I still remember when I first heard of Pokémon. My friends would show off their cards at school and once I started collecting my own, I needed more of them. I had no clue how to play the card game, yet I loved the designs to these creatures. I would hear of how much fun the video games were as well and I knew I had to try them. And once I got my first Gameboy, despite hating the idea of playing a game by navigating menus, I was hooked for life. Twenty years later, I’m still hooked to a formula that feels just as fun and addicting as it did so long ago.

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The greatest JRPG of all time?

In today's daily ephemera of new releases and dazzling technologies and breakthroughs, it's easy to forget about the Golden Age of the PSONE -- or, as we knew it at the time, the PlayStation. This is especially true of the JRPG's of the system, which today still have no parallel. While many consider the SNES as the glory days of the JRPG, to me, that has always been just a prologue to what we saw on the PlayStation. It is true that many of us cut our teeth on Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, but the explosion of the genre catalyzed by Final Fantasy VII is a whole different matter. Not only were we treated to Square's trilogy of FF VII, VIII, and IX, but we also had Xenogears, Grandia, Wild Arms, Chrono Cross, Suikoden, among others. This was when the JRPG truly matured into an art form, and while we have had great games since, the depth and variety of them has never eclipsed what we saw on the PSONE. 

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Numinous Games presents us with a gut-wrenching experience that elevates the interactive medium.

"That Dragon, Cancer," is a game about hope -- its presence, and its absence. While forged in the anticipation of triumph, the end result is a meditation on failure and loss that is pretty hard to take, and without a doubt breaks new ground for the interactive medium. Created by Brian Green and his company, Numinous Games ("numinous" means "having a strong religious or spiritual quality"), this "game" (we have no other word for it that's adequate) is both gut-wrenching and an incredibly simple exploration of a young boy's four year battle with cancer. But while it takes on loss in a new way, it is also a commentary on games in general that is both surprising and profound. It is not without flaws, but the all-encompassing heart of it more than compensates for its failures. 

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Seeing a new episode of NWP is available fills you with determination.

Welcome to 2016, and welcome to the first Nerds Without Pants of that year that I just mentioned! The Pantsless Ones come back from break with all sorts of goodies and games to talk about, so let's just jump into it.

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