As you've probably guessed by now, most of the the formative video games from my childhood were from Sony and Nintendo. I spent many youthful hours in front of the PlayStation, gliding across canyons as Spyro the Dragon and falling down pits as Crash Bandicoot. On the Game Boy I traveled to magnificent foreign lands … Continue reading A Love Letter to Strategy Games
We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of the Virtual Console. For a little over a decade, it was Nintendo's premier method of preserving video game history. It provided gamers the ability to travel back and play Nintendo's past consoles, whether for the first time as a new gamer, or again as someone … Continue reading A Farewell to the Virtual Console
The mountains of Renais were usually peaceful. However, their calmness was interrupted by a horse rushing through the trees. A proud but wounded knight rode upon it. A princess clutched the knight's waist. In the distance the burning castle of Renais was getting smaller and smaller. Exhausted, the knight Seth stopped and to dress his … Continue reading History of the Emblem, Chapter 5: Eirika
Roy's our boy! Roy's our boy! This is what the audience chants when Roy, a mysterious red-haired swordsman, is winning a match in Super Smash Bros. Melee. It was a memorable cheer; any Melee player could chant it even today. But back in 2002, Melee fans had little explanation about who this character was or … Continue reading History of the Emblem, Chapter 4: Roy & Lyn
I have too many video games, and that's the #1 best thing about being an adult. I have a black IKEA shelf next to my TV, and that's where my game collection sits. The bottom row is almost entirely dedicated to the 3DS. Some isolated shelves are set aside for the GameBoy, PS Vita, and … Continue reading Confessions of a Game Collector
From its very inception, Pokemon was designed for building a community. Satoshi Tajiri desired to convey his love for catching bugs to a new generation that grew up in a concrete-laden city. When he saw the Game Boy's link cable, he imagined creatures crawling across it. He wanted players to share the bugs they caught … Continue reading Pokémon Retrospective, Part 4: My Life As A Fan
On Christmas morning of 1999 I received a Game Boy Color (GBC) and a copy of Pokemon Yellow. Leading up to that fateful morning, I'd been watching other kids play Pokemon Red and Blue and listening to their conversations about the games. Pokemon was everywhere: on the playground, in the neighborhood, and in every kids' … Continue reading I Finally Found My Lost Childhood Game Boy Consoles
In the summer of 2001, Nintendo released the 32-bit successor to the Game Boy: The Game Boy Advance (GBA). It lived for only a brief period, a little over 3 years, but they were very successful years, and they defined an important era of my life. Allow me to indulge in my memories of the … Continue reading The Game Boy Advance: A 20th Anniversary Celebration
We're in the home stretch, and it'll be a double-header this time! Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission were both Game Boy Advance games developed within 2 years of each other, and were released during the series' brief renaissance of the early 2000s. Metroid: Zero Mission is a remake of the first NES game with … Continue reading Fusing The Best Parts of Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 