I try not to argue exact language much. I try to keep my approach to language as a descriptivist. Language evolves in terrible and funny ways. Metroidvania is an awful term, but it's a term with history I will use long before I use the term Search Action(a genre name that has the same appeal as calling hotdogs Intestined Scraps). Sure, some phrases like Backtracking are too misguided for me to tolerate, but Quality-of-Life isn't like that. So called QoL changes can mean a lot of of...

There was a narrow window for me and jRPGs(I know there is some argument over this term being used to other Japanese RPGs, but as a wRPG hater I only mean this as a term of endearment). From barely being able to parse Final Fantasy 1 by the end of the NES's life, to burning out on jRPGs on Xenogears. I tried to play Final Fantasy IX after that, but by that point I was burnt out and broken.

By the time, Final Fantasy 5 was available as a part of the PSX Final Fantasy Anthology(Trul...

I hate the term Backtracking.

I can't stop people for using it. I can't even blame them for using it. It's an insidious term, coined by my generation, in the early days of gaming. Because of its age, it's almost inescapable. With its age, it also carries a lot of baggage... Assumptions from an older time. These assumptions weren't ever correct, but they've grown increasingly more misguided as time has passed.

Backtracking is a term that's almost always said with contempt. Even when peop...

This is a question I've been asking a lot. Anyone who knows my writing knows I kinda hate most remasters, and am pretty hard on remakes. I don't expect everyone to have my values here. Nor should you. We all have different reasons to play games. We all enjoy different parts of them. I like history almost as much as the games themselves.

In discussion though, I'll see some reoccurring reasonings pop up, and I feel compelled to walking through some of them, especially after seeing some people...

Sylvie's games have become appointment playtime for me. Few games make me feel antsy to get to them these days. Fromsoft and Kojima games are some of the only games where I have at least some amount of urgency(if 'urgency' means 'I'll get to it in a year') to get to. Sylvie cuts in line. This isn't a fair comparison, as those other games cost money, and often more distressingly, time, but even all things being equal, I feel a drive to play her games on par with some of most exciting games I can think of.

I was so excited to see the release of Funeral Song for the Elemental Lords, that despite it coming out 6 minutes before our Monday Super Turbo stream, I was determined to play it. I rushed through me and CaliScrub's weekly FT10(okay it's like 2 FT5s with two different characters but like whatever, it's Ken and Ryu vs Gief), going 10-4(but it was close) in the hopes of playing the game sooner. Once we were done, I shrank down ST into the corner of the screen and got to work.