I didn't see your message about going away for a while.
I hope that you are doing better. As Prophallus said, take your time. Well be here to chat again

It's a li'l lonely without you around to chat, but we (collectively) understand. Take all the time you need.

Need to go away for a while. Buried in real life stress and work.

Clash Force also looks neat and it's $5. If it's as good as Polyroll was, that's a steal.

[Link]

Am I kuh-razy to think that the end of the title theme of IronSword (1:18 - 1:30) sounds like the beginning of this?

[Link]

I always thought that even in childhood.

Hmm, Isaac is a shootet instead? Well, still looks neat despite the edgelord humor, I'll wait for a sale.

Yay, Pixel Remaster, but not now. I too am trying not to pile on any more games myself. Moonlighter, Moonrider, The Last Spell, and Persona 4 Golden were bought in the last two months.

I never thought of it that way but yeah! That makes sense in context why they went with Kid Icarus.

With all the towers activated, I'm a third of the way in. I haven't even had anything on in the background when I've been playing because yeah, I really do enjoy the ambiance! They nailed it.

Hopefully Tears of the Kingdom will be good too.

[Link]

Gots to admit, when it comes to NES music, the main theme of Thundercade is a guilty pleasure. You're not gonna hear many people say that it's a good song, but there's something about it that makes me listen to it on loop...

Saw Shovel Knight stuff was on sale so I got Shovel of Hope (don't know if I need to play those other three) and Pocket Dungeon because it looked neat. I decided to play Shovel Knight again to get a fresh perspective on it. Maybe I'll like this souped up version better. The time when the original came out was a rather sour, unsavory point in my life which might have contributed to my hesitation to hail Shovel Knight as the best game from 2014 or whatever, so with any luck I can enjoy it a bit more. Pocket Dungeon seems good in short bursts.

[Link] Portly Washboy, don't eat it like the cartoon, man!

The thing too about Joymasher is that they've had the least exposure out of all four of those. Every serious Steam player knows about Shantae and Shovel Knight while Tribute got exposure with Ninja Turtles, but lotsa people seem less familiuh with Joymasher. They might've gotten noticed with Blazin' Chrome because it was a Contra-like, but those other three games they made as far as I'm aware? Nada.

Always a pleasure. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find decent NES music from lesser known or lesser fondly remembered games, and I've pretty much dug the deepest if I'm now discovering music from games like Super Robin Hood. By the way, did you see that Top Gear music guy did music for Golf Power?

Hey Rarity. 8-bit throwback games are aren't as prevalent as they used to be, but Belle Boomerang looks pretty spectacular. The visuals look very Kirby's Adventure inspired, but that's as far as inspiration goes.

Panic Porcupine is done by the same studio that did the enjoyable Polyroll. I'll be grabbing that too.

Bees and disease, I can't believe Binding of Isaac on Switch is like $40, and on toppa that, a $20 DLC? I'm kind of eyeing it because it dose look like Ancient Dungeon a little but... yeesh, that's pricy.

Moonrider looks great nonetheless. Mega Man X isn't my favorite, but I do like Strider, and it looks Strider inspired (man why come no Strider on Switch? The modern one I mean.) Actually wasn't Cannon Dancer also Strider inspired?

Wonder if it got tagged with Metroidvania just to entice people? "See this game called Zork?" "Meh." "It's a Metroidvania." "A Metroidvania?? Well why didn't you say so! I'm gonna play it right the dang now!" That wouldn't surprise me. By the way, they did what they didn't do in Blazing Chrome... remap controls! Genesis 6-button friendly.

Hey, hope youse enjoy Moonlighter. I sure did.

Oh right, the Mario movie. I dug it too! Dixie's cameo stuck out for me. Hey, you think Chunky Kong is Kiddy Kong grown up? Anyway, wasn't thrilled with turning Peach into Leela from Futurama, but I get it, it's for the movie, whatever. It was a bit surface level in some parts ( "That is how you princess!" ) but it was fun, and despite Illumination's notoriety for making cheap looking movies, actually looked very good. I enjoyed the water effects, especially with the Rainbow Road pieces.

Hey... of all the NES games, why do you think they picked Kid Icarus? Wouldn't Da Legend of Zelda make more sense? Maybe that one was more for the hardcore fans.

Hey, that shot of Mario, Peach, and Toad looking over the mountain... it kinda looked like that one shot in Grandia didn't it? The one with Justin, Sue, and Feena looking out from high up? Even my friend who I saw it with agreed.

It's one of those more insidious games that starts out good and weird to hook you, and then keeps giving just enough to keep you going, even though you're not really enjoying it. Yeah, I think I'm like that lately, too, or else I've just been making a lot of bad choices for game pickups; I had more duds than games I actually finished last year, and it was well over 100. Been great for backlog progress, if nothing else.

That's it? Huh. Well, context and tone would really sell it, I guess, but without actually seeing it in motion, it doesn't sound any more annoyingly self-referential than, say, your typical Zelda game; there's a neat little Easter Egg like finding the entire original game miniaturized in Adventure of Link all the way up to Skyward Sword not so much winking at as dry humping the camera when they talk about the institution's 25th anniversary at the beginning. And for me, that kind of drama might be personal, too, because I am not someone who cares about behind the scenes stuff; my lady loves it, though, and watches ALL of the commentary and making-of stuff whenever she can.

Admittedly, I didn't get super far into it; I had 3 party members when I flipped that table and walked out of the Grandia room, so it's possible that he may have grown on me by the end, but the game just wasn't offering enough else to keep me playing; the battle system was just fine, and the skill system was neat but seemed too grindy. The beginning just frames Justin as this budding serial killer, like that thing in his diary about how he got in trouble for torturing cats, and his conclusion was, "I should've only done that to one cat," and after reading it he says, "Yup! I sure thought about what I did!" Now yes, sometimes main characters are mischievous, like Ark from Terranigma, but Ark just chased a bunch of chickens that accidentally tore up the weavers' work; Justin is outright vicious. And even that would be one thing, if he were some kind of brooding sociopath, but he's just so obnoxiously happy, cheerful, and proud of what human garbage he is that it just makes me hate him all that much more.

See, I think it's usually a problem in stories that don't take themselves seriously, too, because the other side of that coin is characters that act like residents of fucking Toon Town, who suddenly start having VERY REAL FEELINGS THAT YOU SHOULD TAKE SUPER CEREAL, YOU GUYS! and that doesn't really work for me, either. Now, I do think that Final Fantasy 9 does an excellent job with that, when Zidane and Garnet go their own ways, and he loves her, but he's so goofy that he knows she isn't going to take him seriously, but what makes that work is that he's aware of this paradox. Most of the time, though, yeah, when it does work for me, I'm not really as to why. Maybe it really does just boil down to the quality of the writing; I can't fucking STAND it in anything Joss Whedon writes, but I also never thought his jokes were funny, either. Like even before everyone found out what kind of person he really is and decided to stop calling him a "god". But Yakuza does indeed save most of the goofy shit for sidestories and things like that, though I do think it helps that the main story is usually Final Fantasy 4 levels of melodrama; it's serious, but it has enough of a ridiculous undercurrent that the goofy shit works with it.

Well, I'm a total music nerd when it comes to VGM; I've got everything from Final Fantasy to Grounseed (if you want to be a stickler about it being alphabetical, then 7th Saga to Zoids Legacy; I was going more by relative obscurity) in my collection. I used to think of myself as an unapologetic Supergiant fangirl, but Pyre just did not do it for me, even the music.

It's good. It isn't To the Moon good, but it probably wasn't going to be, either. There are some weird out-of-character moments that make the writing feel a bit amateur at times, but even my black heart felt a few of those late-game stabs. The goodbye thing wasn't necessarily bad, either; it just got me musing as to why so many works of fiction pose change that way, instead of jumping into exciting new adventures. Heh, sometimes I wonder if that's why I feel this way about nostalgia, too, but it's a paradox: do I feel this way because I'm biased against my younger days, or does that just let me see it more clearly. My lady and I were discussing this not that long ago with religion. Her father was a pastor, so she grew up around churches and all that; I was branded a heretic at birth, because I'm part of a cursed bloodline (long story), so I was not. We got to talking about the rituals you do during church services - things I usually only see at weddings or funerals - and how she finds them normal, while I find them creepy and kinda culty. Question is whether I'm overreacting because they're so alien to me, or she's underreacting because they were a big part of her life growing up. Which perspective is closer to reality, or is it only a matter of perception and both/neither are correct. But you know how I am: I'm always good for overthinking this stuff.

Ya like that? Check out High Seas Havoc. I'm shocked they didn't put that in the Genesis Mini 2 and instead opted for the arbitrary Atomic Runner (called a hidden hidden by Slope's Game Room during his review of the EU MD Mini 2.)

So, what makes Moonrider stand out from most other 2D action throwback games? Steel Assault by I think it was Tribute Games was good, but done and over with quickly. Cyber Shadow... I don't think I finished that one, actually. Gunlord X looks pretty but is kinda meeeeh.

I love it when I first play a game and...

New music unlocked!

[Link]

(Not exclusively, but usually I hear the song in game first before I start digging for the music.)

That is the weird thing about 3D Zeldas altogether because they ain't as easy to revisit compared to 2D Zeldas! It's kinda on the same level as a Kingdom Hearts game as you just play them for a while, finish them, and you might not ever really bother to go through them again unless you really like them! Okay maybe those aren't the best examples, but I guess games that are huge timesinks and full of collectables! Why do we need to collect bugs? Why do we need to fish?? Stop it! (Yes, those are optional, but who has time to do those?)

You want an encore on music from unloved NES games?

[Link] This kinda reminds me of this [Link] 20:02

[Link] Some Follin goodness for ye. I wouldn't mind playing this game. It pretty much uses the Tom & Jerry NES engine [Link] PS: They also did the NES version of Kiwi Kraze [Link] Hey, this is the same company that did Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety... ... ... probably not a good thing, or not that good a thing.

[Link] Now we're getting real obscure. Well, if you count unlicensed/bootleg games. Here's Magic Jewelry, the Columns ripoff. I played this on one of those pirate systems full o' early Famicom games.

[Link] Remember what I said last week about how playing Rocky & Bullwinkle NES would be a waste of time? Actually there would be a reason: for laughs! Where's Waldo is definitely one of those games. There's also the part where it uses the same fanfare sound as in Wayne Gretzky Hockey.

[Link] I never knew until years back that this song from Mario is Missing is actually a real song. At least, I think it is.

[Link] Sounds like this could be good for a waterfall cavern!

[Link] Meep meep.

[Link] The unreleased game Heroquest has some pretty good music that makes good use of that "weird warbly effect" usually heard in C64 games.

[Link] Again

I think you might be right that the whole thing is slow, and I just didn't notice it for a while; just about every RPG of its kind begins slowly, and I might have just been expecting that. That'll give me something to ponder, at least. But yeah, the main character has the WORST timing... the fuck would you call those: microgames? It also doesn't tell you that you can get multiple presses on a single colored area until several hours into the game, so I could've been doing more damage the whole time. LP toss is good for hitting all enemies, but that weird Space Invaders timing thing is wildly inconsistent; for a while, I'd get over 40 hits easily, and then, it'd go down under 20. They even went so far as to 3D Zelda fix this broken system. You know how the combat in 3D Zelda games is pretty terrible on its own, so they slapped the Z-Targeting duct tape onto it to make it functional, instead of actually fixing the problem, like Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon did almost a full year before Ocarina of Time came out? Well, YIIK has a fast forward. In a game where you have timing mechanics. Thanks. I never once used it.

I don't know anything about the self-insert thing, since I don't really pay attention to the story behind games - I don't care, for instance, that the Devil May Cry reboot's Dante looks like the guy in charge of development of the game - but the only player character I can ever remember hating more than him is Grandia's Justin, and Alex at least gets better, and I think there might be a reason he's like that; I didn't get far enough to find out, but it seemed like they were going somewhere with that, and did drop a few hints here and there about it. The drama, I don't care so much about on its own, unless it's something damaging to society at large (and it usually isn't), since I feel that games should be taken on their own, even within the context of their franchise; if we didn't do that, Symphony of the Night would be a terrible Castlevania game, because it's nothing like most of what came before it. That or if it affects the game, like it was made by a shitty company that crams it full of bullshit like loot boxes and DLC. Yes, DLC is bullshit; that's a hill I'll fucking die on.

I'm not sure it has a ton of tonal whiplash in the actual story, since I usually hate that, which is why I couldn't stand Joss Whedon's output even before everyone found out what a piece of shit he was and then decided his work wasn't worth it. The only real exception has been the Yakuza series, and I can't say why, but it doesn't set off my tonal whiplash alarm, even though you go from busting the heads of street thugs with a steel bat to playing dress-up with cabaret club girls, like, "Oh, girl, those shoes clash with that dress, and your nails? Ooooooo, SCANDAL!" If I can ever figure out the sorcery behind that, I'm going to bottle that shit and retire as a best-selling author; for now, I'm just going to have to settle for bottling our well water and selling it to hipsters in New York City. Anyway, I think I was just irritated that the shit pile enemies were attacking me long after the sewer dungeon, because someone on the development team thought that they were JUST SO FUNNY! I'm hoping it was someone's 5-year-old, but I know grown-ass adults that revel in those little kid words, so I know that's just wishful thinking on my part. The characters are really good, though, for the most part; even bought myself a Vella Wilde t-shirt, which I found when looking for any kind of non-video walkthrough for the thing (didn't find one, by the way).

As for the music... I don't know. I'm going to have to listen to it outside the context of the actual game, and it is on my list, along with Briganty for PC-98 and Grim Dawn (if you like the work of Darren Korb (Bastion, Transistor, etc.), you might want to check the latter out), but one thing I know for sure is that it's catchy. It's been about a week, and THIS SHIT: [Link] is still stuck in my head; I'll be sitting at work and my brain just does that thing where it starts making up lyrics to it (usually about my giant rabbit). The catchy part starts at about 48 seconds, and then the lyrics (I think they're Japanese?) start at about 2:43. Is it good? Even listening to it now, I couldn't tell you, but the vocals just suck me in.

I eventually stopped watching it online, too, and I think I just need distance from this failed relationship; it's best if we don't see each other at all for a while. Maybe after I catch up on Adam Conover and spend some time watching Granstream Saga, I'll revisit it, but for now, it's a clean break.

And that was the last straw... You get to a certain point, and all enemies start scaling up to your level, no matter how high you go. Boss fights take upwards of half an hour; even random encounters are 10-15 minutes long, because even if you have your best weapon, and put the most points you possibly can into strength, you're still hitting in single digits. Can't believe something that was going alright and competently designed devolved into bottom-of-the-barrel RPG Maker trash so quickly...

Hi Rarity. I'mma show you more NES music.

[Link] When I played Barbie over a year ago, I kinda thought the audio sounded like it was done by Mark Van Hecke. Turns out I was right because the audio sounds hella (STOP SAYING HELLA, CARTMAN!) similar to Bart VS. The World [Link] [Link] and Star Trek: The Next Generation [Link] 4:20 . I think his best known work is this [Link] which actually sounds like his work in Ghostbusters II! [Link] And Attack of the Killer Tomaters [Link]

[Link] I didn't play Rocky and Bullwinkle much, because even I would probably think it's a waste of time, but I recall hearing 2:47 last year when I was sick from COVID and it got stuck in my head in the middle of the afternoon.

[Link] Kinda ditto with this one in regards to having it randomly popping up in my head, but this one does kinda have a feeling of "You know what? Everything is gonna be just fine." Actually, like I was telling MrFwibbles last year, the thing I love about the NES is that even a game like Barbie and Sesame Street Countdown can have bright, vibrant visuals, and I think that's what seperates people like us from the naysayers of the 2000s and the trend chasers of now, it's that "You know, the NES isn't just about Mario, Mega Man, and all those games people are just now discovering even though they've always existed, it needs lesser loved games to be truly complete, because even a game as bashed as Barbie looks better in my eyes than the most average mobile/flash graphics."

Kent Brockman: And that's my two cents.

This isn't exactly going to be comprehensive, since I'm still in the middle of it, but thus far, it's worthy of both praise and scorn.

- It has timing mechanics in battle, like Paper Mario, except they aren't fun, like Paper Mario; more like TIRING MECHANICS! Yeah, okay, that one needs work.
- The main character is such a piece of shit. Like genuinely awful person to everyone he meets. I can only think of one character I've played as that I've hated more than him, and I've played a few games in my time.
- EVERYTHING is slow and clunky. The menus are slow and clunky and hang on your choices, defaults are always the most time-wasting option possible, puzzle mechanics are janky as fuck (especially using the panda as a platform), and the leveling...
- You don't just level up; you have to get over 100 experience, then find a payphone to enter the "mind dungeon", where you choose your 3 or 4 attributes, assigning them to values, so you can choose which stats increase and how much. Not from a menu, but by checking each door, choosing a stat, GOING INTO THAT DOOR, reading the slow-ass text, then doing it 4 more times, and that's for ONE LEVEL. For your other party members, you talk to this NPC at the beginning of the mind dungeon, and he'll ask if you want to encourage your friends to level up. Default is no, of fucking course, but if you choose yes, anyone who can level up will do so. ONE LEVEL. The first time you do this, your other party member can get at least to Level 5. THIS TAKES SO MUCH LONGER THAN IT SHOULD.
- All items heal by percentage. This is an absolute waste, because an exceptional increase in HP for one level would be only 3 or 4; my tank currently has only about 50HP. I wouldn't even care, except that I only have one person with a healing skill, and it's only single target. I do have a character with a Wild-Arms-style item spreading ability, but that doesn't help much when the items suck.
- I'm no longer in the sewer dungeon, but I'm still fighting literal piles of shit, complete with little kid words surrounding their in-battle actions.

And yet...

There's something absolutely fascinating about the story. You know me: I don't give a fuck about your story by default, so you're going to have to earn my interest. It did, and almost immediately. Not going into spoiler territory here, but there's a lot of crazy supernatural shit going on, and it isn't the usual things that spring to mind when that word is used today, like ghosts, aliens, etc. It's the kind of otherworldly weird that's kept me wondering what the actual fuck is even going on, but I actually CARE. An obvious inspiration is Earthbound, but it's not just, "HEY LOOK GUYS I PLAED ERFBOUND HEREZ A GAEM ABOUT ERFBURND!" unfunny self-referential humor; it largely does its own thing, kinda like Cosmic Star Heroine. Really, in terms of tone and style, it's a lot more Scott Pilgrim than Earthbound. For how absolute garbage a human being the main character is, the other characters are at least good, if not great, and the actual plot is extremely well-written. It even tackles a lot of social issues with a lot more awareness than I was expecting to see... but now, a battle with some more piles of shit! The plot seems to be written well enough that I feel like they're going somewhere even with the main character's terrible personality, but it's too early to say for sure. Either way, if I drop this game, I'm definitely still going to watch a playthrough, because I haven't had a game's story hook me like this in a long time. Even for how much I loved Cris Tales, it was more the characters than the actual main plot that hooked me.

ADDENDUM: Also forgot to mention that this game is REALLY weirdly anachronistic. You've been around long enough to appreciate these, I think:
- The main character and his friend are talking about popular RPGs, and mention Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Lufia 2. I'm gonna let Secret of Mana slide, but as I imagine you'll recall, Lufia 2 wasn't a super popular megahit in 1999, like it is now.
- They need to search for something online, so they "AOLed" it. Like Googled it, except Google didn't exist. Except NOBODY ever "AOLed" anything; that kind of parlance didn't enter the lexicon until Google got big.
- The main character is a fucking card-carrying hipster... except hipsters didn't really exist in 1999, either; that was the end of second-wave punk and the beginning of second-wave goth; they had an entire decade of emo to get through before hipsters came into being.

Hey, don't bogart that oatmilk extra shot mocha latte.

I remember the Badge Arcade and Rusty's Real Deal Baseball as well as that one submarine game. Some oddball releases! However, I'll say that Picross 3D 2, Rhythm Heaven Megamix (one of those games I tried to get some family members to try but they didn't understand it and immediately stopped trying and went back to fiddling with their phones), and WarioWare Gold, one of 3DS' best, were very good! Other than those, my memories of the 3DS mostly involved playing anything Shin Megami Tensei.

Managed to snag everything I could before you couldn't use your card(s) anymore, and I'm completely fine with what I got. I didn't panic and start buying games left and right like so many people seemed to, almost as if they stopped playing 3DS for a long time then the news of the closure hit and suddenly people cared again. For what it's worth, I got Gotta Protectors and the FM DLC and it was one of last year's biggest surprises for me. Hard to believe Yuzo Koshiro's company, Ancient, was still around.

AND IS THAT PHOENOTOPIA: AWAKENING I SEE YOU GOT THERE?! You made a David wise choice, my doge. It's Zelda II but more like Zelda! I wanna play more of it! Darn this replay streak I got going right now... oh, but I can still bring my Switch to work.

I'm not exactly concerned about people like us who are already well-versed in classic gaming, unless they finally add something I've been wanting but never got like Mischief (this is no mischief! We're training to become adventurers!) Makers. I'm more talking about the people who never really had the chance to get into these old games but the companies continue to stifle themselves when it comes to their archival software. Sure, the people who were loudly demanding they put the DKC trilogy and EarthBound on there ain't really gonna care, but they wouldn't care if they put certain games in a hypothetical collection anyway, so what would they have to lose?

I'm disturbed by the idea that neither Capcom nor Konami seem too interested in adding their games that haven't been put on some sort of collection. Seriously, no Jackal, no Life Force, no Gun.Smoke, no Bionic Commando... sure, there are the arcade versions, but again, what would they have to lose? Even then, the NES versions of those two Capcom games I mentioned are superior. Hmm? You think Twitterites might have an issue with Hitler? Well, they already removed references in the US version of Bionic Commando anyway, and you get to blow him up, so that's a win-win. It's true, nobody but people like us have any real interest in games like Milon or Adventure Island II, meaning the chance of any NES or Super NES Hudson collection would be slim to none, but if that were the case, what would they have to lose by just putting them on the darn service?

It's all perplexing. One week they add Fire N Ice which is $200 and then three more weeks they add less impressive sounding entries like... NES Pinball. You'd think HAL would be content with putting Rollerball, Lolo 2 and 3, and whatever on there. Shoot, get Piko to snag the rights to Daydreamin' Davey and any other Sculptured Software game that isn't Robin Hood or Monopoly.

What I personally want for Switch Online, however, is more diverse 64 stuff. I hadda blast revisiting OoT and MM for the first time in many years, sure, but the Goemon games, Castlevania games, Star Soldier, shoot, wasn't there a 64 version of Mega Man Legends or something? No, though, they wanna wait to see if they can whore them out in a collection of some sort. They're wasting their times, if that's the case.

I know I said this when they put NES Pinball on there, but is this really the best they can do? Don't get me wrong, I like Xevious just fine, but there is an exorbitant amount of other choices. It's not even Xevious as a bonus, it's "Hey, I know we haven't updated NES Online in months, but here's something to see if people still care: Xevious!" even though like Mappyland and Dig Dug II they were already on a collection, that's frequently on sale by the way. It just, it boggles the mind. Give people more Jaleco action games, show people the brilliance of Culture Brain games like Scheherazade (my next replay actually!), let people see how Hudson Soft used to be one of Japan's most prestigious third party game companies, Atlus' early titles are certainly needing a rerelease, put up some NES Rare games seeing as how you guys aren't so bitter with Microsoft, give people... ANYTHING! Same with Super NES, all they got was Side Pocket, which is fine, but again, it's been months and this is all they got, Jesus effin' Christ.

If Ninja Jajamaru is disappointing you, there's is a very nice ninja platformer inspired by it called Ninja Senki and it's free