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Thread: What Game/s are You Playing? Daily / Whenever Check :) (GAMEPLAY)

  1. #521
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    I had posted that I cleared the first loop (aka Stage 1 through 5) in the original arcade TwinBee via TwinBee Portable on PSP, but what I did specifically was make it partway through Stage 7. The harder loop isn't just the exact same enemy patterns and groupings but faster and with more bullets, like in some games. Rather, they throw at you a new mix of all the previous enemies, plus a handful of new ones, so I wanted to see how far I could get just to check out what differences I could see. That, and I wanted to see how high I could get my score. I just fell short of 1 million, but that was nearly double my previous high. Not that I was making any huge effort to boost my score. I just wanted to get past the fifth boss, but I did grab and chain yellow bells whenever I could (if only to get them out of the way). It seems like Stage 6 mostly exists to get your ship powered up again after Stage 5. The regular enemies didn't put up much of a fight. But the hard loop version of the first boss, Onion Head...oof. It's like a bullet hell shmup. I don't know how it'd even be possible to dodge the endless waves of bullets. But I got to it with a barrier, so I managed to survive long enough to beat it. But at that point, I had already died and was a sitting duck with no power-ups. I was waiting and waiting for Stage 7 to give me some bells, but there was just nothing. Barely any clouds and what did pass by seemed to be empty. So I eventually lost my remaining lives and couldn't make it to the boss of Stage 7.

    Moving on, I decided to start up Brain Lord on Super Nintendo. I had been wanting to play it for a while, but I was waiting for a good time. I didn't want to play it right after another overhead 2D adventure game, so I wanted to give some space from my playthroughs of Illusion of Gaia and Metal Gear 2. Speaking of the former, that was the only home console game I actually played on a home console last year, so maybe this year I could at least do two, haha. I mean, I play plenty of home console games on handhelds, thanks to ports and such, but sometimes it's nice to sit down at a TV, even if it's not as convenient for me. Anyway, I haven't even left the first town in Brain Lord, but I'm liking it so far. As shallow as it sounds, I was always turned off by the ugly protagonist sprite. He reminds me of the hero in Virtual Hydlide, haha. But the rest of the game looks pretty nice, and the script has more personality than I expected. I really like the music too. My husband is a fan of the game and has beaten it at least once, so I watched him play it some many, many years ago, but I think it'll be nice to finally give it a go myself.
    Last edited by Aussie2B; 03-22-2023 at 11:23 AM.

  2. #522
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aussie2B View Post
    Moving on, I decided to start up Brain Lord on Super Nintendo. I had been wanting to play it for a while, but I was waiting for a good time. I didn't want to play it right after another overhead 2D adventure game, so I wanted to give some space from my playthroughs of Illusion of Gaia and Metal Gear 2. Speaking of the former, that was the only home console game I actually played on a home console last year, so maybe this year I could at least do two, haha. I mean, I play plenty of home console games on handhelds, thanks to ports and such, but sometimes it's nice to sit down at a TV, even if it's not as convenient for me. Anyway, I haven't even left the first town in Brain Lord, but I'm liking it so far. As shallow as it sounds, I was always turned off by the ugly protagonist sprite. He reminds me of the hero in Virtual Hydlide, haha. But the rest of the game looks pretty nice, and the script has more personality than I expected. I really like the music too. My husband is a fan of the game and has beaten it at least once, so I watched him play it some many, many years ago, but I think it'll be nice to finally give it a go myself.
    Those do look similar. Virtual Hydlide looks like he could beat up Brain Lord, though.

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    Haha, yeah, it takes a tough guy to pull off that fairy armor.

    I'm slowly chipping away at Brain Lord on Super Nintendo. Not slowly because the action or puzzles are so challenging but just because I haven't had much time for gaming. I guess I'll see later on if it actually lives up to its title and gives my brain a workout. With Boxxle under my belt, the puzzles where I have to push objects onto switches are child's play for me so far. I'm only up to the second dungeon, the Site of Civilization, which is also referred to as the Ancient Ruins sometimes, but it seems like there's only a handful of dungeons total anyway. I did temporarily get stuck on the puzzle where you have to guess the third number in a sequence that starts with 12 and 52. Seems like a no-brainer now, but I was way overthinking it, probably because this game has the usual so-so translation you'd expect from an Enix-published game on Super Nintendo. The clue for the puzzle was worded awkwardly and had me going down a totally different direction.

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    So I have both Strange Journey and Strange Journey Redux. Haven't played either of them. Started Redux because it's on the 3DS. I absolutely love the 3D effect. So I'm playing, the game starts up and there's no 3D visible, no 3D during the story scenes, I'm like, maybe when I get to the dungeons which this is not a port, they completely remade the dungeon visuals. No 3D there either. No 3D in the entire game which really disappoints me as the first person dungeon crawler are perfect for the this and the fact that SMT4, SMT4 Apocalypse, and Persona Q have some of the most beautiful 3D with just tons of depth. Like jaw dropping.

    Anyways, as for the game itself I did look at comparisons of what the original and the remake does, so the remake adds these commander skills. I am not acquiring any commander skills nor am I acquiring the passive skill that if the MC dies you don't automatically lose. I'd rather keep it close to the original as possible. It does add some quality of life features so if I'm done playing inside a dungeon I can at the very least save in the dungeon. However, I have only been saving in the terminals or at base otherwise. I didn't even save in the dungeon when I accidentally played too long after the flashing light of doom and my 3DS power cut off on me, losing an hour worth of progress.

    The story is good and it has voice acting which is great.... it's just in Japanese. The quality of the voice work despite the language is excellent, so that's a plus, but I would really have preferred English voice acting. It's just Sega being cheap yet again because both this and Persona Q2 had voice acting and both of them were Japanese only, where all other games including Persona Q had voice acting in English. Voice work costs money but it's next to nothing compared to the game development costs. It's just a way to cut costs and why is it that they add voice acting for the Japanese fans but then feel they need to bend the western fans over like we don't matter.

    That being said, SMT Strange Journey probably has the best gameplay in the series. It's a mix of both classic style SMT with modern mechanics infused much like the addition of the Press Turn System. In SMT Strange Journey, each of your demons is preset like the older games and whenever you level them up they don't earn extra skills, what you see is what you get. The demon will sometimes ask if it can change a skill and on the original Strange Journey you didn't know what you were going to have the skill change into. I do think this is a great addition to Redux because 90% of the time I've been denying the skill change because usually there's no benefit to doing so, more often than not changing skills just seems bad. Additionally I think another change from Redux is that one or two skills will carry over to the new demon during fusion, I don't think this existed in the previous game. However, one thing that did exist in the prior game is that when you max the knowledge you have towards a demon they'll give you their source. Their source will have a few skills that you can use during demon fusion to carry those over to the new demon.

    I like this new change because unlike SMT Nocturne and every other modern SMT, all of your demons will pretty much all have mostly the same skills where the demons here will keep a lot of what makes them unique to others and not just their HP/MP/Stats/Resistances.

    The other thing I really like about this game is that again, it's like the classic style with the modern enhancements. One thing I've gotten tired of with the press turn system is that when you have a couple overpowered demons in the situation or you have four great demons but in the current situation two aren't as good as the others, you just pass the turn and end up taking five turns with your powerful demons and the demons who won't deal as much in this battle or situation you'll just skip their turn. Or how you might only have two demons with buff skills and you use the advantage of passing turns and you can pretty much massively debuff the enemy or buff yourselves in one or two rounds by simply not engaging with your other characters and just passing.

    In the classic games and some of the modern games, Persona 4, 5, SMT Strange Journey, etc, you're at the very least required to use each character in combat and you're unable to just give their turn away to another. Now while I don't care at all for Persona 5's bloated storyline, I do prefer the combat more than the press turn system, an amazing system that I've just gotten tired of. In the case of SMT Strange Journey, what happens is that you both need to deal weaknesses and you need to have matching alignments. If you have matching alignments and deal attacks that hit enemy weaknesses all characters with those alignments will then join in a demon co op attack to deal extra damage. Unfortunately this doesn't work with critical hits, so only magic using demon's can benefit from this. Not like it really matters that much as it appears that physical attacks are more powerful than magic attacks, so the magic attacks greatly benefit from this, especially so when you're fighting an enemy strong versus physical and you really need to use magic attacks. Demon co op is essentially a non elemental rush. You can really get the most out of it with low level AoE spells since they cost such low MP.

    I honestly don't really know if the questions from the demons in SMT4 mattered, but I do know on SMT Nocturne it didn't, it was just random what happened regardless of the question. On SMT Strange Journey, each demon has a specific personality and several questions. Maybe around four or five that were very specific to this demon. You need to appeal to the demon twice to request something of them and even though you might see multiple demons ask the same quest, depending on their personality the answer will be different. Once you fail multiple times it's easier when you know what the demon is ultimately looking for, but when you first talk to them, you kind of have to think based on their speech or even their look what their personality may be and how best to respond.

    The one thing I don't really care for about the game are the dungeons. Now it's not like the dungeons are bad. The problem with the dungeons are that you've got several areas in the dungeon that might be completely separate. They in now way even interconnect to the main dungeon and just lead all around to dead ends. I don't feel like the game itself is grindy, but because of these dungeons, I feel like their is unintential grinding because of their design. Infact, I'm six or seven hours in, fought three bosses so far and I don't think this game has any required grinding in the least. It's amazingly well balanced.
    Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.

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    I haven't had the time to make updates, but like I said in the other topic, I've beaten Brain Lord on SNES and Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun on my AV Famicom. Brain Lord never got any tougher than that second dungeon, in my opinion, not in terms of puzzles or in platforming and combat. Even though it's a totally different kind of game, Dracula-kun gave me TwinBee 3 vibes, in that it's a later Famicom/NES release from Konami but clearly was more of a B-tier project for them, not pushing the hardware in any impressive ways like they were with other titles, but still showing off some creative silliness in a simple, fun game. I really love how the first stage of Dracula-kun is basically a chibi-fied tour of the first Castlevania.

    Anyway, not sure what I'll sink time into next, but I did briefly try out a Donkey Kong cart I recently bought on my Super Game Boy 2. I've been reading old Nintendo Power issues from around when this came out, and it got me interested in playing it and the subsequent Mario vs. Donkey Kong series that was inspired by it (at least until they turned into Lemmings clones, from what I've heard). The portability of handheld games is a big plus for me, so I've actually barely ever used my US Super Game Boy or Super Game Boy 2, but Donkey Kong takes advantage of the Super Game Boy so nicely that I think it'd be hard to make myself play through it on my SP or what have you.

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    I’ve been playing the RE4 Remaster on the PS5. I really love these games, but the whole management of supplies and being given so little along the way, even though I’ve pretty found every resource available, gets very frustrating. It really became a problem when the Spanish guy and Chris are holding off a hoard, while inside of a boarded up cabin. I’m burning though all of my ammo and haven’t had a flash bang in what seems like hours. Just one of those would help in this overwhelming scenario, but no, Capcom likes to do that to you. I couldn’t even buy one from the merchant.

    I can’t imagine why anyone would want to try to beat this on the hardest settings, unless it was the only game they could afford for the next 6 months.

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    As I posted in the other topic, I beat BoxBoxBoy! on my 2DS XL, and I'm still chipping away at the bonus stages. I'm currently up to World 14, with World 16 being the last. The first BoxBoy! didn't even get to the ending until the completion of World 17, with five more bonus worlds after that, so that's a sizable difference. However, the number of stages per world varies, and it seems like BoxBoxBoy! has more worlds with seven or eight stages than the first game. So maybe it kind of balances out that way. Too lazy to actually do the math.

    Other than that, I'm still on a DS kick, buying up cheap-ish individual games and lots that interest me, so I briefly tried out a bunch of recent acquisitions: Big Brain Academy, Brain Age, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, MySims Agents, MySims Party, My Word Coach, Picross 3D, Pictoimage, and QuickSpot. And before physical 3DS game prices potentially climb more due to the closure of the eShop, I finally grabbed and tried out Hey! Pikmin, which is one of the few 3DS games I've had a strong interest in, if only because I really love the first Pikmin and also enjoyed the second well enough (though obviously Hey! Pikmin is a spin-off with very different gameplay).

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    Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom like most of the universe, it seems. I've got about three hours logged maybe? I'm down in Hyrule scoping things out. On one hand, it feels like a big DLC download as everything so far plays the same (save for the obvious Super Hand) but that feeling of sameness melts away as I plow forward and find a new wrinkle. On the other I like the fact that I really don't have to relearn how to play the game-my skills from BotW shift over pretty well. I just now have to be good at gluing things together. Now my kids are tackling it so I don't think I'll be able to pry it out of the main Switch until Tuesday.

    I'm also almost through "Untold Stories" for the PC. Steam had it on sale for like $2 or $3 so I bit. Not a lotta game but cool story that brings "Tales from the Darkside" vibes. It's a hybrid text adventure with graphics that's episodic in nature. The text adventure part happens with an on screen computer your character sees. Each episode is different and brings more interactivity. The first is a straight text adventure with you looking at a tube TV and an old style 8-bit computer. The next episode plays a little more like a first person graphics adventure (think "Myst") and it goes on from there. I don't want to spoil anything as it's a little spooky and all the episodes connect. I haven't played the final episode yet, but hopefully tomorrow I can get a chance.

    On the table top side-I've been reading a lot of the Cypher RPG system (like Numenara, Godforsaken and such) and I'm really digging it. When I get a chance (and can convince the kids to create some characters to try it) I'll probably run a one shot Numenara (science fantasy genre) to see how they like it. A couple of my older kids are down with it. My usually RPG couple are interested....providing I help them convert their D&D characters to the new system.

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    I finished up all the optional stages in BoxBoxBoy! on my 2DS XL, getting all the crowns as I progressed, so there's nothing left I could do in the game besides improve my rankings. Doing that was fun for a little while in the first game, but it quickly devolved into having to basically do flawless speedruns, which isn't my thing. So I decided to put the system away quicker this time, without caring much about my rankings.

    In addition to buying DS games, I bought some GBC and GBA games recently and tested them all out. I splurged a little getting a copy of Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire. I really enjoyed the GBC one years ago, and hearing this one is very similar, I figured I should give it a shot. It's too bad the planned DS Pokemon Pinball was canned. I also purchased a lot consisting of Game & Watch Gallery 2 and 3, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy, Spyro 2: Season of Flame, Crash & Spyro Superpack, Namco Museum, Cars, and Meet The Robinsons. Some stinkers in there, but my main reason for buying the lot was to get Mario vs. Donkey Kong. The interesting thing, which wasn't even advertised, is that it's the Not for Resale version. As far as I can tell, it plays identical to the retail version, which is good for me, as I don't want to have to get a retail copy too in order to play it, but it's cool to have as a collectible as well. It does remind me of something I regret, though. Back in the early '00s, I used to buy loads of used games for NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, etc. from GameStop, and I don't know if my local GameStop was unusual in this regard or not, but I remember seeing Not for Resale SNES and N64 carts for sale there, priced no higher than the retail versions, all the time. But I didn't know anything about them and assumed they were somehow inferior to the regular versions, so I never bought any. Now I know what they were used for and that they're sought after, with some being worth hundreds, so I really wish I had the foresight to pick up those oddities back then. C'est la vie.

    Anyway, as for what I'm sinking some real time into now, I decided to return to Code:Realize - Guardian of Rebirth on my Vita. I picked up this game as soon as it launched in the US back in 2015, but 7+ years later, I still haven't completed even one route, despite really enjoying it. Other otome visual novels kept popping up, after years of almost no localizations, and pulling me away. Norn9 followed very soon after, so that's what took my attention in 2015, but I even returned to Code:Realize previously, got a little further, only to get pulled away again. Apparently, I last played in 2018, leaving off after just finishing the common route and starting Impey's route. So that's where I picked up, and even though my memory is foggy on what happened in the common route, I'm still getting sucked back in. The common route is the first eight out of thirteen chapters, and I'm now on Chapter 11 of Impey's route. So not far from finally completing a route. After that, who knows. I definitely want to complete every route eventually, but with my track record, who knows what decade that'll happen in, haha.

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    Still slowly chipping away at Impey's route in Code:Realize - Guardian of Rebirth on Vita. I'm a ways into Chapter 12 now. It's hard to put it down each night, but I can only allot so much time to gaming each day. Now that I'm seemingly nearing the climax of the route and have seen how things have been playing out, I'm very curious about the other routes. I wonder if they share much in terms of characters and plot points or if each goes in a totally different direction. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm usually not super into characters who are positioned as the gag character in a visual novel, but Impey has gotten more interesting and endearing as the story continues. So I'm excited to see what remains in the route and possibly starting up another.

    Other than that, I very briefly tried another recent purchase: Imagine Ice Champions for DS. Yes, I specifically sought out this game, haha. I know the Imagine series is regarded as shovelware and even seemed to make a lot of male gamers angry back in the day (though I think, for many, their anger had nothing to do with the quality of the games but rather the fact that so many games were being made for female gamers instead of them, considering all the anger I've seen directed at high quality otome games just for not being waifu games instead), but something I learned recently is that a handful of Imagine games are actually localizations of Japanese games. So I've been getting the ones that interest me. In the process, I've ended up with a couple made by Western developers too, and those ones seem more deserving of being labeled as shovelware. But honestly, even if many of the Imagine games were based on stereotypes and left something to be desired in terms of quality, I appreciate that Ubisoft cared to target female gamers to such an extent. But I am glad that the teen girls of today have excellent otome games from Aksys and such to play rather than, say, Imagine Party Babyz, haha.
    Last edited by Aussie2B; 06-13-2023 at 05:22 PM.

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    I was apparently right at the end of Chapter 12 in Impey's route in Code:Realize - Guardian of Rebirth on Vita, yet it still took me all this time to get through Chapter 13 and complete the route. I don't know if it's legitimately longer than the previous chapters or if I've just had less time to play each night. It probably had a lot more voiced lines than the previous chapters, which take more time to listen to than to simply read the narration and Cardia's lines. Anyway, it was very anticlimactic because I didn't get the good/true ending. It just abruptly stops and goes back to the title screen, no credits or anything. So I'm not counting it as beaten either. I started up a new game, skipping everything I've previously read. I ran into the glitch where characters still won't voice Cardia's name even when it hasn't been changed. Supposedly, it happens when you start a new game and can be resolved by saving and fully exiting out of the game. Hopefully they'll be back to saying her name the next time I play. Right now, my goal is to get the proper ending with Impey before moving on to another route.

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    As I posted in the other topic, I properly completed Impey's route in Code:Realize -Guardian of Rebirth- on my Vita about a week ago. I guess third time's a charm because that's how many times I ran through the whole game. It appears like I probably could've got the good ending my first go but screwed up on the last question. The second time through, I was picking all the answers I didn't do the first time, which were mostly the wrong answers, and the game didn't even give me that final question before launching into the same ending I had before. I'm guessing you have to get affection up to a certain value (which is totally hidden, unlike in many other romance visual novels) to trigger the question that will unlock the good ending if you respond correctly. Anyway, the third time through, I knew what to pick and got the good ending, credits sequence, and epilogue no problem. I still haven't done the unlocked bonus scene, though. I might save those bonus scenes for after I do everybody's route. (I assume they're just fanservice-y stuff.) I've been really enjoying getting back into the game, but I'm starting to lose steam, to make a bad pun. Right now, I'm on the common route again, picking different choices than I did to get on Impey's route to see whose route I'll land on next. Once I've locked in a route, I might stop there and take a break (hopefully not a 5-year break this time, haha). Stopping at the start of Impey's route turned out to be a good move, since I had little difficulty jumping back into the story there, even if my memory of the common route was a little foggy.

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    PS5
    Demon's Souls

    Bluepoint remake is pretty much a one for one of the original but i'm enjoying the game so far.

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    I played Code:Realize -Guardian of Rebirth- on my Vita until I got to the start of Van Helsing's route. I wasn't trying to land on his route, but I'm not surprised either, as I was picking the first listed common route choices that I hadn't yet chosen, which had me going with Van Helsing for the few times you get to choose one of the dudes to study under/visit. But it feels like Van Helsing, who's srs bsns 24/7, will be a good contrast to Impey, who profusely expresses his love to the point no one takes him seriously, haha.

    I was planning to take a break from Code:Realize and start something else, but I'm tempted to go back to it. Nothing else is really sparking my interest at the moment. I think it's just that I've been so exhausted at night lately that I don't feel I have mental energy to properly get invested in something new. I was think of starting up LocoRoco on my PSP and did play a few stages, but I don't know if I'll continue. The game is super charming, and I've been looking forward to getting into it, but I'm still not feeling it, and I don't want to spoil my experience with it by trying to force it when I'm not in the headspace for it.

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    Well, I've finally retired and chose Elden Ring as the first game I would play now that I actually have the time. I considered playing Zelda Tears of the Kingdom first, as it was renowned as the greatest game ever made by folks I don't know. But in planning my retirement I included buying myself the best gaming TV and sound system I could afford as a retirement present to myself and frankly the TV was too much for Tears of the Kingdom. 720p on a 4K TV? Kiss my ass!
    I had enjoyed playing the Souls games on the Xbox 360, so I had an inkling what Elden Ring was going to be like. FromSoftware does excellent Middle Ages action rpg's and I love skulking around the old castles and ruins while I grind, grind, grind. I have no complaints about the game, but I'm playing on a PS5 that I'm using for the first time and I'm having some controller issues that make playing the game very exasperating. The worst of which is accidentally hitting the Home button on the controller while in combat. The Home button is placed between the sticks, making it very easy to touch when moving the thumb sticks rapidly in a panic. When you push Home while playing, it brings up a Trophies menu that entirely fills the screen but does not pause the game. You are blinded to what is happening in the game while enemies chop you character to bits as you frantically look down at the controller to find the Home button to push again and clear the Trophies. This happened so many times that I actually Googled PS5 controller Home guard and found a place selling exactly that for both the PS5 and PS4 controllers. I purchased both and so far it's been working very well. I included a pic of one on my controller.




    It's an 1/8 thick piece of hard plastic with adhesive backing formed to fit the round surface of the controller. It puts the Home button inside a pocket that can still be activated with a deliberate effort. Just what I needed! My second controller complaint isn't aimed at Sony, but at the game designers who thought it would be cute to assign long winded celebratory gestures to impress, I assume, online friends with something you may have just done in the game. The very same controller button that is also used to pick up items, something that you do constantly. You find yourself sneaking around in catacombs trying to pick up as much loot as fast as possible by hitting the pick up button as quickly as possible, when BAM!, you've just accidentally triggered a two second moronic gesture during which you cannot control you're character. Naturally, the animations draw the attention of everything you hoped wouldn't see you, which attack you mercilessly while you're character struts around pumping his fist in the air. What a stupid way to die!

    Being retired means I've lost my sugar daddy who funded my collecting hobby, but it's nice to have meaningful time to play the games now. I thought with the new TV I'd spend more time streaming shows I never had time to watch before, but no, I just grind, grind, grind all day long. It's fun!
    Last edited by Spartacus; 07-12-2023 at 09:29 AM.

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    Still Tears of the Kingdom but lately my mood has been shifting from "wow this is really cool" to "I should really play it to get through it." Once I'm going and off exploring, I'm enjoying it though the thought of "how long will this feeling last" is starting to form like clouds over a mountain. One of the things that gets me thinking that way is I'm essentially playing practically the same game I just finished in the series, but it's The Second Quest with a better version of "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts" put in. I still have to find shrines to get my stamina and health built up. I still have to find Korok seeds to expand my weapon, shield and bow slots (though I can carry a Ponderosa's buffet worth of food along with every other item I've accumulated). I get that "Cheers" feeling visiting some places that still exist from the first game-seeing the familiar sights and some characters, but then I move on. But yet I will probably plug away at it, even though I got "Untitled Goose Game" and "Tempest 4000" looking at me from the pouch in my laptop bag.

    Right now I'm just getting the "low hanging fruit" of shrines. I've opened the map up from the west and I'm now working my way east. I'm in the Necula area and have just perched myself on one of the archipelagos-the one with the construct that's all blocks but now packs a meaner punch. The shrine is in crystal form and the thing shrugs it off its shoulder when it attacks you. I tried taking it away from him and then launching it back to the platform the shrine's ring is at but either it fell to the ground or I can't get it until I beat the bad guy. I saved it for now and knowing me I'll probably stab at it some more later at home. Even with that feeling of sameness and a question of "why do I continue if I feel this way", the exploration factor and the building puzzle solving is the dangling cheeseburger that keeps me following it. I have about 7 hearts and the second full ring of stamina.

    I did finish "Untold Stories" finally about a week ago. I just decided to plow through the last story one night and got to be a little late. I loved the vibe and the atmosphere but in the end I can't see going back to it for another run through. Apparently in a couple sections where you can wander in first person there are hidden items. I didn't have the inclination to look and I don't have the desire to go back to find the stuff either.

    Steam has their big sale but so far I've avoided it. "Would I ever play it?" for a lot of games that look good, like Spider-man. Then the Steam Deck.....very tempting to have that ease of play at my fingertips. It's why I love my Switch but then again...would I play the games in my library? That usually grounds me and dispels the FOMO.

    As I was typing, I discovered my space bar really wasn't fixed by Apple. It was too old to be covered by their keyboard class action lawsuit but they replaced the keycap for free. It was doing pretty good and then it is just becoming a pain. Groan. Now I know where that Steam Deck cash could go....

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    Congratulations on your retirement, Spartacus!

    I ended up not returning to Code:Realize or LocoRoco. Instead, I decide to use my free time to "process" my recent purchases. By that, I mean cleaning, repairing, testing, cataloging, and shelving. Since I have such little time each day, taking care of those tasks is a very stretched out ordeal, but it's fun and satisfying in its own way. And it's what I sign up for when I try to get old used games as cheap as I can. Anyway, I bought a PSP lot that was in rough shape. Even though it came with the console, accessories, and several games, I bought it almost entirely because of one game included: Shepherd's Crossing. I've taken a weird interest in the publisher Graffiti Entertainment recently. They seem to still be around as a mobile game company, but back in the day, they were releasing a strange assortment of stuff for the 7th gen systems. A lot of it was edutainment, and they were mostly games from Western developers, but for whatever reason, they released a few very niche Japanese games. They also seemed super disorganized, with many releases getting canceled and others being delayed or so hard to find that consumers were wondering if they were canceled or not. I bought Shepherd's Crossing 2 back when Amazon sellers were practically giving them away for only a few bucks each, and now that's the most valuable game in the US DS library. I have a feeling their other games from Japanese developers are probably pretty rare and could command higher prices secondhand in the future, so I bought Windy X Windam for DS a while back and now jumped at an opportunity to get the PSP version of Shepherd's Crossing at a reasonable price, even though I already had the PS2 version, which a different publisher localized.

    Luckily, the copy I received is CIB and in decent shape. The lot came with eight other UMD releases in their cases: Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve, LEGO Batman: The Videogame, LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Call of Duty: Roads to Victory, Toy Story 3, Cake Mania: Baker’s Challenge, WALL-E, and God of War: Chains of Olympus. Four of the nine games are missing their manuals, and four (not the same four) had UMD shells so cracked and falling apart that I had to buy third-party shells to replace them, which was a first for me. The cases were covered in stickers and grime (some appeared to have residue of spilled cola on them), but they cleaned up nicely. So after all the work I put into the games, they all play fine and look good. The lot had a 3000 model console, which was advertised as not working, so I didn't even factor that into the price I bid. It came with a third-party battery and charger, both of which seem low quality and are probably toast. I was able to get the system running with the charger and battery from my PSP-2000 that I bought new. However, the power light doesn't come on, and there are signs of corrosion. I ordered a new Cameron Sino battery (which many PSP collectors swear by), but I'll have to open this thing up and see what can possibly be cleaned and fixed. Beyond the system and games, there was a torn up GameStop case that I tossed, a South Park video UMD, and two memory cards. The 2GB and 8GB memory cards are a nice upgrade over the pathetically small 32MB card I've been using all these years, but I've been using my card for literally nothing but save files in my UMD games, so I don't really need more space. That said, a nice bonus is that the cards in the lot have some digital games installed on them: LittleBigPlanet, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Toy Story 3 (I guess because the UMD was falling apart), and four PlayStation minis (Angry Birds, Orbit, Jane's Hotel, and Mahjongg Artifacts). Besides getting a physical copy of Toy Story 3 in the same lot, it's all new to me (unless you count having Disgaea on PS2 and Angry Birds Star Wars on Vita).

    So even if it's taken an investment of time and effort, plus the cost of replacement parts, I'm pretty happy with all I got out of a purchase that was mostly for the purpose of one single game. I think with a little more work I'll be able to use this new-to-me PSP just fine, and considering how flaky my PSP-2000 has been, I would very much be happy to have a second PSP if I can get it working well.
    Last edited by Aussie2B; 07-18-2023 at 05:55 PM.

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    I also picked up a sizable lot of 25 Game Boy Advance carts, so I cleaned and tried out all of these: Medabots AX: Metabee Ver., Aero the Acro-bat, Splinter Cell, Legends of Wrestling II, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Sonic Advance, Fire Pro Wrestling, Cars, Island Xtreme Stunts, SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of The Flying Dutchman, Corvette, Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles, Mega Man Zero, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Cruis'n Velocity, Mega Man: Battle Chip Challenger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past, Tony Hawk's Underground, Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, Sonic Advance 2, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, Konami Collectors Series: Arcade Advanced, and Yu-Yu Hakusho - Ghost Files: Spirit Detective.

    Some shovelware in there and some stuff that gets acclaim but is probably not my cup of tea (Fire Pro Wrestling, the Tony Hawk games, etc.), but overall, I'm happy with the assortment and the price I got them at. I had been looking to get both Mario Kart: Super Circuit and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and this lot let me kill two birds with one stone while also getting a bunch of other cool games. This is a hefty increase to my collection of GBA games too. I had 40-some before this, and only two games in this lot (Cars and Zelda) are duplicates for me. It also tips the scales toward mostly loose, as around half of the 40-some I had before this lot are CIB. That's fine, though. I'm glad I was able to get some nice CIB GBA games back when the system was current gen, but I'm not crazy or rich enough to collect complete GBA games these days.

    Anyway, I've been playing Mario Kart: Super Circuit on my SP and having a good time with it. I don't know why I mostly ignored this series starting with this one, considering how big I was on the first two Mario Kart games.

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    I'm still playing Mario Kart: Super Circuit on my Game Boy Advance SP. I've earned gold on every Super Circuit cup in 50cc and 100cc and started working toward the same in 150cc, which is obviously tougher. I've unlocked all the extra cups (that is, the tracks from Super Mario Kart) in 50cc and got gold in those, and now I'm working on unlocking them all in 100cc too. It's a little annoying that you can't unlock the extra cups on the first try, since there have been many times when I've earned gold and got 100+ coins on my first go. In fact, there's only been two times where I got silver rather than gold on the first try. I remember having a lot of trouble with 150cc in Super Mario Kart as a kid, so we'll see what happens here, but I imagine that game is just harder overall. For one, the Super Circuit tracks are definitely a lot more spacious than the narrow ones in Super Mario Kart. That was one thing I noticed about Mario Kart 64 even back in the day, how the tracks felt ridiculously wide compared to those in the original. And I've never played any version of Rainbow Road that seems a fraction as challenging as the narrow, borderless one in Super Mario Kart. Anyway, I've gotten some double star rankings in Super Circuit, but I know the highest ranking is three stars. I imagine trying to get triple star rankings on every cup is where things would get real tough.

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    I don’t know if we cover Switch games here, but I am currently enjoying Metroid Dread. It’s a nice combination (so far) of Super Metroid look and feel, plus stylistically like Metroid Fusion—which I missed out on awhile back. Also, it’s almost like a 2D Metroid Prime, kinda weird.

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