Recently, I had a thought that is purely speculative. It feels to me that anyone who will tell you they love a specific SNES game will also follow that up with "And it STILL HOLDS UP!" Like, think about it, if anyone you know talks about Mario World, they'll likely add "And I 100%'d it during lockdown and you know what? Still holds up!"

Anyway, I don't feel like I've ever heard anyone say that about Donkey Kong Country! I've never played DKC, so I thought I'd play it to see if, well, it holds up.

It does not.

I played through this on my Miyoo Mini, which obviously allows for save states. I'm not one of these cunts that says "Ah, but if you used savestates/rewinds you didn't really beat the game" because I've known satisfaction in my life from things that aren't video games. However, because I was specifically trying to see if it felt fun to play in 2023, I tried to play it "legit". No save states or rewinds. Fuck me what a slog. Just a horrid experience.

Dunno if it was cause I played this off the back of Persona 5 Royal changing my life, but this ended up doing nothing for me. God the combat is SO boring, and fights take SO long. Just standing there watching timers. The different classes feel like they make very very little difference to what was going on. After playing Bravely Default 2 a few years ago, with it's fun and inventive job system, XC3 just felt like "You can be a tank with a Green jacket, or a white one?", and that's SHITE.

Was holding on for the story but honestly, it just didn't have enough to keep me going. A shame really.

There were some things in my video game canon that felt absolute. That were either set in stone by the truth of their existence, or by my stubbornness to consider an alternative.

"Final Fantasy IX is my favourite JRPG" was one of those absolute truths. I've played loads of JRPGS since I first played FFIX as a 10 year old. I've always compared them against the measuring stick of Terra and Gaia. But now? Now I have played Persona 5, and nothing will be the same for me again.

I think this is a near perfect video game. Just throwing that out there now. I think it's an all timer. It's my favourite JRPG, that's for sure. Is it my favourite game of all time? It is far too soon after finishing it to say, but it's certainly up there.

I could go into how compelling the world, characters, story, music, and systems are. But honestly, all I can say is that this game took over my mind in a way games rarely do these days. It filled the spaces of all my idle thoughts, it pressed on me and pressed on me until it left it's imprint, firm and forever. It took my heart, fully.