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The Return Of The "Not Worth Its Own Thread" Thread

I played the SMS version of Illusion because madstu wouldn't miss a chance to sing its praises and it really is that good.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I remember being stuck on the Genesis game, there was a point where you had to crawl through somewhere, but Donald's tail kept hitting the top of the tunnel/vent and I couldn't progress forward. I was playing at a friend's so never had a chance to try again.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Aren't the Genesis games pure action games? I remember being disappointed, when I tried one of them, and you didn't get new ninjas/powers.

I mean, the GG games don't just have light Mega Man elements, they are a bit metroidvania-y. You get new ways to traverse the terrain, and if you knew the right level-order, you could get health-upgrades that way.

I really need to replay those.
 

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
Yeah, all three Genesis games are pretty pure action, but they're all top-tier pure action. Well... except maybe Shadow Dancer, which is fine.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Hmph. Shadow Dancer is more than fine. It brought an arcade sensibility to the Genesis that the other two Shinobi games didn't. It's arguably better than the actual Shadow Dancer arcade game, too!
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Yeah, all three Genesis games are pretty pure action, but they're all top-tier pure action. Well... except maybe Shadow Dancer, which is fine.
I don't think there's a Shinobi game on the Mega Drive that doesn't deserve people's time

Also, glad this thread has returned. Somewhere - wherever he is - MikeDinosaur should feel the glory of its resurrection
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I'm sure they are great, pure action games just can't hold my attention for long. Just a case of "not for me".
 

ASandoval

Old Man Gamer
(he/him)
I don't know if anyone noticed, but the supposedly bad (never played) Platinum Games' TMNT: Out of the Shadows recently got accidentally relisted on the Steam store. I, both interested in software preservation and a TMNT fan, bought and downloaded the game I missed out on almost immediately before they inevitably corrected the error, which happened an hour or so later.

Today I got an alert that Steam was processing a refund and sure enough, they were refunding my purchase of the game and the play button has been replaced with a purchase button for a game you can no longer purchase. Here's the thing though: the game is still installed on my computer. I can see the files! I just can't play it through the Steam app and hasn't as of yet read up on how to get around it as I'm sure someone out there has figured out how.

I don't really have a bigger point for this post other than I think it's a cute anecedote, and that I'm a little baffled that they wouldn't just honor the purchase like they would for anyone who bought the game prior to the takedown, though I'm sure there's some lawyer out there breatheing down their necks about it for dumb reasons.

2 SECONDS LATER...

After reading the refund alert, apparently its customary for the product to not be available until they hear from my bank and process the refund, so whether or not I will be able to play the game after the refund is processed as again, it's currently installed on my computer, is up in the air. I will update if anything changes!
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Puzzlingly, Nintendo just released another system update for the 3DS. Why? I have no idea. The damn thing is dead in the water without an online store... what could possibly be the point? Are they finally shutting down the Badge Arcade?
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
It seems its purpose was to patch a huge amount of exploits known to be usable to install custom firmware.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Seems like moot point with the eshop down. The only people blindly accepting firmware updates to their 3DS at this point are probably not tech savvy enough to try modding their 3DS.

Unless they did it to inject chaos into the used 3DS market and bring the prices back down.
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
Well, I'd love for 3DS prices to come back down for sure. I'd really like to get a "New" system.

Already modded mine recently, so I should be fine, and there's no reason to actually update at this point as far as I know.
 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I’ve been playing The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa, a sort of life sim where you play the leader of a small teenage gang (five guys, I think). The most obvious comparison game that I’ve played it Street Gangs (better known as River City Ransom), in that it’s a side scrolling brawler where you can enter shops and schools and buy food, read books, buff stats and so on, but I guess it’s got a bit of Persona going on, where you have a clock ticking each day and can complete a certain amount of tasks and up your stats/get money.

It’s kind of opaque - it starts with a bit of a tutorial that teaches you the basic controls, but after that you’re left to figure things out. I maybe ruined it for myself a bit by looking up some of the mechanics rather than just stumbling through. There are a few things I never would have figured out on my own, like that you can go to the park and jump under the play equipment to have Ringo grab onto it and do pull-ups to raise maximum HP. I’m not sure how much raising stats matters. You can improve your academics by studying and your combat stats by fighting - even losing fights improves your defence, but it also ends the day early. I took on a part time job that I have to attend three times a week, partly during school hours, if I want to keep it, which restricts me a bit, but I don’t know if there’s much benefit to keeping it or if I’ll actually get fired if I don’t turn up. I just got some scholarship money after doing well on a test, so that might be a better source of income.

The other thing that’s kind of opaque is that Ringo clearly knows a lot more about his world than the player does. I’ve spent a lot of time just figuring out my way around town, which presumably Ringo already knows. He has relationships with a lot of people and you can talk to them, but quite often the player isn’t let in on the context. Presumably over time I’ll get a better sense of who’s who and what’s going on. Most members of my gang can be spoken to or added to my party, but there’s one guy whose interact prompt is always greyed out and I don’t know why. I thought maybe he and Ringo aren’t getting along, but then he showed up for a cutscene and they seem fine. Dunno. Maybe he’s just busy.

The control scheme is interesting. There are three buttons used, plus one for the menu. In combat, the buttons are punch, kick, and guard, with a jump from pressing punch and kick together. It took me a while to realise that you can just hold guard all the time to block most attacks. Out of combat, the punch button interacts with stuff, the kick button lights a cigarette or throws it away if you already have one (this is context dependent - sometimes Ringo will flip a coin or throw a rock in the river instead), and holding the guard button puts you in what I think is called “delinquent mode”, in which Ringo puts his hands in his pockets, walks more slowly, will punch if you press that button, or open and close his mouth (presumably mouthing off?) if you press the kick button. This allows you to start fights if you want to. I did this a few times in the early going and usually lost, and afterwards I had a rival gang show up at my house to complain about how I’d broken our truce - I’ve been leaving them alone since.

Delinquent mode, along with a lot of other stuff, seems to at least partly be about atmosphere. There isn’t much point to making yourself walk slower and look meaner, but it’s role-playing. When you go to class, you can hold a button to take notes, but you can also press down to slouch in your chair or up to look out the window. I’m not aware of any benefit to doing that, whereas if you take notes your academic stat for that class goes up, but it fits the character/what being in class is like. When I was taking a test, I mostly held down the write stuff button, but I also took some time to look out the window, like I would in a real test if I had to think about something.

I’m not sure what to make of the game yet, but it’s kind of neat to just hang out in so far. I think looking up some of the mechanics has led me to worry more about min/maxing than I would have, but the benefits of doing so are not yet clear so I’m trying not to overdo it. My current in-game goal is to get enough money for the TV/VCR combo unit so I can start hiring movies and then maybe get the off-brand Famicom to go with it.

Also, no mention of this game is complete without pointing out that it was made by one guy in game maker, with hired help for the backgrounds and I think the music, and he got his dad to learn pixel art and do the character animations. Seems like a cool dad.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
I played that game! I never looked up a single thing about it, and never really had much trouble. That said, I also got kind of bored and fell off of it? It's got atmosphere out the wazoo, but eventually the days started feeling too repetitive and I just never got back to it. It was fun while it lasted, though!
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
This is only vaguely about video games, but whatever.

I live in this flat since 2011. There is a place very close by that's called Millenium City. You have some shops, you have a food court with a bunch of stands to get food from, there is a karaoke bar and a cinema. I guess it's a mall? Whatever. I sometimes eat there, if I want unhealthy-but-delicious food.

There is an escalator downstairs. In all those years, I never went down. Until today. There is an arcade! This is kinda insane, because I have never been in an arcade. Well, there was a small one in the countryside, but it was kinda lame. This here had all kinds of cool stuff. Like this Sonic and Mario Olympics game (forgot the name) cabinet. Street Fighter IV. House of the Dead II. Luigis Mansion Arcade (I need to find out what the hell that is).

And they have DDR. Dance Dance Revolution! I never had a chance to play that, and always wanted to. Sorta dancing, without the creativity! I think!

Like, I feel like I missed out for a decade. How did I not know that? I always wanted to be at an arcade! Except that I feel too old for that now. I'll still at least try DDR. And maybe Guitar Hero.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I feel like I missed out for a decade. How did I not know that? I always wanted to be at an arcade! Except that I feel too old for that now. I'll still at least try DDR. And maybe Guitar Hero.
With the game selection you listed I find it very fun to imagine you found an escalator that's a time portal.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
You are never too old for an arcade. Of this, I am pretty sure.
You are too old only when you can no longer move your arms. (Assuming that neural interfaces haven't been invented and retrofitted on to the games in the arcade.)
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
One finally opened here right before the pandemic and (surprisingly) survived. It's pretty dang small but $15 for all day play ain't bad. I heard a rumor that the guy who owns it used to work at Pixar and had a hobby of buying cabinets. Then he retired here and opened an arcade. This is a good retirement plan.
 

jpfriction

(He, Him)
Minneapolis has a barcade called Up Down and a pinball bar called LITT (formerly TILT but I think they got C&Dd, and also bought the building of a closed dive bar called liquor lyles so changed it for the new space). I like them both but nothing terribly special in the game selection so I don’t frequent them. Been a couple years, actually, now that I think about it.

Guy who owns the pinball bar also bought and ruined my favorite dive bar in uptown by making it all popular and shit so he’s a monster. I miss my empty cash only place to play darts and pinball.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I just came to an unfortunate conclusion. If the Xbox is Microsoft's Master System, an overlooked yet promising start to a console empire, and the Xbox 360 was their Genesis, the system that went toe to toe with a dominant industry presence, that would make the bungled Xbox One the Saturn, and the Xbox Series... Microsoft's last console. :(
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I'm on the newsletter for the team who made the game Chicory, which is absolutely my game of 2022 (it came out in 2021 but took me a while to get to). Highly recommend it especially now that it's on Switch which would probably make it even more fun to play.

But anyway, the newsletter said to check out their new announcement at the Wholesome Games stream on June 10th, and that just sounds like a very pleasant time. Also in their FAQ they acknowledge that "wholesome" can be misconstrued and detail how they interpret it which is cool.
 

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
Minneapolis has a barcade called Up Down and a pinball bar called LITT (formerly TILT but I think they got C&Dd, and also bought the building of a closed dive bar called liquor lyles so changed it for the new space). I like them both but nothing terribly special in the game selection so I don’t frequent them. Been a couple years, actually, now that I think about it.

Guy who owns the pinball bar also bought and ruined my favorite dive bar in uptown by making it all popular and shit so he’s a monster. I miss my empty cash only place to play darts and pinball.

Up-Down is a chain, but a small one. They're generally pretty good, there's one here in Nashville and in Milwaukee, and the game selection is pretty good. No Galloping Ghost, but what is?
 
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