PixlBit

I hope everybody is enjoying their holiday today. I've actually enjoyed mine despite not feeling exactly in the holiday spirit this year.

From my wife, I received Final Fantasy XV for the PS4 and the hardcover player's guide. I've been playing it and am really, really enjoying it. It's been great getting immersed in a Final Fantasy title again. Say what you will, but Square Enix has really turned things around from their sparse presence on the PS3 and 360. Starting with FF Type-0, Dragon Quest Heroes, Bravely Default, and DQVII 3DS, they've again become my favorite company outside of Nintendo. FFXV feels much freer than FFXIII or even FFX, and I'm really getting into it.

One thing that's struck me about FFXV is how much the early parts remind me of childhood family vacations, with settings that are seemingly inspired by the fabled Route 66, the highway that ran across the Western United States from Chicago to Santa Monica and has largely been replaced by I-40 and I-44. I grew up in this part of the country. My family didn't have a lot of money, but my parents scraped and saved so that we could still travel. Most of these trips were done by car, and in order to stretch our budget, we stayed with relatives when we could. Since my family lives almost entirely in the West, that's generally where we traveled, and so I spent a great deal of my summers on the Interstate System traveling through mountains and deserts and frequenting truck stops along the way. Naturally, I spent a good deal of my time during rest stops in the video arcades most of them had back then, which were the first places I every saw such favorite games as Mortal Kombat or Virtua Fighter. Even today, I enjoy a good road trip and almost wish I'd gone into long-haul trucking instead of health care. :)

My other piece of swag was a T-shirt showing the stained glass window of Link from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The Zelda games have been my favorite game series ever since the first game came out back in the late 80s, and I've got lots of Zelda T-shirts. So this Christmas I essentially got my two favorite game series of all time.

Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying your games and hopefully time with your families as well. I leave you with this classic holiday greeting from Krusty the Clown.