Shin Megami Tensei V: A Mystical Marriage of Knowledge and Life (Nintendo Switch)

No, this is not verdict by a long shot, but there's a lot of grotesque demons on your journey to Godhood. (Captured in Handheld Mode.)

One of the things I learned getting back into video games was that sometimes, sniffing the roses too much might take away from the actual experience. A simpler version of this occurred when I first started playing Shin Megami Tensei for myself with the forth mainline entry in which a medieval kingdom discovered the smartwatch before the steam engine. I almost stopped playing partly because of this weird disconnect, but additionally because medusa wiped the floor with me while I was trying to make my way down to Tokyo. 

A little over a year later, I decided to give that game a second shot and told myself, “I’m not going to worry about why the calvary can operate an advanced digital watch without any trouble.” It worked, I defeated medusa and discovered that underneath that unusual detail was an interesting world and a game that focuses on both theological figures and philosophical matters. Simply put: Gods, angels, and demons get tossed into the post-apocalypse and the player tries to figure out their own ideological leanings while fighting them off.         

Shin Megami Tensei V continues this trend where you play a role of a high school student who, upon investigating a tunnel in search of someone’s older brother, finds himself in another world called Da’at at the pointy end of a daemon’s spear. In flash of light, a humanoid-like figure shows up by the name of Aogami, fusing with you to become a god-like being known as a Nahobino in order to help you strike down the daemon and start your journey to reshape the new world. 

One of the game's strength-based attacks. Or alternatively: Nahobino claws a cryptid in Konan. (Captured in Docked Mode)

Gameplay-wise SMT V is an all-around joy to play in which the classic “press” turn system gets emphasized even more with strength-based, elemental attacks and the new Magatsuhi gauge where upon filling it, all of your attacks deal critical damage until your next turn. Recruiting demons feels more straightforward than in previous games where you could end up losing precious resources because of a simple difference in opinion. Fusing new demons is even easier. No longer do you need to do advanced searches or take a gamble on a fusion since the game allows you to look up all possible combinations with a tap of a button—either for the demons in your stock, or them plus the ones registered to your Demon Compendium. 

Sophia, the deity who rules over the World of Shadows, also allows you to perform another type of fusion called “essence fusion”. This new mechanic blends the Magatama ingestion from Nocturne and the Demon Whispers from IV into another layer of customization for you and your demons, You can use essences that you find throughout Da’at in order to provide yourself and your team with skills that could turn the tide of future battles, or just to gain back a skill lost when fusing a new demon. However, once you fuse an essence, you lose it forever and unless you provide the Nahobino with Miracles, the entire essences’s skill set won’t be available to you. 

Miracles, much like the App Points system from IV and Apocalypse, provide you with additional quality-of-life improvements in exchange for Glory—which you can find throughout Da’at. Many miracles, however, are sealed until you prove your worth as a Nahobino by vanquishing demon nests on the map called Abscesses.

Not the best money shot by any means, but the Miman prove to be excellent tour guides for the Tokyo of yore. (Captured in Handheld Mode.) 

That’s the other major change about SMT V: Exploring Da’at. Previous entries took a more traditional, JRPG, approach where there Tokyo was the overworld and the districts acted as a “town” which sometimes had more monsters between shops than on the streets. With Da’at, the game takes an open world approach with four huge urban wastelands where you can encounter monsters in the open and find treasures within geometric gold alongside Glory crystals for the afermentioned miracles. Terminals from previous games are replaced with leyline crossings which serve the same purpose and then some—saving, fusion, healing, and shopping are all under the same roof.

There are also other things to scour in the post-apocalyptic wasteland—relics that are stuck inside vending machines, the Miman that somewhat reminded me of the Koroks from Breath of the Wild, and the afermentioned Abscesses which blot out any nearby markers until you destroy them.

Between the exploration and the gameplay, Shin Megami Tensei V lives up to the excitement I had for the game when they announced it. The series is one of the very few roleplaying games where I enjoy grinding out levels and this game just makes that experience even better. 

World-building from familiar territory featuring the game's two allegorical stand-ins for law and chaos. (Captured in Handheld Mode) 

The story? This is where the game falls short. Not in the “smartwatch samurai in the middle ages” sort of way, but in the game’s philosophical and theological dealings. The transition from voice-acted visual novel to full-on cutscenes, and the major changes to gameplay mechanics, meant that the narrative as a whole took the backseat. Considering how the combat and exploration turned out, this is far from a bad thing.

When it comes to trying to persuade you to go with one alignment or the other though, the game has a bad case of tunnel vision. There’s a major focus on one particular character through quite a large chunk of the game to the point where he gets more cutscene time than any other. The other main characters, who also act as alignment allegories, barely get the same amount of time on camera. One of them even sits out for an entire section of Da’at. Even if it’s not exactly how the alignment system works, the lack of arguments for or against a particular world vision make the overall story much weaker. Sure, near the end they do have a brief tit-for-tat, but that’s it.

Things is, much like the weird nature of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado in Shin Megami Tensei IV, Shin Megami Tensei V finds ways to shift the focus from the elements which don’t exactly mesh together to what works. It's a turn-based roleplaying game with battles that are fast-paced and challenging, but gives players enough to work with in order to make their journey to Godhood a smooth one.

    

In Sum: A game that brings a lot of changes to a series, putting gameplay and exploration center stage, but making the story and philosophical debate second fiddle. A mystical marriage which values life a little more than knowledge, but remains a strong candidate as a potential god for the new world.

Score: 8.5 out of 10 

Additional notes: The nods back to Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne are really cool whether it’s the sandy nature of Da’at, the monster designs that carried over, or other little references scattered throughout the game. 

Gearing Up for a Proper Review and a Change of Plans...

Hope you all are having a Happy New Year!  

A Coincidental Fusion (Captured on Switch - Handheld Mode)

With the results tallied, the decision is final: I'll be doing a review of Shin Megami Tensei V! 

Those coming straight from Twitter will how excited I was for this game over the course of two years alongside the Turrican Anthology from Strictly Limited Games. As for the Shin Megami Tensei series itself, I was hooked in the same way I found myself playing video games—watching someone else play through Nocturne on YouTube...

Back in my final semester of college—between losing my eyebrows and sleep over my senior thesis among other things—I would dip heavily into LoadingReadyRun's new foray into streams. This was a part of their "Year of LRR" Kickstarter campaign where they intended to do one more full year of sketches upon reaching their funding goal. I wasn't able to chip in while the campaign was accepting donations because college took priority with regards to room and board, but I was happy and grateful that they were successfully funded.

Alongside their use of the SID chip (and tunes) in some of their videos by composer Bradley Rains, LoadingReadyRun was a comedy comfort food during my college years. When Flash was still thriving, and when I still had it on my computer, I would go to their website and binge watch their back catalog of sketches alongside the other videos on their YouTube channel. Anytime I got nervous over a paper, I could queue up a few sketches to laugh off the stress, then head back to my draft and type up the rest of a hot mess.

Senior year was no different on that front. Their first iteration of streams—where the actors and writers in the LRR crew each hosted shows similar to radio disc jockeys—reminded me of their video series, Graham & Paul Let's Play. They were essentially the only YouTubers in the video game space outside of Chip & Ironicus, Jennyverse, and Steve Benway who I enjoyed watching back in the early 2010s. Graham and Paul brought their comedic style from Unskippable and their sketches into their playthroughs, which they brought over to the livestreams and, more recently, in Running Start where they continue their riffing traditions by focusing on a game's beginning as a whole.

Because of the time difference—they were three hours behind me—I could never catch them live, but I was able to watch some of their past streams on a separate YouTube channel, LoadingReadyLive. Of course, GPLP was huge but I also loved catching up on Beej's Backlog and Kathleen Saves the World. The embedded video makes it rather obvious, but the latter series introduced me to the weird world of Shin Megami Tensei. 

I don't really know what motivated me to look into the games—it's possible that Kathleen naming her character Ford Prefect had an impact—but around a year after I got a 3DS as a gift, I bought SMT IV...and ended up giving it a proper playthrough after finding myself deep in the retro gaming YouTube rabbit hole. I've talked about giving that game a proper review in the blog's archive on the Wayback Machine, but of course, that never happened.

I'm going to make sure that this doesn't happen. I am determined to write a review of Shin Megami Tensei V...

...which brings us to a change of plans. In my December 11th entry, I said I would work on a double review of Axiom Verge and Axiom Verge 2, making it partly a retrospective on my experience with Metroidvanias, before diving into a review voted for by the readers. 

In short, I'm switching the reviews around: SMT V will come first and AV 1&2 will follow. 

Shin Megami Tensei V is not only a game that's still fresh in my mind, it's also one that I haven't stopped playing...

Thus far, with as little spoilers as possible... (Captured on Switch - Handheld Mode)

What I ideally want to do is to complete the game before I write out the review so that I can properly give the story a fair critique. I made a goal for myself to complete the review within January or early February so that I can reach the endgame which, looking ahead, isn't too far off. I'm also going to set a word count limit of 600-850 words so that I focus on covering the bases without diving too much into tangents or digressions. I based this off the goal that Nintendo Force's editor-in-chief, Lucas M. Thomas, gave me for my review of Hypnospace Outlaw which helped me to condense an aesthetic experience into something much more tangible for readers who may also want to play the game. 

I don't think I'll have any trouble distilling SMT V's story and gameplay into a recommendation or a "must-avoid". The story and characters are a bit more allegorical, but everything else is clear cut. 

The biggest concern I have is regarding the screenshots—the ones here and the one that I used for the tweet announcing the review are all from the Switch on handheld. There's some blurriness and I'm hoping that there's a significant reduction of that in docked mode, but if not, I'll see what I can do. 

As for the Axiom Verge review, my worries are mostly the same, but for completely different reasons. I'm not working off a capture card and so I can't properly capture the action in those games. I may end up using the pictures from the press kit and link that instead. Between both AV games, the same word count range feels appropriate, giving each game almost an equal amount of time in the spotlight along with a mini-retrospective. 

My plan is to write out and post the Axiom Verge dual-review within February or March.  

I might do a couple of regular entries next week just to help keep my writing fresh and to remind me that I have work to do. But until then, this blog will be entering the new year on a promising note!

See you all next year and may 2022 be a prosperous one!

Ink for December 18th, 2021

 

You may remember me mentioning a regular at work who, after I wrote the letter to The Day about commentator Lee Elci—whether through here or on Twitter.

A couple of weeks ago, he lent me the audiobook version of Where the Right Went Wrong by Pat Buchanan. Buchanan was a commentator I was unfamiliar with until the regular mentioned him to me during one of our conversations—we usually end up talking about what happened on Bill Maher when he's on air. 

In sum: The audiobook details the Republican argument against the Iraq War, noting the influence and role of Neoconservative figures in driving the Bush Administration towards that decision. Personally, this is a new take on the discourse surrounding the War in Iraq, mostly because it comes from a pre-Trump conservative point of view. There are some parallels in both left and right wing points of view regarding the war—a big one being the idea of the US as the "world police", trying to force democracy on a nation through militaristic means. However, that's where the similarities end. Buchanan still retains the past Republican prejudice against gay marriage and the concern that secularism and immigration will lead the country to ruin and so on. 

There are some interesting bits—he apparently thinks that the idea of the free market is a threat and that he has concerns for the Republican party in future. As to whether or not said concerns lead straight to Donald Trump, I can't tell. This is an audiobook that I don't think I'll re-listen to again—I mostly had it on 1.5x speed and I never do that for other audiobooks.

On the other hand, after three years, I'm almost finished with Rachel Maddow's Blowout and it's been a a good run. I think I'll save the lengthy review of that for Goodreads though. My Mother and I had a sort-of competition to see who could finish the book first. I lost, of course.

In some sense, it feels like I've taken a political sabbatical this year, at least online anyway. I do check The Day's website for news along with Twitter when I login. There's also John Oliver and Bill Maher who I watch with my parents when they're on, but nothing much outside of that. I've thought about re-subscribing to the Two for Tea podcast—as in funding them through Patreon again. I feel that, outside of the Heterodox Academy, Iona Italia does a spot-on job at holding lengthy academic and political discussions with various figures. 

The biggest distraction for me this week was surprisingly, writing. There are two works-in-progress that I started this year—one in late April and the other earlier this week. I'm sunsetting the other one, which I've blogged about before as I feel like it's had its due. I personally think, in hindsight that it was never meant to be more than a "slice of life" fiction piece for a class and I've briefly talked about the time surrounding it too.  

I feel more comfortable being myself now than I ever was when I wrote that short story and I'm thankful for the friends I have today (both online and offline) because of this. In a sense, these new stories are a celebration of that fact—ironically, the one I started this week is meant to be a short story. We'll see about that one though...          

Ink for December 11th, 2021

It's been awhile....again. I have yet to fulfill the promises I made to myself to get back into the habit of daily blogging, or even semi-daily, since the last time I posted.

Between then and now, it's been a combination of busy work days and being distracted by good video games. Sometimes, a busy work day leads to me spending a few hours playing through something and escaping from everything for a bit. There's an idea I have for the latter, which I'll explain later in the post.

Nothing much has changed otherwise between August and now—I'm still doing well, work's been busy for the past couple months (as usual for this time of year), and so on. There is a major thing that might help in getting me back into blogging more frequently...

The photo's a bit off center because my desk is a mess...

This was an investment that was worth the wait—both in Apple in announcing the new MacBook Pros and the week that it spent sitting in Memphis. The long, story short as to why I decided to purchase this was mostly due to the battery service warning on my previous MacBook followed by Big Sur, which I installed in case they didn't announce them. Any time I booted the laptop, if the battery percentage was under ninety percent, the screen would black out upon login and I needed to plug in the charger so that I could use it—the computer was fine if I left it in sleep mode overnight. These issues did not occur with Mojave, but many of the programs I used would no longer be supported if I stayed on that iteration of OSX. 

This laptop gives me peace of mind in many ways with the most relevant thing being the battery. It lasts around three to four days before I need to plug it in and the MagSafe charger now has a braided-cable instead of the dangerously thin cord that could easily bend and break. Not only that, but iFixit's teardown of both models reveals the batteries are not so much of a nightmare to remove and replace compared to previous models—especially the one I used before*.

On the software front, everything feels much more stable and smoother than before. I haven't put the M1 Pro chip through its paces yet, but it does feel like a huge leap from my 2015 MacBook Pro. I have a good feeling that this new laptop will stick around with me for a long time to come. 

Moving on...I had this thought in October regarding video game reviews since I mentioned I considered doing a review of Axiom Verge and it's sequel. I spent the previous month falling in love with a game called Eastward. When October hit, it was a combination of Metroid Dread and Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, and in November, it's Shin Megami Tensei V. 

I feel like I can still do a review on both Axiom Verge titles, but make it more personal by incorporating what drew me to games like those—known as Metroidvanias in the gaming sphere. I'll need to give them another spin later in the week just to refresh my memory and remind myself as to how I felt while playing through them.

However, I thought it would be cool to cover other games in the same way I review books for Goodreads. I'm going to leave a poll on Twitter, shortly after I post this, but I wanted to ask you all what games I should cover.

Should I cover Eastward, Disco Elysium, Shin Megami Tensei V, or should I take a look at a game you suggest, good or bad? Comment away with your suggestions! 

Until next time, have a wonderful weekend!

*The linked teardown is for a 2012 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display, but I don't think there were any staggering differences between it and my mid-2015 model to warrant another. I may skim through YouTube to see if they did a video teardown of the latter and update this post accordingly.   

Ink for August 25th, 2021

Hurricane Henri made landfall as a strong tropical storm on Sunday morning and my neighborhood managed to survive the storm without losing electricity. There was little to no flooding damage on my street and the local utility company manage to get the power restored to the town by midnight on Monday. I was talking with Mayor Hedrick at work on Monday who confirmed the last point alongside Aundré Bumgardner's Twitter feed on Sunday. 

I probably should've wrote this blog post around Monday as it's a retraction of the blog post I wrote on Saturday announcing a delay in posting. I feared the worst with Henri, as I did with Irene and Sandy, and I panicked over the weekend—at one point I was moving some of my most valued belongings into bags that would end up in the basement. 

I'm glad I was wrong and feel fortunate that this was the case. There were a few people in Rhode Island I was worried about once I read about the sudden shift in trajectory—extended family and friends—and I'm glad to hear that they're doing okay with the utility and associated crews working tirelessly to restore electricity and clear any debris. 

It goes without saying that the Twitter thread last night is a placeholder at this point—which mostly reiterates the information I mentioned above—and will be deleted by the time you're reading this. 

Mentally, between my worries and work, I'm exhausted. I may take it easy for the rest of the week to recuperate. There are some ideas for future blog posts that I'd like to try out—a combined review of Axiom Verge and its sequel for one—and I ideally want to get back into the (semi) daily entries. Right now, I need to relax a little. 

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!     

  

Ink for August 6 & 7th, 2021

It has been almost a year since I've done a proper entry. This one will be more like the weekend checkups I used to do where I go over some of the things I did, collected, listened to or watched. It's more or less an elongated digest, but it (ideally) should help me get back into the habit of regular blogging.

One of the few times you'll ever see me plop a smartphone screen capture in. It's a fuzzy, hot mess.

One of the things I did at the start of the year, to help increase said productivity, was a spring cleaning of sorts for online content. Aside from the goal of decreased procrastination, I wanted to ensure that I don't forget to read, listen, or watch content creators that I love—or have meant to follow more frequently in years, but was distracted and overwhelmed by everything else.

The RSS reader, Winds, was great for blogs and even YouTube channels as they still utilize RSS—meaning that I could still keep abreast on Louis Rossmann's ramblings and board repairs without them flooding my YouTube subscriptions box. Winds also had a separate reader for podcasts that I was really keen on, but unfortunately I had some app trouble that I covered in a pervious entry. I haven't checked to see if they updated Winds. Might do that later.

I've been having bigger issues with how Apple Podcasts works and, after years of following Marco Aument on Twitter, finally decided to make the switch over to Overcast. I don't have much experience using related apps, aside from SoundCloud, but I'm already in love with it.

In short, it's a lot like Vivaldi with regards to how you can manage podcasts:

• There are options to either download new episodes or stream them. It can also be done manually for each podcast.
• The episode listing can even be customized and the podcast library is easy to navigate.
• The player UI is impressive—audio options and episode info are easily accessible without causing unnecessary clutter. 

I briefly sang its praises on Twitter, noting that Apple Podcasts should've been like Overcast. I really don't understand how you can mess up an audio player when Apple was one of major players in making podcasts a thing. However, that has been my experience with Apple Podcasts—having to binge listen backwards leading now to instances in which certain episodes are unplayable even if they can be played via other services and on iTunes.  

Of course, this means I can binge listen to the CheapShow back catalog in proper chronological order. I also no longer need to worry about the storage on my phone—aside from CheapShow, the Video Game History Hour, Nasty Labs, and Stone Age Gamer, I stream all the other ones. 

In audio related goodness, someone introduced me to Austra a few weeks ago. I feel like the band, or their PR, does a much better job of explaining their sound* than I could. What I can say is this, their otherworldly electronic sounds, synths, and vocals are quite beautiful...and when they have a Bandcamp, I can't say no. 

I'm personally fond of their Future Politics album which reminds me of both the Pet Shop Boys and Chris Huelsbeck** in terms of the rhythm some of the songs. "Beyond a Mortal" also reminds me of Earthbound in how it opens with this atmospheric, alien, pulse of sound with static softly crackling in the background. I feel like you could sneak the theremin-esque backing from some of the battle tracks into "Beyond a Mortal" and it would fit right in.

On the subject of video games and synths, Banjo Guy Ollie has been on a roll...

If you've ever popped into his Twitch streams recently, he's been creating a lot of covers using the Roland and Korg synths. I managed to sneak into a livestream where he created the tune to Green Hill Zone—a song that Ollie did an acoustic cover for awhile ago. It was really neat to see him create music live and if you've missed his stream or are just interested in how he does it, you can check out his Twitch VOD channel on YouTube where he archives his past streams. 

I'm slowly catching up on my to-read list—finishing two of the Boss Fight Books in the past three weeks. I gave one of them, Mike Drucker's analysis of Silent Hill 2, a proper review on Goodreads. I'm currently alternating through Rachel Maddow's Blowout—which I started all the way in 2019—and Violet Ramis Stiel's Ghostbuster's Daughter that I bought at Bank Square Books a few years back. 

In audiobooks, I'm listening to Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis. I'm usually not the one for first-contact stories, but this one's pretty decent and the narrators really do an excellent job.    

So that about wraps this up. I'll try to get back into the habit of daily entries next week. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  

*The links directs you to the Bandcamp page for their album Feel it Break, but the blurb past the track list is what I'm referring to.

**I'm thinking of Huelsbeck's later works: Seven Days - Seven Songs being one of them.  

    

Writing for a Magazine, Waxing Nostalgically About Them—Plus Zines and Games

If you came here from Twitter, then you may already know that, a few months ago, I wrote a thing for Nintendo Force—a review of a game called Hpynospace Outlaw from Jay Tholen and his team at Tendershoot. In short, without spoiling anything, it's a lovely tribute to the web of the late 90's with a keen eye on details and aesthetics. Unlike the review I did for 1324, this one is only accessible via purchasing the issue on their website—available either as a print copy or digital file. If you're a huge fan of Nintendo, especially if you remember reading Nintendo Power back in the day, I would also consider a subscription to the Force through their Patreon page. Much like Hypnospace Outlaw, editor-in-chief Lucas M. Thomas and the rest of the Nintendo Force crew make the magazine feel like what preceded before it—a true spiritual successor that brings the same magic to generations of fans, both old and new. 

I thought that, instead of a regular entry, I would talk about my nostalgia for magazines like the Force and showcase a a few different publications from my collection—including a few zines. 

Nintendo Power was, in a manner of speaking, the magazine that started it all. Or rather, it was one of a few brands—including Expert Gamer, and Electronic Gaming Monthly—that piqued my interest in both the format and video gaming proper. There were also strategy guides for Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color games games that my family and I ended up renting months after their initial release.

I should probably set up the picture: It's the late 90's and I was enrolled in an elementary school in Poulsbo, Washington that closed its doors in 2013 due to low enrollment. My first introduction to the Nintendo 64 was at a kiosk at the local Toys 'R Us in Connecticut, shortly before my first cross-country move, in 1996. I remember being more impressed by the fact that it was in 3D than anything else and many of the strategy guides—from Nintendo Power in particular—used models that were full-3D maps of the areas including Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time.

In fairness, I was more impressed by the strategy guides at that time for their maps. Nintendo Power for those full-on renders—shrunk down to fit a two page spread—and Versus Books who's maps had a more hand-drawn or canvas-esque look to them. I also had an obsession with collecting maps at the time, but that's a story for a different post.

It actually wasn't until 2003-2004 when I was gifted an Nintendo Power subscription that I became obsessed with them—both the magazines and the games. I was more keen on the Gameboy Advance, as I remember reading through the issue with the E3 announcements being stoked for the chance to play Super Mario Bros 3 on a handheld with the Super Mario Allstars touch-up alongside a new role-playing game in the series. The issue where they showcased the upcoming Nintendo DS was one of my favorites and, even with the awkward control scheme, I was as excited to play an updated port (or remake of sorts) of the game that got my attention at that same kiosk with more playable characters. 

It was another move—this time to a more permanent residence—that I decided to get rid of those strategy guides and magazines. This was shortly before I graduated high school when I started getting more social—more so than in elementary school—and I looked at those magazines at large alongside what was going on in video games and thought that having them around would feel somewhat juvenile, and weird to others. This of course was before I discovered how much the ecosystem around gaming has changed drastically—in many areas, for the better—and before I started not to worry so much about what other people thought about my own geekiness. 

While I digress, I did discover Douglas Adams and The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy through a Mario fan web-forum, so denying this whole aspect of myself—in full, or in part—was rather silly in hindsight. Most if not all of my interest in media across the Atlantic would stem from this moment alongside from my Dad putting on BBC podcasts—most notably the World Service bulletins and Chris Evans Drivetime highlights in the mid-2000s.

Other things about Nintendo Power before we move on: Biggest thing to note is that they were a publication initially published through Nintendo of America. Many issues that I had contained tips and tricks on recent releases and sometimes, they even did a small walkthrough—they did this with Tales of Phantasia on the Gameboy Advance. Almost every year that I was subscribed to it, they had their own awards with an issue for nominations. I don't remember if readers could submit votes though. 

Also, the issue pictured next to the Force was a gift that my late Uncle won for me on an Ebay auction—while I was still receiving my subscription. Surprisingly inexpensive, from what I remember, at around $10-20, but I can imagine that it's worth much more now.   

While I discarded those old magazines, I never forgot about the personal fondness I had for the games I played. There weren't many people I knew offline that I could discuss gaming with—without diverging into gatekeeping by either side, or with me doing into an ad nauseam explanation of a particular facet. However, there was one person who—much in the way that Mario led to Hitchhikers Guide—would eventually lead me to start collecting gaming publications again—both magazines and zines.

This was between 2009 and 2010, shortly after I graduated high school and begun my academic studies at a local community college. I helped tutor at an after-school program at a middle school that I used to attend and one of the adults, who I believe may have been a janitor or was related to one of the people who ran the school's library, introduced me to both Zero Punctuation and Unskippable. The comedy troupe turned small video production house, LoadingReadyRun, was responsible for introducing me to the Commodore 64 microcomputer. 

It was the sketches featuring the C64 and their web sitcom, Commodore Hustle, which made me fall in love with the SID chip before I fully knew what the SID chip was. I missed the old SID tunes when LoadingReadyRun transitioned to modern jingles in future episodes (from mid-2014 onward), but the impact the SID chip had would make itself known years later.

That would be in 2016, when I started getting back into gaming proper with a 3DS, Majora's Mask 3D, and ultimately the Sega 3D Classics Collection. I remember going onto YouTube one day browsing Steve's Benway's back catalog—I found his channel back in 2012, but I forgot who introduced me to him—and I noticed that Nostalgia Nerd was one of the suggested channels.

This was my foray into the YouTube rabbit hole of vintage tech and software and it was slightly overwhelming—Kim Justice, Banjo Guy Ollie, RMC, Metal Jesus Rocks—but I was reintroduced to both the SID chip by exploring YouTube's retro gaming sphere and also discovered the Commodore Amiga with its MOD community. 

As for the associated magazines, I'll go through them in brief...

FREEZE64 (pictured above) is a fanzine for the Commodore 64 created by Vinny Mainolfi and he puts a lot of work into each issue. Each one features an interview with a developer who worked on some Commodore 64 games, a closer look at the game featured on the cover including cheats, the "Mouldy Cupboard" where Vinny plays an obscure or poorly rated game to see if it holds up, the "Secret Squirrel" which unearths hidden secrets within the code of Commodore 64 games, and "ZZAPBACK" which looks back at the highly rated games in a past edition of the Zzap 64 Magazine. 

(FREEZE64's also how I knew about the 8-Bit Symphony Kickstarter with the add on the back of my first issue.)  

The Amiga Power album (also pictured above) is a creative tribute to the Amiga Power magazine in the UK. There are two CDs filled with remixes to classic Commodore Amiga games—Speedball 2, the Chaos Engine, Cannon Fodder, etc—from well-known Amiga composers like Chris Huelsbeck and Barry Leitch among many others. The Mighty Booklet provides a snapshot into the humor and style of what the Amiga Power magazine was like with each track looking back at how the game was covered by the writers. I personally enjoyed the entire thing...and wish that I could find an Amiga of my own or at least be able to play with one in a museum—playing Turrican the proper way among other games.       

So lastly, there are these...

The Zzap 64 Annuals, much like the Amiga Power album, harken back to Zzap 64 of the 1980s. They are another UK-based publication, but unfortunately, I don't know as much about them. I enjoyed reading through the 2020 Annual, but haven't had the opportunity to start on the 2021 Annual. The cover art by Oliver Frey is incredible and well-detailed, and there were a few neat pieces including an article on a Steampunk Commodore 64. They also review games recently developed for the microcomputer from both indie and more mainstream developers which is really neat! 

I'm done waxing nostalgically about gaming magazines, but I wanted to showcase one more set of magazines from my collection that I enjoy reading... 

   

I'm very biased here with this set for many reasons that go without saying. For those unfamiliar, I'm a huge fan of the CheapShow podcast which I started listening to three years ago. It's a podcast that has changed my life for the better in myriad ways—but more importantly it's a podcast that is hilarious and brings spark to the more inexpensive side of life. 

Now the humor will not be for everyone—they sometimes engage in huge swaths of blue humor—but the passion they put into each episode is further reflected by the fans. There's the CheapShow Awards with the voting organized by Rhianan, the Urinevision Song Contest, the logo designs by Page (ep. 50-149) and Tony (ep. 150-present), and there's also the Unofficial CheapShow Magazine from Ivenne who is also responsible for the 1324 zine.

YouTuber Timmus TSET has done quite a few videos showcasing the magazines—including one dedicated to the D10 issue and another for the Sticky Album (both pictured above)—that I recommend giving a watch to get a more detailed look.

Here's what I will tell you in brief: These magazines are well-designed from cover to cover and serve as an excellent companion piece to the podcast. There's a theme to each issue and many of the sections from the show—including Silverman's Platters, Price of Shite, Cheap Eats, and a section dedicated to noodles—are well-represented in print. Every issue also has a few puzzles to solve and features interview with one of CheapShow's hosts or friends of the pod, which made it one of the highlights of supporting CheapShow via Patreon. It was also one of the things that made me appreciate the podcast and what Paul and Eli try to do with it on a now-weekly basis. 

Of course, having them in print was even cooler. From the sixth issue onwards, there were cover gifts which ranged from Barcode Battler tribute cards, a mini cd, and a booklet on Asian brands, to an entire tabletop campaign. I finally got around to trying the first campaign of the D10 issue last summer and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also appreciated how easy it was to understand—especially as someone who has never played Dungeons & Dragons outside of Baldur's Gate on Switch—and was already knee deep in the campaign within ten minutes.   

If you're a CheapShow listener and love what your hearing, I'd go over to Patreon, give them some monetary support, and check out the magazine—Issue #11 came out in April and Issue #12 is just around the corner.

...and that concludes my nostalgic waxing on gaming and magazines, along with showcasing some of my favorites in the collection. I hope you enjoyed it! I'll try to be less sporadic and more frequent in posting from hereon.