The part where it's revealed that the Belmonts have an actual bestiary was pretty great. That and having a clock tower-y death trap give me fairly high hopes for Season 2.

The bar scene is definitely my least favorite in the entire season. The humor is bad, the introduction to Trevor is only marginally better, and I'm not sure if we're supposed to find the horrific violence he inflicts on the villagers to be more heroic or likable than the horrific violence the gargoyle monsters do.

Also, the entire game is predicated on the idea of a son killing his father, who's initially represented by not only the last game's main character, but the exact sprite and actions of that character. The Richter fight is basically Igarashi's new approach battling the clunky, weighty classic Castlevania for supremacy,…

The series is a loose adaptation of a script Ellis wrote over a decade ago, and the main producer behind it is the guy who's done those darker fan-films for Power Rangers and Mortal Kombat (I joke about this on Gameological all the time, but he's actually stated a desire to make a "hard-R Mega Man"). And it definitely…

The first episode is definitely the best. It's the only one that feels like a full story, I find Dracula and Lisa more compelling than Trevor and Sypha, and there's a greater tragedy to it all the games rarely ever indulged in (coincidentally, the biggest example of that was Symphony of the Night, the game that…

I'm not entirely sold on the show - the language and violence do come across as gratuitous, certainly in the moment when Trevor fucking rips a dude's eye out with his whip, and it really is just a prologue instead of an actual story (I wonder how viewers unfamiliar with the series took to the introduction of Alucard;…

Agreed. I've talked about that extensively here, but everything people like about Nintendo is fundamentally tied to them being a hardware developer. They are toymakers, and more clinically their games often do need the backing of a large publisher that can keep prices of their games high and less dependent on first…

I have a feeling this might be part of why people - and Drinking with Skeletons and I have discussed this earlier - give Nintendo shit about their exclusives not being on other platforms, that they have so many more of them and that so many are good aside. It's really unnatural for a big publisher to have so many…

One of the big problems with the Wii U, certainly. Then again, 2014 was basically (cult) classic after classic, and that didn't work.

Eh…I'm unsure. Star Fox 2, if I recall, may have even had some of its localization done; it was literally ready to ship. MOTHER 3 would actually require a full localization effort, and for a dialogue heavy JRPG. It really should not be the kind of massive effort Fils-Aimé claims, and EarthBound's presence in Smash…

I'm pretty certain that argument doesn't quite hold up when you look at how it had literally the best launch title since, I don't know, Halo: Combat Evolved.

It's funny, thinking back to how negative we were about its potential during that January presentation. Part of it was just how bad it was, but we really misjudged the popularity of the thing.

Wii U. The Switch version is the 18th.

To be honest, it's been hard playing games lately. My mood's made it tough to actually enjoy things at all, let alone give them the time and effort to go through them. So I'll just quickly mention everything I've played.

Sadly, far too many gentiles didn't. One told me two days after the election that my fears about his antisemitism didn't matter because he called the Israeli prime minister.

I still don't even know what Journal is; I even looked it up because I thought you must have meant (and hated) Journey, and all I could find were nonacademic articles on video game violence.

I dunno; 2014 was also the year of Alien: Isolation, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Bayonetta 2, Wolfenstein: the New Order, Mario Kart 8, Shovel Knight, This War of Mine, Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, Dark Souls II, The Talos Principle, Valiant Hearts, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical…

The whole endeavor honestly feels kinda tragic. Here's this young company finally getting its chance to make something big and real, and follow up one of the most acclaimed works of the last console generation. And after a miserable five year development, all they have to show is this weird, half-made thing with…

If that's the case (and I'm still unsure that developer was correct), I'm going to guess that emulating the Chip was just an investment they didn't think was valuable enough. Kind of like not localizing MOTHER 3 or not including WarioWare: Twisted! on the eShop even though the GamePad should be able to mimic a…

I'm going to add to people's comments here and suggest that for Zelda, do an information blackout. Maybe some stuff about mechanics, but don't look up guides. This isn't any kind of nasty "git gud" advice; just the feeling of finding a really interesting location you didn't even consider would be in the game can be…