Toomanywires

I was hopelessly lost. I thought it would be easy to resume my adventure after a few days away, but no. Three days removed from last playing Final Fantasy V Advance, and I had no idea where I was, what I'd been doing, or where I was headed. Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, Faris and I, confused in a cave. My memory may be faltering, but FFV isn't exactly great at giving hints or reminders. A few days away is all it takes to become utterly lost when there are no mission markers, no mission log, a very limited map, and several hundred caves that all look the same. It hasn't helped that the online guide I've been checking keeps refreshing and losing my spot on the page. I think I was supposed to be doing something in a cave? Ctrl+F "cave" - 127 results! Brilliant. I was looking for something I could sink my teeth into over the winter holiday. I wanted to make use of my Analogue Pocket, ideally while wrapped up warm on the sofa, with the Christmas tree in view. Nice and cozy....

1. Lumines - Arise a Contrarian I like Lumines.  Electronic Symphony is my favourite, and it lived in my Vita for years on end, and I put countless hours into the PSP originals, as well as the recent-ish remaster. However, I've struggled to click with Lumines Arise. In that respect, I seem to be in the distinct minority. My social media feeds have been full of gushing praise, from Lumines-heads and via Tetris Effect-converts alike.  By no means did I dislike Arise, it's just that it never got its claws into me, not how I hoped it would. I wasn't seeing falling blocks when I closed my eyes nor fighting off the urge to have one more go at silly hours. I was essentially done with it within a week or so, and that bugged me. So I decided to think really hard - really, really hard - and get to the bottom of why we didn't gel. And I think I got it. In Arise, the total marriage between the core gameplay and music is a hindrance to my enjoyment of Lumines. When defining that enj...

I keep a record of the games I play. It lives on my phone in the Notes app.  It's nothing fancy. No pictures, no sentences; not even scores. Just a plain text note, littered with spelling errors as well as abbreviations that'll only make sense to me.  I love to add a new entry and spend time scrolling through it, mumbling things to myself like "Oh yeah, I played that", "I liked that", "I didn't like that" and "Is that how you spell Veilguard?" It's a simple yet effective solution to tracking my games-played and seeing how my year is shaping up. Despite only being a month and a half into 2025, my list for this year is already looking pretty good. It's got a bit of this, a bit of that. With no big new release to focus on, I've been switching between multiple games, some old and some new, getting through backlogs and revisiting favourites. I've felt very productive, pressing my buttons and rolling credits.  The next fortn...

If I could travel back to 2006, I'd buy the full set of Bit Generations games on the Game Boy Advance. Twice. I'd also grab that Sega Wondermega that sat in Akihabara Trader's cabinet for ages. I'd probably try to prevent some wars or whatever too. The Bit Generations series was once far more reasonably priced than it is now. Accessible for even the most cash-strapped of GBA owner. You'd spot them straight away when you entered any well-stocked store, with their distinctive form factor and simplistic but eye-catching cover art. I remember them well, but knew them by sight only.  As I'm writing this post, it dawns on me that I'm likely describing new copies, or at the very least newly-used. They were launched exclusively in Japan in July 2006, which was my first summer living here. I am remembering, or misremembering, old games before they were old, otherwise known as new games. Oddly, it feels like they were always "retro"; a throwback at launch. E...

I have finally completed Sonic Advance 2! Took me long enough. I first got my copy back in late 2004. Maybe Christmas? I'd had a Game Boy Advance SP for a year, but I'd just used it for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, which was the only reason why I'd bought it in the first place. When I moved to Japan in late-2005, those were the only video games I brought with me. It should've been an ideal opportunity to lavish some attention on my GBA, being that I had no other handhelds or consoles to distract me, but that didn't happen. I used my first pay cheque to buy a white PSP, as well as a Saturn for the house, and my SP was immediately shelved. I barely used my GBA again, and I certainly never finished Sonic. It was far too tough. And besides, I had a full season running on NBA Live 2006 on my PSP, which demanded my attention. Seven seconds or less to get my Suns a championship. Fast forward the best part of two decades, and I have finally triumphed over Sonic Advance 2....

It was a smart move taking the Mega Sg upstairs last Sunday. Smart and long overdue. It'd been languishing underneath the big TV for a few months, where my opportunities to play it were few and far between. The living room is for family things, not me hogging the TV to revisit my Mega Drive favourites. "Daughter, would you like to watch me play Desert Strike for an hour? Hey...... where are you going?" The big TV is for Netflix. It's for my daughter playing Pokemon Violet. It's for terrible Japanese variety shows that no one is watching, yet seem to be perpetually-on in the background. And then once everyone else has gone to bed, it's for Series X and PS5. It's not for retro games. Upstairs is for retro games. So I hooked up my Mega Sg to the monitor in the spare room, alongside my beloved Saturn and my record player - my shrine to all things retro. Material things that make me far happier than they should. I'd intended to play old favourites Road Ras...