PixlBit

I know gamefying academia has been a topic in recent years. I used to play Oregon Trail a lot when I was a kid, who didn't have the fun of dying from dysentery or having a tombstone saved on the disk that other kids could run across?

I guess that maybe we could have Civilization VI as a teaching aid for history class. We could have Cities Skylines for American Federal Government to explain taxes and public policy. The Fallout series could be used as a teaching aid for the Cold War. I'm pretty sure my mother ate squirrel on a stick and told me about how Roger Maxson encountered the vats of FEV at Mariposa Military Base, right?

I'm actually halfway serious about Cities and Civ VI. I learned a bit about local government and public policy from playing the original SimCity when I was 13, as well as resource and waste management. Of course, now it's Cities Skylines because EA killed SimCity, which they then befouled.

And I'm sure I'd definitely pay attention in class if my teacher were dressed like Tifa... I'd pay attention, and... uh... I should really be saddling up now.... oh, found the fire door...

I liked the giant horse in Zelda. I managed to ride my horses off of a cliff a few times.

I haven't picked up RDR2 yet. Rockstar's sandbox games generally aren't my cup of tea, but I like playing with the physics engines they have in them (my favorite things in GTA 4 and 5 were getting into head on collisions in fast cars and watching my character get thrown through the windshield into oncoming traffic and causing more wrecks and deaths).

I kind of wonder what was like to be the guys who had the job of designing the horse testicles. Or the guys in charge of programming the horses taking a shit.

I've heard it's all games on one cartridge (the Switch uses cartridges).

I'm waiting on the Switch Atari Flashback, which will have the combined content of all three of the Atari Flashbacks on the PS4/X1.

Too bad CV isn't still going, at least on the Switch.

Unpopular opinion: I enjoyed the 3-D entries to Castlevania. Even the N64 games, rough as they were, were at least interesting.

Stage Select:

1. Lunar. Nothing since the abomination that was Dragon Song. Heck, at this point I'd settle for a re-release of Eternal Blue, since you can at least get Silver Star on PSP/Vita or iPad. My wildest dream would be to see a true Lunar 3 made by the Valkyria Chronicles team using the CANVAS engine.

2. Ultima - sort of. I wish this classic RPG series were still going, but the series is now owned by EA, and aside from the fact that Origin and Lord British are long gone, EA's idea of reviving old series is to revive them as pay to win mobile phone crap. They did this with Ultima, in fact. Maybe if another company were to buy the series. Obsidian would probably do a good job with it, and they could probably even get Richard Garriott or Warren Spector to work on it.

3. Sakura Wars - This series is not only dormant, but only one game in the series released in the US. It's the precursor to Valkyria Chronicles, which you know I'm a huge fan of. I've heard that Sega is actually working on a new Sakura Wars game, but who knows if it will come out? But then again, all Sega has to do is put Atlus USA to work on it.

I enjoyed the Wii U. It was a deeply flawed system, but it honestly had more fun games on it than the first year or two of the PS4 and Xbox One. Bayonetta 2 and Mario Maker in particular were awesome. I'm glad a lot of them are getting a second life on the Switch. I'm hoping for the Zelda remakes and Tokyo Mirage Sessions on Switch.

I am one of those fans of the original. In fact, the original was my favorite game out of literally the entire 7th generation. I literally loved it more than any other game that came out on the PS3, Wii, 360, DS, or PSP. So I'm obviously pretty biased. I played the demo version on Switch, which is the system I preordered it for, and I am loving it. It's likely to be competing right against Dragon Quest XI for my GOTY. But I can see where it might be frustrating for an outsider, however. There is some room to improvise, but it does want you to follow a set series of maneuvers in order to get the best score in a lot of battles. 

My favorite was Star Fox 64, and I also liked Assault. SF Adventures was my least favorite of the series (unlike a lot of other people, I never really thought Rare was all that and a bag of chips), and Zero didn't deserve the critical beating it got. It was by no means a groundbreaking game but it certainly wasn't bad.

I'm also not exactly fond of Ubisoft, but I may get the Switch version of this just for the Star Fox stuff. I wish we got more space combat games than we do. I used to play Star Raiders and Starmaster in the Atari days, and I played Rogue Squadron a bit on the N64 and Cube, but Star Fox has been my favorite space game other than Starflight, a space RPG that I wish somebody would do a follow up on.

The Switch has a real shot at being my favorite system ever. It has Valkyria Chronicles, Final Fantasy, (hopefully) Dragon Quest, Doom, and a lot of surprise games that I might get just because they're on Switch (i.e. Civ 6, Wasteland 2), plus Zelda, Mario, a real Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, and and even the arcade versions of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros that Nintendo couldn't even get for the Wii, Wii U, or 3DS.

I'm liking all the Final Fantasy stuff. I have all those games already, but I'll probably at least get FF7, FF12, and FF9 on Switch, those are my favorites out of the series and any excuse to replay them will suffice. Wish they had 8 and Tactics on there.