I love summer. Always have, probably always will. The warm, breezy nights, taking my cat for long starlit walks, fun midnight console launches. Wait, what? *Pops hip back into place and downs a handful of daily vitamins* Back in MY day… Seriously, though, when I was growing up, autumn/”holiday” was the prime window for console launches. Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Saturn, PlayStation, Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and more were all released between September and December. There were a few exceptions (PS2, N64), but in general I don’t associate spring/summer with major console drops.
Yet there I was, sitting against the wall outside of my local Best Buy at 9:30pm on June 4th 2025, 16th in line but guaranteed a Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle for the midnight release. I didn’t technically need to be there. I was able to successfully snag a preorder from a big box retailer weeks before, but they estimated my Switch 2 would be shipped a week after launch. Not cool, bro, as the poets often say. So when I heard my friend Kimberly was waiting in line at launch, I texted her to ask how bad it was. Not bad at all, she reported, so I grabbed my keys and headed out.
I love console launches, and I have fond memories of the midnight launches I attended in previous years (even if they were a bit torturous). This one was very chill. This store said they’d have around 75 consoles, so even when they split the line in two (one for people who’d pre-ordered for in-store pickup and one for the rest of us), I was sure to get one. Kimberly made fast friends with the people in line near her, but she joined me to chat for a bit before returning to her spot for go time. There were a lot of guys like me in the line. 30-40 something, graphic tees, imaginary scars of console wars past. But there were also some kids with their parents, and their excited chatter about the Switch, Mario, Zelda and more made the night feel a little more magical. When the time came, we were only allowed in the store two at a time (a much slower process than previous launches I’ve been to), and we were guided by a sales person who tried to convince us we needed… well, everything. Extra chargers, “required” expansion memory cards, cases, screen protectors, digital codes, physical games, protection plans, amiibo. Okay, so I bought a couple of those last ones ($30 for the new Zelda characters! $45 for the new Street Fighter ones! An absolute wild increase from $15). After nabbing my Mario Kart bundle, a Pro controller, and amiibo, I headed home to set it up.
Later, when people asked me what I thought of the Switch 2, I made the very dumb joke that they should have called it the Switch Too, because when I first booted it up, excited to dive into a new generation of Nintendo weirdness, I was greeted by… the standard Switch home screen and interface. The console looks the same, the store is the same… I have to admit the sameness of it all drained a lot of the thrill. Aside from the few GameCube games they added to Nintendo Switch Online, there wasn’t anything new to check out. It was… a Switch, too. I’m glad it’s finally here, very happy that I have one, and I’m thrilled to have a new Nintendo machine that can handle beefier games – but ultimately the Switch 2 launch was just a bit of a letdown for me.
Mario Kart World
What saved me from tossing my shiny new console in place of the old Switch and forgetting about it for a month? Mario Kart, babyyyyy. I didn’t own the original Super Mario Kart for SNES, but it was a regular rental for us. It was the rare game that I loved so much I would play it during the precious few minutes between breakfast and leaving for school, then hop right back in when I got home. I’ve played hundreds of hours of the console versions and they’re the only games I will confidently talk trash about since I know I can usually back it up. I haven’t made an updated gaming tattoos post, but I have a Blue Shell tattoo on my elbow. My love for the Kart runs deep.
And there is a lot to love in Mario Kart World. Namely, Peach, Touring Peach, Pro Racer Peach, Farmer Peach, Sightseeing Peach, Aviator Peach, Yukata Peach, Aero Peach, Vacation Peach, Baby Peach, Touring Baby Peach, Pro Racer Baby Peach, Sailor Baby Peach, and Explorer Baby Peach. Did I mention I also have a Peach tattoo? Insert smirky smiley face here. I do love all of the different costumes, especially for my homegirl Peach, but I was a bit sad that Nintendo abandoned the IP expansion from Mario Kart 8. I’ve seen people trying to defend the decision, saying it keeps Mario Kart “pure” by sticking to Mario characters, but if you’re telling me you’d rather have a fucking Cataquack than Zelda himself (an old internet joke that I should leave without clarification, but I just know that to this day people will be like “uhhh aCtuAlLy tHaT’s LiNk, ZeLdA iS tHe gIrL”), I don’t know that I can trust you. When Sega showed the Sonic Racing: Crossworlds trailer at the recent Summer Game Fest, I was thinking “wow, what a weird time to show this when Mario Kart World literally just dropped.” Then they showed Hatsune Miku. And Ichiban from the Yakuza games. Then Joker from Persona 5. And I wept for what Nintendo lost. Yes, expand the roster with a bunch of goofy Mario characters and enemies (I wanna see Wart drifting alongside me before I blast him with a perfectly aimed green shell), but can’t we also dip into other fun IP too? It doesn’t have to be Super Smash Bros. Kart, but why not Zelda, Chibi-Robo, Ness, K.K. Powerslider (see what I did there)? Come onnnnnn, Nintendo.
That tangent aside, I do love Mario Kart World. It retains much of the same tight control that my favorite entry, Mario Kart 8 (and Deluxe) has, Knockout Tour is a blast (especially with friends), and the tracks are expansive and filled with fun details. I’ve gotten three stars on all the Grand Prix tracks and have just a few costumes left to unlock, but I’ve had a great time with it so far. I do hope they update the game or offer DLC to offer more tracks (I’d love some throwback or retro-inspired tracks and characters) and maybe fix the Mario Kart Wii-level BS rubberbanding, but overall I’m happy to have a new Mario Kart game to hop into whenever the itch hits.
Secret of Evermore
Back in December 2019 (The Before Times, as we’ve taken to calling the pre-pandemic years), I posted about the oldest game on my backlog: Secret of Evermore. At the conclusion of that post, I said with a resolved twinkle in my eye: “writing this entry has made me determined to play Secret of Evermore at long last. It’s about time, I think.” What a fool I was. Well, to give myself a little credit, I tried. The SNES copy I owned had a dead battery, and Nintendo nor Square have made the game accessible to play legally, so against my usual judgement I downloaded a ROM, connected a controller to my PC and tried to give it a shot. It kept crashing in the same spot less than an hour in. I could not get it to work on two different computers. Ugh. So much for scratching the oldest game on my backlog off the list.
Fast forward to March of this year and I’d finally, after many years, decided to buy a soldering iron and teach myself that same useful skill. I watched YouTube videos, took a training course through my job, and practiced on some of my less-prized SNES carts before moving to Secret of Evermore. The “surgery,” as I like calling, it was a success, so I finally had a working Secret of Evermore cart to play! I busted out my old SNES and finally got to work.
It didn’t zoom straight to my favorite RPGs of all time list, but it was a solid action RPG with some cool enemy design, silly story beats, and charming art. The combat definitely felt dated, but I had several moments while exploring of that kind of nostalgic feeling you only get while actually playing an old school game on its original hardware. I wasn’t magically transported back to my childhood, but it felt about as close as I could get. In the end, I had a good time, I learned how to solder, and I finally, finally beat the oldest game on my backlog. Hell yeah.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
I haven’t played anything else on my Switch 2 and would have liked to jump from Mario Kart World to Donkey Kong Bananza, but I’m pretty deep into Death Stranding 2 and want to finish this before moving on. The Death Stranding games represent Kojima at his most… Kojima, to me. The narrative is loosely held together by a series of convenient plot devices, MacGuffins, and contrivances, the symbols and metaphors are far from subtle, and some of the gameplay mechanics and tutorials are overexplained or poorly integrated into game progress. And somehow I still love it.
So far, it really does feel like a carbon copy of the first game (it even has the lazy video game opening of “whoops, remember that big, satisfying conclusion from the last game? Throw it all out, we have to do it all over again”), with a new country to connect, mostly the same vehicles, tools, and weapons, the same antagonist (booooo), etc., but I’m actually okay with that. My favorite memories from the first game are captured in moments. Gameplay moments in hauling piles of packages from place to place, or intense moments with the colorful cast of characters. And that’s really what Kojima is good at. He comes up with powerful, memorable moments that exist outside of the sloppy narrative they originate from. And he gives us interesting worlds with lots of potential for fun, unique emergent gameplay events. I’m avoiding specific spoilers because the game is still so new, and maybe I’ll check back in later with more thoughts after I finish it, but so far it’s been a fun time tramping around Mexico and Australia.
[EDIT] Siiiiike, I took so long to finish writing this post that I’m currently watching the credits scroll. I could rewrite the last few lines to segue into something more natural, but I want to capture the reality of writing this specific post, too, which has been an exercise in finding time here and there to chip away at it, unlike my usual sit-down-and-do-it-all approach. Anyway, I spent over 250 hours playing Death Stranding 2. I almost have the platinum, I’ve five-starred all facilities and preppers, and overall, as with the first game, I enjoyed my time running and driving packages around, building roads, and climbing snowy mountains. My opinion of the storytelling remains unchanged, too, however. This game is dumb as hell and I don’t know that I will defend it in many conversations. Some of the silliness is fun, sure, but some of it is so damned hard to put up with, let alone like. The guitar duel, with added musical puns? I think the discord for me comes in the clash of Japanese storytelling, which is less concerned with logic and laying out a digestible story for its audience than it is with emotionally resonant moments and themes, and Kojima’s obsession with western media and film. At one end, the story feels automatically grounded because we see characters that are not only hyper realistically rendered, but familiar because they’re famous actors and celebrities. When you take that and mix it with the kind of over-the-top silliness of an anime, and you have giant babies, guitar jesters, and convoluted plot points that are a mix of fantasy and science fiction, it just doesn’t work for me. Great game, very fun, one of the most gorgeous games I’ve ever played… and also dumb as hell. I think that about sums up my feelings on both games, heh.
Venus Vacation PRISM – Dead or Alive Xtreme
I’ve never been shy about my love of Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 and its iterative versions. I even platinumed two of them! It wasn’t just the busty, barely clothed virtual ladies I liked, either. The first two DOA volleyball games had those, too, but I bounced (lol) off those pretty quick. I liked the resort vibes, collecting all of the outfit pieces and gifts, and the dating-lite aspect of trying to woo the various badass volleyballers. At some point after the last release, Team Ninja said they wouldn’t pursue any more Xtreme games (in part, I think, because they refused to release them in the West), so I was shocked, shocked I say, when the trailer for Venus Vacation PRISM dropped and revealed that the next entry in the series was, essentially, a dating sim.
Sadly, the only shock I’m feeling now is over how disappointed I am in this game. It fails for me on multiple fronts. First, as a dating sim you don’t even really date the characters. There’s a lot of flirtation but it doesn’t have the full, satisfying romance arcs of most other dating sims I’ve played. It also has far, far fewer characters than the previous games. I do like the characters they’ve included, but no Helena? No Marie Rose?? No Momiji!? The gameplay is also a letdown. I legitimately enjoyed the volleyball games in the previous entries (even the ones I bounced off of), but I was willing to put that aside for fun romance-sim action. The romance part is a dud, but the photography gameplay is also pretty lame. It amounts to taking the same shots over and over, wasting time moving the camera around a bunch to try and get a three star rating and… that’s it. The system doesn’t even seem logical, as sometimes the same exact shot is worth very different points. Tolerable for one playthrough, but when I started a second playthrough to romance a different character I quickly lost interest. I have to take the same pictures of the same girls all over again? Ugh. It’s a beautiful game and there are some fun character moments, but unless they patch it or expand the roster, I don’t know that I’ll come anywhere close to the platinum for this one. Bummer.
Midnight Murder Club
In the clurb, we all dead. Sorry, that trend is like a year old so I just look like an idiot. Anyway, I work at PlayStation and I was still surprised when the beta for this game dropped. I didn’t remember hearing anything about it, but it looked pretty fun so I recruited some friends to play and we jumped in. It’s such an easy pitch: It’s basically hide and seek in a huge, pitch-black mansion. With guns. It didn’t have the same legs as Phasmophobia for my friend group, but we played a ton and had a lot of fun. I even got the platinum trophy for it. Playing with bots is a huge boost for us. The bots are sometimes very dumb and sometimes too accurate, but it’s always nice to have that option. I hope they add more levels in the future, though. The mansion is very big and fun to navigate, but I would love to shuffle between a handful of different locations, like farms, amusement parks, office buildings, etc. A bit of environmental destruction would be very fun, too. A shot ringing out in the dark with a bright flash is already scary enough, but I think the wood of a wall or door exploding in splinters next to your head would add some thrill to an already nerve-wracking moment.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
I own an Xbox Series X, but my primary console is PS5, which is why I was a little sad when Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was announced as an Xbox exclusive. I would buy it, I thought, but I really wanted to earn sweet, sweet trophies for it. Well, apparently Mick Jagger was wrong once again* when he sang “You can’t. always get. what you waaaant,” because I got exactly what I wanted when a PS5 version was announced for this year. Suck it, Jagger.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one of the best video game adaptations of all time. If not THE greatest. I could talk about the incredible graphics and sound, the amazing music, the great level design and story, the acting, etc. But the game’s greatness transcends that, or perhaps is transcended due to all of that and a little magic to become an incredibly rare example of a video game that doesn’t just adapt existing material or fail on some level in an attempt to capture the spirit of its source material – it actually fully feels like an authentic, exciting addition to the series. I rewatched all the Indiana Jones movies before playing this game, including the newest one for the first time, and for my part The Great Circle feels like yet another thrilling Indy adventure. It captures the spirit of the character and his many wild exploits. [Major SPOILERS ahead] The recreation of the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark lulls us into feeling like this might just be an impressive recreation of the Indy formula, but the rest of the game goes on to give us new Indy action, romance, exploration, and drama. And the fact that it ends with Indy exploring another famous Ark, this time Noah’s, was a nice way to wrap it back around.
Being able to wander the halls of Marshall College, chatting with Marcus Brody, getting into a fist fight with a giant Tony Todd (who was great in this role). Having free reign to explore the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the many tombs and catacombs beneath Cairo. Beating the absolute shit out of an entire camp of Nazis and then piling their bodies in front of their flag to snap a commemorative photo. These are all memories that felt natural and magical at the same time, like I’d stepped into a secret Indy film that had been buried in Steven Spielberg’s basement. One of my favorite things to do in Egypt was to wear the Nazi uniform, approach an officer, and just as they say “Wait a minute…” I punch them in the face and run away. The best.
Punching fascists in Italy was also a blast. There was one soldier that always respawned near a ledge up on a building, and I took great pleasure in finding different ways to send him flying to his death every time I made my way near him. I punched him off, shot him off, whipped him off, and bashed him with a shovel off. Truly, with my country sliding ever-increasingly toward fascism, this game served as an incredibly cathartic experience. Bootlicker ass-kicking aside, there was so much more that I loved about this game. The care put into creating living spaces and communal areas had me paying close attention to every new environment I found myself in. I really liked the houses in the Sukhothai village, and the winding tunnels and tombs beneath Rome were so cool to explore. Speaking of being very cool, I loved Gina. I was convinced she was going to stab me in the back, like stupid sexy Elsa from Last Crusade. But, no. She was a brave, skilled, strong, and beautiful companion until the end. I also thought Voss was a great villain, and his relationship and scenes with Colonel Gantz were hilarious. This game had it all: Action, humor, intrigue, exploration, gorgeous locales, a sexy sidekick. I swear every time I played a new Tomb Raider or Uncharted game, I’d say I wish they’d make an Indiana Jones game like them, and finally they have. I really, really hope they make another.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars
The Suikoden games have never quite breached the mainstream like other big RPG series, so although I had high, high hopes Konami would release remasters (HD-2D or not), I wasn’t holding my breath. Imagine my surprise when they announced not only a remaster of one Suikoden, but both of the original games and they would be bundled together. Smack my ass and call me [Hero], I couldn’t believe my luck. [Some SPOILERS ahead.]
I discovered Suikoden II first, not long after my mom had moved us to the suburbs from the city. I made friends at my new school pretty quickly, but it was a while before I was integrated into their lives like typical high school friend groups. I had a lot of downtime, so I signed up for a membership at a small movie/game rental shop that was walking distance from my house. It made me feel like an adult and I tried my best to be responsible and return things on time. I’d run out of N64 and PlayStation games to play and was looking for something new but also still chasing the highs of the RPGs I loved on the SNES, like Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, Final Fantasy III, and Illusion of Gaia. The beautiful cover art of Suikoden II is what caught my eye, but I had never heard much about the first or second game, and the 2D screenshots on the back did look a bit dated, but I didn’t have all that many other options. I gave it a shot.
Gorgeous sprite work, an enormous cast of diverse characters, a castle I could expand and make my own, a riveting and sprawling story about war and vengeance, a series of tense but fun strategy combat sequences? I was in love. I started out not caring about recruiting all 108 characters, but of course once I started running into some of them, in their sometimes weird and unique conundrums, I had to have them. I ran out and bought the official strategy guide and finished with something like 85 Stars of Destiny. I replayed it later, after buying and playing the first Suikoden, and got all 108. I loved so much about it. Starting out with a best friend and excellent combat partner, being torn apart and ending up opposing each other, returning to my castle to find my new friends filling every new nook and cranny there…
And it was a blast revisiting it in beautiful HD. Most of what I’d loved remained intact, of course, and I found myself getting teary-eyed at the same dramatic moments and laughing at the same jokes. One thing that surprised me with this playthrough was how much I loved Nanami as a character. I remember thinking she was funny in my previous passes, but there was something about her strength, compassion, and unshakable loyalty that really endeared me to her this time around. She had some of the funniest lines and her big sacrifice scene (and the ensuing twist) wrecked me. What a great character in an awesome cast. Eilie’s crush on my character was charming as ever, Nina and Flick’s romantic scenes were hilarious, all the returning characters like Neclord, Kasumi, Viki, Viktor, and more were a welcome sight. I really wanted to platinum it this time, but doing so required some real dedication to mastering the very challenging minigames, and I just didn’t have the patience for that. Yet. Maybe I’ll do another replay some day and really commit. Regardless, I loved my time with this incredible game once again.
I also played the first game, of course, and before Suikoden II (I wrote it reversed to segue from my discovery of Suikoden II back in the day). I’d only played Suikoden once before, and I remember clearly preferring the sequel. I still do, but man did I love the first game so much more this time around. I don’t remember my original experience to say how much of my new appreciation is due to graphics or performance improvements with the remaster (though the backgrounds looked much, much clearer), but I found myself far more charmed and engrossed this time around. The character portraits look so good, too. Maybe better than those from the sequel?
If you can rename your main character in a game, I almost always name them Joey, so it was very fun to see that after naming both MCs after myself, there were jokes/references to the redundancy in Suikoden II. One thing I’d forgotten was how good the story in the first game is. I was very much into the rebellious (literally) son versus the blindly loyal father, and some of the political beats about people turning a blind eye to tyranny, being so willing to follow an obviously evil, corrupt leader, etc. felt weirdly resonant given the current state of the world. As with the sequel, I loved building up an army of interesting characters, forcing a romance subplot in my imagination (though I was torn between Camille, Kasumi, and Viki), and grinding levels while catching up on podcasts. I truly love these games and look forward to playing them yet again some time down the line.
Inscryption
Inscryption, like Doki Doki Literature Club, is the kind of game that creates a ton of buzz due to its narrative twists and subversive storytelling. That’s all people would really say about it is “it’s kind of a deck builder,” but when I would say that’s not my thing, they would insist that there’s more to it. And, to their credit, there is more to it than that. I’m not usually too shy about posting spoilers here, because I’m just sharing my personal thoughts for posterity (and fun), but I won’t spoil too much here either way. The deck building thing is still not my thing, and I think it prevented me from appreciating this game the way some others do, but I did very, very much enjoy the weird and wild story, the beautiful art and design elements, and just the general vibe and tone. I will spoil one specific thing, which is the mechanic where when you die and have your (character’s) photo taken, which is then used as a new card with perks you can choose from other cards in your old deck. At first this seemed like just a fun little quirk, but eventually I was able to make some super powerful, useful cards which carried me in some pivotal battles. There were seemingly small things like this that subverted expectations and made some of the more challenging stretches easier and more fun. The fact that death is built into the gameplay made me feel less stressed and precious in the earlier battles.
TimeSplitters 2
TimeSplitters 2 is not on my Top 25 favorite games list, but it’s very close. It was in my top 10 for a stretch in the years just after it came out. This was one of the few games I would play with music blasting in my headphones, just existing on some other level and feeling my feelings. Trent Reznor might be screaming in my ear about existential dread (or straight up fucking, am I right? High five, high five) and I’m just sitting cross-legged in my basement, blasting these goofy bots for hours. Fast forward to the remaster, and I played through about half the story and did some bot battling, in part to try and tap into that fuzzy nostalgic glow that comes with revisiting an old favorite, but unfortunately it’s one of those all-too-familiar examples of the memory being better than the game. For its time, TimeSplitters 2 was an incredible, fun, versatile shooter. But it definitely feels rough playing now, particularly the checkpointing and some of the humor. Fans have been shouting it for years, but we need a solid remake of this game, for sure.
Zenless Zone Zero
I was the copywriter for the PlayStation Stars program (RIP), so I got to see (and write for!) some of the really fun third-party partnerships we had. The studio supplied their own copy for our Zenless Zone Zero digital collectibles, but I reviewed it, wrote the campaign description, and got to see the collectibles ahead of time. I was only vaguely familiar with the game before researching it for this task, but I didn’t need to learn anything to know I wanted the Nicole Demara collectible on my virtual shelf. What a cutie. I only played for a handful of hours, because gacha games just aren’t my cup of tea, but I was very impressed by the presentation. The graphics are busy but bold and charming, the animations are stellar, and I generally had a good time in combat. Nicole turned out to be a fun character aside from her design, too, so it was a win all around. I had to cut myself off before I got too tempted to start unlocking (or buying) any of the very cool characters/skins I saw in the store.
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Phew, I had to save this baby for last. A new game from the team behind my beloved Persona series? While I am eagerly waiting for any news on the next mainline game in that series, I was also very interested to see what they did in a new, original, fantasy setting. As you might guess, in part due to the many awards this game won, I loved it. I will say I disagree with some of the podcasters/content creators I follow who declared this game a “better” game than Persona 5, but I can understand that perspective given some of the extra polish and care (particularly when it comes to combat) that this game has over P5. Regardless, I love them both.
I’m always a little nervous starting big RPGs, even if I’m confident I’m going to like them. I’d heard that there were a lot of similarities to Persona (social links, Archetypes [Personas], calendar/day night cycle, etc.), but I get sucked deep into these huge narrative games so diving in always comes with some nervous energy, especially learning all the systems (and they introduce a LOT to you in the opening hours of this game). But the moment I felt my worries melt away was when I first stepped onto the main stretch of road in Grand Trad, the royal capital. The Grand Trad music swept along with epic flourishes, people chattered in the streets, and I was tasked with finding a recruitment center so that I could sign up to fight in the royal army. A warm nostalgia washed over me. All at once I felt all the times I had a similar rush in games like Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Suikoden II, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Persona 5, even EarthBound. It’s the moment you forget all of the systems and rules and mechanics and just embrace the tantalizing journey that lies ahead. A whole new world of side quests, plot twists, death, and revival await.
I decided to save the platinum trophy for a second playthrough sometime down the line, but I only missed two trophies, one of them requiring a good chunk of a second run. I loved my time with the colorful cast of characters, the incredible soundtrack, and the unique, beautiful world. I really like having a home base in RPGs, and your gauntlet runner serves that purpose nicely here. There is something so satisfying about having a space to chat with party members, read a book, cook, and even drop a deuce between missions. And the travel music (“Journey’s Legs”) is amazing and still randomly gets stuck in my head. The story was a very fun twist on a classic succession trope, and the combat was fast, dynamic, and deep.
I do have to admit I was sad that one thing they neglected to bring over from the Persona games is a romance system. Yes, I understand that it would have seemed a bit out of place in this scenario, but I always want to date my party members. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise, though, because I was having a hard time deciding whether I’d like to woo Juani or Hulkenberg. Hulkenberg is graceful and strong, loyal and determined, and very funny (even if usually by accident). She also loves food and has the best little grumpy face ever. But Juani is so full of life, kindness, wit, and style that it’s hard to deny her appeal. She’s a talented, widely loved singer and powerful fighter in her own right. And then there’s the wildcard, Fabienne, who is very much my type but probably off-limits in any case. Or the badass, pink-haired Catherina? Oh, I dunno. Sigh.
Anywho, my unrequited attraction to fictional characters aside, I did love my time with Metaphor. I will say the last boss was a huge pain in the ass on normal difficulty. It took me a handful of tries with wildly different strategies before I got lucky and took him down. I’d grinded to level 96 beforehand, had the best weapons, maxed out all of my Archetypes, and more. I really thought I was ready. It’s hard to keep up when he gets twelve turns in a row, though, causing me to scramble to heal and cure status effects or cast buffs/debuffs, never mind doing any significant damage. He reminded me of some of the recent optional bosses in the Persona games, who were also deadly. Still, I look forward to going back for another playthrough (and that shiny platinum) at some point in the future. And I’ll have my fingers crossed for a dating sim spinoff. Please, Atlus. Please.
I’ve also been having retro game nights with friends, where we pick one console and play a little bit of a bunch of different games from that era. We don’t play any of them too extensively and we’re using the actual consoles (with a RetroTINK 5X-Pro for scaling) so I can’t get screenshots, but there have been some fun standouts. We jump between well-remembered games, like the Donkey Kong Country games for SNES and Ridge Racer for PlayStation, and less-than-fondly remembered titles like Quest 64 on N64 and Shaq-Fu on SNES. Shaq-Fu was fun to play and joke about, even if it kinda… sucks. I did buy an adapter to play some of the import games I’ve bought, and the first one I tried was Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon, a sidescrolling brawler which was very cute and fun. There are currently a ton of new games I aim to play, like Donkey Kong Bananza, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, and (soon) Ghost of Yōtei, but I look forward to regularly dipping into my collection for some of these retro gems. And maybe I’ll find the time to keep up with this blog more often. Maybe. Shhh.
*Jagger was also wrong when he sang “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” because apparently that’s all it took was boundary and trust issues
A New Game Plus 