Of all the surreal and confusing things about Expedition 33, the one that keeps me awake at night is how no-one can do basic math about the Gommage (a.k.a. Compulsory Carousel Age) mechanic.

Look, guys, the holiday Coca Cola commercial might be super rushed AI slop this year but it was vitally important they got it on screens before November 3rd, the first day of Christmas, so what other choice did they have? They're just a tiny company, after all.

Liking Expedition 33 so far but the whole time I was thinking "old French RPGs used to be way weirder and more obtuse than this, it's not really honoring its antecedents". But then I got hit with whatever this is and all was forgiven:

I'm a big fan of City Hunter because it's in my favorite genre, Saebapunk.

New monthly update has landed and I perhaps overdid it this time with the word count. Talking points include: formative frights, puppet parries, aristo assaulting anime, spooky Sega, intriguing Indies, sketchy sudoku, and a really cool Picross 3D variant. Check it: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Follow @wario64.bsky.social and repost for a chance to win 1 of 5 Steam codes for Once Upon a Katamari courtesy of @gamesplanet.bsky.social. Giveaway closes on Oct 27th, 6:30 PM PT Game is $32.97 on Gamesplanet w/ code KATAMARI buff.ly/j4qOsMG

On the one hand, YouTube updating their video UI so it covers a quarter of the screen for some reason is kinda bad, but at least it's an update that doesn't explicitly involve vindictively screwing with people that use adblockers.

One month before my plan to spend a bunch of Bing points on Game Pass to play some of the year's biggest games before GOTY season, and they just go ahead and discontinue that offer while hiking up the price. Classy.

September update is in the bag. Discussion topics this time: three whole exploraction games since I have no self control, prototype picross, a deluge of SNESsy goodSNESs, crimesolving ducks, space turtles, and the summer's best anime (that I felt like watching): www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Just finished a month-long series looking at some of the more off-beat offerings in the vast SNES library. For October: maybe some games released this century? www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment... www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment... www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment... www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Shigeru Miyamoto in a 1991 interview, probably: "When creating Super Mario World it was important to us that we balanced fun, challenge, and imagination. Something new and exciting in every level." Every SMW hack level designer, kaizo or otherwise: "yo how many chargin chucks can i fit into this"

While I do think the response to Sunshine's relatively tepid reviews (like 8.9s instead of 9s) should've been "let's spend three more months on the next one to fix all the darn bugs" and not "let's just go fully stage-based again but with 3D," Galaxy's still kinda unimpeachable.

Either a whole bunch of people on my timeline are watching the end of Star Trek: Generations for the first time or they're talking about a different Kirk getting merked.

New monthly rundown for August! For this sibilant summation we scrutinized: Slayers, Shinobi (not the new one), space subterfuge, seasonal anime, Saturn jigsaws, Scrooge, and... Selda: Ocarina of Time. Dang. Almost had it. www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

With this piece where I finally watch Slayers, the fourth season of Game OVA comes to an end. It's been a great deal of fun this summer so I hope folks check in to see what the '90s anime-to-video-game adaptation circuit was like (not as bleak as you'd expect?). www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Does TikTok/YouTube Shorts have like a dropdown menu of generic music tracks to put over your clip the same way Twitch has its default emotes? I hear the same half-dozen in almost every video and they all sound like weird royalty-free things.

Guys, I'm worried they'll make my OS defunct soon. At this rate I'll have to jailbreak on through to the other side.

New monthly update! We have Master System tie-ins, strange N64 hacks, summer anime debuts, Mystic Quest apologia, a bunch of sci-fi Indies, and that one Pinocchio game people seem to like: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

16 of those pages cover the cutscenes, the other 600 are for all the "What was that? ...Just the wind" stealth sequence ambient dialogue. That, and notes in the margin by Druckmann saying "this wind line is powerful because it metaphorically intimates how ephemeral human lives are in this world".

Couldn't pick a favorite for #randomgametuesday so here's a few of them:

Playing some totally normal Super Mario 64.

Just booted up Axiom Verge 2 and the achievement set requires you complete the game at least five times. Sigh. Why can't devs figure this shit out? We've had these things almost 20 years now.

The 7th greatest N64 game deserved better than this. (For context: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...)

I also have a Considerable Unease of Missing Out with regards to becoming mayor of NYC.

Just completed a nightmarish single-life Super Mario World run for the achievement only for the RA site to go down moments before it could register it. C'est la une vie.

I feel like this has to end with the more racist one pulling a C&C Tim Curry and deciding there's only one place to go that's untouched by Trumpism, and that's space. And then his SpaceX rocket explodes on the launch pad. Or doesn't. Whichever one doesn't get me moderated.

The Switch 2 is the least interested I've been in a system debut in quite some time but I admit that seeing everyone thrilled about getting theirs (and only a little amused by those that were scorned by the big N) has been heartwarming. The air definitely feels different around a new console launch.

I wonder if I'll outlive everyone who puts two spaces after every sentence when posting online. I figure they all have to be at least ten years older than me.

New month, new Mento's Month. This one should only take a few hours to read in full, maybe. Topics: Fan translations, indies, ape achievements, sadistic SMS games, anime originals, and expressing the hope I'll get to keep doing all this in this particular place. www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Possibly jumping the gun as the recent Giant Bomb changeover has put the main site's survival in jeopardy but I uploaded two new blogs over the weekend: An IGotW on the "Morrowindie" Dread Delusion: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment... A review of the 2nd SFC Goemon: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Been real busy today and just hit 2,000,000 total words archived from my Giant Bomb blogs, did I miss anything?

According to a GDoc I use to track this stuff, on Giant Bomb I reviewed just shy of 900 Indie games. "Review" in this case could mean anywhere between a 100 word blurb or a 3,000 word deep dive. Trying to figure out how many of those I feel like preserving (and where and how, more pertinently).

I take it from the choice of a Chicagoan Pope that the cardinals were looking for someone a bit deeper than Pizzaballa.

A week on and I'm still feeling a certain way about the collapse of Giant Bomb. Hearing Gerstmann and the Nextlander crew talk about how often precarious the future of that place was has me thinking that I was perhaps a tad naive to create that massive bank of blogs/reviews without a backup in mind.

Anyone know any good blogging sites?

My gratitude to all who worked at Giant Bomb and made it such an appealing home for gabbin' about games. Not just the charmingly garrulous on-camera/on-mic crew but all the behind-the-scenes designers and engineers also. Doubt I'll ever see a site geared so much towards community creativity again.

A new Mento's Month draws near! During this tumultuous time, relax with some yappin about Mario Sunshine mods, Master System tapes, Spring '25 anime impressions, and reminders that 2017 kicked ass for gaming as long as you ignore everything else that was happening. www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

With the high prices on software and hardware, plus PvP Not-Bloodborne, I can't say I'm all that attached to the Switch 2 right now. As I've thought several times before, I'm glad I bit the bullet and bought a half-decent PC. Between it and my PS4 backlog I think I can hunker down for quite a while.

Another svelte monthly wrap-up blog by yours truly coming y'all's way. Duck and cover. We're gushing about two Ys games, Super Mario Eclipse, Might and Magic VI, Solo Leveling Season 2, Minishoot' Adventures, Master of Darkness, and all manner of other junk. www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Ugh, fed up by the way smartphones have wormed their way into everything, including authentication processes. They are not vital. They've never been vital. But now they're artificially being made vital in ways that are completely unwarranted. All so phone companies can make cash hand over fist.

New Mento's Month for February went up before the weekend. Some early musings on Ys X (more thorough review next month), Mario Sunshinanigans, another trio of the best the Master System had to offer, and some trash anime recs. Also I beat Pictlogica finally! Sorta! www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

I replied to someone on here with what I thought was a helpful comment that I now realize delivered a super obvious piece of information they almost certainly didn't need clarification on. Finally, for the first time I feel like a Bluesky user.

First new Mento's Month round-up of the year, measuring in at a svelte 7,000 words (just skim-read it if you gotta, I won't mind). Be sure to check out the new Master System feature; it promises to be a good one for schadenfreude fans. www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

I'm used to introverts, being one myself, but none are more so than the Xbox PC Launcher. Today, it once again managed to unpin itself from the toolbar, delete its desktop shortcut, and vanish somewhere in my HDD because I guess it was having one of those days where it wanted to be alone.

Casually checking my Xbox PC app and noticed I got all the Symphony of the Night achievements back in 2008. "Huh, that's 17 years ago now," I thought as I turned to dust and blew away on the wind.

End of the Month/Year blog is up on GB: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment... It covers my 2024 GOTY so far, the best games I played of this year that were not of this year, baseless prognostications, and the usual overabundance of dang ol' anime talk. See you in the New Year for even more yappin'.

By the by, I contributed to the Giant Bomb (Site) Mods' GOTY list found here: www.giantbomb.com/articles/gia... I also included a "break glass in case of emergency" Metaphor review that I'm very thankful Marino chose not to run (I haven't played it nor know much about it).

After Dandadan ended I read a few manga episodes ahead and... damn. This show needs to come back already.

November's edition of Mento's Month is up. Covering some LoZ: Echoes of Wisdom, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Ghostwire, and a whole bunch of Indies and anime. Like a disgusting amount, even. www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...