PixlBit

Gaming in 2016 for me was defined largely by Final Fantasy XV, I also got Odin Sphere Leifthrasir and King of Fighters XIV. One of my favorite unusual gems from that year was Nights of Azure. Another little gem was The 7th Dragon on 3DS. I didn't play Doom on PS4, but I kind of want to get it for the Switch.

2016 wasn't great for me either. I ended up quitting the job that sent me to Maryland because of issues with an out of control employee and because it wasn't paying enough to cover the cost of living in Maryland. I got another job that paid better. I had a lot of conflict in my house. And on top of that, my parents got in a car accident in downtown Phoenix, with my dad ending up in the ICU and my mother blaming herself because she was driving. When I flew out there it was the first time I'd seen my family since I went to Maryland.

Ranger is gonna love this blog.

I played a little bit of Wizardry, but I preferred its competing series, Ultima, for the overhead view overworld and towns. I guess Etrian Odyssey kind of channels the Wizardry vibe these days. Plus there are a few Japanese developers still making Wizardry games.

Bloodborne was a good game. DOA5LR I tried. It's not a bad fighting game at all, and it's about the closest thing left to Virtua Fighter we have nowadays. :( I played Shantae on Wii U and posted in MiiVerse. If you had a drinking game centered around the number of times someone said "fanservice" on Miiverse, you'd die of alcohol poisoning.

I got a PS4 in 2013, but 2015 was the first year that it had things I really wanted to play. I got Mortal Kombat X, Final Fantasy Type-0, Dragon Quest Heroes, and Fallout 4. Fallout 4 was good, but I felt it was a step down from New Vegas. However, the settlements were kind of fun.

I have Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl. Good game that does kind of remind me of Wizardry. Another dungeon crawler on 3DS I really like is The 7th Dragon III Code VFD.

Black Panther was a good movie, though it follows all the conventions of every other MCU movie I've seen.

The 3DS is a good system. I actually bought more games for it than the original DS. I hope we'll see more 3DS style games migrate onto the Switch. My favorite games on the system are A Link Between Worlds, Pokemon X/Y, and Fire Emblem: Awakening.

2012 was a turnaround year for my gaming. 2011 was really dry as far as I was concerned. 2012 had Tales of Graces f, Lollipop Chainsaw, and XCOM. I mostly got XCOM because it reminded me of Valkyria Chronicles (I'm pretty sure Valkyria Chronicles drew at least some inspiration from the old XCOM games on PC from the 90s), but I still like Valkyria Chronicles better. 2013 was fantastic. Ni no Kuni was amazing, and there were a lot of other awesome games that year.

I had a pretty good size collection of Infocom text adventures in the 80s. Zork I and II, Enchanter (a spinoff of Zork), Cutthroats, Suspect, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which was actually my introduction to the series, when I showed this game to my sister, she got me the books), and The Leather Goddesses of Phobos, which was of a decidedly adult nature - the first part of the game, you had to pee and the restroom you picked determined what sex you and your companion were, just to give you an idea if you've never played this.

All of the Infocom games came with little toys and maps - "feelies" -like you see in collectors' editions of video games these days, and in a lot of cases, the added extras were clues to the game or served as a form of copy protection, as you couldn't win the game (in the pre-Internet era) without the information from the feelies. For example, Leather Goddesses had "scratch and sniff" points which were gross, as well as a comic book which told you how to solve a certain puzzle.

Now you can buy an iOS app from Activision that lets you play all of the Infocom games (except Hitchhiker's Guide due to licensing), and the feelies are included in the app. Well, except for Leather Goddess's scratch 'n' sniff stuff.

I actually did too. The only games I really wanted from the original Xbox were Ninja Gaiden/Black and Panzer Dragoon Orta, and the former game ended up on PS3 as Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

I forgot about Fire Emblem. I enjoyed Path of Radiance (and Radiant Dawn on Wii.)