Square Enix usually does good with the loading times on its remasters. Come to think of it, they were usually able to manage load times better than most other people on the PS1's double-speed CD-ROM drive.
I liked Mario 64 better, but this game was pretty for its time. It was like most Rare games save for Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, or Blast Corps - a graphically prettied up version of something Nintendo (or in the case of KI, Midway) had already done, without all the bloat and padding that Rare used to put in their games.
Looks sort of ambitious for the NES. Not saying it isn't a mess, but it is. I think it had a sex scene in it somewhere. Kind of reminds me of how the GB re-release of Dragon Warrior allowed you to take the Princess (or a random horny girl on the streets) to the Inn and apparently have a night of wild sex with her before you returned her to the king.
Apparently Nintendo of America's staff in charge of censor- err, making sure games were family-friendly didn't make it far enough through Bionic Commando to see that the ultimate bad guy was Hitler - the actual Hitler, or to see his monologue contain a four-letter word, or to see the picture of his head exploding. I'd love to have been the guys at Capcom who got that past the radar.
FF8 is a flawed game. That said, it occupies a special place in my heart among FF games in part because of the circumstances in my life when I got it - I was in the FF8 line on launch day; almost all of the customers at Electronics Boutique that day there were there for either FF8 or a Dreamcast - and for other reasons. Perhaps within the remastered version's launch window, which a few sources seem to suggest might be sooner rather than later, I will put out a blog detailing my experience with FF8.
I have the first DQB game on PS4. SolSeraph looked interesting but got pilloried in the reviews.
Yeah, I hear it's been hot out there, and with the humidity, that makes it like the heat in Texas or Oklahoma.
My 3DS was a Zelda 3DSXL that was released for A Link Between Worlds. The 3DS was more of what I want in a handheld, but I've since moved on to the Switch. We got two more Dragon Quest ports and a little cult gem, 7th Dragon III Code VFD.
I did Pokemon D/P on DS, and it had probably the only really decent port of Chrono Trigger I've ever seen (the PS1 port sucked ass). I also managed to pick up Infinite Space. The DS mostly ended up being a Dragon Quest player for me, with all the great ports of Dragon Quest 4-6, especially considering that was the US debut of 5 and 6.
I bought the original in the same indigo color as the first batch of Gamecubes. My first game with it was Castlevania: CotM, then I got Golden Sun later on for it. The FF Advance games were great, and I also enjoyed FF Tactics Advance. Tales of Phantasia came out right on the heels of Symphonia, which I had just finished. Zero Mission was a lot better than I expected.
Minish Cap was good. Sadly, it was apparently the poorest-selling Zelda game of all time.
I still have my launch Game Boy. It came with Tetris, and I asked for Super Mario Land. It was cool just playing Super Mario on the go. Most of the early games were stripped down versions of console games and quick cash-in licensed games. Only Konami, Square, and Nintendo put any real effort into their portable games. I also had an Ultima game on my Game Boy that wasn't as good as the PC games but wasn't bad either. Then Nintendo came out with a Metroid sequel and a Kid Icarus that blew the NES game out of the water, and then came Link's Awakening, which brought some mad respectability to portable gaming. I have the Dragon Warrior games as well. I got a GBC in 1998, then a GBA a couple years later.
Stage Select:
1. The Sheikah Slate. It's basically the Switch in-game. It's Hyrule's equivalent of the iPad. Except that I can insta-travel with it instead of having to book a flight on HyruleHistoria.com ahd paying several hundred rupees. If only it were that easy to travel to Cancun in real life.
2. Mr. Handy/Gutsy. It cooks. It cleans. It takes care of the baby. It performs minor surgery - albeit not very well, judging by what happened to Beatrice when she was in Vault 101's sick bay for a sprained ankle. And it comes equipped with a buzz saw and a flamethrower. Can't beat that.
3. KOS-MOS. She's err, a good, useful companion, and well... weeeell, I should really be saddling up now.... oh, found the fire door....
Cage Match:
I'm going with Okami, and this one isn't even close in my book. Okami is one of my all time favorite games. Its cel-shaded graphics rank right up there with Wind Waker, Valkyria Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, and Dragon Quest VIII, and it's the best Zelda game that isn't a Zelda game. It's a great retelling of the Japanese creation myth with a lot of humor and a lot of combat against weird Japanese enemies. I have a confession: I really tried to get into the Team Ico games. I got the ICO/SotC collection on PS3 looking to see what the hype was about. To me, Shadow of the Colossus was Twilight Princess without, well, pretty much anything in Twilight Princess except the bosses. I know there's a loyal fanbase that swears by this game, but sorry, it never did anything for me.
