OT: HFPens Community Lounge: The Summer is Magic

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BlindWillyMcHurt

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May 31, 2004
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My big beef with Skies of Arcadia is the insane amount of random encounters you have to deal with. But yeah, it's a great setting and lots of fun.

The Legends version rebalances that a bit by cutting down on the amount of randos and giving you more XP for the ones you do get. But yeah it's still a bit obnoxious at times like when you are just searching for Discoveries.

Getting the White Map helps, though.
 

Big McLargehuge

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May 9, 2002
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Every once in a while I'll replay an old title from my childhood. My current pick is Skies of Arcadia... the "Legends" Gamecube version. Although I originally played it on the Dreamcast.

It's... awfully cutesy. But my goodness... super addictive even to this day. And a pretty unique setting and concept. Possibly even in my top 5 JRPGs ever.

It's always fascinating to see how well these games hold up. How much is just nostalgia... how badly it's aged. This one is still a champ.

Man, I want to play that again so badly. Shame Sega is too focused on re-releasing the same few games for the 9 billionth time rather to acknowledge anything made after ~1995. Purely Dreamcast for me since I skipped the GameCube after regretting the N64 so badly. I've been slowly replaying Grandia lately, meaning the other great Dreamcast JRGP is on deck.


As for castles...I both see the appeal and don't. For better or worse, Neuschwanstein was responsible for my ancestors getting the f*** out of Bavaria.
 
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Randy Butternubs

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Mar 15, 2008
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Every once in a while I'll replay an old title from my childhood. My current pick is Skies of Arcadia... the "Legends" Gamecube version. Although I originally played it on the Dreamcast.

It's... awfully cutesy. But my goodness... super addictive even to this day. And a pretty unique setting and concept. Possibly even in my top 5 JRPGs ever.

It's always fascinating to see how well these games hold up. How much is just nostalgia... how badly it's aged. This one is still a champ.

I had Legends for the GameCube and really enjoyed it. Up until I got to one temple (?) and the game would keep freezing. Traded it in. Which was a mistake. That game is so expensive now.

Would love for this game to get a re-make.
 
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LOGiK

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Nah, it was totally walk-able for an entrance fee of roughly $3.50. There's tons of castles or ruins of castles here in Central Europe, but they're not as fancy as you'd expect with some exceptions. Kokořínský hrad (the castle we went to) looks like this:

b48cdd27-65e1-4be3-8fa1-46474eeafe89.jpg

So cool man.

Old churches around here are the closest thing to castles and since the great scandal of the church stuff started they've been consolidating / selling them like crazy.

I'd so buy one if I had 200 / 300k and another 2,3,400k to actually turn it into the living quarters it deserves to be turned into.

Super cool you get to go to those places. It's a trip on my list to do before death, of which most likely, I will never get to accomplish.
 

BlindWillyMcHurt

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May 31, 2004
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Man, I want to play that again so badly. Shame Sega is too focused on re-releasing the same few games for the 9 billionth time rather to acknowledge anything made after ~1995. Purely Dreamcast for me since I skipped the GameCube after regretting the N64 so badly. I've been slowly replaying Grandia lately, meaning the other great Dreamcast JRGP is on deck.

Yeah I never actually bought a GC. It seemed... weak. The Dreamcast was a damned revelation, though. It's a shame it kind of got swept up into the dustbin of history because it was a hell of an impressive and innovative console.

I had Legends for the GameCube and really enjoyed it. Up until I got to one temple (?) and the game would keep freezing. Traded it in. Which was a mistake. That game is so expensive now.

Would love for this game to get a re-make.

You guys are both spot-on. This game is screaming for a high quality remake. I'm over 40 hours into this thing and not at all bored so it's fine how it is but man... this game would really shine if it was polished up the RIGHT way. I think I actually appreciate it even more now than I did when I was young.

Also I'm just playing it on Dolphin. Oh and Nubs you're right... good luck finding an actual copy for anything less than "semi ridiculous." I have my old Dreamcast (it still works haha) and one of the two OG discs. Lord knows what happened to the other one.
 
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LOGiK

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Speaking of games.

They working on another Fire Emblem game? Continuing on from FE:TH, if it's even continuable or not I forget...
I know BOTW sequel/prequel covers the zelda franchise.... not like there was ever a question there would be another zelda game.

Just that those were my last two games I played and finished.


Now I see... Chernobylite or something... what else... 'The Ascent', 'The Forgotten City', 'Deaths Door' and 'Last Stop'... are all games I've been eyeing up... not starting anything yet though.

Anyone play those? Any good? Kinda obscure games... one or two may be main line games, but I think they are mostly indie.
 

Ogrezilla

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Not sure if they are working on another FE. They don't tend to make direct sequels, but I think there were a couple.

Also yes, the Gamecube was weak. But it had Smash Bros, Mario Kart DD (aka the best Mario Kart), Mario Strikers, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Sluggers, X-Men Legends 1 and 2, and f***ing Timesplitters 2. There was no better console for my college days. N64 and Wii are the only ones that could have given it a run for its money. Well the Wii plays all of those games, so that's cheating, but you know what I mean :laugh: Nothing since has come close to the couch multiplayer of the N64 through the Wii era of Nintendo.
 
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BlindWillyMcHurt

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Not sure if they are working on another FE. They don't tend to make direct sequels, but I think there were a couple.

Also yes, the Gamecube was weak. But it had Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Strikers, Tennis, Golf, Sluggers, and f***ing Timesplitters 2. There was no better console for my college days.

Timesplitters was legit. And of course Smash Bros is always welcome. I also liked Eternal Darkness on that system. But Nintendo kinda doubled down on it's bizarre choice of format when it came to media after just having gotten through the whole N64 cart thing. So I was pretty turned off. It's Nintendo though so there is almost always something worth playing.

I'm probably a tad older than you but our college systems were our old N64s that we took from home and the OG XBox with all-night Halo tourneys.
 
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Ogrezilla

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Timesplitters was legit. And of course Smash Bros is always welcome. I also liked Eternal Darkness on that system. But Nintendo kinda doubled down on it's bizarre choice of format when it came to media after just having gotten through the whole N64 cart thing. So I was pretty turned off. It's Nintendo though so there is almost always something worth playing.

I'm probably a tad older than you but our college systems were our old N64s that we took from home and the OG XBox with all-night Halo tourneys.
I played the first Halo's campaign co-op and it was a ton of fun. Timesplitters 2 had the better multiplayer though imo, unless you were lanning multiple x-boxes. I was never enamored with Halo the way a lot of people seemed to be.
 
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BlindWillyMcHurt

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I played the first Halo's campaign co-op and it was a ton of fun. Timesplitters 2 had the better multiplayer though imo, unless you were lanning multiple x-boxes.

Oh... we were lol

The sheer joy of dorm-wide free high speed internet in like the year 2001 was a hell of a thing haha
 
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66-30-33

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Jan 24, 2006
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Well, how about try something like Ferris Bueller (sp?)

Only record a big nasty sounding barking dog and have it playing on a speaker loud enough someone could hear if they were casing your joint.

I wouldn't take that risk if I were casing soft / hard targets... would you? =P
Gotta risk it for the biscuit. Go big or go home! I could put some realistic stickers on the inside of the windows that show spikes people walking by would think are real and will target other windows because those windows are guarded by only spikes. :P
 
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BlindWillyMcHurt

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yeah the more the merrier obviously, so that would be awesome. We never had that.

We did get 6 player NHL Hitz a few times though. That's a hell of a good time :laugh:

Oh man Hitz was awesome. Actually come to think of it I played a lot of sports titles back then. I play none, now.

But yeah our dorm floor happened to have a few huge video game nerds on it with shiny new XBoxes so... well... we sure didn't get much real work done for a semester or two haha
 

Big McLargehuge

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May 9, 2002
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Yeah I never actually bought a GC. It seemed... weak. The Dreamcast was a damned revelation, though. It's a shame it kind of got swept up into the dustbin of history because it was a hell of an impressive and innovative console.



You guys are both spot-on. This game is screaming for a high quality remake. I'm over 40 hours into this thing and not at all bored so it's fine how it is but man... this game would really shine if it was polished up the RIGHT way. I think I actually appreciate it even more now than I did when I was young.

Also I'm just playing it on Dolphin. Oh and Nubs you're right... good luck finding an actual copy for anything less than "semi ridiculous." I have my old Dreamcast (it still works haha) and one of the two OG discs. Lord knows what happened to the other one.

The cost of the game just makes me sad now. I bought a used GameCube after the fact and Skies of Arcadia was one of the 3 or 4 games I got for it, but when I had to fit my entire life into a Pontiac Grand Am to move across the country there was just no room for it. The following year the basement flooded and pretty much all of my old gaming stuff was destroyed.

I still have my original Dreamcast...but it's long-since been separated almost all of its cords and games, but I loved that thing too much to ever let it go. I shoved that thing into a corner of a box and it's just kept moving with me. Shame a burned copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is all that I have left for it :laugh:

I'm terrible about emulation. I got that handheld thing to help try to get over that, but it's not great for Dreamcast stuff. There's just something about sitting at my computer chair with a controller that bugs the hell out of me and I don't know why.
 
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Ogrezilla

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Jul 5, 2009
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The cost of the game just makes me sad now. I bought a used GameCube after the fact and Skies of Arcadia was one of the 3 or 4 games I got for it, but when I had to fit my entire life into a Pontiac Grand Am to move across the country there was just no room for it. The following year the basement flooded and pretty much all of my old gaming stuff was destroyed.

I still have my original Dreamcast...but it's long-since been separated almost all of its cords and games, but I loved that thing too much to ever let it go. I shoved that thing into a corner of a box and it's just kept moving with me. Shame a burned copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is all that I have left for it :laugh:

I'm terrible about emulation. I got that handheld thing to help try to get over that, but it's not great for Dreamcast stuff. There's just something about sitting at my computer chair with a controller that bugs the hell out of me and I don't know why.
Can you plug a laptop into your TV?
 
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Ogrezilla

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Jul 5, 2009
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Oh man Hitz was awesome. Actually come to think of it I played a lot of sports titles back then. I play none, now.

But yeah our dorm floor happened to have a few huge video game nerds on it with shiny new XBoxes so... well... we sure didn't get much real work done for a semester or two haha
we had like 2 of us who were video game nerds, 3 or 4 more who played them fairly regularly, and then other people who would jump in on occasion. So the Nintendo stuff was perfect. We did some more serious games on occasion, but the two of us were just better at them. My favorite was when one of the others talked shit about how good they were at Tekken, brought it from home, and then I stomped him. Even let him start picking my characters. Turns out he played "a lot" of Tekken Tag, I'd played a lot of Tekken 2, 3, 4, and Tag since I was like 11. Woops :laugh:
 

Big McLargehuge

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May 9, 2002
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man emulation is the best. Can you plug a laptop into your TV?

Eh, probably. It's a Mac, so I just assume it can't even handle Zork. I basically only ever play JRPGs via handhelds anymore though. TV on in the background and handheld gaming has been my preferred method of gaming since...I dunno, when was Kirby's Dream Land released? 1992? 1992 it is.

There's no moral quandary here, I refuse to feel bad about 'stealing' a game that I've already paid for twice and hasn't even been sold in ~15-20 years. The problem I have with emulating old games is mostly just down to the way I prefer playing games. I played more NHL 94 on that handheld emulation machine during our one round in the playoffs than I have played PS4/Xbone combined basically since the start of last year (don't have either of the new consoles, so that still means something for me).

You're talking to the one person who the Sega Nomad was purpose-built for :laugh:

Oh man Hitz was awesome. Actually come to think of it I played a lot of sports titles back then. I play none, now.

But yeah our dorm floor happened to have a few huge video game nerds on it with shiny new XBoxes so... well... we sure didn't get much real work done for a semester or two haha

Dorm games were mostly Smash Bros. and Rock Band for me...Hitz, though, defined high school gaming with friends as well as Halo did. I miss those games.
 

Buddy Bizarre

Registered User
Jul 9, 2021
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Eh, probably. It's a Mac, so I just assume it can't even handle Zork. I basically only ever play JRPGs via handhelds anymore though. TV on in the background and handheld gaming has been my preferred method of gaming since...I dunno, when was Kirby's Dream Land released? 1992? 1992 it is.

There's no moral quandary here, I refuse to feel bad about 'stealing' a game that I've already paid for twice and hasn't even been sold in ~15-20 years. The problem I have with emulating old games is mostly just down to the way I prefer playing games. I played more NHL 94 on that handheld emulation machine during our one round in the playoffs than I have played PS4/Xbone combined basically since the start of last year (don't have either of the new consoles, so that still means something for me).

You're talking to the one person who the Sega Nomad was purpose-built for :laugh:



Dorm games were mostly Smash Bros. and Rock Band for me...Hitz, though, defined high school gaming with friends as well as Halo did. I miss those games.

I'll date myself here:
Our dorm room (well more like the entire hallway) battles were Twisted Metal 2 on the Original Playstation. There was a tournament going on every couple of days.

We had rules on what characters you could be and limits of certain moves to nerf some specials

Oh we also played a ton of Madden 97 and we busted out the Baseball Stars on NES (the game where you could upgrade players' ability with money you won during the season).
 

Big McLargehuge

Fragile Traveler
May 9, 2002
72,188
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S. Pasadena, CA
Twisted Metal 2 was the definitive good times with childhood friends game for me.

tm-gif.gif

Ah, I can practically hear the 11 year-olds discovering Rage Against the Machine through the gif. I loved those first 2 and Black so much.

Such dumb, stupid fun. I still can't believe Black turned out as well as it did. That should have been the most try-hard cringe imaginable, yet it worked. Unfortunately pretty much the entire game industry went in a try-hard cringe stage in the decade following Black...it may have just been it being so early to the doom & gloom party that it felt fresh compared to games that followed in its wake. Sorta like how a dark take on Batman was once novel and interesting until everything needed the dark and gritty package.



I like stupid, fun shooters and I like stupid, fun car games...combining the two is great. Realism thoroughly unwelcome on either side for me. Gimme your best cocktail involving Doom and Daytona USA, developers.
 

Ogrezilla

Nerf Herder
Jul 5, 2009
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Twisted Metal 2 was the definitive good times with childhood friends game for me.

tm-gif.gif

Ah, I can practically hear the 11 year-olds discovering Rage Against the Machine through the gif. I loved those first 2 and Black so much.

Such dumb, stupid fun. I still can't believe Black turned out as well as it did. That should have been the most try-hard cringe imaginable, yet it worked. Unfortunately pretty much the entire game industry went in a try-hard cringe stage in the decade following Black...it may have just been it being so early to the doom & gloom party that it felt fresh compared to games that followed in its wake. Sorta like how a dark take on Batman was once novel and interesting until everything needed the dark and gritty package.



I like stupid, fun shooters and I like stupid, fun car games...combining the two is great. Realism thoroughly unwelcome on either side for me. Gimme your best cocktail involving Doom and Daytona USA, developers.
seriously, just give us another batshit arcade car shooter please. No need to try to make anything serious or gritty or realistic. Just make it fun. It would be the perfect "I have 20 minutes to kill" game for me but also be a great "just one more round" timesink :laugh:

If Rocket League can make car soccer work as well as it does, how can't someone make a modern car shooter. Come on folks, this isn't complicated :laugh:
 

Ogrezilla

Nerf Herder
Jul 5, 2009
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Twisted Metal was the shit.

And Big... I used to blast "Evil Empire" in the ol CD ROM while I was playing Quake back in the day haha.
Quake was a good one too, but Unreal Tournament was my go-to arcade shooter. Sadly none of my friends had it. Counterstrike was the main shooter we played back in the day. It's fun, but it doesn't have that RatM vibe to it :laugh:

Online games really need to bring back the community servers. Actually I think they exist in private game form, it's just all through discord servers now. I should check that out for some newer games, see if I can't find a good group to play some shooter with.
 
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BlindWillyMcHurt

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May 31, 2004
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Quake was a good one too, but Unreal Tournament was my go-to arcade shooter.

Quake as a game was honestly just OK. But as a glorified tech demo it was pretty amazing. Checking things out in true 3D for the first time was pretty mind blowing even if it looks like garbo, now.

Unreal and Quake 3 Arena were my bag when it came to early competitive shooters.
 
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