I’ve loved this series ever since I got 0 on a whim in 2020. I was vaguely aware it existed, but in my ignorance thought it was some sort of GTA clone. It was a pleasant surprise to find out it was actually a JRPG with beat em up combat. I subsequently played though almost every game on PS4 (including both Judgements and Ishin, but excluding Gaiden). I love how the location of Kamurocho is in (almost) every game and changes over time as the years go by. I was skeptical of the switch to turn-based combat in 7, but they won me over by making Ichiban such a charming protagonist. I can’t help but love the hopelessly optimistic guy! Majima’s my favorite character and I’m eagerly awaiting Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. As for my favorite, I’d have to say 0 because it was my first and it fleshed out Majima the most. The mini-sequel they added to his story in Kiwami 2 made it that much better.
I started playing it for the first time last year and didn’t know really anything about it. I immediately noticed that how people talked didn’t seem respectful and it all seemed over the top comical. I learned that it was an English localization issue. I found the mod Yakuza Restored which makes it in Japanese but fixes the English subtitles to be accurate and the game was very enjoyable to play from that point on. I haven’t beaten it yet but I like how the main character is principle driven, it makes the story quite enjoyable.
Don’t forget Intel’s latest GPU launches either! For custom PCs, there are some really affordable and relatively powerful GPUs available now (for the price). Despite their performance otherwise, Intel is killing it in the GPU space now.
For a lower spec build, you could definitely put together something with a 12100F (or other cheap CPU) and a battlemage GPU. Depending on where you get all the parts, you might be able to hit sub-$500 and get great 1080p performance, or for sure sub-$1k 1080p and likely 1440p performance.
Handhelds also have a lot of good options available too. To save some cash, you can get low end Steam Deck and swap the hard drive yourself. Got myself the cheapest LCD variant and swapped the tiny drive in it with a 2TB drive off Amazon.
I would recommend against pairing Battlemage with a low-spec CPU. As shown by Hardware Canucks, Hardware Unboxed, and others, Intel’s Arc graphics driver overhead is currently much higher than competitors, which means they’re disproportionately affected by having a weaker CPU. This causes the B580 to lose significantly more performance when paired with low-end CPUs than a roughly equivalent Nvidia or AMD card. At the very low end, the difference is especially stark. In some games, the B580 goes from neck-and-neck with a 4060 on a high-end CPU to losing half its performance with a low-end older CPU, while the 4060 only loses about 25%.
If you’re really stuck with a lower-end CPU, it would be far better to get a used midrange AMD or Nvidia GPU from an older product generation for the same price and use that.
Honestly my Anbernic rg40xxv (yes all their devices have convoluted names lol) just arrived and I couldn’t be happier. Really into retro games right now so I don’t need more than the power of this lil guy.
I actually started playing Pokémon creepy black (GBA) the other day. it basically turns your game into the creepypasta of the same name, but also alters the dialogue here and there which leads to some funny moments.
I’ve done this with other games (to the Deck and to and from other devices), but that’s not something you need to worry about. Streaming a game doesn’t have a noteworthy impact on the frame rate anymore in the age of GPUs with built-in encoding circuitry. Provided you have a half-decent home network, it’s hard to distinguish it from playing directly.
I think this tracks. Last time I checked, it had eerily similar performance at 1080p as a GTX 1080 at 1440p (same settings otherwise), at least with games that don’t need more than 4GB of VRAM, like Assassin’s Creed Origins.
Yeah, I’m at 1080p and have usually not had any issue with the games I’ve wanted to play. From Might and Magic Book One (1986) to Monster Hunter World/Iceborne. But I’m very selective with the games I play—usually do not tolerate bugs or unnecessarily resource intensive ones where it would’ve needed a lot less for the same thing with more care taken.
This post was finally the push that made me buy it, having been interested since I first heard about it. Only checked out Barbuta and Bug Hunt so far.
I’m loving Barbuta. It’s scratching that itch that only Tomb Raider 1 and Dark Souls 1 have scratched before. There’s something so weirdly cozy about this air of open hostility where the individual challenges aren’t actually hard to execute. I haven’t made it very far in yet, only found/bought three items, but I’m already in the headspace where I wanna push myself to keep replaying it until I can beat it without using any eggs and I’m not one to normally care about that sort of thing.
Bug Hunt is okay but, in terms of the framing device that this is a compilation of old games, I’m not buying it. Its mechanics and writing and tutorial pop-up windows feel distinctly like a modern indie game. Barbuta only slipped once that I’ve seen so far, with that I Wanna Be the Guy trap on the first screen.
I think that is a bit the conceit of the collection: classic games in looks / features, but taking into account the progress that has been made in game design and mechanics. I actually prefer it this way, like an alternate timeline in which computers didn’t get more powerful and people were forced to iterate on ideas within these constraints.
AUTHENTIC BUT ALSO MODERN - We carefully chose what elements to modernize. Every game shares a unique 32-color palette and we took great efforts to make them look and sound like actual 8-bit titles from the 80s. On the other hand, it was important to us that UFO 50 was fun and surprising for modern players, so we chose not to limit ourselves to the genres and design conventions of the past.
They’ve said in interviews as well that they choose to view UFO soft as a game company that was very ahead of its time
Been taking it slow, a game a week along with the eggplant.show podcast. Up to Devilition. Very interesting take on old school games with tech limitations with a more modern sense is design. Clearly lots of inspiration from classics
beehaw.org
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