PixlBit

Notes from the show:

I always noticed how Chun-Li was much less banged up than the male Street Fighters when she lost. When Super came out, Cammy looked a lot more roughed-up than Chun-Li, but Fei Long, DeeJay, and T. Hawk all looked like they'd lost a fight with a blender. Game developers were, and to a degree still are, a bit squeamish about the idea of women getting beat up by men. Capcom edited out Roxy and Poison from the SNES version of Final Fight for that reason, and their other solution around the problem of not wanting to beat up on girls in FF, especially for Poison, was just as much of an "oof" moment, especially now. This despite Double Dragon having Linda as an enemy character. In Punch-Out for the Wii, they originally considered Peach for the hidden bonus fighter, decided they didn't want Little Mac smacking the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom around, and went with Donkey Kong instead. Over on Mortal Kombat, though, Sonya, Kitana, and Mileena got bloodied and beheaded along with everybody else, while Kitana was the bloodiest character the series had seen up to that point. Pretty much every one of her moves made the blood geysers erupt. Johnny Cage wouldn't do his groin punch on them in MKII, though he does now. 

Ninja Gaiden arcade came out before the NES version, but the two version were basically developed alongside one another. Back then, developers tried to add stuff to the NES versions of their games to make up for the lack of graphical fidelity, in many cases actually improving on the arcade games. The best-known example is Punch-Out!!, which was an interesting novelty arcade game that tried to give you a first-person view with a wire-frame boxer. Since that wasn't feasible for the NES, they gave the NES version a story line, new boxers, Mike Tyson, and their replacement for the wire-frame contender was Little Mac. When they had the technology to replicate the arcade games on the SNES, Super Punch-Out sold far less than the NES Punch-Out. There's a reason why the Wii game took its cues from the NES rather than the SNES. The most dramatic difference was Bionic Commando, which was one of the best-loved NES games of all time and a short, completely busted mess in the arcades.

Oh, man, i thought I was the only one who didn't worship Rare during the N64/PS1 days. Most of their games were prettier versions of stuff Nintendo already did, and they didn't have lot of of unique ideas for gameplay (save for maybe Blast Corps), so they relied on collectathons to pad out their games. I'd have happily traded Rare off for Square, Capcom, Namco, or even just Mother 3 N64, provided Nintendo were actually willing to localize it. I just wanted an RPG that was more competent than Quest 64.

I will eventually get a PS5, but so far I'm not too excited about next-gen systems (I'm not a fan of either Xbox or Microsoft as a whole and havent owned an Xbox following my brief stint as a 360 owner.) Hopefully by the time Final Fantasy XV drops, Sony will have gotten the PS5's supply issues sorted out. Right now, though, I'm having too much fun with the Switch. I'm honestly more interested in seeing what Nintendo does next than I am in the PS5 or XSX/S.

Cage Match:

Chex Quest is actually somewhat competent as a game, despite being a breakfast cereal tie-in. Even the Angry Video Game Nerd admitted that it wasn't a bad game for what it is. So I'm going with that.

I will say this for Quest 64: after getting curb-stomped by FF7, it got back up and jumped into the ring. Quest 64 is the Glass Joe of video games: It's inevitably going to hit the canvas, but it never quits.

Great episode guys. Looking forward to more next gen talk next time on Justin's Demons Souls chronicles. Gonna take a deep look and be honest with myself to see what is my top 3. Got to comment in Cage Match though while I think. 

Stage select: 

3. Divinity Original Sin 2: This game had so many options and ways to play. I absolutely loved it and constantly think about it. It's probably more impactful because I enjoyed it with 3 other friends and we had a blast. I am impatiently waiting for Bulders Gate 3 which is made by the same studio.

2. Chrono Cross: My original number 1 game. I still love this game and hope to see it remastered or something like some other lesser known Square games they've announced recently. My dream would be another sequel but I don't think it'll happen. 

1. Dark Souls 2: This game is generally looked down upon by the souls community for some reason. I can't explain why I love it so much but it's my favorite Souls game to revisit. I recently replayed Demons Souls on PS3 and it jumped up high on my list so it's possible the remake can take my top spot one day. That's if I can ever find a PS5.

Cage Match: Quest 64.... really... really!? I was there when it was literally, yes I'm saying literally, killed in the ring. Unless it came back as everyone's favorite Dead Man, the Undertaker, than there's no way this match is even happening. Chex Quest is cereal and cereal is inevitable. Sure it's kind of crappy cereal but it has guns or something. 

P.S. Justin, Quest 64 doesn't deserve a second chance. It's like saying Val Venis deserves another chance and nobody wants that. 

Stage Select

You are a cruel man, Julian Titus, to force this choice upon us! But I find that my top three has not changed in the last twenty years, which I think speaks more to the power of nostalgia than a lack of quality games in these last two decades.

3. Super C (NES) - My older brother and I played this game so much back in the day, slowly getting better and better till we could finally beat it. To this day I can pick it up any time and play through without using a continue. It cemented my love of run-n-gun games and is still the archtype of the genre in my mind.

2. Final Fantasy VI (SNES) - This is probably the most important game of my young formative years. The characters and story were so far beyond anything we had ever seen before and the music had a huge hand in shaping my tastes (we often used cassette tapes to record game music and FFVI was foremost among them). We played through it so many times and even just thinking about it makes me want to go fire up my SNES Classic.

1. Metroid Prime (GameCube) - No game has ever blown me away like Metroid Prime. The look and feel and sound of the game were spot on, sucking me into the world of Tallon IV. The action was tight and satisfying without being the focus of the game and you could go as deep or shallow as you wanted with the story and worldbuilding. I was all in. Plus I played through it a few years ago and it holds up incredibly well. Yes, it is so firmly entrenched in my mind as my favorite game that it's really not fair to newer games I play, but I also firmly believe it deserves the spot. Metroid Prime is just as excellent with or without rose-colored glasses.

Cage Match

Chex are delicious and Quest 64 left a bad taste in my mouth, so I'm going with Chex Quest.

Stage Select

Mass Effect 2- It's a really close call between 1 and 2, but I give 2 the edge since it took a lot of chances and did something really different with the BioWare formula after it began to feel a bit stale for me with Dragon Age Origins. The irony now being that I hate how Bioware's changed since ME2 and would give anything for a return to their classic style RPGs, but none of that changed that ME2 is one of the most fun, compelling games I've ever played.

Crash Bandicoot Warped- Crash is still my favorite gaming mascot and Warped was everything I loved about his games perfected. There's a ton of variety, replayable levels and a perfect level of challenge for getting all the gems and relics. I replay Warped every year and have just as much fun getting 105% in the remake (or 108% if I'm playing the remake).

1. Star Wars Kotor 2- A game that changed my view on the world forever. While a lot of it comes from Kotor 2 being a Star Wars game, it's because I was so attached to Star Wars that Kotor 2 had such a huge impact on me. It showed me what a bleak, messed up world the Star Wars universe is when you truly analyze it and caused me to question everything from then on. Add in one of the best video game parties, an addicting influence system, infinitely customizable characters and fun combat and I'll be replaying this game until the day I die.

Cage Match

I haven't played either of these games, but voting for Chex Quest. Because I love me some Chex Mix, especially the bold party blend and the sweet and salty flavors

Argh, I had a lot of good game over submissions, can't believe I missed last week.

Oh, I have a bidet attachment, if you want some advice for a couple paragraphs.  I consider it one of my best purchases even just for the reduction of toilet paper and strain on the plumbing system.  For setup: It requires very little effort (attaching the three-way valve, attaching the bidet attachment to the seat).  The two big issues you might run into are very rare: if there's extremely little room by the side of the toilet (something like less than 6 inches) it would require a hobby project to create room or modify the connection, and you need to make sure the toilet seat bolts aren't super small otherwise you have to replace them (which isn't really that hard it's just kinda annoying if you forget to check first).  The whole set up will take you less than an hour otherwise.  If you want to be double sure, try removing the toilet seat lid and the water connector to the tank as practice.

Which one should you get and how is it?  I got the Brondell Bidet - Thinline SimpleSpa SS-150 for around $30 because the single spray has a nozzle cleaning function which is nice.  It's unheated, but the difference between that with the recommended products I researched is something like 8 times the cost and then you have to deal with electricity or batteries on top of that which is a pain.  The cold water isn't as big of a problem as I thought it would be (and I often get snow in the winter), you literally just make sure to lean back so your body heat will heat it until you get used to it.  I'm more annoyed by cold water on my hands which wasn't something I was expecting lol.  In seasons other than winter the water is warm enough I literally don't notice it.  The dripping can be annoying but that's solved by literally waiting a few minutes, or by using some toilet paper (and now that you're saving money you can splurge on a couple squares of the good stuff).  I seriously don't understand why this isn't a standard nowadays.

STAGE SELECT:
This question is too big, so I'm going to shrink it down.  Top 3 mini-games of all time:
3. Link to the Past's shooting gallery.  Have you seen this?  It's bizarre.  You're trying to shoot arrows at these white octopus-like things that react to getting shot while giant hands scroll in from the other side to block you.  All the while there's this weird guy in a mask or a skull or something banging on a drum every successful hit.  It's weird and also a decent way to make money.  I mean, rupees, there's no underground octopus shooting ring (and believe me, I'd know).
2. Maniac Mansion in Day of the Tentacle.  There's a couple rare games that do this (in fact, one was just found this month with a buggy copy of Timesplitter 2 in Homefront from 2016), but I'm going to give it to Day of the Tentacle for putting a complete copy of the prequel game hidden away in it.  In a generation of games that often seems to be nothing but an endless horizon of continuous ports and re-releases, back in the day these devs just decided "screw it" and threw in a whole game for free.  It's also great that you access it on an old 64k PC in the game.
1. The hacking game in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  It's neat they made hacking feel pretty fun, a little Capture The Flag kind of game where you have to defend your nodes while attacking others.  It's not perfect but it does make you feel a bit smart in a way that feels like an abstraction of Netrunner and not just random matching or word puzzles like many other hacking mini-games in games are.
Maybe if this becomes a stage select I'll answer the real question in that episode.

VIDEO GAME CAGE MATCH:
Does this answer your question?: https://i.imgur.com/lp8Hu1v.jpg

Stage Select (took me some time to think about this):

3. Dragon Quest XI S: This is quite possibly the perfect turn-based Japanese RPG. It's the pure essence of RPGs, from its visual presentation to its music to its gameplay. And on top of that, it seems to have a nearly bottomless pool of content. 

2. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: When I played this, it was like playing the original Zelda for the very first time. I loved just exploring the world and battling monsters, and not feeling pressured to go to the next quest goal. The little things in the game are also fun to play with. The Zelda series is my favorite game series of all time, and BotW captures everything I love about it perfectly.

1. Final Fantasy VII: This game is pretty timeless, and while game design has advanced over the years, nothing has quite come close to improving on the total package that is FFVII. It will never get old exploring the game's world, collecting materia, and facing Sephiroth.