Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Perhaps they'll announce another this year, though, @Snatcher .... Fingers crossed for you & anyone else who'd like that

@Snatcher Me too, I loved it. I still remember watching a few smaller Pokken Tournament tournaments on YouTube years ago too. It was nice seeing a small scene for the game at the time for the Wii U version.

Thanks. I originally wanted to use a picture of Poppy wearing a party hat as my birthday is this Thursday, but it didn't look as good when I tried it as an icon. So I just went with Poppy from the 2D Trolls cartoons. There was an episode in the Netflix series where she wore a party hat for Branch's birthday.

Today, I've been playing Mario Party Superstars with some good pals of mine. And I'm the super star - hooray!

@Sunsy I've heard of Mario Teaches Typing, but I don't think my school had it, unfortunately. That's cool your school had it though. Yeah, a lot of DOS games had a bunch of bleeps and bloops, I guess that's just how they were back in the day. I'd love a Mario CD of sorts as well. I liked Sonic CD too, I play through it sometimes. Just curious, what soundtrack do you like more? I think I like the Japanese soundtrack the best overall, but I like the US soundtrack quite a bit too. Sonic Boom is an awesome theme song as well.

Thanks for showing me the clip - it's quite cute! I appreciate the thought since Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie. I'd say it's one of my favorite movies in general too, honestly!

Oh and Sunsy, happy birthday in advance! I hope you have a nice birthday once the 7th hits.

@Snatcher Yeah, Mario's a pretty balanced character all things considered, and his moveset's easy to adapt to. His moves are fun to pull off too, I love using his super jump punch, which is his up special.

@Sunsy Oh, then let my say happy birthday in advanced!

The pollen tournaments were also pretty outstanding, idk if there still doing them to this day tho.

Flump

That was the sound of my head hitting my keyboard, half-dead from a busy (though good!) weekend and some obligatory yard work; bushes needed trimmed badly and branches needed tidying before I proceed with lawn decapitation in about a week or so.

@Sunsy Yep, that was Math Blaster! There were different stages if I recall, but my memory is somewhat foggy on the specifics. XD As for the Carmen Sandiego games, most of those were decent. Out of the bunch I mostly preferred the Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego sub-series that focused on history.

I'll have to look up SimCity 2000 on GOG sometime. I appreciate the suggestion! I miss the old Maxis games, though various other companies have tried their takes on simulation with various degrees of success. IMHO the most iconic simulation series after early attempts were Zoo Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon.

@MarioLover92 Hah, I'm definitely not a morning person either, but the encounter only thankfully involves one Pokemon. The funny thing is I would've completely forgotten about the guy if my OG Diamond/Pearl guide I dug out for this experience hadn't mentioned it. ILCA adhered enough to the originals that I'm able to make use of the guide in most cases. Makes me glad I keep some of those old official Pokemon Nintendo guides around!

@tekoii While it's a gimmick, I do want to mess around with Mouthful Mode when I grab the game! If only for Kirby to turn into a vending machine and pelt everything with soda cans. Nintendo-level design, you say? Thumbs up from me! I'm enjoying messing around with power-ups and how they affect the buddies in Kirby's Dream Land 2. I thought I was done with the game, but apparently King Dedede is NOT the true boss.

@MarioLover92 Yeah, IIRC, PC speaker is usually beeps and such. Some DOS games supported SoundBlaster, which allowed better sound effects. I never had a DOS PC back in the day, but I have played plenty of DOS games thanks to GOG. It's nice playing the classics that I never had a chance to play being a Mac kid.

The Japanese soundtrack really grew on me after playing the 2012 version on Steam. I do like the US soundtrack too. I also believe the "past" versions of the music stays the same across the board. Sonic Boom is a great song, fun trivia, the theme to the Japanese version, Toot Toot Sonic Warrior, is actually used for Green Hills Zone (yes, Hills with an "s") in the Game Gear version of Sonic 2. Watched the intro to Sonic CD on the Steam version and I was like "oh, I heard this before."

You're welcome, I'd figure you'd like it since you like that movie. Almost every Disney princess appears in Sofia the First, and I like Belle's appearance as they also show Beast in the lake.

Thank you, I'm looking forward to the day, and hoping to get the Mario Kart DLC (an eShop card for it anyway, you can't really "gift" something digital) and maybe a Trolls thing. Usually, I'm just happy with a game and something related to my favorite characters.

@Snatcher Thanks, looking forward to Thursday. Yeah, what I watched wasn't a major one. It was a smaller grass-roots channel that just did tournaments for Pokken and Smash. I don't think they're around anymore, but it was a small group in a room playing Pokken and Smash. It was fun to watch.

I made a recipe for cheesecake-stuffed chocolate chip cookies my mom found online, mostly because she seemed really into it and she's never into cooking, and at first it didn't impress me; the cookies came out looking almost exactly the same as they looked going in (very pale), and the cheese filling mostly just made them look like they were still raw and tasted mostly of powdered sugar. I even air fried a few of them to give them some color.

However, now that they've been out for about 12 hours, the taste and texture has improved greatly. The filling now actually feels and tastes like cheesecake, and it's very good.

So if any of you ever tries this unspecified recipe, trust the process and let them sit a long time before eating them.

That certainly sounds fancy, @Eel .... I've seen people doing various sorts of cookies, though & they do usually say to let them sit for awhile before eating them! Just pop some in the post to us

@BruceCM here ya go take one:

@Tyranexx Yeah, no problem, always happy to extend support to those who need it. I know the feeling, and it’s happened a few times in my experience but not to the point I’d deem it any kind of problem. Sometimes it’s stress-driven but otherwise it’s ironically oversleeping that means I end up waking up about an hour earlier than I would usually want. As for the upcoming essay, thank you. I’m still in the research phase, and frankly it’s extremely hard to invest time in it outside of the mandated research periods, but I’m getting there. That’s only one of the essays I’ve been involved with lately, I’ve had a lot of handwritten ones I’ve had to submit lately as well.

You put it decently; speculation is the most egregious part of a game’s development, seeing people overanalyse specific details, like… for instance… a broken Master Sword, or a slightly off-colour arm. Seeing ten minute videos on about three seconds of new BotW 2 video is borderline ridiculous. You say that cinematic only trailers are the enemy, but honestly it’s not like trailers with more gameplay are angel spawn either. Cyberpunk 2077 took the supposedly correct approach and still messed up, because of how many bugs there were in various gameplay segments, and differences in lighting, etc.

There was a Square Enix “interview” video with Darin De Paul where he introduces himself and then switches into character mid-sentence. The way his voice has this small rumble, even on tinny computer speakers, always sends a chill down my spine. He’s absolutely adoring it!

Funny, I’m listening to an Octopath song as I’m writing this part. But Octopath is a decent game though and through, with some small things that may deter less hardcore gamers. I’d guess that the people who can beat this game without complaining about the grinding probably live off of FromSoft games. As for the characters, I think their quality was pretty inconsistent overall. Some characters had a lot of depth in terms of how much they could have been given, and others fell a little short. I love Olberic but his character arc is a little flat. Alfyn’s on the other hand I adore, because it’s so natural, and very emotional. Primrose’s was the most original of them all, I’d say. Therion’s was alright, but was felt a bit typical as well. Ophilia similarly, felt a bit weak. Tressa’s was also predictable for her character. The character I connect to the most is Cyrus, and I like his arc for that reason, so… pretty biased. His writing and acting in particular are… darn good.

@Eel... those are SOME cookies. If only I could... reach through... and grab one!

Looking good, @Zuljaras .... Just got to put it all together now

@Eel What's in the middle of those chocolate chip cookies?

@WoomyNNYes basically, cream cheese frosting. But thick, like cheesecake.

@Eel I'd never seen a stuffed chocolate chip cookie before. Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Like ricotta/mascarpone mixed with powdered sugar? Either way they look delicious and unhealthy with is awesome!

@Zuljaras yeah like that. I'm not sure what type of cheese "cream cheese" is in specific though. They kinda just sell it like that.

This is the recipe in case anyone is interested! (the page is super long but right before the comment section is a handy printable version without the fluff) It was pretty easy to make, I was worried they would melt or something.

These miniatures are looking great btw. Positively mini.

Could've said this earlier, but I'm happy to see the news about those "Saturn Tribute" games coming out. The game that caught my eye was Galactic Attack, I remember watching my uncle play it on his Sega Saturn long ago. I've also played it before and it's a really good shmup - I'll be sure to get that on my Switch asap!

@Tyranexx Ah yeah I did hear that they made them as close to the DS originals as possible. Link's Awakening on the Switch got a similar treatment, down to the world/dungeon layouts and even the 8-way movement (which is...kind of odd to me). I have quite a lot of player's guides myself, as well as many Nintendo Power issues, with my first one being from 2002. When I was younger I'd browse through those guides to see how all the levels are laid out and stuff. I was quite the observant one back then, lol. I stopped getting player's guides quite a long time ago though, but I have been getting art books for some of my favorite games.

@Sunsy That's cool, I don't think I had a PC that was strictly DOS. Our Windows 95 PC from back in the day did have MS-DOS as a built-in program, which I tried out of curiosity when I was a lot younger...but I could not figure it out whatsoever, lol. I was already used to having GUIs from day one, and I'm still not exactly up to snuff with command lines. Which is ok. I like GUIs more anyway!

Yes you're correct about the past music, they weren't made for redbook audio, I think they were handled by the Sega CD's sound hardware itself. PCM audio, I think? Yeah I remember they used Toot Toot Sonic Warrior for Green Hills Zone, I didn't realize until much later. Pretty cool they did that. I also really like the Japanese ending theme for Sonic CD, Cosmic Eternity. It's got some encouraging lyrics, too!

Yeah you're welcome. Yeah, I'm generally happy with just getting any gifts that involves my favorite things. Especially Mario and his pals!

@Eel Those cookies look really good. You're making me want some, lol!

@Tyranexx It's alright, all I remember from Math Blaster was the trash shoot 'em up. Cool, I don't think I ever played the Time one, just the World and USA one. IIRC, the versions I played had a video phone where you get messages from either a robot, or a police officer named "Wanda," which for some reason I remember her name, lol.

You're welcome, I remember buying SimCity 2000 during a summer sale there. I was really surprised to find it too. Roller Coaster Tycoon, another one I played back then. My brother had the game, I have it now because of GOG. I also like the Theme games even though I was late to them, and I also play Two Point Hospital and Cities Skylines on PC. Always enjoyed these kind of games.

@Eel Those cookies look so good!

@Zuljaras Forget the NES Mini, it's the NES Nano! Looks good, but one must know, what are the games?

@MarioLover92 Same here, when my family got a PC after the Mac, it was using Windows 98. Most of the DOS games I experience used an emulator called DOSBox, which plays DOS games on modern PCs. Cool part is, DOSBox is included with modern re-releases on GOG and Steam. So I experienced them that way. Many publishers adopted DOSBox for official re-releases of classic games.

I wouldn't know how the past songs worked as I had the old Windows 95 version, and all the audio were CD tracks on that version. In fact, if you put the PC CD into a CD Player and play track 2 on (track 1 being data), you could listen to the soundtrack. It is cool they did that. I forgot all about the Japanese version's ending song. Sonic Boom always came to mind for the ending. Tidal Tempest's song from the Japanese version feels more fitting as it gives me that "trapped in water" feel, for lack of a better phrase, so it stands out.

Me too, I usually don't ask for much outside a game and something character related.

@Eel Dang those look nice! Not everyday you see a cookie with filling.

Thanks everyone!

I absolutely recommend giving the recipe a try, it was very easy.