Final Fantasy Follow-Up

 OR:

When It Was Hip To Be With Square

I wrote my last entry about Square Enix’s legendary franchise before learning of the company’s most recent plan to sell FFVII-based NFT’s, a move that is quickly earning them a tumbling snowball's worth of backlash and criticism. It got me thinking about the history of the company, especially when the Playstation came on the market. This is by no means an exhaustive nor comprehensive history, merely a general impression from an outsider's perspective. During the 16-bit era, hey were known for publishing titles to the Super Nintendo, Final Fantasy III (technically VI, but that's another matter) being one of their most acclaimed releases. Squaresoft, as they were known back then, was leery of Nintendo’s insistence on cartridges over the CD-ROM format. On the other side of the great dividing wall between Nintendo and Sega, the Sega CD, despite not being financially successful, demonstrated how RPG’s and strategy games could benefit from the extra storage space, if only in the presentation department. Thus, their decision to abandon Camp Mario for the greener pastures of Sony’s gray underdog was made. 

Squaresoft went all in on Playstation’s promises of a bigger and better medium for their games, and I was there for it. I didn’t necessarily buy every single release, but I followed every announcement diligently. New games seemed to come out weekly. Not all printed money like Final Fantasy VII, but what hits they had were obviously more than enough to buoy their b-list brethren. It felt like the company was willing to take risks on more niche and obscure titles others would pass on, maintaining a faith the financials would work themselves out somehow. 

About halfway through the PS2’s life cycle, Square seemed to begin losing their way. The bubble birthed on the back of the PS1 hadn’t burst, but the surface tension was beginning to show signs of weakness. Focus was shifted to their major franchises like Final Fantasy while other established titles were allowed to languish by the wayside. The excitement of the new frontier was long gone, and they fell off my radar. I’d still keep an eye out for what was next for the Final Fantasy franchise albeit I’d stopped playing the games around the release of IX, last part of the great Playstation One Trilogy. Overall, though, I’d lost interest in RPG’s and started looking to other, more action-oriented genres. I often joked I had an abusive relationship with role-playing games, that I loved them dearly but had no time for them. Kingdom Hearts was probably my point of saturation. It was a good note to end the relationship on, an overall well-made game whose only real fault was an off-the-rails story that, as I've heard from even its most devoted fans, didn't get much more coherent in the sequels. 

I do genuinely love this image, albeit
I can't help but think they're up there looking for the lost plot. 

When it came to the PS3, I found myself practically ignoring Square Enix (as they came to be known then) beyond a passing fascination with Final Fantasy XIII and one of its spin-off games. After that, it was off the radar again. The next major piece of news that caught my attention was their acquisition of the Tomb Raider franchise, giving it a fresh, gritty reboot I met with almost complete indifference. Nier: Automata held my interest for a bit, but had much the same problem as Kingdom Hearts, with a gonzo story nobody seems to have a full and proper handle on. This was the time of the PS4. From what I can tell, the PS5 isn't going to see much from its old friend. Tomb Raider, along with a number of other IP's, has been completely sold off to a holding company in favor of some Crypto currency venture I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about. 

This is no longer a label that piques my curiosity nor captures my imagination. I don't recognize it from its heyday.

And this one just makes me sad. 

Calling them sell-outs is admittedly unfair. They're not so risk averse as to only bank on Final Fantasy and their merchandise which they're just as quick to advertise as any of their games. They have a wide range of titles currently on offer, and when I look upon Power Washer Simulator, part of me is assured they haven't changed as much as it may seem. Square-Enix has changed to be sure, but so have I, and maybe that's what I'm really sad about. 

What I really want to know at this point is, given the sale of their former Eidos properties, who owns the rights to Gex?

First World Regrets: Videogame Hoarding

Final Fantasy VII changed my life in the most first world of ways. I had been impressed by the Sega Saturn and even though it was proving to be one of the less successful consoles on the market, I was initially undeterred, setting a plan in motion. I made a list of games whose contents are sadly lost to time beyond maybe the first two or three titles. The mindset was that if the Saturn market collapsed shortly the moment I walked out of the game store with it, I would have been set for life, or at least one or two subsequent console generations. Instead of shelling out for the latest and greatest of games, I could stick to the tried and true. You can keep your Crash Bandicoot and Mario Kart; I'll still be living it up with Panzer Dragoon Saga and Enemy Zero. 

How viable this plan would have actually been in practice is debatable at best. Sticking exclusively to a given piece of hardware is a pretty good way to give yourself buyer's remorse. I think of the PS2/XBOX/GCN generation, how each of these very powerful consoles ended up sculpting unique markets unto themselves. If you loved Role-Playing or Strategy Games, PS2 was the way to go given Square Enix's success with the Final Fantasy series. If you loved First Person Shooters, then you went with XBox and got chummy with all the other Halo fans. If you were a lifelong Nintendo fan, you obviously went with Gamecube and its first party IP's including Mario and Pokemon. When I think back to the Saturn and the games I was going to tough out the next few years with, I think my gaming tastes and habits would have changed drastically. I certainly would have favored quality over quantity, instead of the serious problem I came to have when I got my PS2. 

The PS2 had a massive library of games, a catalog befitting its position as the biggest seller of its generation. Ironically, the majority of PS2's I remember selling people on while I worked at Target had more to do with the console's capabilities as a DVD player than a gaming console. Obviously, it was cheaper to buy a standalone player, but offering the PS2 as a complete package seemed like a no-brainer for gamers and families alike. The XBox could play DVD's as well, but it required the purchase of a separate remote control to the tune of about 30USD. Adding to the irony, that's only a little more expensive than a PS2 memory card, while the XBox had a built-in hard drive for game saves. By comparison, the Gamecube basically sold itself since fans of Nintendo properties such as Metroid and Legend of Zelda didn't care about DVD's or any other multimedia capabilities. 

I went with the PS2 because I had the PS1. I went with the PS1 over the Saturn because I saw a commercial for Final Fantasy VII. I became obsessed with all things Playstation (apart from the occasional outings with the N64). I didn't simply love the Playstation. I loved Sony itself. I researched the company for an economics class and that leaned heavily on the potential of the PS2 becoming not only a games console and home media player, but also a small desktop PC thanks to its promised add-on of a hard drive. That would never technically come to pass; the Linux Kit was never meant to offer up a desktop experience on the level of a PC or Mac, and the hard drive would find more use with online games like Final Fantasy XI anyway. Nonetheless, and just like with the Saturn, I was undeterred. I held on to my PS2 for years, and  there was no favoring quality over quantity. At my worst, I owned something like 200 games. My justification was that I had relatively obscure taste and it wasn't always possible to rent certain titles. Moreover, a lot of the games I wanted had been on the market for some time, their prices typically dropping by half before I became aware of them. I very rarely paid full price for games, but also rarely bought used. In fact, the only used PS2 game I remember buying was Gran Turismo 3, purely because it was literally cheaper than renting it. 

Youtuber Caddicarus made a video detailing his unpopular gaming opinions, including such notable takes as, "ET for the 2600 is not the worst game ever made," and "mobile gaming is pretty cool actually." The one that struck a chord with me was his unexpected admission that the Gamecube was better than the PS2. Seemed like blasphemy given he's known on the internet as a Playstation fanboy to the Nth degree. I've only played the Gamecube within the last few years thanks to my roommate having one, checking out games that I missed because I was in camp Playstation. While the Gamecube had a smaller library than the PS2, it seemed like I had to go further and further out of my way to find something especially bad. That's true of any console, but with the PS2, it attracted shovelware in a way that would only be surpassed by the Nintendo Wii. Actually, the reason I was so hesitant to get a Gamecube back in the day was precisely because of its emphasis on quality over quantity. That is, I knew the Gamecube had really good games on it, but it was the fact that everyone was playing them all at once that kept me away. Everyone was playing Mario Kart. Everyone was playing Metroid Prime. Meanwhile, I don't know many people who were playing Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior or Stretch Panic or Kagero II: Dark Illusion on PS2. I generally stayed away from mainstream titles except maybe for some RPG's. Square Enix had left PS2 owners spoiled for choice, to say nothing of other publishers who recognized the console as the place to be for fans of the genre. 

Much like my Saturn plan, I banked on a number of RPG's for PS2 because I had it in my head that someday I'd have nothing but time on my hands and would need something that could fill that void. RPG's generally take a lot of time, what with being more story-driven and all, so it was the perfect solution to this problem I was convinced was coming sooner rather than later. Had the pandemic happened about 15-20 years earlier and I had a non-essential job to leave me waiting at home, I would have been fully prepared, if only in staving off boredom. 

I've now sold off the majority of my PS2 games (hence the eBay photos I dug up, which aren't all of them). There's maybe a few stragglers I didn't get around to, but they're not taking up an entire foot locker and then some like they once had. The same goes for my Sega Dreamcast, which also had a substantial library at the time. The only games whose prices dropped lower and faster than PS2's were the Dreamcast's, and I was all in. In a way, I did with the Dreamcast what I'd wanted to do with the Saturn. The console wasn't performing well, so it was best to get it while the getting was good. 

My PS3/PS4 collection is substantial, though that's thanks mostly to Sony's Jelly of the Month Club, Playstation Plus. For the price of about a game per year, I can download a game or two a month. They're typically smaller, independent games or older titles past their prime. I allowed my membership to lapse back in January, which left over half the collection inaccessible. It didn't bother me as I was getting more out of my PS4 as a streaming device than a games console. I turned the service back on this month to start playing through some games I meant to finish.  

11 years, 12 months per year, 2-3 games per month...

I guess I never learn. It only makes me sad that you can't really sell digital versions of games. With my old games I can trust that they've all gone to good homes, to gamers like myself who can appreciate and enjoy them as much as I should have. Nowadays, my rule is that I don't buy a new game unless I've beaten one. That's the compromise I made with myself a few years into owning my PS3, and I've mostly stuck to it ever since.

Patent-ial Turnarounds

In August of this year, Gamevice brought suit against Nintendo for the Switch console, alleging it infringes on their patent for the Wikipad, an Android-based gaming tablet released in 2013. Although the suit was brought to light in August, it's possible Gamevice began filing suits earlier, as the Switch was released in March 2017 with marketing beginning several months before. 

Patent suits are nothing new in the tech world, certainly not in the gaming industry, and definitely not Nintendo's first rodeo on this front. What makes this suit different, or at least what seems to be getting it more attention than other suits is Gamevice's exact demands as far as restitution. Not only is the company seeking damages, but moving to have sales of the Switch halted altogether. Similar suits have led to the Classic Controller being discontinued and at least two other suits have sought to halt Wii sales in the United States. Nintendo was able to defend itself against some of these suits while settling with others. 

After customer complaints of Nintendo underselling its NES Classic mini-console, its fluctuating Amiibo line, and similar grumblings of Switch console availability, it simply seems Nintendo fans can't catch a break when it comes to putting Nintendo hardware on their shelves. Overall it seems unlikely Gamevice will get its way and have the Switch stopped dead in its tracks, that part of their case most likely being a bargaining chip of sorts, something they can give up later as a gesture of good faith towards a more reasonable settlement (a bluff). 

As of this writing, there's no real word on how much of a bluff said bluff actually is. For the sake of putting to rest any possible fears people may have of not being able to get a Switch, I'd like to offer a glimpse into a possible future, based on nothing more than informed speculation. Here's the informed part: 

Let's face some cold hard facts about the Nintendo 3DS... the 3D gimmick was awful. It's practically Virtual Boy levels of awful. I know some people never had an issue with the 3D, but I did, and I know I'm not alone. I couldn't look at that thing for more than 30 seconds before my brain desperately tried to make a break for it through my nose. Between that and my Playstation Vita, I had little to no interest in what Nintendo's clamshell had to offer (also I'm not a big fan of the clamshell design). I did eventually get a DSi XL secondhand mostly for the sake of playing a handful of games I was interested in that weren't for the 3DS. I did, however, get a 2DS for my roommate. Apart from the screen being kinda small compared to the various XL models of DSi and 3DS, it pretty much fixed every issue I had with the 3DS. I think it was a good move on Nintendo's part to offer more options to their customers. It's easy to fall into the old Sega trap of too much hardware, but on the other end of the spectrum, I think Nintendo is more often than not far too stingy with hardware. Their so-called Wii "mini" was almost an insulting joke of a console, ironically being slightly bigger on some dimensions than the Wii proper, and with overall fewer capabilities like a lack of an SD card slot (so no WiiWare or Virtual Console games). 
More recently, Nintendo has made a 2DS XL, finally giving the bigger screen the previous lacked, though going back to the clamshell design of the past. At this point, I'm okay with that. The price the 3D brought with it, along with the Amiibo feature that was equally uninteresting to me, were my biggest gripes against getting a 3DS. 

It turns out there's actually a reason for this new handheld's existence, and it has to do with a patent lawsuit. 

A Sony employee brought suit against Nintendo for a patent infringement involving a "glasses free" 3D effect for displays. The suit was settled out of court and while Nintendo does still produce the 3DS XL, the 2DS and new 2DS XL don't violate the original agreement. It's funny to imagine the various higher-ups at Nintendo looking over all the legal paperwork from Sony over the 3D, looking up at each other, one saying, "You know, the 3D really is kinda dumb." with another adding, "Why don't we just make a DS that doesn't do 3D?" and everyone nodding in uncontested agreement before going off to lunch. 

Now comes the speculation. I don't have a Switch, and I haven't talked to many people who do. Earlier, I honestly praised Nintendo for turning their next-gen console, their Wii-U successor, into a handheld. It's frankly genius to leave the console market behind and instead double-down on handhelds, which have always been Nintendo's more lucrative endeavors, going all the way back to the Game & Watch. If the Gamevice suit is really over the detachable controllers, would it really hurt Nintendo to just pull a 2DS move? Are any Switch owners out there playing their games and thinking, "Man, this wouldn't be worth it if I didn't have these tiny little sticks of controllers I could slide off!"? After all, if the side controllers are too small or uncomfortable, more traditional controllers can be linked to it for multiplayer. 
Imagine a Switch that keeps the dual analog sticks and buttons exactly where they are, but doesn't let you detach them. Suppose multiplayer were only minutely inconvenienced by requiring additional controllers or (in rare cases) another system to play through a link like every handheld before then can do. I mean, I'm no product designer and I certainly have no concept of what goes into developing a handheld, but how much R&D could truly go into effectively making a souped up original 2DS? One slab, buttons on the side, all framing a big, beautiful screen. It would basically be a Vita done right (and I'm saying that as someone who likes the Vita wholeheartedly). 

This is where I'd have an image of some hastily-rendered mockup made in TinkerCAD or SketchUp or Blender or something, but as I said, I'm not a product designer, and I'd rather open it up to see what others might come up with given these criteria. Remember, Gamevice's beef isn't with having buttons on the side of a screen; Nintendo's Game & Watch beat their Wikipad to that decades ago. All we need is a system with all the Switch's insides, but with an interface that doesn't have detachable controllers. 

Before writing this, I'd tossed around the idea of Nintendo making an entirely new console, but making it backwards compatible with Switch games. The more I thought about it, the less likely Nintendo would go that route. I simply hope they don't outright abandon the Switch the way they abandoned the Wii-U so hastily. 

Of course, my ideal Nintendo would be one that foregoes hardware in favor of simply working with the platforms that are available. Hardware is ultimately a failure mechanism for games, as Moore's Law puts developers and publishers in a position of making the most of what's available to them while preparing for the future. As much as I don't like the idea of endless ports, re-releases, and remakes overshadowing new and original IPs, I absolutely hate the idea of a game being bound to hardware that's likely going to fall apart with time regardless of how meticulously I maintain it. I do not care how I get my games anymore. As long as developers are getting paid for their work and are able to carry on making more games, I do not care about the means of conveyance for their properties. 

Goodnight, and game on. 

Bye U Billy O

Waltzed into a Gamestop today and finally got a straight answer about the status of the WiiU. After noticing it disappear from shelf stores, seeing a few conflicting statements of questionable credibility (redistributing stock, ceasing production in Japan...), and seeing a few WiiU games on my Amazon Wishlist skyrocket into scalp/flip/gouge territory, the console is dead. Breath of the Wild will be the last game released for it, and that's coming about a week or two after the Switch edition. I'd held out this hope that the reason for the discontinuing was for the sake of a redesign. This whole "Pibb Xtra" sort of switcheroo is nothing new to the likes of Sony, given the sheer number of redesigns for the original Playstation, to say nothing of dos and san. It's not even anything new to Nintendo, albeit their Wii-Mini was a disappointment on a colossal scale... and jury's still kind of out on the GameBoy Micro. Sadly, the math is against the world's oldest Hanafuda-maker; with the sole exception of the Wii, every console since the original NES has sold worse than the last. 
The SNES took blood out of Mortal Kombat. 
The N64 stuck with cartridges. 
The Gamecube was Johnny-Come-Lately after the PS2 and XBox. 
The Wii won... by the law of averages at best and a fluke at worst (*cough*shovelware*cough*). 

None of these points was at all the notorious blue shell that crashed Nintendo's kart, except that they do speak to a handful of overarching problems with how Nintendo conducts itself. 
The Mortal Kombat Kon--Controversy plus Sega's aggressive infantalizing campaign against Nintendo didn't help them shed their image as the Disney of games, closing out an older audience with bigger wallets. Madden football may have played a big part as well, but let's stick to bullet points. 
The cartridges in the 64 further showed that Nintendo really was not the fit-in/play-nice type with 3rd party developers, especially Squaresoft (who took their franchises and legions of fans over to camp Sony). 
The GameCube appeared at first to carry on the "our way or no way" philosophy of the 64 with its quirky "not quite mini-disc" format while its competition offered CD and DVD players. 

The WiiU's failure... is somewhat hazy right now. Some say the marketing made it sound like a peripheral (wouldn't that have generated MORE interest, though?), others say the marketing fell back on bad habits and forgot how old their core audience had become, and still more point to the one-two punch of a novel interface with barely-there third-party support (small library, fewer readers). My own idea is simply that they could have waited; Sony proved with the overlap between each generation of Playstation that the five-year cycle is a joke, barely an observation and certainly not a law. Hardware is not even half the equation when it comes to consoles; people will come for the specs, but stay for the games. 

Going back to the Gamecube, for as shameless a Sony fanboy as I am, for as invested as I became in all it came to offer me and deliver upon, I stand with Caddicarus (an even more shameless fanboy than me) when I say that if I had to pick between the two, I would legitimately take the GameCube over the PS2 any day of the week. It's a great console with superior hardware (Metroid Prime still looks better than Halo 2), a surprisingly liberal third-party policy (SEGA, anyone?), and a games library which ultimately favored quality over quantity. Like the WiiU, I think their problem with it was itchy feet. Metroid Prime 2 and Twilight Princess alone showed what untapped potential there was in that off-the-shelf Radeon card; there's no reason they couldn't have buoyed themselves on their handhelds while letting the Cube find a stronger, more loyal audience. Hell, when I was looking into springing for a U, my wishlist only had two items on it, both HD upgrades of perfectly adept Zelda games I already had for my perfectly viable Gamecube. I guess all I truly wanted was a backup with benefits, a silver medal with no strings attac--okay, I'm not doing myself any favors here.  

As for the Switch, I genuinely just now caught a glimpse of the new Bomberman title for it while writing this, and I am now officially excited. I'm no longer worried Nintendo may be jumping the gun and not giving the U the chance the Gamecube never had. I don't think I'll be going the early adoption route, but I don't see why there won't soon be a Switch happily docked next to my TV. 

Double Down on DS

NOTE: This op-ed is based on very loose hearsay, speculation, and partial evidence. The very nature of the Nintendo NX is subject to change between the time of this writing and its eventual release. 

The console market is in a place of uncertainty for the first time since the early 1980s. Sure, the uncertainty principle has followed consoles from day one, but if we look at the facts, the years have seen a dwindling number of advantages consoles have held for consumers over PCs in the last fifteen years. The Dreamcast introduced a built-in modem in 1999, whereas previous attempts at internet support have been aftermarket accessories like the Satellaview or the Sega Channel. Despite this, the idea of distributing games over data lines was years away from viability, with the 64DD, PS2 Hard Drive, and Phantom Console's graves as trail markers. Now, hard drives and internet connections are standard, along with digital storefronts and infrastructure for downloads and even streaming. Put simply, the line between consoles and PCs has been completely blurred, the only true differences having more to do with politics than hardware. PCs are still fundamentally the wild west while consoles are gated communities. Literally anyone can develop a PC game, and even get it released through a proper online store like Steam or Humble Bundle. Console developers have to offer their firstborn just to be put on a waiting list for a development kit. Granted, that line is blurring, but there's very little point in waiting for the treaty to be signed if the arms race is already over by way of stalemate. 

Between Miitomo and the runaway hit Pokemon GO, Nintendo has shown they're not above going to third parties for hardware, the taste of Philips out of their mouth at long last. Still, what we've always loved about Nintendo is how they go their own way, for better or for worse. Though they may have tread lightly in bringing the NES to America, compromises have been few and far between, much to the chagrin of developers, publishers, and even gamers. The Super Nintendo sold well enough, but if not for the Mortal Kombat blood controversy and Sega looking the other way to EA bypassing normal publishing channels to bring Madden to the Genesis, the SNES could have buried the competition as the NES had done to the likes of the Master System and Atari 7800. The N64's use of cartridges (in)famously drove away powerhouses like Square to Sony's bed, alienating those RPG fans who had cut their teeth on the SNES. Again, it sold well enough, but we have to ask what could have been. Similarly, the GameCube was a reasonable success, but now stands as Nintendo's second worst-selling home console, after the Wii U (we won't count the 1973 Color TV-Game since it's a Pong console), owed again to a proprietary format and a reluctance to play ball with third parties. 

Meanwhile, in the portable and handheld market, Nintendo's only true blunder to this day is the Virtual Boy. Otherwise, even the weakest link in the Game Boy/GBA/DS chain has been a license to print money. It's almost hilarious how people would forgive serious flaws like a blurry, spinach-green display on the original or a dim-as-moonless-midnight screen on the Advance and still send the things flying off the shelf. It took Sony pouring buckets of money and marketing into the PSP to even make a dent in that wall (Rest In Peace, Neo Geo Pocket Color). It finally took the iPhone to make Nintendo sit up and notice they weren't alone in their dominance of the handheld market. As much as I laughed at the prospect of iPhone/Android games and still hesitate to call it a serious platform, just like consoles, the line is blurring and it's all getting better. I still love my Vita, and I still have my original PSP, and if I could only have one, I'd take either of those over the best iPhone or iPad any day. The problem, the final hurdle for mobile phones and tablets to overcome, is the interface. Touch controls and gyroscopes do not give the same satisfying, tactile feedback as buttons or even knobs. Nintendo seems to understand this. That's why I think they're making a legitimately smart move in presenting the NX as a souped-up gaming tablet, following patterns laid down by the likes of the NVidia Shield or the Wikipad or some of Sony's Xperia devices. Some may be scratching their heads, but I think this move is the best decision they've made in years. They're still going their own way as they always have, it's just down a trail they blazed years ago. 

It's a Cereal!

I remember reading the first chapter of this comic in Nintendo Power back in the day. They'd more or less retired Howard & Nester, not to mention by this time I was firmly in Camp SEGA, so Mario & pals were essentially non-factors in my growth as a gamer by then. So, I didn't even know there was so much past that first chapter (thinking that this was simply a teaser for the game, much like a Sonic the Hedgehog comic/ad wedged into an issue of Disney Adventures was), let alone that it would actually be so entertaining and well-made. 

Even if I wasn't really into Nintendo then, I still appreciated the sense of raw, kinetic energy in the comic. I've tried in some of my own work to convey that same sense of, "FEEL THE URGENCY! GRAVITAS! DRAMA!" albeit to little if no avail, though I shall keep trying. 

The Nintendo AxeBlade Tablet

You could say I have something of a love/hate relationship with Nintendo. I grew up with the original NES. We had a 2600 before, but I remember having both and generally favored the NES. Eventually, I grew tired of what Nintendo had to offer and moved over to the Genesis. After a prolonged love affair with that system, followed by a brief spell of PC gaming, Nintendo came back into my life as the 64. I didn't technically have one, my brother did, and between us we bought a few games for it. I'd say I enjoyed it, but part of me was honestly still looking at the Sega Saturn, albeit it was definitely on the way out. I'd made up a list of about five or ten games, thinking, "If I get a Saturn, and the system fails, I'll still have ten good games for it and be content with those until the next console." Not a bad plan, though I say so myself, but it fell completely out the window when I saw a commercial for Final Fantasy VII. I became obsessed and finally got a Playstation for Christmas, circa 1997, that loyalty more or less remaining to this day.
I'm generalizing here, leaving out a lot of details like my Dreamcast, SNES, various Gameboys, even an N-Gage, but the basic point to take away is that I became a shameless Sony fanboy in high school and never looked back. The DS held very little interest for me outside of a few games, but not enough to warrant a purchase (I was quite happy with my PSP). The thing is, virtually all my friends are big DS users, and I do feel left out sometimes, not to mention seeing more and more games that do admittedly pique my interest a tad like Crimson Shroud. Still, it was never really enough to make me start seriously planning. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I've been warming up to the PS Vita, even though I could go on for hours about everything I hate about it (despite that shameless fanboy title I mentioned). Now that the 2DS has been announced and revealed, I've been given pause for thought on which handheld to spring for. 
So, as someone who does not have a 3DS, which should already tell you this console is not for you and therefore its existence shoud hardly offend, here's why I'm genuinely interested in the 2DS. In fact, I have appropriately two main reasons: 
(.) No 3D. I cannot use the 3D effect on the 3DS at all. I've tried at least twice on a store demo, and after not even ten seconds my brain feels like it's trying to make a break for it through my nose. Most people don't have a problem with the 3D, I'm not one of them. Of course, this is where most people say, "Well, you don't have to use the effect, you can turn the 3D down." No kidding, I'm well aware of how a slider works. My issue is why in the world would I pay for a feature I'm not going to use? Yes, it's not simply a feature upgrade. The 3DS is a whole new system that's far more powerful than previous versions. That's not my problem. My problem is there's three versions of the original DS, and only about a year it seems after the 3DS came out, the 3DS XL was released. I'm not one of these guys that has to have the latest version of every console, but when you're releasing more hardware than Sega in their heyday, you're doing something wrong. It does not inspire confidence. In a way, I sort of knew there would be another version of the 3DS, possibly one that would do away with the 3D or cost less so I wouldn't feel like I was paying for a feature I didn't want. 
(..) I like the design. It has no moving parts, no big hinge in the middle. As cool as I always thought the idea of holding the DS sideways like a book is, the idea of opening and closing anything like a clamshell puts this lingering weariness in my head. When I worked in customer service for a cell carrier, long before the iPhone came out, the most popular phone we had was the Motorola Razr, which is what's called a flip phone. I wish I had a nickel for every time I got a tech support call from a customer whose screen went out because the wires connecting the screen to the main body got pinched. Couple that with the simple fact that hinges wear down anyway, and I've never gotten behind the design of any phone outside the classic "candy bar" style, which is more or less what most smartphone are now. 
Frankly, I wonder if game companies don't do enough market research and testing of their handhelds before they release them, hence minor upgrades and redesigns year after year. I always felt a little resentful at the updates to the PSP, even hating the Go version. I know early adoption is a big factor in a lot of consumer electronics gaining footholds in their various markets, but I'd rather they iron out the major bugs like size, shape, and weight before they get it out to me. Now that I've seen Vita memory cards in clearance bins, I'm  wondering if Sony has similar plans for the Vita, possibly a redesign that fixes all my complaints about the current version, like no memory stick support. I think that's unlikely, but even if a redesign is on the horizon, I'd probably be every bit a happy with a price drop in the current version. As for the 2DS, everyone is mocking it and laughing at it, pointing out all the design choices with it, while I'm thinking, "Finally." I do worry that with all this mockery that these haters will take out their whiny, first-world frustrations on the people who choose this system (or receive it as a gift). As someone who grew up during the great Nintendo/Sega rivalry that was the 16-bit era, I can tell you that system-shaming hurts everyone and it takes away the most important aspect of being a gamer: Playing games that you enjoy. 
Good night, and good luck. 

Das Pokemans

Deadmau5 said this about dubstep, and it almost perfectly mirrors how I feel about Pokemon. To give a little background, I was entering college when Red & Blue came on the scene. All my friends were into it. I'd seen the show and the movies, which I liked, albeit I prefer Digimon as far as the shows go. One of my favorite mangas is the Pokemon one by Toshihiro Ono, which I think is one of the best renderings of the world outside the games proper. As far as those go, my experience begins and ends with Blue (more on that in a moment). The only other Pokemon games I've bothered with have been Snap, Pinball, and Puzzle League, all ancillary titles. Here's basically how I feel: 

I don't hate it for the concept. That's all fine and dandy. It's a very well-crafted world with a solid premise absolutely bursting with appeal. The movies and the manga flesh it out nicely and really help with the immersion, between the colorful characters and surprisingly rich lore to what's in essence a very simple RPG. 

I don't hate it for the fans. I actually love it for the fans. At the risk of sounding like a total parent (which I'm  not in the slightest) or some kind of chaperon, Pokefans are the most well-behaved and friendliest fandom I've ever come across. If there's any sort of elitism or snobbery, I've never run afoul of it. Even Whovians have that massive quasi-generation gap between people who've loved it since the classic series (or that middling, limbo phase between 1989 and 2005 thanks to videos, books, and TV specials) and those who came following the revival. I guess it all goes back to that appeal I mentioned before; there's something for everyone to like and love liking. Sure, some of the memes and parodies are a tad annoying, and some people who play the card game can be a bit manic, but they're raindrops in the ocean. I can let them go. I wish Portal fans could be more like Pokefans. I wish Bronies were more like Pokefans. Even D&D nerds could learn a thing or three from Pokefans. 

I simply dislike the core gameplay mechanic. I think I've briefly mentioned this elsewhere, so I apologize if I repeat myself. Somehow, the very idea of collecting monsters to fight for you strikes me as an incredibly lazy piece of game design. I know that sounds completely ridiculous and I freely admit it. I fully deserve to be raked over the coals for painting the games with such broad strokes. I'm not pretending to have any sort of expertise on game design or RPG development, that's simply the best reason I can think up to account for my boredom. That's what it boils down to for me. After hours of playing through Blue, getting a few badges and exploring some towns, all I could think was, "I am not having fun." and instead turned to more involving adventures like Final Fantasy, Star Ocean, Monster Hunter, Samurai Warriors, and XCOM. I'm not saying the Pokefans who enjoy the core series of games are stupid or juvenile or lack skill or have bad taste. That is not the case at all. It is simply not my cup of tea. I suppose you could say that after all the buildup between that awesome world and those enthusiastic fans, the games just didn't hold up. They have an attachment to those games that I can understand and relate to, but cannot share. 

While I have promised a very good friend that I will give one of the latter day entries like Diamond/Pearl or Black/White a chance to see if I may feel different with those tweaks and mild alterations, I feel comfortable saying it's not likely. On the whole, the only Pokemon game that I'm genuinely interested in is the Mystery Dungeon series because they're roguelikes, arguably the most commercially successful ones ever made, and that's a genre that I find wildly fascinating. 
There is also the issue (which partly led to that conversation) of not having any Nintendo hardware that can play any of those games, though I'd been weighing the pros and cons of springing for a 3DS. 
What we settled on is to try and go down the dark and twisted path of emulation, specifically the GBA because that's the era of Pokemon games I'm most likely to get into. I also intend to abide by the "code of emulation ethics" and get a physical copy of the games to have. They're easy to find and some places practically give them away (and down the line I may luck out on a Micro or SP or Player for my Gamecube). After shopping around, in addition to Mystery Dungeon Fire Red, I'll pick up a Sapphire cartridge. Why Sapphire? Well, it's a translucent blue cartridge named for my birthstone, why wouldn't I settle on that one? Makes a dandy keepsake.