Amnesiac

Got in at 10 AM and grabbed the Horizon bundle and the nifty looking charging stand. The only thing tempering my excitement is the payment, looming in the distance like an meteor on the horizon, coming ever closer and aimed directly at my wallet.

I’ve been completely absorbed with the museum portion, watching every video and checking out some truly fantastic 70’s promo art. There are some incredible details preserved here, like the flyer for the notorious Gotcha and its boob controllers. Those were different times indeed.

“That's some seriously broad coverage.”

I’ve played quite a bit of Onee Chanbara Origins and those broads are barely covered at all. Great game though!

That looks stunning! Looks to have a bit of Toem in it with the camera action too. I’ll be relying on Push Square to remind me about it when releases since it seems to be too early to wishlist it.

Nice! I’m about halfway through and have really been enjoying it. I love how rewarding it is to poke around all the nooks and crannies in this game. There are a lot treasure chests per square foot.

@Kanji-Tatsumi Or it will sell to people like me who appreciate the novel concept and affordable price.

As a fan of both yokai and wandering around Tokyo’s nooks and crannies, I got a lot of entertainment out of this game. Didn’t bother with the platinum though, since it seems designed to convert fun into a slog. Great mood, quality voice acting, and an excellent take on most of the monsters. It turns out that the slit-mouthed woman is a surprisingly snappy dresser.

@Ralizah You’re right and I’m really showing my age because mobile gaming never even came to mind. Still, I’d wager that every day, some kiddo somewhere is playing their first Mario game and loving every minute of it. And then in a few years they’ll probably be getting their first headshot and using their first slurs online in COD. They grow up so fast…

@Ralizah I agree with most of what you said, but I don’t know if the Switch will ever have a sharp drop in demand because it’s become the de facto first system for kids. There’s no way I’m buying a child a PS5, but a cartridge based handheld system seems like a safe bet.

Consider it pre-ordered. I just hope the family don’t mind getting homemade X-mas gifts this year. I better start knitting…

And this is how a game that was long stranded in my wishlist finds its way to the cart.

I really enjoyed Arcade Paradise - even some of the mundane elements were good fun. I could never bring myself to ignore the laundry, though. At the end I almost missed the endless parade of colorful baskets full of filthy clothes.

Looks like my on-again off-again relationship with saving money is headed for off-again.

Neat! I’m actually playing through Maiden of Black Water now to help set the Halloween mood. These games are a little clunky but they’re so full of B-movie goodness that I can’t help but enjoy them.

@Stevemalkpus I forgot that this was the game she did the soundtrack for. Looking forward to checking it out. Thanks for reminding me!

Also, your user name makes me want a Pavement Pierogi.

@thefourfoldroot1 Yeah, that comment made me re-read the game list thinking I’d somehow skipped over an Oneechanbara or Senran Kagura release. Oh well!

I’m always willing to give Sonic another shot, but other than the racing games it’s been tough sledding lately. I’ve been playing Sonic Colors off and on for what seems like forever, and I continue to find it easy to put down. I think it’s the inconsistency of the rules (i.e. this will kill you here, but not there), sometimes within the same level. A fresh start like Frontiers might be just the thing.

This is where my aversion to the $70 new normal rears its head. I would have probably jumped in at 60 based on the PushSquare and EG reviews, but for some reason the extra 10 bucks makes me pump the brakes. I know it’s not a big difference, but 70 is such an ugly number. Once it’s on sale, I’m on board.

What a great idea ! Where do all those slightly off and not quite right creations wind up after being deleted? It’s like a Halloween version of the island of misfit toys.

@Shepherd_Tallon Wait, I thought these comments were all supposed to be 101 variations on “Sony is greedy” , mostly copied directly from the last article. You’re really mixing things up here by being reasonable.

It’s definitely a nice to have, not a need to have. Then again, everything gaming related is a nice to have, isn’t it.

@naruball Yes, it seems that a number of folks have their ability to enjoy games locked at 60 fps.

@Shepherd_Tallon I’m usually of the same mind when it comes to horror games, but I actually managed to play through Silent Hill 2 back in the day and enjoyed it quite a bit.

With the lights on, of course.

Happy to see it, and the series make a comeback.

@nessisonett Couldn’t agree more. Just about everything Brian K Vaughn wrote back in the early aughts was gold, but Runaways was really something special.

@nessisonett It does make you wonder if Italian history books don’t cover anything beyond 1921. Or maybe not enough of the electorate has seen Amarcord. That giant Mussolini head is quite the scene stealer.

@thefourfoldroot1 The VR task was pretty fun. It got me to hop back into Wipeout Omega for the first time in quite a while, and good lord what a game that is. I’m also finding that the trophy requirements to level up are getting me to revisit old games and clean up some of the trophies I skipped over before. I like being incentivized to enjoy things I already own.

Feels a bit like how I wound up with three copies of Citizen Kane, with each version slightly improved by the leap from DVD to BluRay to 4k. Is it necessary? No, but it’s nice to have it available.

@riceNpea There isn’t a groan button so I gave you a like instead.

Reading about this brought back memories of Crash Commando on the PS3, which I'm just realizing came out 14 years ago. My god I'm old...

@Jeaz You’re fighting the good fight with your airline analogy, but I would gladly pay 44 more bucks for a seat if they’d rip out those 20 space wasting first class loungers and give me just a bit more legroom. Also, who decides how much revenue a plane should bring in? Most likely a boardroom full of people whose wealth protects them from the terrible experience that air travel has become.
But I digress. I agree with your point about tiered service. For better or worse, it already exists just about everywhere and there’s not much that can be done about it. It probably shouldn’t be a marketing bullet point, though. That’s just rubbing it in.

@huyi The same thing all forms of money gets you: fleeting happiness. ヾ(๑╹◡╹)ﾉ"

They have a whole section of PS Plus dedicated to “exclusive packs” for online games. It’s a nice little bonus for plus members and they refresh it fairly regularly.

@Flaming_Kaiser You seem to have misread “a lot of effort” as “bare minimum.”

@BlackMayge Although it's a bit snarky, it's not really the article's fault. It's mostly the folks who take pleasure in dumping on things that others enjoy. You know the type. As soon as a new headline pops up, they see it as their sworn duty to post a reductive, negative comment. I skip over those as best I can which makes this site much more pleasant, since there are still plenty of thoughtful and interesting comments to balance things out.

@riceNpea Ah, but do they get to take in the sights of Limbo every time they teleport?

I know I’m spoiled getting Magik in a console game, but it kind of makes me want a Claremont era based New Mutants game.

@Art_Vandelay I hear you. I lost most of spring to playing GT7, and it remains one of my favorite games of the year. The only downside for me has been reading the endless streams of bile that seep into every GT7 post from the perpetually negative who see even a free update a source of indignation.

@PegasusActual93 Yeah, saxophone is quite a bit higher up on the instrument dignity scale.

I have a love/hate relationship with the trombone. I hated being assigned to play it in band class and my classmates loved to make fun of me for it. Emotional scars aside, if this gets a PS5 release I’ll definitely pick it up. Maybe I can write it off as video game therapy.

This game has charm to spare. That holiday dinner scene is one of my favorite moments in gaming.

I always wonder if things like this are the evolution of the crazy letters people used to send complaining to newspapers and TV stations back in the pre-internet days. There have always been cranks out there, they just don’t need to use a stamp or a provide a return address anymore.

@stvevan This is a good point. If I was really invested in the original and just wanted a remaster, I'd be annoyed at any changes. For those folks, the best option is probably the SC HD collection released a while back. But to me, a remake opens the door to more changes. Also, I'm not big on disclaimers. They tend to age worse than the media they're trying to warn people about. Let things stand on their own two legs and be judged for what they are.
The discussion on remakes has me thinking of old movies because there are so many great examples. His Girl Friday is an absolute classic, but also a remake of an earlier, middling film called The Front Page. It got a rewrite where one of the leads was switched from a man to a woman. Somehow, nobody got bent out of shape over the changes, but then maybe we were more enlightened in the 1940's.

@Kienda I've never understood why people use the phrase "force fed" when it comes to entertainment. You could go through your whole life and only engage with apolitical media if you chose to. That is, unless that red cap Mario wears has more meaning to it than I thought...

@tallythwack You know, I would play a reboot with Samantha Fisher. But I’m one of those people that only played the first one because the night vision goggles looked cool on the cover.

@Would_you_kindly I’m being a bit facetious, but it’s annoying that the rabble has been roused by their own imaginings about how a game’s story may be modernized for a remake. Films are remade and updated all the time and the results vary depending on the quality of the material. Games do it too, fixing errors, improving quality of life, and sometimes heading in new directions entirely as with FF7. When did this become such a problem?

@Would_you_kindly Judging from the comments, “the perpetually offended” seem to be people who’ve been triggered by a job posting to update a video game script.

@Rob_230 Even with the bizarre comments from Square Enix’s management, we still got three rather good Tomb Raider games. I was fairly blown away by the first one when it came out, and although there were some diminishing returns with the sequels, I found them all enjoyable.

I guess what I’m saying is that poor management often gets in the way of good games, but not always!

Seeing this makes me want another good old-fashioned Hatsune Miku rhythm game. Not whatever they tried to do in VR, and not a free to play thing. I appreciate them trying new things, but sometimes it’s just nice to push buttons in time to music.

@BartoxTharglod Some deep cuts there! Shatter is a stone cold classic and I can’t wait to pick up the remaster. X-blades is…not a classic, but I remember playing it and its sequel, Blades of Time. They’re like B-movies - good dumb fun when you need it. Caligula 2 and Sonic Forces I have, but embarrassingly, have not tried yet. This just gives me more incentive to give them a go.

@BartoxTharglod That’s an interesting take on soundtracks. It makes me think of the early days of the PS1 when games started to release with red book audio which made for spectacular soundtracks. It made a lot of games feel epic even if the gameplay wasn’t always top notch. Any examples of a game that you bumped up because of the audio?

@IonMagi What you do in bed with your Switch is your own business…