After my PC became obsolete when I was a teen, I pretty much permanently turned to consoles starting from the 32-bit gen.
Getting back into gaming on my PC has reminded me how much flexibility it provides, and the amount of games that are available for cheap is just crazy.
I will never go without gaming on a computer again! 
Same, I always have to have a gaming PC no matter what for many reasons.
PC gaming is keen, i had a lot of fun with steam but i definitely enjoyed the big box days more
Yeah, PC gaming is normally digital only nowadays, but other countries like Europe still do boxes more often from what I know.
I’m like 60 hours into Astral Chain… wtf why is this game so long lol.
Actually already beat it on normal difficulty in 32 hours… been trying to get full S rank on hard mode now. I thought it would go quickly but it’s taking another 30 hours >_< a lot of it is becoz hard mode is kinda unfair and since you die a lot that eats up a ton of game time.
Hopefully I will beat it today since I’m on the final stage, but there’s still some post game collectibles and OCD stuff I wanna do before feeling finished with the game.
The amount of unnecessary bloat in Astral Chain really soured me on it - around the two-thirds mark I just wanted it to end. I think the ranking system being a product of individual segments of levels says a lot for how inconsistent the levels themselves are.
PC Engine Mini aside, I’ve been revisiting the Wii lately, haven’t really spent good time with it in a couple of years and there are still many games I want to play.
I’ve been playing rounds of MaBoShi and You Me And The Cubes, but I’ve recently spent an absurd amount of time with overlooked RPG Opoona, which I finished this evening. I’ll write more in the Wii thread, but I think the game is utterly fantastic, and one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. I wish I had made time to play it sooner because it really is a unique and extremely well crafted game, one that will stick with me for a long time.
oh yeah I hated all of that lol. When the game is fun it’s fun, hence why I wanted to do the hard mode run, but all the collection and exploration parts hampered me down. Especially since so many Point of No Return spots would just randomly trigger and cause so much OCD coz I was trying to play a complete run >_<
I still went back and completed all Red and Blue cases tho lol. But even so, Hard Mode still mandates so many side missions because some are just integrated in the story, while others are required to unlock hidden main missions >_< add that to the overall difficulty spike causing a ton of game over and restarts and yeah this ends up being a real long game lol.
Total time was ~61 hours. I got all S Ranks in hard mode, and yup again the ranking system in this game kinda sucks haha, but you do figure it out. I got 2 stages with a S+ but am not gonna go back and attempt a perfect game. I’m done with this now! Onto the next game lol
I had my fill after 6 hours or so. The idea of doing more of those astral plane levels made me not want to play further.
I’ve been dabbling in og FFVII the last couple days. I have 3 ps1’s and 3 ps2’s yet here I am playing it on an emulator with a Super Famicom controller…a combination I actually really like!
Yeah, I think I know why I wasn’t massively keen on it now, there is too much in there that I’d never want to play again, which, combined with the glacial pacing between combat segments, squanders the appeal of replaying the game for better ranks.
I’m really glad it exists, since Platinum has become a bit of a one-trick pony lately with the amount of work-for-hire it’s had to take on, but the game really could have done with some editing.
I recently got my Saturn out of storage, been playing a burned CD of Radiant Silvergun.
I’ve been really into Pokemon randomizers and fan games lately. Been playing a Fire red romhack called Fire red Omega. It’s based around actually giving you a challenge. I actually had to fight Brock at least 5 times to beat him. It’s been a long time since I had actually had to think about my team to beat an opponent.
He had rock types plus and Omanyte and Kabuto. I also had it on set mode which means once you defeat a pokemon the next one automatically comes out so you can’t just switch to a different type without taking a hit.
Currently playing: Phantasy Star II
Doing this with the PS2 Sega Ages version on a PS3 hooked up to a CRT via component cables. Pretty damn happy with it.
Is that 240P ? It’s that possible with a PS3 ?
After playing Pro Rally I was still hungry for more Rallying.
So I’ve been playing Rally Championship (Warthog developed GameCube game) in 480p using Wii+Nintendont.
I bought this game back in the day, but didn’t get on with it at the time as it was too straight.
But today, it’s really very good. I had no idea it was the prequel to much-lauded Richard Burns Rally.
Absolutely beautiful to look at, especially compared to the low poly PS2 port Pro Rally. Real true variation in theme and courses that seem to have been created as whole huge maps. Weather that changes mid-stage. Activity in the environment. Great physics. Long-ish draw distance. 60fps.
It’s 100% more simulation than Pro Rally was. To that end, it’s not as fun immediately. No driving school equivalent, so you’re stuck with low end cars whilst you earn some money to buy better cars that go faster and handle better and are much more fun.
The menu system is not great, making it unclear how to proceed or unlock various locked stages. Audio defaults are just plain wrong and the controller sensitivity default I would argue is suboptimal. Time spent correcting these is well spent.
Difficulty curve is too step early on and too easy later on with Pro cars.
But I’m trying to buy a wheel (tricky during lockdown!) before I get too much further in this. One of the internal views has simulated head movement, which should be great with a wheel.
There’s nothing like a good pokemon challenge.
I didn’t play that exact one, but I have played one with a very hard Brock fight (Aerodactyl, Omanyte, and Kabuto, all level 15/16 I think). It was pretty satisfying to finally push through those tough fights.
Pokemon Pyrite is probably my favourite challenge rom hacks which is still fair.
It’s a Crystal hack, with no changes to gen 2 mechanics. I found myself consulting the gen 2 smogon competitive strategy guides to find out what was actually good, to beat some gyms.
The main gimmicks are that there’s a hard level cap at each gym badge held, gyms lock you inside until your team feints or you beat it, and no healing items during battle.
Hence the need for actual strategy.
Good luck with the rest of the run.
Small rant> Main series games got a bit to silly for me around White/Black. Although the competitive scene was quite dynamic, without too much of the power creep of gen 6 and 7.
Hidden abilities are cool, mega stones kinda are, but probably are not.
No idea about sword and shield.
And honestly my all time favourite pokemon thing is random battles on Pokemon Showdown. All fully evolved mon’s, at various levels based on overall strength. Everything is viable, sort of.
Curmudgeonly '99 NO$GB geriatric out!
I had no idea it was the prequel to RBR either ! I dismissed this game back in the day as inferior to the CMR series due to taking notice of magazine reviews, doh how silly of me. Thanks for bringing this one to my attention as well, added to the list.
I love driving games, I’m currently playing Grid Autosport on XB1X backward compatibility. It’s one of my favourite car games of all time, not sim or arcade, simcade somewhere in the middle but leaning more toward SIM imo. It’s such a challenging game the AI is supreme they really challenge you on the harder difficultly, I find myself on the edge fighting for every corner with them breathing down your neck, intense is the word. I like it how they make their own mistakes too often out braking each other or smashing themselves to bits… just to beat each other let alone you. The sound is true codemasters, ie excellent.
Then there’s the tracks, a mix of real world & fictional street circuits, there’s something for everyone. A highly overlooked, underrated gem due to being a very late gen release.
I tried Autosport on Switch, very nice - extremely impressive port - but at the end of the day I prefer rally to road racing. All the way back to Lombard RAC on the Atari ST
Anyway, I figure I am probably going to finish Rally Championship before I manage to get hold of a wheel, so I am planning ahead and have just installed Richard Burns Rally on my little Asus PC. It’s just old enough a game to run very well on the integrated GPU. Crazy amount of mods for that game.
I am running SSAA through my Extron at 1600x1200 down to 640x480 on my VGA LCD and it looks so great. The game supports native 640x480, with some small UI quirks, but I decided to get rid of the pixels in this case.
Cheers, it’s so damn good…although I haven’t played it in years. Last time I did the FFB wasn’t working with my Driving Force GT wheel. My laptop that could run the game died too.
Lombard RAC Rally looks really good for the time. I need to play more new to me rally games. I always fall back to the goat: RalliSport Challenge 2 (we’ve talked about this before).
Any rally recommendations for new rally games to check out (outside Rally Championship mentioned above)? I have most consoles up to ps3; don’t have a gaming PC though so no Dirt Rally for me. I’ve played the Dirt and Colin McRae games. I have an old WRC game on PSP. The PS3 ones got ok but not great reviews so I never jumped in.
