PixlBit

It's too bad Christmas was so stressful for you. I'm glad New Years' turned out to be much better. For my part, Christmas was pretty good with my PSTV and New Years was all right. Drank egg nog fortified with rum and set off a couple of packages of Black Cats left over from the 4th of July. My birthday, on Tuesday of this week, however, was very stressful for reasons I might go into later.

My reading has consisted of Stephen King and a reread of an old favorite, The Clan of the Cave Bear.

Good, as always, to see you check in.

The guy sounds like a Microsoft stockholder.

I own a PS4, and nothing Microsoft has really interests me in Xbox One. Most of the games I'd play on Xbox One are on PS4, and PS4 is getting quite a few exclusives that I do want.

Hey, the 3DS is a nifty little system. I own more games for it than for any other handheld I've ever owned.

My favorite Virtual Console offerings on 3DS are the Kid Icarus games. The NES KI was given 3-D visuals and it has the same sound as the Famicom Disk System original (the FDS had several more sound channels than the NES, which is why some NES games that originally started as FDS games sound kind of tinny). KI: Of Myths and Monsters for the Game Boy is really hard to find and it was one of my favorite Game Boy games, so I was delighted to find it on 3DS VC.

When my wife got me mine, she got me the bundle with the Lego Movie video game included as a digital DL that also came with an 8GB memory card, which went for $100. She also got me Tales of Hearts R (physical version), which was my "trigger game" for asking for this for Christmas. It came with a Dualshock 3, but will work with a Dualshock 4 as well, and in some games the DS4's touchpad can emulate the touchpad on the back of the Vita.  There was a "plain vanilla" version going for 80 bucks new as well, and the console is the size of a pack of Bicycle cards. PSP games run really good on it.  As far as compatibility issues, some of its issues are due to the use of the gyroscopes and touchpad in the Vita, I guess, and a few of the Vita's better-known games like Gravity Rush and Uncharted: Golden Abyss aren't supported. The former would be kind of cool, I don't give a damn about the latter. Most of the newer games from Japan do support the PSTV, like Freedom Wars, ToHR, as well as Persona 4 Golden. The one game I would like to see patched for the PSTV that isn't compatible is Ys: Memories of Celceta.

I received the PlayStation TV as a Christmas present, and that's a good, if flawed, introduction to the world of Vita for me. I got Tales of Hearts R and Persona 4 Golden for it, got a few downloadable PSP games working on it (including a few that aren't "officially" supported). I like it, and there are a few games upcoming I want for it, but I'm realistic about what kind of support it gets. It was a cheap little microconsole anyway, so I've gotten my wife's money's worth out of it. :)

Wii U was great, and a good chunk of my most anticipated of '15 are Wii U games. 3DS has slowed somewhat, but I do want Codename: S.T.E.A.M, which looks like a Nintendo take on Valkyria Chronicles.

PS4 looks really good in 15. Both the PS4 and the Xbone were kind of mediocre in 2014, but things look better from here on out.

PC.... ehhh. Since I'm a laptop-only PC user and am not really interested in buying a tower, the only PC gaming I do is emulated stuff. I've bought a few Steam games but very rarely play on Steam.

My mains are Millia, Sol, and (in X2) Testament.

I-No's name is pronounced E-No. She was named for rocker Brian Eno. Most of the Guilty Gear cast's names are from rock musicians or bands. Jam Kuradoberi is a Japanization of the Swedish band "Cloudberry Jam." May is named for Brian May of Queen, while Sol Badguy, whose real name is Frederick, is a reference to Queen's Freddie Murcury.

Bedman reminds me of a 1990s anime called Roujin-Z, which was about a robotic hospital bed.

I believe it was Tomonobu Itagaki or someone else at Tecmo that gave a term to the phenomenon you describe in game design: "Japanese hamburger", wherein the Asian take on the hamburger has a lot of the basics of a hamburger in the United States, but the ingredients they choose cause a disconnect when seen or tried by an American. In game design, it refers to elements that in many ways appear Westernized but have little details that seem off to an American gamer used to Western design elements.

I kind of wish I'd jumped on some of the rarer Amiibos when they first came out, like Shulk or Ike. Wouldn't mind having Link and Zelda with my love of all things Zelda.

I tried Ragnarok Online a few times, but MMOs aren't really my thing. I'll fire up Final Fantasy XIV: ARR once in awhile and that's it.

I've always liked the Eastern aesthetic when it comes to design of environments myself.

Well, as I always say, I assume it made sense to somebody during a board meeting, but we all know what assuming does.