I kinda want to replay them now to see if they did hold up of my fond memories are just nostalgia haze fdsfds Not the only games I liked playing when I was a kid, but the ones I started to suddenly miss recently

Beyond Good and Evil I recall was genuinely incredible mesh of very different gameplay mechanics. Like, genuinely fun to play. One of the most important features was seeking various creatures to snap a shot of and I just can't explain how much fun it was! Just talk about the best way to encourage the players to explore the world! Stealth, action, fighting and even racing were also crucial. Worldbuilding and visual style were also awesome ;-; There were those fucked up aliens kidnapping citizens of the planet and a military corporation pretending to protect against them but often very conveniently being "too late"... and then it turns out they were working with the aliens all along lol.

As for Sudeki, it was apparently the first RPG I played? I was more interested in grinding its various side quests and seeking nooks and keys to secret areas than playing the ACTUAL story and overall I was very satisfied with its rewards for players with "nothing better to do" xD I also had huge grievance with how much it insisted on playing as Tal (red haired guy) most of the time because I was a picky kid getting frustrated when I couldn't play as Ailish (blue haired gal) or her shadow twin fsdfdsd. But its worldbuilding was centered around the once united world being split into prospering light world, neglected darkness world and nexus shadow world and four main characters connected with four main deities spiritually being set up to unite the worlds again. I can say it might have influenced my tastes in stories from the get go in the long run xd

X-Blades (and its first variant, Oniblade) is actually just a generic pretty anime visuals slasher to relax to... So, gameplay was absolutely NOT why I loved this game. What I loved about it is that it was remotely easy to hack in all the right places once you've figured out specifics of the code, so after some fiddling I found out how to always go out of bounds in it, both horizontally and vertically, without falling through the map! It made the game's maps like x2 times bigger and my interest was checking all these normally inaccessible places and taking unique screenshots. Even found how to replace the playable character with the guy but his model didn't function properly as it wasn't coded with player in mind and could only run a bit...

We've featured Ayumi of X-Blade before... but I wanted to compare the protagonist to a recent hero of the video game world.

"Let Me Solo Her" is a highly skilled player who volunteers to carry players with one of the hardest boss fights in Elden Ring (The latest game from FromSoft, creators of Dark Souls and Bloodborne) through the summon system.

So yeah, if you've seen fan art or an image of this dual wielding hero - that's why, that and his displaying the opposite of the notorious "git gud" mentality.

"Sometimes the lag between the host and myself is too much so I get killed instantly sometimes, or miss the crucial dodge timing on Malenia's waterfowl dance," he says. "I would like to express my apology to those I have failed."

But, why what is most compelling to me is his explanation for the signature attire he wears while doing this amazing service:

"It is a running tradition of Soulsborne games that the naked players are the most powerful beings in the game," he replies. "Why wear armor if you don't plan on getting hit at all?"

This is pretty much the explanation we've heard many, many times before: that various female protagonists who wear outfits like that of Ayumi - because it actually aims for the stated goals (as well as the general benefits in video games such as increased stamina regeneration).

It's also only vaguely viable because this is a game built around death being a low stakes event, and thus making the consequence of such a flex where the maximum risk is mild embarrassment and disappointment in yourself.

The notion of it being a wise idea within a fiction where the consequences are death or life changing injury... because you're sure you're badass

Also like... dude has definitely got way better head protection that we see on the usual bikini badass fighting fucktoy - which is part of why he's featured here despite being truly an empowered man.

X-Blades

If you owned a Xbox 360 or PS3 in 2009, odds are good you have heard of X-Blades before. You probably don’t remember too much, though. It was one of those budget titles flooding the market that tended to disappear as soon as they appeared, maybe getting lucky enough to be remembered a decade later by a small handful of youtube producers obsessed with B-games. However, X-Blades has shown a surprising amount of staying power, with a fleshed out wikipedia page and the odd sight of it appearing in discussions among particularly nerdy sects of the internet. There seems to be three reasons for this: The game had an anime art style, the game was made in Russia, and the lead wore almost nothing but a few strings of cloth and a thong, leaving her butt bare for everyone to see on the cover and most ads in a “look at my butt” pose.

Never underestimate the memory of twenty somethings when it comes to horny anime art.

‘X-Blades’

[PC / PS3 / X360] [USA] [MAGAZINE] [2009]

Play, March 2009

Zero Punctuation - Halo Wars (+ X-Blades)

Featuring LRR’s Graham from Unskippable!

Game: X-Blades