What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

Dragon Warrior 2, NES. Last played it around 35 years ago and lost a game due to save issue, never picked up again. Other than the excruciating amount of random battles you must slog through, I must say Im enjoying it quite a bit. Have the ship now and Im kind of wandering, wondering where TF I should be going at this point, lol.

That's the awesome thing about OG DQ2, that once you have the boat there's not really a wrong place to go. It's much like DQ1 in that regard except on a much larger scale.

Treat the structure like a point'n'click adventure game. No matter where you go, you'll find either something to explore, a situation to solve, or the hint or tools needed to solve a situation elsewhere. Talk to every NPC, many offer information about where else you can go and what you can do there. The game is completely open-ended up until you have all the sigils, at which point you already know where to go.

The most important thing IMO is just to avoid using any guides telling you where to go or what to do. I feel like most people who criticize the game were following a guide or relying on emulator savestates, both of which completely remove most of the design that defines the game and makes it enjoyable to play. I never had to grind anywhere until I did so for quite a short period right at the final dungeon, and people who feel that they need to were probably beelining for individual goals rather than taking the time to explore.

Also, some late-game dungeons WILL be super threatening and probably require you run from a majority of battles. The balance between exploration and survival combined with the consequence of dying (you never lose items or EXP, but you don't want to die with a full wallet) is a part of the thrill

[Sima Tuna]

I have always liked the DQ system of game overs, where you just lose some money and not any actual progress. You're only screwed if you were trying to grind money at that particular time. Otherwise, dying is part of the learning process. That's one area where Final Fantasy is undeniably worse. Going straight to title screen on a death is not fun and it encourages save abuse. Especially in games like FF1 that have some really dickish dungeon design made to exploit the high encounter rate.

Run rate is another element of DQ that's far superior to FF. I believe it's 25%, 25%, 50%, 100% in a lot of the games. I could be slightly off on that or entirely off, but what I remember most of all is that your run rate after x number of turns becomes 100.

[Josh128]

Nice, thanks. Thus far I have avoided any urge to look for any help on the game other than what "Fairy Water" does, and I was pretty sure I knew what it did before I looked it up (and I was right). I agree that leveling up via exploration is way different than just trying to run exactly where you need to go if you had a guide. I could easily see how you would get your ass kicked A LOT if you tried to do that.

Interesting tidbit about the run rate. I had no clue, I usually never try again after the second fail. Its either win or die after that, lol.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Run rate is another element of DQ that's far superior to FF.

I actually prefer deaths being a bit more consequential, but each to their own. Both ways have their merits. FF1 running is not something to really compare any other game to though, because it's super bugged in the NES version. Slot 1 and 2 are the only ones that work correctly, slots 3 and 4 in the back are bugged and don't correctly use the character's stats to determine run success so you'll rarely run there successfully even if a Thief is back there. Being afflicted with a status like Poison also causes run success rates to tank badly. Basically any other RPG out there will be vastly superior to FF1 in how it handles running, heh.

FF1 also doesn't have an escape spell which becomes a bit of a staple in other RPGs, especially ones inspired by DQ.

Treat the structure like a point'n'click adventure game.

Seconding this, a lot of more open-ended RPGs expect you to wander a bit, and put the pieces together on what to do to progress. Enjoy wandering and finding new things.

[Sima Tuna]

The "wander and learn about the world" element of older jarpigs reminds me a lot of games like Ultima IV and V. Explore, figure out wtf is going on and who the characters are. Dare I call it the DARK SOULS of role-playing?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I was thinking about how open ended it felt like an Ultima game, but it still gives you more nudges in the right direction by having enemy strength not be completely tied to what your own strength is. So you can very much get a sense of "I'm not supposed to be here yet" from the game if an area has enemies way stronger than you in most DQ or FF games. If anything, Dark Souls is more like that than Ultima, since at the start for sure it explicitly uses this to steer you clear of the graveyard. Eventually you're strong enough that everything opens up pretty evenly so I guess later on Dark Souls is more Ultima in terms of scope and exploration.

[Steven]

Almost at the part of Tales of Symphonia where I would change the disc if I was playing on Gamecube. Regal finally showed up and... his voice actor is Solid Snake. I completely forgot about that. It's so fucking weird to hear Snake's voice come out of this guy. Every time Regal speaks I half expect him to start talking about Metal Gears/the Patriots/Liquid/etc. Too bad they wasted a good voice actor on such an irrelevant character. At least Regal exists for people who like his playstyle, even if you have to play half of the game to get him. Yes, Regal's infamous "What is this ominous light that threatens to engulf us?" line is just as horrible and ridiculous in the original Japanese script as it is in English. I already forgot if it's a direct translation or not, but I think it is. I took a picture of it, so I'll go find it later and check.

Halfway through the second act it seems that the player's damage output (mostly Lloyd's) skyrockets out of control while enemy stats remain relatively stagnant, so zako are little more than 15-second interruptions that give free Grade, most bosses go down in about 90 seconds or less, and the unending mountain of healing items that you get for free from talking to girls as shitbag Zelos is entirely unnecessary because there is little that anything can do to you. Additionally, holy crap the boat has the absolute worst controls of anything ever. At least you only use it two or three times before you get the Rare Birds and then never use the boat again.

Still, the game's extremely quick pacing and relatively non-linear structure are refreshing. I just hate that getting that one ending is actually something of an annoyance outside of the Gamecube version, where you are guaranteed to be able to get it if you want it no matter what. I know about the weird/cool glitch in the PS3 version that lets you use hi-ougi/etc. whenever you want, but I can't seem to get it to work. Does it not work on the Japanese PS3 version?

I think I can finish this within a few days so I can start Phantasia on the 15th for its 30th anniversary. Tempted to play SFC Phantasia even if I don't like the SFC version that much... or own it, a problem I've been meaning to fix for over a decade.

Don't think I missed Eternia's 25th anniversary a few days ago, BTW; I bought the (Japanese) PS1 version recently and played it for a few hours on the 30th. I have a European PSP copy that stopped working for some reason not long after I bought it. Now I can finally finish the game!

[Sumez]

I actually prefer deaths being a bit more consequential, but each to their own. Both ways have their merits.

I see where you're coming from, but I think framing DQ's deaths as not being consequential doesn't really cover most of it. Designing the game this way allows them to dial up other parameters.

FWIW I think the system makes the most sense in the first two games, as DQ3 introduces the bank, which allows you to stash your money so dying is never straight up "punishing". Though dungeons in that game can still be really dangerous on their own, so the threat still feels real.

The NES version of DQ2 is the one where it works the best, due to its size, challenge, and lack of a bank.
Keep in mind this is still an old school JRPG (before FF1 was even a thing) from the era where the in-game economy actually means something, and isn't just a random stash of points that you unload to stock up on potions and upgrade your team every time you reach the next town.
In DQ1 and 2, gold is a resource that's at least as important as your EXP, and is very essential to keeping your characters in a fighting condition. Every time you're able to afford the next weapon or armor in line, you're back to 0 gold, and losing half of it when you're close to reaching the number that you need for the next upgrade tier is definitely a massive consequence.

What the system allows is for the player to actually manage the risk and consequences themselves. If you're saving up for the next big purchase, it's probably not a good idea to venture into the next big unknown area where you don't know if anything can kill you unexpectedly. However, when you're at that "0 gold" state, that's a good time to launch some "kamikaze runs" into unkown territory, either to grab some items or just map out the area so you know where to go when you're actually focusing on progress.

It's mostly when you're focusing on progress that running from battles suddenly becomes a much more relevant strategy, especially in the later areas of the game. Another thing I like about the DQ series is how well it manages to focus on resource management, all the way up until the 8th entry. In these games, healing is usually expensive, and items able to recover magic points are extremely rare if they exist at all. You can't just heal everyone after each battle and be back to the status quo that way - Once you've healed or revived party members enough, you're either gonna need to focus on just making it through alive, or try to escape. I think this balance alone creates all the sense of threat and tension that you need, without dying in combat necessarily having to mean a complete reset of everything you've achieved the past half an hour.

[it290]

Are you talking about Final Vendetta? Final Vendetta is legit, although it has some balance issues.

No, it's a fangame called Double Dragon One.

[Josh128]

In DQ1 and 2, gold is a resource that's at least as important as your EXP, and is very essential to keeping your characters in a fighting condition. Every time you're able to afford the next weapon or armor in line, you're back to 0 gold, and losing half of it when you're close to reaching the number that you need for the next upgrade tier is definitely a massive consequence.

What the system allows is for the player to actually manage the risk and consequences themselves. If you're saving up for the next big purchase, it's probably not a good idea to venture into the next big unknown area where you don't know if anything can kill you unexpectedly. However, when you're at that "0 gold" state, that's a good time to launch some "kamikaze runs" into unkown territory, either to grab some items or just map out the area so you know where to go when you're actually focusing on progress.

Very spot on about the gold, Im experiencing that right now. Proper weapons and armor are super expensive and its very difficult to amass what is needed for some of it. I just came across an item that is $20k(!), which is like 3-4 times more than the most Ive ever had on me, lol. When you are saving for a $4k sword or piece of armor and you die and revive with half, it certainly reinforces the need to 1.) Be careful, and 2.) Save often. I dont know how many times Ive just chosen to turn off the game and start back from my last save than accept losing half the cash. Problem is, you dont retain your experience points earned up until the point you died when you do that, so its still a tradeoff.

I just got the Golden Key, the World Leaf, and the Token of Erdrick yesterday evening, which are finally opening up some more ways to progress for me.

[1KMS]

If you like Double Dragon Advance, you'd probably like Double Dragon One. Similar fighting system (minus OTGs) with better sprites.

On the downside, the enemy movement routines are very OpenBOR-y. There's nothing as distinct as you'd find in The Punisher, between Pretty Boy and Kunoichi for example. Then again, most DD games have that issue. And unlike DDA, enemies don't share your ability to run, so don't expect Final Fight pressure.

[To Far Away Times]

I've been playing around with a Gun4IR clone, this one's called a Fire Phoenix that I got for around $100, and I'm surprised at how far these modern light guns have come.

Honestly this feels way more responsive than Time Crisis 5 in an arcade. I was playing around with it, with the mouse cursor on and off, and it really seems like it's only limited by your monitor's refresh rate. I credit fed through Virtua Cop and I'm thinking about giving this game a serious go for a 1CC, the gun seems up to the task with it's accuracy and response time.

It's not quite Guncon levels of perfection (nothing is or probably ever will be again), but it's better than any Dreamcast light gun on a CRT TV.

[Steven]

Done with Tales of Symphonia, at only 35 hours and some minutes. I thought this game was closer to twice this length, but it isn't. Did all of what would be disc 2 in one sitting, and once again ended up staying awake until 0330 on a work day to finish a Tales game when I should have been sleeping.

One of the biggest things that bothered me about this game is... the font. It's so bad!!! The non-default fonts are not very good, but the default font is nice... except it makes ロ look like a fucking D. EXACTLY like a fucking D. This is a big problem when the main character's name starts with ロ, so for half of the game I kept reading it as Doyd instead of Lloyd. Other things were affected too, with some of the more egregious ones being ロード becoming Doad instead of Load, ロングレンジモード as Dong Range Mode instead of Long Range Mode, and ロングソード as Dong Sword as opposed to Long Sword, among others. Got semi-used to it eventually, but fuck man, when you make a font, try to not make it look exactly like another language. It's just going to mess with multi-lingual people who have to endure the awkwardness that comes from that.

Soooooooooo mechanically this game is horrible. I know people are currently saying stuff like "it was good for its time but didn't age well", whatever that means, but the truth is that it wasn't good for its time because it was already a pretty massive downgrade from the previous games in its own series prior to its own release. I clearly remember people complaining about this at the time, and it became even more apparent when Rebirth released a year later. I have many complaints about the overall design of this game, but TLDR it's not very good, go play the 2D games instead if you want good/deep/complex gameplay.

One of the more problematic aspects that I haven't complained about yet is how combos work; most games let you do normal attack combo -> tokugi -> ougi -> maybe hi-ougi, sometimes with extensions mixed in. Here you have normal attack -> tokugi -> higi -> ougi, which seems cool initially because it does indeed let you do more violence than normal, but you quickly realize that higi and especially ougi TP costs are so high that you'll burn through your TP extremely quickly without a Fairy Ring, so until that point I mostly restrained myself from going beyond tokugi. Yay, look at all of these cool attacks that I DON'T WANT TO USE BECAUSE THEY COST WAY TOO MUCH TO JUSTIFY USING FOR 80% OF THE GAME. I did find that Fairy Ring + Mental Symbol provided almost infinite TP for Lloyd and could spam all day long, which was pretty nice, so after that point I was not complaining! I also rather like the OTG options the game gives you. Aside from Senel, why was this mechanic almost completely removed from the later 3D games?

On normal, there are only and exactly four non-optional bosses in the game that actually bother to try putting up a fight, and half of them are the same guy lol. These bosses are

Spoiler

Remiel, Kratos 1, Yggdrasil 1, and Yggdrasil 3. Kratos 3 is somewhat aggressive and can be moderately dangerous, mostly because only Lloyd is allowed in that fight, but his HP is way too low for him to be much of a threat. Yggdrasil 3 is easily my pick for the hardest non-optional boss in the game, aside from the obviously unbeatable Yggdrasil 1. The devs decided to have him mimic the infamous Dhaos Laser by giving him Yggdrasil Laser, which is just as insanely devastating as Dhaos Laser is, especially because Yggdrasil 3 spams the shit out of it, sometimes back to back, which is guaranteed to fuck up anyone in its path of destruction. Good boss fight! Would be better if the idiotic AI would stay the fuck away from Yggdrasil like I told them to, and he'd certainly be neutered without Yggdrasil Laser, but...

I can't believe how pitiful the final boss is. Why is the final boss one of the easiest bosses in the game? Why is the second form so much weaker than the first form? Why does he sit there in his weird mech thingy without moving, barely attack, and die in under 30 seconds because his stats are complete shit? The fight started, and I swear to god 20 or 30 seconds later he died and my response was "WHAT." I hope I didn't wake up my neighbours by shouting like that at 0300...

The story is weird too. It's mostly good, and probably the main reason to play the game, but at the same time it has some major problems. After somewhere around the beginning of act 2, half of the playable characters are just kind of there and have little or nothing to do for the last 60% of the game beyond giving generic exposition lines that could have been given by nameless NPCs and not much would have changed. What is the purpose of Regal and Presea? I have no idea. While most of the other supposedly "important" characters not named Lloyd, Colette, Kratos, and Zelos are underutilized, these two are the worst by far. They could have been cut entirely and not much would have changed. I'm pretty sure that there are some voiceless NPCs that have more and more important lines than Regal does.

Now to talk about spoilers stuff.

Spoiler

Kratos ending is fucking weird. I thought this at the time of its release too, and as a kid I struggled to understand why I felt that way. This has bothered me for 20+ years. Now I still feel the same way but understand and can articulate why: it feels kind of weirdly unfinished and tonally wrong. I think part of this, maybe a big part of this, is the pacing; after Zelos dies, you're already extremely close to the end of the game, and then you are subsequently whisked extremely briskly from place to place without room for anything besides big plot stuff because the story has to end and it has to end RIGHT THE FUCK NOW without consideration for anything else.

I remembered that after you murder Zelos, which is the entire reason that I did this route as a kid, as I genuinely thought Zelos was a disgusting shitbag, he's mentioned exactly zero times in the story. WTF? Surely he must have been mentioned at least once and my memory is faulty, right? Lol nope. Outside of two skits and his sister mentioning you killing him if you fight her after that, all of which are optional, everybody just carries on as if Zelos had never existed and as if they hadn't literally just killed him five minutes earlier, although I suppose it's possible that I missed some instances. Colette, who was absent when Zelos died, never gets told on screen that Zelos died. My opinion of Zelos has changed a lot. I still think he's a complete shitbag, but I think he's less of a complete shitbag. Does that make sense? I don't know, but it does to me.

Apparently, in an early draft of the story, Zelos always died unless you got his ending, but this got swapped at some point so he only dies if you get the Kratos ending. I did not know this until a few days ago, but I find it fascinating that it was like this at one point. Zelos being killed by Lloyd & Friends™ is a massive tonal mismatch with the rest of the game, even in that one ending, so while I absolutely hated him as a kid and don't necessarily like him that much now, I'm kind of glad that it turned out this way. Obviously, Zelos didn't/can't die because he's in Knight of Ratatosk, but it always felt very wrong.

Well, I thought getting the Kratos ending would be a pain, but it really wasn't that bad. He was the first person that appeared for me during the event, so that was nice after worrying about it for the entire playthrough before that. I think this multiple ending thing is the definitive feature of this game, but from what I remember, it barely changes anything unless you get the Kratos ending, which is the only one with a significant difference from the rest, and of course it's the one that arguably completely sucks both narratively, for the reasons above, and mechanically, as you're without one of the most useful characters in the game until Kratos joins literally just for the final dungeon, whereas on non-Kratos endings Zelos rejoins immediately with everyone else after you get separated.

I am NOT gonna replay this game to get the other endings. Not on PS3, anyway. The PS4/Switch versions added a scene skip function that would make getting the other endings much, MUCH faster, but those versions are kind of messed up, so I don't think I will bother with them, even if it would be nice to have the game on newer, more reliable hardware, which further stresses the importance of putting everything on PC and without region locks and DRM. I am not allowed to buy this Japanese game on PC because I live in Japan even though it was developed by Scamco, ported by Scamco, and published by Scamco. Yeah, that is fucking idiotic and there is no defense for it, logical or otherwise.

There are more things that I could say that I kind of want to say, and most of them are complaints, but I'm gonna stop here for now. Phantasia on Monday, I guess?

[Sima Tuna]

I kinda wish they were called Dong Range Mode and Dong Sword, now.

Interesting to get your thoughts on the game, thanks for posting them. I never actually hated Zelos that much. Could be I forgot why I was supposed to. I just remember him being placed in an unenviable position. Most of the characters in Symphonia conform to tropes and his is the guy who pretends to be happy-go-lucky and cavalier while crushed under 10k tons of pressure he lets nobody see.

[Steven]

In case you want to see what that ロ looks like, here it is. It absolutely looks like a D and it messed me up so much for so long!

Spoiler

Zelos is probably the most interesting character in the game. Unfortunately, you won't get to see why unless you get his ending. I regret not thinking to make a separate save file to get a different ending without having to replay the game, especially because the game ends only about 2 or 3 hours after the point where you select your ending, so it would have been trivial to get something else too on a separate save file. Too late now. I could not have gotten the Zelos ending, but it still would have been a little better, I think. I am almost at the point where I want to consider the ending that I got to be something of a bad ending. That ending no longer matters anyway because of Knight of Ratatosk.

Thinking about it some more, I realize that Zelos

Spoiler

has all of his problems removed after the events of the game, provided that he's alive, so he no longer has the motivation to act the way he does after that point. I am rather interested to see how he is in Knight of Ratatosk. I imagine he's probably exactly the same, unfortunately, as I'd like to see him act as his true self.

I'd absolutely be playing Knight of Ratatosk right now if Phantasia's 30th anniversary wasn't in 3 days.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm currently playing Moonring and Rogue Trader, otherwise I'd be tempted myself to play a Tales game, what with all the talk about them. Maybe I'll pick up a couple when they're on steam sale this year, see how the Deck does with them.

Moonring is great btw. I went ahead and payed actual money for the Switch version. No real reason, just wanted to support the dev for being awesome and see how the switch version performs. As far as I can tell, it's identical to steam deck performance. It's just on the switch. No reason to buy it on Switch but there's no reason to not buy it either. As I said, I mostly just wanted to give the dev money for making Moonring free. Moonring is a super cool little game. It reminds me of a mix of a proper roguelike such as nethack, but also Ultima. The game world is free and open from the start. You can go wherever you want and accomplish whatever you can handle. There is leveling system but it's tied to collecting favor from the gods or a very rare consumable item. The other way of progressing in power is buying or obtaining gear. Like most classic roguelikes, you're intended to run from encounters that are too much for your early game baby character. The game uses a recharging shield/hp system similar to Halo 1, strangely enough. In fights with melee opponents, you can back off and recharge your hp/shield in between swings.

The game is beautiful. I wish this art style was more prevalent outside of Ultima IV and V. The sprites also remind me a little of the tileset used in Caves of Qud, but with harsh primary colors rather than pastels. Making games that run in Dark Mode is something I'd like to see more of.

[Steven]

see how the Deck does with them.

I can already tell you the answer!

Vesperia = 60 FPS max settings at all times
Graces = 90 FPS (!!!) at all times during battle, which is absolutely glorious. Occasional drops to 70 FPS outside battle in final dungeon, but everywhere else should get you 90
Xillia = this port's kind of fucked and has weird FPS drops outside of battle no matter what you play on, but in battle 60 FPS at all times

You should be able to run these at 60 FPS on Steam Deck at 1920x1080 at max settings on an external display for the most part. I did it with Vesperia and Graces a little. The recommended GPU is a GPU that predates the PS4, so the Steam Deck has very little trouble with these, especially at its native resolution.

No idea about the region locked ones. Arise demo can be pushed to 60 FPS at potato settings and it actually doesn't look completely terrible. Full game should be about the same, I expect.

[Sima Tuna]

see how the Deck does with them.

I can already tell you the answer!

Vesperia = 60 FPS max settings at all times
Graces = 90 FPS (!!!) at all times during battle, which is absolutely glorious. Occasional drops to 70 FPS outside battle in final dungeon, but everywhere else should get you 90
Xillia = this port's kind of fucked and has weird FPS drops outside of battle no matter what you play on, but in battle 60 FPS at all times

You should be able to run these at 60 FPS on Steam Deck at 1920x1080 at max settings on an external display for the most part. I did it with Vesperia and Graces a little. The recommended GPU is a GPU that predates the PS4, so the Steam Deck has very little trouble with these, especially at its native resolution.

No idea about the region locked ones. Arise demo can be pushed to 60 FPS at potato settings and it actually doesn't look completely terrible. Full game should be about the same, I expect.

Bamco is currently having a sale. I'll list a few prices for anyone who has interest in the Tales games:

Vesperia is $10
Zestiria is $5
Symphonia is $5
Arise is $10
Graces F is $26 (one of these things is not like the others)

Xillia and Berseria are not on sale. As far as the older games go, I couldn't find them on Steam so I assume they aren't available. I went ahead and triple-dipped on Symphonia because I'm stupid, and I bought Zestiria as well to try it out. For $5, I mean... You can't buy shit anymore with five dollars.

I have no problem playing games on potato settings with the Deck. It's the only way Rogue Trader even runs, as I think I bitched about earlier. Still bizarre to me that games get a green checkmark from Valve for BARELY RUNNING ON LOWEST SPECS while other games have the yellow or question mark symbol suggesting they're not a great steam deck experience... Despite running at 60+fps with no issues other than needing to download a community layout.

[Steven]

The only ones on Steam are

Zestiria (region locked)
Berseria (region locked)
Symphonia (region locked)
Vesperia
Arise
Graces f
Xillia
lol Berseria again, but this time not region locked, and as of this post also not released yet

It's worth noting that the region locked ones all have particularly nasty DRM. I'd avoid those on principle just because of that.

There is technically one more Tales game on PC, Tales of Eternia Online. I think it is not possible to play that anymore. Graces f is a new-ish port that just released this year, although it was about 10 months ago, so that probably explains the higher price. Excellent port, though. It's probably the best port out of all of them! Just don't play it at 16:10 because it doesn't display 16:10 properly. It stretches everything vertically to fill the space instead of expanding the visible area like it should.

Still bizarre to me that games get a green checkmark from Valve for BARELY RUNNING ON LOWEST SPECS while other games have the yellow or question mark symbol suggesting they're not a great steam deck experience... Despite running at 60+fps with no issues other than needing to download a community layout.

The whole system needs a rework. It is not helpful at all. It's especially funny when you get something that says that it doesn't work at all but then you try it and it works literally perfectly. There are probably a lot of games that used to not work but did after Proton updates and the rating never got updated.

[To Far Away Times]

Been playing a bunch of Time Crisis: Project Titan lately. Feels like a 1CC will happen sooner or later.

I remember when I first played Time Crisis: Project Titan I was kinda disappointed because I played it immediately after Time Crisis 1 and 2 (which imo, are the two best light gun games ever made) But years removed from having done deep dives into those games, and not being burned out of the formula anymore, Time Crisis: Project Titan kinda slaps.

Really cool mechanics in this. You can earn extra lives by hitting enemies 30 consecutive times without missing, and that plays nicely with a new system where you can “juggle” enemies for a couple extra hits. I love how accuracy is rewarded in this. Taking a hit early on doesn’t mean an instant restart in this game like it would for me in Time Crisis 1 or 2, since theoretically you are never more than 30 shots away from earning a life back if you played absolutely perfectly. It’s pretty hard to actually pull off though, as it should be.

Looking forward to playing it more this weekend.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Finally tried out the Tengen port of Klax on the Atari 2600 Jr. console with an 2600 Uno flash cart setup for the first time -- wow, the basic essence of the entire Klax gaming engine distilled to be able to be played on the 2600 gaming platform is incredible. You can still make a "Big X" configuration on Wave 6 and Wave 11 to warp to Wave 51 & Wave 56 respectively (as it is on the original Klax jamma pcb from February of 1990). I like the ability of being able to continue on the last Wave played before the countdown timer reaches zero on the 2600 port of Klax -- how cool is that?

----------
Since there's no way to pause a 2600 Klax gaming at hand, it's more like it's original jamma pcb counterpart as it too, can't be paused during a session as well. Certain liberties/concessions were made with the 2600 Klax's scoring setup (but that's to be expected given the extremely tight programming parameters/limits of the 2600 Klax game itself).
----------

Had both the 2600 & 7800 ports of Klax been released at retail back in 1990 and 1992 respectively, I'm sure it would've done well, sales-wise -- basically giving the Klax arcade gamer the same Klax gaming experience of being able to play it at home. The American based Toys-R-Us chain stopped selling it's 2600 and 7800 gaming hardware and software at the end of 1990 -- so that was pretty much the last major retailer that had physical 2600 & 7800 related inventory back in those days of lore.

I still haven't tried out the Atari 7800 port of Klax as of yet. Will the 7800 port of Klax boot up/work on a 7800+ console setup?

LX Rudis whom worked on the Atari Lynx port Klax has said that Tengen had a really hard time trying to get the NES port of Klax to run smoothly during it's initial development but they finally were able to get it to run smoothly as originally intended. The NES port of Klax has all 100 Waves included for completeness (which is awesome in that Tengen was able to pull it off successfully). I've learned that you have to make do with the given tiles at hand to "score big" at the expense of the game speeding up/more tiles added to the conveyor belt if you take too long (if "ramping" difficulty is turned on, of course).

Wave 100 has the requirement of scoring of a minimum of 250,000 points which is really not that hard to do if you already know the finer points of what makes Klax work in terms of overall scoring tricks of the trade.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_^

[To Far Away Times]

So a Time Crisis Project: Titan 1CC is probably not happening, lol. There's a fourth stage and the game starts ramping up hard. It seems more difficult that it's arcade siblings of that era, especially since you can't "pedal drop" and abuse the invincibility frames.

In light of Expedition 33 pretty much sweeping The Game Awards and being the new hotness, I thought I'd give it a try, and yeah, it's pretty damn good. If you like JRPGs, but don't like anime, this is your game. If you could replace anime melodrama, waifus, and heavy sighs with Game of Thrones style acting, I'd make that trade 100 times out of 100; I've just never been given the choice.

Gameplay is mostly a tried and true JRPG turn based system and shows you your turn order like Final Fantasy X, with the timing system of Shadow Hearts for attacks, and Mario RPG for defense. Parrying an attack doesn't just nullify damage though, but outright does more damage than your basic attacks. The game seems to pull in a little bit of everything, you also have a very light job system where you learn passives and then can equip a set amount of them per character to make a build.

Much of the game takes place in a narrow story tube, as you look at the pretty environments and listen to characters talk. It's not unlike the much maligned Final Fantasy XIII in some aspects. But it's all in the execution, I guess. I've been to three environments so far, and they've all been extremely memorable, visually creative, and left me wanting more. The story here is very, very good too. It's not only a truly original story (how rare is that?), but it's all done through a "show, not tell" style. There are no heavy exposition dumps. It all unfolds very naturally. It feels like you're playing through a novel, rather than a game story.

It's kind of remarkable that we've never really had this game before with western presentation. Big budget JRPGs were absolutely massive in the west for a while (FFVII & FFVIII out sold PS1 icons like Tekken 3, any of the Crash Bandicoot games, any Tomb Raider, etc...), but they always came exclusively from a Japanese lens. If we'd had games like EX33 years earlier, perhaps there wouldn't have been an exodus of turn based RPGs in favor of live action ones. I've always thought the death of the JRPGs in the west being a mass market genre wasn't from being turn based, but rather that the production values caught up and some of the less desirable anime-isms were on full display, rather than being left open to interpretation. EX33 feels like something from an alternate future, where a western developer had also made a highly successful JRPG on PS1, that success continued and the genre flourished and EX33 would have been one of many big budget successful JRPGs in the west in the modern era.

[Steven]

Tales of Phantasia 30th anniversary~

Tales of the Abyss 20th anniversary~

Played both a bit today. SFC Phantasia is... despite being one of the most ambitious and technologically advanced SFC games, the best descriptor for this game is "very awkward". I'm not really sure what they were thinking when they designed this battle system. It's very, very annoying to run over, do a single attack, and then run back to where you were. Combos do not exist. You can sort of interrupt the running back process, but it feels very bad. The short range/long range mechanic is restrictive and arbitrary for no good reason and it does nothing but get in the way. The encounter rate is also very high, so you're constantly dragged back into this awkward battle system. I have not played this game for a very long time, and now I remember why. Played it for about 40 minutes. That's enough for me. I'm going to be honest; I've never really liked SFC Phantasia. Aside from historical curiosity, I don't really see any reason to play the original version instead of its remake. Even Scamco tends to ignore the existence of the SFC version in favour of PS1 or PSP instead.

Switched to PS1 version and it's much better, although playing them back to back like this makes it feel like the battle system moves slower here than on SFC. About an hour and a half in now, so already done with what I guess is supposed to be act 1. This game is relatively short, so I don't think it should take long. I no longer remember how to get Suzu, so I have to check. I find it funny that they deemed her important enough to put in the OP movie even though she's both missable and barely in the game.

Abyss... I think this game has probably the defining moment of the entire series; if you've played it, you know exactly what it is. I loaded an older save and redid everything from the beginning of the final dungeon until the very end. Good shit. In case anyone needs BUMP live and is too cheap to go buy it on mora or obtain the now unobtainable Blu-ray from that day, they put up the entire final day of Homesick Eisei 2024 (yes, that's the day I was there, and it's the best show I have ever seen them do) on Youtube, which includes this game's awesome OP. Good luck getting the video for this; it's long sold out, but I have it, so imagine what it looks like to travel through space at the speed of light and get sucked into a black hole and somehow escape + probably enough lasers to give an epileptic person a seizure. That's what it looks like. Thanks, BUMP and especially Fuji-kun. This game wouldn't have been complete without you.

[Faith]

Stardew Valley @_@"...

Decided go back to SV since had not played it since big 1.6 Update!!~

Need time away from my ship, haha. Problem is STG mentality make me competitive... even in farm game. Oops. Time to destroy mines!~

[Josh128]

Still trucking along on Dragon Warrior 2, still enjoying it despite the occasional frustration with encounter rate, certain enemies that "dance a strange jig" and steal all your MP in a single battle, and bouts of aimless traveling to figure out where to go next. I will say the game is a pretty good timesuck if you do it proper without any guidance whatsoever. Thus far I havent looked for any info or guides, but I have had to backtrack to a dungeon or two more than once to find what I am supposed to find in them. I even found "Roge Fastfinger" which is borderline miraculous considering how you find him lol.

I seem to recall Final Fantasy 2 on SNES taking around 24 hours to complete and Im not sure how many hours I have on DW2 thus far, but I have to be approaching that number if I had to guess.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I seem to recall Final Fantasy 2 on SNES taking around 24 hours to complete and Im not sure how many hours I have on DW2 thus far, but I have to be approaching that number if I had to guess.

FF4 (2 SNES) is an exceptionally linear game. There's a few side areas to explore, namely for Rydia's summons (the silver gear in that one town and the blood lance in Eblan Castle are only of modest utility), but for anything plot related you're generally directed to march in a line from point A to point B with very little actual searching or puzzle solving yourself. I'd imagine it's nowhere near as long to clear as most Dragon Quest games. FF6's second half is a lot closer to the feel of the average Dragon Quest, in that it's much more open ended about exploration and what order you tackle things in.

[Steven]

Changed from Tales of Phantasia to Tales of Phantasia Cross Edition yesterday.

Playing this now for the first time in like 15 years, I realize that HOLY SHIT THIS GAME IS FAST. There is a decent chance that this is the single fastest game in the series. It's so fast now that even with listening to all of the voices that got added in FVE and retained here, I'm still farther than I was on PS1 in less time just because the battle system is stupidly fast. This is actually something of a problem; walking in battle no longer exists, as you can now only run and holy crap Cless runs fast as hell. This makes precise positioning an annoyance, as it's pretty difficult to do now. Most of the time I find myself running away/backstepping, and reapproaching instead of slightly repositioning. It's very awkward and frustrating when you just want to turn around to attack something immediately behind you but end up running through it instead. It's a spastic, hyperactive ADHD version of Phantasia and getting used to it is a requirement.

This game got a moderate balance pass that doubles as an unbalance pass. You can backstep and frontstep, Cless now has a three-hit normal combo (was this in FVE? It's been so long that I don't remember) and two additional hi-ougi, TP recovery is significantly boosted and you can spam whatever/whenever you want now to a relatively generous extent because of it, manual mode is not only there from the beginning but actually the default (seriously can't think of a single other game that defaults to manual the moment you start the game!), the pause when magic happens is entirely gone, and everything is like three times faster than it used to be.

Unfortunately, Chester's AI is now stupid and likes to stand way too far away to hit anything and almost never uses anything other than his normal attack, Klarth stands around doing literally nothing half the time, most magic damage doesn't actually occur until the entire animation ends and can therefore result in it missing entirely, you get a hilariously massive amount of Grade (35+ Grade from fucking zako battles OMG what happened here; this is a slightly "fixed" remnant from FVE), Shuusouraizan is now so fast that it can combo into itself (lol) as long as Cless has enough TP to keep spamming it, and some other stuff, none of which were compensated for. Cross Edition was apparently very rushed and it shows in its balance.

There are also some other problems, mostly with audio. It retains the original audio done in 1998 for the PS1 remake of Phantasia. This audio quality tends to be noisy and/or sound more compressed compared to the newer audio from FVE and Cross Edition, and of course the voice actors were 12 years older, so they (mostly Cless) sound a little bit different on occasion. It's not bad, but they really should have redone the old audio for FVE. I think I mentioned a while ago that the new sprites from FVE don't really match with the old sprites from PS1, and they don't, but I don't think this is too problematic until you get into a battle where the FVE player sprites are there together with PS1 human/humanoid enemies. Then it looks dumb. Otherwise, it's actually not too bad, but it still is a bit disjointed.

I am playing this on my PSP Go. I have the coveted PSP Go dock and official component cable, so I've spent about half of my time playing it on my PC monitor with the Retrotink 5X and a very creaky PS3 controller. It is an excellent experience to play it wherever I want. Aside from the d-pad and battery life being not especially great, PSP Go is awesome, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

[ryu]

So... I beat Silent Hill: Homecoming. It's more of a mixed bag than I expected since I had decent fun with the game. There's some parts I liked e.g. the music and ambience, the atmosphere, a couple of puzzles; combat is not that bad actually too, even if the game does nothing outstandingly well and has a list of huge flaws (terrible story and cutscene direction, dungeons are ridiculously linear). I also got some laughs out of the game's worst moments so overall I was entertained from start to finish.

I'm nearing the end of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

I played Dragon's Dogma for the first time last year and had the same impression. It's a great game I wish I had played 10 years earlier. Felt like it fixed everything I didn't like about Skyrim and the bonus endgame dungeon crawls were a blast.

[aak]

I recently got a FMCB card for my PS2 so I've been playing Maximo: Ghosts to Glory. Really fun game. Maximo's probably the hardest 3D platformer I've played that wasn't a Mario 64 romhack. This genre isn't really known for its difficulty, but I think that's a shame because it really works here. I also like how all your resources are consequential and it feels really punishing to lose health/lives/continues. Even saving costs money and it completely saves your status including health/lives etc so you have to think, 1. Do I NEED to save? and 2. Am I in good enough condition to save? Because if you save at one life you're probably just gonna need to either continue or start again from the main menu anyway.

Also, the graphics are really good for a PS2 game in general, but especially for such an early one. Kind of ironic considering it was originally planned as an N64 game.

[AGermanArtist]

It looks amazing running in PCSX2. I've owned both, but never got around to playing them. They were on the to-do list for PS2 that I just didn't get around to, along with Clock Tower and few others. Now having played them, I agree with you. They're some of the best 3D action/platformers I've ever played in a list that inc Super Mario Odyssey.