Oh thank glob, I thought I was the only one who doesn't like to urbanize my Animal Crossing island. I still only have five villagers because every time I think about putting another plot down for a house I look at my multitudinous trees and think 'my babies', and proceed not to cut or move any of them. The less said about my Stardew Valley farm the better. It's... yeah, it's mostly trees and a stone path in the safe walking spaces so I don't get lost in the foliage. Thank you, Kate, for this article, that both let me know that this game probably isn't something I'll enjoy (snarking at Mickey Mouse aside) and making me feel better about my unkempt, natural spaces in my cozy games. I need a maximalist button to pin to my backpack now that I've been awakened to my status...
@EarthboundBenjy I mean, I bought it at Walmart where I got all my other games? It has been a long time so maybe I'm misremembering, but I could have sworn the cover was Link and Ezlo with the Picori in the background.
Oh, um, wow, this is awkward. Unless my memory is somehow massively faulty, I've never seen the North American box art in my life, despite living there and having purchased a copy of the game. I don't know if it was a limited run or something, but I remember my box having the Japanese artwork, condensed to fit on the GBA box, with the logo on the left side and all that good stuff. So... yeah. That's a little weird.
I mean, we already know people eat Pokémon from comments in the first season; in Hypno's Naptime, the Magikarp at the Pokémon Center falls over and Ash says, "Looks like it's ready for the deli counter." Farfetch'd's Pokédex entry says clearly that it's almost extinct because it's delicious when cooked with leek (which, for its survival, it should really stop carrying around with it). And of course there's the scandal in Gold/Silver/Crystal regarding Team Rocket and the sale of Slowpoke tails. Along that vein, what I'd like to know is if Sharpedo are mangled and murdered for their fins like the sharks of our Earth... but as far as 'Can we eat it' questions, what about a Clamperl? Octillery? Whishcash? Stantler and Miltank are definitely going on my menu, but I bet you could add a Tauros in there, as a buffalo equivalent. I was going to ask about Sunflora seeds, but since those would be Sunkern, I clearly just have to admit that I'm a monster, unless there's some way to harvest and eat them before they sprout and become a Pokémon with big adorable eyes. If you wanted honey, would you keep a hive of Combees and a Vespiquen, or would you just munch down on the Combees themselves? If you live in the colder regions of the Pokémon world, are Seel and Spheal on the menu? And what, I ask you, does a Delibird taste like, if not chicken?
"Similarly, the game’s loading times in between areas are incredibly long, sometimes over 30 seconds"
"incredibly long"
"over 30 seconds"
....Okay, maybe I just don't have access to the level of tech that other people do (spoiler alert, I definitely do not) but in all honesty, what point have we come to as a society in need of instant gratification that half a minute is an 'incredibly long' time??? I am legitimately floored by that sentence existing. I mean, what even? That is ridiculous. If you want to play an older game (or Skyrim, or the Witcher 3) and talk about long loading screens, yeah, sure; if I manage to die in either of the games mentioned I'm generally done, because I don't want to sit there for five to ten minutes doing nothing while I wait for things to get going again, but less than a minute? I don't even have words for that.
There are definitely games I'd like to see on NSO, several of them quite fiercely, but nothing eclipses how much I want to seen Chrono Trigger added to the line-up of Super Nintendo games. It feels like a crime that it's not already there. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't want any extras or remakes or any nonsense like that; just give me a port of the original SNES version. I have the one that was released for the DS and hated the changes to the dialogue, because so much of the charm was gone. Chrono Trigger is a 90's game and needs to stay that way. I've played it through so many times I could probably still rattle off most of the dialogue if I thought about a given scene for a minute or two. It's a perfect example of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', and the end result of the DS version was that they broke it in trying to fix what should never have been tinkered with in the first place. Really hope to see it, really hope they leave it alone aside from making it available, and for pete's sake none of that HD-2D stuff. I have Octopath Traveler; to a degree I like it, (it's very grindy which keeps me from playing much when I have so many other games I want to play and will actually feel like I've accomplished something in) and while I do have an appreciation for what they've done with those graphics, I also can't look at them for long stretches of time, because they really mess with my eyes and give me a terrible headache. And that's a shame, because I'd probably enjoy Triangle Strategy, but I just... can't spend money on something that I know is going to eff with my already terrible eyesight and make me miserable to try and look at.
As for the other games on the list, I don't think I've ever played any of them and haven't even heard of most, though that's probably unsurprising given the age of most of them; I only know and love Chrono Trigger because my dad had it (still does, it's in the living room, actually) in his selection of Super Nintendo games. The GBA games were more my era, but I missed the boat on those, too. I'm always down for some Final Fantasy, but I would actually like the chance to play Golden Sun, since I had the sequel with everyone's kids for the DS and was so sucked in that I spent four full days of summer vacation living on my DS and played through the entire game in that timeframe; seriously, I did nothing else. Getting to see the backstory for all that would be pretty interesting :3
My Awakening story: It came out. I had a DS Lite, which would, of course, not play a 3DS game. Cue plan to purchase the latest and greatest tech in order to play more games (I was even going to buy the fancy-shmancy Awakening edition 3DS). The snag in this brilliant plan? I was too young to have had a card of my own to use for online purchasing, and despite that I had cash in hand from my summer job to pay her immediately back for it, mother dearest thought $250 for an updated version of a system I already had was too expensive and wouldn't let me use her card to buy it. From there it was a downward spiral of leaving childhood for the horrible world of adulting and being forever broke, cruising through the game aisle at walmart and gazing enviously at the cool new games I couldn't play because now I had no money to buy the console. With the recent news that the eshop was going to be closing, I, finally with funds in my account and having intended to do this years ago, got myself in gear and wound up spending almost $600 on a new-in-box 3DS XL to someone on then $50 more for the game itself. But you know what? Worth it. I'd wanted to play the game from the moment I first learned about it, and aside from some gameplay gripes compared with past games (since when does a mounted unit not get to use the rest of their range after taking an action?!), I'm so glad I've finally got it, and I've already bought all the DLC so I can have the full experience.
It's also reminded me how much I love Fire Emblem, and just this morning I was listening to the soundtrack for Radiant Dawn, wanting nothing more than to camp out on the couch and replay it. RD was technically my first FE game, because 14 year-old me thought Ike was very attractive and used him almost exclusively in Smash, and upon finding some written description in-game that said he was from Radiant Dawn, off I went to find myself a copy, because cute guy. (I bought a lot of games based on that in my teen years. I haven't exactly stopped.) I say technically because even though that started my journey, I was instantly an addict, and found a copy of FE7 for the Gameboy Advance sitting in a Gamestop display case - obviously an insta-buy - and that was the first one I played through to the end, by virtue of it being portable. While I don't know that I could choose a favorite overall game, my favorite FE guy is definitely from Blazing Blade - Legault is forever and always my man, though Naesala from the Radiant duo is a close second favorite. Oh man, if there'd been Awakening-esque romance in those games... For Awakening itself, I'm really struggling with there only being three save files, because there's so many characters I've come to like and want to pair my Avatar with, but the fact of the matter is I've been waiting almost ten years to marry Libra, and this year, it will finally happen. It's been a long road, but we're almost there, and I can't wait to play more Fire Emblem - I've already got my sights on Fates and Shadows of Valentia so I can get their DLC before the eshop closure as well.
In fairness, the games aren't perfect - RRT had a very limited inventory that made the difficult dungeons even moreso, and clients who joined you for missions were the absolute bane of my existence, level one wimps you couldn't direct and who always, ALWAYS jumped into the fight and used up your precious, limited stock of Reviver Seeds because they were programmed to be idiotic liabilities. Explorers pretty well fixed the inventory issue, but the whole concept of the Guild rubbed me the wrong way, the same as the Ranger Academy did in Shadows of Almia, because in the first game of each series, it was your passion and determination to make the world a better place for your fellow beings that got you where you were, whereas the sequels presented a system of 'No we don't allow that in this world, pay your dues to the established organization, how dare you want to help people without the proper paperwork and registration' that didn't (and doesn't) sit right with me. That theme aside, though, Explorers was a grand old time, and Grovyle will always be in my heart 💚
I recently bought Rescue Team DX for the Switch and was massively disappointed in it. The cel-shaded art style just made the world feel fake and empty, the added and altered dialogue that I suppose I should have expected from a remake was a disappointment nonetheless for someone with so much love for the original as it was, and the overly complicated control system that doesn't even include a non-move attack was... no. Nope. I was so excited to get to replay the game I love on a new system and experience the story again, but I just can't make myself do it. It's not a total loss, because I do have a 3 year-old sister who loves Pokémon (you're welcome for that, Mom ;P) and with no prior experience to sully it for her, I'm sure she'll love it once she learns to read and can play it without an adult to tell her what everything says. For myself though, I've got my fingers crossed for GBA games coming to Switch Online, and RRT to be one of them so I can sink myself back into the universe that carried me through so many years of my young life without having to wipe the save from my old game (which I did once out of an overpowering desire to be an Eevee, immediately regretted, and will never, ever do again now that my hundreds of hours save file is back to its proper state of Charmander-ness.)
My two Mystery Dungeon games were SUCH a big part of my life. I've always been an overemotional basket case, but the tears that were shed through Red Rescue Team and Explorers of Darkness. Yes, the gameplay is all the same, with no real bells or whistles, but it didn't need anything fancy to be a good time. Both games have amazing soundtracks that I still listen to and can call up in my memories on demand, and the stories that were so incredible to my younger self still stand with the best sixteen years after the fact (in the case of Red Rescue Team, I'll admit I don't remember what point in my timeline Explorers happened.) The storm of emotion tied to those games, though! I swear I spent half of the story sequences crying my eyes out. I've gotten emotional over some of my Pokémon from the main series games, but there just aren't a lot of moments in the storylines themselves that invoke much in the way of feelings, other than frustration because I'm JUST trying to get to the next town I swear if I run into ANOTHER bleeping Bidoof I'm gonna scream- but I digress. The emotion in these games, the A+ soundtracks that help that incredible storytelling along, the unique gameplay that still has me picking up RRT to this day, and the sheer gorgeousness and detail of the worlds make these some of my all-time best games. And I mean, really, they outdid themselves - every single Pokémon in the game(s) has its own individual animations, unlike the main games of the timeframe, which had a largely static sprite sent out into battle, which then used the same animation of the moves as every other Pokémon witch access to them. No one is boring in the Mystery Dungeon series, each Pokémon is its own unique entity, just as they would be in a living, breathing world. (As an aside, Pokémon Ranger had a lot of that individuality too, and was another excellent game with a lot of love and care put into crafting its world.)
Comments 9
Re: Soapbox: I Might Be Too Messy To Enjoy Disney Dreamlight Valley Properly
Oh thank glob, I thought I was the only one who doesn't like to urbanize my Animal Crossing island. I still only have five villagers because every time I think about putting another plot down for a house I look at my multitudinous trees and think 'my babies', and proceed not to cut or move any of them. The less said about my Stardew Valley farm the better. It's... yeah, it's mostly trees and a stone path in the safe walking spaces so I don't get lost in the foliage. Thank you, Kate, for this article, that both let me know that this game probably isn't something I'll enjoy (snarking at Mickey Mouse aside) and making me feel better about my unkempt, natural spaces in my cozy games. I need a maximalist button to pin to my backpack now that I've been awakened to my status...
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap
@EarthboundBenjy I mean, I bought it at Walmart where I got all my other games? It has been a long time so maybe I'm misremembering, but I could have sworn the cover was Link and Ezlo with the Picori in the background.
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Oh, um, wow, this is awkward. Unless my memory is somehow massively faulty, I've never seen the North American box art in my life, despite living there and having purchased a copy of the game. I don't know if it was a limited run or something, but I remember my box having the Japanese artwork, condensed to fit on the GBA box, with the logo on the left side and all that good stuff. So... yeah. That's a little weird.
Re: Feature: Which Pokémon Is Tastiest? - Food-Based Pokémon, Ranked
I mean, we already know people eat Pokémon from comments in the first season; in Hypno's Naptime, the Magikarp at the Pokémon Center falls over and Ash says, "Looks like it's ready for the deli counter." Farfetch'd's Pokédex entry says clearly that it's almost extinct because it's delicious when cooked with leek (which, for its survival, it should really stop carrying around with it). And of course there's the scandal in Gold/Silver/Crystal regarding Team Rocket and the sale of Slowpoke tails. Along that vein, what I'd like to know is if Sharpedo are mangled and murdered for their fins like the sharks of our Earth... but as far as 'Can we eat it' questions, what about a Clamperl? Octillery? Whishcash? Stantler and Miltank are definitely going on my menu, but I bet you could add a Tauros in there, as a buffalo equivalent. I was going to ask about Sunflora seeds, but since those would be Sunkern, I clearly just have to admit that I'm a monster, unless there's some way to harvest and eat them before they sprout and become a Pokémon with big adorable eyes. If you wanted honey, would you keep a hive of Combees and a Vespiquen, or would you just munch down on the Combees themselves? If you live in the colder regions of the Pokémon world, are Seel and Spheal on the menu? And what, I ask you, does a Delibird taste like, if not chicken?
Re: Review: Bugsnax - A Charming Idea That Struggles In Execution
"Similarly, the game’s loading times in between areas are incredibly long, sometimes over 30 seconds"
"incredibly long"
"over 30 seconds"
....Okay, maybe I just don't have access to the level of tech that other people do (spoiler alert, I definitely do not) but in all honesty, what point have we come to as a society in need of instant gratification that half a minute is an 'incredibly long' time??? I am legitimately floored by that sentence existing. I mean, what even? That is ridiculous. If you want to play an older game (or Skyrim, or the Witcher 3) and talk about long loading screens, yeah, sure; if I manage to die in either of the games mentioned I'm generally done, because I don't want to sit there for five to ten minutes doing nothing while I wait for things to get going again, but less than a minute? I don't even have words for that.
Re: Feature: Will These 10 Classic JRPGs Ever Come To Switch?
There are definitely games I'd like to see on NSO, several of them quite fiercely, but nothing eclipses how much I want to seen Chrono Trigger added to the line-up of Super Nintendo games. It feels like a crime that it's not already there. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't want any extras or remakes or any nonsense like that; just give me a port of the original SNES version. I have the one that was released for the DS and hated the changes to the dialogue, because so much of the charm was gone. Chrono Trigger is a 90's game and needs to stay that way. I've played it through so many times I could probably still rattle off most of the dialogue if I thought about a given scene for a minute or two. It's a perfect example of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', and the end result of the DS version was that they broke it in trying to fix what should never have been tinkered with in the first place. Really hope to see it, really hope they leave it alone aside from making it available, and for pete's sake none of that HD-2D stuff. I have Octopath Traveler; to a degree I like it, (it's very grindy which keeps me from playing much when I have so many other games I want to play and will actually feel like I've accomplished something in) and while I do have an appreciation for what they've done with those graphics, I also can't look at them for long stretches of time, because they really mess with my eyes and give me a terrible headache. And that's a shame, because I'd probably enjoy Triangle Strategy, but I just... can't spend money on something that I know is going to eff with my already terrible eyesight and make me miserable to try and look at.
As for the other games on the list, I don't think I've ever played any of them and haven't even heard of most, though that's probably unsurprising given the age of most of them; I only know and love Chrono Trigger because my dad had it (still does, it's in the living room, actually) in his selection of Super Nintendo games. The GBA games were more my era, but I missed the boat on those, too. I'm always down for some Final Fantasy, but I would actually like the chance to play Golden Sun, since I had the sequel with everyone's kids for the DS and was so sucked in that I spent four full days of summer vacation living on my DS and played through the entire game in that timeframe; seriously, I did nothing else. Getting to see the backstory for all that would be pretty interesting :3
Re: Talking Point: Can It Really Be 10 Years Since Fire Emblem: Awakening Saved The Series?
My Awakening story: It came out. I had a DS Lite, which would, of course, not play a 3DS game. Cue plan to purchase the latest and greatest tech in order to play more games (I was even going to buy the fancy-shmancy Awakening edition 3DS). The snag in this brilliant plan? I was too young to have had a card of my own to use for online purchasing, and despite that I had cash in hand from my summer job to pay her immediately back for it, mother dearest thought $250 for an updated version of a system I already had was too expensive and wouldn't let me use her card to buy it. From there it was a downward spiral of leaving childhood for the horrible world of adulting and being forever broke, cruising through the game aisle at walmart and gazing enviously at the cool new games I couldn't play because now I had no money to buy the console. With the recent news that the eshop was going to be closing, I, finally with funds in my account and having intended to do this years ago, got myself in gear and wound up spending almost $600 on a new-in-box 3DS XL to someone on then $50 more for the game itself. But you know what? Worth it. I'd wanted to play the game from the moment I first learned about it, and aside from some gameplay gripes compared with past games (since when does a mounted unit not get to use the rest of their range after taking an action?!), I'm so glad I've finally got it, and I've already bought all the DLC so I can have the full experience.
It's also reminded me how much I love Fire Emblem, and just this morning I was listening to the soundtrack for Radiant Dawn, wanting nothing more than to camp out on the couch and replay it. RD was technically my first FE game, because 14 year-old me thought Ike was very attractive and used him almost exclusively in Smash, and upon finding some written description in-game that said he was from Radiant Dawn, off I went to find myself a copy, because cute guy. (I bought a lot of games based on that in my teen years. I haven't exactly stopped.) I say technically because even though that started my journey, I was instantly an addict, and found a copy of FE7 for the Gameboy Advance sitting in a Gamestop display case - obviously an insta-buy - and that was the first one I played through to the end, by virtue of it being portable. While I don't know that I could choose a favorite overall game, my favorite FE guy is definitely from Blazing Blade - Legault is forever and always my man, though Naesala from the Radiant duo is a close second favorite. Oh man, if there'd been Awakening-esque romance in those games... For Awakening itself, I'm really struggling with there only being three save files, because there's so many characters I've come to like and want to pair my Avatar with, but the fact of the matter is I've been waiting almost ten years to marry Libra, and this year, it will finally happen. It's been a long road, but we're almost there, and I can't wait to play more Fire Emblem - I've already got my sights on Fates and Shadows of Valentia so I can get their DLC before the eshop closure as well.
Re: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Writer Reflects On The IP's Strengths And Appeal
In fairness, the games aren't perfect - RRT had a very limited inventory that made the difficult dungeons even moreso, and clients who joined you for missions were the absolute bane of my existence, level one wimps you couldn't direct and who always, ALWAYS jumped into the fight and used up your precious, limited stock of Reviver Seeds because they were programmed to be idiotic liabilities. Explorers pretty well fixed the inventory issue, but the whole concept of the Guild rubbed me the wrong way, the same as the Ranger Academy did in Shadows of Almia, because in the first game of each series, it was your passion and determination to make the world a better place for your fellow beings that got you where you were, whereas the sequels presented a system of 'No we don't allow that in this world, pay your dues to the established organization, how dare you want to help people without the proper paperwork and registration' that didn't (and doesn't) sit right with me. That theme aside, though, Explorers was a grand old time, and Grovyle will always be in my heart 💚
I recently bought Rescue Team DX for the Switch and was massively disappointed in it. The cel-shaded art style just made the world feel fake and empty, the added and altered dialogue that I suppose I should have expected from a remake was a disappointment nonetheless for someone with so much love for the original as it was, and the overly complicated control system that doesn't even include a non-move attack was... no. Nope. I was so excited to get to replay the game I love on a new system and experience the story again, but I just can't make myself do it. It's not a total loss, because I do have a 3 year-old sister who loves Pokémon (you're welcome for that, Mom ;P) and with no prior experience to sully it for her, I'm sure she'll love it once she learns to read and can play it without an adult to tell her what everything says. For myself though, I've got my fingers crossed for GBA games coming to Switch Online, and RRT to be one of them so I can sink myself back into the universe that carried me through so many years of my young life without having to wipe the save from my old game (which I did once out of an overpowering desire to be an Eevee, immediately regretted, and will never, ever do again now that my hundreds of hours save file is back to its proper state of Charmander-ness.)
Re: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Writer Reflects On The IP's Strengths And Appeal
My two Mystery Dungeon games were SUCH a big part of my life. I've always been an overemotional basket case, but the tears that were shed through Red Rescue Team and Explorers of Darkness. Yes, the gameplay is all the same, with no real bells or whistles, but it didn't need anything fancy to be a good time. Both games have amazing soundtracks that I still listen to and can call up in my memories on demand, and the stories that were so incredible to my younger self still stand with the best sixteen years after the fact (in the case of Red Rescue Team, I'll admit I don't remember what point in my timeline Explorers happened.) The storm of emotion tied to those games, though! I swear I spent half of the story sequences crying my eyes out. I've gotten emotional over some of my Pokémon from the main series games, but there just aren't a lot of moments in the storylines themselves that invoke much in the way of feelings, other than frustration because I'm JUST trying to get to the next town I swear if I run into ANOTHER bleeping Bidoof I'm gonna scream- but I digress. The emotion in these games, the A+ soundtracks that help that incredible storytelling along, the unique gameplay that still has me picking up RRT to this day, and the sheer gorgeousness and detail of the worlds make these some of my all-time best games. And I mean, really, they outdid themselves - every single Pokémon in the game(s) has its own individual animations, unlike the main games of the timeframe, which had a largely static sprite sent out into battle, which then used the same animation of the moves as every other Pokémon witch access to them. No one is boring in the Mystery Dungeon series, each Pokémon is its own unique entity, just as they would be in a living, breathing world. (As an aside, Pokémon Ranger had a lot of that individuality too, and was another excellent game with a lot of love and care put into crafting its world.)