Excellent think piece as always. So much of this hits home for me.

So many fond memories of FFXI! The hostile low-level questing that necessitated forming a party, chaining experience (still an FFXIV staple), working towards Jeuno and being able to board an airship. It was great!

This.

The idea that growth is the only marker of success has ruined every industry. Flat growth leads to cutting costs, and lower quality of life for employees and products that are increasingly subpar.

From Kohler’s review:

This music is great! Now if they form a band like the Black Mages that would be even better. Maybe the Koopa Troop?

I mean, I’ve seen reddit threads about the source code being lost, as well as mentions from Eido’s president in Polygon’s Oral history of FFVII, so it looks like there’s some truth to that. They did reverse engineer VII for Steam, albeit unevenly (I guess VIII was based on the original PC version).

There’s also been…

FF VIII is a relatively new addition to Steam (2013), so I doubt that the original code was lost. I think it’s more a matter of popularity and nostalgia.

That ‘Chinese company,’ Tencent, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest gaming and tech companies in the world. They own Riot Games (League of Legends). If they want NXC/Nexon, nothing will be able to stop them from acquiring it.

That personal anecdote for God of War hit me right in the feels

I am in the same boat as you, Mike. I found World of Light to be surprisingly deep.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you mentioned that this was the finale in the review. Aren’t there 3 more episodes this season?

I mean, it’s not Colin Farrell, so that’s a step in the right direction

That line reminds me of this scene from Game of Thrones.

Did the ostriches fly? I thought the fluttered but you couldn’t keep yourself up for long

To be fair, for contestants that clearly had little to no knowledge of the subject matter - Dragon Age and Halo were relatively close guesses to Elder Scrolls and Destiny, given the clues.

These changes look good! The new ult sounds like it has loads of utility - tank busting here he comes! 

It doesn’t look like Sony started work on the Playstation Move until 2009, 3 full years after the release of the Wii. So, false.

I couldn’t tell from the Direct, but is there any word on whether Katamari Damacy is motion controls only or if there’s an option to use traditional controls?

I know not many people notice because music in an MMO gets tiring after hearing the same track for thousands of hours, but the tracks in the city of Daraz’alor (especially the market and temple proper) are some of the best music Blizzard has put out in a loonnnggg time.

Stardew Valley comes to mind as well as a single developer crafting a deep game. Granted, it has a retro aesthetic, but everything top to bottom was done by one person. So it’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility.