Hat Stack Mike

Hat Stack Mike

@hatstackmike.bsky.social

I talk about video games, and wear a stack of hats. Oregon, United States Check out my YouTube channel! I cover lots of retro SEGA/Nintendo games and hardware, among other things. https://youtube.com/@HatStackMike

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My introduction: Hi, I’m Hat Stack Mike! I talk about video games, new and old, and wear a stack of hats. Series I like include: - Sonic - Zelda - Smash Bros. - Street Fighter - Super Mario - Donkey Kong - Ace Attorney - Mortal Kombat - Banjo-Kazooie - WarioWare and a LOT more. Let’s be friends!

Who else is a fan of the Tony Hawk games? Which one’s your favorite? I got Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 with my GameCube on launch day, and had such a great time with it. It’s awesome. Hot take, but I actually ended up liking THPS3 a lot more than the other GC launch game I bought, Luigi’s Mansion.

Super Street Fighter II is such an unbelievably special game to me. I played the console ports of this with friends for so many countless hours, and this (and the other versions of Street Fighter II) was always the game I played the most at the arcades.

Star Fox 2 is such a fascinating piece of Nintendo history. I think it’s the only time they officially released a cancelled game over 20 years later. I can’t think of a game that pushed a system more than this. It runs so sluggishly though that it makes it a bit hard to fully appreciate. 😆

I still don’t get why they renamed Sonic & Tails to Sonic Chaos. Don’t get me wrong, Sonic Chaos is a cool name and it’s what I grew up with. It just seemed unnecessary, especially considering Sonic & Knuckles was released the following year, so they had kind of a theme going on with their naming.

What do you think is the best launch game that released concurrently with a brand new console in your region? These are my top three picks: Super Mario World, Sonic Adventure, and Zelda: Breath of the Wild!

What’s your preferred port of Mortal Kombat II? As far as home ports go, I’d say the winner goes to the Sega 32X version. Excellent arcade ports is like the one thing the 32X has bragging rights to. 😆

I had a great weekend at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, and socialized with a lot of really awesome people! I didn’t buy a whole lot there this year, but one thing of note I got that’s pretty cool is a store kiosk demo unit cart of WarioWare: Touched! It’s neat to have.

“Ah, yeah! This is happenin’!” Today I got to meet and hang out with the original game voice of Sonic from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic Advance 3, Ryan Drummond! He gave such an iconic voice to Sonic, and is an awesome guy and really cool to talk to.

I got to meet and hang out with Scott Dreier who voices Knuckles in some of my very favorite Sonic games such as Sonic Advance 3, Sonic Heroes, and of course, Sonic Adventure 2! He’s such an awesome guy and it was great geeking out with him.

Mortal Kombat 3 got many releases across different platforms, and I’m one of the few people who can say they have the most history with this game on the Sega Saturn, through its port of Ultimate MK3. I have some great memories with this one!

I know it’s been over 4 years now, but man, I’m still not over the Sonic 3 replacement music in Sonic Origins. It’s not AWFUL or anything, but the Sonic games always represented the best music the Genesis had to offer. These sound like they belong in Bubsy or something. See what I mean:

I really like Sonic Origins and think it’s a great way to play the classics overall, but one thing that brings it down is they didn’t include the Easter egg where Knuckles shoos you on your way in Sky Sanctuary in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I made this video comparing the original to Origins.

Happy 30th Anniversary to the North American launch of Nintendo 64! I’ll never forget the first time I saw Super Mario 64. It blew me away. It was one of the most impressive technical leaps in gaming history. The N64 is still to this day one of my favorite game consoles ever.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Game Gear has so much going for it. It has really cool level themes and a great soundtrack! I just wish it didn’t have so much “screw the player” design. If this game wasn’t so full of cheap deaths, it might be among my favorites on the system.

The Sonic concert was awesome! Lots of the iconic songs were performed on stage, but also unexpected stuff like medleys from Sonic R, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Rush, and the Sonic Advance series. It was a cool experience!

Happy 25th Anniversary to the launch of the Nintendo GameCube! While it has some great Nintendo games such as F-Zero GX and WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games!, Sonic especially had an AMAZING run on this console and I played so much Sonic on this system, both new and old games.

My predictions for tomorrow’s Zelda Direct: - Ocarina of Time footage and information - Movie trailer - Twilight Princess in some form, either HD or on NSO - Some sort of weird cross-over no one would expect And my biggest out-there, WTF prediction: - A complete remake of Zelda 1