How hard is it to make a good detective video game? The story behind the excellent The Seance of Blake Manor, whose developers were changing integral parts of the design six months before release, might help answer that question. New column: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Missed my town. Super comfy and relaxing which I guess is probably what we all needed in 2020

Please enjoy this nearly three seconds of footage from the original Mother 3, newly captured off of a tape we're working with

Cripes

Path of Radiance’s soundtrack is so goooood

Still have the original 160 x 144 photo we used for EGM 109's Game Boy Camera review (Thing of the Month!), right off my personal GB Camera. @mollipen.bsky.social

HBD to the GOAT

This made me want to give NES Ninja Gaiden III another shot. I loved the first two games but III came out the same month as the SNES so it took a back seat to SMW and F-Zero. When I got around to playing it, the story seemed way less interesting than II, so I wrote it off…but gameplay looks solid? 🥷

IDK, maybe I should re-roll…

Can’t remember who it was but someone somewhere recommended Dragon Ruins as a simple / fun classic-style dungeon crawler and I finally tried it today and I love it haha. Strips away the barriers and complexity but keeps some of the simple hooks that made games like Wizardry so appealing. Diggin’ it

DQ7 Reimagined demo was a good time. It really does feel streamlined, mostly in useful ways. Don’t love that they added a tutorial battle ahead of the first one in the OG as it kinda ruins the impact of that scene, but otherwise no major complaints…yet?

Been a while but nice to pick up Path of Radiance again on Switch 2. Still have the original and most likely still have my save as well but I never finished it, so I figure I’ll start fresh and give it another go~

In 2D Mario platformers, Mario can either crouch or slide, but is denied the ability to sit in place. However, with a specific setup in Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario will come to rest in a sliding animation, finally allowing him to simply sit.

It’s CES week! Perfect time to share some Earthbound footage from the show floor (31 years ago) youtu.be/NFG1FcnFTKI?...

Super cool! Looks like there's still some noticeable translation work in progress here, almost all the dialogue in Pokey's house is different. We can also deduce that this must be slightly newer than the version shown in Nintendo Power Vol. 70 thanks to the spacing in "EARTH BOUND" in the intro

It’s CES week! Perfect time to share some Earthbound footage from the show floor (31 years ago) youtu.be/NFG1FcnFTKI?...

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined

New gathering~

David Rosen氏のご逝去の報に接し、ご遺族、ご友人、関係者の皆様に謹んで哀悼の意を表します。 Rosen氏はセガ創設者の一人であり、ゲーム業界における真の先駆者として多大な功績を残されました。従業員一同、Rosen氏の貢献に深く感謝し、心よりご冥福をお祈りいたします。

Happy DQ7 demo day~

New gathering~

RIP to a legend

I made a t-shirt last night after I read that Satya Nadella post about how mean we're being by calling AI slop slop. I'm sad I couldn't get it here in time for the CES keynotes tomorrow.

One of the save slots in the WCES ‘95 Earthbound demo was called “EVENT HIGHLIGHTS” (the other three were empty for attendees to use). Sadly the guy who was playing when I was taking video got as far as highlighting it but he never selected it… @obscuremother.bsky.social @clydemandelin.bsky.social

Just digitizing some old videos. Did you know SNES Earthbound used to have a different title screen? (Did anyone know this?)

Just digitizing some old videos. Did you know SNES Earthbound used to have a different title screen? (Did anyone know this?)

First purchase of 2026: an S-Video cable Some things never change

Nadella wanting everyone to stop talking about AI slop seems like a really good reason for everyone to keep talking about AI slop www.theverge.com/news/852630/...

An administration driven by greed, cruelty, and frankly a sort of empty-hearted boredom. The death of innocents so they can beat their chests and line their already fat wallets. Whatever comes next has to at least look like justice. We cannot just turn the page for the sake of one party’s comfort.

Checked Wily Wars off the backlog. The 1-3 remakes were mostly a good time; the enhanced visuals were really nice, but the music often took a step down from the NES originals (just a bit tho). The added Wily Tower section was pretty forgettable TBH but still glad I got to experience it!

Also, just gonna plug this podcast again, which has bangers like: "The one thing we've spent all of these years trying to work towards is going, 'No, as a fan, expect more. Expect better writing. Expect better performances. If it's localized, it doesn't matter, it should still be written.'"

Tokyo weather tonight

Friend of the show and former EGM editor Che Chou joins us to ring in 2026 with another freeform Q&A ep fueled by bourbon and filled with New Year's resolutions, holiday memories, GOTY talk, and Cybermorph. HNY! 8-4.jp/podcasts/202...

Can’t really predict where each year’s winter break retro travels will take me but this year I spent some time revisiting old Mega Man games. Used to think Wily Wars was kinda crap but then I realized it’s because the cart I had was PAL…😅 Playing it on NSO at proper speed has been a good time ✌️

Happy New Year from Tokyo~ 🥳🎉🤘 #2026

Incredible flex to sing into a famicom controller, thus rendering the performance incompatible with the US market

Today is the last day that you can repost this image

Here are our 2025 Top Ten lists for Switch and Switch 2 for TouchArcade. Skipped some obvious picks to shine a light on some lesser-seen choices. www.patreon.com/posts/146982...

Not much of an autograph person TBH but of the few I did get over the years, this is maybe my favorite. Yoshitaka Amano at the end of last century - I just asked him to sign it, didn’t know he was gonna go wild on it

Dragon Warrior VII preview and review builds (forgot I had these). RIP Enix

First video game I ever got paid to write about

Sad about this. They tried to deliver mine today but I accidentally used my work address and of course no one was there…Fixed it to home addy and now the soonest DHL will deliver it is a week from today…….

Last night out this year and feeling thankful. 2025 was good. Walking home through the quiet Meguro streets and listening to a Beatmania GB2 licensed music playlist, like any normal person would

I remember not being interested in this when it came out but I didn’t remember never actually breaking the shrink wrap (whoops)

This is just going to always be my go-to response to this kind of thing anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

Doing some end of year cleaning as we do in Japan and took a sec to admire this (in recent years) underappreciated gem that everyone who was there at the time knows is a true GOAT

shel silverstein was a prophet

read soulsov!!!! i'm good at art and storytelling and i want to share my fun world and its many freaks with you. at least play the free demo! gigidigi.itch.io/soulsov

We put together a video featuring the English voice actors from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Check out who voices who in the latest #Zelda release! youtu.be/tZYSFsWgSrc

Kirby packaging continues to excel