What games are you playing?

[Bean]

Since it was on sale for a huge discount a month or so ago, I picked up Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game for the Switch. Finally played it tonight. It's basically River City Ransom or Double Dragon Neon depending on how you look at it, and those games are both fine by me.

Heard there were some bugs in it, and my bro and I did run into a couple of invisible enemies in the very first stage. Other than that, we're through three of the seven levels with that being the only big bug to date. Hope I didn't jinx it by typing that out here!

[KobaBeach]

At the North West Cave in Lufia II. I feel like this game could progress faster with better Gold drops, guess that's what Start Over is for.

That's pretty cool. All I did was watch gameplay videos of it. Though kinda primitive today, it's kinda cool seeing all the custom shit Carol was able to pull off. It also exposed me to a lot of JRPGs so that's pretty nice too.

Nice to know Carol is still active. I hope they are doing ok.

Their work inspired me to learn ASM. I also got into JRPGs because of them too, started with FFIV SNES, Soul Blazer, Chrono Trigger and FFI NES. ChroTri was a favorite of my older brother from his emulation days, so.

Last I checked, they got married around 2020 and they suspended their work because of it. Since Japan's family culture is different, I don't expect them to pick Brutal Mario back up, sadly. Carol might be focusing on getting a job rn, that is, outside of the occasional PokéGO session. They were super busy with college before, apparently.

[Matthew_Coco]

Their work inspired me to learn ASM. I also got into JRPGs because of them too, started with FFIV SNES, Soul Blazer, Chrono Trigger and FFI NES. ChroTri was a favorite of my older brother from his emulation days, so.

Last I checked, they got married around 2020 and they suspended their work because of it. Since Japan's family culture is different, I don't expect them to pick Brutal Mario back up, sadly. Carol might be focusing on getting a job rn, that is, outside of the occasional PokéGO session. They were super busy with college before, apparently.

Oh nice. I kind of wish I got to play all that, but I had a shitty computer that could barely run SNES games in addition to money in my family being tight haha. At least I still got to play some good games so I'm thankful for that.

Ooooooooooh that's interesting. Well, as long as they are happy!

[KobaBeach]

Spent like half an hour grinding in Makai Toushi SaGa WSC. Gonna let my Hume♂ (Koba) and Hume♀ (Asellus) reach ~200 HP and boost up their STR and AGL a bit. My ESP♂ (Blue) will just gain stats along the way while grinding for Kero (currency) so whatev, for my Monster (Riki), I'll try to min/max him as best as I can. I haven't had a TPK (all three heart points dead on everyone) yet and I intend to not have it in this file.

Meanwhile I did the Factory and Heckran Cave dungeons on Chrono Trigger. Man, the SNES9x 2005 core didn't like Heckran Cave's rushing water sfx. In a just world I'd be playing it on bsnes on my PC but... Delightful Spekkio always sounds like a scrapped Lion King song, in a good way. Love the aesthetics of The End of Time, too.

Oh nice. I kind of wish I got to play all that, but I had a shitty computer that could barely run SNES games in addition to money in my family being tight haha. At least I still got to play some good games so I'm thankful for that.

I think the most intensive things mine could run at the time was like. Saturn (SSF) (entirely because it was dual core), janky Dreamcast emulators (NullDC) and DS (No$GBA, DeSmuME). Most of everything I play is emulated because lol @ buying anything in the hellscape of 2022.

Also I just noticed your profile says you're 19 and yeah, kids tend to have really shitty PCs, I've seen many people go through the same thing you did. I had a Windows 98 computer in the era of like Windows XP for like two years.

[KobaBeach]

Did the first hour of Star Ocean and grinding skills a bit in Mt. Metorx because I'm bored. I might go for Ashlay instead of Cyuss just for Pericci and her Bunny. lov buny. Phia is also a definite, if it's possible to get her. I forget if you can refuse Ioshua, otherwise I don't know if I'll be able to get T'nique, I could always pick him instead of Phia. I never use Mavelle.

Beat Zombor in Chrono Trigger and wondering if I shouldn't have gone for Ayla first, not a hard game but. Shout out to Chrono Compedium's Crono is Jesus theory all because he brought "1 Jerky". "The curtains are literally blue" level of reading comprehension from these people. Is it bad that Chrono Trigger is why I sometimes buy jerky from the Tesco import supermarket in a nearby town though

Also did the first two maps in Warsong/Langrisser. This is MegaDri Lang1 so it doesn't have the lower difficulty curve or split paths of the Switch version. There seems to be like 20 Maps in total, so. Really fun game though :)

[raekuul]

decided to try for a low coins run in Wario Land. Up to Parsely Woods with only 207. I can definitely get a lower score next time - I panicked after the Minotaur and wound up with 87 coins (and trying to get rid of them via Coin Game wound up doubling them!) - but I should be fine for Worst Ending.

E: Final score was 525 coins which is definitely Worst Ending

[GenesisJames]

I started streaming on Twitch and have been playing two games!!

Final Fantasy VII Remake is one of them. It's my first ever Final Fantasy game! I'm really enjoying it, and the battle system is SUPER fun. I'm about 7 hours in and am under the city trying to turn off the sun lights and shit. I only vaguely know things about the original through cultual osmosis and I know the remake changes some things (making room for part 2 coming out relatively soon, I think?), so this is an interesting new experience for me. I was gonna play Strangers of Paradise on stream until I found out that the streaming policy makes it so you can't show the ending, so I'll play through that one on my own time. Still, I'm glad I decided to play FFVII R, and seeing Tifa makes me happy. I don't know if I'll see my favorite girl until the DLC though, which I plan on playing after.

I've also been playing an English fan translation of Tomato Adventure, the first game made by AlphaDream of Mario & Luigi RPG fame. It's super weird and off-the-wall, but it's also really fun how it just doesn't take itself seriously. So many in-jokes and 4th wall breaks lmao. You can tell it was kinda the prototype of Superstar Saga, with a very similar visual theme and the battles being like a traditional turn-based RPG but with timing/puzzle elements to all of your attacks. It's pretty cool and I think people who like the Mario & Luigi series would appreciate seeing where it got its start. It's also not very long; I've been playing in 4 hour sessions since it lasts only about 12 hours according to How Long To Beat.

[Bean]

E: Final score was 525 coins which is definitely Worst Ending

Congratulations!

Anyhoo, beat Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game last night. Did run into one more level-breaking glitch where my co-op partner couldn't enter a required door the first time, but everything worked out the next trip through. 100% used the quick money grinding trick to level up our stats and just blaze through it since it takes all of five minutes to do. It is an okay game that is on the lower end of all the recent beat-em-ups I've played. Would at least put it well above Turtles in Time Re-Shelled though, so there's that. It was only $4 anyway, so yeah, I feel like I got my money's worth at that price.

[thatguyif]

So last weekend, I finished Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye. Thoughts in a heavily spoilered bit:

Man...what an ending. The revelations of the Stranger and its inhabitants, the actions of the Prisoner, and how it all connects to the entirety of Outer Wilds itself...I was so stunned at it all. It's all so sad! The tragedy of the narrative makes it all so poignant. Couldn't help but well up a little at seeing your (the Hatchling's) story unfold in slide reel, it was so beautiful. And of course I still welled up a bit at the end. I liked that the game gives you the choice of whether to invite the Prisoner or not to the final campfire song.

In other news, moved forward a bit with Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. I've done everything I've could in the prequel trilogy and related planets without needing to open Episode VII (which I confirmed is what you need to do to be able to use the Scavenger class...so fucking dumb). I'm taking a somewhat less methodical approach to the original trilogy Story Mode, having cleared Episode IV relatively quickly. I was not as impressed by the Death Star trench run this time around. It didn't help that the level was really dark. Going to go through Episode V this weekend, maybe VI? We'll see.

Moving forward...going back to the Metroid project next with AM2R. Dunno if I'll get through the game fast enough before Fiesta season starts next Sunday. That said, I'm probably taking it much easier this year than in previous years. Part of it is simply trying out the Pixel Remaster (there are apparently a lot of issues with V PR, but still), part of it is I got a little soured by last year seeing A_Raving_Loon, the reason I got into Fiesta in the first place, being a dick on stream for a custom Fiesta I developed for him (

more specifically, throwing a temper tantrum when a person in chat (a trans woman at that) politely commented on his toxic queer friend having low volume in the voice chat and in the process getting the pronouns wrong (which is almost certainly intentional on the toxic queer's part), then proceeding to ban said trans woman because of these apparent transgressions

).

Still, I'm entering my final week at my current job and then will have a free week before I start my next job. So maybe I'll move through things quickly.

[KobaBeach]

Trying to focus on Chrono Trigger more. Beat Masa & Mune, just barely. Should have gone back to buy Mid Tonics and Revives. Now I'm at 65 Billion BC and I completely flubbed up the soup drinking minigame. Either way, I'm gonna grind a bit in the Hunting Range to upgrade my gear before doing the Forest Maze.

EDIT: Got past Magus's Lair. The constant battle hallways felt like they wouldn't end. At least Slash, Flea and Magus were fun. Magus was kind of a simon says affair than anything. Just have Dactyl Nest, Tyrano Lair and Antiquity left before Death's Peak and the Sidequests. Should finish this in like 15 hours.

[raekuul]

been poking at Shantae and the Pirate's Curse on 3ds; I'm up to the Abandoned Factory so I guess I've been moving at a pretty good clip.

anything to not finish BD/M+L/Disgaea I guess

[KobaBeach]

Past the Mudbeast, Giga Gaia and Dalton bosses and into the Ocean Palace in Chrono Trigger. Should finish later today depending on how the sidequests go. Mudbeasts were annoying, but a guide helped, Gaia was super fun and Dalton was kind of there.

EDIT: Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak Heading to Death Peak

[Matthew_Coco]

Finished JUMP, probably gonna play Chrono Trigger for a bit and then start JUMP 1/2. Got the PC-98 Touhous on my SNES Mini but there are problems that prevent it from running properly for some reason. Can't wait to spend loads of time trying to figure out what the deal is.

[raekuul]

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: I can probably get my Pirate Mode time under 2h with practice and better routing; I still want all 20 cacklebats but I don't need as many heart squids (I have beaten the game with only 2 hearts, but it's been several years since then). Especially I need to get the hang of key routing - you can pick up a bunch of extra keys in the earlier dungeons by virtue of having the boots/cannon (Dribble Fountain has two free keys for you once you remember that there are no doorways in there to reset your respawn point) and if you're only going for Cacklebats you only need so many per dungeon in Pirate Mode.

E: I hit the Propeller Town midpoint at the 1h16m mark so yeah smart key routing makes a huge difference. My Oubliette was messy (I wound up grabbing the Heart Squid in the central room due to incorrectly remembering how to uncork the middle column) and I'll need to practice short dash charge if I want to bring my time further down. I'm on track to get all the Cacklebats, too - I missed the first one on Spiderweb Island but since I need to pass by it anyway to finish uncorking Abandoned Factory it's not a significant time loss. I'm still skipping Heart Squids left and right but there's still enough of them "on-route" that health hasn't really been an issue.

E2: final time on that save file was 1h48m; also most of these heart squids are sufficiently on-route that I should be able to get 100% sub2h (as long as the ending only looks at heart squids+cacklebats because screw gem farming in this game)

[AmeijinMayo]

Found out the was a port of the PSP FF1 game to the 3DS, however it was only released in Japan's eShop. So I dumped that onto my homebrew 3DS and slapped on the 99% finished English patch to start playing it. This time around I named the party after my FF14 character and alts I've made over the years. Wasabi the Warrior, Almza the Monk, Kewpie the White Mage and Mei the Black Mage (Almza is actually my FF11 character, but he is a monk so I figure it'd be fine to have him along the playthrough). This'll probably be a quick run.

[raekuul]

after a brief scare of my pocket game not working on Wednesday...:

Bravely Default: So the writing very strongly assumes you Did The Thing at the end of chapter six - the Pillar of Light dialog at the end of chapter six vaguetalks about things that you do not know about unless you Did The Thing, and the game doesn't outright say you should Do The Thing until after your Chapter Six visit to Yulyana Woods.

Final Fantasy 1 (GBA Port): Getting ready to properly dive into Lich's Domain (just returned the Crystal Eye to Matoya and picked up my first fourth circle spells). Belt, Red, White, Black.

Planescape: Torment: Started a new game (on PC this time - even if I knew where my Switch was, I've found I don't like playing PST:EE or IWD:EE on it).

Pokemon Crystal: Had my first Route Refund (my egg from Violet City hatched into a Nidoran♂ which refunds Route 33). I'm up to the Squirtbottle (I caught something on Route 36 when I was still on the Violet side, so I can't catch whatever the miniboss here is).

[Coryman]

After like 27 cumulative hours across 4 different Touhou games I finally got a win :D Unconnected Marketeers on easy as Reimu
Definitely feels easier than the others I have just in terms of how many lives I got with the one card but hey, I'll take what I can get for now

[KobaBeach]

Beat world 2 in Rakugaki Mario and am halfway through world 2 in Hyper Mari World 5, both with savestates, instead of playing Chrono Trigger. Nature is healing

i revived crono in Chrono Trigger btw.

EDIT: chapter 2 on Sonic Chronicles but it's on my 3ds now so i can do the osu

[raekuul]

I got Wario Land down to 362 coins. I actually kind of want to combine low% with Jetless to see how well that goes (you pick up a lot more coins if you can't move with Jet-level precision)

Bravely Default: I'm almost done with Chapter 7. I intend to Do The Thing at the last possible moment.

Might and Magic 6: I broke down and combined the Skill Emphasis Mod and a monster Randomizer. This is gonna suuuck. EDIT: I re-ran the randomizer but without monster randomization; the first attempt gave me High Mages (a mid-to-late enemy) and Titans (an extremely late game enemy) in the "beginner" zones, and SkEm doesn't let you run away or dodge because the head dev thinks it's cheating to do so.

[KobaBeach]

Chrono Trigger - I instantly died in Lavos Phase 2 so I changed the Battle Mode from Active back into Wait and I'm gonna do the Sunken Desert (the Retinite was murdering me before). Why is Active even in this game, picking it as a challenge was a mistake

EDIT: Beat the Retinite and WOW. This was fun, and hard, and hectic! Amazing. Gotta find where the other sidequests are and then grind for Gold. There should be some quick Money Making Tricks, but I'm not sure if it's DS only.

also i bought digimon story cyber sleuth on switch because it was like 12€

SkEm doesn't let you run away or dodge because the head dev thinks it's cheating to do so.

why are rpg fans like this. headass

[raekuul]

It's just an extension of a general "Kiting is boring" sentiment. Never mind the fact that there was about a 15000 year period where kiting dominated warfare.

[KobaBeach]

It's just an extension of a general "Kiting is boring" sentiment. Never mind the fact that there was about a 15000 year period where kiting dominated warfare.

very "me standing outside your house with a bat is also a trap" energy wrt my response

[AmeijinMayo]

also i bought digimon story cyber sleuth on switch because it was like 12€

That's p goodin, I'm glad that both the physical and digital for it go on sale often. The Switch and PC versions are great cause it comes with both the CS and Hacker's Memory, which is it's own sort of good.

With progress on the FF1 replay, got my shopping spree done with and have all the equipment I'll need for a while, now that Lich has been burned to front and back, I headed down south and took a moment to play 15 puzzle. I'm still pretty awful at that minigame, my best time being like 2 mins at best

[KobaBeach]

Did Son of Sun and the Northern Ruins in Chrono Trigger. Got the upgraded armor of the sealed chests in said Ruins. Next is the Ozzie, Slash and Flea refights. Bringing Ayla for stealing purposes. Rest for now...

also i bought digimon story cyber sleuth on switch because it was like 12€

That's p goodin, I'm glad that both the physical and digital for it go on sale often. The Switch and PC versions are great cause it comes with both the CS and Hacker's Memory, which is it's own sort of good.

With progress on the FF1 replay, got my shopping spree done with and have all the equipment I'll need for a while, now that Lich has been burned to front and back, I headed down south and took a moment to play 15 puzzle. I'm still pretty awful at that minigame, my best time being like 2 mins at best

Yeah, I have Cyber Sleuth pirated on my Vita, but I thought, might as well. I wasn't able to buy PS4 Cyber Sleuth before Bamco took it down from PSN, only Hacker's Memory (physical).

I'm just kinda like, "why not build up my collection?", there's quite a lot of Switch RPGs I want, like the Asano games and Frane 3 (going through Fr1 on a WinXP VM since earlier this year). Sadly it's mostly digital, so I worry about archiving my own collection once the eShop goes down in like five years? Definitely buying an unpatched Switch for homebrewing sometime.

As for the tile sliding puzzle, I'm always pretty lousy at those, so I don't really like to time myself. Cheap plastic five euro ones are much more fun than a video equivalent to me. Beyond the Beyond's was one of the few highlights in the game but it was also like, a 9x9 grid and its done in like five minutes. Shout outs to the tile... swapping(?) puzzle in Arc the Lad 3 to help Theo learn Cardish, legit pretty fun if mindless.

[AmeijinMayo]

I'm just kinda like, "why not build up my collection?", there's quite a lot of Switch RPGs I want, like the Asano games and Frane 3 (going through Fr1 on a WinXP VM since earlier this year). Sadly it's mostly digital, so I worry about archiving my own collection once the eShop goes down in like five years? Definitely buying an unpatched Switch for homebrewing sometime.

As for the tile sliding puzzle, I'm always pretty lousy at those, so I don't really like to time myself. Cheap plastic five euro ones are much more fun than a video equivalent to me. Beyond the Beyond's was one of the few highlights in the game but it was also like, a 9x9 grid and its done in like five minutes. Shout outs to the tile... swapping(?) puzzle in Arc the Lad 3 to help Theo learn Cardish, legit pretty fun if mindless.

Yeah, it's a shame when Bandai Namco quitely remove some of their games off of PSN, under the justification that said games are "outdated". Having a hombrew backup or prepping for homebrew later on is a great idea for consoles once their shops go offline.

I'm not great at them, so I avoid playing them if I can, but in FF1 if you can complete quickly enough, there are a decent few rewards for the early game if you can get it done. Granted, most of the rewards are whatever in the late game, but eh, I figure I try and get 'em if I can. There are probably better minigames to get rewards or secrets compared to the tile puzzle. I feel like FF9's jump rope comes to mind, however I got use to that due to taking turns with my sibling on getting a better run for that minigame, which was kinda fun in it's own way