PixlBit

I would argue that while some of these are coincidences, Super Smash Bros does have at least some effect on what Nintendo chooses to develop or localize for non-Japanese markets. Fire Emblem had never been localized before SSB Melee, and I do believe it was because the appearance of Marth and Roy in Melee got American gamers interested in the series that Nintendo finally decided to give Fire Emblem a chance in the US. Pit appeared in Brawl, and then Nintendo made Kid Icarus: Uprising. Even Earthbound's VC release could be attributed to the popularity of Ness and Lucas in the SSB games.

Think about it: if Nintendo gets feedback that certain characters are very popular and that gamers are interested in seeing the series that the games came from, it's entirely conceivable that they would act on it.

Blast Corps would be cool with modern graphics and physics.

Other than Perfect Dark, I wasn't all that enamoured with Rare during my N64 days. I liked Nintendo EAD stuff a lot better and I even preferred a couple of Konami's games over the bulk of Rare's offerings. I guess Conker was cool for trying to bring crude humor to a console known for family friendly platformers.

Super Mario 64 was the most amazing game I'd ever played up to that point. For me it was probably the single biggest leap in gaming I ever saw.

Fun factoid: Completed Suikoden save files can carry over from Suikoden 1 to Suikoden 2. And Suikoden 2 files can in turn carry over to Suikoden 3 on PS2.

There are a lot of caterpillars here in Maryland. One of my co-workers is absolutely creeped out by them.

For me, the best bosses were Marmota and Selvaria from Valkyria Chronicles, Zombie King Tom from Ni no Kuni, and the Super Mutant Behemoths in Fallout 3 (the Veteran Rangers in New Vegas were bastards as well, but I don't know if they count as bosses) were standouts. Also liked Mr. Sandman from Punch-Out and some of the boss battles in Dragon's Crown.

Twilight Princess stands out above all, but since that game started as a Gamecube game and the Gamecube version was the one I got, I consider that game to be a 6th-gen game.

I've been busy at work myself. Our business in Maryland is open now, so I'm not sitting there bored every day. My recent gaming activities have consisted of Final Fantasy X on PS4 and Tales of Hearts R.

My wife and I went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC last week. They have a pretty good aviary there as well as a few other animals. It's also one of only four American zoos with pandas. Plus, admission is free, or more correctly, you pay for your season pass every April 15th. :)

On account of becoming my favorite third party developer out of nowhere. I could also say the same about Tecmo Koei, which has been making quite a few games I like in recent years.

I liked some of EA's games during its earliest years, like Archon (the people who made Archon went on to found Toys For Bob, the company behind the Skylanders games/toys), M.U.L.E., and Starflight. But in the late 80s they started to stink.

I don't think they're trying to actively be hated, I think they simply don't care anymore about a product line that is no longer profitable for them when they have so many other products that are more profitable with less cost.

As far as other companies go, Square Enix has been improving of late, while I'd argue that Namco is stronger and more diverse than ever. Surprisingly, Koei Tecmo has become another favorite publisher of mine in recent years.