PixlBit

Like I said in my podcast, after I was into Tranformers for a couple of years, I actually stopped watching cartoons for a short while because I was sick of them all being crappy 30 minute commercials for toys.  It wouldn't be until DuckTales came out that I started really watching cartoons again.

When I hit middle school, it wasn't 'cool' to watch cartoons, so I had to watch them in secret and not talk about them at school.  I would've gotten made fun of if people knew that I liked Chip N Dale's Rescue Rangers and such.  I wish I wasn't so self conscious back then.  Nowadays I don't care what people think of what I like.

I think my first Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game I played was one on the GBA.  Mineral Town subtitle or something.  I like those games, but I have a hard time staying interested in them as much as I do Animal Crossing.

Well I paid a little more for my Genesis Mini 2 than I wanted to, but it wasn't THAT bad.  I meainly got it to play Crusader of Centy (keep in mind this was before it was on the Switch), and this was a much cheaper way to do it than the actual cartridge.

Only place I've seen that one here is Round 1.  I wouldn't have even known it existed otherwise!

I just want another 2-D Zelda.

When I was a kid, I was really fascinated by Xevious for some reason.  It was HUGE in Japan, and one of the first games to use pre-rendered graphics on the sprites.  I was always intrigued by the land you fly over.  It looks like a golf course to me.  When I was a kid, I got a sheet of my dad's dot matrix printer paper, spread it out, and drew a Xevious map on one side and a Zaxxon map on the other and used my toy spaceships to play pretend Xevious and Zaxxon on them.  I got in a little bit of trouble for using up so much paper, though. :)

Gyruss and Time Pilot are awesome.  Two of my favorite early Konami games.  Gyruss was like a cross between Galaga and Tempest, and the creator of that game would go on to Capcom and make a game you might've heard of called Street Fighter 2.

Gain Ground is surprisingly good.  It's like they took Ikari Warriors and made it a puzzle action single screen Bubble Bobble game.

It's funny that you posted this because I'm actually playing Crusader of Centy right now!  I'm playing it for a blog project I'm working on that'll post later this summer.  Yeah it's definitely a Zelda clone.  The graphics are so similar that I wonder why Nintendo didn't sue!  Definitely the type of game I enjoy, though.  Aside from Nintendo's online service, there is another way you can play it.  It's on the SEGA Genesis Mini 2.

In Japan they did a remake of Star Blazers a few years ago.  I watched the first season of it on one of them new fangled anime streaming services called Crusty Roll or something like that.  It was pretty good, but not good enough for me to watch past the first season.

There's also a remake of She-Ra on Netflix, and it's decent, but defintely targeted toward a younger crowd.

I don't mind if other characters use the He-Man sword.  But then, I'm not a big fan of He-Man so I don't really care.  If I ever got the He-Man sword, I'd just shoot YOU with it and power you up!  So there!  

This stage select topic reminds me of the Nintendo Direct we had in June.  It had a lot of exciting things in it, and people even make videos of themselves watching it and getting all excited.  But it also makes me miss the days when I could go to E3 and PAX and play these games myself, and read other press people's experience with those games.  The press, myself included, would be able to talk about what they liked and didn't like about whatever we played.  A lot of people say E3 and PAX are dead since we can all watch videos of them now, and they're probably right.  But I don't like that because with videos, the companies have control over what you see and hear, and they make it all sound good.  So when you watch these videos, make sure to have a critical eye about them, too.

OK so you probably want a more specific example so here's one.  And I am wearing my cynical hat, so watch out.  I'm really excited for the Super Mario RPG remake, as I have a lot of special memories with the original.  But if they add Mario's voice, that'll ruin it!  I loved how Mario DIDN'T talk in that game.  I have a lot of respect for Charles Martinet voicing Mario and other characters as long as he has (I even met him once), but I really don't like his Mario voice.  Sound like someone kicked Mario where the sun don't shine.  So keep Mario quiet!

It's going to be really hard for Tears of the Kingdom to win the GOTY award at the end of the year for me, especially after that June Nintendo Direct.  Games like Detecive Pikachu Returns, WarioWare: Move It, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and especially the Super Mario RPG remake are so enticing.  And Tears of the Kingdom frustrates me so much sometimes, and if any of those games don't have that, they'll be likely to win!