#best place to sell used gaming consoles

[cashygophones]

Sell Old Gaming Consoles | Cash in Your Used PS4, PS3, Xbox One, & More

Title: Cashygo: Sell Old Gaming Consoles and Cash in Your Used PS4, PS3, Xbox One, & More

In the ever-evolving world of gaming, staying up-to-date with the latest consoles and technology is a must for many enthusiasts. But what happens to your old gaming consoles when you're ready to upgrade? Rather than letting them collect dust or simply disposing of them, there's now a convenient and profitable solution: Cashygo.

Cashygo is revolutionizing the way gamers trade in their old consoles by offering a hassle-free platform to sell their used gaming devices. Whether it's a PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, or any other gaming console, Cashygo provides a seamless process to turn your old gear into cash.

So, how does Cashygo work?

Easy Evaluation: Begin by visiting the Cashygo website and providing details about your gaming console. This includes its make, model, condition, and any accessories it may come with. This information helps Cashygo provide an accurate valuation of your device.

Instant Quote: After evaluating your console, Cashygo provides you with an instant quote, giving you a clear idea of how much you can expect to receive for your device. This quote is based on the current market value of your console and its condition.

Free Shipping: Once you accept the offer, Cashygo sends you a pre-paid shipping label. This means you can ship your console to Cashygo's facilities at no cost to you. No need to worry about shipping fees eating into your earnings!

Fast Payment: After receiving your console, Cashygo promptly inspects it to ensure it matches the provided details. Once everything checks out, you receive payment via your preferred method, whether it's PayPal, bank transfer, or another option.

Eco-Friendly Recycling: Even if your old console is no longer functional, Cashygo ensures it's disposed of responsibly through eco-friendly recycling methods. This commitment to sustainability means you can sell your old console with peace of mind, knowing it won't end up in a landfill.

Cashygo's streamlined process makes selling your old gaming consoles a breeze. Whether you're looking to upgrade to the latest PlayStation or Xbox model or simply decluttering your gaming setup, Cashygo offers a convenient way to turn your unused devices into cash.

But why choose Cashygo over other selling platforms?

Competitive Prices: Cashygo strives to offer competitive prices for your used gaming consoles, ensuring you get the best value for your device.

Convenience: With Cashygo, there's no need to deal with the complexities of listing your console on online marketplaces or haggling with potential buyers. The entire selling process is handled efficiently and professionally by Cashygo.

Trustworthy Service: Cashygo prioritizes customer satisfaction and transparency. From providing accurate quotes to prompt payments, Cashygo aims to deliver a trustworthy and reliable service to every customer.

Expertise: With years of experience in the gaming industry, Cashygo understands the value of gaming consoles and strives to offer fair prices reflective of their worth.

So, if you're ready to part ways with your old gaming consoles and cash in on their value, look no further than Cashygo. With its user-friendly platform, fast payments, and commitment to sustainability, Cashygo is the ultimate destination for selling your used PS4, PS3, Xbox One, and more. Say goodbye to clutter and hello to cash with Cashygo!

[simsyworld]

Reclaimed Roots, A Legacy Challenge.

One fateful day, as you flip the pages in the local newspaper, your eyes fall upon an advertisement for an affordable farm on the outskirts of town. This farm had fallen into disrepair, abandoned and forgotten by its previous owners, who had inherited the farm but chose to not take care of it. Despite its rundown state, a flicker of hope ignited within your heart. Your dream of owning a small farm to raise your future family may become a reality! 

You call the owner’s of the property and they start asking for more money. This went from being an affordable farm to a pricey one! You decide to take a leap of faith and go for it. Packing your belongings immediately and setting out for the neglected farms of your dream. When you arrive, you see just how neglected the farm truly is. You find a weathered farmhouse, its paint peeling and windows cracked, surrounded by overgrown fields and rotten fences. But you see beauty hidden underneath it all. 

You see a vision of what this farm could be. A fresh coat of paint, rescued animals, beautiful old oak trees flourishing, children riding their bikes and fishing in the pound. This is where you want your new life you begin.

Required Packs: For Gameplay: Cottage Living, Cats and Dogs, and a pack that allows yard sales. House is made with a bunch of packs but is mostly just all clutter! Main items are from the gameplay packs.

Rules: Aspiration must be country caretaker Start with $500 Place @simsyworld’s lot from the gallery called "Abandoned Farm" hashtag #reclaimedroots or #reclaimedrootslegacy Each generation must live on the family farm. This may call for an extension of the house, a second floor, or a basement. If your sim has more than one kid, they can move out. But the sim you decide to cary on the legacy must live on the farm. Your house has no wifi, so no computers or gaming consoles. A TV can be bought after you fix up the house.  Your sim cannot have a job. Make money by yard sales or odd jobs. Your sim’s teenager sim’s can have a part-time job but they must still help out on the farm Wake up by 6:30am every day to take care of the animals (can take a nap after animals have been cared for) Cannot use “the hand of god” (selling in inventory) UNLESS there is more than 20 in a stack of crops. All other items must be sold during a yard sale. Have a yard sale at least once a week, every Sunday. If it is raining you can skip the yard sale. Sell anything you collect, baked goods, rocks, ect.

Generation One

Name the farm after your last name

Clean the house, buy a new mailbox, pick the weeds, and apply a fresh coat of paint to the house.

Find a stray cat to be your farm cat. This cat likes to live outdoors, so place a bed and food outside. If you get a full relationship with the cat, it can live indoors.

Buy 6 chickens and name each one. 

Build a relationship with each animal before getting a new one

Enter a Finchwick Fair competition 

Befriend the animals and complete the country caretaker Aspiration

Reach level 10 for Farming, Fishing, Cooking

Fall in love with a local farmer

Get married and have a ceremony on the farm

Have 1-2 children

When your first child is born, rescue a puppy that will become best friends with your child

When each sim ages up to a child, you must buy them a bike as a birthday present so your sim’s child can go on adventures.

Teach your children how to fish, cook, and garden

Generation Two

You grow up loving the farm and craving the taste of fresh produce. You watched your parents sell produce and baked goods every Sunday morning and thought it would be a great idea to go bigger! You decide to work towards your goal of making your name in town a staple by opening a store named after your family! 

Have the Freelance Botanist Aspiration 

Paint the house a new color since after all these years it needs a fresh coat.

Buy your family their first computer now that you have wifi

Reach level 10 for Cooking, Baking, Charisma 

Find a stray dog to adopt into the family

Enter a Finchwick Fair competition

Fall in love, get married, and divorced. This relationship didn’t work out.

Own a bakery, store, or restaurant that focuses on the idea of selling food or produce that is fresh. You do not have to have yard sales after you build a store. 

Become good friends with at least 20 sims outside of your household. 

A local baby/child was dropped off at the fire station. You decide to adopt this sim to live on the family farm! 

Build max relationship with your sim’s child. 

Teach your sim’s child how to garden, cook, and fish.

Fall in love and get married

Have family dinner all together on Friday nights including your sim’s siblings who moved out

Generation Three

You were adopted into the most loving family. You fell more into the creative side of life. Always drawing, painting, doing arts and crafts. When you got older you fell in love with the relaxation of making floral arrangements. 

Have the Painter Extraordinaire Aspiration

Reach level 10 for Floral Arrangements, Painting, Gardening

Make 3 masterpiece paintings

Befriend all the animals on the farm with max relationship

Inherit the family business and turn it into a floral arraignment store. You can also sell your paintings here.

Have 5 maxed relationship friends who you always hang out with

Enter a Finchwick Fair competition

Fall in love with 1 of the 5 friends. 

Have family dinner’s on Friday nights and friend dinner’s on Monday night

Find a stray cat to adopt. This cat is obsessed with you and follows you to work at the floral arrangement store.

Marry your best friend and have a ceremony. Invite all of your friends and family

Have as many children as you feel is right.

Do homework with your sim’s children every night 

Looking for a Discord server for simmers? Check out our 920+ member server called SimsyWorld! We host weekly challenges and giveaways if you're interested! Click HERE to join!

[mi-i-zori]

A Tiny World - 2

CoD - 141 x Snail (OC/Fem!Reader)

SYNOPSIS : Stardew Valley time with Snail, Gaz and Price.

Warnings : None. But please read the Author’s Note below.

Author’s Note : Snail is an OC that can be read as a Fem!Reader - I do my best no to describe her too much, but may sometimes say that she’s small (height) and has long hair.

I do not give anyone permission to re-publish and/or translate my work, be it here or on any other platform, including AI.

OC Masterlist

Main Masterlist

A Little Snail Under the Rain - Masterlist

Aside from Animal Crossing, Snail really likes playing Stardew Valley.

Actually, scratch that. She loves it.

She bought the guide to make sure her farm is as efficient as possible. She planned it all thoroughly, from the kind she chose at the very beginning, to the animals and crops she wanted the have, where she would put them, and so on.

She’s got a part of her land fully dedicated to mystic trees associated with mushroom logs, because it wouldn’t be her farm if she didn’t make a gargantuan amount of profit based on them mushies.

The chickens, ducks and dinosaurs are all on one side of the road situated at the bottom of her farm, while the cows, goats and pigs are on the other side. All the tools she needs to make cheese, mayonnaise and dried resources are placed right next to each other, not far from the ponds. All the products she makes are close to a selling box, so she can sell everything right after collecting it.

She’s working really hard to offer tons of void mayonnaise to Kroby so she can ask them to be her roommate. For now, she’s got a cat named Mochi that’s always sleeping on her bed and proudly wears a green top hat she got on St Patrick’ Day.

Believe it or not, Price loves to watch her play. The whole setting of the game reminds him of the time he used to spend at his grandparent’s farm in the English countryside, all those years ago. He remembers helping them with all kind of crops and animals, and running across their land and the nearby village with other children his age. Good, simpler times.

He also has to admit that the way she organises her findings in the museum by colours is extremely satisfying to watch. And seeing her get all excited when she finally finds something new to add to her collection is also pretty endearing.

She also got Gaz to play too !

They help each other out with their farm - they’ve become pros at it, at this point. Both their greenhouses are filled to the brim with ancient fruits, which immediately go into an army of kegs to be brewed into wine. They make plans on how to deals with the upcoming seasons together.

They also switch consoles to help each other with the tasks they like the least. Snail isn’t really fond of going into the mines - she’d rather enjoy the rainy days and go fish and forage all around the game. Kyle, however, enjoys doing challenges into the mine more that running around trying to look for resources. So they efficiently help each other to level up and fill the chests on their farms with everything they need, sprawled on top of each other on their beds in a comfortable silence.

They rule over every single event in the game.

And they absolutely love gossiping about the characters - to the point that other soldiers on base think they’re actually saying mad shit about real people.

They don’t bother correcting them. Their confused faces as they realise they’ve been talking about marrying or divorcing three people in the same week make it all worth it.

It gets a good chuckle out of the team.

[superstarz9]

Ya’ll fw a couple MORE Mr. Puzzles hcs?

Cause I got them :}

He was gifted the hat by his mom. It’s a permanent part of him with how much he’s worn it.

He gets it, and won’t say anything about it, but he hates it when he regarded as just the scary “tv” head guy. He’s much more than a pretty screen, people!

The pants are custom made and he has like 20 pairs. He also has several pairs of his shirt and vest.

Will change the second there’s a spot on his clothes. He needs to remain as pristine as possible.

If he wasn’t a workoholic, he’d beat all the moms at candy crush. He’d try to be a literal god at candy crush, and would honestly buy extra lives if he was furious with how the match went and he ran out.

Plays computer solitaire to distract himself when the ratings aren’t good or he needs a mental reset.

Adding to these two, since he has computer elements in his brain (probably), he can probably predict where the game is going to go. The older the console, the easier it is.

He’d be a god at minesweeper.

Does not and will not swear no matter how bad it gets.

If he goes to a concert, he’ll just be doing the equivalent of maladaptive daydreaming the whole time, planning out shows and movies for the songs

Loves the orchestra. He loves movie scores and would totally go to those events where there’s an orchestra playing the soundtrack live as the movie plays.

He’ll whine about not having friends or being able to talk to people but he will refuse to talk to anyone in public, going so far as to mute anyone who tries speaking with him. If he’s at an event and someone tries sparking a conversation with him, he’ll look away awkwardly and reply with “uh huh, yep, oh wow,” and so on until they leave. In a relationship, you could introduce him to people but he’s still be the same unless you were apart of the conversation.

Loves movie/show trivia but it’s a double-edge sword. If you take him on a date to a bar for movie trivia night, he’ll have fun and get everything right (and infodump a lot) but a question will pop up and the official answer will be wrong and Mr. Puzzles will just go ballistic.

Canonically has hammer-space abilities in the shows and can pull out anything he needs. Need a first-aid kit? Got it right here. Emergency costume? Has your size in multiple colours to choose. Someone pissed you off? Just say when and he’ll have something ready.

He doesn’t have proper heating in the studio(since he doesn’t need it) and the place is freezing when there’s the slightest breeze outside.

He uses different colognes and even used febreze a few times to smell his best, but he perpetually smells like cigarettes

He kins spongebob.

Technically canon but he’s an entrepreneur, and has multiple businesses (a tech company based on the keyboard from it’s gotta be perfect, selling the showgrounds). He also phrases puzzlevision as his “latest business venture,” in the movie’s teaser. He bounced between different businessed to earn enough money to buy the studio and the equipment he’d need.

With that being said, he’s unintentionally a con artist. Though he tries to have a somewhat clean business, he cuts corners often to get the products out sooner or doesn’t perform proper safety protocol. He doesn’t really care, though, as his main goal was and is Puzzlevision. He pretty much stopped the second he found the smg4 crew.

Terrible at art. He tries, but not even you can hold back your laugh if you see his art.

If he hasn’t slept for a while his voice is warped and a little glitched.

I forgot if I already posted this but his underpants are so those heart boxers but instead of hearts they’re stars.

So real quick, I just wanted to say that ONE OF MY HEADCANONS HAS BE CONFIRMED LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It is now confirmed that Mr. Puzzles CAN speak multiple languages, but still needs subtitles. God, I love being right /j

Fr tho, it’s really awesome having him back so soon. Maybe a little early, but I’m not complaining lol. From the sounds of it, he’ll be a reoccurring villain like SMG3 used to be, which I’m honestly relieved by. It’ll be rlly refreshing having a silly antagonist again honestly. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this fricken nerd lol

Also if you guys have any suggestions or requests please let me know! Questions and comments are also appreciated! Thanks and have a great day!

[felassan]

Podcast: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin - Episode 98 - 'Corinne Busche & John Epler, game directors, Dragon Age: The Veilguard'

Summary:

"Corrine and John are the director and creative director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Corinne Busche majored in digital animation at the University of Utah. In 2006 she joined the studio now known as EA Saltlake, working through the ranks to become a Design Director for The Sims series. John Epler studied English language and literature at the University of Alberta. After graduating, he was selling televisions when he applied to be a tester at Bioware. At the studio he began working as a writer and director of cinematics. Now, the pair have come together to lead development on the latest entry to the beloved Dragon Age RPG series, which launched at the end of October."

[source, two]

Notes/quotes from the episode, under a cut in case of spoilers:

John Epler: thematically, "DA:TV is ultimately a meditation on regret, more than anything else, not just as an amorphous theme, but how the way we deal with regrets shapes our lives. [Solas'] entire arc is motivated by the regret of what he had to do millennia ago". So many of the companions' and characters' lives are driven by regrets (wallowing, or letting it take over their lives, or facing them and taking a step forwards). "Every character has some different perspective on regret". This theme shows up in Solas, companions, side characters, faction stories and side villain stories

Corinne Busche: "When approaching this game, what was right for this game, it was about being really aware of what it means to be BioWare, first and foremost. The focus on characters. Getting back to our singleplayer roots. Really exploring this world, the deep lore that's been built up around this franchise. And, to be completely honest with you, what worked from those past games that caused our players to fall in love with BioWare titles in the first place."

John Epler: "A lot of the focus just came down to being part of a studio that has a very specific and very real strength in character-building, story-telling, and being on projects that maybe didn't center that strength as well as they could have. I personally love Mass Effect: Andromeda but we had open-world - that was a big thing in the industry at the time - and that starts to dilute your focus. We had Anthem, live service dilutes your focus. So for us, it was really, understanding, what it is that A) people come to this studio to do, people work here for a reason, they wanna make big stories that you can play and which allow you to be a hero of your own creation, but also a focus on characters, a focus on that experience of living in a different world. And for DA:TV, we really wanted to make sure that we got back to those things that made the studio what it was, that contributed to what I would call the 'golden age of BioWare', when, you know, there was hit after hit being turned out. DA:TV was a very conscious return to that with the focus on characters, storytelling, and being just this really bombastic singleplayer RPG that allowed you to play through the story as yourself if you want to, or an idealized version of yourself, or someone who's really different to you. That's the joy of a custom protagonist."

Corinne Busche: "I felt very supported through this, by both BioWare and EA. It's intimidating to buck trends in an era where it feels like almost every game must be an open world, to say, you know what, that works for those titles. For us, the way in which we tell the best stories and be true to our roots - a more handcrafted, intimate experience is appropriate. And just to have that support from within, around getting back to those elements we do best, was fantastic."

John Epler: [around 5 years into development, around the time when Corinne Busche joined the team] "The challenge of the game at that time was it was a bunch of different games that were kind of being spearheaded by different people. There wasn't really a cohesive vision or direction at the time. I was narrative director so I had my storytelling corner and I'm like, okay, we need to focus on character, we need to focus on story, but everywhere else there were so many competing ideas and competing priorities that we had, I mean, conservatively, I'd say three different games going on. So Corinne joined the project, and reached out to me on Slack, said hey, you know, I'm joining, I'd like to talk. And I remember coming out of that meeting with this profound sense of relief, like okay, finally. Because, as narrative director, there's only so much you can do to shape the course of a project, and here comes Corinne, very sharp, very clearly understands what we're doing, and is asking all the right questions. It was just this moment of, okay, good, there's an ally here, there's someone here that knows what they're doing, that can pull some of these visions together into something more cohesive. I'll say, working with Corinne from day one has just been an absolute pleasure, because Corinne gets games, Corinne understands how games work, understands how they come together. I think it's something that we take for granted, but not everyone in the games industry necessarily knows that."

Was Corinne Busche nervous when she got the call to join the project, a project that was 5 years deep? Corinne Busche: "You know, I was, but I was also tremendously honored. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment but I love a good challenge. And it's kind of, to be honest, become an aspect of what I do, to join teams and help empower them and get where you need to be. I will say, Dragon Age, we talk about how we don't always get to work on or design the games we play. While it was intimidating, Dragon Age is one of my all-time favorite series. I was one of those people that waited in line outside GameStop until I could get my DA:O copy. I remember walking home with it in hand. So it was surreal, it was surreal. I was aware of some of the explorations, some of the difficulties, what was working, what was not. When I joined we had collectively made as a studio the decision that this needs to go back to a singleplayer game. And I will say, when I picked up the controller, pulled down the build and played for the first time, it was still that multiplayer concept. Yeah, I had that moment where I went, whoa, well, okay, you're in it deep now lady. But what a privilege, and to look back on what makes a BioWare game so special, and to see the talent within the team, it felt very achievable, it did."

What was the main thing that Corinne Busche perceived where the team may have lost their way a lil bit and needed a hand back on track? Corinne Busche: "Well, here's my perspective. I wouldn't even say the team had lost their way, to be honest. There were a number of concepts that had been explored, and there are merits to that. There's a lot of good learnings that come from exploration and indeed failure. In some ways you learn more from that than you do from success. This was a situation where we had an outline of a story, and speaking of my first interactions with John, I had much the same feeling of, okay, this is somebody that knows what this game needs to be, what it can be, that can realize its potential. It was very assuring. It really was looking at, what did we have, what can we keep? And a big part of that was that initial story outline, it was the tech stack that we had, some of the ideas behind the game, about it being more intimate, being true to the deep RPG strategy, the pause and play gameplay, but also an awareness that this is, as with all Dragon Age games, a reinvention, and that intimacy, that immersion, stepping into Rook's shoes was going to be a very important part of this journey for us. So that is to say, we really dissected everything. We took this back down to its studs, whether it's gameplay, progression, mission game flow, I can't think of any rock we didn't turn over. In fact, John, correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is, I think there was only one mission that more or less survived in a recognizable form in the game, that being the Siege of Weisshaupt."

^ John Epler: "Yeah, you are correct. That is only mission that I would say looks like it did back when Corinne was joining the project."

[character limit text break!]

Were they given a deadline that the game had to be out by that was looming over? Corinne Busche: "There's always a deadline, and it's important that there is because that creates a sense of drive, prioritization, velocity, you learn what the team can do together. What I will say is that we had tremendous support from within BioWare and EA when we said, look, we've discovered the beating heart of this game, what makes it work, and we're not ready yet. We're not at quality, we think we can do more, we can push it further, we're very transparent with that, because it was important to us that this is a game that is worthy of BioWare and worthy of the title of being a Dragon Age game. So when we go back to that, well, I'm really happy to say that, it wasn't always the most fun conversation, but I'm really happy to say there was a lot of support, commitment and interest in making sure we did get the time we needed."

John Epler and Corinne Busche asked to do this interview together as opposed to only one of them (as DA:TV was a team effort of many people)

[source, two] <- listen to podcast here!

[seulszn]

7 days and your gone

Pairing: Abby x Reader

Warning: suicide, death, angst, no happy ending

Day 1

You didn't know how fast your life can change one moment your laughing with friends, hanging with family, planning dinner dates with your girlfriend Abby just loving life and then the next your suicidal wanting to end it all.

You asked to be alone, just for a few hours no longer you turnt your phone off and just played some music to take your mind off of it, but music wasn't working so you tried to make your favorite dish to cook but it wasn't as good as how your mom makes it, so you went to the bathroom to take a hot steamy shower the water wasn't doing anything but irritating the cuts you have so you decided on looking at yourself you stare at yourself in the mirror for hours on end not moving feeling like if you do something might change.

You stare long and hard at your hair you used to get made fun of for, your stomach that you would starve when you felt like you were too fat, your nose you hated, everything you hated everything about you everything your girlfriend Abby loved

“Look at the way my stomach looks”

“I love the way it looks”

“Your just saying that cause your my girlfriend”

“I’m saying that cause it's true

You stayed their and cried, cried until you fell asleep.

Day 2

“Here Julien I want you to have this” you say handing your best friend your gaming consoles with a smile Julien looks at you with a face of confusion “this is unexpected why you giving me this?” she ask placing the consoles down on her table you shrug your shoulders “well I don't need them anymore and I felt like selling them would be a waste so I said why not just give them to my best friend in the whole wide world!” you said as Julien nods her head grabbing you and pulling you into a tight hug “thank you Y/N this means a lot to me i’ll make it up to you I swear” she says and you shake your head.

“No need,” you say as you smile at your beautiful best friend you have known since kindergarten “Julien you know I love you so much right? I thank all the gods above for bringing you into my life, I honestly don't know what I would have don't if I didn't have a friend like you thank you for changing my life I'll see you soon” you say as Julien looks at you with a confused smile on her face. “Y/N your scaring me what's going on?” she ask as you don't say anything just smile looking around “Y/N talk to me please”

“Nothing is going on just grateful for all my friends you know?” you smile as Julien nods nothing is said for a few minutes until Julien speaks “Well I love you so much Y/N your still coming to my birthday in six days right?” she ask as you shrug your shoulders she nods her head a little disappointed “well I gotta go you take care of yourself ok Y/N? I love you so much” Julien says pulling you into a tight hug you melt a little inside

“We are for life, nothing not even death can break the bond we have” Julien says one last time before closing the door on you for the last time.

Day 3

“Abby I think we should break up” you say as Abby looks over at you from her computer desk “What?” you look over at her before repeating what you said “I think we should break up” she turns off her computer before walking over to the couch to sit by you “and why is that? What did u do this time?” she hums pulling you into her lap with a smile you look at her feeling your heart melt Abby your Abby the one who loves you so much “I just feel like we should” she looks at you nodding her head at what your saying

“Well, that's not a good reason to break up what I do? Tell me so I can fix it” you don't say anything you just stare at her with a small tired smile you wrap your arms around Abby pulling her in to a tight hug “I just feel like I'm not right for you, y'know? We are two completely different people with different backgrounds, I always wonder what a person like you is doing with a crazy bitch like me” you say as Abby pulls away looking in your eyes

“Y/N you are enough for me everything I do is for you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you Y/N, I want to make you my wife I want to have kids-”

“How many kids?”

“Six of them” you laugh for the first time in weeks, a true genuine laugh “I want our first daughter to be Y/N Jr” Abby says caressing your face you look at her to see if she's joking.. She's not “really?” she nods her head before laying back on the couch spreading her legs “Y/N I hate when you speak like this is breaks my heart I don't like how you treat yourself, your beautiful Y/N your my sun, my heart, everytime you talk like this it's like a stab right in the heart” Abby vents you nod your head listening you want to apologize but you feel like you can't like their is something stopping you “I love you Y/N your not getting away from me anytime soon”

Hours go by of you and Abby talking, laughing, and cuddling, that you feel that sadness coming back that you wanna excuse yourself before you get to caught up in this “What where you going?”

“To write”

Day 4

Dear Abby,

My baby, my love, my hero I wanna say thank you, thank you for the love you have given me, thank you for the energy you have spent on me, thank you for the shoulder I can lean on when I needed to cry, for the laughs we shared, the arguments we had that had us wanting to kill each other but ended with us fixing it. Your probably wondering why I'm writing you this when I can literally go into the living room right now and say everything I need to say.

I can't

I can't look you in the eyes and tell you how fucking exhausted I am, how worn out and weak I am, I can't tell you how I've been cutting again after we celebrated a week clean, I can't tell you how depressed I have been it will ruin the mood and you know how much I hate an awkward situation lol. But Abby I love you so much you have shown me how strong I am when I thought I was weak, you loved me when I thought I was unlovable, loved me when I was Insecure and even ugly. When I was a kid I was always the ugly duckling, but when you told me “even a ugly duckling needs its Swan” I couldn't believe that I was gifted with such an amazing girlfriend.

We planned a whole life out together, what was it again? Oh yea six kids the first two named after us, a big house with a farm, with a dog and cat. I'm sorry but I don't think in this lifetime we was meant to reach those goals we wanted life isn't fair as much as we hope and pray for it its just not in us.

You have to forget about me. Heartbreak is temporary you will find someone better then me I'm sure of it. I am sorry for all the pain I have put you in. I never meant to do that. I loved you too much to see you get hurt by me.

I love you so much words can't express my love for you. Anytime anyone mentioned you my heart would flutter, like I'm falling in love with you again.

I remember when you told me on our first date that you would never fall in love and that love is overrated and here you are in love with someone who is dying. I love you so much Abby. Maybe In Another Life we will finally be together.

Forever yours,

Y/N ❤︎

Day 5

Ambulance, and police cars crowd your parents house. Screaming, and crying are the only things to be heard. Your mother panicking craddling your bloody body as police men try to remove you

“NO NOT MY BABY! YOU CAN’T TAKE MY BABY AWAY FROM ME!” she screams pulling you in closer as your father tries to pry your mothers arms open to let them take you to the hospital. Your mother refuses to let go until your father grabs ahold of her face “stop being difficult dear and let them take her they might be able to save her if you let them do their job. Your mother looks down at you and then at the men hovering above and she lets go slowly…slowly.. And she slowly relives everything your birth, your first word, your first day of school everything, slowly her baby, her first born, the life she made to protect you slipping away, going down the drain.

The ride to the hospital was long, well to your parents at least, your mother couldn’t stop crying and praying to any god that is out to to hear her prayers, she doesn't want to believe it her baby girl, wanting to kill herself why? Was it because of her? Was she not a good mother? She tried to change for the better for her baby girl she didn't wanna end up like her mother who mentally and verbally abused her but it seems like the Apple doesn't fall to far from the tree.

“MOM PLEASE TELL ME ITS NOT TRUE!” She hears from her left she lifts her head and sees Dina, and Julien running to your mom she gets up and opens her arms as they run into them making her stumble over “She-she just I- I’m a terrible mother!” she chokes on her words as Dina and Julien comfort her with tears in their eyes the doctor comes out with a clipboard in hand and a small smile on her face.

“Your Y/N’s Mother correct?” the doctor ask as your mom their nods her head interlocking her hands and placing them onto her chest “your daughter just got out of surgery” the doctor announces as your mother nods her head just wanting to hear if her daughter is ok “your daughter tried to kill herself, and sadly she stabbed a few major parts of her body, so now she's in a coma and we tried everything we can but it's up to her now if she want to come out of it” the doctor adds on as your mother starts to break down the doctor apologizes before excusing herself.

On cue, Abby runs through the doors in a sweat was she too late? She tried to get to the hospital as fast as she could she really tried but she couldn't exactly believe that her Y/N would try to kill herself, it wasn't even a day ago when you wanted to break up with each other was this the reason why? Was it her?

Day 6

Abby stayed with you since she got their not leaving your side once not to use the bathroom not to sleep nothing afraid if she was to do anything much as breath you would be gone forever

Beep

Abby squeezed your hand anxiously waiting for you to wake up looking at your life monitor and then at you “come on Y/N wake up baby girl”

She decided to scroll through photos of you guys smiling at all the memories, like your first date to the zoo and seeing all the cute animals, or the movie date you guys did she smiles at the memories wanting to make more but all she need was for you to wake up.

Beep

“You remember when you told me how you was tired of living with your parents? Well I found a sweet three bedroom apartment that would be nice for us, we can use the third bedroom as a little office since college is starting soon” Abby asks speaking to you as if your gonna answer. “I gotta you the bathroom I'll be right back ok?” Abby says squeezing your hand and leaving the room.

Beep

Abby looks at herself in the mirror she looks fucked, her cheeks are stained with tears and her eyes are red she looks like a zombie. She opens the bathroom door and sees doctors rushing somewhere… somewhere?…Y/N?….No it can't be why can't she move.. Abby move run she was lost in thought everything playing back your first introduction, to the first kiss, to the make out that led to you losing your virginity, to..to..to

“MOVE OUT THE WAY KID” a doctor yells pushing past Abby knocking her out of her train of thought she walks over to your room but it felt farther why? She wants to come back and see you hug you but she can't…

She's too late

your parents and Julien come rushing in as the doctors speak to them “say goodbye” she says as your mother nods running in to hug you kissing your face and saying how much she loves and wishes she could have protected you.

Abby doesn't say goodbye in shock she stands their and watch them pull your life support she stands their as she sees the life drain out of you, she stands their until they zip your body up and drag you way.

“I’m sorry about your lost kid” the doctor says patting her back. She was the last one their and the last one to leave.

Day 7

The day of the funeral hit hard for Abby, she lost everything in a span of 48 hours, she had no time to process any of it, she didn't even get to say goodbye, she didn't get to hug you, kiss you any of it you were pulling right from under her. She tried not to cry just for you she tried to stay strong but she couldn't, not when a piece of her heart just broke, not when the light in her life suddenly went out.

“Y/N was loved by everyone” the pastor says but Abby wasn't listening too busy trying not to break down, trying hard not to to open the casket and see if your actually dead and not playing a sick joke on her. When it was her turn to speak she couldn't really find her words without feeling like she was gonna choke on them “Y/N was my everything, I feel like I have just lost apart of me, life is so unfair why her? Why me? We're we not meant for a happy ending like everybody else? Are we so out of luck that the world just gave up on us? I wanted to marry her, I promised her a happy life, I wanted to get old with her but fate said no and just took her and I didn't even get to say bye” Abby holds the box with the ring she was gonna use to propose to you with and just looks at it with a sad smile.

“Y/N you were my soulmate and I don't think I can find another person that will fill your spot I know you would want me to move on but I can't I feel like it would be cheating, like I just forgot about you if I do you were my Juliet, and I was your Romeo. Maybe in another life fate will bring us together” Your mom looks at Abby as she walks back over to her seat “Thank you for loving my daughter” Abby smiles nodding her head and showing your mother the box “I really meant what I said I wanted to marry your daughter”

When they was lowering you to the ground Abby pulled out the ring she was gonna marry you with and threw it in and then put the other one on her finger. She watched as they covered you, she watched as they sang, and she watched as your gravestone was placed, she sat their and didn't leave even hours after the funeral ended she stayed, looking up at the sky seeing all the pretty birds

A dove the bird that means peace, hope, transformation, and love. she smiles at it “Goodbye Y/N you can rest now”

The end I hope you like this (this made me cry writing this so hopefully it makes you cry as well) first post of 2024 kinda nervous hope I did good fr and remember life isn't worth killing yourself over, if you ever and I mean ever need to vent about anything my DMs are always opened.

All rights reserved to the owner of this blog! Ⓒ︎ bellaxellie. You may translate and repost my works only with permission.

[bunny-heels]

Tell me about this Fallout ARG you found I am curious. 👀👀👀

YIPPIE YIPPIE YIPPIE YIPPIE

so its on a channel called drb0sch, and its about a SUPPOSEDLY alternate universe where Interplay and Black Isle Studios, the original companies behind the first two Fallout games, didn't sell the rights to Bethesda and got to make their own completely independent version of Fallout New Vegas, and possibly Fallout 3 as well.

in regular Fallout New Vegas, theres a location called the Mojave Outpost. its an area in the game that canonically holds the state line between California and Nevada via a gate that you cannot open or get through at all.

in the videos tho, drb0sch finds a way to parkour to the other side of the gate and explore the outer areas of the main game's entire map. it all goes downhill from there.

i'll place a read more here since this next part will be spoilers for both the ARG AND New Vegas, so if you wanna experience both on your own, you should!!! New Vegas is pretty much the last good Fallout game and the ARG is honestly best experienced on your own

ok so basically it almost instantly takes a dark turn for the worst. once drb0sch gets passed the gate and has explored some of the area, which at first seemed to only consist of some unfinished houses and power lines, he ends up finding odd pieces of loot that seem to relate to the war in 2077, when the bombs dropped. in one particular place, he picks up an item at a campfire that suddenly gives him a quest with a clearly unfinished title. he then goes back to the gate to try and get back into the main map, but the game literally does not let him. the invisible wall thats usually at the gate to prevent players from jumping over suddenly comes back, he cant use his pip-boy to fast travel, console commands dont work, and most people have assumed that the game will just freak out on him if he tries to go back on a save. so hes stuck on the outside of Nevada.

so in defeat that he cant go back, he decides to walk around the area more and see where the quest takes him, and at first it seems like a normal side-quest for world building about stuff that happened Pre-War and during the war, but then it just starts getting so weird. i dont know how else to say this in any other way, but the quest literally takes him to Hell. as in whatever version of Hell that Interplay/Black Isle could put into a Fallout game i guess. but its Hell none-the-less. theres several pieces of evidence scattered around as well, like Bible verses and even the channel name itself. Bosch is the last name of the painter Hieronymus Bosch who was famous for making those scary Hell paintings, the ones cluttered with different scenes of sinners getting tortured by ugly lil demons.

theres SO many other things in it that are really god damn weird and crazy. i have no idea where its going or what the point of it all is but its really interesting and i definitely think you should check it out.

[centrally-unplanned]

Its fucking 2 AM lets keep ranting about this! Genshin isn’t popular the way people think its popular. It is currently one of the most financially successful games ever:

But it doesn’t make 20 quadspillion dollars by being the game with the highest player count - and certainly not by being the game with the highest player count in Japan. It has a ton of players, don’t get me wrong - looking like 60 million monthly users.

That isn’t that much though! 

All the big games clean its clock - and it looks even less pretty in Japan itself:

Mobile games ranked by installs. Do you even know what that second game is, by the way? 

Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Horse Girl Racing & Breeding game, absolutely more popular than Genshin in Japan on mobile (which most people estimate is how Genshin is played in Japan & China, vs PC in the US). Which I am singling out specifically, because beyond just ‘numbers’ you have metrics like intensity of the fanbase, how much do the devotees talk about the game and such. That sets trends more than numbers do, right? And hey look Comiket in Japan just happened, what do you got for me - lets rank number of doujins sold at comiket in the gatcha-style games category:

Type-Moon: 848 

Uma Musume: 728

Hololive: 620 (Vtuber)

Kancolle: 654

Touhou: 596

iDOLM@STER Starlight Stage: 474

Blue Archive: 446

iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors: 232

Genshin Impact: 230

Nijisanji: 194 (Vtuber)

Touken Ranbu: 192

Project Sekai: 172 (Includes Vocaloid)

Arknights: 123

Azurlane: 120

Girls und Panzer: 118

Fuck yeah Girls und Panzer. But anyway 9th place? Pretty good! Very respectable...and fucking wrecked by the HORSE GIRL BREEDING MOBILE GAME Uma Musume

How about some streaming data! Japan only ofc:

So now here its pretty low, but I will grant that its the best ranking anime-style game. Genshin is popular, for sure. But all this taken in, Genshin just aint that big - its a very popular game, probably the most popular “fantasy fluffy anime game”, but its not like, insanely popular, running the show.

The reason you think its popular is two-fold; one is that its a gatcha game, so it is monitizing its player base way above other large games. Not crazily so btw, the average Genshin player has probably spent $70 dollars on the game, the normal price of a game - but still its competing with other “free” games which always have much bigger player bases, its hitting hard in relation. It is, absolutely, one of the most financially successful games ever. And the second reason is its cross-country popularity - its really rare for a game to be huge in China AND Japan AND America. The fact that its a top game in all three countries is a big feat, and it makes you hear about it, it gives it a playerbase scale from the sheer market size.

But if you are Japanese company Nintendo, making a game that is *not* a gatcha game, for a company that is famously pretty parochial about branding their games for the Japanese market uber alles, that is making a *console* game on a console that famously did not sell well in China...why would Genshin stand out to you? Its just one of the games, competing with a totally different model, on a totally different device, and in totally different markets. It is a trend, but it is not driving trends, it is not the trendsetter - certainly not for a Switch game. Engage would have no reason to try to copy it over other game styles.

TL:DR Fire Emblem Engage is taking inspiration from the horse fucker game and if you can’t prove that wrong I don’t want to hear it.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Death of the second screen

Yesterday i was ranting to @phosphoricbomb about how with the death of the Nintendo DS the entire 2d gaming genre has been crippled, it was the best console for 2d games.

Anyway I want you to think about a reality where Undertale was on the DS. How fucking awesome would it look? The attacks would come from the top of the screen and attack the bottom and you would be able to dodge with your cursor! It would be beautiful!

The problem is that as soon as Nintendo started selling the 3ds, all the new games coming out were forced to pivot and focus less on interacting with the dual screens in a 2d setting, more on interacting with 3d features.

And yes there are some good 3d games that have come out on the 3ds, but they are NEVER the best versions of those games if they've existed on other 3d consoles or are going to exist on future consoles. There is very little benefit to having the second screen or 3d functions on a 3d game, especially if it hurts your eyes too much to use properly. I'd say, of the games I played, the one that worked best was Ocarina of Time 3d, but that still isn't the most popular version of Ocarina of Time!

Kid Icarus Uprising does try to use the touch screen but it causes repetitive strain injury more than anything else.

So the DS's entire NICHE was killed by the requirements of the 3ds, which was bad at those requirements anyway!!! There was no more place for those quirky 2d games of the GBA and DS era like the Mario and Luigi series, or Ghost Trick, or The World Ends With You, or Pokemon (of every game in existence this has struggled most with its 3d transition).

Some of these games have seen remakes on the Switch but it just doesn't have the same capabilities as the DS, it doesn't work. The World Ends with You on Switch plays horribly. Don't buy it! Buy the DS version. I bet Ghost Trick is going to meet the same fate.

It's a bit sad. New 2D games are going to run well on Switch but they won't be able to experiment with the touch screen the same way... Mobile phones are not even a possibility, and the Switch isn't good at this. It's probably why they're avoiding rereleasing any of their DS games - every remake that comes out is inferior.

[simslegacy5083]

Today's (10/28/2024) Episode: Game, Developed

After Noemi and Luigi helped Skye deal with his new diagnoses it was finally time for them to celebrate a big personal milestone of their own.

“Well today’s the day, are you ready?” Noemi asked her husband “Honestly, yes and no” he replied, “its amazing to think that this dream of mine is coming true, but I’m terrified that its going to be a flop. I’d hate to go down in history as a failure.” Especially considering what I sacrificed to get here he thought to himself, gently making a fist under the table with his “bum” right hand.

“I highly doubt its going to fail” she said “I know I’m biased but, seriously, Watcher Tales is good. Now let’s go get ready for the launch party!”

“What should I wear!?” Luigi mused nervously as they entered the bedroom “I want to look professional, but grounded, put together but not overdressed. It’s tough.”

Noemi bit her tongue to keep from laughing. She walked up behind him and placed a hand firmly on his lower back. “I can help you find the perfect outfit” she whispered in his ear, “but before we get you dressed up, maybe getting undressed would help calm both our nerves…”

Luigi pulled her in, surrendering to her hungry kisses. It wasn’t the best woohoo they’d ever had, but when they emerged a few minutes later he couldn’t deny he was feeling calmer “Now my butt is sore” he groused, grinning “but it was totally worth it. Let’s do this thing!”

The Watcher Tales launch party was being held in Del Sol Valley and sponsored by UnorthoBox, one of the largest gaming console manufacturers in the nation. The game would be launching for both PC and, exclusively, on the new UnorthoBox 2 gaming system for console.

Exiting the teleporter just outside the conference center where the event was being held Luigi fired up Yoshi to capture some footage of the launch party. Grabbing Noemi’s hand, he took a deep breath and headed inside where his friends, family, and fans were all eagerly awaiting their arrival.

Luigi took his place in front of a wall of pictures featuring high-res images captured from the game itself, while Noemi settled nearby at a small table offering hard copies and digital codes of Watcher Tales for purchase.

Luigi was in his element, his natural cheerful enthusiasm on full display as talked up his “masterpiece”. He kept Noemi busy, sending a constant stream of fans and gamers to her table to buy first release copies of their game.

Luigi and his wife weren’t the only ones working hard to make the launch party a raging success.

Rather than hiring an unknown sim of questionable skill to man the bar Luigi had asked his grandpa Don to do the honors, and he’d gladly agreed.

Nearby Denton and Cullen were streaming a demonstration of Watcher Tales primary multiplayer features to their fans. Across the room a long rows of PCs had been setup, giving sims attending the release party a chance to “try before you buy”. Many of Luigi’s friends and family had settled there to show their support and see the game he couldn’t stop talking about.

Noemi was thrilled with how quickly copies of the game were selling, but as the afternoon wore on, she found herself feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Shutting her eyes for a moment in between customers, she suddenly heard the familiar and oh so welcome voice of her friend Amaya. “How you holding up pretty momma? The girls and I just arrived, and our kids are out back playing with your little one.”

“Honestly, I could use a break” Noemi told her. “The launch is going great, but this crowd is a bit too much for me.”

“Say no more!” Amaya replied, gesturing for her to rise “I sell nectar from the ranch every weekend at the market in Eco Harbor; I can handle hocking Hot Stuff’s pride and joy for a bit. Go give your boy a kiss and say hello to the ladies.” Noemi sighed with relief, heading out to sunny, quiet, playground.

Luigi merely chuckled when he noticed that his old flame had relieved his wife at the sales table. The meet and greet line shut down shortly after that and when one of his favorite songs started playing on the stereo system Luigi decided to give his fans a little show to thank them for coming.

“My fellow gamers” he announced “you inspired Watcher Tales, and your support means the world. I hope you’ll help me end this party in style!”

He found a small patch of open floor and began an impromptu dance party, gesturing for everyone to join him. As he danced along with the other happy sims celebrating the game’s launch, he silently hoped he’d find as much success as he’d enjoyed that day in the days to come.

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[chase-omega]

Nintendo fan's main argument against emulation is "you pirate because you're broke. You just want Nintendo to make all their games free."

No, this is not the case. If Nintendo actually sold these games at a fair price, I'd be legally purchasing them. Most of us would. There's a huge backlog of games Nintendo could put on the Eshop, but they just refuse to do that.

Second-hand stores are not always a reliable place to find older games. Most people won't be willing to part with their best games by donating them to a store. Most of the time you're just gonna find shovelware sports games there. You're only gonna find an actually- good retro game shop if you're really lucky.

And sometimes you'll find a mini mall selling you bootlegs of them, like that time I got scammed on that fake copy of Mario Vs Donkey Kong that didn't even have a save battery in it.

If Nintendo just simply brought back the Virtual Console or made some digital game launcher client similar to Steam, nobody would have a REASON to emulate.

Yeah you're gonna find a few brokies emulating newer games, but the majority of the time it's people who are given no other option to play older games that aren't being sold anymore.

[no-sabo]

Alexander's Top 10 Games of 2023

#10: Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 is landing on my list de panzazo because I didn't play enough of Baldur's Gate to include it. Act 1 gang, rise up!

It's tough trying to find the same hype that I had playing Street Fighter IV on the Xbox 360. I don't think I ever put as much hours trying to get good at a fighting game since and I don't think I ever will. This isn't to say that I don't think 6 is as good. My main thing is that I don't think I'll ever be in that kind of place in my life, or have the same friends with the same free time. Getting older is so wack. Street Fighter 6 is cool as hell, though.

#9: Venba

I think for immigrants Venba's themes are well worn ground. Food is perhaps the most powerful anchor to one's culture. Venba is beautiful, touching, and deeply relatable to me as a first born child of immigrant parents.

Make sure you eat something before jumping into this one. I'm pretty sure I ordered Indian food the day after.

#8: A Space for the Unbound

I don't think there's a game on my list with such a stark difference with the level of enjoyment I had between the narrative and the actual play. At times A Space for the Unbound can be extremely tedious.

A lot of the play involves solving puzzles, usually with a pen and paper at hand. That stuff can be nice, however the brief but constant loading in between areas really strained my patience. There's also empty calories in the form of fetch quests that trip up the pacing.

In the end, once credits rolled, those complaints melted away. It's a gripping fantasy story about community, bullying, domestic abuse, anxiety, and depression wrapped in gorgeous, detailed pixel art. And there's an achievement for petting all the cats.

#7: Hi-Fi Rush

Hi-Fi Rush feels like the remake to a long lost Sega game that they developed for the Xbox during their messy Dreamcast console exit. It's tough for me to describe why it's on here. I think I just genuinely miss this tier of game existing. Like, this game had fucking music from Zwan in it. Zwan.

I don't know, man. It's a vibe. It's really well animated, the characters are bright and goofy, and the rhythm infused third person action combat smacks.

I think this was the first game I completed on my Steam Deck in 2023. Actually, I think it's the first game I beaten front to back on it period?

#6: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

I know it's in to trash the New Super Mario Bros. games but I genuinely never had any strong positive feelings for that first DS game and it only lead to further my resentment for that series. They just made so damn many of them.

Mario Wonder, with its Wile E. the Coyote ass animations is so damn refreshing. I think this is probably the best implementation of the self governed difficulty levels, too. A kid can breeze through a lot of these levels, but being a completionist can get brutal in a satisfying kind of way. It's just so nice to be excited for a 2D Mario game again.

#5: Mediterranea Inferno

Part visual novel, part art-house movie, Mediterranea Inferno takes you on vacation with three Italian twinks trying to move past their Covid-19 lock-down trauma. It's funny at times, but quickly veers into some deeply uncomfortable situations. Also, it can get spooky.

It's an important game, but please heed the content warnings.

#4: Eternights

There's something alluring to me about the Persona Social Link system and any time a game decides to mess with that kind of thing I'm game to give it a shot. Eternights' main sell was "dating action game", so, there it is.

The gist here is there's an apocalypse and your player character gets his arm cut off and replaced with a magical one that can transform into, I think, anything? It's a sword for 98% of the game that you use to kill monsters. It's in third person and for the most part it's an OK action game. You get a skill tree and all that and your buds help you fight, though I think the combat truly shines in the back quarter of the game.

The game's whole thing is that you've got a time limit for when a dungeon has to be completed and you can either choose to progress through it or spend time with your friends, who are mostly female.

Now, to my surprise there is a male character that joins your crew late in game who can serve as a love interest and I was curious to see how that would play out given the homophobia present in the games with which it was inspired by.

The same sex story is, I feel, the most interesting route. It flips the corny harem trope on its head and you get what I believe is the most touching and fulfilling end given that character's relationship to the plot. It's respectful in a way the rest of the game wouldn't suggest it.

At some point in the story your characters are falling from up high and to save everyone the player character turns his arm into a bra parachute because in a quick panic he remembers seeing them on one of the girls in your group. It's childish as hell to be sure, but there's a lot of heart here and I can't wait to see what this one man studio does next.

And I'd like to request for more RPGs to be sub-20 hours like this one. It does wonders for pacing.

#3: Jusant

I kinda' just melted into Jusant. This game is gorgeous and the danger free climbing was so meditative during some really dark and ongoing political unrest. It feels selfish to even say this but it felt good to get home and get lost in something that provided very little consequence.

Fuck Joe Biden and free Palestine.

#2: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Sega can keep Jet Set Radio. Team Reptile understood the assignment.

Look, there's a lot you can do to modernize Jet Set and I'm sure Sega's got their top engineers on it but fuck all that. This shit with its simplified graphics runs at 90 FPS on my Steam Deck. It's got all the vibes down and it manages to improve on the mobility and graffiti systems.

Like Hi-Fi Rush I just miss this tier of game but, like, x10 for this specific series. It improves on the concepts of the games that inspired it. I was eating here.

#1: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I don't think I have the capacity to express what Breathe of the Wild meant to me when I first played that game back in 2017. It's gotta' be my favorite game of all time. At least, it was? Still is? It's a toss up. Both Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild have surprisingly different philosophies and it sort of depends on how I'm feeling. All this to say that Tears of the Kingdom is a genuine master piece.

I'm sitting here trying to think of where to even begin. Is it the physics driven world that doesn't seem to break no matter what nonsense you throw at it? Do I talk about the fact that this is the most touching Zelda story to date? How about how the Colgera boss fight theme smacks? Why does this game look so good off like 2011 hardware?

Tears of the Kingdom embodies play. It begs you to be curious and creative. A sanbox with a capital S. My favorite game of 2023 and favorite game period?

Best Games of 2022 in 2023

2023 was stacked, but I had to make room for some stuff that I missed the previous year. If I do this list again the 2023 in 2024 section is gonna' be a damn mess.

Melatonin

I played Melatonin in December of 2023 and it came out December of 2022. i'm so sad it took me a whole year to check it out.

It's got cozy little Rhythm Heaven-like micro games that take place within an insomniac's melatonin infused dreams. It's dripping in pastels and good vibes.

Each level, or "night", has 4 or 5 stages that you navigate kind of like a Mario overworld. You'll walk to, say, the "Work" stage where it runs you through a brief tutorial. There you get a feel for the song and the beats you need to match with button presses. Once you get through that it begins your real run. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I like it a lot. The visuals are super pleasant and it's really satisfying when you nail those perfectly timed button presses to the beat of the music. I only just started it but felt compelled to throw it on here.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me

This one's tough to talk about. I feel like I don't need to be taking up oxygen in this conversation.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me is a short Game Boy game about sex work and trauma. This game isn't enjoyable, but it is profound and important.

Again, please heed the content warnings.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

If this game had come out in 2023 it would be my number 2.

You begin life on a colony as a 10 year old. You, your parents, and the other colonists escape an Earth on the brink of collapse and crash land on a barely habitable planet. From there you live your life through to adulthood, making choices along the way that affect you, your friends, and the overall colony.

There's a card system that carries a lot of your decision making as a sort of stand in for something like a skill check or a random dice roll. You obtain cards through specific actions and relationships. It's not the greatest mechanic but it's serviceable and feeds well into the gameplay loop.

The game ends when your character turns 20 where your story concludes in one of many different outcomes, but that's not where it stops. The game has a time loop mechanic. You're meant to roll back in on a NG+ and see a lot of the different ways the game could end where you're meant to "fix" mistakes you made in your first playthrough. It works really well and is a core part of the experience.

I binged this game for a whole weekend. I could not put my Steam Deck down. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is Young Adult fiction at its peak and in a year full of platitudes, "one of my all time favorites" feels like it has very little meaning, but man this one of my all time favorites.

[randomnameless]

The phrase “we have been aware of the high levels of competency from KT's writers, especially with their work for 3H” is worrying; i'm not going to shit-talk them just for thinking that 3H has a good story, especially when someone's standards for what makes a story good or not is subjective and could be different from ours, but KT's story-telling skills are never going to improve if people keep only telling them that Three Houses' deeply-flawed story was actually a narrative masterpiece, instead of a self-contradicting mess with plot points it introduces solely as gotchas and has no intention of ever following up on in any meaningful way, characters getting assassinated left and right to try and argue that female Ashnard might actually be right and not so different from them in terms of morality and goals (while they're in the middle of fighting for their lives and watching their friends die in battle because she decided to invade their home unprovoked and solely for a landgrab), and an over-powered villain group that should have ended the story long before it even started because the writers decided to give them a stockpile of magic nukes they can launch at anywhere in the world, which was also introduced solely for shock value and without them realizing how much of the story is ruined by making it so that the villains who want to kill everyone and take over the world can just nuke anyone they want (that isn't inside Garreg Mach when they launch it) with no consequences.

I just don't like what it means for the future of FE stories if the worst story in the series keeps getting praised as one of the best, even by separate developers, is all.

Wait and see anon!

For what it's worth, while Engage's sales are apparently not as stellar as Houses in the same timeframe (like House after month 1 and Engage after month 1?), Nopes totally crashed.

Amazon isn't the only market in the world, but in some places in the world (tfw not for amazon.fr) Nopes is now sold at around 15 bucks, which is ridiculous considering older games released on consoles still being in circulation are more expensive than this thing that is barely 1 year old(even the first FEW?).

Also, Engage was supposed to have been released earlier but Covid and Houses being released later than planned meant it was delayed, but Engage was supposed to be Fodlan's antithesis, at least writing wise - you'd think IS would have tried to retrofit more Fodlan themes (maybe more uwu maybe some villains aren't BaD and earl grey because they luf u) but they didn't.

Imo, fwiw, while KT apparently loved how Fodlan was received, IS is aghast and doesn't want to touch it within a 10 meters radius, only if it means selling units in FEH and even there, they sometimes retcon Fodlan units (hello F!Billy/Sothis) or challenge them in various FB (Brave!Supreme Leader, but also in the most recent one, Sylvain harping on his Crust being BaD...) clearly showing how they don't really want to follow KT's direction regarding those units - at times, it's almost as if the CoS receives more development in Heroes than in both Fodlan games!

So I'd like to see what IS has in store for the next FE games (or the next non remake FE game), even if in my opinion, given how Heroes has to retcon/finish the writing (Mercedes reveals more about her Adrestian family in FEH than in two of her games!) for characters just to sell them in the gacha game ffs, speaks volumes on what they think of Fodlan's writing.

On top of that, FE16 was the first game where people received surveys/mails from Nintendo/IS asking them if they understood the game... - so despite Fodlan selling well (better than expected?), imo it's clear the writing isn't to praise, at least for IS, and they don't want anything to do with it (Nopes' DLC was scrapped, when shiny!Rhea's sprite was datamined, so either they made an useless sprite, either this sprite might have been used in a future DLC?)

They can still butcher a future remake (plz no jugdral) by adding pointless supports between units and trying to uwu more than needed the red emperor - or add an OC waifu du jour who will sell merchs and try to uwu her if she is on the side of the red emperor - but I feel like we will see where they will go with a brand new game (since Heroes's writing is... as consistent as a fog and basically circles around "women sad'n'lonely*, men evyl", female playable OC simps after the avatar and is useless in the resolution of the plot because Alfonse will finally find a mc guffin way to defeat the villain of the year).

*i truly hope Vero isn't any indication to what the writing of the future games will be, like heavy retcons from her first apparition to "i was brainwashed and akshually everyone supports me from my home even if i send them to death against askr because the voice in my head told me to do it" because that'd suck, but vero is a young woman, thus she could be monetised for alts, figurines and even DLC content in a main game!

[bideex]

Looking for Deals? Discover the Best on Bideex!

Looking for Deals? Discover the Best on Bideex!

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[helenarlett-rex]

Reviewing your Game X Change reviews

(From a Game X Change employee)

Overpriced...? What are you looking for? Video games? We literally have a program in our computer that makes sure we offer better prices than our competitors. DVDs? We sell the dame things at $4 a piece with a buy 2 get 1 free deal. How much lower do you think I can go? Trading cards? We sell them at market value rounded down to the closest dollar. If they're too expensive, that's the market, not us. I don't know what you want from me here... But when you say staff is "kinda weird" what do you mean? Do you mean they are a bunch of nerds...? You're in a used game store... What do you expect...? Or do you mean that most of them are some variate of LGBT? Because that sounds like a you problem.

As for the inventory, yeah... We know... It's a total piece of shit. We can't do anything about it. That's what corporate makes us use. We ALL complain about it. Corporate doesn't care.

I'm giving your review 2 stars. The only reason it's not lower is because I agree with you about the inventory system.

Look around you... No one is selling DVDs anymore. They don't even have a DVD section at Wal-Mart anymore. We're not going to keep dedicating half our store to a product no one buys just because a small handful of people refuse to upgrade to bluray and/or streaming. We were taking in something close to 90% more DVDs than we were selling. Excuse us for not wanting to go out of business...

Oh! The toys and snacks are what's overpriced! You must be looking at the anime statues and blind boxes. Yeah... Those are imported directly from Japan so the import fee jacks up the price. That is what you mean, right? You can't be talking about the used collectable section because our company doesn't know what the hell it's doing in that department. I commonly find action figures over there that sell for $50 or more on the used market priced at $10 or less. I literally bought a pair of $40 Predator figures for $3 each. As for snacks... Yeah... Just go to 5 Below.

I'm giving your review 2 stars because you are right about the snacks and your complaint about the DVDs is at least understandable. It's no longer sustainable for us to keep carrying them though, and no one else is either, so it's still a you problem. That's why you're a 2 stars instead of 3.

It's not the best place for new games because we literally do not sell them! We are a USED GAME STORE! Stop calling and asking if we have Call of Duty Black Ops 6! No! And we aren't going to until people get sick of playing it!

But thanks for the otherwise nice review. I'll return the favor and give you 4 stars as well.

First of all... What the fuck is a PS3 wifi guitar? There's no such thing... Do you mean, bluetooth? That's a thing... But the more important question is, who the hell are you emailing?! Of course we aren't replying to emails... We don't have an email address! Why the hell don't you just come into the store or call us on the phone like a normal person?! If you would have done that, we would have been happy to refund you! In fact... you STILL CAN! We have a three month return policy! I'm sorry your guitar wasn't tested first, but if you haven't noticed, there is a run on retro game consoles right now. Take a look at our shelves. It probably didn't get tested because we don't HAVE any PS3s to test it on... That's WHY we have the three month return policy!

Your review gets 0 stars because your problem could literally be fixed by picking up a phone and instead you are sending emails to an email address that doesn't exist!

Uhh... You do realize we aren't some little mom and pop thrift store or whatever, right...? Nor are we a pawn shop... We are a corporate chain, no different than Game Stop, or Wal-Mart, or Electronic Express or what have you... Do you go into Wal-Mart and ask them to negotiate a price? No, of course not... So why the hell do you think you can do that here?

You claim you've never had a nice interaction with an employee? Well... you know the old saying. If you meet one person in your day who is an asshole, that person is likely the problem. But if everyone you meet is an asshole, you're probably the problem. And considering you are in here bitching at us for not negotiating corporate set prices, I think I know which of the two it is...

Your review gets 1 star.

Uhh, no... It is not my job to go through all 500 of your damned Yu-Gi-Oh cards and tell you what they are worth. We buy cards valued at a dollar or more. We do not appraise cards... It's your job to know what you have if you are wanting to sell it to us. If you walk in with a box full of cards, not knowing what any of it is worth, and slap it down on the counter for me, it is store policy for me to tell you to leave and look up the value on your own. Do you think I have time to sit there and look up the value on 500 or more cards that you may not even decide you want to sell to us? There are between 2 to 3 employees in the store at any time and we have a lot of other things we have to do. No one has time for that... The store would be losing money in man hours if I had to spend all day sitting there looking up the value of every single card you were too lazy to look up yourself. And we flipped through most of your rares...? Your... Yu-Gi-Oh rares...? This is the part where I toss my head back and laugh. And I think once you start looking up the value on Yu-Gi-Oh cards, you'll understand why. It's not my fault you picked the world's most worthless card game to try to sell cards from...

But hold on... No where does it say we can only take 30 DVDs a day...? We literally told you ourselves. That's just a story policy. You want every store policy posted in writing or something? I don't have any signs up saying it's against store policy for you to take a shit on the floor either. You want to argue that you should be allowed to do it? And sorry you aren't happy with the price you got, but we only pay $0.10 a piece on DVDs and that's not a secret. We'll tell you up front. The things are worthless... We give half of them away for free. Hell, we've already stopped carrying them.

Your review gets 1 star.

Considering we test all game consoles (including hand-helds) on the spot before buying them, (that's literally what I do all day) allow me to translate this into what you actually meant to say, "They sold me a 3DS and then I broke it and tried to sell it back to them, but they would only give me 10 bucks for it now that it was broken!"

That's a 0 star review if I ever saw one...

Oh yeah, we only play 20% cash and 30% store credit. Our offers are very low ball. We know. We can't do anything about that. It's all set by corporate and they are greedy fucks. I wouldn't sell to us either. But overpriced...? Okay... We literally make sure our sale prices are lower than our competitors. We have a program that scans their prices and updates ours every day as needed to make sure of that. So I can only agree with half of what you're saying. Unless you're talking about snacks... We have movie theater prices on those damn things...

Your 1 star review gets 2 stars, because like, half of what you said is true at least...

You know... I wasn't going to review any of the reviews from Covid because it's just a million people bitching that we required masks, (and I wasn't even there at the time) but this one... uhh... I know the "mixed gentleman" you are talking about, and... he doesn't drink... So... You're just full of shit, aren't you?

0 stars for you, Sir!

I know the prices we offer are low, I've already touched on that... But you came in to do a trade and we told you it was too late? Okay... do you know what that means? That means you came in to trade something in within 30 minutes of closing time. All trade-in stop at 30 minutes to closing. That's story policy. It always has been. Because I have to test whatever game system you brought in before I can buy it. I have to enter every game and or movie you brought me into the computer individually by title so I can make sure I am giving you the right price. I then have to clean all of the items I bought from you then process each of them... Putting price tags on everything, shrink wrapping items that need to be shrink wrapped, removing disks from cases and sleeving them in interlopes.... Sleeved discs have to be sorted into the drawers... Cases have to be put on the shelves... It's a quick in and out for you, but the amount of work I have to do after taking in a trade is more than I have time to finish in 30 minutes. And that's on top of the closing duties I already have around the store... And yet assholes like you keep coming in every night 15 minutes to close... 10 minutes to close... 5 minutes to close... and get mad at me when I won't take your trade? No. Fuck you. If I came into your place of work 5 minutes before you closed and asked you to do something that was going to take you an extra 45 minutes, you'd be mad too, and probably wouldn't do it.

So your review gets 1 star, Sir.

Oh god, who let their child write a review on my store? First of all, kid... We don't sell anything new... We are a USED GAME STORE. Everything we sell is used. Including DVDs. The prices are horrible? You paid 5 bucks for a DVD... 6 years ago, I might add... Going price for a new DVD back then was like, what...? $20? And yeah, you are right. We don't give cash refunds. Only in store credit. Which I admit is kind of shitty... but we do TELL you there are no cash refunds when you buy it, so I don't know what you expect... Just take the store credit and get yourself a different DVD for crying out loud... I was almost going to write this off as you just being a 7 year old who thinks $5 is a big deal, but then you said we only offered your brother $5 of an Xbox? And $2 for $150 worth of games? That's literally impossible... Even a defective Xbox will get you at least $10. And a single copy of the most shit game I have will fetch you at least a dollar... So now you're just making shit up.

Sorry kid, your review gets 0 stars.

Oh, hey... My favorite type of review. This is what I call the "We are not a pawn shop!" review. I'm sorry you need the money, but we don't do pawn... We are not going to give you the value of your item and hold it for you until you come back to pay it off again. I see your name (before I blacked it out). I know who you are... And I've told you before, multiple times, we don't do that here! Go to an actual pawn shop! And no, we don't buy your items for the same price we sell them for either. I know what we offer is very low. (20% in cash) But even if we offered more, it still wouldn't be the same price we sell it for! How do you think we would make any money if I gave you $100 for your Xbox and then sold it for $100?

You get 0 stars because I've explained this to you multiple times...

[arkus-rhapsode]

Why do so many people love the GameCube?

So in my opinion, the best time for gaming was the sixth generation. While it didn't have the console war narratives of the fourth and seventh gens, it was an era that I don't think we'll ever see again. You had four console platforms, one of which would die this gen in the Dreamcast and another being a new hat thrown in the ring with Xbox. You had a roughly equal technological strength across each platform with some exceptions here and there. And finally you had a plethora first party games that many people still talk about to this day.

But despite all that, this gen is mostly marked by being the groundwork of what would come next. With Xbox pioneering online play and expanding it with the 360, the Playstation 2's success leading to botched launch and eventual recovery of the Playstation 3, and Nintendo choosing to no longer compete in terms of power and instead focusing on experiences you could get with their hardware with the Wii. And speaking of Nintendo, that leads me to something I've been thinking about for the past few days. Despite it being the lowest selling Nintendo console pre the Wii U and there being some jawdroppingly amazing games on the switch, there's still a reverence people have for the purple lunchbox. And even a bit of a desire to return to it.

So I ask myself why?

Well the short and most easy answer is quite simple: the kids who grew up playing games on the gamecube and have their tastes shaped by those games are now the ones participating in games media discussion through things like YouTube and IGN. As opposed to the people who grew up with the SNES who were mostly contributing to games discourse at the time. So naturally those influenced by the gamecube then are going to hold a reverence for it now and platform it as that.

But I didn't really think that covered everything. It felt a bit too easy of an answer. And I personally believe that the hand wave nature of "its nostalgia" doesn't really answer anything. Now I want the preface this, I am not a gaming historian. I am not here to impart some grand social analysis on what the gaming landscape of 2004 was like. This is more me as an individual looking into what I think of the generation that I was apart of (yes my first REAL home consoles were the Xbox and GameCube) and how its still so relevant in our current era.

After racking my brain about this for the last few days I think I've come to somewhat of an answer.

The most important thing is the games themselves. Which I think can be broken down into three core aspects.

First, there's something to be said with how these first and second party Nintendo games related to the ones being released on the GBA. Because the GBA is a whole different beast, but to summarize during that type you can see a somewhat clear distinction between the games that were coming out on the GBA by Nintendo vs the games that were coming out on the GameCube by Nintendo. If you were interested in a more traditional Mario (Super Mario Bros Advanced) or Kirby (Nightmare in Dreamland) or Metroid (Metroid Fusion) or Zelda (Oracle of Ages and Seasons) you could find all of those on a GBA. Meanwhile on the GameCube, you got something like Mario Sunshine, the second ever 3D Mario game that took Mario out of the mushroom kingdom and strapped a brand new water contraption to his back. Kirby was doing a driving game mixed with combat In Kirby's Air Ride. Metroid Prime reinvented the way Metroid could be played with an emphasis on exploring and uncovering secrets in a first person POV. And Zelda gave us another 3D Zelda after Ocarina of Time which has an art style that was brand new for the series and involved this massive sea to go out an explore.

You also had spin offs like Pokemon Colosseum, probably the first pokemon game on console with an in-depth story that is basically nothing like what we had on the handheld mainline titles. Pokemon always felt like this "place that could really exist in the real world but with fantastical creatures." Meanwhile Colosseum is JRPG AF. You're first location is a diner made out of an abandoned training the desert then you proceed to a pristine oasis city while you're dressed like a cyberpunk protagonist. Like yeah sure Orre Region is supposed to be based on Arizona, but I sure don't remember it ever looking like this the last time I visited. Then, there was something like Battalion Wars, which took the turn based strategy and sorta anime sorta western cartoony Advanced Wars and instead made an almost G.I. Joe-esque real-time strategy and third person shooter game. Some the GBA could definitely not handle. What about Double Dash? Mario Kart has basically never returned to the "two person, one kart" formula.

I know it probably sounds pretty mundane now that we live in a world with like the switch and sequels to these games, but you have to remember that at the time there really wasn't anything like it. Its probably why things like Wind Waker and Sunshine cause a bit of a love it or hate it divide. They were both a departure and yet so unique. In fact, with the switch now, we don't really get that identity distinction of handheld title vs console title anymore.

As much as the Switch is an absolute juggernaut of a seller with some incredible games. I can't very much say there has been anything really released on it that seems overtly strange or non traditional. Like, we aren't using bongos to play a Donkey Kong game with none of the country games. Switch is practically one of the most orthodox systems there is in terms of the type of franchise entries we got with Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild. And please note, that doesn't mean I'm saying these are bad or boring games, they're amazing. Its just that they certainly are what you'd expect out of these types of titles with some innovations.

The second big thing worth noting is also the amount of games that got people introduced to a particular Nintendo franchise of on this system. GameCube is one of those consoles that practically every franchise of Nintendo's got a new entry on. Fire Emblem Path of Radiance was the first Fire Emblem on home console outside of Japan. Along with Custom Robo. Games from the N64 like Wave Rave and 1080 got sequels. And it was the beginning of franchises that are now Nintendo staples like Pikmin and Animal Crossing (Yes I know Animal crossing is technically originally an N64 game and the gamecube is an enhanced version of that). And of course the big one that was Smash Bros Melee. While Smash 64 was by no means unsuccessful, it really is Melee that people think of when they thing of smash. Some of the most iconic stages come from here, it has one of the best opening sequences, and it expanded the roster of fighters that for some (for better or worse) people perceive as Nintendo royalty. Even going as far to make characters like Marth and Roy recognizable despite their games never being brought over.

That's also not including things like Star Fox and F-Zero which had things like story modes with full cutscenes and, in the case of Star Fox, actually taking them out of their vehicle and introducing people to the world who may just not be into that sort of vehicle only gameplay. And characters like Luigi and Wario who basically icons in their own rights, were pushed into staring roles in their own 3D games. And while I know I've focused on first and second party Nintendo games the most in this post, I do want to acknowledge that the GameCube's history third party saw Sega titles on a Nintendo platform for the first time like Sonic and Crazy Taxi. Or Metal Gear which had made its new home on Playstation had their own original entry on gamecube.

Lots of Nintendo discourse these days can be boiled down to a few key points, but biggest one of them all in my opinion is how Nintendo does make a new entry of *insert game here*. Now there are of course multiple factors for this, and the Switch does indeed have entries of some more obscure Nintendo IP, they are still sorta drowned out by this absence of certain franchises many perceive as inseparable to the brand. With many of those going MIA around the gamecube in terms of home releases.

Finally there's number three, the GameCube just had bizarre and new IP that never got a sequel. Like as much as it sounds like I'm looking at the GameCube with rose tinted glasses, its worth remembering that this was a low point for Nintendo in terms of profitability. This pushed them to do things unconviental in the first place. Like investing in a western studio to make Metroid Prime, but it also got them to work with others to make new IP. Chibi Robo was developed by skip and had practically the same Miyamoto-like charm of Mario and Pikmin. Nintendo also published two M-Rated games that they'd own, Eternal Darkness and Geist. Something that we really don't and probably will ever see.

Sure Nintendo has exclusivity to Bayonetta, but that's still mostly a Platinum thing and isn't their IP. And each console has basically introduced a new staple franchise like Wii giving us Xenoblade and the Wii U giving us Splatoon. Not to sound like I am poopooing the switch or anything, but when I think of big brand new Nintendo IP's that were released on Switch, the ones that the most notable is Arms, Snipper Clips, and Astral Chain. I understand now Nintendo is willing to let its IP to second parties so we could get something like Cadence of Hyrule or Fire Emblem Warriors, but we really haven't seen much new Nintendo IP in the seven years its been alive as opposed to the gamecube's. Not helped by the fact there's a bunch of these single entry gamecube IP still stuck on that system.

Stepping away from the software, I wanted to talk about the hardware next. Like I said at the beginning, this generation every system was roughly equal in graphical power. And while gamecube had its limits especially in terms of being able to play DVDs and its proprietary discs, you were more likely than not going to get an equal performance out of most third party games. As opposed to now where I'm pretty sure your Switch would try and fry itself it tried to play something like Elden Ring. Now Im not saying graphics are everything, Nintendo has basically made their thing good games with limited hardware and often avoid the hyper detailed immersion of Sony and Microsoft, but there was a time where you could confidently expect something third party to come to Nintendo and expect it to run as well as the others. Now if something third party comes to a Nintendo system with a version for Xbox and Playstation, its practically a dice role to see if it turns out like another Mortal Kombat 1. At this point in time I almost exclusively own two consoles of any generation, a playstation or xbox to play third party games as well as their own first party offerings, and a Nintendo for their first parties and maybe the occasionally indie title. For the most part if you only had a GameCube as a kid you were only really missing out on the competitions first parties.

And look, I think people's obsession with graphics is kinda nuts. Afterwhile, it doesn't really matter if your horse has realistic testicle physics. But its no secret that Switch being underpowered has limited the potential is games can run at. And while Im not saying it needs to compete with a PS5 in terms of power, having seven years of a system that's only really as strong as a PS3, I can see why people are very much clamoring for an upgrade.

Also on a more minor side, but this is something hardware related I do think there is a bit of a uniqueness in the controller. While the D-pad was stiff and the c stick not really utilized, outside of the wii, this has one of the most unique layouts for the face buttons. with the l and R triggers having a satisfying squeeze. when you hold them down. While the Wii blended motion controls with the nunchuck, its worth noting that it was made with someone more casual in mind. Made to play games by people usually not into games. I think we struck gold with the joy cons as a concept, which can be individual controllers are just combined for a standard controller layout and having the IR pointer built in, with the switch, but it is hard to forget what a gamecube controller feels like compared to its contemporaries. This is one I definitely chalk up to nostalgia.

But yeah, that's kinda what I thought overall. While the Switch is a great system with some stellar games, its pretty hard to deny why the GameCube is so memorable. Everything on it feels different from any other point in Nintendo history. There wasn't even a really unifying mechanic of the wii and its motion controls. Every entry feels like something familiar but also a different. I don't think we'll ever have a moment where Nintendo reinvents a franchise like with Metroid Prime. I don't think we'll ever see Nintendo release a hard M rated game with Eternal Darkness. And we might not even see new entries for some series like custom robo or chibi robo period. Now handheld franchises are basically blended together with the home console, so you'll almost always see mainline pokemon on the TV screen rather than a pokemon game made expressly for handheld and one made expressly home console. I truly is an era that if you grew up with it and even if you didn't, you'll probably never see one like it again, and man what a time was it to be a gamer.

A/N: Hi guys, Arkus here, just wanted to say thanks for reading. I know I usually don't do broad video game or console talk on this blog, but its been an idea rattling around in my head for a while that I wanted to talk about it. While I don't personally consider myself a die hard gamer, know I have other interests outside of gaming, its certainly been something I've been thinking more about since 2022. And I'd be open to doing more essay-like posts like this, after all, I said GameCube was one half of my first real home console experience. I got plenty to say about the OG Xbox as well. So if you liked it please like and have a good day.