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...

Gonna have to bite the bullet on a PS5 soon. We're seeing more (budgetary) mid-tier games only hit PS5, Series S/X, and Switch and I'm left feeling like "wait, so it can run on a Switch but not a PS4?". (More like they gotta prioritize platforms because they only have so many resources for ports.)

TGA nominating Pekora for an award, who has no idea what TGA is and only found out after egosearching on X, is deeply funny to me. CaseOh seems like a warm and funny dude but he's already treated like an Elmer Fudd type by his chat. Losing a contest to a cartoon rabbit will only exacerbate things.

People doing Christmas stuff in November: Cool, whatever. People doing GOTY stuff in November: Burn it all down and salt the earth so nothing can ever grow here again. ...Though I get it, recommendations showing up in time for Black Friday and all. GOTY in January always made more sense to me tho.

Just remembered that I write these monthly summations specifically to avoid spamming social media. Here it is, everything I got up to in October including Indies, retro games, anime, achievement-hunting in Mario 64 hacks, and trying to follow Umineko When They Cry: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...

Watching Re:Zero episodes between game sessions of Umineko and, man, this is doing so much good for my mental health. I make great choices.

New blog: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment... Finally, another opportunity to show off how little I know about basketball.

I've no idea if I'll stick around but hi. I'm Mento, from the internet. My things lately have been WonderSwan carts I can't read and playing N64 games for just over an hour. Still posting blogs on GB until they delete the forums: www.giantbomb.com/profile/ment...