Nipah

I suppose it depends on how much I can bend the rules…

If I’m allowed to use the console only ‘as-is’, then probably the Nintendo DS. This gives me DS games (which are great), but also GBA games as well (though you’ll miss out on GBC/GB games, which is a bit sad); this also nets you a smattering of NES/SNES ports to boot, so that’s nice. But most importantly, it gets me Chrono Trigger and a bunch of my favorite Castlevania games all in one place (sad that SotN doesn’t get here, but…)

If I’m allowed to use the console with no hold’s barred, then Playstation Vita. Mod that little sucker and you’ve got access to a ton of stuff… PSV games obviously, but emulated PS1, PSP, GBA, GBC, GB, NES, SNES, and Genesis also (and maybe more, I don’t think I’ve tried any others though).

As someone who played/plays a lot of MMOs and stuff like Destiny/The Division: You’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t get to step two of that simple statement.

People who are just downright angry at a game but still actively playing… “Man, I can’t believe they’re forcing me to go into PvP to get [some arbitrary weapon or cosmetic item]!” they grumble, not realizing that they don’t need to tick that little check box in their collection.

People who say things like “I grinded out this holiday season and bought the event pass and I didn’t even like the stuff it offered!” is perhaps not technically ‘common’, but that kind of situation happens often enough that I’m a bit worried for gamers as a whole.

Its some kind of weird combination of a hoarder’s mentality, a sunk cost fallacy, and probably some FOMO sprinkled on top… all mixed together by some psychologist on a company’s payroll to maximize profits.

Or you need to spend half of the games managing inventory.

On the other hand, I enjoy this (to a certain degree, mind you). Going through all the random crap I’ve picked up off the ground in Skyrim to maximize selling potential, moving things around in Diablo II for the same reason, picking through my vault in Destiny 2 to figure out which guns to keep and which to dismantle, organizing my various bits and bobs in FFXIV:ARR across my retainers so that everything is where it should be… I kind of dig that kind of stuff because its a bit of a management game within the regular game and a nice break from mindlessly murdering everything (and a bit of a “ooh presents on Christmas” kind of feel when you dig through all the stuff you’ve acquired).

On the gripping (third) hand, sometimes it does become more of a second job almost… Destiny 2, as an example again, feels like a chore sometimes keeping on top of all the various currencies and whether this random gun/armor that dropped is an upgrade over one of the multitude of other options I’ve had collecting dust for the past couple of years. “But maybe I’ll use it if they buff [gun type/perk/build]!” I think as I toss it into the pile, only to forever become an icon I ignore in DIM.

I replay the “Metroid-vania” Castlevanias every few years (SotN, GBA/DS games), and one of my goals is always maximum map completion… obviously not required for actually beating the games, but I only consider the game completed if I get all the rooms on my map.

More specifically for SotN, I also gotta get the Crissaegrim + Medusa Shield otherwise am I even playing the game properly?

Some of the others I try to get all the doodads: cards, souls, glyphs, whatever. Some are a bit more annoying than others, so sometimes I’ll skip out on the really annoying ones if I don’t get it done before filling in the map.

Avenging Spirits. When I was younger, a friend and I loaned each other a bunch of our games. Sadly, he ended up moving away before we managed to swap back, and he got the better end of the deal when it came to the games. However, I did get left with a copy of Avenging Spirits… the game is a bit strange but its very fun and the sprite work is just adorable.

The game has you playing as a spirit who can possess enemies. You start off with a few you can possess, and then you gain more choices as you progress. Or so I believe… I wasn’t all that good at the game back in the day, so I don’t remember getting too far in it.

There are third party memory card solutions out there… essentially they hijack the cart slot and allow you to stick in a standard micro SD card to use as storage.

I have two of the standard PSV memory cards (I think a 4gb one that came with my Assassin’s Creed bundle, and another 32gb one that I spent like $100 on when the finally dropped the prices into a realm that was at least within viewing distance of sanity), but being able to stick in a cheap-o micro SD card and have ALL the games I purchased (and some extras…) is pretty great.

And because I feel like I’m legally obligated to say this as a Vita owner, hacking the thing was the best decision I made outside of buying the handheld in the first place, when it comes to the PSV. It’s way easier now than when I initially wanted to try (and was too scared to do so when the handheld was still being supported), and as long as you follow up-to-date instructions you should be golden.

The main problem is that its not enough to be competitive with Steam at this point… you need to put out something so good that it give people enough of a reason to leave the comfort of Steam… you need Steam and then another layer of goodness on top of Steam.

This is the same issue that a lot of MMOs had when trying to become a WoW killer. You not only needed to have pretty much everything Blizzard put into the game, but more on top because otherwise why would anyone bother to leave the comforts of Azeroth to play something that is maybe marginally better, or a possibly worse experience?

If Dark Souls had easier difficulties, they wouldn’t have the reputation they do. People would turn down the difficulty instead of learning the bosses and how to beat them.

Which is hilarious because people ‘turn down the difficulty’ constantly by using summons or ‘jolly cooperation’ all the time in the games and don’t seem to differentiate that from a difficulty option.

Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.

I’m torn on this… I love playing Dark Souls 1/2/3/etc for the world and the enemies and exploring and overcoming the difficulties and finding cool gear and weapons and trying out new builds.

But I also absolutely hate pretty much every single boss fight in the games.

Yeah, FFXIV makes is super convenient to revisit a place once you’ve already been there via the aetheryte, meaning you’re probably not going to visit it on foot more than a few times. This means you don’t really make that connection between zones (or at least, I didn’t) and thus don’t really view it as an interconnected world (the loading areas between each zone doesn’t really help).

I’m struggling to give proper credit to WoW because I’m not sure if its the staggering amount of time I played the game, the time of my life when I played the game (younger brain retaining knowledge better?), or the seamless transition between zones which lends it to sticking in my memory so hard as a ‘real, interconnected world’… probably a combination of the three, if we’re being honest.

• Bastion
• Castlevania (series, special mention for Symphony of the Night)
• Chrono Trigger/Cross
• Dead Cells
• Destiny 1/2
• Dragon’s Dogma (mainly Into Free, but still…)
• Final Fantasy (series, but special mention for XI and XIV)
• Persona 4/5
• Portal 1/2
• River City Girls (probably 2 as well, but still waiting on my LRG copy)
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World (the game (the soundtrack))
• Tony Hawk (series); a bit of a cop out, as they’re all licensed songs
• Zelda (series, special mention for the Cadence of Hyrule soundtrack)

And then just a lot of old nostalgia for NES games (Duck Tales, River City Ransom, TMNT, etc) and SNES/PS1 RPGs (Lufia, Super Mario RPG, Suikoden, Thousand Arms, etc)

But that main list contains the ones I either bought or downloaded because I loved the music so much.