-Author Commentary-

Not quite as pleased with this one as I was with issue #2, but it's still pretty good, the Joy Mech Fight and SMT: if reviews are particularly good in my opinion. The "when did gaming peak" is definitely a highlight, but I think my opinions have changed somewhat since that one. The original timeframe was 1990-2012, but now, I feel the start date is closer to 1995. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of great stuff in the early 90s, but most games still followed that arcade-y design mentality of being beatable in one sitting, but taking practice to beat since losing all your lives would send you back to the very start. Plenty didn't, but it was still the norm, enough that I don't feel confident in calling that era part of the "peak" as opposed to when things simply started getting significantly better. Also, passwords.

On the opposite end of the scale, I also think it's worth saying that I'm aware there are obviously still plenty of great games coming out these days. Seance of Blake Manor is a great one I've been playing recently, and Sonic's been having an unusual streak of successes recently with Crossworlds and Shadow Generations. What I mean by "peak" is simply what the big, major studios are putting out, as well as the presence of certain recent design trends I can't stand in recent games that weren't there before and all emerged around the same time. The dumbing everything down and the constant push for "accessibility" is another one I hate that I never even touched on in that article, but that deserves a whole Yap Trap article of its own, so I won't touch on it any further here.

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