mattysaurus

The whole Enix side of SE’s snes output really needs some attention. The Soul Blazer Trilogy, Actraiser/2, Robo Trek. There are so many good games that Square Enix has just ignored (well, aside from that very okay Actraiser remaster).

Happy to see Terranigma get attention though. I’ve always believed that, had it come out in the US, people today would talk about it in the same way they talk about stuff like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound now. My personal favorite will always be Illusion of Gaia, but Terranigma is easily the best of them.

I’ve kinda peaced out in general on amiibos. It was fun when they were $12.99, but $40? Eh, I’m good. I’m game if they do more Metroid or the DK crew, though.

@Iconoclysm my proof is that near every time I play a game on analogue machines, I run into bugs that were fixed on mister years ago. Yes, I’ve submitted bug reports. The Lavos scream and FFVI texture bugs just got fixed after 4 years. Also, the sound core on the Mega SG is still not perfect, and they seem to have no intention of fixing it at this point.

The pro to software emulation vs fpga for most consumers is cost. You can get pretty great emulation on just about anything these days: raspberry pi, old computers, streaming devices, little portables. It’s wild. It introduces a little lag, yes, but if you’re in game mode and have a controller with stable lag (ie 2.4 8bitdo vs Bluetooth), you acclimate very quickly. Also, you can enable run ahead on more powerful systems, which virtually eliminates lag. In reality, 95% of people don’t even notice the lag; just look at how successful switch online is.

So yes, cost is absolutely a big factor here. I can’t even convince my friend to buy a Retrotink Mini (when it was still available) for $70, let alone a $300 Retrotink 5X, Analogue device, or Mister.

Speaking of Fractal, it’s more apple to oranges, but let’s roll with it. Not everyone has a grand (or more!) to drop on a modeling amp. Hell, my Vibro Champ, MusicMaster Bass amp, and B-15 were all more affordable than a Helix or whatever flavor you prefer, and they won’t be subject to the same planned obsolescence. I also have “cheap” stuff like a modded Rumble 40 that are perfectly fine at doing “the thing.” They all have their pros; cost should never be discounted as one of them.

@Azuris so what you’re saying is… FPGA emulates the chips.

See what I’m getting at here? They’re both emulation, just at different levels. They’re both valid, just different approaches. Taber likes to pretend that FPGA is superior, when in reality it’s only as good as its programming. And let’s be honest, I enjoy all my analogue devices but Mister cores are more accurate.

Also, you have it the other way around on who benefits who. Kevtris and other FPGA devs have significantly benefitted from all the work software emu devs like Near did for the community. They’ve admitted as much.

@Iconoclysm Taber engages in marketing fluff that you seem more than happy to fall for. Also, never said it was the same thing. What I did say is that they’re both emulation, which is absolutely true. Taber calls it “simulation,” which is just more marketing fluff to make it sound superior to emulation. Both have their pros and cons.

Alright folks, say it with me: FPGA is emulation.

It’s not original chips, it’s a processor emulating the original chips. I bet you don’t hear about how analogue systems still have random bugs and glitches even 4 years down the road. They just got around to fixing major bugs in FFVI and Chrono Trigger earlier this year, despite the Super NT being out for several years.

I like my Analogue devices, but so much of this is marketing fluff. It will be interesting to see how they achieve 4K for a reasonable price, but I don’t expect to even see this in customers hands before 2025.

Loved playing through both Baten Kaitos’ back in the day, so this is really awesome if true. I remember the tin can voice acting, but I also remember the plot being great, not knowing it shared a lot of Xenogears/Chrono Trigger team DNA.

I initially had a theory that they’d announce a new console in line with botw 2. It would be a switch 2, fully backwards compatible, and Nintendo would support both systems until eventually phasing out the original vs switch 2 specific carts Ala the gameboy color.

Of course, they’ve only got about a month left to announce that to give them enough time to market the device, so it’s unlikely at this point.

Nintendo’s bigger problem is not knowing when to jump ship. The writing is on the wall for the Switch — outdated, underpowered, end of life. It’s still a great system, but every year dev churns for the ps5 and xsx, switch will look more and more ancient.

Ideally, a Switch 2 would be at least as powerful as a base PS4. Perfectly capable for just about every indie, and good enough that you could get some current gen titles on it. 4k dlss would be great, too.

I bought the Hyrule Shield 2DS XL because I had a ton of extra credit at GameStop, took it out for 10 minutes, and then put it on a shelf because I prefer the top IPS/3D on my new 3DS XL. Wild how expensive it’s gotten.

@Magician oh man, came here to say this. So excited to play this but so frustrated that if I don’t get it digitally I’ll probably have to wait until 2025 to play it. I’m sitting on a preorder from 10/20 from first press. My only hope is that the dev signed a region exclusive deal and not world exclusive.

The Grandia II remaster was pretty close to being great, but even after a bunch of patches the game still has some mildly annoying audio issues. I never bothered playing the first since I have the PS1 original and it honestly seemed like a bit of a downgrade.

Weakest Xenoblade, and this is coming from someone who was actually a little disappointed with 3. The exploration was fine but the plot was an absolute mess, the character stories were all locked behind affinity sidequests that took forever to unlock, riding a Skell wasn’t as fun as it could’ve been since you had to worry about gas, and the UI was super convoluted. I think a lot of people look at this game with rose tinted glasses but it was an absolute chore to get through at times, even compared to other Xenoblade games.

That being said, if they could manage to fix those problems and actually offer a compelling story, they might have a winner. Otherwise, eh, weaboo Skyrim.

@sanderev it’s a flawed game with amazing music and ties to one of the best RPGs of all time. So… it’s complicated.

Still, 22 years on, it’s less a disappointment than when I bought it on release day.

@andykara2003 I think that comes down to personal taste at this point. Retrotink 5x plus a good mask is a real game changer. I’d rather use that on my oled than my crt any day of the week.

For those interested, component cables are currently the best way to get a great looking picture out of you GCN. Using a retrotink 5x, you can scale a 480p signal (achievable with pretty much every game using Swiss) up to 1440p accurately. You can also add crt filters or masks on top of those for a more authentic experience if that’s your thing.

I think the Carby/Prism is a better option if you’re not looking to spend $300 on a high end scaler though. 480p still looks good, though YMMV depending on how well your tv scales lower resolutions.

To the several people who asked why people just don’t use a Wii, the main reason is that the Wii’s component output is softer than a GameCube’s. Some of the later models attempted to correct the issue, but overall the GCN’s output is sharper. Also, personally speaking, I don’t want to have to have to swap controllers just to boot the game.

Mystic Quest Was my first rpg so I’m completely okay with it being on this list. I play it every couple years as comfort food.

I’d ditch Ogre Battle, Shadowrun, and Dungeon Master. They’re not bad games but we can do better.

Instead, add in FF2 (or 3, whichever one you didn’t mean to mention), Illusion of Gaia, and Lufia 2. For some reason, Illusion of Gaia doesn’t get much love these days. Terranigma absolutely deserves to be a top game, and Soul Blazer has gotten a lot of attention lately, but Illusion of Gaia is a fantastic title that was fairly popular at the time.

As of version 3.0, the Carby is software updatable through Swiss, which really is a must these days so that you can force 480p for much better image quality over 480i.

@Arckadius maybe but still unlikely. Anything Falcom that Xseed ports is due to Falcom doing the heavy lifting port wise. Xseed would have to work (or pay for the rights) with the team porting it to Switch to bring it overseas.

Nothing for me this month. A little disappointed, but that's how these things go. Honestly, I've been pretty happy since they relisted Super Metroid a few months back (didn't have a Wii U when it was $.30). The only things I'd really be in for at this point are Link to the Past and Earthbound (please let it be Earthbound).