Thank you. Everything I do is in service to my fellow emo FFVIII fans. And cocaine.

100% agree. I’d have much rather those two never hook up and instead spent the game with Rinoa sneaking off to be with her secret boyfriend Seifer, except that the rest of the group clearly knows and is just judging her. At least Rinoa and Seifer makes a lot of sense in my mind, those two are wildly broken people in…

Honestly, Squall’s character growth is the best part of this game (unless you’re more into batshit anime plotlines and twists, then that’s on another level). I really hope that this remaster helps to rehab this game’s image. Yes, it’s a game that’s entire battle system can be twisted and broken on a whim, not…

Right. My hope was that I could pin a higher class for a character rather than just remembering each one, which would highlight the lower classes that build up to that class's requirements. It's a total first world problem and a minor issue, so I'll probably just make a quick list for all my character paths.

Agreed. Even having played a couple of previous FE games, this one is on another level in terms of stat management and complex systems. My recommendation would be to use guides whenever you need to! I’ve got half a dozen guides saved on my phone for various parts of this game (especially for gifts and lost items).…

I really love the teaching mechanic and student suggestions, but I do wish that there was a stronger link to the classes chart. Rather than memorizing a couple dozen different paths, if I could just put a pin in the desired Master class for a character and have it automatically highlight the relevant lower classes /…

That's too bad. It's a shame that two awesome recent action anime that seem made to be fantastic brawlers (this and My Hero Academia) have only had mediocre results. Someday...

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I agree, and I do understand that a factor in this is that I’m busier as an adult than I was in college or high school, and that’s fine. But I think another aspect of it is on a macro level - the number of games released each year has grown exponentially, and while a large number of…

31 year old youth here. I was too young to care about Seinfeld when it was on (and my parents didn’t watch it), and when I tried watching it in college based on the universal praise I bounced off of it pretty quick. I can understand why it was important and groundbreaking at the time, as well as why people loved it, bu…

Right, that was more along the lines of what I was trying to get at - does each of these games actually benefit from the added length, or is it just filler for the sake of creating a massive game? I’d definitely argue that RDR2 would be a much stronger game if it was the same length as the first RDR, and I’m not yet…

Easy there, champ. Nobody attacked you or your feelings, and nobody wants your shitty acidic reactions in an otherwise normal conversation. The world is big enough for games of all sizes, and I agree that long games have their place, especially in JRPGs. I’m just advocating for quality over quantity - I’m asking why As…

And I’m not saying I’m against that at all - JRPGs are my main genre, I’m used to spending months with a game. Plus, I went through my FFXIV addiction. That’s completely expected for MMOs and only games as service. It’s just that I’m not sure why that’s become the norm for single player games, especially for games…

I’m so perplexed at when exactly the gaming industry turned the corner from 100+ hour long games being limited to Dragon Quest games and a handful of other outliers while the average was the 15-20 hour action game and 30-40 hour RPG, to the present with most action and open world games pushing into the 40-60 range and…

I mean, there seem to be so few lines for him that I’d be amazed if they had to delay it at all. Not to minimize the challenge of voicework, but it sure seems like they could probably knock it out in a long afternoon, or maybe an entire day at the most.

Seriously, I'm a few hours into Three Houses and I was like "...wait, he has a voice?" This protagonist is incredibly silent.

You’re really not missing anything. The combat, world design, and especially plot feel like a huge step down from KH2. The pacing is probably the worst I’ve ever seen in a AAA game, with both heroes and villains commenting on their lack of direction for the entire first half. And it doesn’t feel resolved in the end.…

Agreed. The irony being that I will put off similar micromanagement tasks in real life for weeks...

Kingdom Hearts III, Six Months Later: “...oh fuck, I totally forgot I played that.”

Thanks for the great article. For most of my adult life I’ve dealt with stress, anxiety, and depression by diving into what I’ve realized lately is a group of games that scratches a very specific itch. I’ve been especially stressed this summer, and just the other day I realized that my desire to focus on replaying…

To be clear, I completely agree with your take. The Inhumans always felt like knockoff mutants with the serial number filed off. The relatable parables of racism and the feelings of being the ‘other’ were replaced by nonsense royal melodrama. Outside of a couple of exceptions, like Karnak and (if you count her) Ms…