PixlBit

To be fair, Earthbound did take a critical and commercial pounding in 1995 when it first came out, often for those same reasons. I was honestly amazed that it developed the cult status it did after the fact, but I am glad that Nintendo at least includes it in SNES collections nowadays. The critical and commercial reception it got was upsetting to Nintendo Japan and the US localizer, Marcus Lindblom, who really put his all into the localizaiton, which was probably the best RPG localization out there at the time. Hopefully he's found satisfaction in seeing the game achieve cult status. 

I have a bootleg cartridge version of Mother 3. My primary means of playing it is through the Game Boy Player for my Gamecube.  Great game... but it makes me wish Nintendo had completed Mother 3 for the N64. Not only would that have fulfilled a yawning niche in the N64's library, but it's possible that it might have been more likely to be released over here, simply because Nintendo was more willing to take chance on Japan-only franchises in order to attract people back to the N64 and Gamecube - that's the environment that brought us Animal Crossing, Advance Wars, and Fire Emblem, after all. 

Stage Select:

I'm going to open this one with a tribute to a female game developer who was taken from us far too soon: Rieko Kodama, a longtime Sega producer whose credits included Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia, and 7th Dragon, and whose DNA was also apparent in other Sega titles such as Sakura Wars and Valkyria Chronicles. The gaming world lost a legend that day.

Carol Shaw, the designer of Activision's best 2600/5200 game, River Raid. In the back of its 2600 manuals, Activision would include a brief bio of the game's main designer, including a quote from the designer, which was a response to the way the founders' former employer, Atari, refused to credit individual designers. It was neat of them to put a human face to the people who made my video game, and Shaw especially so since even as a kid I knew that video games were a hugely male-dominated space. 

My favorite female video game character is Samus Aran, the video gaming world's equivalent of Sigourney Weaver, for battling parasitic energy monsters, giant space dragons, and even an interstellar terrorist organization of bird-people. 

After Samus is one Tifa Lockhart. Love her character design and her characterization in the world of Final Fantasy VII.

Edelgard von Hresveig, emperor of the Adrestian Empire. Edelgard was right. That is all.

Kitana, my favorite fighting game character, and her badass razorblade fans. Fun fact: when I was a teenager, I sent a fan-letter through an address EGM provided to Katalin Zamiar, who portrayed Kitana and Mileena in MK2.  Look, I was 16 years old.

Cage Match:

Breath of the Wild would win over pretty much every other game out there in a cage match. But Dragon Quest XI is definitely the best "loser" cage match game I've ever played. Both of these games were absolutely phenomenal. BotW was the 3-D Zelda game I'd been hoping for ever since the series went to 3-D. DQ11 was an almost perfect distillation of everything I love about RPGs (I don't use the term JRPG, since I agree with what Yoshi-P said about the term and have agreed with it since the days of the PS3/Wii/360). So, Breath of the Wild, but Dragon Quest 11 deserves credit for going into the cage with the best of the best. In the words of George Foreman's head in Futurama, my memory's not what it used to be, but I think the entire earth was destroyed.  

I have a Gamecube with a GB Player, so I'm good with that. 

Power Wash simulator probably appeals to people who were/are fans of Super Mario Sunshine, since FLUDD was a sort of power-washing machine. Didn't the PS version of PWS have a Final Fantasy crossover?

You can hoof it in DC, MoCo, PG County, and NoVA pretty decently due to the Metro. Baltimore, unfortunately, doesn't have comprehensive mass transit like DC, NYC, or Boston do. Most of the city is serviced by an inadequate bus system. There is light rail, but it mostly connects Owings Mills and Timonium to Downtown, with a couple of stops in Glen Burnie. It does connect to Penn Station and the Acela line that services the BosWash corridor. 

When I lived there, I was as stranded without a car there as I would be in Phoenix. And that's a shame, because the city really needs something more than a bus that comes by every few hours to service a lot of its poorer neighborhoods.

There is definitley lots of interesting stuff there. One of my favorite places there was Boring, home of the Boring Volunteer Fire Department and the Boring United Methodist Church. It's northwest of Baltimore.  

I lived in Baltimore for a couple of years. Expensive AF, especially car insurance. Not to mention your car pretty much has to be driven right off the dealer lot to the nearest inspection station to have any hope of passing Maryland's motor vehicle inspection.

Zestiria had an interesting premise based around Arthurian legend, but it looks like it was built around monetization. That's notably the game that ended with the ouster of Hideo Baba as head of the series. Berseria and Arise were definitely headed back in the right direction.

I tried a Retron 5 because it played GBA games, but it kept crashing randomly, no matter which system's games I tried. Plus, no used game shops would take it. :(

Stage Select:

The Ding Dong Dell theme from Ni no Kuni, from Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi.

Cage Match:

Going with Rhapsody on this one, as it was pretty much America's introduction to the zaniness and style of NIS. I've been playing it on Switch as part of one of the NIS Classics collections. It wins just because you can actually attack your enemies with a stack of giant pancakes with syrup. Kartia was interesting, too, as it was illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, whose art-style was noticeably absent from FFVII. The main character looked a lot like Terra from FFVI. 

I want to go to PAX Prime and Tokyo Game Show. If things are settled down, I may make serious arrangements to go to TGS. I've always wanted to visit Japan anyway.