Toomanywires

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a  series of posts about each mainline FF.  I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games.   I first played Final Fantasy III on the Nintendo DS. A fairly common way to have experienced it, unless you lived in Japan in the early 90s. I lived in rural England at that time, and the only Fantasy I was interested in was  the Fighting kind. Roll a five and turn to page 61. Page 61: You have been fully eaten by a zombified Yeti until dead. Final Fantasy III launched in Japan on April 27, 1990. It was the last in the series to appear on the Famicom, and it went on to shift 1.4 million copies. Despite this success, it would be another sixteen years before it was released outside of Japan, when the aforementioned remake launched on DS. Part III might be the least available Final Fantasy. An updated ver

Haven't done one of these for a while. 1. God of War Ragnarok and What's Next I really enjoyed Ragnarok. Far more so than I did God of War 2018, and considerably more than I thought I would. Atreus might be the biggest reason, as he basically grew up and became a far more agreeable lad. I was more interested in the relationship between he and his father, Kratos, this time around, and I felt more invested in the wan Spartan and his largely successful attempts to repress his anger, while still being very good at disembowelment. I welcomed the opportunity to go to war with different allies at different junctures; Mimir is still the best head, and I looked forward to spending time with the larger-than-life rulers of Asgard. Odin in particular was not as I expected, and all the better for it. A very distinctive and memorable take on the all-father, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. It wasn't perfect, sure. Its insistence on constantly showing you just-out-of-reach treasur

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a series of posts about each mainline FF. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games. ****** Final Fantasy II was a sequel in name only. While certain themes and gameplay elements returned from FFI, no characters or locations were recycled for part two. No great loss. The moderate success of the first game earned Hironobu Sakaguchi and his team a slightly longer leash at Square, though they were still very much considered the B-team. Still, it would appear that they had enough support and/or confidence to make some surprising decisions, the biggest and most impactful of which was not to be tied to the plot or setting of the original. With the sequel, narrative became a much greater concern, as we were given named-heroes, support characters, and more substantial lore. Comparatively, anyway.

I'd been on the lookout for a replacement Dreamcast since late last year. My previous DC had several issues, and buying a replacement model seemed more reasonable than trying to identify and fix each of them. I own a soldering iron, as well as several screwdrivers, but have no tinkering skills to speak of. After weeks of Mercari searching, I finally found what I was looking for: A Dreamcast that fulfilled all my requirements. 1. No yellowing 2. Photographic evidence of it reading a disc and running a game 3. ¥5000 or less 4. Non-anime avatar seller It was actually a lot harder than I'd expected to find what I was looking for. But I eventually got lucky, catching a listing just before I slipped into bed one evening, two weeks ago. A brilliant-white Dreamcast, a photo of it running a disc, ¥5000; non-anime avatar. It didn't have a VMU, nor was it boxed, but I didn't need any of that.  I dreamt about all things SEGA that night. It arrived a few days later, encased in bubbl

Final Fantasy XVI will be with us before you know it. While I'm not as enamored with the series as I once was, a new entry still feels like a significant event, and one worth celebrating. So that's what I'm going to do, by writing about each mainline entry in the lead up to 06/22. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead I'll write around these games, using them as inspiration to cover something related. Hopefully something you haven't read before. *********** A hairy ballsack, peaking out from the start menu. A prickly pair of nads. That was how I accessed Final Fantasy (1987). I first played Final Fantasy I via the NES emulator, NESticle, a crudely named and widely-used freeware program that ran without issue on the out-dated PC that I took to university. I left home in the autumn of 2001 for higher education. Freed from the shackles of the family PC and dial-up internet, I was excited to ha

"Daddy, I'm killing people!" My daughter is getting into Splatoon 3, bless her. And she has zero reservations about playing online. No hesitation or nerves, despite this being her first online-multiplayer experience. That level of confidence and comfort must be a generational thing. I feel quite unwell the first few times I play anything competitive online. What if I'm the worst player who ever lived? What if someone says something unsavory about my mother? What if they realize that I'm shit at computer games? Anyway, we didn't initially have Nintendo Online, a subscription service that is required for online play. While Splatoon 3 does have some offline modes, the majority of it is online-only. So I created a Nintendo Network ID for my daughter and started the 7-day Nintendo Online trial on her new account; I semi-promised to upgrade to a full membership if she enjoyed Splatoon, did her homework, and stopped leaving the light on in the bathroom.  Watching her