The Haus of Talk Thread

[KobaBeach]

the huge guys in demon's souls look so cool... i wanna hug em (i dont wanna bump the lp thread)

[KobaBeach]

Patch Notes:

• Accidental flag that let raocow give birth disabled once more
• Cammy nerfed

[Noelle]

So, we're officially in the middle of the year!
How has your year been so far? Any good news, achievements or notable experiences?

I had a balance of absolute stress and absolute fun, when it's stressful it's awful and I feel like I'm about to lose my mind. But... I also had some of the most amazing days I've had in my life, so it kinda cancels out, at least I can always look to those to motivate me. lol
I have my plans for the second half of the year and they're more ambitious than just having fun once a month (actually work related), but after I do them, I'll definitely be a happier person overall in ways that feel even hard to think about.

The highlights have been the concerts I've been to, all so extremely enjoyable, which includes legendary bands I'd never imagined I'd see (some I didn't even knew I would like so much). Including, but not limited to extreme metal bands like Desaster (sic), Sacramentum, Bewitched and Sodom to classic bands like Queensrÿche, Savatage, Europe (of Final Countdown fame), Judas Priest and Scorpions, also a power metal orchestra with Fabio Lione's Dawn of Victory and some local folk rock bands (one of which is really great and have been at it for 20 years), some surprisingly good cover bands too. I know I said it has been a balance, but I'm not gonna vent here because it's pointless, it all boils down to hating my work environment and conditions, plus shit happening around the world and in politics being almost always extremely depressing or maddening.

So glad for once I'm able to mention more good than bad, I think it was only like this when I was actually a kid and didn't know much about the world. Just to drive the point, last year the best times I had were playing games on my newly bought Wii and watching anime, although I did go to a few concerts, I think 3 at most, so yeah, I've had a better half year than the entirety of the past year.

[KobaBeach]

kinda there. my sleep schedule's been a mess even with melatonin

getting better at drawing has been helping with making comfort gay art and video games are also relaxing even if it is mostly tearing down my backlog. exhaustion from c-ptsd and such is just a lot. i think i found a good way to catch up to raocow and anime and whatnot by watching stuff at 2x speed

me being more open to tinkering with server files and emulators on mmos is giving me more rpg comfort food to zone out to on my spare time as well on top of finagling what phone stuff i can find and the already available console and computer stuff (people who dump asian computer games and obscure western stuff that are almost entirely lost are peak)

i haven't done much gamedev this year but it does take up a lot of energy. i've thought about making smaller games first, like in smw or smbx, i'd make a level (and maybe enemies for it since i can code asm), or an overworld for fun by itself, maybe a boss by itself.

i could make a dungeon in rpg maker with a custom battle system and a boss. if i were to make a tactics ogre clone on godot, i could make a single battle and maybe a basic town area menu of sorts. if i were to make a platformer, i could make a stage with its own mechanics. if i were to make a shmup, i'd make one stage with a boss.

it's just finding the time to remember to do such that's hard!

but yeah it's not been too bad, i thought for a bit that SAD was coming back but it's been handled this february i feel, march (april?)'s case was that i just wasn't sleeping well.

[SiFi270]

For those who don't care about Quake while also don't caring about that manga "CITY", here's something to doubly don't care about:

[KobaBeach]

i want to care about both but i haven't found the time to partake in em yet

[SiFi270]

sounds like me about things so i'll just go ahead and deface your post with a stamp that says "RELATABLE"

[KobaBeach]

sounds like me about things so i'll just go ahead and deface your post with a stamp that says "RELATABLE"

you fool. makes you play maplestory (fate worse than death)

[Noelle]

Currently watching this fucking monolith of a video, so far it's good, but I know I'll not be able to watch this whole thing any time soon (probably not even this month). I find these long ass videos to be hit or miss, they can be amazing, usually you can tell when someone is really excited about what they're talking about and what not, contextualizing their points and perspective, but some times it really feels like they're just talking whatever and not ever getting to the point.

But this got me thinking, a lot of the appeal of videos like this is that they go personal, the person pours their heart on the video, talks about their childhood experience, the state of the time the game was released in, whatever else that may or may not relate to the video and it's something that's common when talking to someone about things you're both interested in. So... I wonder if the rise and prevalence of this type of video isn't just because of the platforms allowing longer videos, cellphones and TVs letting you watch stuff while doing something else or the shift from rage/skit type of reviews to analytical/retrospective ones, but because of certain loneliness of the modern era. We hardly have time or a proper space to engage with friends and talk about things like this, so the moment you're watching something to chill might as well be the moment you're having that experience.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm overthinking this, but it kinda makes sense, doesn't it?

Finally finished this video after like 3 months, it's pretty good, but it fumbles a bit at moments. I think it contains the best defense of Sonic CD in whatever aspects the author's trying to explain, it helps you open your mind regarding some weird level design stuff, then there are interesting comparisons to other Sonic and Sega games that complement the analysis quite well, but there are also some bits of rambling that I feel like overstay their welcome, some of the moments feel over-edited (more of a nitpick of mine, but I'm not too fond of when videos stick clips of movies or whatever after something is said, it can fit, but most of the time it's just tacky and annoying, just the pictures are fine and easy to ignore if you don't like it, but clips make it more messy and distracting).

Overall, quite a good video, although at some point fatigue kicks in, but I appreciate that it's not really just a review OR a personal retrospective but a bit of both and more, it's a long ride and it goes places you never would expect (I didn't know about The Thief and the Cobbler, now I hate Warner Bros even more), but it does help that most of it does add to the whole thing. You can tell Sonic CD is this guy's favorite game ever and you know what? Good for him, far from being my favorite game on any category (not even my favorite on that system), it's a cool unique game, with all the positives and negatives, it being anyone's favorite game of all time is surely more of a conversation starter and sounds more genuine to me than listening to why whatever triple A hollywood movie wannabe (not referring to any specific title, there are so many of them nowadays I don't even need to pick any mainstream darling) is actually a masterpiece.

[KobaBeach]

been watching some la tale vids by i guess you can call them "la tubers" (mostly lemars, he's pretty prominent as an LT youtuber) and i gotta say i find it kinda incredible the amount of subsystems for passives this game has.

i. kinda love it but deep down i do prefer the more maple story-ish adjacent gameplay of season 1&2

i've been brainrotting a lot about 2d sidescrolling mmos lately because i find the format kinda fascinating. the common "stereotype" of an mmo has always been kinda world of warcraft, maybe ragnarok if you wanna go deep, and these days ff14 post-2.0, but there was a decent chunk of these and there are still a few hanging around, soul's remnant for one. as someone who likes metroidvanias a bit and Dinky Action Platformers i kinda like that.

it is a shame that a lot of em are mismanaged though and server emulation wise, they aren't made equal. wonder king emulation has been in the background for a while, with some devs in a discord working out the kinks in their free time, as the official servers kinda bumble their way before a global launch. wind slayer is Gone For Real, but a korean dev seems to be working on it on and off in their spare time by themselves on github which is commendable, even if the packet processing for the enemies' death routine isn't complete yet.

soul guardians and granage seem to be mostly abandoned official wise, the devs coming from mobile development was an ill omen. can't speak for soul saver, but it seems to be going okay at least, i need to research it more. grand chase and elsword are doing okay, even if grand chase has succumbed to the endgame being nothing but dailies according to my friend.

maple's global servers at least have options beyond the p2w fest of the main servers (heroic/reboot and they plan to make classic servers), latale's new global publisher is apparently doing a ridiculously good job, but the feel of these games is very different.

it's kinda sad that a lot of dev's answers to adding new content is to steamroll everyone into endgame instead of making sure both the early and late game have stuff to chew on to keep the game fresh, latale may have ascensions that let you go up to lv20235 but wonderking3 is out here breaking the level cap and having you reach upwards of lv1000. it should be noted that latale's method is just bolting more content to the game everytime, though.

i'd like to research mmos more, the same way i wanna research gacha, storywise and mechanics wise. i've honestly thought about getting foreign accounts for some mmos that haven't reached global but i may stick to information on youtube and other sites. like, a lot of people find rpgs to be something you play for the story, but i really appreciate the mechanics in em, even the "outdated" stuff that's turn based.

i guess you could say im like seismology who "plays rpgs for the grind not the story" but as a veteran of The 7th Gen (disgusted tone of voice) and someone who has brainrot for like treasure's games and REALLY wants to get into devil may cry and shit. mechanical depth is fucking bussin actually

You can tell Sonic CD is this guy's favorite game ever and you know what? Good for him, far from being my favorite game on any category (not even my favorite on that system), it's a cool unique game, with all the positives and negatives, it being anyone's favorite game of all time is surely more of a conversation starter and sounds more genuine to me than listening to why whatever triple A hollywood movie wannabe (not referring to any specific title, there are so many of them nowadays I don't even need to pick any mainstream darling) is actually a masterpiece.

yeah this is. basically why ff isn't my favorite rpg series anymore, it's such an obvious choice and a lot of lesser known rpgs do weirder shit, even on the j front. im actually super interested on the post "golden age" titles lately, especially the very brown ("ps2 grassy" as my friend stated) ones like 11, 12, crystal chronicles. 14 too but 14 is so big amongst casual players ^^;

sonic still stays on my top x platformer series ranking bc every game is a janky mess even the "objectively good ones" that honestly im glad the "sonic was never good" girlies dislike em (i'll still be critical of the worse aspects though, im no sonic 06 defender beyond it being fun in a kusoge way). kirby also tries to give you a lot of ways to enjoy the game and are usually very ornate in presentation and small details in background lore and such, which i also appreciate.

meanwhile i prefer using mario as a platform to make fan games, and usually prefer the weirder entries. lost levels, 3, yoshi's island, dkc2&3, spp, the 3d games, the rpgs, The Spirit of smb special, i may come around to yoshi's story once i get to 100%ing a replay of it

[KobaBeach]

<bubblun> payonpah

i have a very specific shitpost i wanna say but no one i know who played ff14 also played ff13 outside of like One (1) Person and that's maybe a furry friend who is an lper on main

anyway

places runar in ff13. as a funny goof. have fun dealing with the fucked up reality of having to follow societal roles or risk becoming a complete outcast

[Noelle]

mmos

I always wanted to, but I could never get into MMOs during all my life, I love the style many of them had, my childhood neighbor friends played a lot of them either at their house or at a lan house (there was an MMORPG and FPS/TPS* boom in the 2000s and early 2010s, with a whole lan house subculture). Me being a little weeb got more interested in MapleStory, Ragnarok, Grand Chase, Perfect World, Grand Fantasia (I loved the crabs with XD on their backs), Lineage and some other stuff I can't quite remember. While there were some games I wouldn't be able to run on my PC at the time, I guess I felt intimidated by the interfaces full of stuff or how time consuming it seemed. I did get to play a bit of Wonderland Online in 2014 and I was massively into Realm of the Mad God during a few years in the mid 2010s, but otherwise, I think that was kinda it. I played Club Penguin and Habbo at some point in the late 2000s too (not rpgs, but technically mmos lol), those were in vogue at some point and I thought they were fun, but definitely more of a style over substance thing, naturally.

*I was never interested in FPS overall, but a TPS with swords and guns called GunZ: The Duel which had a popular mod (?) known as EuroGunZ looked super cool to me, it was super fast and looked messy as fuck with players scaling walls and doing weird stuff, it's unique, I've never seen anything else like it since.

The most I truly recall ever getting sunk into back then was Adventure Quest Worlds, because it felt extremely beginner friendly (it was a browser flash game, can't get more beginner friendly than that), it was kinda funny too. I also recall some other non mmos by the same devs, like Dragon Fable. Actually, just looking these up gave me immense nostalgia, I just love the styles of that era. Honestly, I'll never forgive Adobe for killing off flash despite many offers from others to buy it to keep it going.

yeah this is. basically why ff isn't my favorite rpg series anymore, it's such an obvious choice and a lot of lesser known rpgs do weirder shit, even on the j front. im actually super interested on the post "golden age" titles lately, especially the very brown ("ps2 grassy" as my friend stated) ones like 11, 12, crystal chronicles. 14 too but 14 is so big amongst casual players ^^;

While I started with the basics like most people (stuff like Pokémon Silver + Gen 1 and FF1 on NES specifically), I was turned into a fan by playing obscure SNES rpgs at an early age, I just loved the style (beautiful pixel art, the cute tiny sprites, the colors and amazing music most of them had). During quite a long time, in my head RPGs were the best genre in gaming, all of them had amazing music and visuals, etc (yeah, I still like them a lot, but I was overblowing that because I couldn't quite hold almost anything up to scrutiny at the time, I realize a lot of them haven't aged too well or are rudimentary, but honestly, I'm almost just as tolerant of a slow pace and jank as I was back then for the most part, even if I have way less time).

sonic still stays on my top x platformer series ranking bc every game is a janky mess even the "objectively good ones" that honestly im glad the "sonic was never good" girlies dislike em (i'll still be critical of the worse aspects though, im no sonic 06 defender beyond it being fun in a kusoge way). kirby also tries to give you a lot of ways to enjoy the game and are usually very ornate in presentation and small details in background lore and such, which i also appreciate.

Yeah, I love how there's a sonic game for anyone, like it doesn't matter which game, at least a few people will enjoy it, even stuff like sonic shuffle and whatnot (I would know, I'm possibly the biggest 8-bit sonic enthusiast, mainly because of nostalgia, but still, I don't think you can find many people who will actually have good things to say about those games).

meanwhile i prefer using mario as a platform to make fan games, and usually prefer the weirder entries. lost levels, 3, yoshi's island, dkc2&3, spp, the 3d games, the rpgs, The Spirit of smb special, i may come around to yoshi's story once i get to 100%ing a replay of it

Indeed 2D Mario is in a strange spot to me, because I like the gameplay a lot, but it feels like 2D official games don't put the potential to use most of the time (which the exception of the more unusual games like you've mentioned). I mean, SMW has some of the best physics in a platformer, but you wouldn't know it if you don't play a lot of hacks that showcase just how deep, intricate, fluid and precise the controls are, the cape is easy to use casually, but hard to master and once you master it, it does wonders, possibly the best flight in any game of this sort.

By the way, speaking of Yoshi's Island, the rarely talked about Yoshi's Island DS is kinda like the Lost Levels of Yoshi's Island, it's pretty damn hard at some point, especially if you want to 100%, it's fun, but a bit too gimmicky at times, still way better than the ultra handholdy approach of the newer Yoshi games (they're super fucking cute, I get it, but you don't need to make them for actual babies, Nintendo. At least make a hard more or anything, I like puzzle platformers, but you know how Nintendo puzzles often are like Fischer Price toys levels of obvious lol). Honestly, speaking while nostalgia is at play, this is something I appreciate a lot about non-indie games before the ultra HD 4K hype nonsense era. Obviously not everything was perfect, but most games had a lot of neat little details, difficulty modes and a lot of stuff for you to sink your teeth into and that was the norm, now this mainly only applies to smaller scale games, with few exceptions. Even my beloved Kirby isn't immune to DLC overload (aka let's pretend these are extras and not what the game was already supposed to be in the first place). Not blaming overworked devs, I'm blaming the industry.

[KobaBeach]

mmos

No yeah I literally got into MMOs because FF14 people seemed nice, I was too worried about being cyberbullied and any possible cost of a subscription lol. My second one was literally trying to get into a TalesWeaver private server lol (and sometime later I tried to set up a local server for LaTale S1 because there aren't any LaTale private servers anymore lmao)

I think they're fine but I try to be careful about spending too much time on em.

RPGs

I kinda feel you here. RPGs are really damn good, my fave genre next to fighters, but there is a lot of jank. I personally wanna try out some Kemco ones out of curiosity for one, and a lot of those are Ridiculously safe and aimed at casual players, so their audience barely exists outside of Japan due to being turn based. Games like Chroisen and Zenonia fill a similar niche despite their grind, but are more Zelda or Ys-ish so they work better with western players.

I just really like games with a focus on story, which is why I'd like to read more VNs where the focus isn't on the porn. Need to research to see if I can find any furry/queer ones that I can get into as well bc a lot of what I've seen from those are super not my thing.

I'm a huge proponent of there needing to be more games that are basically Devil May Cry or Metal Wolf Chaos but the protag is like. A gay bear or a buff butch lesbian, rather than only constant sadboy or quirky dating sims.

songit

"8bit sonic enthusiast" My woman. I also love the early 3D era, the "Adventure era" if you will. Something about the vibes is just immaculate, possibly nostalgia speaking, and the kusoge nature of Shadow and 06 is kinda goofy. There are mods to make Shadow more palatable though, and some fan made remakes of 06.

Need to play more Boostslop. Not looking forward to playing through Lost World, even if Zavok and Zazz are cute (friends also like Zomom bc he's fat).

mario

Yeah Mario is. Boring, I prefer the 3D entries for a reason. A lot of Japanese devs (at least back in the day) talk about how Nintendo's games have terrific gamefeel and you can do anything in em but like. They feel so safe and iterative a lot of the times in terms of content that I just don't see the appeal sometimes. Link to the Past is such a nothingburger game to me compared to Link's Awakening because the latter tried to have a more unique story and setting.

Maybe this is a skill issue from growing up a Sega fan. Zelda just suffers from a similar issue as MMX where it tries to make you care about the story but the story is just the same thing repeatedly deep down, get a bunch of mystical tokens and save Zelda from Ganon. Mega Man X tries to set up these villains in each game and how they're impacting the Reploid population, but it always turns into "gasp it's Sigma" and like. Why should I care.

Yoshi and DLC

I've actually never heard much of YIDS beyond it being mid, will try it out. And yeah the industry really needs a sort of hard crash on the Triple A front at least, it's becoming unsustainable, so much of it is run by investors, CEOs and shareholders just wanting to print money rather than making art.

[SiFi270]

caught up on Pokey, wasn't expecting what seems like a Ram Ranch reference?

[raekuul]

[KobaBeach]

they were ranchmates....

[Grounder]

surreal to me that people are posting about deltarune stuff that's been known for seven years like it's some new fucking discovery

[Noelle]

did you know!? sans is in deltarune! :o

[SiFi270]

and papyrus is not :(

yet :o but conveying hopefulness instead of surprise

[KobaBeach]

and papyrus is not :(

yet :o but conveying hopefulness instead of surprise

did you know its very implied mettaton exists but pre-robot body. hope bitch gets some closure on their dysmorphia (dysphoria? idk the proper term for this case)

[Noelle]

demo-chaaan~! ★
haaai ✿
nani ga suki? ♪
tokita negi, yori mo a-na-ta! ♥

...what is this weeb shit?

[YuKatamari]

i NEED you guys to see this silly Yoshi i found

he's just a little guy

[KobaBeach]

*holds him* powerful artifact

[Noelle]

i NEED you guys to see this silly Yoshi i found

he's just a little guy

doesn't show up to me

[YuKatamari]

awww you’re right he’s gone for me too :(

if you’re curious, it was a Sun Arrow Super Mario World Yoshi plush, specifically the Baby Yoshi one