Otawong

The BALL X PIT reveal was a delightful bonus.

Also, Fatty Lumpkin is an incredible name for a pony.

Finally reading The Lord of the Rings. Early impression is that Tom Bombadil is super OP.

I noticed that last night too! The writing is horrible, and even better, nobody from their editorial team even reviews these for an ounce of accuracy.

The protagonist of the game, Nate, stands on a snowy ledge looking towards stairs leading to the top of a cliff.

Finished Baby Steps today. Is it my game of the year? Maybe! What a delight. It’s a hard game to be sure, though to some degree it is only as hard as you want it to be.

You can, for example, climb these stairs or you can take hours climbing around them instead. I did. Now they call me Lord.

The loop was so perfect I thought someone was coming to break a second one.

Looks like the Grand Princess. It’s a great ship! Try the 24k margarita if you’re so inclined.

A piano with teeth jumps at Mario.

Close second was the haunted piano in Mario 64. It got me good.

A low poly man stands why a shotgun and a low poly zombie walks through a door towards him.

Alone In The Dark for the PC terrified me. Some creature bounced through a window and I almost bounced through one to escape the room.

I got it too! Selling out quickly in a lot of places.

Anyhow, all that to say I liked your article! Definitely got me thinking about what happened to the mobile space and how it has changed.

There used to be so many interesting genre pushing titles on mobile and it’s hard to tell if that’s still happening or not because discoverability and writing doesn’t really exist for it anymore.

I’m curious what happened to the traffic that used to exist for mobile games. Touch Arcade (RIP) used to do very well. Did the readership change or did the mobile game space change? Maybe both?

Pauline: You sure love bananas, DK!

DK: Pauline, to call it love is too simple. I need bananas. They are my master, and I am their slave. Do you love air, Pauline? Or does it control you? Its very presence, an unnoticed necessity driving your very life.

Pauline: I’m too nervous to sing!

Oh good to know! I’ll try to exercise some patience and see what happens.

I was able to get back in fairly quickly and buy one. But my account was a wreck after it got locked. Definitely not something I’d do again for a 10% discount.

And the code still hasn’t been delivered, so yeah… not the best experience ever.

I tried to buy one and Amazon locked my account. Wild.

I have a Le Creuset mug, it’s decent. Thicker walls help keep it warm, but it’s not the largest internal volume if you desire a large amount of tea.

If temperature management is something you’re interested in, I got an Ember mug years ago and I use it every day. The price is absurd, but it’s fab.

Definitely worth a try! In the PRs you can save anywhere, and multiply experience gain up to 4x. So if you get to a spot where you know you need to level up, you can boost your XP gain for a little bit to avoid the “joy” of just walking back and forth and doing the same battle over and over again.

As for 13, I’ve been slowly playing it alongside the others. I got pretty far on the PS3 back in the day, but the HDD failed and I lost my progress.

I’m playing it on PC this time and I’m at the open world section, which I assume is near the end of the game.

The game still looks great!

Thanks for the suggestions! I played 15 quite a bit at launch, but my understanding is that there was some significant patches and changes so I’ll definitely be going in from the start!

As for FF4, I agree that the plot did tend to retread a bit (Golbez always getting the crystals, Kain being controlled) but after 1-3 you could definitely feel the huge increase in story, systems, and world building.

If you decide to replay the games I’d be interested to hear your thoughts!

To not overdo it, I’m not planning on replaying any of the series I’ve already beaten (except maybe 6 because my favourite). So after 5, I only have 13 and 15 to go.

So far, the experience has been pretty good. It can be a little bit of a grind, but the modern versions have some nice quality of life changes that have made them easier to get through. I suspect the original releases of the NES games might prove a bit much.

The pixel remasters are pretty good!

You can definitely tell that FF4 is paving the way for something special. Ultimately, it’s a pretty decent entry.

Time to move onto FF5, which I know pretty little about.

A screenshot of Final Fantasy four where the final boss has been defeated by the party

A screenshot from the ending Final Fantasy four. Cid is talking to Cecil and Rosa and says, “You two can play smoochy-face all you want later!”

A screenshot from Final Fantasy four. All of the major characters are in a throne room, saluting the player.

A screenshot of the credits rolling at the end of Final Fantasy four

FF4 is now complete. I’m trucking along with my goal of completing every mainline Final Fantasy.

Brief thoughts on 4: It’s a good game, but feels like it’s clinging a little bit to the NES games. They pushed the storytelling hard, and leaned into characters and classes in a good way.

A screenshot from the video game Final Fantasy four. There is a battle between a giant robot, some tanks, and some airships.

I think I’m almost finished FF4. This game is pretty wild. Definitely not my favourite in the series, but it’s interesting for sure.

There’s humour, death, sacrifice, and a giant robot fight against tanks and airships. Giant mech was not on my bingo card for this game.

Screenshot of FF2. The party has defeated the final boss.

Screenshot from FF2. The party is greeted by their friends. “You did it!” Is said by a character named Cid.

The party is greeted by more friends. A dancer tells the protagonist “Heroes get a kiss from me! Pucker up!”

Screenshot of the credit scroll for FF2 pixel remaster.

And FF3 is also complete now. Moving on to SNES era next with FF4 and FF5.

FF3 was pretty good, and would have clearly been pushing the NES about as far as it could go with its system complexity. Not a lot of story, but the job system was neat.

The party in FF2 defeating the final boss.

The FF2 protagonist Firion declaring “It’s done. Now let’s get out of here!”

The credits scroll of FF2 Pixel Remaster.

Well, Final Fantasy 2 was the next game in my quest to complete the series. It’s an interesting one, but it felt pretty flawed at times.

The levelling system was pretty inspired, but it ends up feeling unbalanced. Also, there are some wild difficulty spikes in the game.

Still, it was fun!

I don’t think so. Looks like it’s a US/UK exclusive at the moment.