I’d put Phantasy Star IV right up there with those, and I can’t wait to see what Wolfman thinks about it. The structure is a bit grindy, but the music, the story, lots of great stuff there.
Wolfman Jew
wolfman-jew
1. Don’t you mean, “if you want to hear me make truly atrocious dad jokes, POP it in?”
2. JRPG-wise, Secret of Mana is only representative of Secret of Mana.. it’s its own weird beast. It’s still a good game, but as far as traditional JRPG’s go, Chrono and FF6 are the two tip-top entries of the era.
3. Your take on Detec…
I just attempted the first Emil fight in Nier: Automata.. and I think I’m going to give up my completionist tendencies. I might upgrade the last weapons I have the materials for in order to read the stories, but the fight itself takes a long time to get to and is kinda random and not fun. It’s just spamming dodge and…
Jeez, what a week. My kids are off of school AND the relentless flood of work continues unabated (money good! stress bad!), so I haven’t done nearly as much gaming as I’d like. Instead, my gaming week has been filled with unfulfilled temptations and disappointments:
In general, I don’t really enjoy online shooters. It tends to be a lot of obnoxious player behavior to wade through for what often seems like an insurmountable learning curve. The road to being competitive with apparent hordes of jobless slackers who play for eight hours a day is littered with far too many teabaggings…
I seem to be falling into the same trap that my esteemed colleague Wolfman Jew has mentioned here recently: I’m writing so much (in my case, translating) about video games that I don’t seem to have much time to play:
- Translating the usual slow-but-steady flow of new texts for the French MMORPGs Dofus and Wakfu.
Gone Home can be finished in 60 minutes and it’s good as hell. Do it!
So how is Crypt of the NecroDancer going?
Matt, do you suppose a game like Where the Water Tastes like Wine would have been better served to have a physical booklet of the stories in order for the player to read and familiarize themselves with them and the context with which they should be used? I have a fascination with narrative materials that are provided…
Hear hear. Life changes and brings with it new ways of thinking about old passions. That said, Wolfman Jew is one of my favorite game writers on the internet and I hope he keeps writing new stuff for us to enjoy (no pressure!).
You should totally get Splatoon 2; I’m being selfish though because I’d love to play with you on there! Stanley Parable is also super short and worth playing for anyone interested in more experimental narratives. It’s easy to play through in an evening or so.
Where The Water Tastes Like Wine sounds right up my alley (if a touch like a poor man’s Kentucky Route Zero). Don’t know how they landed Sting for this, but the storytelling and aesthetic do fit into my abiding love for early 20th Century American music.
Should be a good weekend for all things video games (although I will also be busy translating volume 2 of the Legend of Zelda book I told y’all about last year— the publisher, Third Éditions, put out a whole new book just for Breath of the Wild). Here’s what’s on tap:
I have a confession: What you describe as a bad period of you life, where you read and write more about games than play them, is my standard; just trying to keep up with Gameological is a massive undertaking for me, especially back in 2.0 when I was receiving notifications of responses. My regular work genuinely…
The Stanley Parable is hilarious and does a lot of cool stuff with player expectations and unexpected turns.
Gone Home is not “fun” but a great experience none the less. Very short too so I recommend to do it one sitting (2 hours max).
This weekend is going to have a somewhat interesting blend. Maybe I’ll finally decide to pick up Final Fantasy X after a 3- or 5-month layoff. I’ll have to check the pig flying forecast.
My weekend will mostly be dominated by Kirby Star Allies, which I plan to be streaming a bunch of at twitch.tv/dsanskrit
Now playing
As far as what I’m actually playing this weekend (aside from more Into the Breach, of course):