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Post by OttselHero on Jan 5, 2024 18:46:37 GMT -5
After 7 months, I finally finished Tears of the Kingdom at around 125 hours logged. The final boss was really neat, definitely better than BOTW, imo.
But that being said, I can't help but feel like I would have enjoyed the game a lot more had I not played BOTW first or if it had been many years since I played BOTW. It's not really the game's fault as I tend to burn out fairly easily on open world games.
Crisis Core: Reunion is next on the docket. My hope is to finish it by February so I can replay FFVII: Remake before Rebirth comes out.
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Post by Tross on Jan 10, 2024 2:11:13 GMT -5
Meanwhile...I really need to make more time for games. I guess I can continue with A Wonderful Life. I could also keep playing my really bad Engrish rom of Pokemon Green. Tough decision. All I know is I really dislike my work schedule, and when I do have time, I'm worn out. It's my own fault though, for taking on two jobs. Oh well. Regardless, I plan to get back to doing more gaming soon. This weekend I'll be pre-occupied mind you, as it's Vanhoover time once again.
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Post by OttselHero on Jan 16, 2024 10:30:10 GMT -5
Meanwhile...I really need to make more time for games. I guess I can continue with A Wonderful Life. I could also keep playing my really bad Engrish rom of Pokemon Green. Tough decision. All I know is I really dislike my work schedule, and when I do have time, I'm worn out. It's my own fault though, for taking on two jobs. Oh well. Regardless, I plan to get back to doing more gaming soon. This weekend I'll be pre-occupied mind you, as it's Vanhoover time once again. Aw, well I hope you find a balance that works for you. Freeing up time is tough even while working one job. I'm enjoying Crisis Core so far, but the trophy hunting is a bit of a pain. The vast majority of trophies are missable, which means it's essential that I follow a guide at all times to make sure I don't miss anything. I almost missed one but thankfully I have a backup file handy.
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Post by OttselHero on Jan 23, 2024 21:32:07 GMT -5
I've been breezing through Crisis Core. It's a weird feeling since it took so many months just to finish Tears of the Kingdom, but so far I'm at least on track to finish CC with enough time left over to replay Remake. Whether I will platinum either of them remains to be seen. In any case, I'm in the middle of chapter 9 (of 10), so I should be finished soon. Then I'll play through as many side missions as I can until February arrives, at which point I will begin Remake.
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Post by Tross on Jan 26, 2024 2:15:58 GMT -5
My new handheld has taken a lot of time and TLC to setup, but I'm almost there! It will be exciting when it's ready, and it gets better as I go along, adding ROMs, and investing in the appropriate accessories.
I'm still playing Pokemon Green, mostly while I'm waiting for ROM downloads for my current handheld, which is vastly superior to the one I started with, in spite of requiring me to gather all my own ROMs and emulators. The Engrish is so bad, but it's fun seeing what the different Pokemon, or I guess PETs are called, along with the different dialogue. Also, I'm used to some of the NPCs being pedophiles, not pandering to pedophiles. There are wonderful lines such as "'Hey, did you peep me?' Miniskirt has challenged you." Is it sexist that the first female trainer type encountered in the game is called "Miniskirt" in this translation? I swear one of the NPCs of the type labeled "Child" insinuated that he may give you his shorts.
Yes, it's still Pokemon, but some of the dialogue has...likely unintended consequences that were probably over the head of the clearly ESL person who translated the game. When the NPCs can actually string together coherent sentences, they're still usually off-sounding. Gary's sister implied that the map you get from her is likely stolen, meaning that she probably pawned stolen goods off on the player to dispose of the evidence. Some of the Pokemon names are funny too. You'll likely never guess what a "Teach" is. Same with a "Wisdo". How about a "Bobo"? I can't wait to get to a point where I evolve a Pokemon, as I really want to find out if I evolve them, or if it's called something else.
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Post by OttselHero on Feb 5, 2024 10:33:49 GMT -5
I did manage to score the platinum in Crisis Core despite its numerous pitfalls. I didn't meet my deadline, though, but only by a day. I started my hard mode playthrough of Remake on the 2nd, and I'm currently working my way through chapter 5 (of 18), so I think I'm making good time so far. There have been some road blocks imposed by the raised difficulty, including a side quest in chapter 3 that got me killed repeatedly. It hasn't been nearly as tough since then, but I do worry a bit about the rest of the game since it is a New Game+ and the battles largely feel "fair" while my level is maxed. I have heard the story starts to get much harder with the Hell House boss (which is maybe 2 or 3 chapters away), but even that boss was an HP sponge on normal difficulty, so hopefully that doesn't spell doom for the rest of the game.
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Post by Tross on Feb 16, 2024 5:09:09 GMT -5
Man, these days I spend way more time adding ROMs and emulators, and testing certain things. I have, however, managed to beat Tomba, and am partway into Tomba 2. My friends are coming over tomorrow to help me test some multiplayer on my device. Part of me wishes I hadn't discovered SBC gaming, but another part of me is thankful for the journey. Still, it is definitely more work than play at the current stage. I know once I have everything, it will all be worthwhile, but it's taking a lot of time and effort. I've gotten some pretty strange and interesting things working, so there's that.
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Post by OttselHero on Feb 17, 2024 18:12:17 GMT -5
I'm still making steady progress in FFVII Remake, currently on Chapter 16. Fighting the Hell House in Chapter 9 felt like running a marathon, and it had a few dirty tricks up its sleeve (e.g. it dumped a few Tonberries that would cast instant death if not dispatched quickly). I've been defeating some of the more recent bosses by the skin of my teeth, and I've heard the one at the end of the current chapter is a pain. But I'm getting close and should be able to finish it on time, hopefully with enough time to work in the PS5-exclusive Yuffie DLC.
I looked at the trophy list for the Tomb Raider collection. Holy cow! Each game has almost 100 trophies, and several of them are really tough (e.g. finish the game in under 5 hours, finish the game without using med packs). Strangely, only the PS4 versions have platinums tied to them, which I thought was odd.
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Post by Tross on Feb 21, 2024 2:40:31 GMT -5
I'm making some steady progress in Tomba 2 again. I now have 3/4 of the chest keys, and have made it through the first four areas of the game, although there will be plenty of backtracking to do later.
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Post by OttselHero on Feb 25, 2024 13:41:19 GMT -5
I finished Remake and got the platinum! It got pretty tough near the end, but it was doable. Though I'm having issues with upgrading to the PS5 version, so it's looking like I won't be able to play the DLC before Rebirth comes out. Out of curiosity, I looked up how much the physical PS5 version cost and it is insanely expensive for the U.S. version. I can only assume they were printed in limited quantities, but why? It's one of the most popular games in the last few years.
EDIT: I managed to upgrade to the PS5 version thanks to a friend's help. The solution ended up being very different from what I read online.
You'll be happy to know that Pinkie Pie's singing voice is in the DLC! I heard it on an in-world record player within the Sector 7 slums. She sings a catchy jingle for a local restaurant. That makes her the second MLP voice I recognized in FFVII: Remake; I'm pretty sure I heard Gallus among a crowd of NPCs in Sector 5 from the base game.
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Post by Tross on Feb 29, 2024 3:06:03 GMT -5
I finished Remake and got the platinum! It got pretty tough near the end, but it was doable. Though I'm having issues with upgrading to the PS5 version, so it's looking like I won't be able to play the DLC before Rebirth comes out. Out of curiosity, I looked up how much the physical PS5 version cost and it is insanely expensive for the U.S. version. I can only assume they were printed in limited quantities, but why? It's one of the most popular games in the last few years. EDIT: I managed to upgrade to the PS5 version thanks to a friend's help. The solution ended up being very different from what I read online. You'll be happy to know that Pinkie Pie's singing voice is in the DLC! I heard it on an in-world record player within the Sector 7 slums. She sings a catchy jingle for a local restaurant. That makes her the second MLP voice I recognized in FFVII: Remake; I'm pretty sure I heard Gallus among a crowd of NPCs in Sector 5 from the base game. That's awesome! I plan to marathon the VII remakes once they're all out, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm still making steady progress in Tomba 2. I actually figured out how to do widescreen hack. I was experiencing a lot of slowdown, and tried everything to fix it, only to learn that it's the frontend that was the problem, so I switched from Vulkan to OpenGL. PS1 with 3X resolution and Widescreen Hack is quite an experience to say the least. This all probably sounds like Greek to you, but suffice to say there is a technical side to running games on an emulator, and it can feel like brainwork at times.
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Post by OttselHero on Mar 1, 2024 14:28:28 GMT -5
I finished the DLC just in time for Rebirth! It added some tough challenges with trophies tied to them, but it can wait until a later playthrough. As for when I'll receive my copy of Rebirth, I'm not sure. It was originally projected to be delivered today but I received a shipping delay notification without an estimate delivery date. Then I checked my order status and it still says it may be delivered today.
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Post by Tross on Mar 15, 2024 15:11:20 GMT -5
I finally finished Tomba 2. I have started a few other games, but I'm not sure if I'm committed to any yet. One of those games is the first Breath of Fire, because I've been curious about that RPG series for some time, so perhaps I'll play more of that, but I'll have to see about setting aside the time. I also really want to get MAME (Arcade) working on my device, so I'll have to dedicate some time to that.
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Post by OttselHero on Mar 18, 2024 11:45:50 GMT -5
I haven't played a ton of Rebirth since it came out, but it's really good so far! It's open world but it's not so huge that it's intimidating. Side quests are pretty thorough, and there's an in-universe card game that can be pretty addicting. It essentially feels like the game is drawing influences from many others, including The Witcher, Yakuza, and The Last of Us, to name a few. And we can pretty much add Kalm to the list of fictitious locations I would love to live in.
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Post by Tross on Mar 24, 2024 1:58:51 GMT -5
Getting arcade emulation to work has been more of a pain than I anticipated, but I've managed to get a handful of different games working, which is a good start. It's easy to forget that arcade isn't just one platform, but many. As for what I've been playing lately, I've actually made some decent progress in Roger Rabbit for the Famicom Disc System, but have otherwise not really taken much time to sit and play a whole lot. I think I just need a quiet weekend where I don't have much happening.
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