It was just the other day I blogged about Game-related harmony from the past I miss and referred to how much more uncomplicated gaming used to be. Quickly started, we owned the games, no weirdness and no one chasing extra money. But I was careful to point out that it wasn't actually better in the past. At least not as a consistent truth.

Of course, this is also true today. Still... When I just wrote this news about the best games for the Dreamcast, I couldn't help but feel a certain sadness. It's absolutely good that games can be enjoyed by people regardless of format because more people can enjoy them. But here we have a console that lived for about a year and a half in Europe, and the amount of exclusive games is downright astounding.

Yes, not just exclusive ones by the way. The Dreamcast had ridiculously good games, the pace of new releases was killer. The news thus contains roughly the best games that were launched over the course of 18 months, and I once again feel that we have probably been cheated of the confectionery in today's gaming industry where we have to wait, wait and wait for titles where the joy of gaming unfortunately still exists not prioritized as before.

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The Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X have a total of nine exclusives together - with Playstation accounting for nine of them. The Dreamcast had devoured them for breakfast in one and a half (image from Reddit.) 

It started with me shutting off Youtube and for some unclear reason I got the idea that I was going to watch a playthrough of Section Z. A semi-obscure Capcom game from the NES that I liked very much when it started thanks to the cool theme, Great music and great design.

But... I never made it. I think very few did. It was not only difficult but also a bit unclear in the setup. How would you move forward, should you go up or down at the end of each course? There was no kind of help at that time and I finally gave up and traded it away for something else.

Section Z, however, made me realize that the design was a bit reminiscent of Robotech (a series I rarely write about because there is always someone who with a slightly masterful tone wants to explain that Macross is the original - and better, kind of like not everyone already knows this). So... I decided to Youtube first episode of Robotech. And... It existed in its entirety. And so did all the other episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rau_ndNA_gY

That led to a break in Resident Evil Requiem gameplay to take a look at a 1985 cartoon (technically from 1982 in Japan). I didn't regret it for a second. Because oh how this series stands. Animated from this era was truly spectacular and someone completely different to today. People are blown to death, fall to their deaths from buildings and there are naked shower scenes... in a series made for children. For better or worse - where I'm quite sure that some people find it liberating to have entertainment without a lot of rules, while others think that children should only watch friendly series that you learn something from pedagogically - I must add.

The latter is a debate I will not get involved in this time, but I note that it was a delightfully nostalgic memory strip with the first season. Again, it wasn't generally better in the past - but sometimes it actually was. The epic missile swarmers and Veritech's clear proof of that are clear evidence.

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Robotech rules, the music, the action scenes, the characters and that wonderful design. Top class through and through.

Actually, I already had too much to play, but when the good ratings on Resident Evil Requiem started to rattle in, I couldn't really resist. It had to be Requiem for me as well and Saturday has been spent hanging out with Grace and Leon on adventures. I haven't gotten too far (Johan Mackegård's review can be found here), and several of you are probably ahead, but still want to share my spoiler-free impressions.

And... They are very positive. Switching between two characters that are played in two completely different ways from completely different perspectives (can be chosen, but Capcom's recommendation is perfect) is a stroke of genius that makes it feel really fresh in terms of gameplay. 

Tonally, it feels like some kind of fusion between Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. It has Leon's macho attitude and fast-paced combat from the former, but that insanely uncomfortable and personal sense of dread from the latter.

I also want to highlight the graphics (Xbox Series X, but all versions are said to be good). Capcom has done an absolute top job with this gorgeous adventure, and also pays tribute above all to Grace's voice actor, Angela Sant'Albano. If it hadn't been for the release of a game called Grand Theft Auto VI this year, I would have thought she would have been the likely winner at The Game Awards. Now, of course, Lucia (who is reported to be played by Manni L. Perez) is said to be a fierce competitor.

But to sum up, Resident Evil Requiem is very attractive. If you've been thinking about whether it might be something for you and like horror - then I think it might be an idea to go for it.

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Hunk-Leon is a king of one-liners in Resident Evil Requiem.

Of course, you should always be careful of "it was better before", because unfortunately this is not as often true as we might like to think. But... Sometimes it's of course pure truth and as I get the urge to collect games again for the first time in about 25 years, I'm often struck by how uncomplicated it used to be.

I'm old enough to have grown up with the Atari 2600, Commodore 64 and NES, but especially the 16-bit era and the subsequent one (which will be called 32-bit even if Nintendo 64 is included) was really something quite out of the ordinary. There are so many insanely good games and just grabbing a cassette, pushing it into a console and getting started is really magic.

I love new games too, of course, but the console takes time to start, you have to log in accounts, games have to be selected in menus, patches have to be downloaded, expansions have to be added and you are met with a lot of information that "now there are pink weapon skins also for the character Extörminator" or "it's a double XP weekend".

And if local multiplayer is to be played, it is surprisingly rarely as simple as choosing 2 Player and getting started. Sometimes guest profiles need to be created, someone wants to import their profile from home, sometimes the controllers change numbering and it's like things don't really want to work as they should. Online it's the same thing, where someone has problems with the connection, someone's headset doesn't work properly where you hear them without them hearing you and yet another has to patch the game first and "come later".

Of course, I'm exaggerating and all this doesn't happen at the same time. But it's so much easier to just crank in Super Mario World to the Super Nintendo or put the Astal disc in a Sega Saturn and be up and running. The games are also more direct and throw me straight into the fun without text walls, tutorials and other things - and there are absolutely no upsells.

I feel more and more that something has been lost in today's gaming world. It's coming more than ever and the games have certainly not gotten any worse, but there's a liberating feeling of zen with retro where everything just works. And I can long to go back to that sometimes.

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At some point, we walked away from all this and maybe didn't even notice it, but lost a lot of harmony and agility along the way.

The new Xbox boss Asha Sharma is clearly saying the right things right now, and seems to half-promise things that Xbox users have really been asking for. That includes hints that they will continue to be a first-party publisher (indicating their own hardware), but also things like her heeding that exclusive games are important.

So... What does this mean now? Will it be slalom where Microsoft still hasn't had time to implement its new strategy (Forza Horison 6, for example, won't be coming to Playstation 5 at release), but is now going to reverse it? No, I don't really believe that. I rather think that it will become more common for others to do the same. Sony has already said that it was a stroke of genius to release Helldivers II for Xbox and they seem to be experimenting with more games as multi-format.

I think they will invest in more of this. In addition, Microsoft seems to be working on a hybrid console that looks like an Xbox, works like an Xbox - but runs Windows in the background. Thus, it somewhat pointedly does not matter if they sell one console or 20 million consoles. It's only a PC that says Xbox on, and no dedicated games have been developed for it. Just like with the ROG Xbox Ally laptop.

Something I still think can happen, however, is that time exclusivity returns. All the games that sold so terribly well to Sony's format in 2024 and 2025 are ones that have come later to Playstation than Xbox. Sometimes several years later as with Forza Horizon 5, and sometimes a few measly months as with  Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Sales don't seem to be significantly hurt by that, while there's a point to get an Xbox account to get started earlier for fans. People pay hundreds of dollars to play with only a few measly days earlier access, so it's really nothing strange.

I'm certainly not talking about any consistent time exclusivity, but I can still imagine that it's a model they'll consider from time to time. After all, Microsoft wants to lure people into its own ecosystem. In addition, many Playstation players (because that's mainly what it's about) have now gotten a taste for Gears of War and Forza and soon also Fable and Halo. Time exclusivity could then, in theory, attract new fans to join the green team's solution.

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In general, we should probably expect the number of exclusivity to decrease from all directions in the future, but surely Asha Sharma and Matt Booty must have something in mind when they formulate themselves as they do?