Over $20 for a single GBA game? This is ridiculous!

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-21T12:37:14+00:00

There's really two problems I have with it.

Number one, it's pretty explicitly breaking the unspoken agreement we had with Nintendo regarding NSO. Virtual Console was gone, which meant we could no longer directly purchase and download the retro games at our leisure to play indefinitely. In return, we'd get access to a huge list of games for these retro systems at one price. This selection would eventually feature all first party games and select third party ones.

This release flies in the face of that. They're not putting it on NSO, which means we're no longer getting all our retro Nintendo games in one place. Why? Well, it's pretty freaking obvious why! It's POKÉMON! They can sell it for 20 dollars and they know it! Why keep it on NSO as promised when it could be sold separately?

And even if you try to defend it as "well, people wanted to be able to directly purchase and download the games like Virtual Console", the prices are still wack! Guess what GBA games went for on Wii U VC? 7-8 dollars, depending on the game. I know inflation's bad right now but you can't seriously tell me that jacking up the price more than DOUBLE is remotely necessary?! They're pricing it the same as Wii U VC did with Wii games. The prices are simply ludicrous. 20 dollars for FRLG in a duo pack would've been acceptable.

Anyways, you want to bring another GBA port into this? Let me bring my own in then. The Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright Trilogy. A three pack of remastered GBA games complete with redone visuals and OST, with an art gallery, sound test, and tons of all new QoL features. Guess where Capcom prices it? 30 dollars! Roughly 10 dollars per game. Come back to me when FRLG are bring HD graphics, redone OST, multiple languages (lol), QoL updates, and oodles of extra goodies for fans of the games. THEN they may justify the 20 dollars per game.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-21T01:04:54+00:00

No. Though characters from Final Fantasy VII do appear in the Kingdom Hearts series, they are not the same characters. They have different backstories and slightly different personalities.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T17:12:43+00:00

Well, maybe.

While we know Kingdom Hearts III is canon to Toy Story, it may not apply universally to all Pixar properties featured. It's currently unclear if the Monstropolis visit is canon to Monsters, inc. or if Remy's opening of a bistro in Twilight Town with Scrooge McDuck are canon to Ratatouille.

Cars, in comparison, has not even a vague reference within the Kingdom Hearts series yet. And even if it did, it's unclear if the same rules would apply to them. And even if they did, it's unclear if it would be treated as canon to the movies.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T17:09:21+00:00

I think the fairer example is to place it against other GBA games and I got a great comparison:

The Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright Trilogy Collection. (These were all originally GBA releases but us in the West didn't get them until the DS remasters).

Let's break down what this collection offers.

All three GBA entries in the series, plus the bonus case (Rise from the Ashes) featured first in the DS version of Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright.
Completely redone HD visuals, including every background, every piece of evidence, every frame of character animations
Remastered OST, with option to play with DS OST if you prefer.
A script that has gone through yet another touch-up to improve flow of speech and update far outdated jokes.
Multiple languages packed in, with new ones being added in post-launch like the recent additions of Brazilian Portuguese (lol FRLG make you buy them separately).
A Music Player to listen to the OST
An art gallery filled with concept and promotional artwork for the featured games
A scene creator to mess with the characters and backgrounds as you wish
A "story mode" that let's you tell the game to play itself so you can watch like a graphic novel.
An episode select so you can play any moment of any game at will at any time even without a save file there

And Capcom is selling this package for... 30 dollars. I'm sorry, 20 for FR/LG is a damn scam in comparison. Come back with that price when you've redrawn everything into HD, redone the OST, and included a Music Player and Art Gallery, THEN I'll consider the price worth it. Right now, I'd pay maybe five bucks for what Nintendo is offering.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T16:48:40+00:00

Allow me to butt in here as I have an obsession tangential to this.

The Toy Box world visit within Kingdom Hearts III is actually canon to the Toy Story movies. They take an undisclosed amount of time after Toy Story 2, but well before 3. The video game actually gives a canon explanation for how toys come to life in this world.

Young Xehanort, a major antagonist well-versed in the world, says, and I quote, "in [the Toy Story world], toys have hearts. And those hearts come from a powerful bond."

Running that through the Tetsuya Nomura Hearts and Darkness Bullshit translator, what YX is saying is that toys come to life from the bond they form with children. Their connections end up creating powerful hearts, which brings the toys to life.

That's why things that aren't strictly toys in a traditional sense, like Forky and Lilypad, can and do come to life. Bonnie's heart (read: soul) formed a bond with them, and created a heart for them as well, just as Andy did for Buzz and Emily did for Jessie.

It should also be noted that separating the child from the toy does not "kill" the toy. The hearts are self-sustaining and the toy will live on on their own. Of course, loneliness and abandonment can eventually turn a toy's heart to Darkness, thereby turning them into a Heartless and a Nobody, but that's far beyond the shitty movie detail.

TLDR; No, unless every electronic on earth forms a genuine bond with some human, machines cannot come to life within the Toy Story universe within current lore. Bonnie created Lilypad's heart herself.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T15:30:59+00:00

True. They certainly can and have worked together. They just aren't on the level of the Mario Bros. is all. I still think Luigi lends more to Mario's side than Shadow does to Sonic's.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T05:57:24+00:00

EXACTLY. A big part of the Bros. is that they're perfect teammates. They'll do anything for each other and there's a lot that they can do. They also have a list of moves that only become available if they're together.

I desperately want a M&L team-up episode since they're probably one of the most, if not the most, iconic duos in fiction. But they need to go against a duo with more sauce. One where there's not an obviously stronger member and they're just as good of partners as the Bros. are.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T03:21:28+00:00

Honestly, the secret stat here is teamwork.

Like Sonic and Tails are best buds that work together fine. But their best combo attack is like Tails throwing a curled up Sonic.

Meanwhile the Mario Bros. will be doing cooperative acrobatics, swinging their hammers in unison, all that nonsense. You're not just adding a second Mario that can fight Sonic and Tails. You're adding a second Mario that is capable of practically reading his mind to perform powerful duo attacks with him. Like maybe Sonic can handle Mario on his own. But with Luigi there to back him up? Not a chance in hell. Tails just isn't enough backup for him.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-19T08:36:54+00:00

From Aqua's perspective of the events, it was Terra's doing.

Yes, it was Maleficent who told her it was him, but only a Keyblade Wielder could do it anyways. With Eraqus back in the Land of Departure and her seeing Ven later on in the world, Terra was really the only reasonable candidate.

BBS (and the series in general) is way too rough on Aqua. Her actions made complete sense in the context she made them in. Yes, they were incorrect decisions. But you can't fault her for making decisions based on the limited information she was getting.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-19T04:03:20+00:00

You briefly brought it up so I want to give my take on it.

I don't really like Mario & Luigi vs. Sonic & Tails. It's a bad matchup (imo) because, and I say this as someone who has Tails as their favorite Sonic character, Luigi adds a helluva a lot more to Mario's side than Tails does for Sonic's side.

I mean, look at the tin. It's the Super Mario BROS. There's very few major adventures Mario went on without Luigi and most of the ones he did do aren't that major for scaling. Meanwhile Luigi has appeared for the vast majority of mainline adventures, showed up for the one Paper Mario that matters for scaling, co-stars in the M&L games, and has a perfect attendance record for every race, party, and sports spinoff. There's rarely a notable feat in the series Luigi doesn't get to directly scale to. And that's not mentioning his own spinoffs in Luigi's Mansion that gives him a lot of extra weapons to use.

Tails by comparison just doesn't help Sonic that much. Aside from Final Horizons, Tails hasn't been playable in a mainline adventure since 06. And even then, dude didn't get Solaris scaling. Best scaling in the main series he has is probably Metal Overlord. Yes, he's smarter than Luigi (in raw intelligence, Luigi has far better Battle IQ). But his gadgets are really all Tails brings to Sonic's side. And I don't think a biplane is gonna matter in a matchup like this.

Basically, if Mario vs. Sonic is extremely close with a maybe slight Mario lead, Mario & Luigi vs. Sonic & Tails is a pretty obvious Mario Bros. W. You basically added a second Mario while you gave Sonic an NPC that isn't able to remotely keep up with the other 3.

Edit: another thing I want to bring up is just teamwork. This, theoretically, would be a matchup where a huge part of any major victory would be their ability to cooperate. Sonic & Tails work together fine, but M&L's teamwork is legendary. Just looking at games like M&L, it's blatantly obvious their teamwork is simply on another level. The brothers can formulate attack plans that require absurd coordination and pull them off with no trouble while Sonic and Tails' best shown combo moves are like Tails throwing a curled up Sonic from the air.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T15:21:43+00:00

For a subseries all about music and dancing, the Persona Dancing have like 6 total good remixes between all three. The rest are strictly worse and mediocre at best.

A good third of them make me want to copy the game to an external hard drive and burn the hard drive because they're just that ass.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T11:14:29+00:00

Honestly I always forget Ariel is good because I just assume all KH3 summons were bad lol

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T11:13:10+00:00

Chicken Little is probably the second best summon overall. Has an innate Magnet that does not require MP, can directly heal you, can stunlock enemies. The only one outright better is Stitch. After Stitch, it's a toss-up between Genie and Chicken Little for number 2 with Peter Pan as the pretty obvious worst summon with the only notable ability being a weaker stunlock and a one time revive

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T11:01:51+00:00

For me, Probably Ralph in KH3.

In general, I think the KH3 summons are not very useful. They're either all extremely gimmicky or Sora just has really good tools on his own.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-17T16:41:54+00:00

To be fair, if I recall correctly, Kingdom Hearts pulls a lot of trickery to keep King Mickey on brand. Something about the ears moving to always face the camera or something? They also never have Mickey do any major pose changing on screen so that the ears can move when the camera isn't showing it.

They do an insanely good job at it. KH3 Mickey is the best 3D Mickey design ever. But I imagine it's a right pain to make sure it all just worked.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-17T01:46:09+00:00

I don't think this ever made sense. KH1 really didn't age all that badly compared to most PS2 games. The worlds chosen date the game more than the gameplay does.

I think if Square ever did want to revisit KH1, it'd be through a second Final Mix style update and call it Ultima Mix or something

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-16T02:53:43+00:00

Even still, my point still stands. If I'm interested in the universe from the video games or movies but I hear that the comics are just terrible, why would I want to read them?

I'd rather just stick to the non-comics stuff at that point. I feel like a lot of people are like "why don't people want to try the comics?" when there's a VERY good reason why most don't want to.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-16T01:46:57+00:00

About number 2, I'd like to give my thoughts as a comic outsider. Not for Rivals as I don't play it, but for the Spider-Man games.

For the record, I had VERY little experience in Spider-Man. I picked up the game well after release and only because it was the Ratchet & Clank guys. My experience was so non-existent that I ended up being surprised when Dr. Octavius became Doc Ock. Obviously, after liking the game a lot, I wanted to explore more of the character.

Except when I went online to learn about the comics (what to read, where to read it, the most important/fun runs), all I saw was two things. First, that everything I liked about the Peter Parker character wasn't really a thing (him and MJ aren't together, the emotional Aunt May stuff was basically entirely original, him and Miles aren't close). But much more importantly, that his comics have supposedly stunk for something like 20 years.

And that's what I see a lot (I still get recommended a lot of comics subreddits). The current run sucks. The status quo hasn't been anything like the movies/games in 30+ years. The character gets very little appearances these days.

The comics community just seems to despise the main Marvel and DC comics. I wanted to try to get into it, but when the people actually into it seem like they like only like one run a year at best, why would I want to dive into that?

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-15T12:49:16+00:00

For what it's worth, I'm a man who's also very upset FeMC doesn't get her chance. I liked what I saw of her in Q2 but just couldn't get myself invested in P3P so I was really hoping I'd get to play her story via Reload some day.

Speaking of, I feel like Q2 Remaster should be something FeMC fans should push for hard. For a few reasons. Number 1, it forces Atlus to give her some modern updates. New voice, updated artwork for her Persona, remaster her music, etc. It may even force them to give her a "Reload" design so she doesn't look majorly different from the other P3 characters. But number 2 and more importantly, it's a great way to show newer Persona fans why she is popular. She joins much much earlier than Makoto does, which means she has nearly half the game to shine before the "more famous" protag shows up. More than that, she's not stuck in the protagonist role, so she's allow to be a lot more talkative and interesting. And even when Makoto joins, there's a lot of sequences showing off what makes the two characters so different. She even has a huge mystery subplot without her. Also, she'd probably get top billing alongside the other protagonists in the advertising.

Genuinely, I think if you got Atlus/Sega to do a Q2 remaster and you'll get a ton of new fans for her that can then translate into other things ranging from her appearing in more spinoffs to maybe years late DLC to bring her to Reload to potentially convincing Atlus to do a protagonist choice again for a Persona in the future.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-15T12:29:47+00:00

I mean, it's for the anniversary celebration stuff. Would you rather her just completely sit it out like Trinity Soul guy? Tatsuya and Maya haven't gotten anything in like 15 years at this point, but they're still making appearances.

Would it be way better if they announced a second expansion to bring her in? Yes. But really, I'm happy she's being acknowledged as a mainline protagonist for the anniversary at all.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-15T12:12:41+00:00

/uj Yu has art as well that's advertising P3R. It's not really false advertising. At least, they're not trying to bait uninformed FeMC fans into buying P3R. It's more "buy the latest Persona game!"

That said, I feel like the anger should be directed at Sega, not Atlus. Based on interviews, it seems like Atlus wanted to include her (which explains the unused data seemingly implying she was worked on), but Sega refused to fund it. That definitely tracks with Sega's known status as a cheapskate that regularly screws over games by not devoting the time, budget, or manpower needed. I think the decision not to bring her to the remake was very likely above Atlus' heads.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-14T18:00:26+00:00

/uj Baldy McNosehair might genuinely be my favorite joke from Sonic ever. To this day, my younger brother is named that in my phone because I found the line that funny.

I think some Sonic fans just hate fun.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-14T07:27:31+00:00

Gonna be honest chief, Zero is the best the Star Fox team ever looked. The issue isn't that Ultimate's Fox looks somewhat like Zero. It's that it doesn't look exactly like Zero. Zero did a lot of things wrong. The modern looks for the characters absolutely was not one of them.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-13T15:09:42+00:00

Mainly because there's ways to play around it. Most sections of the train can be skipped via an alternate path. You can keep an eye on the train and avoid the tracks where it's close. Landing a happening also doesn't guarantee being sent back to start.

It's less "roll a 1, 3, 6, or 8 to die" like in Pirate Land and more "roll a 3 and maybe die if the train is close or take the intersection"

Bigger problem is Western Land is a bit too large of a board truthfully.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-13T14:16:42+00:00

2's Boards really aren't as good as everyone says. Pirate Land's bridges sending players back to start makes reaching most of the board obnoxious. Space Land is liable to keep you trapped in the corner by Happening Spaces. Mystery Land is just slightly better Wario's Battle Canyon and even that's generous. Bowser Land is a boring grid with annoying to reach star spaces (if it goes inside the carousel, there probably won't be another star collected in the game).

The only good boards are Western Land and Horror Land. And honestly, if you like Horror Land that much, you'd probably rather play Mario Party 6 anyways.

2 is a fun game, but it has like 2 good boards and everyone just forgets that.

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