Thank you, sir. It's been odd, watching things from my house slowly leave, though I must admit, there's a sense of goodness there when the person I sell them to sends me a message on eBay about how they used to play X game when they were a kid and are really excited to be getting it again. Makes it a little more worthwhile as they go. I would agree -- debt is a necessary evil, but I wish we had better education on how exactly it worked. Especially for how young you can be to start using it. My parents never gave me that education (and in some ways exacerbated on the situation) so it was easy for me to fall into the trap. I told myself once I'm out though, it will never happen again.

Haha, its so easy to fall into other hobbies when you're slowing down on another isn't it? I almost fell into the vinyl trap. I absolutely love the vinyls Square Enix has been putting out, and I've got a small collection of those, but I've been trying to keep focused on the real goal here, so as of now, I'm not really collecting anything. What's five more years of waiting it out when all of this stuff will be here when I'm ready, amirite? Just have to keep pushing towards the goal line. RE: the Yakuza games, there's definitely a sense of gratification when you Marie Kondo your stuff. Sometimes it stings, but most of the times its like "well, it was just sitting there..."

I actually laughed out loud when I heard about the Playstation Portal. I've got a lot of thoughts about how poorly Sony is approaching today's market, because on the flip side of that, I think Xbox is doing so much better. I actually am very much into Game would die on that hill. It's $16 a month for me (less if you want console OR PC instead of both), and I don't need anything extra that I don't already have. Saves are cloud based and you can pick up wherever you go, and if I want to be super portable, I can play on my phone or iPad without buying anything extra. It's super slick and has really helped the itch of ever wanting to buy new games when they get every single thing that comes out. EX: I played Starfield on day one without having to spend the $74 ish bucks to buy it new. It was a one time play game that I'll never pick up again.

Funny, us talking at this moment. I'm playing Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster on Steam, which reminded me of that time you and I used to jump on a Skype call on Twitch and just shoot the shit while I was playing that very same game. Weird how life works like that.

Hey man, sorry. I was genuinely just looking to hear your opinion, not necessarily refute or counter any of your points. When I see games get strange feedback that seems to be a bit polarizing, I try and find someone I feel can give a truly objective opinion of. You are one of the first people that come to mind, and you had been playing (or recently played, I can't remember), which is why I asked. I suppose I could have given a bit back but your thoughts do echo mine for the most part. Maybe some minor variance in my sheer love for the franchise, but it becomes a bit more subjective then.

Yeah, so something a lot of folks don't know about me (though I guess they will now) is that I've carried some form of consumer debt with me since I was 18 (the age you have to be to even open a credit card). I always thought it was just a way of life and thought I had to live in it forever, but I've been really into reading (see: listening to audiobooks) about finances, investing, and just generally how to take money and turn it into wealth. Number one tip: get out of debt first. So I sat down and took a really close look, and realized I'm actually fairly close to being debt free (within the next five years) and wanted to expedite that a bit, so I started selling off all the things in my house that I don't absolutely need. I put myself on a more strict budget, and am just generally making better money decisions, and it's working out really well. I don't know if its having kids that did it, or I'm just tired of being in debt and working to live. Maybe a bit of both.

For our next move, we are probably going to stay in the states. We don't want to move, but being closer to home will make holiday travels easier. However once the kids are older I think we may up and dip from the country ourselves. Probably for a lot of the same reasons you have, I'm sure. I'm glad you're working on rebuilding your life, as I know you went through a really rough stint there for a bit. I'm sure I barely know the extent of it, but I'm happy to hear things are moving positively for you. I can genuinely say the same for me, as well.

I have FF7R2 on the list of things to do, but I can't bring myself to sit in front of my TV with my PS5 to play it. I've been doing a lot of steam gaming because I can stream it to the iPad when I need to be mobile or using retro handhelds and knocking out some RetroAchievements, but I'm sure I'll get to it eventually. It was great to hear from you, though!

I feel like you're one of the few people I know that can give a truly objective (no pun intended) opinion on FFXVI. Share your thoughts with me?

I'm in the biggest gaming slump I've ever been in. I'm not really playing anything that actually has point, so just getting one would be nice. I'm so behind that choosing the "next" game is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. I can only seem to think of a reason why I "can't" play that yet. I had this idea to go back to PS2/Xbox/GameCube era and just start playing the games that I want in order of release date. Kinda like going back in time and experiencing a console as it was for everyone at it's peak. My 200 lb. CRT needs to be worked on and retro game collecting becoming unfeasible has put a damper on that plan. I'm so behind I don't know where to start.

I got DmC in an old Humble Bundle. What's so bad about it and DMC2??

And alright, I'll just get DMC5 then. I tend to like getting full batches of franchises cheap, but frankly, I'd rather not do that with DMC since I dunno if I'll really enjoy it, haha.

As someone who has literally never played Devil May Cry (I think I own DmC and never even booted it), should I get DMC5 SE for PS5? It looks cool, I liked Vanquish a lot which I think is the closest comparison I have in the games I own. Or should I get the original trilogy and a version of 4 first beforehand?

Listen, the only Animal Crossing game I''d ever played before was New Leaf, which I didn't play that much. So while New Horizons looked great, I honestly thought I'd be able to wait until next year or something. At least until it was 20-30% off, or whatever kind of sales we get on Nintendo games on the eShop. But then... things happened around the world, and suddenly the game was freaking everywhere on the Internet, and it looked like so much fun and it became the only thing that I actually wanted to play. I managed to not buy it for like three weeks before I realized I was kidding myself if I seriously thought I'd be able to wait several more months. So now I've had it for two months, and it's been totally worth it. It's already become my most played Switch game ever. No regrets!

It's pretty great so far ^^ .