Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles – Online Border Patrol

Can you believe it?! Crystal Chronicles is finally being released with online and cross-play! Yay! This extremely unique GameCube game that once required 4 Game Boy Advance to play is now becoming accessible with modern technology. Well, that’s what we thought.

In a throwback to the PAL days where people in Australia and Europe gamed on 50hz TVs out of technical necessity, Square-Enix has decided to bring back that restrictive nostalgia by region locking this game online. I live in Australia and this is what happened when I tried to play with my friend in the USA.

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GRID Autosport – Online Class of 2020

The online patch has now arrived on Nintendo Switch! I’ve been playing it for a few weeks now, and thought it was a good time to do another writeup on it with the game currently on sale in Nintendo’s eShop Multiplayer promotion. You can read more about the game itself in my previous writeup here, but this one will be strictly about the online. Who’s ready to drive safely and considerately into the first corner with me? Nah? Okay well, I’ll spend the next few paragraphs catching you up.

u wot m8

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Metroid 1 – Where the Universe Began

Your health is getting low, and you’re lost in the depths of Norfair. The only light in this dark hellscape is burning hot lava. You can feel the heat threatening to chip away at your HP. Alien creatures sense your fear and hop towards you aggressively. You fight and push on as far as you can go. You’re not quite sure what’s up ahead, but the hope of an Energy Tank or any kind of upgrade is keeping you going. You could go back and farm for health, or you could risk the unknown for a big pay off. What’s there to lose? You can always respawn and try again with full health…. oh wait, no you can’t. Help is not coming.

Dying in Metroid punishes you by reviving you with 30HP, regardless of how many additional e-tanks you had. This means enemies can kill you in a few hits, and farming health back will take more than a dozen enemy kills to get. The odds are never in your favour, as you lose health much faster than you can get it back. This might seem unfair but it was essential in creating this feeling of danger while moving forward to the next room. How much are you willing to risk?