Grab-bag Post #5

Grab-bag Post #1

Grab-bag Post #2

Grab-bag Post #3

Grab-bag Post #4 

Naming Stuff

One thing that I always found curious when I was younger and reading an article in Nintendo Power was how much time and effort was put into naming certain things. Specifically, things like the names of enemies in games as well as a small back-story for each one. In the case of things that exist in the real world, like snakes, mummies, and bats, why bother renaming them to Ropes, Gibdos, and Keese? And for things that aren’t actually real (like Zoomers, Squeepts, and Skree in the original Metroid) there might be more descriptive names that would be easier to memorize. Some things, such as Goombas, Octorocks, and Metroids have entered common gaming lexicon due to popularity, but I would be surprised if many people knew what all the enemies in a game like Metroid were called without looking it up. I would bet that overall, people called them ‘bats’ more than ‘Keese’ in Zelda games, even if they know what they’re actually called. I know that things need names, moreso in a game like Dragon Quest (where the names are displayed onscreen) than in something like Metroid, but I think it’s funny that someone was paid to come up with nonsense names for things and that so much paper/ink was used between instruction manuals and magazines informing people of the names. To me it feels like being the writer on the stuff that goes on the back of food packages that nobody ever reads. 

Copycats 

One of the problems with success is how many other people/companies try to replicate it and flood the market with too much of the same thing. Often it’s a lesser quality product, probably because it’s being forced to be made with a lower budget and in a shorter time frame by a corporate higher-up.

Some examples include how every FPS games suddenly became a Call of Duty clone, or how many World of Warcraft-like games were produced. I think part of the problem is that the “copycats” only utilize the superficial elements without really understanding the underlying reasons for why the original was so successful, and that games that are loosely classified as the same genre start to poach mechanics from the successful one instead of finding their own mechanic.

It also happened with Harry Potter franchise and the MCU. I’ve heard reports that book publishers want to be part of the next Harry Potter-like phenomenon, so when an author submits work for a solo novel it gets rejected because there’s not an 8-book plan. When the success of the MCU hit, the concept of the shared universe suddenly drove DC and Universal to do the same thing, and very badly at that. We should just let some books be solo outings and not every movie needs to be part of a 25-part saga told over 10 years. 




Less is More

On a similar note to the above, I also hate when comic creators make too many variations of a particular character. Spider-Man is a great character, but when there were a few, seldom used variants, it was fine. I’m thinking of things like Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) or Spider-Man 2099. When the clone saga with Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider happened, I was mostly fine with the concept even if the actual story wasn’t that great. But now there are just waaaaaay too many Spider-Men now. Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, Spider-Girl, Man-Spider, and the list goes on. I realize that creativity can be hard, but just make new characters instead of being lazy. It happens with a lot of characters. How many Venom, Superman, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Wolverine variants are there now?

But the most egregious thing is when the new (usually lesser) character is given the same name as the original. Laura Kinney is not Wolverine, Miles Morales is not Spider-Man, Sam Wilson is not Captain America, and Jon Kent is not Superman. 



The Pause Button

What I really need is a pause button on life to play my backlog of games because I weigh time spent/perceived happiness against what this particular game would give me at that particular time. So for example, when I have 2 hour to kill, I would deem that it's not worth my time to play Al Unser’s Racing on an NES emulator, but might be worth it to play Banjo-Kazooie on NSO or to replay Waverace64 on real hardware. But if I had a "pause button" for life that would stop everything and I could just try every game I've ever wanted to play without the rest of the world moving forward then I would be confident that I'm spending my time wisely. Alternatively, I wish I could send my 8-year-old self a fully hacked system that has all of the NES ROMs but they are time-locked to be playable when each game officially releases in the US. One can dream. 





Addendum to "Using up all the Good Stuff" from Grab-bag Post #1

Like the Fox X-Men, the producers on the original Spider-Man movie trilogy opted to present the most known and popular set of characters rather than try to re-tell all of Spider-Man’s comics history, by which I mean specifically skipping over Gwen Stacy and Betty Brandt, and beginning with a simplified version of the Mary Jane story. In other words, they have 40 years of stories and distill down to a 2-hour movie so they pick the best parts. 

While I can see that they kinda wanted to put all their eggs into the basket because it was unknown if there would be a sequel or whatever, it also kinda means that they blow their wad a little early. Unfortunately, they kinda use up all of their good stories and characters in the first two movies and don’t have a whole lot to use if they’re successful. And then if there are more stories, they either have to make massive changes (like meeting Gwen after already being engaged to Mary Jane and having it mess with Peter's relationship) or start shooting from the hip and invent all new stories (which hasn't gone well, traditionally).

If they knew that there would definitely be a trilogy or some kind of cinematic universe, then they can plot out when to use the best stories and characters in the best way. Dr. Connors was mentioned in the first movie, then seen as a side character in the second and third movies. Having him become the Lizard in the fourth movie would have been excellent. But we didn't see him until the Andrew Garfield reboot. As with a lot of things, it all comes down to planning. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. 

X-Men '97 is the best example of this. The series itself was excellent, and the best Marvel thing made for D+ to date. It kept the spirit of the original series and tried to bring back as many voice actors as humanly possible. But my only problem was that because they had 10 episodes and uncertainty of a second season, it seemed like the writers were trying to speed-run all of the major plots from the Chris Claremont 1980's X-Men run into one season. Stories like the Mutant Massacre could have easily been a 3-episode arc, but it was the B-plot of episode 4 instead. 

 

Grab-bag Post #6 

 

Nintendo Related Japan Trip Notes

The original wooden 1889
building.

Near the end of Summer 2024, I finally got to return to Japan and take my family with me. One of the purposes we accomplished was to make a “pilgrimage” of sorts to the Nintendo Headquarters. Because of that trip (along with some helpful websites), I was able to get a far better picture of the history of the company. This post is a summary of my thoughts and what I learned.

 

 

The "left" part of the original
1889 building next to 
the 1933 building. 

I had known for quite a while that Nintendo was started in the late 1800’s as a playing card company, but until I had watched a documentary called Playing with Power (narrated by Sean Astin) about it I didn’t really grasp or appreciate the history. 

 

 

 

 

The 1933 building, which
extends down the block.

The Marufuku Nintendo Card Co. (or Yamauchi Nintendo Karuta as it was originally known in Japanese) was founded 23 Sept 1889 in a small wood building in Kyoto, where they made Hanafuda cards which got around the government rules of “Western” cards intended for gambling. As their operation expanded, they built a white brick building with green trim directly adjacent to the original wooden building in 1933.

 

 

 

Eventually the scattered offices were consolidated in a new building in 1959 in Kyoto (which has now become the new Nintendo Museum). By this time the major focus of the company was making toys and board games, though they still made hanafuda as well as themed western decks of cards. The original buildings were abandoned, but still remained standing. The 1933 building is now the Marufuku Hotel which displays Nintendo history, and the original wood building was torn down in 2004 to become a parking lot, and eventually the land was used to add an annex to the hotel. It’s a shame that I didn’t make the trip here when I was in Japan in the late 90’s to see the building myself. Finally, in 2000 their current headquarters buildings were built – two white square-ish buildings about a block from each other in downtown Kyoto. 

 

As part of our trip, we walked to the Marufuku Hotel and took some pictures outside of the building, and then walked around the current headquarters, though we were not permitted to enter any of the buildings. After that, we did, however, go to the official Nintendo Store in a Kyoto mall where I bought some plastic hanafuda cards. 

 

 

Unfortunately, we were unable to go to the Nintendo Museum. Though it was projected to be done in March of 2024, it wasn't finished until around September. Additionally, tickets are distributed in a lottery system so even if it was open there was a chance we wouldn't have gotten to go anyway.  

 

How I Spend time, or Why I'm a Console Peasant

Some conversations I’ve had recently have made me reflect on priorities and how I want to spend my time. Because gaming consoles (and their controllers) are designed to mainly play games, in almost all instances they are pretty much traditionally plug-n-play and easy to use. Excluding cases when additional hardware is needed (4-player adapters, peripheral controllers, VR headsets, etc.) or modern games that require large downloads, pretty much all you needed to do was pop in the cartridge/disc, turn on the TV, and pick up the controller.

But with PC gaming, it often requires checking on system requirements, configuring hardware, and potentially other tasks like moving files. To be fair, platforms/launchers like Steam have made things far easier than it was when I was trying to get WarCraft II to connect to my friend’s computer over a dial-up modem in high school.

What I’m getting at is that while, yes, a PC can potentially have better screen resolutions, better frame rates, and other visual fidelity enhancements over consoles, it requires more time/effort (and often more cash for a better CPU/GPU or larger monitor) than a console does and it’s not something that I really want to spend my time or money doing. If I am chasing the “best possible experience” with regards to graphics, I would be upgrading my hardware on a yearly basis and using all of my budgeted hobby money to do so.

The reason I play games is to spend time having fun, and I want to maximize my priorities to do exactly that, so I want to spend as little time as possible in configuration menus and hardware optimization. I don’t want to spend more time researching/learning about games than I spend actually playing them, nor do I want to spend time/money on something and take weeks to get it set up and never actually play the games I’m intending to play. I admit there is a satisfying feeling of relief knowing that I have the capability to play something (because I have it installed on my 3DS or bought an N64 Flashcart, for example), but if I never actually get around to playing it, what good does it do? 

A good comparison is that I can either watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, then watch all of the behing-the-scenes material, then the extended editions, then watch the movies 8 more times with the director commentary, the actor commentary, the music commentary, etc. Oh, and then I need to get the Blu-Ray version and then the 4K version (and a new TV) and watch those. Or, I could watch the movies once every couple years, and in the meantime, go through other classic movies that I haven't watched such as Bridge on the River Kwai, Stand By Me, and Chinatown, while keeping up on some current movies or TV series like Yellowstone. At the end of the day, I would feel more "culturally enriched" by having a wide breadth of movies and shows that I have seen. What I'm trying to say is that I would rather spend time playing a wide variety of games rather than replay the original Metroid, but now with modern controls, widescreen, and 60 FPS. 

 

I also don’t want to bankrupt myself in the process, so I don’t need to have the bleeding edge of technology to accomplish this goal. Basically, I’m trying to maximize playing time while minimizing cost and other considerations like fiddling around with settings. Does that mean I won’t have the absolute best possible experience? Yes, but it’s about 95% as good in my estimation, and that’s good enough for me. I believe that the law of diminishing returns applies here, where spending $500 will get you 92% of your goal, and spending another $500 will only get you an additional 3 to 4%. Everyone has a threshold for “good enough,” and mine is low enough that console gaming is fine even if I don’t have 120 fps and VRR. Sometimes the frame rate may stutter a little, or load times might be a bit longer, but at the end of the day, I just ask if the game playable and did I have a good time playing it. It is said that the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of the progress (or in this case, the “good enough”). I would rather play 30 games over the course of a year that are rated good to excellent rather than play only 2 games that are perfect (or put another way, I would rather play 30 games that run pretty well that are fun than play only 2 games that run perfectly). 

Would I like to have the best possible experience playing a game? Again, sure, but if I can achieve 95% of that right now with no additional cost/effort/time but it’ll take hundreds of dollars and hours of my time downloading mods/updates and needing to tinker with settings just to get it to 98%, then it’s not worth it to me.

As an alternative example, would I like to watch movies on a 50-foot screen with perfect sound quality and nobody else around other than my wife? Sure. But I don’t want to spend the money to rent out a theater or buy a big enough house build my own private theater every time I want to watch a movie. Instead, I can spend no additional money to watch my 46” TV from 2012 while lying on my couch and not have to put up with other people in a theater, and that’s good enough, even without modern enhancements like HDR. When my TV finally goes kaput, then yeah, I'll get something that is far more capable than my current setup. But I don't see the utility of replacing a piece of equipment that is still functioning as intended. 

 

There are limited occasions where I will do some of this kind of thing. I spent the better part of a summer trying to get a Philips CD-i emulator to run so I could get a chance to play the Unholy Triforce of Zelda games. It never ran perfectly and would crash during the infamous cut scenes, so the work-around was to skip them and instead watch them on YouTube at the appropriate times. But once I had it running enough where I could experience the game (mostly) as intended, then I was satisfied and haven't really touched it since, having achieved my goal of playing all of the Zelda spinoff games. But I wouldn't do this for most games - it was only because it was a Zelda game. 

Also, for what it's worth, I did use a few emulators like ZSNES on the computer somewhat frequently because they required almost no configuration and worked without too much effort. Later emulators for the N64 required more work so I didn't use them except for a few times to see how well they perform. And when it comes to the hacking scene for the 3DS, most of the work was done for me and I just had to follow basic instructions to get it work.  

I also think that the games/equipment that I grew up with has an impact on how I see things these days. Louis CK had a great bit on Conan's show that perfectly illustrates my perspective. When I first played Nintendo games at home, I had 3 games on a 13" Black-and-White CRT with an 8-bit system that sometimes struggled showing more than 8 sprites. Because I now have a system with a controller than can turn it on remotely and play 3D open-world games on a 46" widescreen TV, I think we're doing pretty good, even if it's only 95% as good as the experience I could be having if I spent 10x the money.  

 

Another thing that influenced me to my position is that back in the 80's and 90's, comparing PC games and console games was like comparing apples and oranges. Due to the nature of PCs having disk slots, keyboard (and later mouse), and hard drives, it meant that games had to be both programmed and played differently. It allowed for games like Zork and King's Quest to accept typed commands, and for games to have larger sizes because they could span across multiple disks or use hard drive storage. Controllers were available, but they were expensive, and many games didn't support them, and even when the option was available it meant hours of configuring and troubleshooting them by trial-and-error messing with DOS and BIOS settings because Google didn't exist. The monitors were also an issue, as many early computers had monochrome screens, and having a graphics card installed was seen as a bit of a luxury, so graphics were necessarily simpler with lower color bit-rates. But the worst part was loading, something that was almost unheard of when it came to console games because of slow disk read speeds. 

Due to these limitations/factors, computer games tended to be more slow and intellectual games with poorer graphics. "Computer games" and "console games" were seen as two different things in most people's eyes. Sometimes you would find a port of Street Fighter 2 or Mega Man for PC and they ran terribly and looked worse. 

By comparison, consoles ran games like Ninja Gaiden and Super Mario Bros. which had fast action, better graphics and sound, and a controller that worked well - all which was just Plug 'n' Play as long as you had a TV. But while there were some educational games or things like the Miracle Piano game that kinda teaches how to play piano, they weren't very good and would be much better suited on PCs back then. Likewise, The Oregon Trail or the various Chess games were much better on PC than it was on a console for a myriad of reasons. 

Another reason I tended to lean more to the console side of things is that often the family computer was being used for school work or budgets, which took priority over playing Doom. But since a console was solely focused on games (which had a dedicated TV), I never had to stop playing to let someone type an essay or print a flyer. This is one of the reasons I love the Nintendo Switch - because I can play on TV if it's available and handheld when it's not. 

To summarize, I think everyone has differently optimized priorities (“different strokes for different folks” and all that), and mine includes frugality so I don’t feel the need to run out and upgrade my hardware until it’s absolutely necessary as long as the length of play, the ability to play the game, and the amount of fun that can be had outweighs the amount of time/effort/cost to actually play it. Also, when I did the majority of my growing up, PC games were different beasts than console games, and it was much easier to get time on a console with games that didn't need hours of configuring settings before playing. 

 

 

My Experience with the Nintendo Switch

For several years before its release, there was rumor of Nintendo working on a new console that was supposed to bridge the gap between handheld and console, and was code-named the NX. I wasn’t too sure how such a thing would work, but it didn’t sound promising to me. I (somewhat) purposely didn’t read too much about it as the early predictions and projections based on rumors by gaming websites were usually wildly off, and the hype or disappointment was often very premature. It wasn’t until Nintendo released a trailer for their new system in October of 2016 that I became interested. They revealed the name to be the Nintendo Switch, and showed how it was a console that could be turned into a handheld.

It could be best described as a thinner Wii U gamepad which can be played handheld or on the TV, featuring detachable sides, and which didn’t need to be tethered to a disc-reading console somewhere nearby.

Once I saw the trailer, I was intrigued but still planning on getting the new Zelda game for the Wii U. But upon seeing the Switch Presentation in February which showed that Zelda was going to be a launch title, I couldn’t resist and pre-ordered one from GameStop the next day. However, I didn’t tell anyone but Anne about it and made it seem that we weren’t getting one right away. My plan was to have it set up and out the next morning to surprise the kids. Over the next few weeks I made some payments towards the Switch here and there.

Avery had been debating on getting a NN3DS just for the SNES VC capabilities, but I had convinced him to save his money, and he’s glad he did. In the week before launch, he decided to get a Switch instead. He had just enough saved to get the console, but not a game (at the time). On the day before launch day (a Thursday) he went to Wal-Mart after school to wait in line. He was 5th in line and there were 9 available at the time so he was in a good position, but he had to sit for 8 hours waiting. Anne and I dropped off some food and other supplies like headphones to help him pass the time. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Avery, I went to make the final payment and reserve my place in line at GameStop via pre-check-in.

I went to GameStop around 11:30 PM and got in line and happened to find my friend James and his son in line ahead of me, making it even better. I thought of Avery waiting in a warmed building, slightly jealous. He texted me updates and eventually told me that he got one and was waiting to be picked up. We (James, his son, and I) waited for about 45 minutes in the cold, and I eventually got my Switch and Breath of the Wild, along with a poster. I zoomed over to Wal-Mart to grab Avery and asked him about his time waiting. Then I asked him if he got a free poster with his like I had with mine.

When we got home we vowed to not open them until we were both home from school the next day, which was harder for him because he got out earlier than I did on Fridays. So to pass the time he cleaned his room and got things ready for the Switch. I let him unbox his first and once he started it up and was going through the setup, I started on my own.

He hooked his dock up to the small monitor he has in his room (which replaced the TV I’ve had since I was in 5th grade), while I hooked mine up to the main TV downstairs. We both instantly started playing Breath of the Wild once we had things set up and I didn’t put it down for a few months. I played it so much that Anne started referring to it as my other girlfriend.

Even though we had each just spent roughly $400 (after sales tax) on a new system and game, we had to spend a little more. It would have worked out better if the Switch was released on, say, the 24th of the month so that I could get paid a week later to buy some accessories, but as it was I ended up spending close to an additional $100 for screen protectors, carrying cases, a USB-C cable, rubber grip enhancers, and a tablet holder for cars. Anne popped onto Amazon and ordered some tempered glass screen protectors and BotW carrying cases that had some pouches for the wrist straps and pockets for game cards for the both of us. While traveling, Logan wanted to play BotW but I didn’t trust him to be careful with the Switch at the time, so we bought a tablet holder that attaches to the back of a seat headrest in a car, and then he could just hold the controller himself. And since it would drain the battery, I bought a long USB-C cable to plug into the car charging port to keep it from being drained so quickly. Another accessory I saw was some rubber covers for the Joy-con that gave it a bit more of a handle with which to grip the Switch when playing in handheld mode.

A few days after its release happened to be Parent-Teacher Conferences at my school, and I decided to use the Switch to do what it was intended to do. I set up the screen behind a few books on my desk and kept the controller out of sight. If/when a parent entered my classroom, I quickly put it into sleep mode and set the Joy-Con into my drawer and nobody could tell what was happening (except for one former student who came to shoot the breeze with me about Marvel movies).

A few weeks later, I attended our normal 3DS meetup that I had been attending regularly (Avery wasn’t able to attend this one). As expected, the focus was on the Switch and people were playing Bomberman. But someone had also brought their amiibo collection. At the time, we had 5 amiibo, 3 of which were Zelda-related. But I hadn’t used them yet as I was so enveloped in the world of Breath of the Wild that I hadn’t bothered to figure out how they work. Anyhow, I used them and got a few special pieces of clothing from the random treasure chests. I showed them to Avery and then kinda felt bad that he wouldn’t be able to get these items without spending inordinate amounts of money on plastic figurines.

It was at this point that I started looking into alternatives to amiibo. Unlike some games where an item can be found or earned through grinding, some were essentially pay-walled off behind hard-to-find collectibles in the real world. After a few days’ research, I discovered that there was an alternative method to accomplish what I wanted to do – and it involved buying NFC stickers. NFC-215 tags are what reads/writes the info in the base of the amiibo, and someone had developed a phone app to essentially make copies of them, and the necessary files were dumped onto the internet. I ordered some NFC stickers and learned how to use the app, and then made small cardstock pieces that had the picture of an amiibo on it with the appropriate sticker on the back. This let me spoof the entire Zelda amiibo collection and get those rewards at a fraction of the cost. Later I altered my idea and turned them into laminated cards about the same size as a standard playing card, each with two different amiibo. I have since made several sets of amiibo cards for various family members, friends, and acquaintances. I did, however, end up acquiring a complete set of the Zelda amiibo eventually as part of my collection.

Later that summer, Avery and I both got messenger bags for our Switches, which hold the Switch, the dock, the grip, and all of the cables making it very convenient to take on a trip. I had to alter my bag with some velcro so that it could accommodate my Zelda case I already had, and gave the basic case that came with it to a local neighbor kid. I also got an extra power supply and HDMI cables to leave in the case so I don’t have to constantly re-hook up the cables and get behind the TV stand. Sometimes, though, I leave my dock if Avery or Logan is bringing theirs and I put my 3DS in its spot instead. I also bought a few adapters that would allow me to hook it up to projectors and other kinds of TVs so I could use it at school and other places.

I was perfectly happy playing BotW for hours on end, but Avery went ahead and got Arms and Snipperclips. I got a few demos, but I mainly kept on playing Zelda (like 320 hours) until Super Mario Odyssey was released. Later games I really enjoyed were Octopath Traveler and Metroid Dread.

The fan in my Switch started being noisy about a year into its life, and I ended up replacing it with some parts I found on eBay, and it’s worked fine ever since. I’ve also replaced some Joy-Con sticks for Logan and my cousin, as well as done some other improvements. When Hall-Effect replacement sticks were made available, I ordered a bunch and replaced most of the sticks for my friends and family when possible so they wouldn't experience stick drift. The Pro Controller (which I also bought) is pretty great, but the D-Pad isn’t quite as good as some past offerings from Nintendo and sometimes registered presses incorrectly. But I was able to fix it by using some paper hole reinforcers to reduce the sensitivity and now it works perfectly.

When the Nintendo Switch Online service launched, I immediately bought a family subscription. I put myself, Michael, Avery, Brady, and my cousin Josh and we all chipped in 8 bucks or so. Later I would put Aurora, Logan, and his friend Brielle on it as well. When the Expansion Pack was added, we all decided to upgrade to get the additional games/offerings. However, when Avery's girlfriend Leah wanted to be added, we ran into an issue of needing more accounts than the limit of 8 would let us have. The solution was to open a second NSO family plan, and move Brielle over to it, as we weren't seeing her regularly anymore. But this did open my Japanese and European accounts to the possibility of also getting online access, as well as letting Anne join. This NSO plan is still on the non-Expansion Pak plan, though. Later we would add a niece and nephew to it so they can enjoy the benefits. 

Besides Breath of the Wild, HD remakes of Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening were released for Switch. An updated Hyrule Warriors was also ported to the Switch, along with a (somewhat canon) Hyrule Warriors prequel to BotW called Age of Calamity and another spinoff called Cadence of Hyrule mixed a rhythmic dungeon crawler with Zelda. The NSO service eventually added LoZ, AoL, ALttP, LADX, OoT, MM, OoS, OoA, FS, and MC as well. It is noteworthy, however, that the Wii U never got a standalone Zelda game - it got 2 remakes and a simultaneous release of BotW.

Logan desperately wanted a Switch as well and saved birthday and Christmas money for a while and finally got his own Redbox version of the Switch, and it came with the neon red/blue Joy-Con. He also got a messenger bag, though his was Super Mario Bros. themed instead of the plain grey that Avery and I had. Years later, Aurora was also eventually planning on getting one but “inherited” one from the ice rink where she works. Apparently someone left it there and it had been sitting in the lost-and-found for over a year, so the manager finally just let her have it. It required a little TLC, though, as its right Joy-Con stick was missing the cap, the locking buckles were worn down (meaning the Joy-Con could slide off without the eject button being pressed), and the plastic screen protector was a bit scratched up (but the actual screen underneath was pristine, thankfully). So I replaced the stick, the buckles, and put a new glass screen protector on it, and we gave her a grip for Christmas. All she had to buy was the dock and power supply, and she was good to go!

It was nice to have extended family also get one. Several nieces/nephews have some version of a Switch, as well as my brother Brady. At holiday family gatherings, it was always nice to see the kids playing something like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Boomerang-Fu in a side room while other things (football games, cooking, etc.) were happening. It is also very convenient to have it hooked up at hotel rooms to give bored kids something to do on vacation. I've also used it to keep students entertained during the last couple days of school using those same games, along with Pico Park, PuyoPuyo Tetris, and some others. Because of that, I've been asked on several occasions to bring it for school parties, which I do gladly.

 

One specific memory is that around 2019 or so, during Fall Break the family ended up playing a lot of 4-player PuyoPuyo Tetris and Death Squared while the weather was rainy and chilly. Occasionally we'll get something like this with other games here or there, but it was just a rather nice, relaxing 4-day weekend. 

 

Various grips were made for the Switch which made holding the console in handheld mode easier. Some of them got really fancy and held extra games and would stay on even when docked. However, I never bought one of those. Instead, I took advantage of the 3D printer at the school next-door to my school. During the first month of the Switch's life, someone on Reddit posted his prototype grip that added handles similar to the official included grip for the Joy-Con, and decided I wanted to try that. I thought it might be 2 or 3 dollars, but ended up costing closer to $15, which is basically the same price as a similar store-bought product. It did end up breaking, but was easily repaired with cyanoacrylates (super glue). 

When Nintendo announced the OLED model of the Switch, I didn't originally want to get one, since it didn't do anything that a regular Switch couldn't do. However, as I was in the beginning phases of my eventual Nintendo collection habit, I decided to get one last minute and went to Wal-Mart the morning of release to see if my luck would prevail. I wasn't able to get one, but my brother Brady was able to get two so he got one for me and shipped it and I wired him money to pay for it. I had hoped for the white Metroid-themed one, but got the Neon Blue/Red set, which I had always kinda wanted ever since Logan had gotten the colored ones instead of grey, so it all worked out. 

The OLED became my main Switch, and since my OG Switch was a launch model, it meant that it was susceptible to being hacked with the use of a paperclip, though I opted to get a pre-made jig from eBay that was safer and more convenient. But truth be told, the hacking scene on the Switch wasn't as developed as the 3DS and without modification, it boots back into stock firmware if it loses power. Due to that and some other inconveniences, I haven't really done much with the hacked one other than use it as a backup Switch when Anne wants to play something on the OLED one. 

Wanting to complete my Switch collection, I eventually bought a blue Switch Lite and modified it to have Hall Effect sticks on it. In the process, I ended up making the volume down button not work, but figured out that it was because of an improperly seated ribbon cable. It was replaced with the Hyrule version of the Switch Lite, and given to a niece as a Christmas present, which was then replaced again with the exact same model when I decided to have both a regular and Hyrule edition of the Switch Lite. 

We bought the first LABO kit when it came out, and we had fun building the various things but didn't really play it much after that. Later we were also gifted the second LABO kit by my brother Chad, who found it at a used store for $5. Only two of the cardboard pieces had been punched out and folded (but still included), but the game was missing, so I purchased the game separately for another $5. We also got Ring Fit Adventure but (again) didn't play it much beyond the first week. By the end of its over 8-year run, I have acquired almost 30 physical games, and close to double that in digital games, so my library is quite stacked. Like the 3DS, I have several games that I have played deeply and many games that I haven been able to get on sale digitally and expanded my breadth of experiences. 

Another thing that I haven been able to do on the Switch is make a European and Japanese account for it, allowing me to buy/download games that normally wouldn't be available to my North American main account. Mostly, this benefit comes in the ability to get the Japanese versions of the NSO legacy consoles, so now I can play the Japanese Famicom versions of games that I loved as a child. The comparison between NA and JP versions is most interesting for the NES/Famicom, but gets less so for later systems as international releases were more front-of-mind for Nintendo during the SNES and N64 eras. 

What I Wish I'd Done . . .

As a different kind of retrospective, this is a, “What I wish I had done,” kind of post. Knowing what I know now about how the video game industry has turned out, along with what is important to me and how I’ve learned to take better care of things as I matured, this is all the stuff I would do if I could meet my younger self and convince him to do a couple of things differently (along with some money to buy the stuff I wish I had bought all those years ago).


NES/Gameboy Era

First and foremost, I would have been very careful with the boxes and manuals, and kept them in good shape in a bin or tote in my closet so I wouldn’t have had to buy replacements for the Zelda stuff, and I would have also had original copies for all the other games. I also would have kept the issues of Nintendo Power in good shape as well, or perhaps had a subscription for two copies each month - one to use, abuse, and read on the toilet, and the other to keep on a shelf in pristine condition. My friend Michael got that one right.

I would have also been more careful with the actual hardware and games. I wouldn’t have let my mom mark up our games with a permanent marker, nor put the address label on the back side of them after convincing her that I was being very careful and responsible with these items because they were precious to me. I would have kept them in a better state of repair (cleaning gunk off of them and making sure they were put away carefully so the labels don’t get ruined) and put Zelda II away when Michael borrowed it so the basketball didn’t chip the corner off.

I didn’t know at the time how easy it was to replace the door on the original NES, so I could have kept it and fixed it. Even after the system stopped working entirely, I still should have kept it to pull out and possibly repair now. For all I know it was just a 72–pin connector that needed fixing or by disabling the lockout chip it might still be working.

I should have also kept one of the three Gameboys for myself when I moved out to go to my first year of college, and then also kept one when I moved to Utah, and perhaps told my mom to let me know when she was planning on throwing them out so I could take possession of them instead of just relying on my Super Gameboy as a way of playing the games.


SNES/VB/N64 Era

Like before, I should have kept boxes and manuals in good shape. That’s not really much different. By this time, I did keep the actual hardware and games in better shape so there’s not much regret in that department. The only real thing that I wish I had done is keep the Virtual Boy stand and the clip that connects the unit to the stand. It was the "leg" joint on the stand that broke, and these days people can 3D print replacement parts for that particular piece. But I cannot attach the Virtual Boy to a new stand or anything without that clip, unfortunately. However, new replacement stands are now available from stoneagegamer now. 

Overall

I would have left a pile of money with specific instructions to purchase particular things (like hard-to-find games) and directives to become members of certain things. So for example, I should have purchased a Game Boy Color when they came out to play the DX version of Link’s Awakening, as well as bought a Game Boy Pocket when they released. I have been able to find working models of these handhelds through eBay, but it would have been cheaper to just have had my own copy for the past 25 years. Ultimately, it hasn’t been a huge deal because their prices haven't gone up that much over the years but having to find the alternate version of Twilight Princess has been more difficult and expensive (I originally only bought the Wii version and haven’t had the GameCube version until very recently). I also wish I had been a Nintendo Power subscriber (or maybe a Club Nintendo member) so I could have gotten the Collector's Edition disc and not had to pay an arm and a leg to get it last year.

One big thing is that I had the perfect opportunity to acquire some Nintendo history while I was in Japan, but didn’t have the funds (or the inclination) to do so. I really wish I would have purchased both a Famicom and Super Famicom and just shipped them home to wait for me. I could have also landed a N64-DD there in person along with a bunch of games. I had the opportunity, just not the foresight that I would become a collector of such things and the money would have taken to purchase them and ship them home. While I’m at it, I might as well have gotten a second version of each Zelda game to get to keep new in the package to sit and look pretty on the shelf.

The X-Men Movies (Part 3 - Wolverine Trilogy)

The X-Men Movies (Part 1 - Original Trilogy)

The X-Men Movies (Part 2 - Prequel Trilogy)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

The Buildup: 

After the financial success of three X-Men films, and critical success on two of them, Fox was set to milk this franchise by producing origin story movies for some of the more popular characters like Magneto, Xavier, and Logan. This was touted to be the first in the spin-off series of movie designed to flesh out the stories told in the main trilogy. 

The Plot: 

Witnessing his father being killed, James Howlett discovers he’s a mutant with bone claws. He and his half-brother run away from home and serve in all the major US wars from Civil to Vietnam when they are recruited to a Special Forces team. Wolverine leaves the team and tries to live a normal life but when his brother and past come back to haunt him, he volunteers for a procedure that will give him an adamantium skeleton. He spends the rest of his time getting revenge for what happened to him, ultimately leading to the loss of his memory.
 
What went right: 

It started off seeming to follow his origin which had been recently revealed in the pages of Marvel Comics, and had an epic opening scene for the various wars.

Working The 3-Mile Island incident into the origin kinda fits in with the other movies in the way that they worked the Holocaust, JFK Assassination, and Cuban Missile Crisis into the plots.
Several major character origin plot points were shown in earnest and not just in flashback form.

What went wrong:

12-yr-old James could have had his first rage onset be a bit better scripted/directed. Wade’s faster-than-Jedi propeller sword slinging and Maverick (Agent Zero’s) backflip didn’t just push the bounds of believability – it stepped right over the line into ridiculousness territory. The Native American wolverine/moon story (Kuekuatsheu) was a little too on the nose, and it’s actually about a wolf, not a wolverine. The movie kinda shied away from connecting Victor to the Sabretooth from the first movie, even though comic fans knew. An explanation for why Victor became Sabretooth (like a memory wipe) would have been nice.

In the same way that we didn’t need an origin for Han Solo’s blaster or Chewie’s bandolier, we also didn’t need one for Logan’s dogtags, especially since it implies that they made them while he’s just waiting there in the water. Same goes for his jacket. Naming the old lady Heather Hudson was a bad attempt at fanservice/easter egg because it didn’t fit with the comics, and we would only know her name if we read the credits.

Weapon X as being the Roman number 10 had been a recent thing in the comics and it immediately became movie lore. Same goes for Emma Frost and her diamond skin thing.
Stryker’s facility doesn’t resemble the Alkali Lake set from X2 very much, and somehow, the claws looked worse than the past 3 movies. It seemed like the producers tried to cram almost every action movie cliché into this one – Zero’s backflip, motorcycle escape out of exploding barn, claws to do a 180, Zero’s jump into the helicopter, jump to kill helicopter in slow motion, lighting the trail of gasoline and walking away from the explosion without looking, the jump punch to knock out Blob, and so on.

The fight with Gambit was only in the movie because the pacing guide for the script dictated it in the same way that Jon Peters said there needs to be an action scene every 10 pages (or whatever), and it became Crouching Cajun, Hidden Cardshark during the fight with his “telecardnesis” and “stick climbing” abilities.

Making Emma Frost sisters with Silverfox is just lore breaking and mind bogglingly stupid and inconsistent with comics and future movies, and Xavier walking makes some inconsistencies with future films, and there’s not really a reason to entangle Cyclops into the story – we can have Wolverine’s origin and not include everyone from the roster.

Blob was never part of the Weapon X team (I realize this is a change from the comics and that’s not necessarily a bad thing but it feels like they included him just to include him), meanwhile Silverfox (Kayla) should have been on the team.

Deadpool was really done dirty in this film. They had the perfect actor to play him and they squandered it in the worst way possible. And having 10 powers combined was just a stupid idea to begin with. That said, if DINO (Deadpool-in-name-only) had Cyclops’ powers, adamantium claws shouldn’t have been able to stop the beams, even if the director/producer thought they were heat blasts instead of concussive blasts.

An adamantium bullet as mind-wiper was just a very, very dumb way to set up Logan’s amnesia and contradicts his X-ray in the first film which didn’t show 2 bullet-holes.   
 
What I would have changed:

I would have just adapted the Weapon X story from Marvel Comics Presents in the early 80’s along with the James Howlett stuff that had recently been printed which inspired the first 8 minutes of the movie. There was already a great story there – I don’t see why they had to just make new shit up for no reason.
 
 
 
 
 

The Wolverine (2013)

The Buildup: 

After a couple of disappointing films, the X-Men franchise scored a hit with First Class, and now they’re going back to the well of the most popular character to try another solo movie.

The Plot: 

After being forced to kill Jean, Logan has become a recluse in the woods and vows to not hurt anyone else. He sees flashbacks of his time saving Yashida’s life during the Nagasaki bombing, as well as hallucinating conversations with Jean. He is taken to Japan to bid farewell to a now aged and cancerous Yashida, and charged with protecting his granddaughter Mariko. The Yakuza stage a kidnapping at the funeral, forcing Mariko and Logan to run and hide while his healing powers have strangely disappeared, and it all smells of a sinister plot involving Yashida.

 What went right:

Setting most of the movie in Japan. Hugh Jackman looks even better as Wolverine this time around, and he gets to kick plenty of ass (in a PG-13 manner) while taking in the Japanese culture/scenery. We got to see Mariko and the Silver Samurai, which were important characters to Logan in the comics.

What went wrong:

Viper’s acting is a tad on the cheesy melodramatic side that would fit well in a CW show, but not a major movie like this.

The last act of the movie was a bit cliché with the whole using Mariko as bait in a trap. After two acts that had some good writing, it felt like they gave up and just resorted to typical 80’s action movie fare.

The Silver Samurai as a giant "Iron Man" suit specifically designed to cut off and drill out Logan’s claws was a bit contrived, as was the magical sword that required two hands to work for some reason.
 
What I would have changed:

Let Harada be the Silver Samurai instead of Yashida, and followed the story of the original comics a little more closely. Make Shingen the main villain. Not that the movies need to reproduce every beat and line from the comics – it can be modernized and a few details changed around. But build the story around the established characters using the original story as a framework and alter it to fit within the movie continuity.  

Logan (2017)

The Buildup:

On the heels of The Wolverine, Days of Future Past, and Deadpool, it appeared that the X-Men franchise was experiencing a bit of an upswing in quality. This was touted as the first R-rated Wolverine movie, so expectations were high to see some better action.

The Plot:

In a world where mutants are increasingly rare, Logan is earning money as a limo driver while taking care of an aging Xavier and aided by the mutant tracker Caliban. The plan is to live on a boat away from society so as to not let Xavier’s powers hurt people, and Logan only needs a bit more money to make it happen. He takes on a job to drive a woman and young mutant girl to Canada, but gets involved with some dangerous people who want the girl, who also has claws. Logan helps get the girl to her safe haven in Canada, losing friends and himself along the way.

What went right:

The girl who plays Laura absolutely nails her role and is terrifyingly fierce as a young female Wolverine clone. The action is far more realistic because they didn’t have to stick to a PG-13 level. Hugh Jackman’s acting was on point for both his rage and his pain and suffering.

As usual, we got to see a few new faces, such as Rictor, the Reavers, and Donald Pierce. Whereas Origins: Wolverine movie was about 1/3 good, and The Wolverine was about 2/3 good, this movie was excellent the whole way through.

What went wrong:

While I like the concept of the Old Man Logan story, he shouldn’t suddenly be aging and catching up to Xavier so quickly, and Xavier should be a bit older for the timeline to make sense.

I kinda disliked the X-Men comics appearing in the X-Men film, as it’s a bit too on the nose for my taste. It would be like making a comic book over the Johnny Depp/Amber Turd trial. I also somewhat dislike when movies include other movies or TV shows whose themes are similar for the same reason.

What I would have changed:

While I liked Stewart’s performance in this, I would have eliminated Xavier from the story completely. It’s just weird to think that one of the last two X-Men alive would be Xavier, given his age. If anyone, it would be Logan and Cable. But I think there could have been enough story with just Logan and Laura on the run without Xavier. Cutting him out of the story would just necessitate a few small changes to why Logan was working as a driver. 

The X-Men Movies (Part 4 - Deadpool/Phoenix Trilogy)

Nintendo Systems (Collection Part 3)

Zelda Manga (Collection Part 1)

Zelda Games (Collection Part 2)





Onto Hardware!

Now that my Zelda collection was basically complete, I wanted to have a Nintendo collection. No, not one of every game or anything crazy like that - just one representative from every system so that I could kinda have my own, “Museum of Nintendo” exhibit at my house similar to the one we had collectively done at the 3DS meetups.

Side note: I had the same attitude about hardware that I had about games, and a lot of it stemmed from being cheap or thrifty (your choice). Once I had a Game Boy Advance, I felt that I could play any GB, GBC, or GBA game on it so there was no need to spend the money on a slightly better unit (the GBA SP / Micro) that only backlit games instead of letting me play a new set of games (or worse, took out backwards compatibility), and I couldn’t really afford/justify the purchase of a DS when they came out due to college/employment/family financial concerns. I just wanted to get by on minimum hardware. So a GBA and a 3DS would suffice for any Nintendo handheld game, for instance. Had I known that the only Zelda games for the WiiU were going to be HD remakes, I might have skipped the console entirely (though I’m now glad that I didn’t).

I decided to not take a Game Boy with me when I moved out on my own because 1) I had the Super Game Boy to play all of my Game Boy games, and 2) because in my mind they were owned by the family and not just me, though I now wish I had taken one because I suspect my brothers wouldn’t have missed them anyway. But at the time of the original model GBA releasing, I felt even less of an urge to keep one of the original Game Boys. 


Anyway, when it came to hardware, I was mainly missing variations of systems and a couple that needed replacing. The original NES and three Game Boys my family owned had long since been scrapped, so I bought an NES from a local store and a Game Boy from eBay. The other variations of things I needed include:

• the original “fatboy” DS
  
  
  
• DSi and DSi-XL
• 2DS and 2DS XL
• 3DSXL and NN3DS (the non-XL one)
• Game Boy Light (only sold in Japan)
• Game Boy Color, Pocket, and Micro
• SNES-101 (aka SNES Jr.)
• Wii Family Edition and Wii Mini
• Switch Lite

(like I said, it's mainly variations and revisions of stuff I already had)

While having boxes for each of these would be nice, I think I’m going to only get a couple of reproduction boxes for some of the main representatives (like getting a DS Lite box to represent the entire DS line).

I have procured more than half of the list, and at the moment I’m only in need of the Game Boy Pocket and Micro, the 2DS and 2DSXL, and the 3DSXL and NN3DS. As these are a bit more expensive, getting some of these is going to take a bit longer because I’ll have to save up my self-imposed allowance to pay for them. I anticipate editing this particular part somewhat often as I get closer to my collection goals. 

Since the N64, release dates have been pretty much simultaneous between Japan and North America, and the hardware has basically been identical. But I kinda think having a Famicom / Disk System and Super Famicom / Satellaview would be a nice piece to add in the future. (Update: Got everything including a Famicom, Famicom Disk System, Super Famicom, Satellaview, and a DD by Summer 2023)

And then finally, the last thing I’ll need is proper display shelving and space to put all of it in, as well as ways to hook them all up when needed. I figure once one of the kids move out and we can reclaim their bedroom I can turn it into a bit of a museum. But all of that is several years into the future so I have time to think about it.