I'm a pretty big fan of Wadjet Eye's games overall, though Gemini Rue was a dud, and Resonance took a pretty immediate jab at my PTSD, but the Blackwell Chronicles are all great, and Primordia became a new favorite. I was a little intimidated by this one, because who you take with you on cases will affect how they're solved, and though I haven't gotten far enough to have a choice in the matter, it's doing a good job of easing me in.

I might have to do Lilthday this year, it looks like a very cool idea even though I don't beat many games it would be nice to participate.

Lilithday 2023 begins in two weeks!

[Link]

Remember, TO BE THIS GOOD TAKES AGES!

I wish I knew! I don't have an ODE but I'd like one. My Saturn still works (kinda) but I only have 2 or 3 games for it (and I think the expansion cart slot (or the memory cartridge I am using) is rusted/corroded). I can't do much with it now. Same story with my Dreamcast, for the most part: I have one, a VMU, and two working controllers, but I don't have any games (I got a used console for free as a random birthday gift). I'd love to play more but there is no way in hell I'm doing the secondary market thing, so it's either this, emulation, or hold out for the MISTer to develop the Saturn core further.

I would like to participate to Liliths's day, even though I'm not eligible for the price. It is a good reason for playing Diablo II

Same; I'd just assumed that I couldn't go back because, you know, I didn't have a fucking ship! If fast travel didn't work, I figured slow travel wouldn't either. I do wish they'd enable fast travel after you finish the final boss, so I could go to my island fortress more quickly, but I have a really beautiful one in the desert now, so it's fine. As for the rest, I'm... not sure I even play a lot of expansions, because I'm scouring my mind for a baseline, and I can't come up with one. Borderlands doesn't really lock you in, but I'm trying to think of other games I've played to compare it to, and that's all I can think of. There's Vergil's Downfall from the Devil May Cry remake, but that's more like a totally separate mode, and same with Grubbins on Ice. In fact, looking through my PC and (admittedly barren) PS3 libraries, that's just about all I have is separate modes.

Well, if anything, they did show me some games I probably wouldn't have known about otherwise. If I was smart, I'dda asked fer Astro Boy: Omega Factor fer Christmas or birthday, but I did learn about Gunstar Super Heroes and Summon Night: Swordcraft Story, so it wasn't always about the flavor of the month game. Viewtiful Joe 1 and 2? That would've gone unnoticed in my eyes. It wasn't always pretty, though. Around the time the DS came out, they'd gotten more cynical with their writing. Some of their reviews made no sense either. They gave Shining Tears a 1 outta 5. Why? "It's so bad." Why was it so bad? They didn't really explain why. They really, really wanted poo-flinging in Donkey Kong. While previewing Rayman 2 on DS, Adam says "Or as I like to call it, at least it's not another damn Mario game."

Anyway... yeah, I'm with you, honestly. I'll never understand why every big budget AAA game always gets all the attention like it's the second coming. Who cares, it's just another open world adventure game? Why should it matter if tons of people were employed in making it? Everything just looks so dull and uninteresting to me. I'm happy enough just playing what I got right now. If I didn't have to worry about aging batteries and/or systems, I'd pretty much be set for life. Nah though, gotta look forward to that next big, shiny game that'll either be quickly forgotten about (Dying Light 2) mocked endlessly if it blows or is buggy (Cyberpunk), or, though quite rarely, actually succeeds in being a (n allegedly) good game (Elden Ring, which was all the rage last Winter.)

I liked Shadow of the Colossus. Didn't care for The Last Guardian. Anybody actually remember The Last Guardian?

I... don't hate Undertale per se, but rather the impact it had and also the fact that it's integrated into Internet society like SpongeBob, My Little Pony, etc. etc., so people won't stop talking about it or making fan works even years later.

Square Enix... they're very jarring at this point. They're churning out more titles yeah, but the whole NFT thing aside, they just seem so soulless. I didn't really give that new Live A Live a chance, and Harvestella... I don't freakin' know. I'll definitely get the pixel remasters of FF, but other than that... God, I don't know! Dragon Quest? Did Dragon Quest III really need yet another remake? Why not make remasters of IV, V, and VI? Oh, they on Mobile? Screw that. Well, no matter, I got the original versions of those.

During the Super Bowl? Ooh, maybe there'll be a Super Bowl commercial for Lilithday 2023.

Lilithday 2023 begins in three weeks!

[Link]

Remember, TO BE THIS GOOD TAKES AGES!

I like it so far; I was kinda pissed at my ever-shrinking inventory because I couldn't go back to my stash, but then my stupid ass found the one in the fortress you restore, so it's fine now. I'm mostly enjoying running around, having my own island adventure, but I'll get back to the main story here eventually. Right now, I'm trying to figure out which of my 3 houses I like best; I like my home in the islands, but the Scholia Arcana has a MOTHERFUCKING UNDERGROUND WIZARD LABORATORY! I've wanted one of those ever since I first played King's Quest 3, however many million years ago that was.

I did see he was in the news! He was in the news when G4 was officially gone for good. Dude just needs to get offa Twitter... ... ... actually, everybody needs to get offa Twitter, but anyway yeah, apparently he got into a spat with Switch Retro Fanboy Guy, but I didn't really look into it because it just seemed like the guy reporting it just needed to get that sweet, sweet YouTube ad revenue, kinda like everybody talking about Velma right now.

Oh my God, Lilith, I just found out about that clip where Blizzard was being booed off stage in 2018 [Link] That's funny as hell. It's like God, how bad was the Trump era, am I right? You're expecting a brand new Diablo game and it's more of a mobile spinoff. That's me with Shining Force! Lookit this [Link] Darn you, SEGA!

That's quite a lot of choices you got. I'm envious! And man, if you know how to do that stuff, you'll never have to worry about batteries dying and stuff. You've got it made!

I'm surprised Nintendo doesn't bother to show off their more obscure stuff to Western audiences. Like, okay, Marvelous does have the boob poking thing you can do early on which could set off quite a few people, but you'd think with how passionate Nintendo fans are that they'd be okay with seeing more lesser known stuff from their catalog. You mentioned Satellaview Zelda, why not that? (I wonder if that's worth getting a repro for?) Shoot, I keeo forgetting they remade Famicom Detective Cloob. Gotta watch for that sale! But I'm really trying not to buy anymore games right now. With my yooge classic catalog already, the last thing I need is more games I'm not gonna get to until weeks or months later. Phoenotopia still looks pretty sweet and I do intend on going through it... eventually.

Keep going with Grandia! You'll be done soon!

Ooh, what's Lilithium? Sounds mysterious.

Aw yeah, Grandia II is good stuff. There are some aspects I liked better in the first game, and some that I like better here. Overall, I'm having a great time. I love the skill level-up system; I made Elena into an absolute powerhouse that obliterates everything in her path. She's awesome. I really love all the characters. Even characters I wasn't big on at first, like Roan and Mareg, I eventually came to like.

Looks like I'm in the final stretch! Gonna be bittersweet when it's all over. I hear Grandia III is not so great.

Hey, Bomberman's almost always a good time! I'd say that was a good option for a first pick, I've heard good things about Super Bomberman R. I've never actually heard of Resident Evil Dead Aim, I'm mostly familiar with the numbered titles. I should give the side titles a shot sometime. Let me know what you think of it, I hope you have a great time!

People have been doing a lot with randomizers, lately! I had no idea there were ones for Ocarina of Time and Link's Awakening! I've watched streams for the LTTP one, though, and I'm really grateful for the tracker to keep track of what you've found and what you're still missing. Do Ocarina and LA have that, too? I might have to give those a shot if so.

Man, I'm right there with you on Twilight Princess. I like a lot of aspects of that game, but that intro sucks. I played it with a friend and we actually made a copy of our save file for right after the intro so if we ever replayed it, we could skip past it right away. I had the same problem with Skyward Sword on Wii, though I've never gone back to that one. I have heard the HD version trims a lot of fat on Switch, so maybe that's worth a shot? The 3D Zeldas are ones usually I enjoy more for story than gameplay, though. I'm more fond of the top-down Zelda titles, like A Link Between Worlds, when it comes to gameplay. It's kind of a shame that Ocarina's really the only 3D Zelda up until Breath of the Wild that manages to have decent pacing for its intro. I'm looking forward to BoTW2, but I am a little apprehensive about how long the intro might be. Really hoping it's not too long.

Yeah, no, you put in more work and detail on those cases than most would if you were willing to create custom boxart for them. Usually when I find older games without their normal boxart, it's either blank with the title of the game written in sharpie on the front or someone just printed an image of the front cover on a sheet of paper and slipped it in the front. If the case is clear, they just don't do anything other than let the game disc show itself.

I'm hoping Pokemon Scarlet and Violet allow the story to be less stop-and-go since there's three different paths you can take for progression, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had the same issues of the other recent titles with that. I could use a new mainline game to restore my faith in the series again after being underwhelmed by Sun's pacing and disappointed by Shining Pearl.

Hey! Long time no speak! I hope you're doing well!

I can understand the disdain for weapon durability/finite-use items. I myself am pretty on the fence for weapon durability, but for finite-use items, I just view them like how I'd use regular items, like potions in RPGs. You can always get more of them, and generally the game devs do a good job of making sure you've got plenty to work with, even if you use them liberally. I didn't really need to go back to a shop midway through a dungeon in SS or CS. Levels are paced well enough and give you enough resources that I only occasionally went back to shops in between levels, which is easy and quick enough since the world map is a convenient level select screen basically.

Oh boy, you started with Mega Man 2? Yeah, that one's still got some rough stuff in it. It's a million times better than Mega Man 1, but I'd say the Classic series really only gets its legs around 3 or 4, where the Slide, a movement/dodge option, and Charge Shot debuted respectively.

Battle Network and Starforce are deck-building tactical RPGs, though Battle Network plays more like chess and is more methodical, while Starforce plays more like Punch-Out and is faster-paced. The combat in both BN and SF are my favorite of any video games I’ve played, to the point where I’ve been juggling multiple games over the span of almost a year non-stop recently and still haven’t come close to feeling burnt out. It’s like some kind of combat Nirvana for me. Starforce 3 in particular is also my favorite video game of all time, so I might be a little biased on that front.

Battle Network 1 is a rough one to start with, but then every first entry of each Mega Man series can be rough, save for Mega Man X1, which somehow escaped that trend and is widely agreed upon to be one of, if not the, best platformers on the SNES. Battle Network 6 was my personal starting point, and despite it being the literal end of its series, I think it actually serves as a great starting point due to how beginner-friendly it is and how much it offers. Pick Gregar version if you like the idea of having pure power and throwing everything and the kitchen sink at your opponent or Falzar version if you like being more focused on general utility and strategy. Also, don't worry, anything you find to use in battle is kept no matter how many times it's used. Your attack methods aren't finite.

Yeah, 80's Overdrive is very much like OutRun in a lot of ways, to the point where the inspiration gets more obvious in the time attack mode. Performance-wise, it's pretty simple with the cars and obstacles sprite-scaling on a 3Dish road, and I think I only ever saw issues in one of the stage types (the forest tracks, maybe?) where the framerate hiccups a bit. I'd say give it a shot on your system of choice if you're into that kind of game.

Hi! found your page through mutuals and liked it so I added, it's cool meeting people in here and seeing what they play

I gotcha; I couldn't remember. I usually don't buy stuff right away, and I guess I just assume that most other people do that, too; I've got stuff that's been wishlisted for years with no plans to buy it soon, but I do plan to buy them eventually. As for Real-Time Strategy, I've never been able to do well at those; I can do okay at some of the easier maps in Heroes of Might and Magic, which is Turn-Based Strategy, but that's about all I got.

It's going pretty well, overall; I did look over at that continent you were talking about Saturday night. Not anywhere near it, of course, but I did somehow become queen of the Fae? Sure didn't see that coming. I followed the quest, mostly because the locals described them as gods, and I found that fascinating. Turns out they're just a bunch of idiots that cling to the past for no goddamn reason, and maybe have some kind of cultural OCD. Very cool-looking idiots, but still. They're the one part of the lore that's really grabbed me so far, but this is the kind of thing where the gameplay is so good that I don't need to feel invested in the story.

Thanks! This looks much more fully featured than the randomizer I used.

Regarding your comments on randomizing enemies, I find it's never as great as it sounds either. I'm not sure if randomizers really look at probability or not (I did a Zelda 2 randomized rom once and the enemy generation was just a mess). Maybe a shuffler would be better, or finer control over enemy groups.

Hey, I think I recommended Shipwreck as a top-down Action-Adventure before, and for the next 2 days or so, it's free: [Link]

Yeah, X-Play 2003 memories aside (that was Tech TV though), G4 was just a channel that was all-around flawed, no matter how much they may have tried. Limited commercials for their commercial breaks so you'd hear the same ones all too often if you happened to leave it on in the background, obnoxious in-show promos that would block the bottom of thr screen temporarily (the most damning instance being when they showed a Kingdom Hearts II Li'l Mermaid segment in Japanese and a promo blocked the translation for a bit), it's no wonder it eventually got tanked once the viewerbase had begun to shift to just browsing websites.

I used to like and even respected Adam Sessler. During his GameSpot TV, Extended Play, and early X-Play days, he seemed likeable and knowledgeable about what he was talking about. After the move to Los Angeles, he had begun to increasingly show his true colors, specifically when somebody was doing a sketch in the show and talked about what a jerk he was behind the scenes. It only got worse for him during the Twitter age. At least Morgan Webb seems to be doing better by comparison? At least, last I checked which was about several years back.

Well, you know, he could've just been confirming what system 3D Dot was on. I don't think GameStop takes games as seriously as EB Games, however. Wasn't this the PS3 era? It was all about the latest team based military sci-fi, or, quite possiblye, the new, shiny Uncharted, or maybe even SSBB. Ah, the days of no X, no Y, no Z, FINAL DESTINATION!

Super Shell Monsters Story II is a cart. There's nothing wrong with the repro cart itself, it's just the way the game is... and it made me lose interest for the time being. Currently I'm all about the NES! Have you played Atari NES recently? Oh my God, girl, I didn't know you have Esper Dream 2. You should play that one! Yeah, definitely should play that one.

And I hope you had a happy new year!