The Queue: The last Metroid is in captivity. The galaxy is at peace.

Hello, citizens of Planet Queue. Renowned bounty hunter Samus Aran has just saved the galaxy again — even if it cost us a planet or two. Since we’re up here, let’s listen to the theme for Upper Brinstar (aka “Brinstar Green”) while we answer some questions, shall we?

This is gonna sound weird, but… Stormwind City.

I just love the vibe of that city. The aesthetics are very pleasing, the music is nice, and there are conveniences all around. Maybe it’s because in real life I’m a city boy at heart, but I’m pretty okay with chilling in a busy capital, even though it’s full of people.

Also, I just don’t have the habit of going anywhere just to… be there, you know? There are a lot of zones in the game that I find beautiful and relaxing, like Nagrand (AU) and Stormsong Valley — but I just never really catch myself saying “I’m gonna go to that zone and just chill there for a while.”

On the other hand, I’m happy to park most of my alts in Stormwind, and spend hours just doing harmless things like finding the perfect transmog or barbershop setup, messing with my UI, organizing my bank, clearing up my WeakAuras, browsing my mounts and picking favorites, etc. That’s how I relax in the game — and for doing those things, I’d rather be in a place like Stormwind.

Teleport: (major cities) and/or Portal: (major cities).

Imagine being bored on a weekend, and just deciding to have dinner in Paris, or browse stores in Tokyo, or go sightseeing in Bangkok. Imagine having the ability to save just a little and go on a boat ride in Venice or a safari in Johannesburg without having to worry about super expensive hotel rooms or plane tickets.

That’s honestly the best life I could imagine for myself.

1) I’d greatly revamp the class/spec system, turning it into something new and more modern — but I’d probably try as hard as I could to keep the fantasies of every existing class and spec alive in the new system. While I find it really hard to predict how successful a hypothetical WoW 2 would be in having everyone from current WoW migrate to it, I assume that a bunch of people would move to the new game — and many of them would likely want to keep playing a similar character to what they’re used to.

2) I’ve been doing Duolingo since June 2012. First language I tried learning was French, and I actually finished the entire course before it got revamped.

Considering that it’s just 15-20 minutes of language study a day, and without an actual teacher to guide you, it’s not the kind of thing you do with any pretense of becoming fluent. But I can browse a French news site and get the gist of the articles. I could go to a restaurant where the servers speak French and order the food I want. I can skim through a French article or book — assuming it’s not anything too complex — and at least have a good sense of what it’s about.

Conversation is definitely the hardest part: if I hear people speaking French, I’ll understand a few key words here and there, and I’ll probably know what they’re talking about; but if I have to talk to them, I’ll definitely struggle a lot. Writing is doable if I’m on my phone, since I can enlist the help of a French keyboard with autocorrect. I’ll definitely make many mistakes, but that’s something I’m willing to accept.

3) Me. That person is me. I haven’t seen anything Star Wars. I haven’t seen anything Star Trek. The only MCU movie I actually bothered sitting down to watch was Black Panther. I haven’t watched Community or The Office, which makes me feel like an alien sometimes with so many memes based on those shows.

So I don’t think I’d be surprised or indifferent; I’d probably empathize!

Pretty good, honestly. Beasts and Murlocs had been dominating the Battlegrounds for quite some time, and those two minions were some of the biggest reasons for that. With the changes, Slamma remains strong but will be less common to see, while the Bassgill change makes it so that Murlocs don’t have such an easy way to pull extra minions into play — unless those minions are Murlocs, as was always intended (probably).

Mostly thumbs up! Besides nerfing the two strongest compositions, they’re also buffing the three weakest ones (Pirates, Elementals, and Quilboar). It’s hard to say how much impact those buffs will have, but any patch that make comps slightly more balanced with each other is doing the right thing in my book. (Though based on these changes, I’m more hopeful for the future of Elementals than the other two.)

The only change I actively dislike is the Murky one — it was changed from “Give a friendly Murloc +1/+1. (Improved by each Battlecry minion you played this game!)” to “Give a friendly Murloc +10/+10.” The minion was much more fun when it would scale with Battlecries, rather than just offering a flat buff. But I understand that “fun” also means “broken” in certain very specific scenarios, so I can see why it was changed.

I have a few options.

First, I’d remake Super Metroid. The only reason why I don’t consider it the best game ever made is because its gameplay feels dated at this point — especially when compared with modern 2D Metroid games like Samus Returns and Dread. So if it could have enhanced graphics and music and updated gameplay while keeping its atmosphere and map design mostly intact, it would be an absolutely stellar game.

Second, the Persona 2 duology. I’d combine Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment into a single game, and give it the modern Persona treatment when it comes to graphics, UI, music, dungeon design, battle gameplay. But I wouldn’t add the calendar system or social links / confidants to it, because the games simply weren’t designed with those things in mind. It’d probably end up playing more like Shin Megami Tensei V.

And third, I agree with you: Final Fantasy 6. I wouldn’t remake it as drastically as FF7; instead, I’d (greatly) update the graphics to something similar to the HD-2D games like Octopath Traveler, and I’d keep the plot mostly intact. I’d probably trim out the fat a bit — I might end up cutting characters that don’t add much to the game, like Mog, Umaro, and Gogo, and instead, spending those resources fleshing out the main cast even more.

This has been The Queue. Let’s listen to the theme for Lower Brinstar (aka “Brinstar Red”) since we’re down here now and, somehow, Ridley has returned to wreak havoc once more. Maybe he’s using the Metroids again, or maybe it’s the X parasites this time, or maybe he’s teamed up with his buddy Kraid and resurrected Mother Brain as a mecha version of herself. Who knows?

Be kind to each other, and if you’re ever in a sticky situation, just ask yourself: “What Would Samus Aran Do?”