@jamess I agree, everything is changing and increasingly faster. However I find it deeply and intensely depressing. I am increasingly tempted to sell everything, abandon modern society, and escape somehow.
@MontyMole The increase in toxic comments saddens me. I had the exact same hopes as you, that because we're probably all of an older age, there'd be less of that hot blooded teenage energy that leads to mean spiritedness and personal attacks.
Alas, I've seen this is not the case.
I want to continue enjoying the company of nicer elements here though. Several members are real life friends who I meet up with sometimes. So it's worth using the "ignore" button you can find at the bottom of each post. It will remove that poster and all of their comments from every feedback thread.
They will become invisible to you!
It's wonderful! I am curating my own reality!
And likewise I'm happy if anyone wishes to ignore me.
Better to not engage with what you dislike, rather than be confrontational.
Once we've all settled into a groove of ignoring people's views which upset us (it'll take a few weeks as your ignore list grows), we can then each exist in a peaceful, friendly, stress free, curated reality. 🥳
I don't even want to imagine what will happen once the AI hounds are released. I foresee a dark internet ahead of us, unusable, with broken AI obsessed search engines, AI visual slop everywhere, and anything remotely media related scrubbed due to copyright. Those old ROMs and ISOs you put on your flashcart and ODE? All gone.
Where will people turn? The dark web? Physically sharing USB sticks at underground meet ups?
@VGEsoterica
Love your work. I enjoy your videos regularly - one of the better channels out there. Ignore the haters. I frankly can't even begin to comprehend what's happening in this comments section. The internet is so angry in 2025. After that Sabrina article fallout from a few days ago I'm just putting haters on ignore.
Good luck with the downpayment and future vids. Be well!
@no_donatello This was indeed the one that deleted itself. This and Ghen War for Saturn, but the same developer. Ghen War was also ambitious - you could deform and destroy the 3D polygonal terrain by shooting it in certain areas. I finished Ghen War too - both of these are ambitious and technically impressive, but high anxiety games, even for the time. That save deleting was BRUTAL. I quick used my Action Replay not to back up saves, but simply cheat my way through. (No regrets!)
I realise this gets hated on. I finished it once with Action Replay cheats, and even with inf health still felt like I might not make it.
But hear me out.
It features a real-time 3D landscape deformation effect (caused by in-game earthquakes), which are not only impressive for the 32-bit era, but doubly so for the Saturn which is claimed to be weak in 3D.
Basically you see the entire landscape, and everything on, experience an enormous ripple effect. GMan Lives on YT said it caused severe motion sickness.
But! You gotta admit it's pretty impressive technically.
I love this game unironically.
It's a curate's egg. Some parts are wretched. Some parts are quite excellent.
I shall be revisiting it with these cheats!
The film is also in my all time top 10, so much fun. "STOP EATING MY SESAME CAKE!!" 🤣
This is what the GPS in Japan always fears, given stricter law enforcement over there.
The fact this happened in the UK is amazing to me.
Given these are Sega and Sonic games... I'll put a very small wager that maybe this police raid was the result of some disgruntled fan reporting them or even possibly making false allegations to force the raid.
I'm not saying it was, but I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. There have been so many examples of SWATing in the online community, which sets a precedent.
@Bakamoichigei Do you have a public email? I found your Twitch, your website, your Etsy, but no public email. If you don't want to type it here publicly maybe email Damien to pass on to me? Many thanks.
It sure says a lot that the “can’t gaming just be a safe space” crowd are real dismissive about things that make that same space feel less safe for others. Can’t imagine why that might be.
This is a fallacious and passive aggressive statement which translates to: "either pick a side or be classified as the enemy."
And it's exactly what I've been referring to in all my previous posts. People are tired of this specific kind of baiting.
I could not care less about beardy's actions. If his company releases a game I want to play, then I'd like to be able to talk about it without people hollering about "HE'S SUCH A BAD MAN THOUGH!"
Unless he's putting the game on CDRs or recycling old microchips to cut corners. Those are very bad actions, and I will be robustly arguing against them.
@LillianC14 It was A-levels "Religion & Philosophy" - we didn't debate bands. We explored different religions and philosophical teachings (Kant et al), and we debated all the heavy topics, one each week: abortion, multiple LGBT issues, gun control, capital punishment, censorship, socialism (free healthcare & education), the separation of church and state, etc. etc. etc. etc!
In our class of roughly 20 students, aged around 17 and 18, I'd say most viewpoints were covered?
No one, even those with extremely unpopular views, was attacked. We sat and discussed calmly, moderated by our teacher who took a neutral stance.
In fact fairly often we were tasked with playing devil's advocate and arguing against our own views, to see if we understood the opposition, and indeed understood ourselves. The teacher would often have two students argue against other, but playing devil's advocate when doing so. It was hilarious and educational.
We would also deconstruct POVs to understand why or how someone could come to have unpopular views. What leads to a particular set of beliefs? If you can devonstruct them to the most basic seed, can you then change someone's stance? Or at the very least understand why they are as they are.
This was 25 years ago but I loved it - was great for sharpening the mind! Alas there is little opportunity for such enlightened discourse in today's age.
In my final written exam I got a B grade for the subject. (Grades were A through F.)
@Razieluigi A valid point - one I make myself. Engage with what you enjoy, not what you hate.
So I mostly avoid forums and socmed. But I like WayForward. Maybe I'm just lurking following their updates. Playing the Shantae series... Oh, WF says an old game of theirs is veing re-released? Nice. Let me take a loo... Oh... Suddenly a wall of angry people complaining.
I suppose the alternative would be to cut out all online news. All human interaction? Just browse digital store fronts, eBay, and Computer Exchange?
Because it's feeling like I need to increasingly remove myself from the human element. Here's the thing though: I like to write about the history of games, and this is becoming more difficult, because in the process of cutting out all modern media exposure and audience reactions, it's getting harder to connect the past to modern developments.
I miss writing for audiences from 2010. I miss living in that era. Which is insane to be typing because at the time I thought 2010 sucked.
I recall studying philosophy in school. We'd have friendly debates about all sorts of hot topics. People were respectful even if a POV differed. Where has this cordial and intellectual engagement gone? All I see online is cancel culture, doxxing, threats, and angry vitriol.
It's why I increasingly am cutting out more and more online interaction. Ironically GameFAQs is now the funnest place. Just a few specialist boards talking about obscure game topics.
"Keep politics out of xxxx" is facile and tired (and tends to come only from those who disagree with the politics at hand, suggesting bias rather than principle).
I'd like to assure you, in good faith, that my words do not stem from bias or political disagreement. In the year 2025, I am honestly just exhausted from more than a decade of everything being politicised.
Games, specifically old retro games, are the last "safe space" left to me where I don't even have to think about this stuff. Because it is overwhelmingly fatiguing. (Old anime and movies too, but games were my "thing".)
@Razieluigi True. He's an official arms dealer. So is the British government - which is something I don't like. Every penny I pay in British tax is part of the large pot that enables this nation to make and sell weapons which kills people.
I have no choice or control over this. Voting won't stop them. Emigrating is an arduous hurdle.
So my escape from the horrors of the reality forced upon me is videogames.
I can block out the fact the UK gov does exactly the same thing Palmer does, by not reading about politics and engaging only with what I enjoy. IE: videogaming.
The fact I find politics being injected into my sanctuary away from politics is why I made such an absurd statement.
Videogaming until recently was my last bastion of peace and freedom. Just pure artistry, free to engage as I wished.
Now, however, there are extremely militant people online who will judge and attack you for buying and enjoying certain games.
It's why I now avoid social media.
I just want to be left alone to play my games. I don't care if funny beardman or anyone else is involved. I don't go to the houses or parliament or rallies because I specifically want to avoid all that annoying crap.
I just want to enjoy games.
Is that too much? I like WayForward and now I see they get attacked because of nonsense I could not care less about.
If militant political activists are going to infiltrate gaming and kick over tables when they don't get their way, where else do I have left? What am I allowed to enjoy without having to bear witness to such insufferable aggression?
I suspect most people are tired of the militant virtue signalling.
@Jackburton1985 I forgot to @ you in previous messages to Xenoblade. But I agree completely with your sentiment - it feels like Glorious Japan is the last line of defence in the culture wars. May they forever stand strong. Alas, the problem is things like "ethics departments" being set up in the Western branches, which then dictate demands to Japanese HQ, which devs then follow, thinking it's what Westerners want. (I'm thinking of Squeenix and Namco-Babdai here, and reports I've read.)
But it's not what the West wants. It's Fifth Columnists which have burrowed their way in and are now causing havoc.
This is why there's a rise in retro gaming. It's getting so you can only trust older games to be authentic to a developer's vision. There were focus groups before, but you read the interviews with old devs and it's clear that for many of them it was a wild west of unchained freedom.
And you know what? They made their best games like that.
@xenobladexfan The lack of negativity I would put down to good gatekeeping.
In 1999 for example, to go online you needed a desktop computer (expensive), a monthly internet subscription where you usually still paid per minute used (expensive), and you needed a bare minimum intellect to get this whole set-up running. So you needed to be rich and smart to go online.
People who "surfed the web" were seen as these weird nerds. Online communities were small. The difficulty of getting online filtered out a lot of unpleasant people (there were still trolls though; but less than today).
Today? Smartphones mean that everyone is now online. Including a lot of aggressive people who just weren't there before. Or people who don't like the old status quo and just want to tear everything down.
The result? A culture war where everyone is fighting and arguing and cancelling each other.
I remember in the 90s, studying philosophy at school, and we would have friendly debates in class. People with opposing views could engage in healthy intellectual discussion. There was no animosity.
Today there is no understanding. Everyone is so militant in forcing their politics on others.
Describing Web 1.0 is difficult. There was no YouTube, or Facebook, or Twitter. Everything was slower. But the eco system was better, less hostile.
Gen Z is growing up in a tougher world than I grew up in. Not just worse games, everything. The environment, education system, job market, housing market, dating scene, food quality, manufactured goods quality, news media, healthcare, every facet of society is grotesquely worse now compared to 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. Prices are also insane for everything now.
I was a teenager in the 90s, becoming a young adult.
I'm sorry you missed those decades. As someone who lived them, let me say: they were glorious eras. Better than you could have imagined, but only in hindsight. At the time no one thought things would regress. There was hope and optimism, and then... I want to say pretty much everything after 9/11 was a very slow descent into hell.
Some good moments still, coasting on the energy those decades brought, but a decline all the same. The PS3 era was fun, but I can recall back then yearning for the past - which is why magazines like Retro Gamer were able to start up and griw successful.
Even though you can't travel back to see that golden era, at least you can enjoy the rich and deep media portfolios those years created. Not just games, but films, comics, books, music, cars, etc.
I don't have SMB to check. But is that cart resting on the inner connector? Or did the studio set designer force it in, possibly destroying both?
@xenobladexfan For whatever little it's worth I agree with you. I regard older games as coming from a purer time - authentic and untainted by modern societal shifts. Which is why I love old games. They reflect the zeitgeist, which I miss. I so badly wish I could go back and live in the 80s and 90s as an adult.
From chats with friends, a lot of them like older games for the same reasons. Not only the modern politics forced on newer games, but large day one patches, on disc DLC, censorship, season passes, online connections needed to run, etc. It all ruins the experience.
Older games are devoid of this.
I find it especially infuriating when an old game is re-released and they censor it. Why?
Not the first time I've heard recollections of higher ups ordering stuff to be deleted / destroyed. I wince every time I think about this.
Not even just games. The BBC and other TV channels (all over the world) would order things be wiped so they could re-use the broadcast tapes. Meaning there are certain things that are now likely lost forever. >_<
From the XBone onwards I've not been able to comprehend any of the decisions related to the Xbox brand or MS (the same applies to its weird dumb decisions regarding newer Windows OS).
At this point, whatever the brand was, has moved so far from where I am, I don't even have a reaction. It's been over a decade now of... Weird marketing repositions and... stuff?
The glory days of the Xbox 360 (I own four of them!) have been long gone for a long while now.
I got lucky and bought this gor £40 way back when. Finished it. Loved it. Sold it.
To this day I regret selling this masterpiece.
Sure, I can emulate. But that outer sleeve, the ectra artwork on the internal boxes. The whole package was wonderful.
I wish a company would do a licensed reprint that worked on original hardware. Alas, Sega did indeed lose the data. How feasible would such a thing be using data from retail discs?
Not LRG, I don't want CDRs. But a reliable physical manufacturer.
@Bakamoichigei Duly noted! The only slight problem is I made the barcodes a little too big. I've come to find the system prefers smaller codes. So the success rate for these is not as high as they should be. And I'm too lazy to redesign them. I'm not on socmed, but I have an old Twitch account I might try pming you on (I assume it has PM).
@slider1983 Everyone who knows me for long enough has to endure it. Kind of like a rite of passage. I visited one editor's home and hid 5 tiny hand carved soapstone animal statues from Africa in various rooms. About the size of a Lego man. When I got home he texted saying he found an animal - did I leave it? I told him I'd hidden 6, and all weekend him and his family searched. Eventually I revealed there had only ever been 5! ROFLMAO!
There's also a degree of "platforming" - I liked how you could bounce between platforms over lava or water, and in some instances had to navigate a mini platforming maze. It wasn't particularly challenging, but it made the world seem more robust and interactive.
And good call with regards to emotional depth. It's definitely more than Zelda. Reading the interviews with Ted Woolsey on its creation gave me a deeper appreciation for it. He explained how they were specifically trying to make it as a means of encouraging US console owners to take a chance on more complex RPGs. So it has a lot of the RPG staples, but in a bite-sized chocolate box sort of set up.
Here's an interview with Woolsey where he talks a bit about MQ:
I bought a boxed complete copy two years ago for £45. I wanted the experience of playing through a SNES RPG without dropping £500 for a popular one.
Honestly, I liked it a lot. (I've already finished most of the other big SNES RPGs.)
I used the map and manual to work out where some secret missable items were. I played casually, maybe an hour every day or two. It was fun looking over the map anticipating future areas.
I had forgotten how nice SNES manuals were. Lots of colour and nice design. You don't even get manuals anymore! Sega's Euro manuals sucked. My Sony manuals are mostly b&w. Just nice to flick through this one and browse the many items.
It had special damage graphics for enemies mid-battle, which I don't recall FF6 having.
Music was nice.
Dungeons weren't stressful.
It could get a bit difficult - status ailments could wreck you fast!
It moved at a breezy pace. Every couple hours you'd swap your secondary character.
There wasn't a great need to grind.
It felt like a really upmarket NES JRPG but on SNES. Cute simple graphics.
I am a Mystic Quest apologist. Not amazing but chilled out fun. Six months later sold it for £45. No regrets or complaints.
7 / 10
EDIT: I can see why others wouldn't like it, but it satisfied a very specific itch I had. I just wanted a simple RPG run.
@Hexapus Not be confrontational, but they're not trashing Twin Peaks. I don't think. The quote is from Swery, the creator of Deadly Premonition - a really good horror game which seems heavily inspired by Twin Peaks (the first Deadly Prem is highly recommended if you've not played it).
I interpreted this as Swery trying to deny he took inspiration (even though he quite obviously did).
If you're a fellow enthusiast of Twin Peaks, I feel you might just really enjoy Deadly Prem 1, and the quote would carry a diff meaning and context.
Full disclosure: I've got the series but not watched it yet. I'm making an assumption just on the screenshot you refer to.
Used to love visiting car boots, or private ads, or browsing eBay, and picking up cheap, loose oddities, or the odd controller.
There was joy simply in playing and enjoying the B-tier games that maybe never got any love. Sure, mint condition Link to the Past is pricey for the nostalgia, but all the other unheard of games and peripherals?
A controller for 3DO used to be less than a tenner. Now it's £80.
Absolute insanity.
I miss the days before speculators got in on the hobby. Old games were a cheap way to have some fun. I once bought Skyblazer for a fiver. Boxed. Turned out to be one of my favourite SNES games. Now? Costs a small fortune. The only way to discover stuff now is emulation.
As someone who also freelanced for Future Publishing, I am disgusted that my work might be used to train AI due to a partnership between Future and OpenAI. (I know my independently published books are used against my will, because there was a leak about various digital books harvested by OpenAI a while back.)
My contract with Future made no mention of AI because this was decades before AI was even a thing. Had I known this might come to pass, I have serious doubts I would have provided Future Publishing with any work.
I don't agree to this at all. Sickening.
The contract had vague wording about transmission of work via not yet invented technologies, but that vague wording said nothing about training Artificial Intelligence, or alluding to anything remotely similar. I wonder if there's a case to be made, demanding it not be used?
Anyone else kinda wish they'd also done Big Trouble in Little China?
A cinematic masterpiece and the only game for it, on 8-bit micros, was beyond trash.
Sadly I doubt design conventions in 2025 would make for a good game now. I'm thinking about the original Goldeneye versus the later X360 / PS3 / Wii remake, and how bogged down it was.
The era that gave us Tron 2.0 had less bloat than later years. Essentially, I kinda wish I could have seen certain games made back then, with earlier design sensibilities. I'm not sure you could organically do that today, given devs and publishers would inherently be aware of changes in creative philosophy.
Though there has been a resurgence in indies adopting older styles of design. So who knows?
@SlangWon How is it I've not heard of this before?! Thank you, sincerely! Straight to the top of my wish list.
I also bought Hover Revolt of Gamers a long time ago, described as a spiritual successor, but I did not enjoy that. Played for a couple hours then just kinda gave up. No energy in it. Drab opening area. Just ugh.
@SlangWon @N00BiSH @retrogamer1
There was recently an update to one of the OG Xbox emulators, so JSRF runs near flawlessly. Xemu. You can mod JSRF to run widescreen and upscale the internal resolution.
It looks gorgeous.
You still have the old camera system, but it's OK.
@KingMike This is absolutely my kinda thing. Thanks for the link! I've long wondered about the GBC infrared, so look forward to going through their notes.
I just bought one. £27 mint condition. All 32 cards. If it was someone here, tah muchly.
The funny thing is, despite the simplicity of the screen, it has a stupidly obtuse abd complex set of mechanics beneath.
You can cast magic spells. They're not listed on screen, but in a manual, so you can look up F5 and see what it does and through a bewildering series of button presses activate one of the 10x function spells (they just augment numbers).
You can also get "passwords" from enemies. And inputting the 5 digits activates stat boosts.
And some cards have hidden strengths against others.
None of this is displayed. The reliance on the manual reminds me of Temple of Apshai on the TRS-80.
In 2025 it's archaic e-waste.
In 1992 it was outdated and crap.
In 1985 though...? If it had released much earlier, it would have been more interesting.
I do kinda love it.
Has anyone reverse engineered it? Because barcodes carry hidden parameters, based on how the official cards interact. (Hookshot item triples Link's damage against the Wart enemy card for example - how? Why?)
I will never cease being amused by Kinect. I immediately thought it was a terrible idea and hated it. Everyone I interacted with online thought the same.
Wikipedia says 35 million units were sold. Why? How?! Who was buying this trash?
@slider1983
I feel the conditioning goes back much further (centuries), and is a deeply rooted part of the culture and national psyche.
Two interesting Japanese phrases are (meanings copied from online):
1) "Mono no aware"
Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness or wistfulness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
2) "Wabi-sabi"
Centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.
One example of the above is a famous haiku, about how Mt Fuji is permenant, but everything else is like the temporary clouds at its summit, coming and going.
The other English speaker at the GPS, Damien Rogers, gave a great example:
Nintendo set up a temporary online thing for the Mario anniversary. They made it clear it would shut down. At the end Japanese players were tweeting, saying they had fun and thank you for that. English speakers were horrified saying they can't shut it down, they need to preserve it. (He discusses this in one of the embedded videos above.)
So there's an acceptance of things not lasting. You saw it also with the SFC Satellaview. Games which were "broadcast" and only available for a short window.
I feel anxiety just thinking about it. In Japan players generally accept this and even see merit in it. Even their Kit Kats have one-off annual flavours that never come back.
Joseph also mentioned once needing to convince a collector that it was worth preserving his collection. He succeeded, and it was preserved, so it's worth trying to change the mindset.
I'm generalising here, and painting with broad strokes, but when you dig into the history you find that the "conditioning" isn't even a recent thing.
There's historical examples of ukiyo-e paintings being thrown out and foreigners saving them because they saw value in them.
I feel like it's less a deliberate attempt at conditioning, and simply how society's norms and values evolved over centuries, due to countless different historical events. At this point though you'd need an anthropologist to examine things. I'm just going on a few shallow readings from different essays.
But anyway. The GPS are getting there, and slowly things are changing.
LOL - it sounds almost conspiracy theory-ish. The reality is, I think, more mundane. It's not like some maniac politician sat down and deliberately tried to create an Orwellian dystopia. It's more that these rules were maybe fit for purpose a long time ago, in a different age, and they're now extremely outdated, and without having been updated.
There's also a lot of complex interlinking factors.
So, firstly, here's something that may surprise you. Every screenshot of a game in a magazine needs permission from the copyright holder. I've googled a random issue of Famitsu on the Internet Archive:
Notice how every page has a little copyright disclaimer for the publisher of each game. You don't see that on UK or US magazines. Also the Internet Archive has special dispensation to host old materials, which are uploaded primarily by people in the US. If the GPS was caught doing this, they would be in big trouble in Japan.
So here's a fun game. Every time you come across a Japanese games magazine, take a look and see if the pages are giving the same copyright notice at the bottom.
There's genuinely no freedom of press in Japan.
Look up also Japanese conviction rates. It's rated at 99%. Just think about how crazy that statistic is.
So, Japanese copyright... It's very strictly enforced, and the end result is the law - by extension - allows companies to control what's published. So here's two examples:
1) Professor Kishimoto, the creator of Pac-Land and Famista baseball, was approached by journalists in Japan to be interviewed about Famista, which sold millions in Japan. Namco forbid the interview and any coverage of it. They control the narrative in Japan because they control the copyright regarding those games. He specifically asked me to interview him since I would be publishing outside Japan, thereby circumventing Namco's reach.
2) I had a Japanese agent talking with publishers to get my books translated and sold in Japan. Lots of interest! Every publisher though said the same thing: every time a game is mentioned, we would need written permission from the rights holder of that game, otherwise they could kick up a fuss and get the book pulled from shelves.
So it's not quite so much the government prohibits discussion, it's more like there's some really old copyright laws in place, and because those laws are strictly enforced, it allows companies to control any coverage of their material. And the government is slow to update the laws as technology and society progresses.
It results in some really weird loopholes. So you can't copy the files on a floppy disk to back it up, that's illegal, but you can make a high resolution magnetic scan of the surface, thus preserving all its data.
So the GPS has to deal with lots of antiquated rules, and antiquated wording of those rules, and part of their goal is lobbying to have the law updated.
I'm just scratching the surface here, but once you dig into the minutiae of it all, some of it's crazy.
Still my favourite console of the 32-bit era. If only because it had games that to this day you cannot find anywhere else, not even a similar experience to those games.
I often wonder. With a time machine and suitcase with £10 million, could one do anything to change the Saturn's fate? A fun thought experiment.
Comments 687
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
I agree, everything is changing and increasingly faster. However I find it deeply and intensely depressing. I am increasingly tempted to sell everything, abandon modern society, and escape somehow.
Re: Super-Rare 3DO M2 Console Worth Over $20,000 Withdrawn From Sale Following Online Abuse
@MontyMole
The increase in toxic comments saddens me. I had the exact same hopes as you, that because we're probably all of an older age, there'd be less of that hot blooded teenage energy that leads to mean spiritedness and personal attacks.
Alas, I've seen this is not the case.
I want to continue enjoying the company of nicer elements here though. Several members are real life friends who I meet up with sometimes. So it's worth using the "ignore" button you can find at the bottom of each post. It will remove that poster and all of their comments from every feedback thread.
They will become invisible to you!
It's wonderful! I am curating my own reality!
And likewise I'm happy if anyone wishes to ignore me.
Better to not engage with what you dislike, rather than be confrontational.
Once we've all settled into a groove of ignoring people's views which upset us (it'll take a few weeks as your ignore list grows), we can then each exist in a peaceful, friendly, stress free, curated reality. 🥳
Peace and goodwill to all. 🤝
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
@EggSlayer
It's already happening, even without AI. Internet Archive and Wayback Machine are facing extinction right now:
https://blog.archive.org/2025/04/17/take-action-defend-the-internet-archive/
I don't even want to imagine what will happen once the AI hounds are released. I foresee a dark internet ahead of us, unusable, with broken AI obsessed search engines, AI visual slop everywhere, and anything remotely media related scrubbed due to copyright. Those old ROMs and ISOs you put on your flashcart and ODE? All gone.
Where will people turn? The dark web? Physically sharing USB sticks at underground meet ups?
2025 is a dumpster fire in every possible regard.
Re: Super-Rare 3DO M2 Console Worth Over $20,000 Withdrawn From Sale Following Online Abuse
@VGEsoterica
Love your work. I enjoy your videos regularly - one of the better channels out there. Ignore the haters. I frankly can't even begin to comprehend what's happening in this comments section. The internet is so angry in 2025. After that Sabrina article fallout from a few days ago I'm just putting haters on ignore.
Good luck with the downpayment and future vids. Be well!
Re: 30 Years On, A Bunch Of Cheat Codes Have Been Discovered For One Of Sega Saturn's Most "Notorious" Games
@no_donatello
This was indeed the one that deleted itself. This and Ghen War for Saturn, but the same developer. Ghen War was also ambitious - you could deform and destroy the 3D polygonal terrain by shooting it in certain areas. I finished Ghen War too - both of these are ambitious and technically impressive, but high anxiety games, even for the time. That save deleting was BRUTAL. I quick used my Action Replay not to back up saves, but simply cheat my way through. (No regrets!)
Re: 30 Years On, A Bunch Of Cheat Codes Have Been Discovered For One Of Sega Saturn's Most "Notorious" Games
I realise this gets hated on. I finished it once with Action Replay cheats, and even with inf health still felt like I might not make it.
But hear me out.
It features a real-time 3D landscape deformation effect (caused by in-game earthquakes), which are not only impressive for the 32-bit era, but doubly so for the Saturn which is claimed to be weak in 3D.
Basically you see the entire landscape, and everything on, experience an enormous ripple effect. GMan Lives on YT said it caused severe motion sickness.
But! You gotta admit it's pretty impressive technically.
I love this game unironically.
It's a curate's egg. Some parts are wretched. Some parts are quite excellent.
I shall be revisiting it with these cheats!
The film is also in my all time top 10, so much fun. "STOP EATING MY SESAME CAKE!!" 🤣
https://youtu.be/8fbGbPwKbQA?si=R4-4THOJjXB4wO8v
Re: Rumour: Seller Of Undumped GBA, DS, DSi And 3DS Beta Carts Raided By British Police
Raided by the police.
This is what the GPS in Japan always fears, given stricter law enforcement over there.
The fact this happened in the UK is amazing to me.
Given these are Sega and Sonic games... I'll put a very small wager that maybe this police raid was the result of some disgruntled fan reporting them or even possibly making false allegations to force the raid.
I'm not saying it was, but I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. There have been so many examples of SWATing in the online community, which sets a precedent.
There's something weird about all this.
Re: Atari Is Re-Releasing Its 2600+ To Celebrate Pac-Man's 45th Birthday
@Atariboy THANK YOU!
I should have kept an eye on things. This is going back on my list of wants. Well, the original woodgrain one anyway. Cheers.
Re: Random: I Was Pranked By These Metroid Barcode Battler Cards, And Now I Wish They Were Legit
@Bakamoichigei
Do you have a public email? I found your Twitch, your website, your Etsy, but no public email. If you don't want to type it here publicly maybe email Damien to pass on to me? Many thanks.
Re: Atari Is Re-Releasing Its 2600+ To Celebrate Pac-Man's 45th Birthday
Tempted by this, but am I still correct in thinking that Pitfall 2 does not work on it?
I mean, at that price, it's not far off buying an original 2600 for use on my CRTs, and that def will work with Pitfall 2.
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
@theconstellationiris
It sure says a lot that the “can’t gaming just be a safe space” crowd are real dismissive about things that make that same space feel less safe for others. Can’t imagine why that might be.
This is a fallacious and passive aggressive statement which translates to: "either pick a side or be classified as the enemy."
And it's exactly what I've been referring to in all my previous posts. People are tired of this specific kind of baiting.
I could not care less about beardy's actions. If his company releases a game I want to play, then I'd like to be able to talk about it without people hollering about "HE'S SUCH A BAD MAN THOUGH!"
Unless he's putting the game on CDRs or recycling old microchips to cut corners. Those are very bad actions, and I will be robustly arguing against them.
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
@LillianC14
It was A-levels "Religion & Philosophy" - we didn't debate bands. We explored different religions and philosophical teachings (Kant et al), and we debated all the heavy topics, one each week: abortion, multiple LGBT issues, gun control, capital punishment, censorship, socialism (free healthcare & education), the separation of church and state, etc. etc. etc. etc!
In our class of roughly 20 students, aged around 17 and 18, I'd say most viewpoints were covered?
No one, even those with extremely unpopular views, was attacked. We sat and discussed calmly, moderated by our teacher who took a neutral stance.
In fact fairly often we were tasked with playing devil's advocate and arguing against our own views, to see if we understood the opposition, and indeed understood ourselves. The teacher would often have two students argue against other, but playing devil's advocate when doing so. It was hilarious and educational.
We would also deconstruct POVs to understand why or how someone could come to have unpopular views. What leads to a particular set of beliefs? If you can devonstruct them to the most basic seed, can you then change someone's stance? Or at the very least understand why they are as they are.
This was 25 years ago but I loved it - was great for sharpening the mind! Alas there is little opportunity for such enlightened discourse in today's age.
In my final written exam I got a B grade for the subject. (Grades were A through F.)
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
@Razieluigi
A valid point - one I make myself. Engage with what you enjoy, not what you hate.
So I mostly avoid forums and socmed. But I like WayForward. Maybe I'm just lurking following their updates. Playing the Shantae series... Oh, WF says an old game of theirs is veing re-released? Nice. Let me take a loo... Oh... Suddenly a wall of angry people complaining.
I suppose the alternative would be to cut out all online news. All human interaction? Just browse digital store fronts, eBay, and Computer Exchange?
Because it's feeling like I need to increasingly remove myself from the human element. Here's the thing though: I like to write about the history of games, and this is becoming more difficult, because in the process of cutting out all modern media exposure and audience reactions, it's getting harder to connect the past to modern developments.
I miss writing for audiences from 2010. I miss living in that era. Which is insane to be typing because at the time I thought 2010 sucked.
I recall studying philosophy in school. We'd have friendly debates about all sorts of hot topics. People were respectful even if a POV differed. Where has this cordial and intellectual engagement gone? All I see online is cancel culture, doxxing, threats, and angry vitriol.
It's why I increasingly am cutting out more and more online interaction. Ironically GameFAQs is now the funnest place. Just a few specialist boards talking about obscure game topics.
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
@Razieluigi
"Keep politics out of xxxx" is facile and tired (and tends to come only from those who disagree with the politics at hand, suggesting bias rather than principle).
I'd like to assure you, in good faith, that my words do not stem from bias or political disagreement. In the year 2025, I am honestly just exhausted from more than a decade of everything being politicised.
Games, specifically old retro games, are the last "safe space" left to me where I don't even have to think about this stuff. Because it is overwhelmingly fatiguing. (Old anime and movies too, but games were my "thing".)
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
@Razieluigi
True. He's an official arms dealer. So is the British government - which is something I don't like. Every penny I pay in British tax is part of the large pot that enables this nation to make and sell weapons which kills people.
I have no choice or control over this. Voting won't stop them. Emigrating is an arduous hurdle.
So my escape from the horrors of the reality forced upon me is videogames.
I can block out the fact the UK gov does exactly the same thing Palmer does, by not reading about politics and engaging only with what I enjoy. IE: videogaming.
The fact I find politics being injected into my sanctuary away from politics is why I made such an absurd statement.
Videogaming until recently was my last bastion of peace and freedom. Just pure artistry, free to engage as I wished.
Now, however, there are extremely militant people online who will judge and attack you for buying and enjoying certain games.
It's why I now avoid social media.
I just want to be left alone to play my games. I don't care if funny beardman or anyone else is involved. I don't go to the houses or parliament or rallies because I specifically want to avoid all that annoying crap.
I just want to enjoy games.
Is that too much? I like WayForward and now I see they get attacked because of nonsense I could not care less about.
If militant political activists are going to infiltrate gaming and kick over tables when they don't get their way, where else do I have left? What am I allowed to enjoy without having to bear witness to such insufferable aggression?
I suspect most people are tired of the militant virtue signalling.
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
@jamess
My reaction too. Why does everyone care so much about some dude with a goatee. You want the game? Buy the game.
I stand with jamess ✊
Keep politics out of gaming.
Re: BBC Recently Covered The Rise Of Retro Gaming - See If You Can Spot The Problem
@Jackburton1985
I forgot to @ you in previous messages to Xenoblade. But I agree completely with your sentiment - it feels like Glorious Japan is the last line of defence in the culture wars. May they forever stand strong. Alas, the problem is things like "ethics departments" being set up in the Western branches, which then dictate demands to Japanese HQ, which devs then follow, thinking it's what Westerners want. (I'm thinking of Squeenix and Namco-Babdai here, and reports I've read.)
But it's not what the West wants. It's Fifth Columnists which have burrowed their way in and are now causing havoc.
This is why there's a rise in retro gaming. It's getting so you can only trust older games to be authentic to a developer's vision. There were focus groups before, but you read the interviews with old devs and it's clear that for many of them it was a wild west of unchained freedom.
And you know what? They made their best games like that.
Re: BBC Recently Covered The Rise Of Retro Gaming - See If You Can Spot The Problem
@xenobladexfan
The lack of negativity I would put down to good gatekeeping.
In 1999 for example, to go online you needed a desktop computer (expensive), a monthly internet subscription where you usually still paid per minute used (expensive), and you needed a bare minimum intellect to get this whole set-up running. So you needed to be rich and smart to go online.
People who "surfed the web" were seen as these weird nerds. Online communities were small. The difficulty of getting online filtered out a lot of unpleasant people (there were still trolls though; but less than today).
Today? Smartphones mean that everyone is now online. Including a lot of aggressive people who just weren't there before. Or people who don't like the old status quo and just want to tear everything down.
The result? A culture war where everyone is fighting and arguing and cancelling each other.
I remember in the 90s, studying philosophy at school, and we would have friendly debates in class. People with opposing views could engage in healthy intellectual discussion. There was no animosity.
Today there is no understanding. Everyone is so militant in forcing their politics on others.
Describing Web 1.0 is difficult. There was no YouTube, or Facebook, or Twitter. Everything was slower. But the eco system was better, less hostile.
Gen Z is growing up in a tougher world than I grew up in. Not just worse games, everything. The environment, education system, job market, housing market, dating scene, food quality, manufactured goods quality, news media, healthcare, every facet of society is grotesquely worse now compared to 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. Prices are also insane for everything now.
Is it any wonder retro games are so popular?
Humanity yearns for better days!
Re: BBC Recently Covered The Rise Of Retro Gaming - See If You Can Spot The Problem
@xenobladexfan
You weren't born yet back then?
I was a teenager in the 90s, becoming a young adult.
I'm sorry you missed those decades. As someone who lived them, let me say: they were glorious eras. Better than you could have imagined, but only in hindsight. At the time no one thought things would regress. There was hope and optimism, and then... I want to say pretty much everything after 9/11 was a very slow descent into hell.
Some good moments still, coasting on the energy those decades brought, but a decline all the same. The PS3 era was fun, but I can recall back then yearning for the past - which is why magazines like Retro Gamer were able to start up and griw successful.
Even though you can't travel back to see that golden era, at least you can enjoy the rich and deep media portfolios those years created. Not just games, but films, comics, books, music, cars, etc.
Re: BBC Recently Covered The Rise Of Retro Gaming - See If You Can Spot The Problem
I don't have SMB to check. But is that cart resting on the inner connector? Or did the studio set designer force it in, possibly destroying both?
@xenobladexfan
For whatever little it's worth I agree with you. I regard older games as coming from a purer time - authentic and untainted by modern societal shifts. Which is why I love old games. They reflect the zeitgeist, which I miss. I so badly wish I could go back and live in the 80s and 90s as an adult.
From chats with friends, a lot of them like older games for the same reasons. Not only the modern politics forced on newer games, but large day one patches, on disc DLC, censorship, season passes, online connections needed to run, etc. It all ruins the experience.
Older games are devoid of this.
I find it especially infuriating when an old game is re-released and they censor it. Why?
Re: "They Told Me To Destroy It" - Fallout Creator Explains Why He's "Mad" About Game Preservation Being Ignored
Not the first time I've heard recollections of higher ups ordering stuff to be deleted / destroyed. I wince every time I think about this.
Not even just games. The BBC and other TV channels (all over the world) would order things be wiped so they could re-use the broadcast tapes. Meaning there are certain things that are now likely lost forever. >_<
Re: Mario Kart 64's Fanmade Dreamcast Port Will Feature An Appearance From A Familiar Blue Hedgehog
Aww. I liked Toad.
Hopefully they rig it so you can access Sonic from the character menu by pushing a special button or something.
Re: "The Xbox Project Has Failed" - Picking Up The Pieces After Microsoft's Darkest Day In Gaming
@chucksneed
So firing staff and then importing cheaper foreign workers?
Re: "The Xbox Project Has Failed" - Picking Up The Pieces After Microsoft's Darkest Day In Gaming
From the XBone onwards I've not been able to comprehend any of the decisions related to the Xbox brand or MS (the same applies to its weird dumb decisions regarding newer Windows OS).
At this point, whatever the brand was, has moved so far from where I am, I don't even have a reaction. It's been over a decade now of... Weird marketing repositions and... stuff?
The glory days of the Xbox 360 (I own four of them!) have been long gone for a long while now.
Re: CIBSunday: Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)
I got lucky and bought this gor £40 way back when. Finished it. Loved it. Sold it.
To this day I regret selling this masterpiece.
Sure, I can emulate. But that outer sleeve, the ectra artwork on the internal boxes. The whole package was wonderful.
I wish a company would do a licensed reprint that worked on original hardware. Alas, Sega did indeed lose the data. How feasible would such a thing be using data from retail discs?
Not LRG, I don't want CDRs. But a reliable physical manufacturer.
Re: Random: I Was Pranked By These Metroid Barcode Battler Cards, And Now I Wish They Were Legit
@Bakamoichigei
Duly noted! The only slight problem is I made the barcodes a little too big. I've come to find the system prefers smaller codes. So the success rate for these is not as high as they should be. And I'm too lazy to redesign them. I'm not on socmed, but I have an old Twitch account I might try pming you on (I assume it has PM).
@slider1983
Everyone who knows me for long enough has to endure it. Kind of like a rite of passage. I visited one editor's home and hid 5 tiny hand carved soapstone animal statues from Africa in various rooms. About the size of a Lego man. When I got home he texted saying he found an animal - did I leave it? I told him I'd hidden 6, and all weekend him and his family searched. Eventually I revealed there had only ever been 5! ROFLMAO!
Re: 'Final Fantasy Mystic Quest' Could Soon Be Playable On Your Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
@KainXavier
High-five fellow MQ enthusiast! o/
There's also a degree of "platforming" - I liked how you could bounce between platforms over lava or water, and in some instances had to navigate a mini platforming maze. It wasn't particularly challenging, but it made the world seem more robust and interactive.
And good call with regards to emotional depth. It's definitely more than Zelda. Reading the interviews with Ted Woolsey on its creation gave me a deeper appreciation for it. He explained how they were specifically trying to make it as a means of encouraging US console owners to take a chance on more complex RPGs. So it has a lot of the RPG staples, but in a bite-sized chocolate box sort of set up.
Here's an interview with Woolsey where he talks a bit about MQ:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090904042649/https://hg101.kontek.net/localization/localization2.htm
Re: 'Final Fantasy Mystic Quest' Could Soon Be Playable On Your Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
@Deuteros
The sad thing is the paper and inks are not even that expensive given the ratio of how much the overall game now costs.
Modern gaming has lost its way.
Re: 'Final Fantasy Mystic Quest' Could Soon Be Playable On Your Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
@The_Nintend_Pedant @jygsaw
I bought a boxed complete copy two years ago for £45. I wanted the experience of playing through a SNES RPG without dropping £500 for a popular one.
Honestly, I liked it a lot. (I've already finished most of the other big SNES RPGs.)
I used the map and manual to work out where some secret missable items were. I played casually, maybe an hour every day or two. It was fun looking over the map anticipating future areas.
I had forgotten how nice SNES manuals were. Lots of colour and nice design. You don't even get manuals anymore! Sega's Euro manuals sucked. My Sony manuals are mostly b&w. Just nice to flick through this one and browse the many items.
It had special damage graphics for enemies mid-battle, which I don't recall FF6 having.
Music was nice.
Dungeons weren't stressful.
It could get a bit difficult - status ailments could wreck you fast!
It moved at a breezy pace. Every couple hours you'd swap your secondary character.
There wasn't a great need to grind.
It felt like a really upmarket NES JRPG but on SNES. Cute simple graphics.
I am a Mystic Quest apologist. Not amazing but chilled out fun. Six months later sold it for £45. No regrets or complaints.
7 / 10
EDIT: I can see why others wouldn't like it, but it satisfied a very specific itch I had. I just wanted a simple RPG run.
Re: Physical Collectors "Should Plug In" Switch, 3DS And Vita Game Cards "Every 5-10 Years" To Avoid Data Loss
Nothing like a little existential dread!
I knew this about SD cards, since they'll lose data you saved to them if they don't get power periodically. (One of my ODE cards died like this.)
But I assumed modern games were safe.
NOTHING is safe.
Except maybe ROM chip based cartridges?
Re: This Mech-Based 3DO Adventure From The Studio Behind Clock Tower Is Now Available In English
I played this briefly and concluded it was better to wait for a patch that would likely never arrive.
I was wrong!
That day arrived!
That day is: TODAY!
I'd update my 3DO ODE right now, but it's getting repaired.
Re: Review: Terrorbytes Is An Ambitious Horror Game Doc That Is Unlike Anything Else I've Seen
@Hexapus
Not be confrontational, but they're not trashing Twin Peaks. I don't think. The quote is from Swery, the creator of Deadly Premonition - a really good horror game which seems heavily inspired by Twin Peaks (the first Deadly Prem is highly recommended if you've not played it).
I interpreted this as Swery trying to deny he took inspiration (even though he quite obviously did).
If you're a fellow enthusiast of Twin Peaks, I feel you might just really enjoy Deadly Prem 1, and the quote would carry a diff meaning and context.
Full disclosure: I've got the series but not watched it yet. I'm making an assumption just on the screenshot you refer to.
Re: "People Love This Stuff. It Just Means The Market Got Overheated" - How COVID Created A Retro Gaming Bubble
I yearn for a crash.
Used to love visiting car boots, or private ads, or browsing eBay, and picking up cheap, loose oddities, or the odd controller.
There was joy simply in playing and enjoying the B-tier games that maybe never got any love. Sure, mint condition Link to the Past is pricey for the nostalgia, but all the other unheard of games and peripherals?
A controller for 3DO used to be less than a tenner. Now it's £80.
Absolute insanity.
I miss the days before speculators got in on the hobby. Old games were a cheap way to have some fun. I once bought Skyblazer for a fiver. Boxed. Turned out to be one of my favourite SNES games. Now? Costs a small fortune. The only way to discover stuff now is emulation.
A sad state of affairs.
Re: ChatGPT Translated An Article About Space Harrier, Then Suggested "Tailoring" It For Retro Gamer
As someone who also freelanced for Future Publishing, I am disgusted that my work might be used to train AI due to a partnership between Future and OpenAI. (I know my independently published books are used against my will, because there was a leak about various digital books harvested by OpenAI a while back.)
My contract with Future made no mention of AI because this was decades before AI was even a thing. Had I known this might come to pass, I have serious doubts I would have provided Future Publishing with any work.
I don't agree to this at all. Sickening.
The contract had vague wording about transmission of work via not yet invented technologies, but that vague wording said nothing about training Artificial Intelligence, or alluding to anything remotely similar. I wonder if there's a case to be made, demanding it not be used?
Re: Here's Our First Look At Compile & M2's New Aleste / Zanac Crossover 'Zaleste'
I was secretly hoping they'd name it Alan.
Re: "I Would Have Slaughtered Goats To Make That Happen" - Ex-Monolith Staff On Mœbius & The Tron Sequel That Time Forgot
Anyone else kinda wish they'd also done Big Trouble in Little China?
A cinematic masterpiece and the only game for it, on 8-bit micros, was beyond trash.
Sadly I doubt design conventions in 2025 would make for a good game now. I'm thinking about the original Goldeneye versus the later X360 / PS3 / Wii remake, and how bogged down it was.
The era that gave us Tron 2.0 had less bloat than later years. Essentially, I kinda wish I could have seen certain games made back then, with earlier design sensibilities. I'm not sure you could organically do that today, given devs and publishers would inherently be aware of changes in creative philosophy.
Though there has been a resurgence in indies adopting older styles of design. So who knows?
Re: ThemSkates To Celebrate Jet Set Radio's 25th Anniversary With Stylish New Merch
@SlangWon
How is it I've not heard of this before?! Thank you, sincerely! Straight to the top of my wish list.
I also bought Hover Revolt of Gamers a long time ago, described as a spiritual successor, but I did not enjoy that. Played for a couple hours then just kinda gave up. No energy in it. Drab opening area. Just ugh.
Re: ThemSkates To Celebrate Jet Set Radio's 25th Anniversary With Stylish New Merch
@SlangWon @N00BiSH @retrogamer1
There was recently an update to one of the OG Xbox emulators, so JSRF runs near flawlessly. Xemu. You can mod JSRF to run widescreen and upscale the internal resolution.
It looks gorgeous.
You still have the old camera system, but it's OK.
Re: This Handy New Extender Will Let You Use Your GBA E-Reader With The Analogue Pocket
@KingMike
This is absolutely my kinda thing. Thanks for the link! I've long wondered about the GBC infrared, so look forward to going through their notes.
Re: This New Game Boy Camera Tool Will Make Managing Your Photos Significantly Easier
@Razieluigi Good points regarding the ROM thing. How mysterious.
Re: This New Game Boy Camera Tool Will Make Managing Your Photos Significantly Easier
How would one extract the SRAM from a real GB Camera? Can I do this with my Analogue Pocket? Is that a thing?
Re: This Handy New Extender Will Let You Use Your GBA E-Reader With The Analogue Pocket
Barcode Battler Analogue Pocket Core presumably to follow soon after!
Re: Barcode Battler, The Early '90s Classic That's So Crap, It's Almost Cool
I just bought one. £27 mint condition. All 32 cards. If it was someone here, tah muchly.
The funny thing is, despite the simplicity of the screen, it has a stupidly obtuse abd complex set of mechanics beneath.
You can cast magic spells. They're not listed on screen, but in a manual, so you can look up F5 and see what it does and through a bewildering series of button presses activate one of the 10x function spells (they just augment numbers).
You can also get "passwords" from enemies. And inputting the 5 digits activates stat boosts.
And some cards have hidden strengths against others.
None of this is displayed. The reliance on the manual reminds me of Temple of Apshai on the TRS-80.
In 2025 it's archaic e-waste.
In 1992 it was outdated and crap.
In 1985 though...? If it had released much earlier, it would have been more interesting.
I do kinda love it.
Has anyone reverse engineered it? Because barcodes carry hidden parameters, based on how the official cards interact. (Hookshot item triples Link's damage against the Wart enemy card for example - how? Why?)
Re: Peter Molyneux's Most Infamous Cancelled Game Would Have Allowed Players "To Hang Out With Someone That Loves You"
@HoyeBoye
It was. No one I knew liked it, yet they doubled down on pushing it.
Before it became a mandatory inclusion it sold like 6 mil I think?
Re: Barcode Battler, The Early '90s Classic That's So Crap, It's Almost Cool
What an intro! 🤣 (I think we all knew a dubious house like that...)
I've been wanting to drop the hammer on a Barcode Battler for ages now. They're about £25. But so many are missing cards.
Also... The idea is probably cooler than the reality.
I do want to play that Zelda game though.
I really like the idea behind the BCB. If it could have generated simple graphics it might have worked better.
The concept was better realised with:
1) Ultraman on N64, where GB carts and the transfer pak would generate characters
2) Monster Rancher (PS1), where CDs would generate monsters
3) Vib Ribbon (PS1), musics CDs generated levels
I'm just fascinated by the idea of other objects in the world creating the gameplay inside your game, depending on what you put in.
There was a PC game called Virus (I think?), which was supposed to create levels based on your HDD data, but it never really worked as advertised.
Re: Peter Molyneux's Most Infamous Cancelled Game Would Have Allowed Players "To Hang Out With Someone That Loves You"
I guess I'm still salty about what they did to Steel Battalion.
Re: Peter Molyneux's Most Infamous Cancelled Game Would Have Allowed Players "To Hang Out With Someone That Loves You"
I will never cease being amused by Kinect. I immediately thought it was a terrible idea and hated it. Everyone I interacted with online thought the same.
Wikipedia says 35 million units were sold. Why? How?! Who was buying this trash?
Re: Japan's Game Preservation Society Is Safe For Now, And It's All Thanks To You
@slider1983
I feel the conditioning goes back much further (centuries), and is a deeply rooted part of the culture and national psyche.
Two interesting Japanese phrases are (meanings copied from online):
1) "Mono no aware"
Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness or wistfulness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
2) "Wabi-sabi"
Centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.
One example of the above is a famous haiku, about how Mt Fuji is permenant, but everything else is like the temporary clouds at its summit, coming and going.
The other English speaker at the GPS, Damien Rogers, gave a great example:
Nintendo set up a temporary online thing for the Mario anniversary. They made it clear it would shut down. At the end Japanese players were tweeting, saying they had fun and thank you for that. English speakers were horrified saying they can't shut it down, they need to preserve it. (He discusses this in one of the embedded videos above.)
So there's an acceptance of things not lasting. You saw it also with the SFC Satellaview. Games which were "broadcast" and only available for a short window.
I feel anxiety just thinking about it. In Japan players generally accept this and even see merit in it. Even their Kit Kats have one-off annual flavours that never come back.
Joseph also mentioned once needing to convince a collector that it was worth preserving his collection. He succeeded, and it was preserved, so it's worth trying to change the mindset.
I'm generalising here, and painting with broad strokes, but when you dig into the history you find that the "conditioning" isn't even a recent thing.
There's historical examples of ukiyo-e paintings being thrown out and foreigners saving them because they saw value in them.
I feel like it's less a deliberate attempt at conditioning, and simply how society's norms and values evolved over centuries, due to countless different historical events. At this point though you'd need an anthropologist to examine things. I'm just going on a few shallow readings from different essays.
But anyway. The GPS are getting there, and slowly things are changing.
Re: Japan's Game Preservation Society Is Safe For Now, And It's All Thanks To You
@slider1983 @gingerbeardman
LOL - it sounds almost conspiracy theory-ish. The reality is, I think, more mundane. It's not like some maniac politician sat down and deliberately tried to create an Orwellian dystopia. It's more that these rules were maybe fit for purpose a long time ago, in a different age, and they're now extremely outdated, and without having been updated.
There's also a lot of complex interlinking factors.
So, firstly, here's something that may surprise you. Every screenshot of a game in a magazine needs permission from the copyright holder. I've googled a random issue of Famitsu on the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/weekly-famitsu-no.-211-january-1st-1993/Weekly%20Famitsu%20-%20No.%20211%20January%201st%201993/page/n49/mode/2up?view=theater
Notice how every page has a little copyright disclaimer for the publisher of each game. You don't see that on UK or US magazines. Also the Internet Archive has special dispensation to host old materials, which are uploaded primarily by people in the US. If the GPS was caught doing this, they would be in big trouble in Japan.
So here's a fun game. Every time you come across a Japanese games magazine, take a look and see if the pages are giving the same copyright notice at the bottom.
There's genuinely no freedom of press in Japan.
Look up also Japanese conviction rates. It's rated at 99%. Just think about how crazy that statistic is.
So, Japanese copyright... It's very strictly enforced, and the end result is the law - by extension - allows companies to control what's published. So here's two examples:
1) Professor Kishimoto, the creator of Pac-Land and Famista baseball, was approached by journalists in Japan to be interviewed about Famista, which sold millions in Japan. Namco forbid the interview and any coverage of it. They control the narrative in Japan because they control the copyright regarding those games. He specifically asked me to interview him since I would be publishing outside Japan, thereby circumventing Namco's reach.
2) I had a Japanese agent talking with publishers to get my books translated and sold in Japan. Lots of interest! Every publisher though said the same thing: every time a game is mentioned, we would need written permission from the rights holder of that game, otherwise they could kick up a fuss and get the book pulled from shelves.
So it's not quite so much the government prohibits discussion, it's more like there's some really old copyright laws in place, and because those laws are strictly enforced, it allows companies to control any coverage of their material. And the government is slow to update the laws as technology and society progresses.
It results in some really weird loopholes. So you can't copy the files on a floppy disk to back it up, that's illegal, but you can make a high resolution magnetic scan of the surface, thus preserving all its data.
So the GPS has to deal with lots of antiquated rules, and antiquated wording of those rules, and part of their goal is lobbying to have the law updated.
I'm just scratching the surface here, but once you dig into the minutiae of it all, some of it's crazy.
Re: 30 Years Ago, Sega Took Its Biggest Gamble With Saturn And Failed
The Saturn outsold the N64. In Japan anyway.
Still my favourite console of the 32-bit era. If only because it had games that to this day you cannot find anywhere else, not even a similar experience to those games.
I often wonder. With a time machine and suitcase with £10 million, could one do anything to change the Saturn's fate? A fun thought experiment.