I wanted to write about XBLAs already but life got in the way. Just kidding, I played too much PSP. This is the problem when I have more than one console. Priorities. But it’s hot and I can play my PSP sitting on my couch, while the 360 is hooked up via VGA to an old 4:3 LCD monitor (that my brother left behind) which sits on a desk (that my brother left behind) and I have to sit on my FitBALL to play it (because my brother didn’t leave behind a chair). And that’s good for my back I suppose, but bad for my motivation.
But the weather forecast is promising (cold weather) and I’m pretty much done with a particular game that sucked up over a day of accumulated hours over the last couple of days. I just watched the credits roll in Grand Knights History. And I guess that means I can add another game to my “jarpeegees you beat” list. Kinda impressive, considering that the last one was 11 years ago. Maybe I’m back in business. (I hope not tho.)
Here’s the list, btw. (Don’t click it! Read the rest of this off-topic post that goes nowhere first!)
And admittedly today was already a cloudy day, but still pretty hot and my Xbox gets pretty hot too, and that makes my room too hot. So I watched videos of Japanese-only PS1 SRPGs on my laptop instead, because, while I was looking for a comprehensive list of PC88 and PC98 tennis games, I found this cool site that has what seems to be pretty comprehensive lists of games (with screenshots) sorted by genre. (Not so fun fact no one cares about: SRPG is my 2nd favorite genre behind drift racing and before tennis games.)
Here’s the site, btw, showing one of the SRPGs that piqued my interest.
https://refuge.tokyo/playstation/ps/01225.html
Kinda seems to have a weirdly clunky pausable turn-based system? And quite elaborate rotatable isometric 3D maps. Like this multi-story building, where you can see characters on the other floors walking and talking. I could not find a brave soul on youtube who tried this. So I had to watch my first Japanese let’s play on nicovideo. I mean download it, cause I don’t have an account (or a twitter (or a facebook)). I will link it tho, cause I assume you will either not give a fuck or know a way to watch it. I also wanna know if discourse can do nicovideo embeds (It probably can’t).
What a useless post why did he make it he's so stupid is what you might or should be thinking right now. Guess I could try to redeem myself a tiny lil bit here by talking about the one XBLA game I bought that is not an XBLA exclusive (though it is better on 360 cause 360 triggers are ergonomic wonders compared to the human interface design nightmare that is PS3 triggers). The game is called
#Daytona USA (800 points)
The first game I got when I had a Dreamcast a couple years ago was a CD-R of Daytona USA 2001 with the original music restored. I played it for hours. I never finished first. I just couldn’t drift. And I love to drift, you may know that already. SEGA arcade drift racing classic? Hell yeah! This should be among my favorite games! It’s embarassing. I got this XBLA port cause I am shit at Daytona USA. Maybe I was spoiled by OutRun2’s ease of driftiness. Or the Dreamcast version really had bad controls. Either way, I had to make things right.
Enter Challenge Mode. Which is all I wanted it to be and more. They should’ce called this Drill Mode. Or License Test. I love how it breaks up each track and teaches you to approach each corner. This would’ve taken me soo many quarters. Maybe I would’ve never gotten it on my own. But I got the achievement. Finishing the last challenge and having to bring it all together was truly satisfying. I am still not good. But I think I get it now. I completed the circle. I have closure. (I haven’t tried Arcade Mode yet.)