PixlBit

I thought I was the only person who didn't understand why Konami kept catering to Kojima the way they did. Even at its peak, MGS was never as big as Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, or Nintendo's big guns. That Konami kept handing him blank checkbooks for so long was far less surprising to me than the way they finally got tired of him. He's probably a large part of why Konami cut back on video games in general. They're lavishly produced, but Resident Evil is more consistently entertaining as an action series. 

Glad to see Falcom and Trails getting so much love. Falcom has spent years building the worlds in which the Trails series are set. Each subset of Trails centers around a specific part. They are now working on the fourth major nation in the Trails world, the Calvard Republic (Kuro no Kiseki, which is now getting a second chapter in Japan), which will likely mark a full transition of the series to the PS5. A lot of earky computer RPGs like Ultima, Wizardry, and Might & Magic were set in persistent worlds, which occasionally caused continuity snarls and difficulty for new players to get into the series. Even the first six Dragon Quest games were two trilogies centered around the worlds of Alefgard and Zenithia. Though I've been a fan of Falcom since Faxanadu on NES, I've been on a huge Falcom kick over the past couple of years, juggling Ys and Trails. Hopefully y'all will talk abouy Ys in the future. 

Oh, and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is being re-released for Switch and PlayStation. I joked about this game getting a HD remaster for years. Now it's a thing. 

My dad hated video games and made disparaging remarks about me playing them in the 1980s. But when he retired, he really got into PC gaming, especially as his health declined and he couldn't do outdoor stuff.

My mom, on the other hand, got into computer and video gaming pretty early on. She liked Centipede and this Sierra Online game called Oil's Well the most. We'd try to beat each other's scores. She also liked Tetris on the Game Boy. 

When CD-ROM drives first came out for computers, they both played through The 7th Guest and Myst together  I was busy playing A Link to the Past and FF6 at the time. 

I still play Balloon Fight and Vs. Balloon Fight. At this point Balloon Fight returning seems more likely than Joust returning, since Warner Discovery doesn't seem interested in anything other than Mortal Kombat and DC games.

The Nintendo series I most want to come back is Kid Icarus. I'd like a full on 3-D action third person shooting/flying platform game, where you can explore at your own leisure. Ratchet and Clank have a good template for such a game. 

I'd also like them to look at Mother, but I know they won't without Itoi's involvement, and heck. it looks like Mother 3 will never be released over here, at least until Nintendo's next sales slump. Failing that, I'd like a follow-up to Tokyo Mirage Sessions, perhaps have Itsuki and company in the Fire Emblem world in a SRPG.

I liked the Wii Sports boxing the best, but what I really want is a Punch-Out for the Switch. 

Stage Select:

Been playing Shin Megami Tensei V lately, so my pick is the battle theme, which is kind of a headbanger.

Cage Match:

Okage wins this nominally. Neither of these games was honestly anything to write home about, but Okage was a serviceable enough 3-D adventure. I wanted Unlimited SaGa to be better because I enjoyed SaGa Frontier. But nope. 

Incidentally, I have more games to suggest for Cage Match: any combination of Quest 64, Plumbers Dont't Wear Ties, Lester The Unlikely, and Life of Black Tiger. Exploring the crapulent underbelly of the gaming world never gets old. 

Alternatively, you could pit some good games against each other. Say, Ys vs Alundra, Dark Cloud, or Trials of Mana. Tokyo Xanadu vs Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Pokémon Sword/Shield vs. SMT V. 

I've done a better job at investing in video games than I did investing in stocks. That's kind of sad and hilarious at the same time. 

Besides the Norse flavoring (one of my favorite NES games is the Greek flavored Kid Icarus), I had rented Star Ocean: The Second Story a year prior. The similar artistic style of VP helped win me over. Between VP, FF9, and Lunar 2, I had a great winter gaming-wise, which thankfully didn't tank my third semester of college. 

To quote Ringo Starr on The Simpsons: "Dear Jamie. Please forgive the lateness of me reply. Thank you for the fab review of Dragon Quest V."

One of my favorites of the series, along with DQ 8 and DQ 11 S. This game was as good as any Final Fantasy game on SNES. When I played through it, I picked Deborah, who is the high maintenance controlling wife. She's the best fighter of the bunch. 

The enemy types do make some sense in context, I guess. A lot of African wildlife reserves were so fraught with poachers in the 80s thaf the local governments empowered park rangers to shoot poachers on sight. 

Yoh Yoshinari, the lead art designer, has a pretty extensive resume in the anime world, including Evangelion, Kill La Kill, and Gurren Langan. I also had Silmeria. I prefer the original game. 

I actually enjoyed MK vs DCU, even though the games subsequent to that have been better.