What’s this like? I’m on the fence.
Finished the main story of Jake Hunter Ghost of the Dusk today. Took me a little over 9 hours. Really enjoyable story with lots of twists and turns. There’s five other cases to play, which are remakes of some of the mobile titles. If you’re a fan of VNs or detective games, i’d recommend checking it out. The series seems super niche here in the US, but in Japan this was the 30th anniversary of the series. I hope that it sold well enough here that we get more localizations of future games.
Gabucchi is alright, it’s not as ingenius as BOXBOY as it feels like you solve many of its harder stages passively (thinking about which blocks to remove), or via trial and error (executing that often requires a very specific pattern of jumps), than via experimentation.
Basically core concept of gobbling blocks isn’t as flexible as making and positioning new blocks. The game does introduce enemies and locks and keys by worlds 5 and 6 but it doesn’t feel as inventive as BOXBOY was.
The tutorial is really well done though. For the price I think it’s worth a go.
I’ll wait for a sale 
What the hell is RiME? Rimming in Migrant Elephant? That would make me cry too 
Old Ridge Racer games and Fire Emblem Echoes at the moment. Now that I have a NeGcon I’ve been playing Ridge Racer Turbo, R4, and Rage Racer in almost equal measure.
I’m so glad I gave R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 another chance, having last played it almost seven years ago. As I’ve mentioned on other threads I’ve never been a huge fan of it, finding the drifting and emphasis on more realistic ‘grip’ cars puzzling, and the car unlocks grindy.
But really, the game is a lot more straightforward than I gave it credit for. Ironically I picked up Rage Racer because I thought that would be more arcade-like in its immediacy for challenge, but Rage Racer often forces you to grind older, less challenging races for cash to buy more cars. Some cars aren’t suitable for some courses in the upper class grand prix races either.
R4, by comparison, lets you pick a team, which determines your difficulty, and away you go. Performance in race determines your car upgrades, which all seem perfectly suited and pitched against the difficulty setting or race in the grand prix.
I think the NeGcon changed everything for me, though. The drift-type cars just feel so right with that controller. Picking an angle to start drifting, then slowly adjusting your drift afterward is an action that’s almost perfectly matched to the subtle nuances of twisting that controller.
So far I have only played with drift cars on the normal and hard difficulty teams, bit hesitant to move on to Grip cars…
The presentation is still as slick as I remember it - especially the frontend - it’s certainly aged a lot better than Ridge Racer V in that respect. Forgot how great a lot of the music is during races, and that epilogue music is rather special…
Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology on 3DS.
Wow, this game awesome. I love the music, the story, most of the dialogue, and the time travel mechanics (causality seems slightly simplified, but I’m no cosmologist either).
I found an Un-dub patch online, as I wasn’t totally sold on the English voice acting.
These shots are from around the 10 hour mark, but I’m nearly twice that now, and I’m not tiring of it yet.
Recommended.
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Playing through Dragon Quest V on the PS2 with the English translation. Great so far!
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SNES buttons on an XL?
A Super Nintendo skinned N3DS XL. There was also a Super Famicom, and NA version too (in fashionable mauve).
I picked this up at the end of last year for $135 AUD.
I liked the standard size, but was itching for the larger form after spending time with the DSi XL.
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Radiant Historia is brilliant. Wish Atlus still made off-beat RPGs nowadays, the last one was the Atelier-like game that followed RH in 2011. Japan-only.
Shame the 3DS version seemed like a penny-pinching rerelease. From I played of the demo it was the exact same game but with texture filtering applied. Did you pick up the original artwork DLC? The new character portraits are from a new artist I think, and aren’t included on the game card.
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Sure did.
Shots of original n3DS
But only for my Aus/Euro version. The Undub is locking me out of the dlc options. So I had choose voice acting over portraits.
I just moved my save over, so I’ll try it with English voices and original portraits.
N3DS XL
The 3DS version seems worth it for the reorchestrated soundtrack. It’s very nice.
I am considering the NDS version as well, because DSi XL reasons.
Awesome! I like both illustration styles but the more time-worn look of the characters from the original is more endearing to me I think.
Great to hear the audio quality is better on 3DS! I regret selling my DS copy of the game a few years ago, since my save vanished with it.
I’m currently playing Fire Emblem Echoes and Crimson Shroud on 3DS. The former has surprised me by how much it appears to stick to the source material. This is a good thing in my eyes - it’s only a tad bloated due to the RPG-like exploration from that game, but as far as the strategy and unit management goes it’s very straightforward which I like.
Crimson Shroud is one of my favourite modern RPGs, been meaning to replay it on new game plus+ but I could do with a story refresher as apparently things are a bit different in NG+.
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Kingdom Hearts 3 - I’m close to the end and so far its been fun if not a bit easy.
Zanac - This game is hard but a lot of fun.
Zanac Neo - I like this a little bit better than the original thanks to the knife edge ship.
Tiny Toon Adventures - Played through this for the great NES challenge on RFGeneration.com
Muchi Muchi Pork - A very odd game but a lot of fun. Some of the bullet patterns in the latter levels are very hard.
Smash Ultimate - Still unlocking characters.
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I have been replaying two rollerskating themed beat 'em ups I had around 1990/1991. DJ Boy for the Japanese Mega Drive I bought at a local game store that had imports. Rollergames for NES was techically my sister’s game but I ended up playing it more.
DJ Boy was never a great game but since there weren’t many 16-bit beat 'em ups at the time, I was satisfied with it. I had seen screenshots in EGM previously and was intrigued enough to buy it. The forced scrolling and skating elements made it something a bit different than the usual Double Dragon clones. I didn’t play the original arcade game (or its sequel) until later.
I sold it after a while and around a couple years later acquired a domestic Genesis copy. I was surprised and disappointed to see the neat intro and ending cinemas removed. And the first boss (a large black woman) was changed to have lighter skin. I’m guessing they thought the original looked a little too much like old racist caricatures.
Playing it today, it was okay to revisit but feels shallow. The Genesis received several much better games in the genre after it, and post-Rollergames, it lost some lustre.
Rollergames hasn’t really aged at all and is definitely the better of the two. It has that Konami polish and mixes up the punching action with plenty of obstacle course jumping. I found it more appealing than the NES Ninja Turtles games back then and still do. It’s too bad licensing and lower popularity will probably prevent it from being re-released.
And I just finished up a couple PS4 games:
Hitman - Season 1
I liked this more than all the previous Hitman games. It has more options and more “shit hits the fan” survival moments. Players wanting to do no kill/maximum points runs will get more out of it but I’m happy just to beat the levels.
Vampyr
I can see why opinions are mixed on this but I really liked it. I went the path of killing civilians for XP over doing most sidequests. I don’t know if I took the harder or easier route as there seems to be advantages and disadvantages to doing that. I was underpowered for the last boss and had to explore for a better weapon.
I’m playing a Japanese Hanafuda game on PalmOS via RetroArch. Some real gems on that platform. I’ll start a thread some time.
Interesting, there was a PalmOS emulator on webOS that I never got round to trying back when I had a Palm Pre, wonder if it would have run on there though.
I’m back on Ridge Racer V. It’s definitely much better with a Dualshock 2 than a NeGcon due to the ‘slower’ turning in the handling model. The analogue buttons of the DualShock 2 also suit it much better.
So I’m actually winning races now! With a NeGcon the game felt slow and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t placing better than fourth even on the first race.
The game does still feel slower than its predecessors because of the longer straights/corners and wider tracks, but it definitely picks up the pace once you get to Extra class. Its intended slickness in presentation also makes it a bit characterless - when you land from jumps it’s usually smooth, the DJ always says the same phrases at the same times, and acceleration also lacks oomph since the camera stays completely level. In Type 4 the camera would tilt up a bit, making it feel like your car was zooming away.
Presentation aside, though, Ridge Racer V is still a unique take on the series, and it has some mechanics which I really like. While the handling model is slower I think it strikes a fine line between R4’s drift and grip type vehicles. You really have to anticipate and think about every corner you approach in RRV, and vary your speed while entering and maintaining drifts.
The AI is fantastic as well. This is a vicious game, where you need to earn your victories, and on the last race of a Grand Prix, you can’t really afford to make mistakes once you make it to first place.