Strange memories on this nervous night at the Dojo. Ten years later? Eleven? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. The dojo in the early 2000s was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the dojo half-crazy and, instead of going home, surfing at Ryos place or some random shenmue websites, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the admins, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for some reasonable post)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that…

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Shenmue 3 forum, then up the SEGA forum or down General.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…

So now, less than ten years later, you can go up on a steep hill in the dojo and look back, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

nzk0 wrote: I'm not sure this was posted but I won't go back 200 pages so here it is lol

-Cat's Eyes-

Thank you, that video made me laugh very hard! Here's one that also made me laugh today..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCgUaogz7lc[/youtube]

You know, now that I think about it, all three of this gen's western Yakuza releases have already provided me with nostalgia (or, at the very least, memories that will eventually become nostalgia).
With Y3, 4, and Dead Souls, I can very clearly remember getting up early, buying them on release day, making lunch while the install process goes on, playing them as much as I could before work, all the way through to the days (usually sometime in the morning) that I would end up beating them. It really only just dawned on me now, but most current gen releases didn't do that for me. I remember the games themselves, of course, but I don't necessarily have fond memories of what was going on while I was playing them.
The Yakuza releases (and Binary Domain as well) all gave me that sort of "Christmas morning" sense of excitement at finally getting to play them all, kind of like how I can still remember my first time playing MGS or Wonder Boy in Monster World.
That's something special.

it's hilarious how the US gov apparently stop all these ultra complex terrorist plots yet they keep on getting humiliated by a bunch of hackers that are barely adults

People post their questions and then people upvote comments or questions they like and they're typically the ones that get answered. The fact there isn't even already a page for this on Reddit is another fuck up by Awesome Japan. Usually you have a page up a few hours or days before so people can post their questions beforehand and the thread get's up voted and a better position on reddit.

If you want your question answered it's best to ask one question at a time. Look at questions others have asked and if it's one you want answered upvote it so it's more likely to be answered.

Posting a list of questions isn't a good idea and will most likely be ignored.