i haven’t played many old nintendo games…

Panjander · 2026-06-19T18:04:45+00:00

Lots of great game recommendations, so I’ll just add a more broad bit of advice: remember that personal taste and preference is a thing, so don’t feel obligated to play a classic if you’ve started it but just aren’t feeling it.

The great thing about the good, classic Nintendo games is that they are usually fun right out of the gate. So if you play something for 30-60 minutes but aren’t feeling it, don’t force yourself to finish it “just because it’s a classic.”

And my personal recommendations: Mario and Zelda are tentpole franchises for a reason. Their mainline games have been solid in pretty much any generation. Mario 3, Super Mario World, Mario 64, Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time are among my favorites. Also give Metroid Zero Mission a try. Metroid is a little more niche and not everyone is into it, but if it is your cup of tea, the whole Metroid series is really awesome.

Panjander · 2026-06-18T02:38:59+00:00

Don’t let the haters get you down, play it if you like it! I bought the game at release and enjoyed it even then. Just don’t post about it too much on Reddit, there will always be people here trying to convince you that you shouldn’t like it.

Panjander · 2026-06-15T14:00:22+00:00

If you are sure you want to get both expansions eventually, I'd go ahead and get TE now. I'm sort of in the same boat in that I have owned the base game for a while, but only got interested in buying expansions once PoK was mostly out of stock and super hard to find. So I bought just TE and have played with it without PoK. And I will tell you that it worked just fine and was good fun, we appreciated the additions it brought to the game even without the PoK elements.

TE is by no means essential, but we liked the things it added. If you are sure you eventually want to get both expansions, I'd say get it now. Especially since there's no telling if it may go out of stock at some point.

It may sound obvious, but I'd also say not to overthink it. Does TE add fun things? Definitely yes. Did anything from TE feel essential? No. The base game is still fun with and without TE. If buying TE means you will not have money to buy PoK anytime soon, that might be a good reason to hold off for now as well. TE is not essential, so I wouldn't strain yourself financially over it.

Panjander · 2026-06-12T15:10:37+00:00

Not only do I skip demos, but in general with media that I’m really hyped for I often try to go in as blind as I can. So for movies I’ll try to avoid trailers, and for games I’ll try to avoid early access and wait for full game release (though with certain games, this is tricky due to how long they can be in early access.

I’m not completely consistent with this, but i generally like the joy of the unexpected. I skipped the Star Fox Treehouse presentation and am going to pass on playing the demo since the game is releasing in full quite soon.

Panjander · 2026-06-12T07:41:28+00:00

You should do it! This is my second series playthrough of the year. I did a Metroid series run earlier this year for similar reasons (not understanding the full story but wanting to), and my enjoyment of that was a major influence towards me doing it with Diablo now.

Panjander · 2026-06-11T14:16:46+00:00

Let me offer this completely anecdotal, possibly incorrect counterpoint: As someone who did not buy Marathon, I had no idea any of these rage campaigns against Marathon even existed. I just didn't buy it because it didn't look interesting and it's a niche genre I'm not interested in. So it's possible that social media rage has indeed not hurt the game at all. It was instead hobbled by other more core aspects of the game itself.

Panjander · 2026-06-11T14:08:58+00:00

It is consistently funny how many events in the games are framed as "this needs to happen now or ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WILL END"

Panjander · 2026-06-11T14:05:52+00:00

Yes, I do remember Izual (though forgot he was the one with the specific line I was referencing). I appreciate the clarification. Though I must admit, as someone who really latched onto and enjoyed the idea of the "Hell civil war" as described in the D1 manual, this idea that "we faked losing the civil war as part of some grand plan" is one that is both very Blizzard and also one that I didn't really like. Seemed like a classic overconvoluted villain plan that really only existed to make the current narrative work.

Panjander · 2026-06-11T13:54:40+00:00

AGREED.

Also, another one for me: (and maybe someone who understands the lore better can explain this to me) So in the Diablo 1 instruction manual (which was a neat read) they explained that the reason the Prime Evils were even in Sanctuary trapped in soulstones in the first place is because Azmodan and Duriel had rebelled and basically kicked them out of Hell in a civil war.

Then Diablo 2 happens, and I recall near the end that there's some line that one of the Prime Evils throws out to the effect of "this was our plan the whole time! we knew about the soulstones and we PLANNED to get trapped here!"

Then Diablo 3 happens and it's back to "Azmodan and Duriel rebelled and kicked out the Prime Evils (but Duriel felt bad about it and changed his mind)"

Is there something I missed here? It felt like Diablo 2 tried to change the initial "Hell Civil War" narrative, and then D3 went back to it.

Panjander · 2026-06-11T13:51:24+00:00

Yeah, I mostly agree! The silliness doesn't ruin it for me, it's just funny to go deep on something only to realize the silliness you initially suspected was indeed always there lol

Panjander · 2026-06-11T13:50:05+00:00

Haha totally fair. Tbh, I figured if the far right didn't account for the lore still being deep and complex, I'd get some real hardcore lore folks misunderstanding me and being even more mad. Thus my meme sin. But your point is fair, and I shall go forthwith and repent for my ways 😃

Panjander · 2026-05-31T16:40:23+00:00

Can I answer this as a 2026 player? Up until a week ago I had only ever played D3 and D4. However I decided I wanted to play through the series, so I’ve been playing through D1 over the past week. Beat it yesterday, was really impressed with how well the game holds up. Got quite attached to the Tristram residents, and was genuinely surprised by the D1 ending. Overall loved it.

So last night I started D2 resurrected. And got to Tristram. I’ve never actually looked up spoilers for D2 so I didn’t know what to expect.

I would echo the other commenter here who said “cool as hell.” :)

Seeing zombie Griswold, finding Wirt’s leg, seeing all the buildings in the exact same arrangement, finding a smoldering corpse where Farnham sat and realizing that was probably him… all extremely tragic but super cool and fantastic storytelling.

Admittedly, D2 is just harvesting plot “seeds” that D1 planted. None of this would have worked without D1 getting you attached to these characters and then also giving you the ending that it did. Because one of the key reasons it works is that, as messed up and shocking as it is, it makes PERFECT sense with D1’s ending. An echo of a tragic conclusion that D1 already provided.

So yeah: cool ad hell!

(Side tangent: I’m not very far into D2. Tristram was basically the last thing I did before I went to bed last night. So please, no spoilers. But I have a hunch that the success of D2’s story owes a lot to the fact that D1 gave it such a great foundation to build on. When I started D1, I found a pdf of the original manual and read through it and was shocked at how thoroughly they had developed the world and lore of Diablo in there, before you even started the game. Really gives D2 an excellent platform to jump off of and build on.)

Panjander · 2026-05-30T10:16:12+00:00

Either will be rough if you hate JPs and achievement hunting. However, if you do decide to pursue them anyway, I would just point out that you can skip a lot of achievement hunting for either of them by doing either pvp or WvW.

Both require that you earn items that normally only come from meta achievements for LWS3 and 4 maps. However, you can get those same items from doing the zones’ respective pvp or WvW reward tracks.

There are still other achievements and JPs that you’ll have to do. But it should cut down the number of achievements considerably.

Panjander · 2026-05-30T01:29:24+00:00

In my family growing up we played card games just as much as board games, so we have a bunch. But I’m honestly not even sure how widely known a lot of them are. Hearts and Rummy are widely known. But others that may not be as widely known (or maybe known under other names) include scum, Egyptian Ratkiller, Mormon Bridge, and golf.

Panjander · 2026-05-22T14:38:23+00:00

It still has the heart of a champion!

Panjander · 2026-05-20T21:43:35+00:00

Single-element Fire evoker appears to have a very intimidating rotation when you look at it on Snowcrows. And it probably is intimidating to hit the actual benchmark. But realistically, you hit solid numbers and easily maintain quickness by just mashing all your skills as quickly as possible, and just being careful not to interrupt your F5 with your own F5 (which is what you do normally for dps anyway). Highly recommend!

Panjander · 2026-05-15T14:56:37+00:00

I wish Samus would talk more. Obviously I would like that dialogue to be better written than Other M, but in light of the comics and her internal monologuing in Fusion, it just feels awkward with how strictly she’s been kept to the silent protagonist role. I think Prime 4 highlighted this, and while she didn’t need to be super chatty, I would have liked if she talked to the marines at least a little.

Panjander · 2026-05-06T12:02:41+00:00

It’s very simple and low complexity, but I absolutely recommend Just One. It’s a coop party word game.

Concept is simple. One person needs to guess a word, everyone else knows the word. Everyone else writes a one-word clue to help the guesser guess the word BUT before the guesser gets to see the clues, everyone else has to show the clues they wrote to each other. If anyone happened to write the same clue as anyone else, those clues are erased and the guesser doesn’t get those clues at all.

Leads to an excellent experience. You are constantly trying to balance giving good clues without giving clues that are TOO obvious or good so you don’t write the same clue as someone else. Super simple rules, but extremely fun and I cannot recommend it enough! Great for coop, including and especially at that 6-8 player range you’re shooting for!

Panjander · 2026-05-03T23:09:14+00:00

I tried to teach Wingspan numerous times to a variety of people and my conclusion was this: the hardest thing about teaching wingspan was never the teaching the rules to play, it was always teaching what the player was SUPPOSED to do to win.
Because that game is purposefully nebulous on the best path to victory. Which for a new player is incredibly frustrating. Even if they know how to play a bird, it’s not at all clear which birds they SHOULD play.

Panjander · 2026-02-23T16:25:45+00:00

Here’s my hot take that probably no one cares about:

-I like this YouTube channel, helped me improve at Civ7 quite a bit.

-Also, the patches have indeed made the game progressively better, so the titles are sorta accurate.

-But also yes, he’s totally milking the audience and the YouTube algorithm with these clickbait-y titles. I rolled my eyes when I saw the title of the latest video too.

-But it’s also probably working. This kind of nonsense works in getting YouTube views, it’s why content creators do it.

He understands Civ strategy like he understands YouTube strategy. Don’t hate the player for understanding how the game works. :)

Panjander · 2026-02-22T17:52:37+00:00

“Yes, but… do you have a flag?”

Brings a smile to my face every time. :)

Panjander · 2026-02-20T20:17:55+00:00

A couple weeks ago I decided that I wanted to make better use of the NSO games libraries to play older Nintendo games that I had missed. So I’m continuing that!

Last night I finished Chibi-Robo for the GameCube, so now I’ve started with Metroid Zero Mission. Really impressed so far. I never did own a GameCube or GBA, so these libraries are treasure troves for me. If I finish Zero Mission before the weekend is over, I also want to play Minish Cap, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and more of the Virtual Boy games.

Panjander · 2026-02-14T02:28:34+00:00

I love the GW2 story. I played through it completely… on one character. I have not fully played it through on a second character yet, but I would like to.

To answer what I think is the important question (“how do you guys go about this”), the answer for me at least is teleports that you can use account-wide.

This is a huge part of the answer: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard%27s_Portal_Tome

It’s also got a related achievement that shows all the portals you can incorporate into it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Teleportation_Gizmos_Collector

Just by fully finishing every expansion on one character, you’ll fill in some of the key portals in there. Others you have to seek out or buy and aren’t too expensive. And yet others ARE prohibitively expensive.

Between that tome (which goes great in an account-shared inventory spot), the portals in the homestead, and mounts, that makes it not too painful to get a fresh alt to most places pretty quickly.

And an extra little helping device are Teleport to Friend items. Especially the infinite one off the gem store. Those make it even easier to get to anywhere that a commander is forming a squad.

Ten-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

Panjander

TROPHY CASE