PixlBit

Stage Select:

This is an odd one, but when I see a challenge ahead, especially a challenge that resulted from entirely avoidable circumstances, I can hear the voice of Yuri (in Troy Baker's voice) from Tales of Vesperia saying, "Ah, man. All right, all right..." And by that same token, I can hear one of his victory quotes, "Resound! O cry of victory!" Really, though, Tales games in general have these fun little sound bites that play before, during, and after battles. 

Reyn from Xenoblade Chronicles is a found of meme-worthy sayings. "Now it's Reyn Time! Yeah, I'm turning up the heat! You can't have.a rainbow without Reyn, baby!" This last line is even cringe-worthy in universe.

Xenogears had a soundbite from Citan that plays in my head when I get trounced in Mario Kart and Smash: "Uh... welll...  nice move, that... last one."

When something has gone wrong, I'll sometimes say, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" especially if I know the person is a gamer.

Cage Match:

The match ultimately ended up being a non-starter because Monster Rancher couldn't find any CDs at Best Buy. Monster Rancher then tried Walmart, which does sell CDs since they're now outdated technology, only to find that the local Walmart had shut down after forcing every other business to close. Pokemon Yellow, meanwhile, got a boost from Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee. but that didn't really matter since Monster Rancher couldn't fight. So Pokemon Yellow wins by default. Resound, O cry of victory!

I've played games from the 70s, but my birth year was close to the end of the decade, and I wasn't really old enough to engage with video games until 1981-82. Space Invaders is the same age as me. 

Watching MJF and Christopher Lloyd somehow manages to be both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. It's shockiog how badly MJF's Parkinson's has affected him. He's still relatively young and has been dealing with it for years. But seeing Christopher Lloyd, who looks great for a guy well into his 80s, helping his colleague at public appearances is moving. The love these two longtime colleagues and friends have for each other is apparent in these appearances. Tom Wilson seems like a chill guy. He used to be on the Nerdist podcast. For some reason, I'm never lucky enough to get to meet people like that at expos, as they didn't come to places I lived in very often. 

Recently I discovered, through YouTube, an platforming arcade game called Mouser, by UPL. It's basically the reverse of Mappy: You play as a cat trying to rescure your cat girlfriend from some evil mice. That has become my most wanted Arcade Archives game. 

My first attempt at building in TotK was to build a fan-powered wagon with a flame emitter. It went pretty well... until it rolled into some tall grass and caught on fire. 

Taito did a variation of Puzzle Bobble called Puzzle de Pon! I used to see that in Neo-Geo machines at truck stops a lot, which is kind of funny.

One game that I'd like to see come to Arcade Archives (there are a lot, but this one is somewhat germane to this discussion) was called Senkyu, or Battle Balls. It had the same sort of animated anime background characters as Magical Drop.

One kind of interesting detail was how they codified Luigi as a coward who needed Mario to protect him, long before Nintendo itself did so. 

I could dig a Shining Force SRPG sequel, especially if it's done with 3-D graphics. Fire Emblem has been a staple of my game library for the past few years and provides a template of how it could be done, and I'd like to see Sega step back into the fantasy SRPG ring.

Virtua Fighter 6. Damn, do I want VF6. That's my favorite fighting game series, I like VF a lot more than Tekken, and it has so much potential for e-sports.  It just sucks that Sega is letting it lay dormant, especially when they have plenty of talent that could make it a great game. VF5 Ultimate Showdown was nice, but I want to see Virtua Fighter have its chance to shine, damn it. 

My brain: Don't say Mother 4, don't say Mother 4.

Me: Mother 4?

My brain: That's it, I'm outta here. (footsteps)

Cage Match:

I had to look up Winter Heat. I'm not a big sports fan, but I did enjoy early 80s multisport games like Track & Field, Activision Decathlon, and Olympic Decathlon from "Micro Soft" (yep, it's the same company).  So I'm going with Winter Heat, because the winter sports look more fun than turning left. 

Unpopular take: it's time for Microsoft to swallow its pride and go third party for Sony and Nintendo. 

Stage Select: 

1998 Games of the Year

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Visually impressive, with plenty to do and an extremely high level of polish. Not only unmatched by anything else released in 1998, but largely unmatched by anything released in 5th gen. 

2. Xenogears. A demo was included as a surprise bonus with Parasite Eve, which got me interested. Xenogears quickly became one of Square's most memorable games of the generation, with its lengthy (if sometimes cutscene-heavy) story, interesting characters, and mech combat. The only downside was Disc 2, but I was invested enough in the world to stick it out to the end. Unfortunately, the team apparently used Disc 2 as a model for the development of Xenosaga, which would become one of my biggest disappointments of 6th gen. Thankfully, they completely turned the ship around with Xenoblade, which I felt was the Xenogears successor I had wanted all along.

3. Resident Evil 2. Capcom's best offering of the generation. Took everything that made Resident Evil good and cranked it up to 11, with two character paths that required their own discs, and two of the most memorable playable characters in the franchise's history. I can still hear the save room theme in my head.

4. Parasite Eve. A Square horror RPG set in New York City with nods to Final Fantasy here and there. Nowadays it's faded into obscurity, but it was a pretty big deal then, enough that Madonna was said to have sought the US movie rights to it. Square also used it to develop the graphics they would eventually use for FF8 and FF9. Two other reasons this game was memorable to me was the Xenogears demo that came with it that sold me on Xenogears, and it was the first game I ever pre-ordered.

5. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. This was my favorite third party N64 game, not that the pool of third party N64 games was all that big. Still, it had great music, charming graphics, and it did 3-D Zelda before Ocarina of Time did. My most wanted NSO N64 game is Mystical Ninja.

Cage Match: 

Dunno. I definitely like Shaq better, but Kobe played a better game, so I'm going to have to give it to Kobe's game.