Ooo, I remember this one. So many reviewers were surprised at how good it was. I mean, it was an RTS for the Game Boy Color. How good could it have been? Pretty good. There was going to be a sequel on the Game Boy Advance, but alas, not to be. The developer has long been defunct.

Oh, a mere 800? It will look good next to my... Ming vase.

To a schmuck wearing a leather jacket with one sleeve, armed with a shitty pistol, these guys seemed absolutely godlike in the first couple of games. Even the name sounded awesome. THE BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL. I guess it's why I keep falling for this faction lol. It's like Mr. House says in New Vegas when you object to destroying the Brotherhood.

"Don't tell me you've fallen for the stories of noble paladins on crusades...."

Oh, I have, House, I have.

Nice artwork, btw. The armors are so detailed.

They definitely put some innovation into the usual JRPG battle mechanics, although I think it wasn't until Covenant, the second Shadow Hearts game, that the series really began turning heads. After the third game, the series just... disappeared. I'm not even sure what company holds the rights anymore.

Supposedly, many of the original development team have regrouped under a new studio and are making a new game called Penny Blood, meant to be a sort of spiritual successor to Shadow Hearts.

You ever played Don't Starve? The single player iteration really gives off this feeling of isolation. Oftentimes, when it's dark outside and you don't really have a lot of resources to waste running around, you find yourself just watching the fire, listening to it crackle as an insect or a bird sounds off somewhere in the distance.

In the daytime, you can run and run all day long and it's just mile after mile of lonely wilderness.

It's an oddly relaxing game for me.

Sometimes, you don't want to.... but thou fucking must
-Dragon Quest

I figure reading from an optical drive becomes a chokepoint once a game has too many assets, or higher quality assets. It just becomes easier to dump it into a nice, fast SSD where it can be loaded into memory immediately without having to constantly seek data off the disc first.

Breath of the Wild did inspire a lot of developers, I'm sure, like.... Genshin Impact, I imagine. While it wasn't the first open world game ever, it was many folks' first real foray into the genre. I do believe Breath of the Wild was inspired by games Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in turn.

....how much time are you spending, playing video games?

Hmm... I'm always cautious about these comparisons because they can be misleading. Still, it does feel like they put down a little more of a story for the old games, even if it's just to fill up the manual.

The newer games almost become philosophical in terms of story, because they're so barebones. The princess is kidnapped by bowser, because that is their nature. Peach's nature is to be kidnapped, Bowser's nature is to do the kidnapping. It's no different than the rain falling or the wind blowing.

Not that these games have ever needed too much of a story, but as I grow older, I do appreciate the effort.

I have a New 3DSXL. For some reason, the form factor really made my hands cramp up if I played too long, despite never having the problem with the DS Lite. So, one of the first things I did was get a grip. Mine is the Cyber Gadget brand. There may be better ones now. Or not, I dunno, the 3DS is basically finished as a platform, right?

Anyway, the second part is trickier, and that's simply finding some method of playing. For me, I sort of rotate frequently from side to side, to back to belly, like every 20-30 minutes.