• CrossCode - My favorite RPG of all time, and that’s a very high bar. This is a game that is perfect in every way and adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Fantastic combat, tons of side content, endearing characters, emotionally powerful story, beautiful visuals, amazing soundtrack. I could gush for hours about Lea as a protagonist, but it’s surely better to experience this one for yourself than let me get into spoilers.

• Chrono Trigger - I am hesitant to recommend most JRPGs from this era if you did not grow up on them, because many of them haven’t aged so gracefully. Chrono Trigger is the exception, this game is a fine wine. You may want to check out one of the rereleases though, or at least a retranslation patch, because the original translation was made on a rushed deadline and bound by heavy technical limitations.

• Earthbound/Mother 3 - Compared to Chrono Trigger, I do feel Earthbound is somewhat dated, but still does hold up better than many of its contemporaries. It’s a bit of a slow burn, especially at the start, but the writing carries it. Just know that this is required reading before going into Mother 3, which is absolutely peak. Skip Mother 1 though.

• OneShot - If you liked Undertale, you will like this. It’s a game that’s best experienced blind, I will say nothing other than trust me. Short and sweet, you can play through it in a single afternoon.

• Tales of Symponia/Vesperia - Story-wise, Symphonia is my favorite in the series, but if you’ve played any later entry you might get very frustrated by the lack of Free Run and certain QoL features. If you haven’t played a Tales game before, I recommend starting with Symphonia since it will be harder to go back to later. Then play Vesperia for the most mechanically polished combat.

• The World Ends With You/NEO - Square Enix at their most creative, this game has such a striking style and aesthetic. The first game is built around the DS hardware and I highly highly highly recommend playing that version if possible. The Switch port had to make some unfortunate sacrifices to convert it to a single screen. If you really can’t play DS, Switch is okay, but the DS version is so much more special.

• VA-11 HALL-A - Visual novel with a unique bartending framing device: instead of directly choosing dialogue options, the story unfolds based on the drinks you serve customers. Sounds bizarre but it somehow works. Great atmosphere, charming characters, hilarious writing.

• 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - Excellent pair of Visual Novel/Escape Room Point-and-Clicks. Do note that the first game is best experienced on the original DS version if possible, but you can’t the remaster is fine. There’s a third game in the trilogy that I haven’t played and can’t vouch for, I’ve heard it was not as good.

64GB is the maximum cart size, not minimum.

I thought Game Key Cards, while not something I would ever buy, weren’t the end of the world if they were just meant to replace the existing practice of code-in-a-box for games that won’t fit on a cart. It’s actually less bad than that, so I didn’t get out my pitchfork just yet.

But the sheer number of games being released in this format is alarming. Code-in-a-box was rare, this is looking like it’s outnumbering proper physical games. And many of these games don’t even make sense to be key cards, they can fit just fine on a cart. There are ports of Switch 1 games that already fit on Switch 1 carts in here!

What the hell is happening?

Every game that has a physical release (and even some that don’t) does get sold by other retailers, and those retailers do regularly have sales.

The discounts usually aren’t too steep, but games do go on sale periodically. DekuDeals is a fantastic resource for price tracking.

Yes, you do have to venture into the fog a bit sometimes. Not too far, if you click around to other grids you may uncover spoilers, but you can always interact with the grid you’re currently on. Whenever you know you can put a digit somewhere, put that digit there, fog or not.

Only if they DON’T drop the classic turn-based combat. I actually hate the idea of a ‘remake’ that changes genre entirely.

1-6 recently got the Pixel Remasters, and before that 3 and 4 had the DS remakes. I’d like to see proper remakes of 5 and 6 myself, but that’s unlikely to happen since the Pixel Remasters exist.

7, personally I’d play a faithful remake, but it’d be silly to make one since they already have the non-faithful ‘remake’.

8 is the one game that could benefit the most from a non-faithful remake. It’s a game that’s worth remaking because the original was such a mess. But I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for saying that right after complaining about FF7. What I’d do is still keep it turn-based, but completely overhaul Draw and level scaling.

9 would be the most likely candidate as a fan-favorite that could be kept faithful and still hold up well. And rumors have been swirling around for a while that one may be coming.

10 and 12 already have the HD Remasters, and those are excellent. So no need.

11 is the most in need of some way to preserve it for future generations, but I don’t know how that would even work. Could it perhaps be adapted in some way like they did with Dragon Quest 10 Offline?

13 onward, too new to need remakes. (And also I have no interest in the direction the series has gone since then anyway)

Pokemon is one game where you won’t miss much through emulation. They did occasionally play around with hardware gimmicks for a few bonus minigames or whatever, but all of that stuff is skippable and unimportant to the core gameplay.

Many of the best DS games are built around the hardware in ways that make it difficult to get the full experience from trying to emulate.

It’s basically the term for a AAA movie. Big budget, aimed at mass audiences.

Misusing wifi? Botnet distributed computer? What do you mean?

“Why is an old game good?” feels like an odd question. It would be silly to ask that of any other medium, wouldn’t it? The most beloved classics being beloved isn’t an indictment of modern stuff, especially when cherry-picking the greatest hits and ignoring how many flops existed back then too.

Quite frankly, Nazi-adjacent is bad enough, especially when he’s made no effort to own up to the problems he’s caused. It seems like he very deliberately tries to skirt the line of plausible deniability.

Youtube has had multiple redesigns over its lifespan, and I’ll bet you probably do prefer the last one over their original 2005 UI.

For example, I don’t know if Kansai-ben was translated into a US Southern dialect in a video game before this one.

Not a video game, but Osaka in Azumanga Daioh (2002) immediately comes to mind as a prior example of Kansai-ben->Southern localization.

I play the magic card, Pot of Greed. Pot of Greed allows me to draw two cards from my deck.

I loved the original and Second, but I played the demo for II and it did not click with me at all. I really disliked the change to how turn order worked, the original system dovetailed so much better with the titular Brave/Default mechanic.

I feel like a lot of times when devs say that, they never end up doing it in the end. Anything short of an explicit yes ends up being a no.

Does taking care of everyone mean saying “sorry you can’t get HRT, it just doesn’t poll well enough”?

Recognizing that Nazis are people is necessary in order to understand how people become Nazis. Understanding how people become Nazis is necessary in order to fight Nazis.