While Axiom Verge mostly takes from the Metroid side of Metroidvania, Axiom Verge 2 is all about that Castlevania goodness. Definitely not what I expected, but I'm enjoying it so far. It's clear it understands what players want from the genre.

Back 4 Blood has the skeleton of Left 4 Dead, but none of the soul. I miss the unique sound cues for each special infected and the hordes. I miss the panicked, arcade style shooting instead of having to aim down my sights to hit glowing red spots.

Rate my Gameboy/Color/Advance collection on the Sonic Trick Exclamation Scale: Good, Great, Awesome, Outstanding, or Amazing.

Apparently Pokemon cards are back in vogue once again. Truth be told I hadn't looked at my collection in years before today. Maybe I should do a blog post on them soon. I have a couple cards that bring back a lot of memories for me, like this Charizard.

If you saw my qpost yesterday you might have an idea as to what's inside this box.

My Prince cassette collection as of today. I wasn't expecting to like his debut album as much as I did and Come is a very underrated album. Can't wait for Chaos and Disorder and Emancipation to arrive later this week.

A Slave to Speed: Slow Down, Sonic!

My current lockscreen is this fantastic Pathologic 2 artwork by wroniec.

A great thing about older game discs is that many of them doubled as soundtrack CDs. Both the Sega Saturn and PC releases of Sonic R can be listened to in a CD player, such as my Sony Discman D-11 here. Sonic R's soundtrack in CD quality is fantastic.

So I picked up my late great uncle's hi-fi system. Turns out it's a full Magnavox EC8130 modular stereo system with some nice Boston HD7 bookshelf speakers (not pictured). Think I'll replace the turntable with my Sony one though.

I'm picking up my late great uncle's vintage hi-fi setup later today. I've wanted to build my own for a while now and being able to inherit my great uncle's is awesome since he meant so much to me. Not sure what all's included so I'm excited to find out!

Picked up another set of cassettes for $2 each. Had to pick up some 80s Prince this time around. Get a load of that Lovesexy album cover. Whoo, baby. Also that copy of Steely Dan's Aja is from the Philippines. 🇵🇭

Picked up a great haul of cassettes for $2 each from my local record store. Gonna sound great on my Sony F1 Walkman. Also bought records of Chicago V, Chicago 17, and Yes - Close to the Edge.

The "buckling rubber sleeve" switches on the IBM L40SX (the laptop) feel fantastic. IBM later produced the same keyboard for desktops as the IBM M4 (the keyboard next to the laptop). Shame they don't make these anymore. Feels so much nicer than membrane.

Tried my hand at fixing another cassette player and succeeded! Say hello to the Toshiba KT-S3 from 1983. Love the full cassette window on this one. What better way to break it in than with Prince's 1989 Batman album? Now that's old school cool.

Did anyone else see that Dinosaur Planet just got leaked? Seems to be the latest build before it was transferred to Gamecube, as it still has Starfox elements. Thought they didn't add them until after it was brought to Gamecube. Can't wait to play it.

Managed to get this guy up and running again. Couldn't get the belt tensioner back in, but there's no need to worry about wearing out the belt when the replacement I put in is 3 times thicker. Sounds pretty fantastic. The sound is powerful as hell too.

Some more great Japanese imports arrived. Hi-Fi Set - The Diary, Stardust Revue - Thank You, and EPO - Vitamin E.P.O.. Can't wait to give these a listen. All fantastic albums if you love citypop. Got a big discount by getting E.P.O without the jacket.

Rate my Gamecube collection from Not So Good to Jammin'.

Pulling this guy off the shelf and giving it another go. Started it years ago and didn't really know what I was doing the first time around. Gonna finish it this time. Kinda hope I'm stupid and this gets a Switch Definitive Edition announced soon.

Lookie what I got for $10! :D

Wrestling Empire released for Nintendo Switch today. If you love wrestling games like I do you gotta try it out. Best of all it has a free demo. Finally a portable wrestling game on Switch (let's pretend WWE 2K18 never happened, okay?)

I'd never heard of New Order before fishing my dad's old records out of the closet so I know I'm late to the party, but Brotherhood is stellar. I listened to both sides from start to finish and loved it. Also have B.L.T. and The Perfect Kiss 12" singles.

Some Japanese albums finally arrived from a friend in Yokohama. Love Haruko Kuwana and Junko Ohashi, so I'm pretty stoked about that. The Mariya Takeuchi compilation album is great too. These guys are gonna be doing a lot of spinning in the future!

My Christmas haul was a new turntable and some Sony XM3s. Listening to Yes with the slimes. Hope you all have a great Christmas too!