Was thinking about this earlier today, but lately I’ve gotten burnt out on Final Fantasy XVI whether that be due to the tone, design or combat I am not too sure. Had a slow weekend for once and decided to pop in Atelier Ryza 2 as I recently picked up Ryza 3 due to it having a small print run. Spent most of the day playing it off and on, but the brighter and more positive tone was a boon compared to the drudgery of FFXVI.

Atelier isn’t always my comfort food, but that was a nice change. That distinction would have to either go to rhythm games or to stuff like Trackmania or Minecraft where you can “shut off your brain” and just play. TM has a certain “flow” to the tracks that isn’t like anything else out there and Minecraft just throws you into the world and lets you go. (Albeit on Peaceful.)

In fact, since I posted that comment another 4k scaler has entered the ring, this time by the creators of HDMI mods such as the PS1Digital, DCDigital and such. Called the Morph 4k, will have an HDMI-only one for $400 and one with an analog connectors for $500: https://www.pixelfx.co/morph4k

While it has an upfront cost, I’d say the best way to play old consoles is by using flashcarts/ODEs/softmods and a proper scaler like the Retrotink 5x Pro or the Open Source Scan Converter. Those scalers take a multitude of inputs, scale and digitize them for output over HDMI. The RT5X can even do crazy stuff with filters to emulate CRTs and other effects.

That said, doing all of that comes at a cost. SCART cables for each console are about $40 each and the scalers run ~$325 for the RT5x or $120 for the OSSC. Then if you want to get a way to switch inputs, thats another $50-200 there too. Worth it if you like your old consoles, but to just revisit that’d be an expensive proposition. Is a great way to futureproof them, even moreso with the upcoming Retrotink 4k but that thing won’t be cheap. (Estimated price is ~$1000)

If you want to do it on the “cheap” but get as close to the originals, I’d highly suggest getting /making a MiSTer setup. This uses a FPGA to do emulation via hardware, which is about as close as you can to the originals providing the code is up to par. That’ll run about $300 all said and done, but gets you a crapton of systems all outputting over HDMI.

I believe it is sarcasm, but with the death of E3 anything is possible.

That said, I’d say it is more likely to see Nintendo announce it at the Tokyo Game Show instead. (This would put it at late September, which is right around when the Switch was revealed back in 2016.)

Listing != Actual.

We’ve seen fakes before in the database. That said, I hope it is true as I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.

I can’t wait for the Early Access release to come out.

Currently trying to get through FFXVI, but there are times it feels like a slog. Am in the midst of one if these low points right now.

As for what I’ll be playing, my StepmaniaX compact machine shows up tomorrow, so I’ll have that to assemble and play.

That is where you just use Cheat Engine to hack in gold for yourself. Why go through the treadmill to unlock items from the well when you can just give it to yourself?

The game is entirely free too.

Relevant Links:

• Itch.io - Current main page
• Steam Page - Releases on Steam (for free) on August 18th. (The day after this update.)

Personally have avoided the hololive/vtuber rabbit hole, but heard good things about this game and figured I’d post about the update.

If you like music, there are a bunch of good free rhythm games:

• Osu
• Stepmania/DDR - Main modern versions are Project Outfox and ITGmania
• IIDX/BMS - Beatoraja, heres a good English guide to it
  • Neat thing about BMS is that all of the music is made or licensed/allowed for it. The community is strictly against charting copyrighted songs, partially due to them requiring keysounding.
• Sound Voltex - Untitled SDVX Clone
• Guitar Hero - Clone Hero

Note that some of these require or are improved by an additional controller, so they’re not entirely free but once you have what you need you’re set.

I still keep up with my old FC/Guild from Final Fantasy XIV via Discord even though I haven’t played the game in ages.

What about pre-ordering for pickup? That way you have a guaranteed copy, but don’t have to put anything down.

Probably less copyright and more-so that it is not feasible to continue to manufacture all video games forever.

My view on games and the “preservation” thereof is that I buy new when and as I can. That said, once the system is dead and gone from retailers, I treat it as fair game for flashcarts, mods and so on. Figure at that point it is like going to a library for a copy of an out of print book instead of paying top dollar to a collector for their copy.

Pretty much anything but competitive multiplayer stuff and the majority of rogue-esque titles. Just don’t have the time to dedicate to learning the ins and outs of one specific title.

My favorite genres include:

• JRPGs
• Rhythm Games
• Racing
• Platformers
• Metroidvanias
• Visual novels
• Action Adventure

Get a laser printer.

Probably the impetus for the mass exodus at my old job was the “We’ll Miss You” Zoom call we had for a beloved senior developer. The company had recently added a new manager role that hadnt existed before and things were fine. The new guy started micromanaging like crazy. The SD who was leaving basically went off during the call about how the company didn’t need NG’s role and how it was burning people out.

I stuck around for another year-ish, and NG managed to make a group of about 20 developers dwindle to 5-ish. Saw the writing on the wall after getting shafted, changed jobs and am now making double that salary along with far less stress.

Its basically the intro to the original Half-Life game. If you haven’t I’d highly suggest playing the original or getting Black Mesa which is a remake of the original by a third-party company but with Valve’s blessing to do so.