So you want to try playing NES games. Maybe you're curious about where your favorite game series got its start, or maybe you're interested in video game history. Maybe you've already tried playing a few games but you got lost or you bounced off of them. Regardless of how you got here, I'm here to … Continue reading A Newcomer’s Guide to the NES
Many historically impactful games have been re-released this year, including Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, and several of the classic Final Fantasy games. In a lot of this discourse I've noticed people making claims such as "You can skip Final Fantasy I, II, III, and V, but Final Fantasy IV and VI are must-play games." … Continue reading Should Some Video Games Be “Required Reading?”
So far on this blog I have been an ambassador for the Metroid series, the Xenoblade series, and the Fire Emblem series. It's time to champion a new underdog from Nintendo's franchises: Pikmin! From an outsider's perspective, Pikmin looks... odd. You control a squad of tiny plant people that you pluck from the ground by … Continue reading A Newcomer’s Guide to Pikmin
In 1986, Nintendo published two games that heavily featured exploration: The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. They weren't the only NES games that featured this new kind of game design, but they were the two that entered the mainstream gaming consciousness and made a widespread influence over game developers. The Legend of Zelda became the … Continue reading Open World Games vs. Metroidvanias
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
In 1959, the jazz trumpet player Miles Davis recorded the album Kind of Blue. It was a collaboration between other legendary musicians such as John Coltrane on saxophone and Bill Evans on piano. In the album Miles Davis experimented with Modal Jazz, a free-floating departure from jazz's typical style of improvisation based on tight chord … Continue reading The Debate Over Video Game Remasters and Remakes
The Nintendo Switch is now 6 years old. With the recent February Nintendo Direct completed, fans and journalists have ramped up in their speculation about the hybrid console's future. Some think that the Switch's successor may be announced at the end of the year and that 2024 may see the arrival of Nintendo's next console. … Continue reading The Nintendo Switch’s Legacy
When you're a fan of less popular video games, you feel a special mix of joy and frustration. Having the game acknowledged or celebrated feels like a special gift. But it's often a gift that no one else understands. Once I said to some friends that my favorite 3DS game was Metroid: Samus Returns, and … Continue reading The Highs and Lows of a Metroid Fan
I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand—How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep—while I weep!O God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within … Continue reading The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and the Art of Overanalyzing a Video Game
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 