[Link]

I don't see why disliking RotN would matter, everyone has different tastes. But maybe I don't care as much that you didn't like it because I have been harassed simply because I don't like the original RE4. People suck, who gives a shit what you like or don't.

Also, I'm pretty sure we both know how the masses treat people who dislike popular games, like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Shadow of the Colossus, Kingdom Hearts, and probably more.

Can this be so, MotherKojiro? You're going against the popular opinion and didn't enjoy Bloodstained Ritual? I remember it came out and it was that one game that you'd see twenty or so people add on your multitap, lighting up like a Christmas tree. Good for you, Mother! Way to stick it to the mob. You can Do BeTtEr after all! Honestly I didn't think it looked that great and it still doesn't.

There are many good ones for sure, I even like how old resident evil games look on ps1, especially RE3, then again I am not into those kinds of games, sadly, always wanted to check out some of those games just for the visuals alone, but then I screw myself over by not being skilled enough to complete them, but hopefully that will change over time. I am a visual person myself, I only charge into a game if it looks distinctive enough, shame that that leads to me playing some games that only look good and nothing else lol and by looking good I mean the art style, I do not like how a selling point of some games is that it looks hyper-realistic and that is all there is to the game, I have movies for that, hell, just go outside, I know not everyone lives in a breathtaking jungle, but every corner of the globe has something pretty to look at.

Denuvo and other DRMs, in general, are the worst fucking thing ever, as someone who had to use EA launcher for a few games I had just as much fun as anyone else, bad connection, constant repairs and maintenance, and it of course never works. I love, love the irony that it was created to stop piracy when in reality it made it at least ten times worse, people need to realize that if someone wants something they will find a way to get it, "Gamer, uh, finds a way." - Ian Malcolm (almost), Steam, GOG, and others alike are fine for the most part, but of course the king of shit design EA is the worst offender.

I can understand that, it took me waaaaay too goddamn long to get into the way the map worked, it is not that I did not enjoy traversing the map, but some vertical platforming areas were a pain in the ass, getting to a new area, that you do not have a map of, and then finding out that it is hard as balls to get back up from where you came so you need to search for a bench where you can rest, just to walk in the dark, cuz you do not have a map, just to die and get back to the other side of the world from where you came and forget how to get to that place where you died, it was annoying, to say the least, but as I said, it did get easier after getting some useful powerups.

Well, look at it this way, at least the creepypasta served as an ad for a game with a killer soundtrack! Memes and creepypasta can be a very effective tool in promoting the game in question, a good example would also be when Metal Gear Rising had a resurgence a few years ago with the OST becoming an internet phenomenon and making people, myself included, a reason to check out the game and it worked. I do feel you on that one, I try to give any game a few chances before I either sell it or just delete it if I just can't get into it, a good example would be Assassins Creed III, never played a single one in my life so I bought it for my ps3 years ago and tried so hard to finish it, but just couldn't do it, and I do not feel bad for just deleting it, it was not fun and I had better things to do and better games to play, no reason to torture myself. Hate is a strong word, but I did dislike most of my classmates in both elementary and high school, being forced to be around people who you do not care about and know you will never see again can be annoying as hell, but there are always those few, I am still close to few of my friends from high school, but I do consider myself lucky on that one, most people disappear without a trace.

It is definitely not for everyone, but I never saw it as a deal-breaker, was there a specific reason that you could not get into Oblivion? There is nothing wrong with that one, on the contrary, it is probably good you don't, some modern technology is really unnecessary, if it was possible I would get the most basic phone in existence if it means that I would get rid of apps that shorten my attention span every day, I know I could just muster up the willpower to not go and watch YouTube shorts, but hey, sometimes they are a fun distraction.

The spiral sword is pretty OP. I used it for like halfway through the game.

Ritual of the Night is so good. Really can't wait for the sequel.

It's funny that you've mentioned Metroid Prime, because I have issues with it myself. I've played it three different ways: Wii, PC (with the Mouse and Keyboard mod), and the Remaster. Always end up dropping it around 75% through as I feel like the gameplay relies way too much on scanning and shooting buttons across rooms that are not only a pain to traverse, but also filled with enemies that push you to slow you down. Oh, and the Thermal Vision gimmick gets old very fast.

Indeed! I would love to find out what's behind it, especially as it does feel like there's more to it than simple "If enemy = X, use Y". Just gave Magic of Scheherazade a search and the Japanese cover art caught my attention! Looks like a fun game.

Yeah, seeing more and more people joining the industry just for the money leaves quite a bad taste in my mouth. What's worst is how many games with potential and a somewhat decent experience end up being severely hurt by greedy business models. Seems to be the case with the new LEGO 2K Drive, which is fun to play but features both microtransactions and a premium battle pass despite being a $70 game.

Metroid Dread can admittedly be a lot to grasp if you're not really into having a lot of different buttons to press/tools to play around with. But what made me love it is the fact the developers took sequence breaks into account and even made so that the boss fights change to fit what you have. Also, the animations are brilliant and overall, Dread felt a lot like Doom Eternal to me (which is a very good thing ).

"Amadeus's Laboratory."

What if it was Dr. Zaius's Laboratory?

Innie chance you'll be playing Rabbi Ribi next? I mean, Rabi Ribi? It's super freaky.

I'm playing it in English. I've heard Baby learns new transformations as long as they're in a good mood and get attacked (different monsters = different transformations). You don't get to directly order them to use the transformations during battle, but they know which enemies they counter and use them as fitting.

I totally see what you mean. But taking into account my experiences on the game localization market during the past years, I came to think it turns out being a very tiny fish in a sea of sharks ends up being more of a lead towards good localization than the other way around.

Mostly because big agencies and big projects end caught up in a lot of bureaucracy and narrow-minded processes that hurt the quality quite a lot more times than not. With smaller teams/projects, it's usually a lot easier to get hold of the developers and ask for more context. I'm sure it used to work different than it does nowadays, especially as home office went popular throughout the years. But I think it's safe to assume big projects were not handled by the same loc teams that worked on small projects.

I'll check out the tracks you've mentioned. Also, great to hear you've been enjoying Timespinner. I always keep an eye out for new indie metroidvanias, though there isn't as many of them as there used to be a couple of years ago. And actually, when I stop to think about it, I think it might be for the better. I liked Metroid Dread so much it probably will take some time until I lower my expectations or find something similar.

Once again, super late reply, sorry. Got lost in Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom

About being critical of the US; I will not indulge, I could talk volumes about it, but I see no point most of the time. But you are right about one thing: starting somewhere else can be scary. But I can also say: it is very possible, once you set your mind to it. Of course there needs to be a strong motivation behind it. If that is lacking, there is no reason to do so...

Yeah, especially if that Avatar was her first and only one, Legolass would have been nice.

Oh, she played God of War? So cool, I just played God of War two years ago, the whole series (except the reboot series) and loved it. The first game had a couple of really annoying platforming sessions, but the second and third one were especially good. Ascension was a bit too same-y and too easy, but other than that, it was just as fine a game as the others. The gameplay is very fun and I have to say both the main line games and the PSP spin-offs (which I played on the PS3) had a really consistent quality! Happy I played them!
Also, I love Greek mythology, so it was sorta inevitable for me to like them.
Did you play them with her or did you watch? Do you have an opinion on them?

I was also very satisfied with the GBA version of Final Fantasy, and unlike you, I do not have the nostalgia of the original NES graphics. So for me it was also the best choice, graphically. Although I heard the PSP Anniversary Edition might be even better, especially because of the re-orchestrated music. But I agree with you, I like the part that the story is there, and if you want more, you can get more, and if you only want to grind and explore the world, you can do just that. I still think the story is a bit convoluted, but I guess every story that deals with time travel and time loops is. I mean, look at how complicated Zelda's story got after Ocarina of Time! Even though, that's mostly Nintendo's fault for not giving a shit...

Half of your lives is as accurate of an answer as I needed. That's sweet.

Oh, yeah... from what you are telling me about expanding Hyrule and Zelda in general, I think you will like Breath of the Wild a lot. It will give you a lot of what you want. At least, I think so...

The Minish Cap, however, I think will not be your thing. Unless you really want a small portable Zelda that you can gatcha-machine the frick out of... which is not my thing at all!

Well, no 3D wasn't ready back in the day (SEGA Saturn, Nintendo 64, Play Station, first PC 3D accelerators), but no technology ever is when it first hits the market. It has to be "made ready" and it will improve over time. It is normal that some people try and fail. It is good they do. So other people can learn from their mistakes. If no human would have ever tried to light up stuff, at the risk of getting burned, we would have never been able to deal with fire. But someone did, and here we are...

As someone who is interested a lot in the evolution of video-games, I really appreciate those games that do something and fail, and I appreciate them sometimes more than games that take something from someone else and just... redo it.

At some point I want to explore the early 3D iterations of Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, MediEvil, Ape Escape, and so forth, just to see how they hold up today. And they will probably hold up miserably. But someone had to try and fail so that others could succeed. I think it is a fair game, after all.

But, yeah, the 2D games we got back then were nice. But they did nothing new, for the most part (exceptions always occur). I mean, look at Yoshi's Story. It look beautiful and plays deliciously. But does it bring the genre forward? I doubt it.

Talking again about Link's Awakening: Another theory I have had years ago goes strongly hand in hand with what you say about Link and Marin. It goes like this: what if the Windfish, as a fish, fell asleep by a spell in a portion of the sea, and every living being that was there, microbes, fish, plancton, became the inhabitants of the island. But there was something in that portion of the sea that "caused" the Windfish's sleep because it wanted to absorb the demigod's power. The same being that summoned the storm that crashes Link's boat. That is the portion that became the nightmare, a waking enemy in this demigod's slumbering subconscious. Every person is a living being, and only a couple of them are "higher" living beings, like Marin, who was a seagull before, and returns as a seagull afterwards. So in a way, we do not kill anyone, we just return them to their previous form. Except the Nightmare, of course, and the monsters... but they were "evil" anyway, or corrupted, so... . Of course this theory is not fool-proof and I am sure it is not perfect, but I thought about it when I last played Link's Awakening some years ago and it somehow makes sense to me.

Anyway, I would definitely play that hack of yours, should you ever programme it

But, I guess the head-canon we have is definitely better than any romhack could ever be.

Wait, did you just compare a phoenix to a deer carcass? I feel like there is a story behind this...

You wrote: if a game is long and you are on the fence on it, that's where you pass. I think I should do that much more often. I am having the hardest time with some of my RPGs lately. I committed to finishing 4 in parallel and I am afraid that that only made me dislike each one a bit more than I otherwise would have. Maybe I should limit myself more like that as well, play more shorter games and less long marathons, but coincidentally I find myself drawn to RPGs more and more lately... It is quite the problem.

Oh, RPGs and strategy games. Both genres known to have short and easy games...

GOG Galaxy is so cool! I think it does a much better job than Steam in some regards. I am quite sad not more people seem to use it. But, oh well, more power to us!

Oh yeah, the Deku Palace, the Swamp and the whole eastern side of Termina do have a vibe of "it's hot and humid here". But I like it a lot and it has been for many years my favorite part of the game. Despite me liking other transformations more than the Deku Scrub, I really like this part of the game the most, both aesthetically (again, beauty can be found in swamps just as much as in tropical beaches) and from the lore and storytelling.
If you are adamant on not wanting to play Majora's Mask, I would recommend you to at least watch a (possibly blind) longplay of it. It is such a great game and I am sure you would at least enjoy the atmosphere.

The last weeks I have been stuck in my life and Tears of the Kingdom. That game has a good start, even if it is not as strong as Breath of the Wild. But one definitely needs to have played Breath of the Wild to fully enjoy Tears of the Kingdom, I think playing the latter first and the former second would result in a lot of bad moments. So... should you ever want to get into these games... Breath of the Wild first!

You played and removed quite a lot of games lately. So many bad ones?

[Link]

For some reason I thought you already played Timespinner. Maybe I was thinking when you got it.

One of the games I have a credit in, along with Bloodstained, FX Unit Yuki, Yooka-Laylee, and Caveman Warriors.

Shenmue III too, but that taught me that some devs will just slap whatever name they want on and not ask

Yeah, Guardian's Crusade/Knight & Baby is unfortunately not as well known as it deserves to be

I got my hands on a complete in box Japanese copy (which is absolutely lovely) and went in with no expectations whatsoever, though I came across a video about the game [Link] a couple times before. Very surprised with how fun and polished it is so far. Both the art style and humor remind me a lot of Old School Runescape and Twinsen's Little Big Adventure, which I really like despite never putting much time into.

I was a bit skeptical on how the localization would turn out, but "according to the game's producer and associate producer, very few changes were made between the Japanese and North American versions of the game" and "the creators took particular pride in the game's Japanese writing and its transition to its English counterpart", as "the original spirit of the story and the humor was kept intact, and since this is not something that is easy to achieve, we are very proud of this accomplishment".

Two things that impressed me quite a lot: overworld/towns with no loading screens, and the high amount of random stuff you can inspect to hear dialogs about. Side note, the Cave of Fear BGM [Link] is likely the best JRPG cave theme I've ever heard.

Edit: Just noticed you're playing Timespinner. I received a review copy when it released, played it to and enjoyed the game quite a lot despite some sidequests that feel out of place (fortunately, they're totally optional). Don't worry about leveling the weapons, that's not much of an issue as far as I remember. Absolutely love this track: [Link]

Ps2 is definitely also my favorite console, while PC is the ultimate video game console, it was not designed with that in mind in the first place so I would not categorize it as a console, all things considered. I do have to agree on the 3D models thing, I feel like only specific Ps1 games had somewhat good 3D, mostly colorful kid-friendly games like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, that said, all human characters from those games are terrifying looking, while cartoonish animals look pretty decent due to their simplicity. I can see why though, 3D was the next big thing and everyone had to have their piece of the pie, but rushing something never leads anywhere, I also tried playing Super Mario 64 on an emulator but it was a pain in the ass to control and levels due to graphical limitations look weird as hell, vertical, tower-like levels that look super basic due to the limitations of the 3D at the time and the backgrounds of the levels are usually just empty voids that look super depressing, idk it just makes me feel empty inside when I see levels like that, brakes the already weak immersion. Well, everyone has genres that they are good at, FPS games are also not my go-to genre either, most of them are generic and after finishing them I feel nothing, most CoD games fit that bill unsurprisingly.

Yeah, sadly most people don't see it that way and will eat up all that DLC nonsense, no Bandai, I do not want an Elden Ring DLC, you could have just released all that at once, because Bandai is a piece of garbage and will not allow any other Souls game to be on sale, they want everyone to play Elden Ring, not any of those old games like Ds3 that I want to play, hide it behind 60 fucking euros, God, I hate money hungry corporations. Exactly, now is the worst time to pre-order video games, I say don't go for it unless you trust a video game company with your life, sadly there are almost if any that I do.

I had a lot of fun with it, but, it did take more than 15 hours to get enough power-ups that opened up the exploration of the map, but I do not regret finishing it, was there anything in particular that threw you off, or was it just an amalgamation of many smaller issues?

Oh, that game, I have never played it, but I do know about it, because of that infamous creepypasta about a guy who played it and...well, you probably know the drill, something is off, corrupted sprites, sentient game, dead people, yada yada yada. Ok, you do make a very good point, the movie one, but the fact that I did not think about that before you pointed it out just shoves that our mentalities differ in that regard, I completely get where you are coming from. All the back in my childhood someone gave me an advice, to try and make all the school subjects enjoyable to myself, no matter how hard it might be, and go through them, so I guess that that mentality has stuck with me. There are so many games here that I would have never played normally, but because they were here on my backlog I just wanted to push through, get that complete badge, and be done with them, kind of what I am doing right now with the rest of my unfinished games, but that is also the reason why I am playing more Y0 right now, to sprinkle in some fun here and there.

Yeah, as much as I like playing some WRPGs most of them have abysmal combat, looking at Morrowind as the best example of that one, the combat is like you are trying to hit someone with a walking stick and you happen to be a grandma of 80+ years and every time you want to land a hit the game spins an imaginary dice to see if you will even land a hit depending on your stats, so it is super unsatisfying unless you are level 50+ and every hit is guaranteed to land, as much as I love that game the combat is easily the worst thing about it. Then there is also the sequel, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, in that game it feels like you are swinging a goddamn balloon, but for the sake of your sanity, I will not go into details lol.
Oh yeah, I was thinking about a Smartphone, I just assumed there oops, I completely forgot for a second that a normal phone exists, I do have it in my house but that is because it is tied to our internet deal, so it just sits there and no one calls on it. Understandible, most of my college colleagues just connect their smartphones to their car and play whatever, no need to use CD-s/DVD-s when this is much more convenient and easy.

Late, but I laughed out loud at your cheerleadering, so thanks for that.

I've barely touched Phantasy Star II since my first play session, but I don't want to let it sit TOO long. I'm looking forward to the next two games (and PS0, which I also inexplicably own), so I've decided to speed things along by keeping the RPG Classics Shrine for the game open on my phone while I play. I think I might just be OK.

Yknow, you and my partner have a lot in common in that regard. My debit is a MC, but she has only EVER seen them as credit cards from friends, family, etc. One time I went to check out for something online, and she gave me that puzzled look that could only mean “are you sure we want to use a credit card for this?” Having the opportunity to tell her mine was a debit almost blew her mind. Aside from my debit card though, yeah just about everything I see nowadays is a Visa. Crazy how things have changed.

That’s fantastic news about melonDS, btw! And yeah the renderer totally makes sense for why you’d be getting that much delay. Was it on software before?

Ah, I understand now. And yeah, I mostly agree. The limit I've set for myself on any one thing is ~$300 and I have to REALLY like the series that thing would come from. The only time I've gotten close is with Megaten -> Persona 2 which was $250

Which game managed to trick you into an online only purchase? I'm curious.

I'm still in the all physical camp where possible, but I've tried to do my best not to go for games that are online only. I still partake in games like Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X, but those purchases have been strictly digital so I'm not tied down with a plastic paperweight down the line.

Newer??? Has she only been playing NES games? Surely she isn't playing something like the Magnavox Odyssey 2

Ah, I see now. Yeah big difference between bad and BAD. I can definitely see why Other M wouldn't hold up to that, uh, "standard". Samus not feeling like Samus is just more fuel for the "this would be fine if it wasn't Metroid" fire.

Also, I'm pretty sure Velocipastor has at least come to Prime Video. I think my partner and I started it at one point...

Don’t knock the single tab thing!! I basically only do it because I’m terrified of typing some long comment (unfinished) and having iOS totally drop Chrome from RAM while multitasking. It’s happened before, and I’m not about to let it happen again.

Shame about the DSiWare, but I’m glad my findings helped a little. Speaking of Legend of Kage, I had no idea it was Lancarse behind it. They’ve developed a lot of games I love. I will definitely have to check it out soon.

Electricity’s probably a nightmare for people like us, but I can’t imagine leaving a few extra VMs running on their existing hardware is costing Mark Cerny any sleep.

A landline, eh? If it wasn’t for my desk job, I’d say the last time I ever had to use one of those was like…2011? It’s been a while. I think the Access Point our ISP gave us is capable of running a landline, we just don’t pay for it cause of our cells.

Hey, now. It doesn’t need to be a “grandma phone”. When I think of feature phones with big buttons, I could give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re rocking one of those cool looking Punkt phones [Link]