I just put my hand over the hole, takes two seconds. And I don’t have to clear out under the sink and get a bucket. (And it’s only very rarely necessary)

Plungers certainly do help with sinks. Loosens up a partial clog easily in my experience.

Specter! I should replay those games.

Single-handedly? Nah. It pulled a lot of existing ideas together though, and it’s certainly responsible for the popularity. Another Minecraft influence is early-access.

Needs more than that to compare favorably against Triple Triad.

Kuja fell very flat for me. Relation to Zidane is retreading old ground, design is obviously trying to evoke Sephiroth, motivation seemed generically evil. The stuff with the Black Mages and Vivi was great (possibly just because Vivi is a top tier character and his innocence juxtaposed against the tragedy helps it hit). The Genome stuff feels awfully close to the Sephiroth clone stuff, right on down to the lead protagonist full of false memories. The Terra/Gaia angle is kinda cool.

Heartily agree on aging the best, visually. The stylized fantasy aesthetic gives it a pleasant timelessness.

Style is probably the biggest thing IX has going for it, maybe character writing. The main plot wasn’t gripping or novel, you’ve already touched on some gameplay missteps, and Tetra Master is garbage.

“Then we’ll put you in the crooked home we saw on 60 Minutes!”

Good news! We made the Torment Nexus from the hit book “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus!”

He’s talked about it a bit in response to criticism, IIRC he said his producer kinda set him up for failure. I’m pretty sure it comes up here https://youtu.be/ENhfIeZF_AY?si=KHczjpQYCkBgTGaG (long video but very much worth it if you care about food)

I don’t think chickens are usually referred to as “dog-sized” even if it’s occasionally true.

Road trips are a tiny fraction of all vehicle use, it’s fine to relegate them to specialty vehicles.

There’s an industry to make new guns but people just step over the skeleton in the lobby of the half-collapsed hotel the three dozen residents call “Halftower” without a drop of irony.

The combat in Morrowind is intuitive if your previous RPG experience used dice and paper.

Sorry I’ll be explicit: I’m making fun of how pretentious you sound and can’t take anything you say here seriously. I actually agree that a monster sound system can greatly enhance a movie or game experience, but the difference depends on the specific media. I saw Fury Road three times in the theater because I knew my home system would never match the experience. Something like Star Trek TNG or My Cousin Vinny or, as the topic of this post, Kirby’s Air Ride hinges far less on the audio quality to deliver the intended content. Gatekeeping enjoyment behind speakers makes you a colossal ass.

The unintended consequence is genocide. When people need permission to reproduce that introduces a convenient method to keep certain people from having kids.

MasterHero SoccerGuy is too pure for downvotes.

Find an instance that more closely aligns with your ideals then. Lemmy is not one place.

Imagine consuming media with speakers rather than high-end OEMs to shut out all outside sound. Might as well just read books in a crowded café.

“Roguelike” has also become very watered down. I see “roguelite” used less often, though it’s more accurate, but there isn’t a good alternative term right now. Turn-based-dungeon-crawler-with-permadeath is historically accurate but there’s a tendency to lump action games like Rogue Legacy and Enter the Gungeon in that needs to be accounted for.

(And no I haven’t played Rogue but I did play a bunch of NetHack)

A strike means things stop. A protest vote means things go backwards, as if there was an entire workforce of scabs waiting to swoop in when the strike starts. There’s no leverage.