Today in my particular area of snobbery:

You know, one of these days I'm going to stop re-buying the same games over and over again just because they're on a new platform. I mean, I have my dignity.

Pictured: basically me.

Strange. I don't see a controller, and yet
they appear to be having a good time.
How are they achieving this?

Yeah, buckle them nerd belts up because we're going to talk about video games. Yes. Again. But look, E3, the big video game trade show where all the new stuff gets announced, is happening right now, so it's kind of inevitable. Anyway, Final Fantasy, right? So when I was a young indoor kid, I discovered role playing games. Not the pen and paper like Dungeons and Dragons, those have a social component, but video role playing games which you typically play alone. In a basement. Where no one will bother you.

"Illegally download ROMS!"

-SquareEnix (exact quote)

Among the games that ate up a considerable amount of the time I supposed to be doing homework were the Dragon Warrior series and Final Fantasy before Final Fantasy was cool. You heard me. Final Fantasy VII came out and suddenly everyone gave a shit about the series. Before that, the series was sort of a cult thing, so much so that the second, third, and fifth entries weren't localized until years later forcing--yes, forcing--us to use legally questionable emulation and fan translation patches. 

Having been so deprived in my youth, I am now a sucker for every time SquareEnix publishes another re-release of either series, which they do and they are. Again. 

Goddamnit. Take it. Take your blood money...

It would be like if someone took 
the original Star Wars and just ruined
it with a bunch of CG nonsense. 

And I always fall for it despite the fact that there's inevitably something that sucks about it. The PlayStation ports of the original Final...Fantasys? Fantasies? Finals Fantasy. The ports had interminable load times. The Game Boy Advance version of Final Fantasy IV was buggy, the DS one had the difficulty jacked way up. The iOS ports ditched the pixel art for shitty mobile graphics and they tend cost just slightly more than a thirty year old game has any business costs, which never stopped me but-what? Don't look at me like that. 

For some people it's a band they like, other people are into sports crap. Still others buy million dollar Pokémon cards and wear them to pretend boxing matches. 

No, I will not get over it. A million dollars. Of money. 

You shouldn't need soldering skills to
play video games. That's all I'm saying.

Like I was saying, there's always something. And this time around that something is that the games are coming to Steam and mobile platforms which, I mean, what even is that? There're like a hundred and fifty million PS4's and Xbox Ones in the world, plus another eighty-four million Switches. All three have digital marketplaces that are 90% rereleases. I just can't fathom why they'd skip actual game consoles in favor of cell phones and PC's? Sure, everyone has a phone, but they're awful for gaming. And PC's are just--look, I'm admittedly biased, but I've always found them to be a massive, expensive pain.

Anyway, there re-releases are going back to the pixel style of the 8 and 16-bit era so yeah, I'm probably going to have to give SquareEnix money for these games. Again. The only question is, will I be able to respect myself afterwords?

Well, I'll have played a video game on an iPhone, so no. 
I think it's safe to say self-respect is off the table.