To understand why that question won’t leave me be, you’ve got to ride back a minute. 1998. The television I played it on wasn’t even mine, some hand-me-down set wrapped in that fake wood paneling every house down here seemed to own back then. That cartridge, though, I guarded like it was gold. The title screen would fade out, Link would take off galloping across Hyrule Field, and I swear the whole room would go dead quiet behind me. My nephew froze mid-sentence. Open space stretched wider than anything we’d touched before. Z-targeting rewired how a generation swung a sword. Turning night into day with a tune, calling a horse, unlocking the Door of Time with a melody, all of it read as straight witchcraft to a boy raised on side-scrollers.

Here’s what nobody young enough to miss it truly grasps. That adventure wasn’t merely good. It rewrote the rulebook. Countless 3D action titles that followed owe it a debt, whether the designers cop to it or not. Combat, puzzle rhythm, the sense of a place that breathes while your back is turned, every piece helped shape a blueprint that developers would study for years. People still argue it’s the finest ever made, and I won’t stand here calling them fools.

Which carries me to the sweaty part. Nintendo says they’re rebuilding the whole thing. Richer models, lighting that behaves like actual sunlight, and the bold gamble of performers lending voices to characters who spent decades communicating through text boxes. My eyebrow climbed the second that last detail hit.

Think about our boy in green for a beat. Link still isn’t talking, and that’s important. His silence lets you pour your own breath into the adventure, your own grit, your own reason for storming the final castle. A champion who stays quiet becomes a mirror. You slip inside him. What has changed is the world surrounding that silence. People who once lived inside dialogue boxes now have performers giving them voices. Maybe that makes Hyrule feel more alive. Maybe it crowds out some of the imagination we supplied ourselves. That’s the gamble that worries me, and if you were there, odds are it worries you too.

Then again, picture Navi shrieking in my ear every twelve seconds, and a slice of me wonders whether a genuine performance might sand down some jank we all quietly tolerated. Nostalgia lies to us, fam. We cling to the wonder and conveniently bury the aggravation.

The controls, though? Right there sits my hope. That old three-pronged controller was an alien relic, a gadget dreamed up by someone who’d never shaken a human hand. Camera movement amounted to a prayer. Aiming a slingshot meant wrestling plastic that fought back. Proper sticks, responsive buttons, and a camera you can actually steer without cussing, none of that tampers with a landmark. Nintendo is even adding dedicated jump and dash commands, giving players more freedom to move through Hyrule. It finally hands the thing the body it always deserved.

History hands me reasons to exhale, if I’m honest. The company has walked this stretch before and mostly treated us right. Wind Waker in high definition looked like a canvas come alive. Twilight Princess got its flowers. Ocarina of Time itself received a remarkable makeover on the Nintendo 3DS back in 2011, complete with improved visuals and updated controls. Even that Link’s Awakening redo from 2019 spun a Game Boy gem into a toy box you wanted to crawl inside. These creators know the material carries weight. They’ve brought enough classics back to life over the years to earn a sliver of faith.

Faith, though, isn’t a blank check. See, a gulf separates polishing a jewel from swapping it for a flashier fake. A redo can pile on resolution and misplace its spirit. More pixels, less heartbeat. I’ve watched cherished properties get the glow-up and limp out the far side resembling a wax dummy, technically dazzling and stone dead inside. Nobody craves a Hyrule that gleams yet forgets why we fell for it.

The word better keeps shifting on me the deeper I dig. A fresh wave of Black kids who never gripped an N64 controller is about to meet the hero for the very first time, and they’ll meet him through this window, not mine. For them, voiced scenes and silky movement won’t register as betrayal. They’ll read as the floor, the baseline, the norm. The weight of my memories means nothing to a twelve-year-old discovering the Water Temple raw. Maybe that’s the actual point. You don’t restore a monument for the crowd already in love with it. The rebuild exists for the next wave, so they get to tumble just as hard as we did.

I keep settling into an odd spot, somewhere between a believer and a bouncer guarding the door. One half of me wants to shield what we held, to protect the 1998 version like a family recipe nobody better touch. The other half knows art frozen in amber eventually quits breathing. A song gets covered. Stories get retold. Each generation earns its own doorway into the greatness we take for granted.

Will this one clear the bar? Honestly, I can’t say, and anybody swearing they’re certain is peddling something. Every piece looks right on paper. Nintendo knows this world better than anybody. But the soul of that original lived in more than its components, in a current you can’t bottle or patch in later, and that current is exactly what I’ll be hunting the moment I press start.

Come November, I’ll be posted up with the lights dimmed, just like ’98, ocarina within reach. Should my chest tighten the way it did when that open plain first unfurled, they’ll have done the impossible. If it plays like a stranger wearing my childhood’s face, well, we’ve got our answer right there too. Either way, I’m copping it day one. Some legends you simply have to witness again, flaws and all.

Staff Writer; Jay Baker

An older blerd with a lifelong love for anime, comics, manga, and gaming… Writing for fans who still believe great stories can come from a screen, a page, or a controller…

He can be contacted at JayBaker@AfroGamers.com.

Red and Blue gave you a fixed roster. One hundred and fifty-one creatures, and every single one earned a slot in your head. Kids could rattle off Bulbasaur to Mew without blinking. That number mattered because it was finite. You could work toward completing the original Pokédex, even if the elusive Mew remained a mystery to most players. “Gotta catch ’em all” wasn’t marketing fluff back then. It was a real goal you could see and chase down.

Here’s the clever part. Buy one copy and you literally could not fill your Pokédex alone. Red locked away Ekans and Arbok. Blue hid Sandshrew and Vulpix. Game Freak built the need for cooperation right into the design, then handed you the solution: a friend with the other box. Suddenly, the schoolyard turned into a marketplace. You needed people. That was the whole idea.

Which brings us to that gray cord. The link cable was a small miracle of plastic and copper. You plugged two handhelds together, sat shoulder to shoulder, and watched pixels stroll from one system to the next. No WiFi, no cloud, no account login. Trading meant showing up in person, sitting close, and trusting the other person not to yank the connection in the middle of an exchange. Anybody who lived through it remembers the panic of a bad link.

And oh, the stories. Every lunch table had a kid swearing up and down that he knew the truth. Move the truck near the S.S. Anne and Mew appears. Fill all 150 slots and something secret unlocks. Follow some mysterious sequence of button presses and the game rewards you big. Most of it was pure fiction, passed mouth to mouth like folklore. But that was the beauty of the era. Before you could Google an answer in two seconds flat, mystery had room to breathe. A single rumor could live for months.

Now here’s the twist that kept the whole myth machine running. A few of those tales weren’t tales at all. MissingNo., that garbled blob lurking off the Cinnabar coast, was the real deal. Follow the right steps, surf along the eastern shoreline, and collide with a corrupted mess of a sprite. Suddenly, the item sitting in your sixth Bag slot multiplied out of nowhere. Half the room swore it was a hoax right up until they watched it unfold on their own screen. That smear of broken code earned its legend status for one reason. People could actually prove it.

Strip away the nostalgia and the bones still hold. Combat ran on a rock paper scissors logic anybody could grasp in a minute yet spend years mastering. Fire beats grass, water douses fire, grass drinks up water, and the loop kept unfolding into deeper territory. The difficulty respected you. No coddling, no glowing arrows pointing the way. You got a town, a rival, a starter, and the freedom to explore Kanto, one new route at a time.

Speaking of that rival. Gary. Blue. Whatever you named him. He showed up right when you were low on potions and high on confidence, always with that grin, always with a team a notch above yours. Beating him settled something. And before any of that, you had to make a call nobody prepared you for. Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle. Folks still defend their pick like it says something about who they are. Charmander loyalists took the rough road early. Squirtle folks played it smart. Bulbasaur heads breezed through the opening two gyms and never once apologized for it.

What these carts kicked off is almost tough to measure now. A trading card empire. An anime that ran what felt like forever. A phone app in 2016 that had grown folks bumping into light poles chasing digital critters through the park. None of it happens without those original Game Boy adventures. Some guy named Satoshi Tajiri liked catching insects as a kid, and that hobby of his eventually helped inspire a franchise recognized around the world.

You’d think all that would bury the debut. Hundreds of new critters since, full color, 3D towns you can spin the camera around in. And yet the old one refuses to sit down. Some of that is just how firsts work. They dig in and stay. But it runs deeper than sentiment. Those early adventures asked you to imagine, to fill the gaps the hardware left wide open. Grainy sprites forced your brain to supply the coloring. Silence between chiptune bleeps left space for wonder. Tight limits sparked creativity in a way that polish sometimes smothers.

Three decades later, the pull hasn’t faded one bit. Somewhere right now a parent is handing a wide eyed kid a worn cartridge, watching them meet Oak and pick their first Pokémon, and the cycle keeps spinning. Those first 151 aren’t a pile of dead code rotting on old silicon. They’re the thing you and some kid you haven’t seen in twenty years can still bond over in a single sentence. A tiny gray box held a whole world once. Wild part is, boot it up today and the world’s still in there.

Staff Writer; Jay Baker

An older blerd with a lifelong love for anime, comics, manga, and gaming… Writing for fans who still believe great stories can come from a screen, a page, or a controller…

He can be contacted at JayBaker@AfroGamers.com.

Now let me talk to y’all like folks instead of like a press release.

I came up on a beat up SNES that lived under a milk crate in my grandmother’s den. Blanket over the window, sun beating outside, controller cord stretched across the carpet like a tripwire. What kept me in that room for months at a stretch was not the graphics. It was the crew. Fourteen playable folks in FF6, and every last one of them had a reason to exist. Sabin threw suplexes at a locomotive. Cyan swung a sword with a menu that made you hold your breath through four levels of stance. Edgar carried a toolbox like a mechanic who moonlighted as royalty. Gau ran wild on the Veldt learning moves off monsters nobody else could touch. Setzer gambled with slot reels that could either erase a boss or blow up your whole squad.

That roster was a posse cut. Everybody got a verse, everybody had a flow you could pick out blindfolded, and nobody was riding on somebody else’s beat.

Compare that to what the publisher has been handing us lately and something feels hollowed out.

Older entries built their emotional weight on the idea that a group of broken people had to lean on each other. FF4 practically ran on that engine. Allies joined, allies betrayed you, some got yanked off the board at the worst possible moment. Palom and Porom turning to stone still stings decades later because those twins were mechanically useful and annoying and lovable all at once. Losing them cost you real damage output. Grief and strategy hit at the same time, which is a trick very few games pull off.

FF9 did it differently but just as well. Vivi was a walking existential crisis wrapped in a hat too big for his head, and he also happened to be the reason you survived certain fights. Steiner started as a joke, a stubborn tin can yelling about protocol, then evolved into a wall you actually needed. Freya carried a whole tragedy on her back while jumping halfway off the screen. Quina ate enemies. Amarant sulked in the corner and threw things. Eight permanent party members, eight distinct rhythms, one story that felt like a found family instead of a solo tour with backup dancers.

Ten had my favorite version of this. That swap system where anyone on the bench could tag into an active turn meant benching somebody was never permanent. Lulu, Wakka, Kimahri, all of them stayed relevant to the final hour because the system refused to allow you to forget they existed. Blitzball nonsense aside, Wakka’s accuracy made him the reliable answer to flying enemies my sword users kept missing. Auron broke armor. Rikku stole and mixed. You learned every kid on that pilgrimage because the combat forced an introduction.

Somewhere along the way that philosophy got traded for something sleeker and lonelier.

Fifteen gave us four boys in a car and a soundtrack that made you cry in a gas station parking lot. Genuine love for Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis over here. Problem is, at launch, you directly controlled only Noctis. The homies fought under AI control, while most of your direct input came through their Techniques and cutscene warmth. Square eventually added full character switching in December 2017, a little over a year after launch, which tells you exactly where that feature sat on the original priority list. A brotherhood tale where you can only ever be one brother is a strange contradiction to build a sixty hour campaign around.

Sixteen went further and made Clive Rosfield the only human character under direct player control. Jill shows up in your camp with a whole tragic history and fights beside him, but never once takes a turn under your command. Torgal the dog gets more direct input from the player than most of the humans. Yes, the wolf is a good boy. Yes, I petted him every chance the prompt appeared. That does not replace a lineup.

Here is where I have to be fair, because I do not do the thing where fans pretend a good game is a bad one just to win an argument.

Sixteen’s combat is excellent. Combat director Ryota Suzuki brought experience from Capcom titles including Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon’s Dogma, helping shape something with genuine weight and precise timing, and those Eikon fights are the most spectacular set pieces the series has ever produced. Titan alone justifies the purchase. Clive’s arc about branded slaves and stolen agency is the sharpest political writing Square has attempted in years, and centering him serves that theme deliberately. A story about one man refusing to be a tool for other people’s power arguably needs a narrow lens.

Real time brawling also carries technical constraints. Steering four bodies at once creates chaos that turn based systems handled gracefully and twitch systems generally do not. Design teams face actual tradeoffs, not laziness.

But the excuse only stretches so far, because the counterargument came from inside the same company.

Remake and Rebirth run on real time action and hand you three characters to flip between mid swing. Barret tanks. Tifa builds pressure with speed. Aerith zones the field with wards. Yuffie throws that star and changes her ninjutsu element to exploit weaknesses. Red XIII builds vengeance gauge off blocking. Switching feels like changing instruments in the middle of a song, and the fights ask you to do it constantly. Rebirth even added synergy abilities that only trigger when two teammates coordinate. Somebody in that studio clearly believes an ensemble can survive a modern battle system.

Meanwhile the rest of the genre kept the faith without breaking a sweat. Metaphor ReFantazio gave us archetypes and a crew you build relationships with. Persona 5 built an entire second layer out of confidants. Baldur’s Gate 3 sold millions on companions so specific that people argue about them like family members at a cookout. Octopath split its narrative eight ways on purpose. Nobody told those developers that audiences only want one guy.

Why does this matter beyond mechanics? Because ensemble storytelling reflects something true.

Nobody I grew up around got by without help. Church mothers, uncles who fixed cars in the driveway, cousins who fed everybody, the neighbor who kept an eye on your door. Survival was rarely a solo act, and stories that pretend otherwise ring false to anybody raised inside a real community. The old rosters modeled interdependence. Your mage covered what your fighter could not. Your healer kept the whole operation breathing. Somebody had to draw aggro so somebody else could set up the kill. That is not just game design, that is Sunday dinner logic applied to dragons.

A single chosen one carving through everything by himself is a different premise with different values baked in. Sometimes that story is worth telling. Told exclusively, it starts feeling like the franchise forgot what made people fall in love with it.

So what do I want from the next numbered Final Fantasy?

Give me four bodies I control. Give me a healer whose absence I feel immediately. Let somebody leave the roster halfway through the run and let it hurt because I built around them. Bring back mechanical identity so distinct that I can name a character by their menu alone. Keep the flashy action, keep the production values, keep the orchestral swell when a summon lands. Just remember that the reason people still hum Terra’s theme thirty years later is that she was surrounded by folks who mattered.

Square knows how to do this. They wrote the manual. The Final Fantasy VII remake project and Square Enix’s Octopath games have already proved that ensemble driven RPG design still works on modern hardware.

Put the band back together. I am tired of listening to a solo.

Staff Writer; Jay Baker

An older blerd with a lifelong love for anime, comics, manga, and gaming… Writing for fans who still believe great stories can come from a screen, a page, or a controller…

He can be contacted at JayBaker@AfroGamers.com.

For those who never experienced it or played the game when it ended on storefronts, Kingdoms of Amalur was an open-world action RPG taking place in fantasy world brimming with magical and ancient dangers, well-crafted lore, and a good amount of quests and side quests to keep you busy.

Following a decent character creation process, the main character’s story begins after challenging Fate and reviving after certain death. There is a brutal conflict going on but the Gnomes are busy conducting research into resurrection and getting their Well of Souls working.

The MC proves to be a success and of great interest to one researcher who accompanies the MC in escaping hostile forces and puts them on the path to finding out more about their new existence. Along the way, the main character experiences many adventures while also lending their power to the difficult forces combating the Tuatha and more regional dangers and threats.

Kingdoms of Amalur Had a Lot Going for It

Honestly, that’s as brief an explanation of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (or Re-Reckoning, the remaster). There’s a lot of stuff going on here. It featured everything that would’ve been standard for an open-world game at this time.

You have your farming of materials, crafting, a decent-sized skill tree with flexibility for some flexible build crafting, rewarding side quests and encounters that allow you to test and stress your progress and build.

The developer, Big Huge Games had a boatload of ideas and managed to put the majority together and craft their mechanics around them. And it works! Whenever I installed this game, I ended up sinking hours into the quests, building up my Fateless One (the main character who exists beyond Fate which governs the world), and crafting gear and weapons to better utilize those skills.

It’s all stock open-world RPG fare but it’s all put together in a way that works and is actually fun. In addition, you had two creative powerhouses in fantasy and comics with novelist R.A Salvatore and writer/artist Todd McFarlane fleshing out the setting of the Faelands, its lore and inhabitants.

What I found interesting about all of this is that at the time of its release, visually Kingdoms of Amalur looked like nothing too special. There were definitely that looked better crafted graphically but Amalur was far from a horrible-looking game. In some ways it existed between slightly dated and of its time but didn’t come off as a game that would push the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or gaming PCs of the early 2010s.

The World and Scale

Instead you had regions that were colorful, bold, and at times dark and gloomy. You actually felt that your Fateless One was engaged in this large, lengthy quest where you decided how it progressed. Adding to this was the scale of the world. You could look at the map and see what region your were in and which ones were close but traveling through these areas wasn’t exactly a quick jaunt.

You were going to clash with enemies and beasts, you would be distracted by loot and stories, and enticed by exploration. The size of different areas within a region encouraged exploration and after a few encounters, that curiosity in what else could be gained as far as gear and weapons.

I would say this is what really kept me in Amalur: the scale and crafting. Sure, the combat was fine but the possibilities and tiers of crafting material and what could be made had me trying to create the best possible gear for my adventures. The game encouraged that heavily but made it so that if you were into combat, there was plenty of that but you had to explore to be more effective.

Fate of the Kingdom

Ultimately, Kingdoms of Amalur managed to move a million copies but the developer closed due to financial factors as EA had to be repaid for investing a significant amount into the project. Also, the development itself had some issues that seemed to be am indication of how things would shake out for the end product.

Despite the cash sunk into Amalur, there were unfavorable takes into different elements of the game. It was viewed favorably enough to warrant a remaster by Kaiko roughly eight years later. While there is a potential series or even a franchise there, Amalur hasn’t seen much interest or movement in future entries.

Share your thoughts on Kingdoms of Amalur. With the other RPGs of a similar vein out and thriving at that time, did you have expectations of a sequel? Or did you gather that “Too much was out into this game, it was going to get the axe and thrown in the vault”?

Let us know!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

It’s a slower burn but Little King’s Story even eased that to where it was manageable for players not familiar with RTS. The Wii was meant to reel in all kinds of gamers despite experience, genre preference, or free time. Little King’s Story was somewhat different in that RTS aren’t exactly “I’ll play a bit and come back to it later.”

No, like RPGs, simulation games, and strategy games; once you start it up, you’ve pretty much accepted that you’re going lose time in that day. Again, this game dropped in 2009 and was well-received, so where are the sequels?

Where’s Little King’s Story?

LKS was developed by Cing, a defunct indie developer that went under in 2010, just under a year after releasing this title. Most their titles were on the Nintendo DS with a run of roughly seven years. You could say they got a lot done before shuttering.

Their work included games in the Another Code and Hotel Dusk series as well as the DS debut of Monster Rancher. Of their games Little King’s Story and Monster Rancher DS were the two I played the most.

It was an interesting time in gaming with the Nintendo printing money despite having a home console that was underpowered and lacked the expected features of that period, an approach that has continued into the Switch 2. If anything, Cing should’ve made money as well due to its close working relationship with Nintendo starting in 2005.

An issue could’ve been the pace at which Nintendo released games (which is still on the sluggish side) but that’s mainly with its first party games. The company takes its time for Mario and Zelda for quality reasons. Think how long it was between Metroid Prime 3 and the fourth entry release in 2025. In that 19-year period, we saw a number of remasters, spinoffs. Mind you, Prime 4 came out roughly four years after the previous main installment Metroid Dread, which is a solid amount of time between main games in a franchise if there are no other major titles being developed.

Again, all of that is for a first-party game being developed by Nintendo’s own development teams. Cing was an indie developer who happened to have a regular working relationship with Ninty. The fate of Little King’s Story was up in the air.

The Game Ended on a Cliffhanger

With Cing shut down, the rights to LKS fell to Marvelous, which published the game in Japan on the Wii. On paper, that looks fine since Marvelous is still putting out games regularly and working on titles in known properties. They’re active but they have a lot on their plate with their own titles and others.

While LKS is one of their titles and proved to be a popular title, that was in 2009-2010. Gaming has changed a lot since then and a title like Little King’s Story might appear dated or unpredictable in performance compared to its tried and true titles Rune Factory, Story of Seasons, and Senran Kagura as well as handling Monster Hunter Stories, No More Heroes, and Valhalla Knights.

Now, I regularly bring up titles that I’d like to see revived and believe that developers technically have a new franchise in an older one if we haven’t seen anything from that franchise in decades. I’m still waiting on Capcom to drop another Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance. However, LKS like Beat Down has gone too long without anything new or fresh to get a franchise going.

It’s unlikely that a Little King’s Story 2 that continues from the game’s ending is developed and we likely won’t see a reboot. It would take Marvelous having a “what’s old is new again” approach similar to TV and film studios with these sitcom revivals and continuations.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Meanwhile, a gamer could feel strongly about a title and want it modernized or to at least get a sequel—yes, decades after the previous release. Obviously, I’m not a game designer or associated with a developer, so you can guess which group I fall in with this list.

We’re going to look at five titles that could do with a comeback season whether it’s a sequel or a reboot.

Sleeping Dogs (2012, United Front/Square Enix)

Sleeping Dogs is considered the spiritual successor to the True Crime series, a PS2 GTA-clone where the police detective element was the focus. The True Crime series was supposed to have a third entry based again in New York—that later became Hong Kong with United Front’s work on the then unnamed title. However, that was axed by Activision. Mind you, the True Crime: New York City did have some big-name TV and film actors doing voice work for a game that…it flopped, folks.

We’re talking less than 80,000 units sold in its first two weeks. That lets you know that this wasn’t going to meet the budget put into the game at all.

Then United Front came along with what would become Sleeping Dogs after Activision passed on publishing it. The rest is history: it was received very well and presented enough that a sequel wasn’t out of the question. Performance-wise, it sold enough units to warrant exploring a sequel—yet here we are.

The game was supposed to see a sequel which followed the future cases and adventures of Shen and was to feature a mobile gaming aspect that impacted Sleeping Dogs 2’s gameplay. While there is no sequel on the horizon, the license was picked up and is being turned into a film.

Kengo (2000, Genki/Crave)

Let’s get into even older franchises that have seen no recent developments—such as Bushido Blade. Well, let’s go with the spiritual successor: Kengo. While Bushido Blade added a realistic element to the 3D fighting game genre with wounds and bleed outs resulting in victory or defeat, I enjoyed Kengo’s approach of putting the player in the shoes of a traveling swordsman.

This wasn’t going through different parts of a village and slaughtering the opps and their heavies. No, you went from established dojo to established dojo to practice, learn techniques, and apply those techniques in duels. Then you fought the masters of the dojos and eventually participated in the imperial tournament. Outside of the absence of some slice-of-life stuff, this was basically a swordsman simulator.

Now, the third entry was a bit of a bust because it was a garden variety fighting game with swords and we already had Bushido Blade 2 as well as Soulcalibur and Battle Arena Toshiden by that time.

Rival Schools (1997, Capcom)

On the one hand, it’s like—there are enough fighting games out there, do we really need to bring back one from almost 30 years ago? Especially if nothing new is done, it’s just a return of this game’s roster. Capcom even did something new with Street Fighter 6, so a Rival Schools return would have to be something fresh instead of an expensive investment in nostalgia.

I say add aged Rival Schools characters to the Street Fighter roster because Capcom had some great characters from the R.S and Street Fighter EX titles. Batsu? Skullomania? Yes, add them to the roster.

Inindo: Way of the Ninja (1991, Koei)

I can’t say enough good things about this Super Nintendo title. It was like playing as an officer in Romance of the Three Kingdoms in turn-based JRPG. For a game released in 1991, it had features that would make many RPGs worth playing multiple times. The main feature is the recruiting of allies actively forming a rapport with them.

However, some potential allies or teammates might not agree with your motivations, or they might believe that serving Nobunaga is the ultimate job—when you’re trying to take him out for razing your village.

The other major element is that each month, the landscape/map is updated with the battles that went down. The player can work for a daimyo and by doing mission for them successfully, they can participate in battles. Meaning, they can impact the power dynamic in feudal Japan and probably weaken Nobunaga’s influence.

With the advancements in development and writing over 30-plus years, I’d say Koei could make the ultimate ninja game if they decided to revisit this title.

Alpha Protocol (2010, Obsidian Entertainment/Sega)

Listen, Alpha Protocol wasn’t perfect at all and at times it could drag at points, but the game was one of the best espionage games made. The only franchises or games I would put over it are Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex (under Square Enix). Having to travel to different locations around the world for missions, decisions that impacted future missions, a decent combat system that could’ve been more polished in a sequel—Alpha Protocol had the makings for a good, regular series for Sega.

It was a spy game that was purely about spycraft. This wasn’t a shooter based around a spy or spy fighting game, no—stealth was necessary here, folks. Negotiation was necessary as well. You could tell that Obsidian Entertainment had plans for the gameplay mechanics in place and that more could’ve been done with those mechanics.

My two gripes with AP are that the game felt a little short for what was going down—it’s the same feeling I had for Deus Ex: Human Revolution—and it ended on a something of a cliffhanger. The combat, camera, and all that didn’t bother me as much as it bothered others, but a cliffhanger will always burn my biscuit.

What are your five games that you’d love to see get a reboot or sequel? Let us know in the comments!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

The Lack of People Made Me Wonder in Super Mario Games

The Mario games had that even on stages that had no actual backgrounds like the haunted houses in Super Mario World or castles and forts in the OG Super Mario Bros. There was something exciting happening on the screen.

Then you get older and a little critical. You’ve been exposed to better worlds, elaborate game design, and story—so much story that one of the most revolutionary features in gaming is the “Skip Scene” button.

So, the worlds of the Mario games seem super odd. Like sure, it’s a world of fantasy but even worlds of fantasy have some order, right? In SMB, I basically used imagination to figure out where all of the people were. I came to the conclusion that each stage in SMB, SMB3, and SMW are basically battlegrounds to face Bowser and his Koopa Troopas.

There’s no way I, as a villain, would kidnap a princess or the magic scepters of a bunch of kings ruling over barren lands. They would basically be bandit chiefs with ties to the Crown. No, these battles took place away from civilization with Mario and Luigi having to win each time.

I mean, it would at least make it seem like the Mushroom Kingdom and the other kingdoms are fighting back, right? There’s no way any of those castles would be standing in Super Mario Bros. 3 if there was no resisting army. Bowser’s Koopalings all had Flying Fortresses. Those things shots normal-sized and large Bullet Bills. They dropped bombs. If there was no military Mario and Luigi would’ve been running through parking lots.

The Mario RPGs Explained Things Much Better

As always, leave it up to RPGs and the social aspect to breathe life into these worlds. Even in Super Mario 64—a massive step into the late 90s and early 2000s for Nintendo—that world was sparse. It was just Mario, Peach, Bowser, and a bunch of enemies. Toad and someone else might have been there but it wasn’t a populated world.

It would also explain how the warp pipes dropped Mario and Luigi off just where they needed to go. The RPGs games—like the Megaman action RPGs on Game Boy Advance—featured towns and villages with inhabitants, shops, and side quests.

Mario and his party actually seemed like part of the Mushroom Kingdom and not an isekai savior. Because why would you summon a plumber with an unknown background to your world to save you? Mario could’ve had a violent criminal record or been a bloodthirsty maniac. The Mushroom Council or the Stars lucked up and got a kind-hearted, heroic plumber and his brother of questionable courage. Then again, they got a plumber of all people. Two! They got a buy-one-get-one-free on New York plumbers. What rotten RNG.

Of course, there are retellings of how Mario and Luigi were born in that world but even that begs questions. Apparently, there are or were humans wherever they are. What happened to them? All of the kings in SMB3 are human, Peach, Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Wario and so on. What’s up with the humans?

There are plenty of toadstools. We were even introduced to friendly koopas in Paper Mario and peaceful communities of Yoshis in Super Mario World. That question among others I’ve had over the years about one of my favorite franchises calls for an anime and perhaps a manga with continuity.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

The thing about that is that combat plays a role in Stardew Valley but it isn’t the main thing. It can drive some stuff in the game but you can still enjoy your experiences without being super hardcore in the mines. Hell, the farm is your priority, honestly.

Started Valley Draws Inspiration from Other Great Unique Games

Stardew Valley is inspired by the Story of Seasons franchise—which pretty much came out of the Harvest Moon franchise. SDV takes the pixel approach of the early Harvest Moon games which were purely farming and slice-of-life and mixes it with Rune Factory and Story of Seasons’ mix of farming and adventure.

There is a very small pool of games in this vein. Throw in Graveyard Keeper and the mobile title Harvest Town. Some fans and veterans of this genre might include Animal Crossing in there but these games always had more depth to them. I know I’ve invested hours into Stardew Valley across PC, Android and PlayStation 4.

It’s a game that keeps you engaged when you make progress and can invest more in your farm or take the time to adventure and fish. There’s a little something for everyone without being intense or forcing the player into a grind.

I’ve always found this game and American Truck Simulator to be incredibly chill and a bit of a stress reliever from the more involved and intense games I play. Even in relation to other RPGs, the element of just farming and managing your resources is a break from say Dragon Quest or Diablo.

You’d think “Oh, I have to manage resources and money? Sounds involved.” It’s actually pretty simple. If you grow it, you can sell it. If you want more for something, you’ll have to invest what you made in stuff to improve the quality. The crafting aspect does add a little more involvement and resource management but I also found that to be direct.

Getting used to the farming, foraging and mining will see you with what you need for what you want to make soon enough. Building relationships adds some story and goals to your character’s life as well! Perhaps it’s that mix of simplicity, progress, goals, and freedom that results in me sinking so much time into the game.

Well that and having stats that can be followed, bonuses, and crafting. As you know, I love crafting. It’s also what saw me sink time into Harvest Moon games. If you play on a PC, you have the extra freedom of utilizing mods to really customize the game in different ways but playing on console is also a very enjoyable experience each time.

The Senses

Stardew Valley has a clean pixel art style that takes me back to playing Harvest Moon on a ZSNES emulator in the early 2000s. It’s very nostalgic if you started playing games in the early 1990s and I’m all for the retro stuff, obviously. I tend to play games with the music muted but even the music reminds me of the early Harvest Moon games.

It’s a great presentation and honestly, it’s my preferred look for this type of game. Story of Seasons, Rune Factory, and the post-Harvest Moon console games took the 3D route but I always enjoyed 2D HM more—even if HM64 and Rune Factory really blew me away on my first playthroughs.

At the moment, ConcernedApe is working on Haunted Chocolatier which seems like it will be in a similar vein but centered around a confectionary shop. However, something on the side in Stardew Valley such as the fishing or mining are worthy of their own titles. Hell, the Harvest Moon series kind of spanned the Legend of River King series and fishing was never so adventurous.

If you’ve played SDV, what was your experience with it? Let us know in the comments!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Secret of the Stars- 1993

Alright, here me out on this one. This game is not the most critically acclaimed, highly thought of, or even well-known RPG of its time, but there are a lot of things that this game has that I would love to see come back or even modern RPGs copy.

While the story wasn’t something that was groundbreaking or even very memorable, and the battle system wasn’t anything special, they did something that I absolutely loved at the time, and I wish that more RPGs did today. They had two separate parties and forced you to level up and play with both. There were eight playable characters in the game I think, and you had four on one team and four on the other. One team had certain strengths and abilities and the other team did as well.

I really liked this dynamic because it gave you time to develop all the characters and get attached to what they can do and how they fit into your playstyle. In most RPG games, you play with the same characters and the other characters are basically on the bench the whole game, especially if they join later in the game.

Another aspect of this game that I loved that you see more of it in modern games but not enough is city building. You start in a city that has nothing and you must go out, do quests and get people to move into your city and start shops and other utilities for you and your heroes. There are games like Ni No Kuni that do this better, but games that have this aspect are few and far between.

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen- 1993

I have no idea how the Ogre Battle series died after three games. I think that if it was rebooted today, it would be an absolute hit. While Tactics Ogre is still great and Ogre Battle 64 was fun in its day, the original still hold a special place for me, mainly because of the gameplay loop and battle system.

I remember tinkering with certain party combinations and loadouts for hours (this was long before the internet where you could get someone to tell you what the best stuff to use is). The day and night system in the game was great where certain enemies would come out at night that didn’t show in the daytime. Also, I love the way that lore was presented in the game where you had to go out to every castle and town to see what people were saying and sometimes go and come back at another time of day or the next day. There were even times that the people in certain towns or castles would give you hints to somewhere you might want to visit or an area that you might want to explore to get a special character.

Robotrek- 1994

This game was a fun game that I played when I was younger that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. While my brother played way more of this game than I did, I think that there were things in the game that I found so fun that I would always pick it back up again and again to see what else I could do.

There was an aspect of “build crafting” in the game that would be simple by today’s standards but back then was great. You could do missions to find different parts for your robots and kit them out to do exactly what you wanted them to do. The difficulty of the game was a little much for my young self, but it is a game that I wish that I had stuck by because the story was starting to get better when the gameplay started to get harder.

While I don’t think that this game is worth the full blown, Nintendo remake like the other games on the list, I think that it would be worth getting an indie studio to remake the game and give it an upgrade. I really think that Nintendo fans would love this game and shell out at least $40 for it, if not more.

Earthbound- 1994

This JRPG was one of my favorites when I was younger. Some called it Earthbound, some called it Mother or Mother 2 (I never understood the difference) but whatever you called it, make sure that you called it good. This game had basic RPG elements for the time but where the charm came in was at the story level and how you got through the game.

This game had a lot of tongue in cheek and fourth wall breaking moments in it and it really felt like a game that me and my brother would have wrote while we were growing up. That sort of relatability in a game adds to the fun factor.

I’ve heard many JRPG enthusiasts throughout the years ask for a remake if not a reboot of this game and im right along with them.

Golden Sun- 2010

The most modern game on this list and one that Nintendo should be locked up for. Golden Sun was a staple of every JRPG lover that had a Gameboy Advanced. They had a three game run with the series but if you look at some of the games that they are remaking and rebooting today, you have to ask yourself, why not Golden Sun?

The game had a great battle system, a great story, great graphics, the game was just great. Nintendo would be printing even more money today if they announced a new entry into the series or even that they were going to be remaking the first three games and putting them into a bundle.

There isn’t much more that I can say about this game other than it is a classic and I think with the recent announcements and release of the Advanced Wars remake, which was another game that helped define the GBA era of games, a new Golden Sun game isn’t completely out of the question.

Staff Writer; Tardell Swift

This brother is new to writing yet has many different interests such as gaming, hip hop, wrestling, and manga.

You can follow him on Twitter; PhirewoodGaming and keep up with his thoughts there as well.

If a game has at least two of those, I’ll stick around to see how it pans out. It might not hit all four but that doesn’t eliminate it from being a fun experience, after all. We’re going to get into five video game franchises with truly satisfying stealth mechanics.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War

We mention this game every now and then on AfroGamers but the Middle-earth really encourages a stealthy approach to dispatching enemies as opposed to just berserking on hordes. Mind you, if you’re armed and geared up enough, you could very well go berserk take out a small group of orcs.

However, the wise thing is to target lone or small groups of them away from larger groups or encampments. A stealthy approach is best for this kind of long game and Shadow of Mordor’s spin on stealth gameplay works perfectly with its setting and combat mechanics.

What really bolsters the stealth in Middle-earth—and the game as a whole—is the Nemesis System. Having enemies who remember their encounters with the player and actually improve if left alone was next-level AI—really years ahead.

It adds to the stealth by having the player stalk the movements of their main prey. That comes in the form of just following them if you’re close enough to remember their last location or interrogating other enemy commanders and either forcing them to serve you or getting info.

I’d love to see this in more games with stealth gameplay.

Elder Scrolls

I would’ve put Elder Scrolls and Fallout since their stealth mechanics are similar but Elder Scrolls’ setting makes stealth much more rewarding and fun. Sneaking around and lockpicking is more practical in Fallout. It’s something you should be doing because of how dangerous everything seems to be in the wasteland.

In the Elder Scrolls games, the danger—even at high settings—was never such that it was utterly impossible to avoid or overcome. That’s also in part because while looting, there’s not much to load up worth keeping in your inventory. You can always ditch something.

Meanwhile in Fallout 4, a glass bottle or tin can is worth keeping up until a point if you’re focusing on base building and crafting a lot. In Elder Scrolls, it’s more like you’re keeping the most value things for trading or salvaging skills.

Obtaining those valuable things by delving into dungeons, rummaging houses, and spelunking in caves requires a lot of sneaking, lockpicking, and trap avoidance. Well, at least to do it with a degree of caution.

Elder Scrolls’ stealth game is ridiculously solid for this kind of approach. Plus, doing it regularly actually shows some improvement while using stealth class skills. Locks become easier to pick, traps can be run over without triggering them, and you can sneak up on enemies and secure stealth kills. Love it.

Spider-Man

Marvel’s Spider-Man is a game with a good stealth mechanic that has a flaw of enemies always reaching a point where they’re aware of the player’s presence. The mechanics are actually good enough that you should be able to clear a room without alerting the remaining force.

Part of the stealth mechanic in games is enemy AI—particularly, their awareness that an enemy is nearby. Most of the enemy’s you’re clapping—and the same is the case with the Arkham games—are goons. Sure, some ninjas and cybersuit super soldiers might pop up but you’re mostly dealing with robbers and street toughs.

They shouldn’t be as quick as they are in spotting the player for some reason. I don’t know. Regardless, the swinging around rooms with conveniently placed bars, rafters, levels, platforms, and ledges makes for an awesome experience while sneaking around.

Also, Spidey’s combat of webbing enemies up and quick melee attacks makes dispatching enemies quickly and quietly very rewarding.

Metal Gear Solid

A stealth list wouldn’t be complete without Metal Gear Solid. Depending on the game, you might either really love the stealth and combat or really dislike one or both. I enjoyed MGS 3 and MGS 4’s stealth and combat but the first two games—eh, the stealth just wasn’t as fun for me.

It could be that I discovered stealth games during the PS2 with Tenchu and missed out on the initial PS1 run of Metal Gear Solid. Revisiting it after playing something more fluid in MGS 3 when analog movement wasn’t an addition might have impacted my view of the first two MGS games.

However, by the time we reach MGS 3, it’s an eye-opener for people new to stealth gameplay. Trying not to make noise, taking enemies out with knife attacks or sleeper holds, having to move bodies to avoid detection—it’s all presented extremely well in MGS 3 and it only got better with MGS 4 as consoles and PC power improved to where increasingly complex enemy AI and level design made the stealth pop.

Splinter Cell

The fifth one was a difficult pick but it just means we’ll have to do a second list down the line. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell was probably my second experience with stealth gameplay and it was more complex than MGS 3. I sum this up to a preference in approaches. While MGS action/sci-fi/stealth mix is extremely fun, I liked the more rooted stealth/action approach of Splinter Cell more.

Both games—as well as Hitman—require some clean up in the sense of hiding bodies to avoid detection but Splinter Cell made heavy use of tighter quarters/smaller rooms to discourage using firearms inside. Another thing that the three games focus on is paying attention to enemy movements.

I can’t say that one game does it better than the other. However, MGS often gave you more room to groove as far as level design. As the franchise went on, you were given more and more space to explore in your missions. Splinter Cell gave players more to explore as well but exploration never really became a focus of the games. This was more like practical space with better development technology. Think of it more like the early and mid-console Hitman games where knowing enemy location and a lot of navigating rooms and floors are necessary. That’s Splinter Cell’s stealth approach. There’s rarely a lot of places to hide if enemies are detected without backtracking a bit.

Let’s say this was part one of our stealth series. Did any of your franchise picks make the list? Also, what games do you think will make part two? Let us know down below!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.