PixlBit

There's something about Zelda games that's just completely engrossing. Whenever I play one, it's on my mind until I finish it up. The Souls games live in that same mental space for me and engage me very similarly. They're not totally similar, but something about that third party action style in a world that's unfolding as you progress makes both of them resonate extremely well with me.

Also, I have incredible nostalgia for Zelda. I've been playing it literally my entire life. The first game I loved was Zelda 1 on the NES and I've beaten that game more times than I can remember. I played it straight up until I got A Link to the Past, and I played that straight until I got Ocarina of Time, so on and so forth. At this point I'm so vested in that universe that it just tops anything else almost by default.

Chose Zelda, but I love all of those franchises almost equally. I just like Nintendo games, I can't help it goddammit.

I agree, Joe. I don't think it was poorly executed. I just think it didn't land as well as SM64, which is generally a much easier and more digestible game. I think Sunshine's controls and experience are the peak of 3D Mario. Galaxy 2 is a close second, but nothing quite matches up to SMS for me.

It's a weird visual bug that you see when it updates, but if you refresh the page, you'll see it's not all double spaced like it seems right after you do the edit. It's weird, I know.

I would say there's a fix, but I'm slowly rewriting the site, so it won't likely be fixed until it's just totally replaced.

I'm with you, Joe. I much prefer Sunshine to 64. It's not a popular opinion, but it's the 3D Mario game with the best level of challenge, and the greatest degree of control. You can do amazing things with FLUDD once you understand the mechanics and the levels where it's taken away are some of my favorite 3D platforming challenges ever.

Super Mario 64 is a fine game and I love it too, but Sunshine totally eclipsed it for me and I'd choose to play Sunshine over it any day.

I'll definitely have to check out the video. I really loved Breath of the Wild, but I agree that it's very dissimilar to the more traditional 3D Zeldas.

I think my biggest disappointment was the lack of proper dungeons. I liked the shrines and all that, but the divine beast "dungeons" were mostly pretty easy and didn't really scratch that dungeon itch. That being said, I love the game for what it is, but I'd love to see them bring the scope in a bit, add major dungeons, and do another adventure on this engine. I'm hoping we'll see something akin to what Majora's Mask was to Ocarina of Time.

This year has been absurd so far. Going to play Yooka-Laylee today, which I'm super stoked for. Persona 5 is sitting on my shelf just waiting patiently and I also just picked up Nioh for $30 yesterday. I still also have the second DS3 DLC waiting, which I've heard tons great about. I have no idea how I'm going to get to all these games.

And yeah, Nier looks incredible and the demo was phenomenal. I decided to just wait on that because the queue is already out of control.

SO EXCITED MY BODY IS READY

I used to be a movie person back in High School. I guess it was a thing to do with my friends, so we'd catch pretty much anything that came out. It was $5 for a movie back then, so it always felt reasonable. These days, it's crazy how much it costs to see a movie. Tickets are $13+ for a matinee showing here and for a family of 5, that's an insane price for, what, 2 hours of entertainment?

That aside, I'm just not super into TV/Movies these days. I watch the Marvel movies and the Marvel Netflix shows, as well as South Park and that's it. Whenever there's a movie on at home, I find myself consistently losing interest and fishing for my phone to do pretty much anything else. There's always the rare movie here or there that will catch my interest and hold it, but generally those are few and far between.

I will say though, when there is a good crowd at the theater it can make all the difference. Opening night for Snakes on a Plane is one of my fondest movie-going experiences ever. Me, Chessa, and a group of our friends all went to see it after a huge build up period. The show was sold out and it was at midnight. At the time, I was in college, so of course, we all snuck in copious amounts of liquor (as did basically every else in the theater). Between the ridiculousness of the movie and colored commentary from the crowd, I was laughing so hard it hurt for the entire duration of the movie. If every movie-going experience was like that, I'd have a hard time saying no to go to the theater, regardless of the price.

This book is awesome! Chessa got it for me for Christmas and I basically read it to my kids one chapter at a time every night, voices for the characters and all. We had a ton of fun with it.

I agree wholeheartedly though; these days Nintendo would never make something like that. There's tons of adult humor and topics they'd stay far away from today. The games still have the soul, but Nintendo's image (and their characters) are so tightly curated these days that something like this would be completely neutered if it were published now.