Steam is DRM.

Ryu Hayabusa of Ninja Gaiden.

I love these threads.

The first time I was really blown away by graphics was NFL 2K on the dreamcast. Or at least it's my first memory of being totally blown away. I was 15 at the time (I'm 25 now).

Doom 1 at a lan party. I was 12 at the time and only got to play a few rounds while waiting in line so I never fully exhausted the game engine. The first FPS I poured a bunch of hours into was Goldeneye 007 on the N64. I still remember being "wowed" by the graphics. Time flies.

I remember one of the managers I worked with there would lie to customers and tell them there's no "new copies" left purposely to get them to buy a used copy (where the store would make more money). The regional manager actually encouraged this type of behavior. I was an asst. manager there and was regularly scolded for being honest with people.

Gamestop is not a hobbyist store even though they like to market themselves as such. They care only about their bottom line and have absolutely no problem deceiving customers to meet their cut-throat revenue & margin goals. The entire "pre-order to guarantee yourself a copy!!" is a complete farce. There was always plenty of copies and in the extremely rare occasion a lesser known title wasn't available, there was always Gamestops within a few miles that had it.

There's a lot of politics in "editors choice" e.g. publishers with deep pockets that control the rights to big blockbuster titles...and threaten editors with removing their ad campaigns if they don't guarantee the publisher a certain score.

I believe you have to ignore the scores and find good analysis on the game from a plethora of different resources; then formulate your own opinion.

Yes, I've played Chrono Trigger recently and thought it was relatively mediocre, but it's recognized as one of the best japan RPGs of all time.

Yea...I'm a big fan of computer RPGs and I asked somebody who is also a fan of computer RPGs to recommend some jRPGs (he plays those too). He told me not to bother that "jRPGs are a junkfood genre".

I'm not entirely sure what he meant. My guess is he's saying that they're cookie-cutter.

I worked at Gamestop. The only reason why we used to beg people to pre order copies of games is because it guaranteed them a return visit to our store where we could sell people on other stuff like subscriptions, and used games.

There is absolutely zero reason to pre order games. The pre order bonuses are content that should be in the game to begin with. Please don't support this business model as there is nothing in it for the gamer and everything in it for the store.

Are japan RPGs a junk food genre?