Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

all day earlier today i was painting my bedroom walls a new color. navy blue. last time i painted the walls was back in 2003 or 2004. Thats how long its been.

might have to buy another gallon or a small can of more navy blue paint to finish up on some spots that i didnt get. bed is frikkin heavy i cant even nudge it an inch from one of the walls to paint behind the bed headboard

@ThanosReXXX
Oooh... That's why i got very bad result from converting Composite to HDMI.
I will try to find Component to HDMI converter from my local electronic shop as my PS2 and Wii use Component cables.

@ThanosReXXX - I knew you were, and now that you explain your situation with the original series; I remember you telling me this before because it’s a little funny to me. The original was on public TV here for 30+ years. It might still be playing for all I know. There aren’t even that many episodes, so I’ve seen them all repeatedly. I watched TNG pretty regularly, but kind of fell out of it after that.

Everyone, what are your thoughts on Square Enix potentially getting bought out?

It kinda scary, depend who will buy SquareEnix.
If Sony bought SquareEnix, it will be PS5 exclusive and their games will be more rated 18+ oriented and Too Westernized. I banned FF VII Remake, FF XV and condemned FF XVI. I mostly hate Western games for being too realistic and too vulgar / gory / violent.

If Microsoft bought SquareEnix = Worst possibility ever. I don't see any worthiness from XBOX Series X/S, the machine that still require Online connection to play Offline games, their library games are 99+% same as PS4 / PS5 so there is NO point to buy XBOX Series machine as the machine is NOT compatible with DDR Ultramix series + DDR UNIVERSE series + Kinect XBOX 360 games, the only games i want to play from XBOX machines.

The Best possibility is bought by Nintendo. It will have more games for kids like Dragon Quest Builders / World of Final Fantasy / Chocobo Dungeon Every Buddy.

For me Sony buying Square would be the worst scenario because Sony of course has a gaping JRPG-shaped hole that Square fits quite nicely as an independent studio. The support the Switch has gotten from Square is nothing short of amazing, Switch owners have been getting a number of Final Fantasy titles (7, 8, 9, 10/10-2, 12, 15 Pocket) plus spin-offs, and especially Dragon Quest XI S: Definitive Edition, which the Switch got over a year before every other console. Add the original three Dragon Quest titles, Lost Sphear, I am Setsuna, the Collection of Mana and the Trials of Mana remake... and even now it’s a really sweet deal. We also got a few exclusive games, or timed exclusives, like Octopath Traveler, Project Triangle Strategy, and Bravely Default II.

For me the most important Square games are already in Switch and if Sony buys them out we’ll lose the opportunity to get any more. Every single game I own out of the games I mention, I own on Switch. It’s convenient, it offers good value and doesn’t take up too much space. Games that are much bigger in scope I’ll get on PS4/5 such as Final Fantasy VII Remake, and eventually Final Fantasy XVI. I have no problem with the direction that series is taking, because there’s no longer any limit on graphical quality. The initial gameplay and cinematic clips for FFXVI look amazing and it seems it’ll be a very dark game. Dragon Quest is an equally amazing series but has a much more child-friendly art style and a much more whimsical lighthearted tone, and the way the series has gone with Dragon Quest XI is extremely good to see. But if these games can be ported to the Switch, like DQXI, they should be.

If Microsoft buys them, I think it’ll be very good for the gaming industry as a whole. Not maybe for non Xbox owners but good for the industry. They have a much better and open approach to gaming as a whole compared to Sony and this time they’ve really stepped up in buying Bethesda. Of course I won’t be able to buy any of their games should I ever get interested in them, but that was probably because of the exorbitant sum paid. Microsoft has a very good relationship with Nintendo it seems so maybe... maybe they’ll still let Square put them on Switch. Or maybe Square can make that a clause; no console exclusives. But I can’t see Microsoft buying them in the next two years, because they just bought Bethesda.

Nintendo buying them doesn’t make sense either, because they always bought smaller studios, like Retro, MonolithSoft, 1-Up Studio, and more. Square is such a massive company that it doesn’t make enough sense. And it wouldn’t necessarily translate to more child friendly games, just that the Switch would have priority. But even then that wouldn’t be Square’s style, because they’ve always been about making the best looking, best running Final Fantasy game, on the most powerful platform, and the most nostalgic graphical style on any platform for Dragon Quest. But all said and done my personal preference would be that nobody buys Square, it’s been great for the last twenty years so why fix something that just isn’t broken?

I wouldn't think that's at all likely, though, @TheJGG .... Unless you've heard something from good sources to suggest it? As it is, Sony pays them for the timed exclusivity deals on FFVII, FFXVI & Forspoken!

All things considered this is the first time there's been a rumour about Square with so much stock, @BruceCM... I haven't read anything other than the NL article, so that was just me putting all options on the table. I didn't know about Sony paying Square to release select games with limited exclusivity, but if that's the case their relationship must be more business-driven than sentimental.

To people who don't know this is easily the best situation as a Square-Nintendo fan since 1994, when Square released Final Fantasy VI on SNES. Because of Nintendo's choice to use cartridges instead of CDs for the N64, Square decided to develop their subsequent entries on PlayStation. Even now the mainline Final Fantasy games since 2006 have used the PlayStation first, with Final Fantasy 12, 13, 14, and 15. Only 12 has been fully ported to Switch so far...

Since then there's been a serious drought of Square-made RPGs, that the Switch has managed to rectify. It'll be a damn shame if we lose the chance to get more good games.

Since seen that article & rumours around Twitter, @TheJGG .... However, at the moment, at least, it seems to only be 'there's various parties interested'! & the few ideas I've seen about those aren't Sony, MS or Nintendo, they're banks/ investment people. When anything a bit more definite comes out to say there's been any actual talks between whoever & SE, there'll be a bit more to discuss! I certainly hope they don't get brought out at all, though

Thank goodness it was a false alarm @BruceCM... but it was very good food for thought, no?

Huh, didn't take long, at least, @TheJGG .... Didn't think they'd be interested at the moment, though!

@ThanosReXXX I don't wanna be that guy... (or maybe I do ) but Star Wars is better. At least the first eight movies, Rise of Skywalker was a visual treat at times but it was such a pathetic piece of deviation.

@TheJGG I think Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate are nothing compared to Farscape.

I think I remember that @ThanosReXXX watched it and likes it. It was sooooo good! The ideas in it were great! Even the fans wanted to find it so it would not end!

@bimmy-lee Over here, shows like that were never on public TV, so we had to wait until 1981/1982, when the first commercial channels started to appear. One of the first over here was Sky Channel, nowadays just Sky, which had tons of great cartoons in the weekends, such as Transformers, M.A.S.K., G.I. Joe, He-Man and so on. And lots of dubbed anime shows. And all of them in English, because the Dutch luckily aren't big fans of dubbing everything in Dutch. They only do that for toddler TV and for Disney cartoons and such.

Either way, besides that they did have something pretty cool over here, once a year. Well, at least: back then,
I thought it was pretty cool, anyways. Once a year, we had America Day on public TV, and on that day, we had 24 hours of a selection of American shows, directly broadcasted from the States, so old shows, new shows, quizzes and so on. I simply LOVED the retro part of those days, because it usually meant that we got a couple of episodes of the classic Batman series.

As for Star Trek: by the time we had commercial TV over here, we were so far behind the times, and what with only a handful of channels initially, including 3 public channels, there wasn't much room for anything resembling syndicated TV, so we simply just skipped the original series, and it went straight to VHS and later to DVD and so forth. My first Star Trek experience on TV was The Next Generation, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen, until we got to know the later series, some of which were indeed better in some ways, although not always. And then there was also Stargate SG1, Babylon 5, Farscape and many, many others, ultimately, so I definitely got my weekly dose of sci-fi over here.

@TheJGG First time I read that, I immediately thought that it was total and utter BS, and ultimately, I was proven right. Square Enix is WAY too big for any kind of takeover, either by Sony or by Microsoft, so unless they would go into such a pact willingly, it was never going to happen.

As for you being "that guy": that only works on losers and blind fanboys, and I'm neither of those. I also love Star Wars, although if we're all honest, that has become a complete mess by now. The movies are still enjoyable to watch to some extent, but George Lucas has lost any kind of clue of what to do with them, if he ever had any clue in the first place, because I'm beginning to think that the first three movies were just a fluke or a case of right time and right place.

So, no, they are objectively NOT better than Star Trek. The lore is far more connected (and logically implemented) in Star Trek, than it has ever been in Star Wars, and the fact that it has been running across SO many TV series means that they've also been able to work out all the back story kinks far better than Star Wars has been able to, across all the movies and the few series that they have.

@Zuljaras If by "it" you mean Farscape, then absolutely. It's one of the best alternative sci-fi shows I've ever seen in my life, and I can easily recommend it to any sci-fi fan.

However, I would definitely also recommend Stargate. And not just SG1 but also Atlantis, which was another great show, with a really good leading thread in both series, that ultimately overlapped in a pretty interesting way.

Quick question about Yokai Watch 1 3DS.
How do i get another Jibannyan ?
I have accidentally combined Jibannyan with Coughkoff (i called it COVID) and the result was look quite awful (Thornnyan). 😣
I want to get another Jibannyan so i can combine them with another Yokai and get different version of Jibannyan.

@ThanosReXXX The component to HDMI converter, right? Thanks, I'll keep that in mind next time I get a TV! My current TV has 3 HDMI ports (I was annoyed that it was less than 4, though) and 1 set of component/composite ports - I got a component cable for my modded Wii.

And yes, composite video looks pretty bad on an HDTV. It's blurry, and you see those ugly interlaced lines when something flickers on the screen. I remember having some input lag from composite video on HDTVs, too. In my first year or so of having HDTVs (2009, I think?), that's what I had to put up with, lol. That was before we even got HDMI cables, IIRC.

@MarioLover92 Yep, the converter. It's basically a must-have for people that currently still use component and don't want to throw away that cable once they have a new TV. I myself also have a modded Wii on component cables, and I got the gold-plated ones, cost me above average, so I'm not about to let that go to waste, once my current TV is replaced with a new one. (which will hopefully not be in the all too near future, because I can't afford one right now... )

As for lack of HDMI ports, Amazon has got you covered there as well:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=5+port+hdmi+switch&ref=nb_sb_n...

There's even HDMI 2.0 options in between those, although you won't need those for older consoles, but if you also have a Series X, S or PS5 then it's probably best to go for one of those.

@ThanosReXXX I should have mentioned this earlier, I ended up getting an HDMI switch along with my TV. The guy at Best Buy actually helped me out on that! It does work quite well, it has 4 HDMI ports on it and it goes up to 1080p. I don't have a PS5/Series X just yet, (though I have my eyes set more toward the PS5) when I do get either I plan on plugging it into one of the TV's own HDMI ports. It is capable of 4K, after all. I wonder if they do come with HDMI 2.0 cables though.

Apparently, they have a HDMI 2.1 port for PS5 & Series X, with the cables to match, @MarioLover92.... That's one less detail to worry about

@MarioLover92 Yeah, a direct connection is always the best, but if you end up coming up short in the number of available ports, then you might want to invest into one of these newer HDMI switches as well, because the one you have now doesn't suffice for modern consoles, and the good thing about the newer ones is that they're also backwards compatible, so while you cannot connect your newer consoles to the older switch, you CAN connect your older consoles to the newer switch.