Has there been any word on a Linux port? Since it's in Love2D I saw people were able to unofficially inject it into the native runtime, so it would be great to have that made official.
Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - I'm back on my bullshit again. Uzuki arc was fun, but when it comes time for bracket I gotta lock in. And by lock in, I mean still play like a clown.
Splatoon 3 - Didn't have too much time to practice this week, but had one good session. Really trying to work on more actionable callouts, coordinating with our specials and planning a push together rather than merely announcing things after they happen.
Persona 4 Golden - Still just post-Kanji dungeon. At the rate I am going I will finish this game... someday.
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story - Man, forgot how annoying it was that you have to always go for weapon breaks against bosses or else you miss their blueprint forever. Also, RHDN shutdown has me wondering, if/when the third game's translation patch ever gets finished, where do I even look to find out about it?
Slay the Spire - I can quit any time I want, I swear.
Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - Came dangerously close to losing my Master 1 rank on Soul, but got a few wins so I'm safeish now. I know I'm too reckless and I'm trying to work on that. I did play one of the best games I've had at club this week, had the discipline to fold several tempting hands and it turned out to be correct every time. Sometimes protecting second place through smart play is more satisfying than lucking into first.
I’m currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles and I also played Final Fantasy remake and Golden Sun recently and all of them have wildly different combats. Which got me thinking what JRPG out there had the best combat? This doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily your favorite JRPG as well....
Turn-based: Bravely Default. A stellar evolution of FF5 that gives you so many toys to play with, and the titular Brave/Default mechanic opens up a lot of cool ideas just by giving you flexibility in when to take your turn. Specifically BD1 and Second though, I felt like BD2 was a massive step back by trying to introduce a turn order system at the expense of no longer queueing everyone together at once.
Action: Tales. Hard to pick just one, and there are still a bunch I haven't played, but I think I'll go with Vesperia specifically for all the advanced tech it allowed for.
Honorable mention to CrossCode as well, but I know someone's gonna debate whether it counts as J or if it's just sparkling Secret of Mana.
I’m trying my best to dive back into the past and play all the gems that I missed as a kid because I was either born too late or too much of a kid to consider playing them. I found myself really disappointed going back to the old mario nes/snes titles because they felt really bad to play as I’ve become accustomed to modern...
Older JRPGs in particular are definitely a bit of an acquired taste. There are a lot of games that I love dearly but have a hard time recommending to anyone who didn't grow up on that style of game.
That said, Chrono Trigger is the one that really stands the test of time and I think is the best entry point into the classics. Or just try some more modern games, the genre has evolved considerably.
Earthbound is probably the one I'd put next after CT, but it's a bit of a slow burn that's honestly carried by its writing. Mother 3 raises the bar considerably, but you gotta play EB before M3.
Capcom vs. SNK 2: The Groove system is one of the coolest dynamics to tailor the game to your playstyle. Is it balanced? Hell no, but I love this game casually.
The King of Fighters 2002: KOF fans will tell you either 98 or 02 were the absolute pinnacle. I side with 02 because it has Kula in it. Also note that 98 and 02 both have updated rereleases with an extended roster and rebalancing, but those are Windows-only.
Puzzle Bobble 1/3: You've probably played some flash game clone of this. IMO I think 1 was best for its simplicity, I'm not as fond of the garbage patterns introduced in later titles in an effort to give characters some asymmetry. But PB1 does not have AI opponents, singleplayer is only the stage clear mode, so if you don't have a human to play with try PB3 for the next best thing.
Soldam: The singleplayer modes are nothing to write home about, but it has one of the most unique versus modes I've seen in a puzzler. Shared piece queues are normally horrifying, but Soldam makes it work by giving P1 the objective to match red while P2 matches blue. So if you want to snipe pieces that are desirable to your opponent, that means taking pieces undesirable to yourself. Garbage is also based on how you clear lines, so crafting maximally disruptive garbage gets interesting. The catch, unfortunately, is that there is no AI. But if you can play this game with a human, do check it out.
Tetris: The Grand Master 1/2/3: The only good Tetris, do not @ me. Start with TGM2's Novice Mode, then once you can clear that go back to TGM1.
Twinkle Star Sprites: A versus shmup with a very unique format. Chaining enemies on your screen sends attacks to your opponent's screen. Hard to really explain, just give this a spin and feel it out for yourself. There are a lot of moving parts, screenwatching is vital, and feels like I've barely scratched the surface of the game's depth.
Vampire Savior: Aka Darkstalkers 3. This game is fast as hell and it's a blast. Like with any classic fighter, good luck keeping up with FightCade folks who really know what they're doing, but I love it casually.
Waku Waku 7: This game's mechanics are honestly borderline kusoge, you can't even cancel normals into specials. But I love the design and atmosphere so much. Tesse is really fun to play even in spite of the system mechanics.
NES:
Fire 'n Ice: A very rad little puzzle game.
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!: Just an absolute blast. I won't bother listing them seperately but also check out Super and Wii. Super's kinda the black sheep of the series, but it's still a good game, just not as good. Wii is an absolutely top-notch successor and I'm sad it didn't get any more sequels after that. The two arcade predecessors are honestly forgettable.
SNES:
Chrono Trigger: I am hesitant to recommend most JRPGs from this era if you did not grow up on them, because many of them haven't aged so gracefully. Chrono Trigger is the exception, this game is a fine wine. You may want to check out one of the rereleases though, or at least a retranslation patch, because the original translation was made on a rushed deadline and bound by heavy technical limitations.
Earthbound: A bit more of a slow burn in comparison to CT, but this game is carried by incredible writing. It's also required reading before playing Mother 3 next.
Kirby Super Star: Definitely the peak of the series, giving every copy power an entire moveset is a blast. Has an updated rerelease on DS with added extras, I do highly recommend this version, but DS can be awkward to emulate so SNES is fine.
Wario's Woods: The NES version is more well known since it was the system's last first-party title, and for whatever reason it's the only version Nintendo ever rereleases. But the SNES version is a notable upgrade, biggest thing it has is AI to play versus mode against. Versus mode is wild as hell, so if you've never seen it please check out the SNES version.
N64:
Dr. Mario 64: Best version, but can be notoriously difficult to emulate. If you have issues with it, SNES is a good alternative. Don't play NES.
Mario Party 2: Still the best in the series.
Paper Mario: Pure perfection. Many fans will say TTYD was better, and it's certainly a good game too, but I think 64 was peak simply because the pacing is so much better.
Super Mario 64: It's Super Mario 64. You do not need me to tell you that this game is good.
F-Zero GX: It's been over 20 years since the GOAT dropped and all we've had to show for it is that damn 99 game. Go play this and weep that we'll never see another like it.
Nintendo Puzzle Collection: The best version of Panel de Pon, but SNES is a close second if you wanna play on a device that can't run Dolphin. GBC is also kinda noteworthy for having a unique singleplayer to work around platform limitations - opponents have a lifebar rather than a board. Just don't bother with 64.
Tales of Symphonia: This game got a PS2 rerelease with some extra content, and the HD remasters are based on that version. But the catch is that they were downgraded to 30fps, and yes that includes the so-called remaster. So I still recommend playing the Gamecube original at 60.
Wii:
Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary: The absolute pinnacle of the series (by which I mean it's all downhill from here, I will never forgive Sega for what came next ), crammed with a whopping 20 game modes. I really love the challenges where you have to chain under bizarre restrictions. I prefer the Wii version for its 480p assets, and it's the easiest to emulate, but if you care about story mode the translation patch only exists for DS.
GBC:
Game & Watch Gallery 2: Holds a special place in my heart as the first game I ever owned. Has the best lineup out of all the collections, with 3 and 4 you can kinda tell they had used up all the heavy hitters.
Mario Tennis: An incredible tennis RPG. And Mario doesn't even show up until the postgame as a bonus boss, which I find hilarious. Has connectivity with the N64 version if you can get that running, lets you transfer your RPG mode character and unlock more content on both titles.
GBA:
Boktai series: These games were so near and dear to my childhood, especially 2. Really though you want the Solar Sensor hardware for the full experience, but I love these games too much not to plug them anyway. Emulating them is worth it over not playing them at all. And for the third game, you'd have to pick between original hardware or the translation patch anyway.
Golden Sun 1/2: These games were way ahead of their time for how they designed a combat system that encourages you to use all of your tools and not just click basic Attack as if you gotta hoard your MP for a rainy day. Fantastic puzzles too.
Mother 3: Surely you have already heard of this game and do not need me to tell you to go play it. Have you not played it by now? Why not? Well, okay, if you haven't played Earthbound first, go do so, then play this.
Rhythm Tengoku: A wonderful game about pressing the A button. Sometimes you press the d-pad too. Translation patch.
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1/2: If you've ever played the classic 2D Tales games, these are excellent spiritual successors to those. There's a third game that's JP-only, translation patch is being worked on but it's been stuck in development hell for years...
Romhacks:
Celeste Mario's Zap & Dash (NES): SMB1 turned into a Metroidvania with Celeste mechanics ported in. I think what impresses me the most is that they got 4-directional scrolling into this engine.
Super Metroid and A Link to the Past Crossover Randomizer (SNES): It's an absolutely incredible technical feat that this even works. SM and ALttP smashed together into a single ROM, with a few doors that take you from one game to the other, then the item pools are shuffled together so you have to go back and forth to find one game's items in the other. Unfortunately because ALttP is a much bigger game with a lot more items it kinda overshadows SM, you may not find this to be as replayable as the standalone randos. But I recommend trying it once because it's just so cool the first time.
Balatro passes 2m sales, with free major update due in 2025 (www.eurogamer.net)
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of August 4th
Whatcha been playing! I’ve been camping all week so I really haven’t been playing anything! Aside from a few crosswords here and there :)
What JRPG combat is your favorite? angielski
I’m currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles and I also played Final Fantasy remake and Golden Sun recently and all of them have wildly different combats. Which got me thinking what JRPG out there had the best combat? This doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily your favorite JRPG as well....
[Request] Retro Recommendations angielski
I’m trying my best to dive back into the past and play all the gems that I missed as a kid because I was either born too late or too much of a kid to consider playing them. I found myself really disappointed going back to the old mario nes/snes titles because they felt really bad to play as I’ve become accustomed to modern...