I'm back from the dark mirror universe like Link in Lorule!

On 01/29/2019 at 07:37 PM by asrealasitgets

How have you guys been? Did you have a good holiday?

I’m back! I wasn’t really gone. I just haven’t really been gaming enough to blog about it. I was going to hold off on my glorious return to Pixlbit until BaD, but I don’t want my return to get buried under daily blogs. So here I am! I'm back from the dark mirror universe like Link in Lorule!

In terms of gaming, I haven’t really been playing anything new. I’ve just been retro gaming, I guess?

Zelda

I got Zelda: Link Between Worlds for Christmas this year. I hadn’t really been keeping up with hand held releases so I missed out on it. I’m glad I got to play through it though. I understand why it got so much praise when it launched. It is basically a remake of Link to the Past on SNES. The ‘wall press’ mechanic is actually very clever and nice way to freshen up the old puzzles, which at this point are pretty predictable. I wasn’t too happy about having to rent all the weapons you normally find in the dungeons or having to re-purchase them anytime I died, but it added more suspense and made me play more cautiously and I rarely died in a dungeon or to a boss anyway so it didn’t affect me that much. I really like having a simultaneous release of traditional 2D game and 3D game (Breath of the Wild), like Metroid Prime/Fusion. I hope Nintendo keeps this up with the next Metroid Prime release.

XBOX360

I’ve had a stack of 360 games on my shelf that I never found the time to go through. Gears of War 3, Lost Odyssey, Bayonetta 1, Lord of the Rings War in the North, Read Dead Redemption, Halo...something, etc. I’ve played through Shadow Complex and Deadly Premonition so I figured I’d give those another play through as well as finish off the backlog list. There’s also a ton of games on sale for like 5 to 10 dollars that I missed out on, like shooter, particularly shooters in the Call of Duty series. I started wondering if games from PS3 or 360 will still be remembered fondly the way 8-bit and 16-bit games were from the 80s-90s. I gotta say that the graphics on some of these games are a little rough, but I’m finding the roughness to add character and charm to the experience, like grainy footage on a found vhs tape. I’m actually kind of digging it. I’m gonna search the bargain bins of my local Gamestop and see what I can find. It’s weird to look at the PS3 or 360 like retro consoles, but we’re coming up on PS5 soon.

I’ll save my blogs for BaD next month, if it isn’t cancelled yet? I’ll do BaD anyway.

Questions?

Do you look back at PS3 or 360 fondly like a retro console? I admit that I still have PS3 plugged in and regularly play those games, (PSOne classics) at least until Sony adds them digitally to PS store, which they probably won’t.

What are some “best of” Xbox 360 games that I might have missed out on? I’m more of a horror fan and JRPG fan so I missed out on all the shooters.

I have Alan Wake on my “must buy” list, as well as Undead Nightmare.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

01/29/2019 at 07:47 PM

BaD is definitely in effect!

glad to hear from you again. Have you played Lost Odyssey yet? That’s a great game.

asrealasitgets

01/29/2019 at 08:28 PM

You know, with Lost Odyssey I had jumped off the turn-based rpgs thinking they were too slow, but with nostalgia glasses on I can appreciate a slow moving turn-based game and look for a good story and combat mechanics. I think I was originally turned of by long load times. We'll see how my patience is tested this time around.

01/29/2019 at 08:42 PM

Yeah it definitely has its flaws but there are some great aspects to that game.

Cary Woodham

01/29/2019 at 08:50 PM

I really liked Link Between Worlds. But then, my favorite Zeldas are the 2-D ones. I breezed through Link Between Worlds because it was so much like Link to the Past, and I played that game to death.

My favorite Xbox 360 games are Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Soul Calibur 4 and 5, Castle Crashers, and that's all I can think of right now. I really liked the 360.

01/29/2019 at 10:36 PM

Same here. I went through zelda very quickly. I felt like a speedrunner. I forgot about nuts and bolts. Didn't Soul Caliber have xbox xclusive characters? I will check those out.

Super Step Contributing Writer

01/30/2019 at 08:22 AM

I still need to finish Link to the Past on SNES Mini.

01/30/2019 at 06:16 PM

Its still one of the best zelda games.

01/31/2019 at 09:05 PM

I got stuck on where to go once I was supposed to find the first dark world temple. Not enough shiny sparkle rabbit reversers for me to feel confident traveling too far.

mothman

02/01/2019 at 08:52 PM

GlaD to hear your back for BaD and good to hear from you as always.

Lost Odyssey is one of my favourite games ever. The dreams as so well written and touching. I cried shamelessly more than once reading them.

They were written by the brilliant Kiyoshi Shigematsu and translated by Harvard professor Jay Rubin.

KnightDriver

02/02/2019 at 11:04 PM

I can't think of 360 and PS3 as retro quite yet. I want to hook them up right now but I don't have room, yet. I've got quite a backlog on both systems.

Horror fans should play Condemned: Criminal Origins. I'm not a horror fan but played it achievement hunting one year and really loved it. Fighting hand-to-hand in that game is really scary and visceral. Story is good too.

PixlBit