My ex somehow ended up with my copy of Suikoden II. She would have known to sell it and not toss it, but no idea if she did sell or for how much.

It’s a hot take in the JRPG/FF communities, but I’ll be right there with you to die on that hill. I still can’t believe that it has one of the highest metascores in the series to this day. I thought I was crazy when I was reading reviews back in 2000.

It’s not just the transitional load times either; the load times in battle were also so bad that they messed up the ATB. These technical issues had all sorts of weird side effects, like making anything with a cast animation worse than alternatives or making Haste the worst it’s ever been in the series. Bizarrely, the best way to avoid the action queueing was to turn down the ATB speed in the options (or to use a mod that sped up the FPS and thus the battle animations, because the ATB ran separately).

The whole thing was technical overreach on Sakaguchi’s part. Games had voice acting for years by the time FF9 released, but he was obsessed with film-making so he packed the disc storage with voiceless CG animation instead. The Dreamcast had been out over a year with its titles alongside PC games that were regularly pushing 60 FPS, but this game just had to have a fourth party member to really gum things up. By the time it finally came out in the West, we were already seeing footage of PS2 games out in Japan. Final Fantasy has never been as far behind the curve as it was with IX.

I didn’t click with the story or characters at all. Was I just so annoyed by the tech issues that it was a non-starter for me? I never played through the game with the newer releases/mods that address some of these issues, so I still don’t know if I would have liked the game. Maybe I’ll play the likely remake.

Unfortunately, NIMBYism comes into play should teens start making heavy use of any outdoor spaces, including trails and parks. Low or zero-cost can’t be the only factor in providing places for kids, there also have to be protections against or ways to assuage older persons that are being fed constant streams of fear.

In the US, since the conversation began with an American retailer? No. The larger trend in this reference window–since the early 90’s–is flat wage growth versus inflation (productivity has increased massively, but the implications of that are a whole other conversation). There was a recent, brief period of inflation outpacing wages as a result of the pandemic, but that trend has also since reversed to a small degree. New fast food hires weren’t making $15 an hour in 1992. There’s been wage growth, just closely in-line with inflation over the long term. It’s an apples-to-apples comparison here, unusually so.

Video games are dramatically less expensive now to purchase than they were in the fourth gen. It’s easy to see why, too; the marginal cost of a cartridge-based game was substantial, owing to a relatively complex manufacturing process. That marginal cost dropped substantially with disc media (with a corresponding drop in game prices at retail), and then again to near zero with digital distribution.

It’s easy to forget the negatives involved here (or some you maybe never knew as a kid). Games used to be very expensive for 80’s kids. Adjusting for inflation, you can get two full-priced AAA games now for what A Link to the Past cost in 1992. It’s part of the reason there’s so much more choice now. Also, games came with manuals because they were so strapped for storage space that they couldn’t put tutorials and instructions in the games themselves. Kids that rented games or purchased them secondhand often didn’t have the manuals available, so they’d get stuck (before Internet info access).

I agree with the others that you should look into PC gaming; aside from the occasional live service game, I’ve only ever updated my games when I want to. In general, indies are a good way to go to mitigate many (if not all) of the issues brought up, but so are quality PC ports. For example, I just bought Trails through Daybreak from GOG, which so far looks like something I’ll never have to update, I can be in the game action within literally four seconds of launching it, and it’s mine forever.

That’s setting aside all the value considerations like access to mods, full control of your save storage, getting to play with the gamepad of your choice, supporting small devs/publishers, etc. Even without diving into indie gaming, there are tons of quality AA titles around, too. Compared to a console, It’s trivial to offset the larger hardware costs with cheaper games.

Yes, it’s a light remaster of the 2005 release. Seems to be part of a larger effort on Falcom’s part to get their older games more accessible on newer hardware. Players have needed a PC to have access to their catalog.

A number of Tactics Ogre fans will tell you that the PSP version, whether vanilla or with the One Vision mod, is superior to the recent Reborn PC release. Each version has its pluses and minuses, so it’s largely a matter of taste. The port itself was fine on release, despite the recent trend of SQEX PC ports that were messy on release but were fixed later (like Chrono Trigger and Cross).

Subscribed to Imaginary Witches, thanks!

I still play the Intellivision’s Treasure of Tarmin on my phone from time to time. People would probably call it a first-person roguelike or something today. Amazing how a little randomness can give even a 1983 game so much replay value.

For actual hardware, I doubt I’ll ever play anything especially retro/vintage now. I’m spoiled by today’s gamepad ergonomics (I’d never play much Treasure of Tarmin on an Intellivision pad, woof). However, I do sometimes think about setting up some sort of hardware to play on a CRT with a wireless gamepad.

Oof, I can’t agree with this at all. Departure is one of my favorite tracks from the whole era, and the ending song was also excellent. I felt the soundtrack did a lot of heavy lifting to carry the game’s somber tone.

Notable though that Miyoko Kobayashi was on “Departure,” not Hikichi. Hikichi only had a few tracks on the game.

This isn’t an anthology like most games in this genre (or video games in general). It’s a continuous narrative, like a long-running novel or TV series. Newcomers could get on board with this one, since it’s introducing a new cast and location, but they’ll have to go back at some point. Otherwise, they should start at the beginning (Trails in the Sky). Even if newcomers start with this one, they are going to be lost in Daybreak 2.

That was Matsuda. He was replaced last year.

I suppose this is newsworthy because Kiryu’s biggest splash so far has been saying they were cutting back on smaller projects.

At this point, AliExpress is my #1 choice for anything a) made overseas anyways and b) that I don’t need right away. It’s usually parts or trinkets; for example, the last thing I bought was a kit to supplement my mahjong playing set.

In this case though, this feels overpriced for a used/refurbished model. If you were going to take on this much perceived risk, I’m surprised you didn’t go with one $150 or less on eBay or a local exchange like Facebook Marketplace or something.

Wish Capcom had learned from this, too. Monster Hunter World’s multiplayer restrictions were so backwards, and now they are bringing them back for Wilds, ugh.

I got a good feeling!

Mostly newsworthy because Matsuno said last year there were no plans for it. The bigger news for me is Schreier saying down-thread that Naoki Yoshida’s team is on the project. I was concerned Asano’s might be, and I don’t want him anywhere near this.

I’d be deliriously happy with the Tactics Ogre Reborn treatment. A similarly arranged, orchestrated soundtrack is my #1 ask; I think this is still Sakimoto and Iwata’s best work, and the PSX audio doesn’t do the compositions justice. Additional animated cutscenes and additional dungeons/sidequests are probably not happening, but like in Reborn, high-quality voice overs and something small to mix up the gameplay or tweak the difficulty would be nice.

A lot of people succumbed to fear after 1992, especially the types like Ken Williams that were newly rich.

There’s a excellent, recent OJ Simpson documentary called Made in America that does a dive into 1990’s Los Angeles police culture and the riots. Highly recommended.

Crossposting from popular posts is also a good way to promote your smaller communities!

What I’ve been running into is that even if it’s the same link, if you change the body text it won’t list the crossposting.

I got my copy in a trade with my younger cousin. I don’t even remember what I gave up, one of the later Mega Man games, I think. Still feels like I got the better deal.

The original Dragon Quest was my first JRPG, but it was Destiny of an Emperor that got me into the genre, I think. Cool early example of a turn-based battle system.