The more I play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the more I think there's actually a lot of interesting things to say about it that I haven't seen talked about all that much.
To put it another way, I know I said a few days ago that I probably wouldn't give it a Cover Game feature… but I'm starting to feel like I might. It's a significant and noteworthy game for a number of reasons, and I feel like I might want to talk about it in depth.
It's also a massive game, however, so it'll take me a while to get through it to a stage where I'd be happy to write about it in detail, so at present if I do go through with it at all, I think it'll be the third Cover Game feature of the year, falling roughly in the March period. In the meantime, I need to plough through the rest of the Arland games and I've pretty firmly decided that I want to cover 428: Shibuya Scramble as the second feature of the year.
It really is a fantastic time to be a fan of gaming. There are so many wonderful titles around to enjoy at the moment… but I have to say, having put off playing them for year after year for one reason or another, I am really enjoying the Atelier Arland games. I'm impressed that a series of games that are, by this point, nearly ten years old hold up so well today. Yes, there are aspects of them that might seem a little dated in places (and with Atelier Rorona having been remade after Totori and Meruru, the series finds itself in the curious position of having its first installment be probably the most mechanically refined) but that most certainly doesn't stop them from being very, very interesting and enjoyable games.
In fact, I find myself constantly surprised and delighted that we're in a period where games from so many different generations of hardware still feel fresh and relevant as more than just "retro curios"… and where we have easy access to most of these games without having to make significant financial outlays. It's been a continual joy to explore the PS2 library in particular; PS2 games make up the largest part of my collection by a significant margin, and there are loads of games on those shelves that I'd love to cover in detail. Also, for the most part, they're cheap as all hell; while there are a few more expensive outliers (Rule of Rose is still the most pricy and elusive) for the most part you generally won't have to pay more than £20 for a PS2 game at the absolute maximum; more often than not you'll be paying single-digit prices, with lesser known, obscure or extremely common titles often retailing for 50p.
If you find yourself ever getting frustrated about the more idiotic aspects of the modern games industry — lootboxes, season passes, excessive DLC, constant updates, design-by-committee — then it's worth remembering this. All these amazing games from past generations are still out there — and there are still a bunch of developers operating today with distinctly "old-school" sensibilities, too.
I'm delighted to be a gaming enthusiast in 2019. And I can't wait to share some more of that enthusiasm with you in the coming months.
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