PixlBit

I had a couple of observations on this podcast. Firstly, a game where Fire Emblem characters appeared in the real world was brought up. I think that was actually addressed in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, which was basically Persona with Fire Emblem characters in modern day Japan. It was actually Nintendo Power that compared Hybrid Heaven to MGS, though that might have been due to early appearance of Johnny Slade strongly resembling Snake.

Anyway:

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1. One of my most memorable "Oh Shit" moments was fighting the boss at the top of the Cultists' Tower in Final Fantasy VI, when, after an hour and a half, he killed my entire party with the Ultima spell right before he died. It was my first time playing the game, so I naturally came without the Life 3 spell. I had to take a day off from FFVI after that one.

2. The first time I encountered an Arch-Vile in Doom II.

3. My first time encountering a Lynel in Breath of the Wild and it noticing me. Nintendo sure figured out how to make Lynels appropriately menacing for the 21st century. Imagine if all the Lynels you saw in the original game were as strong as the ones in BotW.

Cage Match:

I didn't have a lot of experience with Power Stone until I got the PSP Power Stone collection. I probably would have gotten it if I had a Dreamcast. I may have played it at a Dreamcast kiosk here or there. But either way, the Final Fantasy VII fanboy in me gives the nod to Ehrgeiz here. Nothing in the fighting game world at the time could beat Cloud, Tifa, and Sephiroth. The home version included a roguelike dungeon crawler. 

I would actually like Nintendo to consider doing a Smash Bros as a 3-D fighter along the lines of Power Stone and Ehrgeiz, however. 

I think Tokyo Mirage Sessions has Fire Emblem characters show up more as summon spells? Like they're a characters Persona style... summon man? I think that's how that went. Either way... It's not a dating sim... I don't think. But yea, they do have FE guys show up... That game is weird and Im actually looking forward to playing it when it comes out for switch.

I played about 20 hours of Tokyo Mirage Sessions and really liked it. I’m not sure why I didn’t finish it. That game came out in a real weird time in my life.

I'd like to make a suggestion for the next cage match: a match-up between two great Zelda-like action-adventure games from the 5th generation starring cutesy versions of Japanese folk heroes. 

Konami's Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (N64) vs. Square's Brave Fencer Musashi (PS1).

Another great podcast guys. Still waiting for Patrick to make his return from bitcoin island but John did great. Moogles Gone Wild would be amazing Julian! Imagine all those old Girls Gone Wild commercials with Moogles and One Winged Angel playing in the background. Alright, maybe not so good...

Definitely got to give Man or Medan a try down the line. I also own Hybrid Heaven and it definitely had some unique concepts. Never was crazy about it though. Definitely was thinking of the old Johnny Quest. I totally forgot about the reboot one until I looked it up. I think I recall a really cool VR episode of some kind in that one. 

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3. Asura's Wrath: The whole damn game is one long Oh Shit moment.

2. Silent Hill 2: While your first encounter with Pyramid head raping a mannequin is definitely up there, my moment came from the end. Finding out that James had been the one to murder his wife blew my mind. 

1. Super Metroid: The moment you see the biggest metroid ever is terrifying and worthy of, "Oh shit!" When you find out it's the same one you saved in the previous game is worthy of, "Oh shit!" Yet, the moment I'm talking about is when you are toe to toe with Mother Brain.

Samus is on her last legs when the Metroid flies in to save its, "Mother." While rejuvenating Samus, it takes a hell of a beat down from Mother Brain. At last it is destroyed into pieces. As the pieces rain down, Samus raises to her feet with a beautiful glow of energy. Then your beam hits that alien bitch so hard that her craning neck is in the Gamers Dictionary under, "Extreme Whiplash." This is the gaming moment I remember most from my childhood. 

Cage Match: Power Stone was an extremely fun 4 player brawler on a severely underrated system. Ehrgeiz was a somewhat decent 2 player fighting game with characters from a severely overrated Final Fantasy. Winner: Powerstone..... and Bret "The Hitman" Hart...

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Yakuza 0. The whole game. 

TitanFall 2. Loved the parkour/FPS hybrid. So fun. Wish the campaign were longer.

Finally, JAMMING THE FUCK OUT TO THIS SICK CRUSH 40 BEAT:

CAGE MATCH:

Basing this entirely on presentation, the "so mature" PlayStation characters and settings and butt rock of Ehrgeiz definitely get me more pumped than the more cutesy Power Stone. Also, I like to root for an underdog and I'd never heard of Ehrgeiz before, so there ya go: I'm voting for Ehrgeiz. 

I always love when John is on.  He is hilarious, yet insightful and makes laugh almost every time.

Stage Select:  I think hearing the rev of the chainsaw in the opening of RE4 was and is the biggest OH SHIT! FUCK! moment in gaming...  that's not what you are asking for is it?

Cage Match:  I haven't played either, but just watched a some gameplay.  I don't think there is anyway FF VII can help Ehrgeiz.  Powerstone looks like so much more fun.

I've been going a bit long on these recently, but I'm glad to see that at least lately I haven't had to!

STAGE SELECT: I thought I'd take this the other way and talk about achievements. Really, let me stress, I'm not very good at video games (for instance, despite playing my fair share of FPSes if you put me in a multiplayer competitive game or something I'll routinely be at the bottom of the list, over and over again), but I've done the difficult achievement now and then. I chalk it up to stubbornness. And while these aren't my favorite, I thought I'd share a couple that I think might go appreciated.  An appreciation to stubbornness.

The first one I wanted to share is recent. I know you guys played some Bloodstained, and I did too. I did a brand new (not New Game Plus) Nightmare Mode (aka Hard LVL 1 Max) run where I beat all the bosses without taking a hit, gaining a secret useless Medal item for each one. I even developed some strategies where I'm curious if people use similar ones. I don't know because I never looked up guides, I just developed them on my own. I'm particularly proud of my Alfred one because, wow, those time bubbles suck.  In all fairness, I've played *a lot* of Castlevania.

The second one, I definitely used a guide. Do you remember about a year or so before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out, when the producer Eiji Aonuma said that a player could go directly to the final boss of the game from its opening moments if they wanted? I kind of became obsessed with that, and kind of promised myself I'd do it. Then I heard there was going to be a harder Master Mode, and figured, hey, why not? So after I had put who knows how many hours into completing Breath of the Wild, I went back, looked up speedrunning guides, and spent a little less than a week practicing for it (mainly because when you don't beat the bosses during the story there's a brutal boss gauntlet at the end that goes right into the Ganon fight). You think Thunderblight is bad in normal Zelda, hoo boy, try that with no stats and scrounged parts. You literally have just barely more than enough weapons picked up running there to do it. Most bosses require AI manipulation and almost 100% of parries have to be perfect parries. Bosses regain health in Master Mode to more than a fair bit if you don't kill them fast enough, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. You don't even have warm clothes so actually one of the hardest parts is at the beginning of the game on the Plateau where you have to manipulate and tumble down the mountain just right so you don't freeze to death fast enough. It's stupid. And I didn't even do it without saves, the world record is under 50 min and I think mine clocked in at over 4 hours. But, yeah, if you wanted to you could go directly to the final boss of the game from its opening moments, even in Master Mode. If you wanted to.

VIDEO GAME CAGE MATCH: When asked, "Do you prefer Ehrgeiz or Power Stone?" on the street, 2 out of every 4 people said Ehrgeiz, 1 out of every 4 said Power Stone, and the final 1 out of every 4 said, "Ehrgeiz? Power Stone? Oh my god, are you having a stroke right now? Don't swallow your tongue!" Having played neither, I'll give the slight edge to Power Stone, and that's just on recommendation. I've always been interested in Ehrgeiz's Quest (or dungeon crawler) mode, but the main game itself always reminded me of Tobal only you're supposed to care about it because there's Final Fantasy VII I guess. Power Stone always seemed a tiny bit more colorful and fun, a bit of a wacky party game. No hard lines drawn here!