This is partly the case for any game that receives significant updates as well. Your disc/cart contains 1.0, but is that the version you will want to play 50 years from now when you can’t download updates anymore?

A return to basics would be so much better than the rushed messes Game Freak puts out today.

• Skullgirls - Still the best damn fighting game ever made. I’ve been grinding for a full decade now, and I’ll be entering Combo Breaker 2025 once again this year.

• Slay the Spire - The game that ruined all other roguelikes for me. What I love about StS is that it never lets you get complacent, never lets you lean on just one good synergy that will carry you the entire run. You always have to keep adapting, and you have to have a well-rounded deck to deal with enemies that are designed to counter players who try to rely on only one thing. And when I eventually got to the point where I’d had my fill of vanilla, there’s so much fun stuff from the modding community to play around with. Packmaster is incredible.

• CrossCode - It’s been years since I finished this RPG and its colorful cast still lives rent-free in my head. This is a game that is perfect in every way and adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Fantastic combat, tons of side content, endearing characters, emotionally powerful story, beautiful visuals, amazing soundtrack.

Measuring games by hours has become an increasing less useful metric to me because I already have my grinding games that I can endlessly replay. When buying new games, I’d rather get something I’ll really enjoy for a short playthrough than a long epic JRPG I can’t bring myself to actually set aside time for - even though I do really love JRPGs.

There are very few games I would spend $80 on. Actually, at this point I don’t buy a lot of new games to begin with, I’m mostly just grinding the same old favorites now.

But for the games I really care about, I’m willing to spend on games I know will be worth it to me. I’ve waited 22 years for a sequel to Kirby Air Ride and if I have to pay $80 for it, I will pay $80 for it.

Break has such huge shoes to fill, I honestly don’t know if Square Enix could pull it off.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing for Tom, but it very much was bad for the rest of us that Facebook took over.

64GB is the maximum cart size, not minimum.

I thought Game Key Cards, while not something I would ever buy, weren’t the end of the world if they were just meant to replace the existing practice of code-in-a-box for games that won’t fit on a cart. It’s actually less bad than that, so I didn’t get out my pitchfork just yet.

But the sheer number of games being released in this format is alarming. Code-in-a-box was rare, this is looking like it’s outnumbering proper physical games. And many of these games don’t even make sense to be key cards, they can fit just fine on a cart. There are ports of Switch 1 games that already fit on Switch 1 carts in here!

What the hell is happening?

Every game that has a physical release (and even some that don’t) does get sold by other retailers, and those retailers do regularly have sales.

The discounts usually aren’t too steep, but games do go on sale periodically. DekuDeals is a fantastic resource for price tracking.

Yes, you do have to venture into the fog a bit sometimes. Not too far, if you click around to other grids you may uncover spoilers, but you can always interact with the grid you’re currently on. Whenever you know you can put a digit somewhere, put that digit there, fog or not.

Only if they DON’T drop the classic turn-based combat. I actually hate the idea of a ‘remake’ that changes genre entirely.

1-6 recently got the Pixel Remasters, and before that 3 and 4 had the DS remakes. I’d like to see proper remakes of 5 and 6 myself, but that’s unlikely to happen since the Pixel Remasters exist.

7, personally I’d play a faithful remake, but it’d be silly to make one since they already have the non-faithful ‘remake’.

8 is the one game that could benefit the most from a non-faithful remake. It’s a game that’s worth remaking because the original was such a mess. But I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for saying that right after complaining about FF7. What I’d do is still keep it turn-based, but completely overhaul Draw and level scaling.

9 would be the most likely candidate as a fan-favorite that could be kept faithful and still hold up well. And rumors have been swirling around for a while that one may be coming.

10 and 12 already have the HD Remasters, and those are excellent. So no need.

11 is the most in need of some way to preserve it for future generations, but I don’t know how that would even work. Could it perhaps be adapted in some way like they did with Dragon Quest 10 Offline?

13 onward, too new to need remakes. (And also I have no interest in the direction the series has gone since then anyway)

“Why is an old game good?” feels like an odd question. It would be silly to ask that of any other medium, wouldn’t it? The most beloved classics being beloved isn’t an indictment of modern stuff, especially when cherry-picking the greatest hits and ignoring how many flops existed back then too.

Quite frankly, Nazi-adjacent is bad enough, especially when he’s made no effort to own up to the problems he’s caused. It seems like he very deliberately tries to skirt the line of plausible deniability.

For example, I don’t know if Kansai-ben was translated into a US Southern dialect in a video game before this one.

Not a video game, but Osaka in Azumanga Daioh (2002) immediately comes to mind as a prior example of Kansai-ben->Southern localization.

I loved the original and Second, but I played the demo for II and it did not click with me at all. I really disliked the change to how turn order worked, the original system dovetailed so much better with the titular Brave/Default mechanic.

I feel like a lot of times when devs say that, they never end up doing it in the end. Anything short of an explicit yes ends up being a no.

Even if/when Switch 2 emulation is possible, there’s not a chance in hell it could run on Deck hardware.

Both systems have pros and cons. This article isn’t bashing on the Steam Deck at all, just making the case for what the Switch 2 has going for it.

They say up front that this article is a response to the frankly obnoxious amount of “my gaming platform can beat up your gaming platform” circlejerking that has been going around - which you’re kinda perpetuating.

The Deck does not “obliterate” the Switch 2, and a headline like that makes you part of the problem.