you know, some say that we are contractually obligated to have custom IM@S filters in our BBS software, and if we hit 765 instances where it gets auto-corrected, something extraordinary will happen?
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There’s actually a tiny handful of new things in that area and connected areas in 1.0…… most important being down here. This lighthouse area is maybe my single favourite individual area in the game for multiple reasons, even though it’s “empty”, so I hope you checked it out.
Uhhhhhhhhh………… that’s from vanilla game.
A lot of people don’t recongise vanilla game quotes in the hack, however. Few recognise that “The mystery is of wet or dry / and where does the solution lie? / The city welcomes visitors with the depth they bring as they enter” and “It is decreed that one shall pound the pillars” are both from signposts in the vanilla game, which probably speaks to how much the memory of Mario 64 has been sanded down over the years.
AFAIK Unabandoned still requires all red stars (the abandoned 0.9 added the requirement but didn’t actually include enough red stars to meet it, which both versions “fix”) and moreover has a different ending that I don’t like. Also every version prior to 1.0.1 has various levels with “broken exit warps” (meaning that collecting a star doesn’t send you out of the painting but just takes you to the castle front lobby) making navigation a bit more difficult. That’s really all I know about it.
I do appreciate that most (emphasis most) of the reds have some thematic coherence by being tied to boss fights (such that I was able to find like 8 of them by just remembering locations in 0.7) though of course finding those bosses in the first place is pretty hit-or-miss. I feel a bit more forgiving about the red stars, just because there is a secret way to bypass the requirement altogether, and moreover that the actual number or areas locked behind getting more than 1 is vanishingly small.
The really fricked up part of this is that this technically isn’t even original music. It’s from freaking Super Paper Mario of all things.
5 Likes
It won’t run on anything other than emulator because the total ROM size is bigger than 64MB (IIRC).
1 Like
One other thing about B3313… something that made it a bit more interesting for me, and especially in 1.0, is a few times when it will subvert its own symbology/mythology… the multiple Wet Dry World themed levels with fixations about flooding have two cases that take that grimdark premise and upend it entirely, without even a jerk back into horror afterwards.
Thesis:
Antithesis:
Synthesis:
This level here is also among my top 2 favourites in the whole hack… it was added in 0.9 and took me quite by surprise.
On a related subject, what’s with N64 creepypastas being obsessed with drowning as a form of death? Ben Drowned, this…
3 Likes
comparatively stressful sonic / lara croft drowning sequences made it synonymous with content repressed by the nintendo walled garden (no idea if this is true)
8 Likes
my Saturn Saroo cartridge from AliExpress arrived yesterday and it’s basically everything i hoped it would be.
caveats: 1. switching discs is annoying, so hopefully the games let you save and then you can reset and insert the next disc manually 2. some games (Fighting Vipers, i think?) don’t work correctly, but 95% of games do
so basically, you can load up games with an SD card through the cartridge slot. the cartridge has 8MB memory for saves, the 4MB RAM expansion for games that need it, and it can also make your Saturn region free and play discs from any region.
for like $75, i think this is really the best option for a Saturn owner.
feels great to be able to play translation hacks without worrying about bad CD copies or having to totally remove the disc drive (i.e. the ODE).
i started playing through the Castlevania: SotN Ultimate hack that came out not too long ago - it’s a definite improvement overall to the Saturn version of this game, but it still just doesn’t look as good as the PS1 game. i’ll keep playing though, because it’s neat.
finally tried out Shining Force III and genuinely had no idea the game looked like a cross between Xenogears and pre-rendered SNES sprites. it’s kind of wild to look at! still haven’t gotten out of the first village, but just wanted to see if it would boot up.
going to spend some more time today playing the heck out of my Saturn
12 Likes
i remember when xplay gave this a 1 out of 5. one thing that a transcript of their review won’t tell you is that at the end of an episode they did a quick skit where they pretended to cook and eat the game’s case (like a steak, get it???) — unfortunately i can’t find any surviving footage of this
3 Likes
I finished survival kids today. What a beaut. I watched a compilation of all the endings. There’s one where the other survivor thanks you and you respond “It warn’t a thing.” That rules.
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Fantasy Zone II Trial
Free downloadable Windows PC demo containing the first two (says Wikipedia) stages of M2’s faux System 16 arcade game “Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa Opa” from the “Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.33: Fantasy Zone Complete Collection” (PS2).
https://www.mtwo.co.jp/fz2trial/
http://ages.sega.jp/vol33/home.html
Keys:
F1 - menu
Alt+Enter - full screen / windowed toggle
Space - add credit
Enter - Start
z - shot
x - bomb
The second tab in the menu window has a slider for volume, a drop-down for window size scaling (default x2; max x3–which seems to make the full-screen view a bit sharper), an unchecked mystery checkbox, and a checkbox that is set to stretch the window slightly taller, to 4:3 aspect ratio. Full screen–at least at x3–ran at 1024x768.
(Oh the PS2 collection is on the JP PS3 PS Store for 1528 Yen.)
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~10 hours into lorelei and the laser eyes with @miffy. seemingly endless epiphanic recursions and still unfurling
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How is it in practice, I usually can’t notice it but the youtubers videos (though they didn’t say) looked like it was dropping frames and stuttering all the time?
1 Like
Do what now
1 Like
I finally got around to playing the Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s expansion “Future Redeemed”, which takes place decades after the main game, but starts with a opening cutscene that is (potentially three games worth of spoilers here) grown up Shulk (XBC1) and grown up Rex (XBC2) standing with Z (the big bad from 3) talking to what might have been the united form of the big bad from 1/2, the scientist whose experiment led to the creation of the whole universe in these game, and one of them ask him “so you just want to erase us?” and just fuck yeah, of course I’m here for this MonolithSoft bullshit, oh yes.
Then the game starts with a new main dude, and his partner named A (which should make !!! go off, because the bad in posse in 3 all used single letters for names and you know opposite end from z. And we already got one of the vaguely Lynchian scenes of the Moebius-ed version of a previous incarnation of Noah, the main guy from XBC3 watching our cutscenes in a theater with Z. And we already met up with old man Shulk and old man Rex, and Rex already indicated that Pyrha and Mythra, his two sword girls who a photo at the end of 3 hinted formed a polycule with and had kids, both died, or at least permanently became swords. And oh yes just inject this bullshit right into my brain.
6 Likes
I watched a stream of an end-game boss fight in V Rising against a level 80 enemy, and the player’s attacks were doing 91 damage, and I immediately bought it for that reason. I will always support sensible numeral inflation in games.
In a lot of ways V Rising is what I wanted Diablo 4 to be. Fewer enemies who have more meaningful damage output, and a smaller pool of skills that start off functional without having to synergize with legendary equipment. There’s still a little stat fuckery with geming skills and blood buffs, but fighting bosses is more about getting the right skill combo to dismantle them megaman style, or do your best with your familiar skill set.
Only change I think would improve the game is to remove the corpse run after dying to a boss, and instead let you restart the fight but with your previous skills on a ten minute cooldown to encourage trying different tactics.
6 Likes
plays normally!
i had a couple games mess up their company logo intros (music would drop out) because the load times are so fast, but that’s about it.
only games i haven’t been able to run are the Sakura Wars English translation for some reason, and Policenauts because the disc images are iso format and not bin/cue.
otherwise, it plays as though you’re playing from disc, but with much faster load times.
there are many sellers of these, so maybe some are built shoddier than others, idk. i bought the one lined in the video i watched/posted about and it works as i’d want it to
4 Likes
is there a lot of survival game shit in this game? how often do i have to interact w/ crafting and/or base building?
might be bitter bc i just want to play stunlock’s battlerite again but it only having 100 active players means i’ll never get a match at my skill level. was basically my ideal competitive game – paced almost like a fighting game. 2v2 or 3v3. had meter management, ex moves, 2 minute rounds. like 5 different cooldowns to keep track of. everything is aimed and lots of abilities have travel time. it was super engaging and snappy!
3 Likes
Fairly often, however the game has a frankly kind of silly number of difficulty sliders, so you can slide the crafting elements into irrelevance. Just slap a 25x multiplier on resource gathering and crafting time. You will still have to build a base, but the top down perspective and 100% refund/free movement of any item makes that part easier than any other game of the style I’ve played.
2 Likes
woke up and had more thoughts:
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it might be that they aren’t using the latest version
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are any of them in PAL regions? i think it’s been reported that kinks have not been worked out for PAL, entirely
1 Like
AntonBlast Dynamite Demo
Between this and Pizza Tower i guess Wario Land 4 alikes are a thing. This one’s almost actionable, right down to the crazy bitcrushed voice samples. I don’t mind that one iota cuz Wario Land 4 fuckin fucks, and ive wanted games to rip it off for the longest time
This also has some like, Sonic Mania DNA? Its going for NOISY score attack smashing through shit ahd comboing everything. you can combo smashing and collecting poker chips up to 99x even in this demo. You can successively combo this games version of your Wario tackle dash (called a “clutch” i guess cuz you’re clutching a big hammer) up to ??x, to no end i could tell
The Wario standin is fine but i cant lie i found out about this game cuz i saw fanart of the lady Wario in it
horrible gremlin woman just like me i love her
7 Likes
Hades 2 is out in early access and it’s precisely… more Hades. If you want to play more Hades, play this.
4 Likes