sdelfin

That part toward the end referencing a statement by Layden has an error, and it's probably his error. 1993 is too late. The situation between Nintendo, Sony, and Philips happened at CES 1991. That is known. It also leaves enough time for Sony trying to salvage the venture, attempt to strike a deal with Sega, and then eventually develop the PS1 which would have needed some time, more time than a 1993 date would allow.

@TheBigK I think the gap between official controllers and third-party controllers started to shrink in the Wii/360/PS3 days. All of those systems had their controller issues and it sounds like things are still mixed. Meanwhile, the quality of these various third-party controllers from 8bitdo, Retro Fighters, and a bunch of others have gotten very good. All the 8bitdo stuff I have feels great to use with only long-term durability being an issue in one case so far. I just tested out my 2C wired and the D-pad on this thing is extremely good in my opinion, a nice step up from the 1C.

I've been very happy with my 8bitdo pads despite some issues which I'll go into. Some people have said they have had issues with unwanted diagonals, but I haven't run into that in any of the pads I have tried. I have the Pro+ which is/was amazing. The D-pad feel is as good as any I've used, on par with the old Saturn pads. The only issue with the Pro+ is that the button membranes are weak and eventually tear, which is unfortunate. They are replaceable and inexpensive, but the durability is a shame as I never ran into this before. I have two older pads, and FC30 and an original Zero, from a decade ago. They're also quite good for what they are. The Zero is quite usable on games that don't require complex inputs such as fighting games. I had fun using the Zero to beat Gauntlet IV last year. I have two of the 8bitdo Neo Geo CD controllers and they are fantastic so far. My only concern is if the button membranes are more durable, a concern I have for all the pads now.

As for the Ultimate C controllers, I have three of them now. Straight away, they are the best budget controller generally speaking as far as I can tell. I bought two of the Ultimate C Wired(USB) controllers a while back. They were $20 each and I had a coupon. I recently picked up an Ultimate 2C Wired for the hall-effect sticks and detachable cable. They appear to be $17-20 I haven't used it yet, but will test it out later. It does feel the same in the hand as the older model. The D-pad feel is different, but feels good. I may follow up here after testing. The 2C Wired is also slightly heavier than the previous. Regarding their build quality, they both feel much more solid than my official Xbox Series controller, which I also like, but feels creaky and flexes more in comparison, with buttons that stick sometimes. Aside from the positioning of the D-pads being different from the Pro+, which has my preferred layout, the D-pads are stiffer and not quite as good as the Pro+. I still find the original C D-pads pretty good though. I was just playing fighting games last night for testing. I have to adjust how I use the pad. The only diagonal issue is that it's easy to come off left or right by accident leading me to accidentally jump straight up. I was able to easily adjust by sliding my thumb to the edges of the D-pad and it works just fine for me, but it's not my natural inclination. So I like my C controllers very much. I'll probably be able to test out my C2 later today. The extra L and R buttons may come in handy for me as well.

Update: I have since tested my 2C wired controller. The D-pad immediately felt different to the 1C. I tested it with some top-down games to test for diagonal issues, which there were none. I played a game of The Last Blade, the Neo Geo fighter. As far as first impressions go, the D-pad is excellent. It has the feel I like, very similar to the Pro+ which is one of the best I've ever used. The 1C D-pad is good, but I had to adjust how I play due to a slight difficulty with diagonals. I found it a bit too easy to accidentally come off left or right too soon. With adjustment, I found it to be very good. But the 2C is a significant upgrade. I'd have no problem making the 2C my primary gamepad, and with them costing about $17 each with hall-effect analog sticks, I may get a few more.

-To me, being an early adopter for the sake of it has never appealed to me. I've only been an early adopter a few times and it's always been about the games. Sometimes, mid-gen refreshes are lacking too, or not enough of an upgrade. For example, OLED is not for everyone, or a Pro upgrade can really not offer much that is meaningful. Between the backlog, and my preference for older games, it's easier than ever to just wait.

-I never seek to get 100 percent. With a lot of modern games, they cram in a lot of content, and it's not always fun. Sometimes it just feels like chores. I guess the context makes the difference. For example, I hate collecting things in Zelda games, so I just do the easier ones and important stuff. But I recently played the Batman Arkham games, and I enjoyed doing most of the side quests except for the Riddler stuff. If it's fun, then I'll do it. Going back to Metroid Prime, I loved scanning everything and it never felt like a chore.

-I remember starting out on the Atari 2600 too. The early games that hooked me on the hobby were the likes of Chopper Command, River Raid, and Pitfall. Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo was an important game. Double Dragon was an early favorite as well, and I remain a huge fan of beat-em-up games to this day.

-I think Damien must have talked about his photography before as I expected that answer. Good to know I didn't hallucinate that.

-One thing I've learned from many examples is that the game companies tend to have the worst emulators. For example, Capcom released a mobile collection of Mega Man games that was notoriously bad. The companies just don't care enough about their old games, or they don't have the right people developing the emulators. With that said, I don't know about the specific emulators referred to here.

-Not quite Saturday morning cartoons, but pancakes and BOTW sounds good enough.

-I replay a lot of games as I lean much more retro these days. When I play something more modern that's larger in scope akin to what that letter refers to, I often feel like I spend a good portion of my first run getting a hang of things. For example, I still felt like a rookie pretty deep into Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I ended up replaying them because I wanted more of the experience, but I wanted to experience the games without fumbling with the controls after finally getting the hang of everything.

-With the size, scope, and requirements of modern games, I view the various standard engines to be a good thing. That seems like it would let game designers focus on designing the game which is the most important. There are downsides to these common engines, as we have seen in some cases. It would be good to see more variety in that regard, at least for big releases. Maybe some engines are a bit more demanding than others. I have no complaints about the results. One of my favorite uses of the Unreal Engine are the modern Guilty Gear games, and a few others, using 3D that look convincingly 2D and a treat to look at.

As I scrolled down, I thought to myself, this has to get better as it goes. And it just never did. This week started bad, and ended bad. These are terrible. The first one with the disembodied face I think is the worst of the bunch. The second one at least has a more realized Mario drawing. But it's still too zoomed in and the logos detract from things(a problem for the first cover too). The Japanese cover is no better as the extreme close up is just not a good concept in my opinion. The best feature of the Japanese cover may just be the border. So my pick for least bad is Europe 2.

@darkswabber If you do any PC gaming and use Steam, the Dadish games are on sale right now until March 20(corrected from my initial statement overestimating the sale by a few days).

There must be some ninja magic in use for the NA cover because it appears Ryu is crouching on top of water. And that does appear to be water because you can see the reflections. And if that wasn't convincing enough, Ryu is crouching on water on the cover for the prior game. The big problem is that the cover concept, while good, is way too much of a rehash of the second game's cover. I'd also say it's the weakest of all the NA covers.

The Japanese cover looks to be a tie in with the anime OVA of 1991. The concept isn't as dynamic or exciting as the NA cover, but I give it extra points for having that signature '80s and '90s anime style. Also, Ryu looks the way he should and is consistent with his look in the game cutscenes. All of these things taken together, I prefer the Japanese cover by a little bit.

@N00BiSH I get that. I'm not trying to sell you. Everyone can use and think what they like. But when someone makes a benign comment suggesting Retroarch and then you reply in such a charged way, then some push back I think is understandable, especially since things aren't so clear cut, but we already went over that. I'll be happy to leave it there.

@N00BiSH While I do like a unified solution, that's not at the top of my list. Frankly, at the time I switched to Retroarch, it did many things better than every other emulator I had access to. Specifically, it was miles ahead of everything else when it came to display output and options. If standalone emulators have gotten better since then, it's directly because Retroarch was far superior for years. Finicky? I don't think I've had any issues since around 2018. Nobody likes the UI at first. But I went through the same thing with MAME and Mednafen(command line), and they're not garbage either. If I could use them, then I could figure out Retroarch. It's actually really easy to use after you get past a few hurdles(like input mapping). But that applies to almost everything, even some standalone emulators I've tried more recently.

I would say the worst UI I've experience goes to Windows 8 by a mile. Retroarch is a joy to use by comparison.

@N00BiSH if literally every other emulator was better, then I wouldn't have switched to Retroarch because it did many things better than every other emulator I had used up to that point.

I don't like either cover. With that out of the way, I voted for the NA/Euro cover. Why? Because I like the Pokemon logo better. That's all I got.

I kept up with the news back in the GBA days. Ninja Five-0 was a blink-and-you'll-miss it deal. I happened to see a review, which acknowledged the game was probably not going to sell many copies due to no name recognition. But the review was very positive and it was highly recommended to those with retro tastes. I knew I couldn't wait long and I ordered it soon after, so I do have the cart. And while it may not be to everyone's taste, the game lived up to the review for me and was and still is one of my favorites in the GBA library.

"...and if you disagree, well, let's just say...that's very understandable and I respect your opinion."

That's some of my favorite trash talk I've heard. The thing with more of the same is there's always a segment of an audience that might be driven more by novelty. So more of the same won't appeal to them. Some people just have their fill after a time. This is especially true for larger games. But I also think that more of the same is great for great games. Even then, games that do more of the same still often have small differences. I think it's one of those things where that's something reviewers need to point out, and then people have to decide whether that's good or not. Just for clarity, I say this as someone who never gets tired of arcade beat-em-up games and modern games of that sort, so I love me some sameness.

I expected Europe to be quite a bit worse based on the build up in the article, but it is definitely bad. So bad it's good, perhaps, but not "so bad it's good enough to vote for" which is a saying I just made up.

I'm going to assume Japan's cover isn't as washed out as it appears in this image, and other images I've found seem to back this up. So purely on layout, I think Japan's is better. While having the title at the top is fine, I think it works better on the bottom. Japan's also manages a few more characters, which isn't always a good thing. But the NA cover fumbles with the additional logos at the bottom corners. Japan's logos don't get in the way of anything. Japan is my pick.

I finally had a look at this. I like the look they achieved. They did a good job of keeping the lines as minimal as possible. Bold, sharp outlines are a common element of digital art, but that has a tendency to make things look flat and disconnected from the backgrounds. Old anime, and old animation in general, especially stuff that was more serious in tone, tended to minimize dark outlines for the most part. Also, the lines they do have in this art are broken and uneven, and I point that out as a good thing, which goes further in giving it a hand-drawn look despite it possibly being digitally made. For that, I give them a lot of credit for the look of it.

@N64-ROX it's reminiscent of what Sega did in the 1990s with Thunder Force 4. Here was a series of shooters successful enough to reach a fourth instalment, and is considered one of the best games on the Mega Drive/Genesis, so someone in the US had the bright idea to change the title to "Lightening Force". Not only is it likely a misspelling of "lighting", but there's no indication on the cover that it's a Thunder Force game. And if "lightening" was indtended, then that's even more baffling.

I don't think either is particularly good, but I think the western cover is particularly bad. Japan's actually has some decent composition, despite being cluttered with questionable art direction. The eye is drawn where it is supposed to be, to the title and the characters. On the western box, Fox doesn't look important. His ship is off center. The other ship draws the eye away. The mess of logos and borders squeezes the art making it worse. I say it often, but that red side strip and the corner peel make N64 boxes among the worst overall. It amazes me that the N64 box design was conceived by professionals. Japan wins for me.

Been a good week for retro reveals with seeing a proper demonstration of this game along with Neon Inferno. Looks very good to me and I think the art style fits pretty well. I love beat-em-ups so if they incorporate combos into the gameplay as it looks like they have, I'll probably like it. The Shinobi series has always added things with each game, so that would be in line with the series as well.

I've been hearing the debate about OLED vs. LCD for a long time now in phones. I like OLED but it's a non issue for me. In fact, as far as I can tell, I am one of the people that has some kind of sensitivity to OLED flicker. I found myself getting extremely drowsy a few times while using OLED early on. That feeling ceased as soon as I switched to an LCD device. I've also spoken to a contributor on Time Extension who said he got headaches every time he used the OLED Switch, but not the LCD Switch. Back to me, I've found a way to cope with my OLED devices, which is to jack up the brightness to 100 percent, and then dim the screen with an app. That works out very well for me, but I lose adaptive brightness. That wouldn't be an option on any Switch unless Nintendo provided it themselves, and they won't.

I'm the person in my family that sets up new phones for people that don't know how or can't be bothered with that. My mother has a mid-range phone from a few years ago that I've spent plenty of time with. It has an absolutely fantastic LCD screen to the point where I've found myself thinking "Wow, what a great screen" and the reviews for it pointed that out too. Other than the true black of an OLED, it can stand up to any OLED I've used. And I'm sure there are better LCD panels out there. But for me, and leaving any sensitivity out of it, the difference between OLED and LCD is tiny and not clear cut.

A couple of additional things. Back to the sensitivity issue, I've heard and read that there are some screens that have a higher rate of flicker(in this case a good thing) or other methods of dimming. I would like to try one of those screens at some point to see if I can feel a difference. I've heard good things. As I don't really consider OLED clearly superior, at least in terms of image quality, I wouldn't even bother with an OLED TV. Plus, from what I've observed, TVs tend to have the worst panels when it comes to pixel degradation. All the best OLED panels I've heard of in that regard were for mobile devices, including the Switch.

There are things I like and dislike about each one. The Japanese one is well executed, but I find it hard to get into the concept of making the box resemble a gold bar or something like it. It's a bit much. I don't love the renders on the western cover, but the concept and composition are good. I vote for the western cover this week.

I wasn't familiar with this developer or their previous game. This looks very nice visually. The character designs seem good and the stages have sort of an impressionist or watercolor vibe to them. It works pretty well in the screens and teaser. I'll have to make a note.

Motion control, or at least the option for it, seems like a good fit for Okami's brush system. Whether it is actually accurate and responsive is the important part. I've heard a lot of mixed things about that, but many people seem to be fine with it and that version overall. I had some real problems in that regard on the PS2 version of the game, which I also wouldn't recommend to anyone. I've heard the HD versions of the game fix up some of the game's issues. It sounds like his issue is mostly that the port was outsourced.

I agree about the reveal being basically a sneak reveal. It was an acknowledgement of its existence and a tease of new features. I didn't think much of the reveal because I don't like that style of video. Leaks didn't really hurt things, in my opinion. Just as a reveal, I thought it was disappointing. But the Switch was so successful, and Switch 2 looks like it will be another good product that I don't think the reveal matters because it will likely sell itself. Plus there will likely be a much stronger software reveal before too long.

The Japanese cover is awful. I could stop right there. The western cover is odd. The composition is decent and the positioning gives them a convenient place to put the title without it feeling forced in there. However, the platform they're on is so high in the frame that it leaves a lot of empty space at the bottom. While they use it for the various logos, it doesn't change that it feels like a terrible waste of space and isn't well judged. Still, it's way better than the Japanese one.

The timing is an issue sine many people who otherwise might like these will wait. But the Switch sold so many units and may even persist as a value offering like the PS2 did that there may still be a good market for these controllers. Especially with hall-effect sticks, this could be something that those who intend to stick with the original Switch would consider as a long-term fix for JoyCon issues.

My favorite thing about the NA cover is that entity(the god of thunder, perhaps) riding the cloud in the center while playing a drum set, though both covers have a version of him(it?). What makes the difference for me is the anime style of the time for the Japanese one. The main characters look quite a bit better there compared to their lumpy-faced counterparts on the NA cover. Overall, Japan's box is more appealing to me as a result.

These three year olds need to suck it up and git gud!!!!

Okay, in all seriousness, I think the difference for those of us that grew up with difficult games of the 8-bit era is that those were all we had. They were made to be appealing, but they also were the best we had at the time. Now there are so many games from different times. I can't begrudge a kid for preferring to play in a big 3D world with a character that looks like it did in the movie, or something like that. It also highlights how tricky game design can be these days. Not every game should be accessible on difficulty, but a lot of them can be, but then how much is the right balance?

I was very lucky to pick this one up on GBA when it came out. I kept up with GBA news and reviews very closely back in those days. I didn't know much about the game ahead of time, but knew it was the style I was looking for, so I checked the review right away. Even the review alluded to the fact that the game was likely to get lost in the shuffle, so I knew I should not wait too long. I picked it up a few weeks later. While I did keep a few of my GBA boxes, I didn't keep that one. I was very happy that I picked the game up, and that's just for the gameplay and not the collector value, which is just a nice bonus. But I'm glad the game will be more widely available for people.

No hesitation for me, the western art is way better. I am not fond of the general design of N64 boxes with the side strip and corner peel(which the original release of this game has). Luckily, that's barely a factor here and the composition for the box art is excellent and takes that into account. Mario is the focal point and having his head right next to the strip was a great choice as it leaves plenty of room for the background characters, with plenty of breathing room so it doesn't feel cluttered. The low angle of the perspective works and makes it very dynamic. It's really well executed.

On one hand, it is a bit unfair that various partners have to keep the secret, but then some reveal it early. Though the leaks seemed so small that it didn't really harm anything and probably won't be of much benefit to the leakers anyway. And the fact they did leak could convince Nintendo to find new partners down the line. On the other hand, leaks are common and should be expected. Nintendo had to have expected them. The leaks ended up building some more hype anyway, so it might have been free advertising, intended or not.

I might have a similar opinion and rant towards someone who directs a PS2 game where it takes about 20 minutes of gibberish before you can actually play the game. But that's another matter entirely.

I didn't think all that much of the reveal trailer itself. The original Switch reveal was much better. The actual Switch 2 concept and improvements are very good, though. I'm sure when we see more, it will be more exciting.

For the NA cover, the main Klonoa is a pretty good render for what it is. The cover itself is just a boring concept with middling execution. It's the worst of the three.

With Japan and Europe being similar, it's going to come down to minor things. Europe's is cramped and gets clipped on the side. Japan's is also cramped, though slightly less so, but gets clipped on the bottom. I think the illustration of Klonoa comes across better with the clipping on the left, but showing the leg. The clipped leg of the Japanese one detracts from the character pose, I think. Europe wins for me.

I can't deny that many people love RE4 so it succeeded in that way. My experience was negative, but I'll be brief because I don't want to drag anything down. I thought that the early stages of the game were great. At roughly halfway through the game, it felt like things changed and it became a slog to me. I despised the QTE knife fight and had some other issues. Not everyone will like the same things, and that's how it goes sometimes. From the sound of it, the remake sounds like it fixed various issues and credit to Capcom for making some changes to things that maybe didn't work so well or did not age well like the aforementioned QTE-heavy stuff. If they ever take the additional DRM out of the PC version, I'd be willing to give the remake a shot.

This week's batch provides a good lesson in composition. The framing of the European cover is too tight and the frame is cramped. Crash feels too close to the viewer, in my view. The secondary racers are squeezed in and it feels that way. The logo is crushing everything. The checkered flag background is either badly judged or poorly implemented and only makes everything worse.

The Japanese cover makes most of those same mistakes. The framing is way too tight. Crash is way too tightly framed for what the art is trying to accomplish(for example, it's not dynamic at all). The other racer is practically right on top of him. The logo is crushing them. The clock behind them is also crushing everything, making the framing feel more cramped. The blurring of the background is probably meant to minimize that a tiny bit, but it barely helps anything.

North America's cover, whether it's good or not, is easily the best one here. There's actually a little bit of breathing room and I can feel it immediately. It is simply more pleasant and more coherent visually just for having a tiny bit of space, along with some other elements that show good judgement. Crash is front and center without feeling right on top of the viewer. The secondary characters are clear, but are better placed not feeling like they're right on top of Crash. The extra space makes it so the logo doesn't feel overwhelming. In addition to the background being an actual background, which is itself nice, the color enhances the little bit of breathing room making the composition even more pleasant.

I have no love for the gold boxes. They stood out at the time for being different, but as far as actual box art it's quite boring. The Japanese one is pretty generic as Zelda art goes. It looks like extra promo art that was meant to be in the manual. Still, it wouldn't take much to beat the gold box, and the Japanese cover is enough to win out for me.

An interesting battle this week as we have the typical anime/manga style of the time vs. the typical western comic-book style of the time. And I like both styles, though I gravitated more toward the Japanese style as more anime became available in the US. I did spend some years collecting comics and do love that style when it's done well. The particular western art for this one isn't bad to me, but I've seen better. I think the background characters all look pretty good. "Rastan"(that's who it looks like to me) up front looks overly inked to me. The black areas don't feel entirely well judged, in my opinion, and detract from the finished product. This is not the kind of inking that I love, especially in the style of books in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. This has more of a typical mid-90s look. It actually gives me Valiant Comics vibes, as all their books had a different look from the norm. I do want to give credit to the western cover art for making very good use of the landscape form factor of the box, which wasn't so common.

The issue with the Japanese cover is that it's another jumble of many of the game's characters. But it's boring because it does work, though not every time. What carries the Japanese cover is strong character designs and just a good execution of the art. Japan wins for me.

I had to think about this one for a bit. They're both quite good. The blue background in the western cover is nice. I like the sun being up top, and the curve of the sun goes with the curve of the top banner. For Japan the way the wolf is posed shows off more elements beyond just looking like a white wolf. And of course, the background is really nice for Japan. Eventually, I decided to vote for Japan, but the other cover is very strong too.

@Tempestryke To be clear, I took issue with the game's pacing, not the size or length. Also, when I played Okami, I was hoping for something that felt like Wind Waker, which had a pace I liked, but it was not that for me.

@Tempestryke I don't know what you're even getting at. That would make more sense is I just played Okami recently and knew what I was getting into, but I played it years ago and didn't expect certain things. I've played other adventure games that I thought had much better pacing if that's what you mean(I loved Wind Waker, even the sailing). Plenty of people like the game. Good for them. I'm just sharing why it didn't work for me. Incidentally, I've spoken to fans of the game who acknowledged my complaints were valid. Just saying something is sprawling doesn't mean anything. If you make a game big enough and long enough, you're going to lose some people that want things to go somewhere. Also, back then reviews weren't all that helpful as far as determining if there were elements in the game that weren't to someone's taste. I don't remember the PS2 box advertising "unskippable cutscenes and lots of talking", "mandatory 20 minute intro (with a story they tell you twice) before you can play" or "gets good in the second half"(again, paraphrasing what an actual fan of the game said). Note that I acknowledged that the remakes apparently improved some of those things which I give them credit for, and I'm hopeful enough that the sequel will be good, both for fans of the original, and even those that may not have liked it. And that's because several of the things I mentioned were trends in game development at the time it was made.

I bought Blasphemous earlier this year, but haven't gotten to play it yet. The pixel art is fantastic in it and it looks fun. This also has nice visuals in game. It looks like it will be quite a bit different from the NES games, with lots of new abilities. It almost looks like they combined Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, and Hagane(which Moonrider did as well, as I recall). And that's fine by me, though I wonder if it will feel like the NES games in some way. This is a case where I think moving forward from the NES games makes sense, whereas in Shinobi I think the closer they stick to the Genesis games, the better. I'll be looking forward to learning more about this.

I wanted to like Okami, but it had too many issues in the PS2 original. There's the intro that is nearly 20 minutes long and cannot be skipped. The gibberish language got tiresome as well, especially since the game is overly verbose. I found the "brush" to be unreliable(sometimes inexplicably so) which led to having to repeat annoying set pieces. I know the later versions fixed certain things. That's why I'm hopeful that the developers avoid some of the worst elements from the first game.

@LadyCharlie I know what you mean. Okami was not a game that respected the player's time all that well. I once came across someone who said that those who were bored in Okami should hang in there because the game got good after the first 20 hours or so. And I thought to myself, I think I'd rather play a game that's fun from the beginning.

First off, the "only for" nonsense in the lower-right corner of both western releases is terrible and a huge waste of space. Also terrible? The entire composition of the Japanese cover. The logo and text ruin that cover because you can see that there is a background, but you can barely see the background making it pointless. It's not good. The NA cover is far better due to the layout and visibility. However, I prefer seeing the different Wario versions on the Euro cover, especially Bat Wario. Europe is my pick this week.

Reminds me of the crossing of the Bridge of Death in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Those that could not successfully answer the five questions(three questions!!) would be cast by magical forces into the Gorge of Eternal Peril much like those emoters did in the video. That's probably the most I can say about Fortnite.

I don't really like either one very much. Both have issues, in my opinion, of elements being undefined. I had trouble figuring out what I was looking at. On the US one, the main character's lower half gets lost in the background a bit. Also, his stance is very odd. I get what Japan's cover is going for, but the main character just looks unclear to me visually. In this case, I vote for the western cover.

Japan's background is just lacking to me. I like the overall composition and concept of the western cover more. Plus, Kirby looks suitably furious, as he should.

This is an interesting comparison because both covers have good elements, but also their fair share of issues. The western cover probably has better composition, and the red background is nice. The cover is also more accurate to the game. With that said, I think the overall art is superior for the Japanese cover. I also love Fist of the North Star/Hokuto No Ken, so I find the Japanese cover more attractive. For those reasons, I vote for Japan.

I always preferred the first one. The second has some improvements, but some elements that felt like a step backward. I didn't find the light and dark worlds all that interesting. I thought the first game had the better difficulty balance. Part two had some tougher regular enemies which made things tedious in spots.

One thing I really liked in part one was that there were no pits anywhere. It made the world seem a bit more believable. The second game had pits. If you fell in, the game put you back on the ground but you took damage. That's not a bad way to do it, but it did lower the immersion for me compared to the first. With that said, I would like to replay the second game at some point hopefully soon.

Regardless of the annoyance of splash screens, the thing that jumps out at me is the claim that GSG provided patches and that Rockstar sat on them this whole time.

If only there was a way to play such a game on the go....

I would assume they were anticipating a slow day and had few appointments. And I suspect that's not the kind of thing that would get a lot of walk-in patients. So it may have made a lot of sense to close early anyway. Maybe some of the potential patients decided to do the same and play through the pain for DQ3.

I thought his first iteration of Link was a better match in terms of scale to the dungeons and the objects within. I did like the room transition he decided on. It was also interesting learning about his process. It's an interesting exercise in game design since it re-imagines something so many are familiar with.