PixlBit

I like anime. Let me say that up front. But I've watched very little of it. When I was a kid, one of the local tv stations would sporadically play episodes of Dragon Ball Z and later we got Cardcaptor Sakura and a season of Escaflowne (that's not counting the unusual cases of Pokémon and Digimon). Buying anime was super expensive and we never had cable, so Toonami didn't help me when they started regularly airing cool stuff. I was able to get Akira from the library once. That was an interesting experience. And I torrented everything about Ghost in the Shell in college, later buying legit copies because Stand Alone Complex was just that good. But those were certainly exceptions.

I have never been interested in playing Nier, no matter how much Angelo gushes about it on Nerds Without Pants (sorry, Angelo). So I didn't particularly care when they announced a sequel except why? and Platinum Games? And since then Platinum has put out some contract work that was pretty subpar (e.g., Kora and TMNT), so how would they fare when working outside of their strictly action wheelhouse? Whatever. I have lots of other games to play.

Games Beat

Yeah, I totally got a blog ready for today. Not just posting something real quick so I can go to bed. Nope nope nope. Definitely ready.

You guys have probably never heard of Shaun Musgrave. Interesting fellow. He's a Canadian who lives in Japan and teaches English. So if you ever meet a Japanese kid who talks about going "oot and aboot" you'll know who talk him  Anyway, Shaun writes a lot for the iOS game site Touch Arcade, but he also has a personal site where he writes about all sorts of games. Recently he wrote about all the Sega 3D Classics games and is currently going through a bunch of Spider-Man gamess. He especially loves to talk about RPGs though. He has a very enjoyable writing style and lately I've been plowing through the stuff he's put up and having a grand old time. His site has a great name too: Post Game Content. Be sure to check it out!

Those of us who read Nintendo Power in the early '90s probably have fond memories of the comics they ran back then. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario World both had great comic adaptations that, while loose with the source material, were a ton of fun to read. Rereading them today, though, was an arduous task even if you still had your old issues of NP after all these years. But the Zelda comic was finally reprinted in 2015 and the Mario comic got the same treatment last October. I'm reading it right now and having a wonderful time. They put so much personality into the characters. I feel like if they made a comic for Mario today it would be a sterile corporate creation, but this comic is brimming with life all its own. And I had forgotten how awesome Peach—er, Princess Toadstool is in here. Great stuff.