is not something I'm willing to do, haha. I think the…

There may well be (though, admittedly, I'm skeptical) a new Xenoblade release this year too, alongside Splatoon 2. ARMS is shaping up to be an instant classic, based solely upon the buzz from anyone who's played it, but I think the verdict is still out on that.

This is a great piece of insight (and I hope it ends up in Keyboard Geniuses tomorrow). Like Persona 5, I thought Tokyo Mirage Sessions handled this issue well by foregrounding the world's artificiality. One wonders if that kind of thing would go over well with most Western audiences though - especially Americans -…

Oh yeah, touche. I invested in a New 3DS when my wife turned our old 3DS into her Animal Crossing machine, but it's 100% not worth an upgrade unless you're very invested in Xenoblade Chronicles and Hyrule Warriors Legends.

Funny enough, as a person who never had an SNES, but who desperately wanted one in the early 1990s, the SNES Classic might be the only classic console I'd buy. I mean, I have several of its classics scattered across a few generations of Nintendo Virtual Consoles, but having 30+ beautifully emulated versions in one…

Link to the Past is on the 3DS right now, isn't it? That said, I totally hear you with Super Mario RPG. I thought about picking it up for the Wii U, but I'd really like to have it on my 3DS. That screen resolution is certainly kinder to old games than a 1080p living room television would be.

Gamecube and Dreamcast are extremely emulatable. Dolphin, in particular, is a godsend for older games in need of an HD touch-up.

One hopes the controller cord won't require you to sit three feet from your TV.

Thanks, I might give it a shot some day. I have a hard time playing FPS games these days - I think the visuals for human characters and the violence have gotten a little bit too visceral for me, unfortunately. Still, Wolfenstein is still pretty firmly in the realm of outright fantasy, so maybe I can stomach it.

I'm sure nostalgia could play a role, but I played Link Between Worlds as one of the first Legend of Zelda games I'd ever played (in spite of growing up alongside the series) and I thought it was fantastic. Heck, I liked it more than I ended up liking its predecessor when I played that a couple years later.

I heard about this from a friend and, despite not having actually played the game, this is one of my favorite game features. It's just so perfect.

I didn't back the game, but I was excited for it and will eventually pick it up (on Switch if they manage to avoid the technical issues plaguing the other console versions; on PC if they don't). I'm more generally a fan of platformer games - increasingly so, actually - and more specifically a fan of those that…

Good point! I think the only real difference is that Super Paper Mario used the concept in a broader scope, as the game world itself was 2D, while Color Splash explicitly uses it as a humorous reference to Super Mario Brothers 3. As for picking up Color Splash, I strongly advocate doing so - it's actually my favorite…

Have you ever watched Mark Brown's Shovel Knight/nostalgia video? If not, I suspect you'd like it!

I have two very recent examples, one of which is fairly late-game spoiler territory: