Yeah, it’s my first time with it. Even as a check list it’s an insane amount of content. I’ll need a detox with something smaller afterwards!

Also, I like the hard stuff but subsets help keep that sorted so it doesn’t scare people away. White 2 has a challenge mode that was bugged at release but the RA patch fixes it. It’s not too hard and it’s kinda fun being challenged in Pokemon for once since I used to play competitively and actually know some strategy, haha.

Nice, totally with you on using RA as a checklist for these games (especially after multiset). It feels a bit more guided, especially as they add more and more gimmicks over the years. In post game, it’s practically essential.

White 2 is still kicking my butt because it’s just so, so much stuff. Emerald at least is probably a bit more tame. I’ve still got to beat battle subways, star in movies, beat the Elite 4 with every type, and do every post game tournament including battles with all previous games gym leaders… Plus a 400+ Pokemon capture/evolve/breed list which is just the White 2 only dex entries.

The article is bunk, but oddly enough the all time high by Steamdb suggests it’s around tied with DST, Megabonk, Hades II, and a few others at 115k-ish.

Nightreign, as AAA go, 313k at peak, lol.

You can still tell the article is bunk for comparing it to Stray as a cat game. Oh yeah, sure, while we’re at it let’s compare to Hello Kitty Island players, eh? AI logic. Lol

The article is talking about concurrent play, which generally peaks near release for all genres, with a few exceptions (like Hollow Knights sleeper numbers). Isaac came out when there was relatively fewer players and it’s a slow growth, so the original probably didn’t have a very high concurrent count.

The remake is around 70k peak, although it’s oddly high at 20k right now, perhaps because if Mewgenics.

Typo, or likely auto correct for FFXVI. Yup, was autocorrect, as it just did it again just now lol. I’ll correct it.

To be fair I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s already a vendor for that. They already kinda do that with Chromebooks at schools, and work computers are sometimes lent out to workers including those with beefy hardware. Doing it strictly for gaming wouldn’t be that much of a stretch lol

Really short article but kind of an interesting point. To be quite fair, the games don’t just take very long to produce but their appeal keeps shifting towards more adult themes so younger players might not even play them. FFXVI was basically Game of Thrones and prior to that you had… whatever the fuck FFXV was what with a road trip royal theme? Hell, even DQ12 was announced to have adult themes.

DQ spinoffs have a better shot but they haven’t been particularly good and FF spinoffs are money grabs, so there’s that too. The article points to more popular franchises in Japan like Pokemon, although at my kids are literally watching Pokemon TV designed for toddlers, that’s kinda cheating with how everywhere that franchise is, lol.

The emulators have always been in a gray area, since they can play illegal copies of games with illegally sourced bios, etc. The emulator itself is simply the tool, which on its own isn’t proof of piracy much like owning a bong isn’t definite proof you smoke weed… just very suggestive (it can be used for tobacco I guess?)

As for current vs retro gen piracy, they’re equally illegal but obviously criminalized differently. And the ethics are obviously complex, you have people who pirate who otherwise wouldn’t be able to pay, you have people who pirate for a convenient copy of something they already own, and maybe people who could pay but simply don’t want to (although research has suggested this isn’t a huge group). And since it’s digital, there isn’t a loss in the same way as actual theft.

Personally, I just like taking control of the hardware and tweaking shit. I belong mostly to the folks who download copies of things I’ve already “bought” (which is a licence in many cases, as they don’t sell physical copies). A good example is Pokemon Scarlet, which ran like dogshit on the original hardware. I’ve been meaning to try it in an emulator to see if it works better, although I haven’t bothered yet. Would that be considered immoral, given I own the game and several switches?

Not too surprised. What I’ve seen from friends and family in the industry is a mix of union busting and natural shrinking after the 2020 boom. AI is kinda frowned upon for those AAA companies (at least at middle management and below) so it wasn’t so much job replacement although that option might still galvanize union busting.

Granted the companies in question are Japanese and Korean developers, so the US side is mostly licensing and marking and such. And if I’m being honest, some of those marketers really should lose their jobs, or at least stop getting paid twice that of actual talented people… sigh.

I managed, but I’m a glutton for punishment. In the first one you can kind of go guideless as long as you know a few fundamentals: determination is most important as it gives more skill points and easily pays for itself - by endgame you easily have everything capped. Certain combinations of skills also become game breakers, like being able to duplicate items or pumping up exp gains, etc, but the game isn’t that hard and if you want to do everything you have to run multiple times anyway. That holds especially true in SO2, apparently.

On that note, SO games use divergent path storylines but rather than being a “choose a faction” or something, it’s dependent on party members. In SO1, it’s basically three ways things pan out for certain arcs depending on who you recruited, with some members required for others. Luckily there was a flowchart, so blind-ish runs can sorta use that without blatant spoilers. It gets kind of interesting because certain mutually exclusive characters are related in unpredictable ways, so multiple playthroughs kinda reveal more depth… at least as far as a game originally made for SNES can be.

Luckily the game isn’t that long so it wasn’t much of a chore to do multiple playthroughs, especially with fast forward functions of ppsspp emulator. Doing it on original hardware might have been more of a chore, though.

The skills system really calls out for a guide, it’s really easy to misallocate points early game. Or at least that’s my understanding; I did SO1 on PSP recently but uses the same system more or less and you can make life a lot easier with proper planning.

The recent remaster supposedly has better documentation, although I’m not sure I like it better.

I’m starting up… Pokemon White Version 2 completely out of the blue because RetroAchevements is beta testing their multiset feature and I’m a sucker for the Professor Oak Challenge grind. (It’s pure madness, truly a waste of time grind beyond human comprehension, but it’s also an excuse to binge watch stuff and keep my overactive brain in check).

As always I recommend RetroAchevements in general, though. Truly an endless supply of old stuff to do!

I’ve been holding out for a Full Body experience but might just have to emulate it at this point. Although missing out on cutscenes is a real shame-- when it first came out, my wife and I played the game and watched the scenes together and uh… was an interesting and tense situation. Lol

I guess we just need more global pandemics. It’s a great boom to the video game industry, literally everyone was playing games when AC:NH released.

There’s isn’t anything particularly wrong about preordering something you’re most certainly going to get day-one, although those are few and far between these days. After all, even fan favorites often come with bugs and glitches day one and you can still encourage producers (and raise kpis) by wishlisting a game instead so they know demand exists. Same for downloading a pre-release demo - they track that.

Early access is usually indie with a few exceptions, so supporting them is good too except when you’re a big fan and would rather see the finished work without spoilers. None the less, support can still exist in other forms.

I personally do neither, but this is more because of financial reasons and my already stupidly huge backlog. The only game I might have preordered this year would have been Silksong and only didn’t because they didn’t permit it. I knew it wouldn’t be released with… ahem, bugs… and that I would certainly play and enjoy it.

Every other 2025 gem was a surprise after release, though.

Just a note, seems to just be in production. Possibly placeholders?

Reminds me of the old days, developers all the time put in copyrighted assets as placeholders. Rarely they get into the final release and cause trouble but it was fairly common practice.

Just production assets from what I understand. None of it is in the game proper.

Hell yeah.

Oh, I was so into UT but not for the reason everyone else was in middle school. I loved level editing and I made stages for friends. UT editor was subtractive and it was more intuitive, plus I had oodles of graph paper to plan out levels during class time when I was supposed to be paying attention.

I was checking this year and most of the things I want from a few years ago are still at 50%. But I don’t have enough time to play everything so I won’t likely pirate new stuff even though I very much know how to do so safely.

Hell, new games aren’t even competing with just each other- I’ve had a blast playing a lot of PS2 and PSP this year. When you don’t give in to hype and peer pressure, you’ve got near limitless options for entertainment.

Fuckin’ rad.

I was just a tiny bit too young to get into it properly, as my brother and I would turn off enemies and just explore the world in that game (I loved vents and secret door). Instead, I got heavily into its level maker.

I was 9. Lol

Nice, earlier this year I wanted to to likewise but with Professor Oak challenges, which is get every Pokemon as early in progression we possible. I did it on Blue but it was quite miserable grinding lvl 36 Blastoise fighting only lvl 6 stuff prior to the first badge.

Suffice to say I took a break after that, but I’ll hit Silver next. Fast forward on emulation was a godsend, as well as achievement tracking for keeping track of how many more I had to grab before the next badge (it got really weird because you can skip Lt Surge and just keep going without the HM lol)

I agree we don’t know if they’re loss leaders yet. I will say that even if the hardware is priced at a loss, though, it’ll sell more Steam games. Ultimately I don’t know if it really matters.

Though yeah, people should get past headlines. Lol

Before the Internet got social media, we had the GameFAQs voting thing; you’d get head to head popularity contests of coolest characters. Cloud always won, but it was nice to check daily to see who was most popular.

I still use GameFAQs, though. Even after the buyout, the guides are important to those of us RetroAchevement-ing through some older titles.

Haha, your quote is almost the exact line I’ve read. HR email was literally saying how they should talk to them first and about them failing. Lol

I can’t speak to Rockstar directly but I do know some game companies send anti-union propaganda emails regularly. To take the next step and fire people is entirely believable given when I’ve seen HR push out.

Um… Slay the Princess, like, last night. Sure it’s marketed as a psychological horror game but it’s actually pretty funny.

That said, I’m also often streaming things with friends and we riff the whole time so even the least funny games ever will get a laugh at some point. Lol

Marketing weirdly effective, for one. They pump a large portion of their budgets into hype and they make just enough back to keep going. It’s like the same people who watch an ad for a fast food place and go even though it’s never as advertised.

And most isn’t direct marketing. They very much pay influencers to buy this slop and worse. You pay a half million to a guy to make something look popular and it becomes popular. It’s very annoying.

To each their own, I felt like Portal 2 was better because of it’s length and storytelling. I recall single player being maybe 8-10 hours? Beatable in a single weekend, in any case.

Too bad PS4 emulation isn’t quite there yet. You can, however, pirate the fuck out of the earlier games, DLC and all. Truly a better way to play, cause that DLC was hella expensive.

I was thinking about this deal and… I guess it makes sense the Saudis want in on the gaming industry. I recall a long while ago an old article about the industry (probably second hand via Polygon) that noted just how much Saudis whale on mobile and loot box games. It was so disproportionate, their nobility was like 2% of a mobile title’s revenue… literally just a few big families.

So my thinking is, EA, being the kind of shitty company it is, is actually probably pretty popular among Saudi nobility. That and FIFA, of course — imagine pay to win when you have infinite money.

I prefer to not bloat my gaming experience anymore then I have to, and I already get get annoyed when I’m playing on Windows and haven’t completely disabled that said Xbox game bar.

I think my line stops with in game overlays. Steam and most emulators have that, and that’s kinda fine to me (adds to the console feel). I just don’t want AI draining my resources as I’m playing, that’s asinine, and MS doubly so since they’re a redundant layer on top of my overlays.

Hyperbole, much? What a bananas way to say you like a fun remake of a relatively solid JRPG.

It’s a fantastic documentary; as an LA native, I recommend playing through the story to better understand our diverse culture of shallow rich folks, inner city gents, and meth-addled drug countrymen.

In fact, pirate it to truly honor my culture. Lol

Given their lawsuits, emulation is 100% the right way to piss them off. Lol

So… Indie scene saw how shit 2025, so we got E33 and Silksong, we’re even getting Hades 2? What a year.

I think what I’m getting is there more than one way to skin the bark of that boss. There’s a lot of ways to play the game, even as early as Splinter, but I stay a Hunter with the starting pins (admittedly with poison). My friend loves his needle traps, though. There is better, I think, though all tools remain viable for a long time. I wonder if anyone is going full beast mode, that looks fun.

Lol, of course this is after I did the parts they nerfed but honestly nbd. Splinter was only a problem until you realize you can nuke both adds and damage the boss with you special circular AOE move. I actually took no damage on my win.

I also got Moorwing late, cause of fleas. Those 2 damage environmental hazards did seem pretty awful though. I’m great at platforming so it wasn’t much of an issue but I imagine it giving some people a lot of grief. I didn’t even know the gears caused 2 points it damage until my friend told me, lol.

Oh, it was SoE. That’s… interesting. Wonder if true.

Btw, it is quite serious how you handle dev kits. Generally they’re held on premises for this reason (and SoA does a good enough job of it), so it’s a pretty wild mistake to dispose of them. It was really, really under lock and key prior to Switch 2 release!

There are exceptions, though, like demos at major events. I wonder if there was something like that recently.

Also… why now? BL games always get 90% off eventually, lol.

Can confirm, DQ5 (1992) had monster catching. Not sure if I’d call it summoning, but Pokemon took clear inspiration from that game in particular.