I used the Sorceress myself; my wife used the Amazon. Dragon's Crown was an absolute blast to play. I've also recently bought the digital version of Code of Princess, which is the 3DS's answer to Dragon's Crown and is a spiritual successor to Guardian Heroes.
A Link Between Worlds has a lot more new ideas and areas than I had thought based on impressions from critics. It's been a very engrossing ride so far, and by a long shot it's the 3DS game I've played the most. It's also a bit more open-ended than A Link to the Past is.
The Disgaea games are SRPG porn. Not in the sexual sense, but they take every SRPG mechanic you can think of and crank it up to 11. I have Disgaea 4 myself. Maybe I should pick this one up too.
MGSV will probably make my library. Bayonetta 2 definitely will be a day-one purchase. I'm going to download Phoenix Wright off the 3DS eShop and try it out, and if it's good, Layton vs. Wright may be an option. South Park might be good if they can ever get it out the door. Seems like it's been stuck in development hell since THQ tanked, but that's not the first time Obsidian has had trouble finishing a game, as much as I loved their work on Fallout: New Vegas.
Destiny... I'll definitely have to play a demo first. If I enjoy the demo enough, I might break down and get the game. FPS's are not prominent in my game library, but they do have their place there if they're enjoyable.
I actually kind of wish they'd come out with Retrons with CD-ROM drives that are capable of playing PlayStation/Saturn/Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube games, especially now that backwards compatibility seems to be getting rarer and rarer.
This is true, but it's only part of the picture. The problem is that whether something is a fair price or not is a matter of perception, and when you're used to seeing $200, yeah, seeing $500 is going to hurt. There is nothing that can be done about simple human psychology, but it is what console makers must contend with, because their job is to persuade the consumer to agree that $500 is a fair price, not the consumer's job to accept $500 as a fair price, especially in a time when there are plenty of other options. The 3DO in particular was kind of a ripoff, but that doesn't make price complaints over the launch PS3 or Xbox One any less valid.
The other problem is that wages haven't kept place with inflation for the most part, so unless your last name is Gates or Buffett, $500 is still a lot of money for most people even if it's worth what $200 was in nineteen-something, and especially when there are other, much cheaper options. The mobile market, with all the freemium and 99-cent garbage glutting it, is also creating a race to the bottom. When someone tries to put out a good game on mobile platforms, one that's a little more involved and cost a bit more to make than matching three candies, buying darling dresses for your virtual paper dollies, or cutting strings to drop candy in some nondescript googly-eyed creature's mouth, people scream in protest all over the App Store and Google Play. Never mind trying to get those same people to invest $20 or $30 into games like Fire Emblem: Awakening or A Link Between Worlds.
I liked Ni no Kuni's battle system. It wasn't perfect in execution, but I thought it made the battles quite lively. Its battle system reminds me a lot of Tales, and maybe that's why I like it. It's also a lot like Level-5's great PS2 RPG, Rogue Galaxy. I'd love to see a spiritual successor to Ni no Kuni come to PS4. I do know Level-5 is working on a PS4 game.
I think Ni no Kuni is probably the closest we'll see to a console Pokemon, but its story does take a bit of time to pick up. That doesn't bother me in the slightest, because I like RPGs and most of them start at a leisurely pace, but your mileage may vary. Once you get more playable characters and collect more familiars the game really rocks.
I do love me some SRPGs, that's true, but The Last of Us was a great production from Sony. Hopefully they'll have something just as good in the works on PS4.
The only Pilotwings I actually played was Pilotwings Resort, which was a launch title for the 3DS, at the store. I thought videos of Pilotwings 64 were pretty impressive for their time. I never saw the SNES game in action.
The first line of your review really shows how times have changed. The NES (with Super Mario Bros in the US), Game Boy (Tetris and Super Mario Land), SNES (Super Mario World, Pilotwings, etc) and N64 (Super Mario 64) all launched with strong titles designed to showcase their systems. I guess Wii Sports falls into this category as well even though Wii games like Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Fire Emblem are more my speed.
For other systems, their good games didn't come until the consoles had been out for a year or two. Even Nintendo hasn't been launching with the same kind of system-showcasing titles since the Gamecube, while Sony and Microsoft have always had kind of lackluster launches. That said, the PS3 and 3DS, my current favorite systems, both launched with rather weak launch titles, and look at them now!
Vanquish is one of my favorite shooters ever. Wish they'd do a sequel or a successor.
