From what I've heard: Capcom wasn't thrilled with the original, and had no plans of going forward with another one. A small but dedicated team worked on it after hours and pitched it to Capcom, and they green lit it. Thus was born one of the greatest gaming sequels of all time!

Great Review Jamie - one of my favorite aspects of the Mega Man mythos is how the second game came to pass because it was a labor of love project of a team at Capcom who knew Mega Man had a lot of potential as a series.

Also, reading this reminds me of why I love retro reviews so much!

Awesome article Julian! I think how cathardic gaming can be is an often overlooked aspect of it, and it is great to hear how a particular work helped someone pull through a tough time.

Happy 5th Birthday Pixlbit! Congrats to Nick for bringing his dream brought into the world, and to everyone who helps make this site the awesome place that it is!

Have you played The Witcher 2? It has a really good story with lot's of variation due to player choices/allegiances that actually effect the plot. I think you'd enjoy it!

Connecting with an open-world title is very dependent on individual player tastes and overall preferences towards art direction, tone, etc; it has to be a world the player as an individual wants to explore. It's the reason I could never get into the GTA series.

It's all about what kind of experience that a gamer as an individual enjoys the most, and generally each gamer has their own set of priorities in terms of what they are looking to get out of a title. Personally, I feel that when games are strictly bound by directorial narrative, the gameplay tends to take a back seat. I am a serious lover of retro games, and I think a lot of that has to do with the art direction and gameplay being the emphasis, as opposed to the medium trying to shoehorn film-style narrative into gaming. Some gamers don't mind a lack of emphasis on gameplay as long as the narrative is rewarding, I seldom find the experience enjoyable.

Not to say that I believe open-world games are always better, or that they are the end all be all of player experience; I find GTA4 to be one of the most overrated games of all time, and I have really enjoyed TellTale's Walking Dead so far. I do love how open-world games let the gamer experience the world at their own pace, and I'd certainly take Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, or Dark Souls any day over David Cage's work.

Thankfully, between the vast catalogue of retro titles to today's fairly varied gaming landscape, there truly is something for every gamer that will satisfy their own personal tastes. To each their own! 

Actually planning on diving into New Vegas once I finish The Witcher 2 - two massive RPG's to finish back to back, why did I do this to myself haha! I have played a bit of New Vegas, and I am loving the faction/reputation system and the overall "Western" vibe!

Put about 400 or so hours into my first character play through, and never once did it feel like work or I was just going through the motions. Considering how many games today have your interest dwindling about 15 mins to a half hour into playing, this is truly an impressive feat. It isn't only the amount of content in Skyrim that is impressive, but how damn fun, rewarding, and engaging most of that content is!

And agreed, the Daedric quests are quite awesome - do you have a certain favorite Daedric artifact? 

I hope so, too! It would actually be worth splurging a little more on memory and a graphics card just to be able to run some of the incredible mods that are out there.  

Agreed - the level of detail and to the degree that Skyrim feels like a living, breathing world never ceases to amaze me. I think what really creates a sense of immersion with open-world games is to make the player feel as if they are NOT the center of world; if a game makes you feel like you are just a participant in a living, thriving landscape, and not the sole catalyst for change and growth, than that creates the most believable world. 

I remember you telling me about this awhile ago, and how much of a badass did you feel like after defeating a friggin dragon in a FIST FIGHT?

I should note, that both the Forgotten Vale and Soul Kairn are a part of the Dawnguard DLC. If you haven't picked up any of the DLC yet, you won't be disappointed if you do; Dragonborn also has you exploring the isle of Solsteihm, which is a wonderful callback to Morrowind and without spoiling anything, also features some content that wouldn't be out of context in an H.P. Lovecraft tale.

Why thank you! I am also a big fan of visual/environmental enhancement and alteration mods.

Thank you Matt! I absolutely love the atmosphere of Skyrim, especially how the music accompanies the environments and tone of the experience. Have you been to the "Forgotten Vale" or the "Soul Kairn" realms yet? If not, you, my friend, are in for some serious awesome!

I CANNOT WAIT to dig into this game! I've heard so many good things about it, and I absolutely love how builds upon a foundation laid by so many incredible retro titles. 

I always found the element of wandering off, exploring, and running into sidequests/building my own story to be far more exciting in terms of open-world games than strictly following the main questline. I completely the main questline in Skyrim, but I definitely took my time doing that :) I would obviously heartily recommend picking it up if you haven't yet; this game is built FOR wandering around and exploring the world.

Glad to hear your asking about the Forge! I'll be firing that series up again shortly, and thank you for the inspiration - Giant WereDragon vs. Flying Dragon = awesome beyond words!

Good Luck Captain N! Sending positive vibes your way!

You covered two of the reasons why the Kirby Franchise is my favorite in all of gaming: varied gameplay styles/genres that are always incredibly fun, and a tiered difficulty system that is quite brilliant. No matter what genre a Kirby game is,  you can always bet there will be plenty of personality, charm, ingenuity, and fun to be had!

And now I must track down a ROM of Kirby Super Star Stacker 

I have been meaning to play this for some time, especially before I check out the Wild Hunt - I dig its grounded, Game of Thrones-esque take on fantasy, and I think you have just inspired me to take the plunge!

How's the combat system by the way? It's hard to get a feel for it from watching Let's Plays and reviews.

While I wait to go Next Gen, I have plenty of last gen titles to keep me busy, and of course, retro stuff 

Actually, I just started Earthbound recently for the first time, and I'm really looking forward to experiencing it!

Thanks to everyone for the love/kind words on the illustrations - had an absolute blast doing them and glad that you guys and gals like them! Big thanks to Yargz for putting together this guide to help beginners as we get our asses kicked all up and down Dragleic!

I would highly recommend that you checkout Red Dead Redemption at some point, in my opinion, it's definitely one of the best of this past generation, and the world & the boat load of content is an absolute blast to explore. And if it's a concern of yours, there is far more of an emphasis on morality in the game both narratively and in terms of play than GTA.

Agreed! SMW is an absolute masterpiece, and in my opinion it is still the standard to beat for platformers (I'd consider SMW 2: Yoshi's Island a very high contender in that category, as well). I don't think I've played a platformer before or since that can take its crown.  In the immortal words of Ric Flair: "to be the man, you gotta beat the man!"

And yes, SMW > SMB3, hands down! That is probably one of the most impassioned debates in gaming history.

Having been fortunate to own both a Genesis and an Super Nintendo, I had the opportunity to play both Sonic and Mario's various titles in real time during the 16 bit era. While I played a lot of the first Sonic, it just didn't resonate with me the same way that Super Mario World did; SMW's gameplay just had a polish and a perfection that I felt Sonic, though entertaining, lacked.

 I think this review has encouraged me to revisit the original Sonic titles after many, many years!

Great review, Jon. Your sentiments seem to echo my own; it seems that the CoD franchise has evolved into the gaming industry equivalent of the "Big Mac" - you know exactly what you're getting and it's a cash cow for the industry, but don't expect anything special. For me, the franchise is just kind of "there", and I would love for Activision to take some ballsy risks with the series (Revolutionary or Civil War might rekindle my interest), but I sadly don't see that coming with the amount of money that it continues to make them. At this point, it seems more likely they'll simply run the series into the ground and bleed it out fiscally before they take a bold risk to reinvent the series.