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Tales from storage: card collecting and counterfeiting

Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 8:33 pm Comments (1)

I’ve exposited plenty of times on this blog about how I was very much swept up in Pokemon fever — my brother and I bought the games, watched the cartoon, collected the figurines, amassed whatever other dumb trinkets and doodads that were available, so it’s only natural we also picked up the Trading Card Game as well.
I… don’t think we ever actually played it. I don’t know anyone who did back in the day…! As much as the franchise invited discussion and shared activities among kids, I get the impression we feared being robbed more than daring to share activities among our peers. I feel like there’s an allegory in there, but I’m too tired to pursue it.

What I’d almost forgotten about were these print-outs my brother and I must have made of the then-recently announced Generation 2 starters, presumably pasted on top of energy cards. They were already woefully unconvincing back in the day, and look even more diabolical after a couple decades worth of water damage. Can’t say it isn’t Aesthetic™ though, especially on the Croconaw card.

Looking at these card kind of feels like a childhood captured in amber: all the idle whims and silly notions, the short-sightedness and lack of thinking behind the activities you get up to, because you’re young and have no responsibilities. I might’ve been bitter thinking how much was spent on things I never used, only to be chucked in a shed and left to rot.
How did we get some stinkin’ many? Were they sold at the local newsagents? Were we picking up packs every time we went to Toys R Us? There were close to two hundred or more of these bloody things, and yet I simply have no memory of how they fit into our hobbies and habits back in the day. We sure as hell didn’t play or trade them! That would’ve required a social life!
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged pokemon, tales from storage

Talking about RPGs because I don’t know!!

Monday, October 19, 2020 at 9:59 pm Comments Off on Talking about RPGs because I don’t know!!

I dread being asked what my favourite anything is. I’ve a whole lotta favourites! Literal stacks of favourites that I shuffle between depending on the mood or time of day! It’s like asking what my favourite pair of socks is — I cycle them! You can’t ask me to rank one pair of socks above the other! They’re all the same colour! And it’s at that point the analogy begins to fall apart. Not unlike my socks, actually.

This stinks because I sure would like to engage with folks on Twitter a bit more often, but unless it’s a multi-tweet thread about a topic that’s of interest only to myself and no one else living or dead, then I typically don’t wanna do it. I do appreciate folks daring to tag me in tweets, but it invariably results in a week of hand-wringing whether I’ll respond or not… and then not responding anyway because to reply after waiting a week just feels rude. Rest assured I read all emails, DMs and correspondence, and I appreciate it and give them a lot of thought, and then rarely actually put those thoughts into a reply. I don’t think that’s very reassuring, actually. My apologies.

Whatever point I was trying to make, I assume it applies to when pal herrDoktorat tagged me in naming iconic RPGs I’ve played in my life. There’s maybe a dozen I’ve played long enough for me to say with confidence I have played them, but RPGs aren’t really my strong suit…! To name off three game titles without context doesn’t gel with my brand of being needlessly fucking verbose, so let’s just rattle off all the RPGs I’ve played enough to have a tangible opinion on. I never said they’d be good opinions, so I’m throwing myself on the mercy of the court! You’re talking to a man who associates Mario with RPGs more than flippin’ Dragon Quest…!

Final Fantasy VII

My introduction to RPGs! A friend of my dad’s just gave the game to us for whatever reason, and it was unlike anything we’d played before. I, as a dumb youngster, was put off by the fact you couldn’t jump. Why have all these detailed 3D environments if you can’t jump!? But watching my brother play it was fascinating, seeing the story play out through text and many varied setpieces and environments. When Shadows of the Empire on Nintendo 64 was as cinematic as a console game had gotten in our experience, this was a whole other kettle of fish.

Because Europe missed out on so many iconic JRPGs, this was probably how most folks were introduced to the genre? Without Chrono Trigger or the like, the only alternatives were obscure Game Boy titles or flippin’ Rings of Power on Mega Drive, I don’t know. Even in America it seems like the first RPG to take on mainstream success, thanks to its big-budget advertising campaign.
As such, it’s kind of resulted in a lot of people reading the game the wrong way; for your first RPG to tackle a complex narrative and themes of unreliable narrators and withheld memories is going to cause some complexities, even before you factor in its iffy translation. I should be the last person to judge people for reading a story the wrong way, (Dok will attest to my lousy reading comprehension), but it’d be nice if people got their personalities right once in a while. Aeris is meant to be spunky!
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Filed under Basic bloggin' Tagged final fantasy, game, mario, mega man, pokemon, review, undertale, update

ONM Remembered – #450

Saturday, January 7, 2017 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #450

“Card games with a Poké twist!”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 114 (March 2002)
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Filed under ONM Remembered Tagged onm, peripherals, pokemon, review

ONM Remembered – #423

Saturday, November 5, 2016 at 11:00 am Comments (2)

“Some sources claim that it’s an updated version of Ocarina of Time with GameCube-style graphics and elements which had to be left out of the N64 original.”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 119 (August 2002)
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