YouGotPlayed

@Sketcz Nah, sadly nothing else at least for now. But I'm gonna search around on YT and see if the video which covered it pops back up into my feed. Maybe I'll get lucky xD

@Sketcz No, not them, tho now I must thank you for showing me a creator I did not know of until now xD.

The one I was thinking of had a different visual style, more lie what you'd of expected 2D-wise from Treasure or SNK in the '00s, or Irem as another comparison. If I ever come across the game again, I'll post in a reply here.

@Sketcz Yeah regarding doujin stuff, I remember one Japanese dude in the '00s who made a side-scrolling 2D action game inspired by Ikaruga. I believe there's a Youtube video about it, might've been the F T B channel, or another like it.

I remember seeing the footage and just thought of how incredible it looked, and the game mechanics were super in-depth and slick, just like a commercial Treasure game from the late '90s, but made by one Japanese guy. And visually, it looked a lot like a proper commercial release too, like something that would've released for the Saturn or Neo Geo back in the late '90s.

I genuinely can't say that of most 2D indie games that come out these days from mostly Western devs, where they either look like Flash cartoons, simpler 8-bit 2600/NES-style stuff (but way too fluid in animation and no sprite flickering to "sell" that 8-bit aesthetic IMO), or they've got this odd 2D pixel art style that's super-loaded with modern shaders and lighting so they lose the more classical look.

Plus, a lot of other indie games that try to look retro to me just end up looking too clean; wish more of them invested in a proper CRT-like filter and did more artistic edits to assets to mirror limitations of older systems. Like you gotta go per-layer or even per individual asset in some cases based on distance, change dithering settings and type, etc. Not just a simple filter pass on a final screen render like how a lot of games do it.

@Sketcz Yep, primarily those two things. But it's also a lot of other decisions over the past few years from various main companies, but mainly PlayStation and Xbox.

Tho things like the Xbox back-compat stuff coming to PC now are intriguing, and at least they're trying to address rising hardware costs with the ad-supported Game Pass cloud thing. I'm not seeing any similar things from PlayStation's end, and by the time they start it'll be way too late for me to care.

But yeah, retro scene really is where it's at, arguably been that way for some time now. Especially with the new English translations for text-heavy RPGs and adventure games on PS1, Saturn, Dreamcast, PC-FX, PC-88/PC-98 etc. Just opening up a whole new world for us Western fans.

It'd be really cool if more Japanese and Asian doujin/indie devs were making games that could run on those older systems like Western indies seem to be doing. Tho in a way I guess since many of their big & small devs made the majority of commercial games for those systems back in the day, there's not as much interest to revisit them.

Man, the modern games industry may be falling apart (outside of Nintendo & PC), but I am LOVING what's happening with the retro gaming scene these days. More than makes up for it IMHO!

@PopetheRev28 I think there's still plenty that could be pushed with SNES. It's just that for the people currently in the demoscene, they may be more interested in Genesis.

With SNES, you'd have to exploit the add-on cartridge chips to really "push" it, but that means targeting a limited subset of any given person's setup, because most SNES owners didn't buy games using the Super FX chips for example, or stuff like the NEC uPD DSPs found in the DSP-based cartridges. You have to target those and the cartridge bus architecture to really push SNES to absolute limits.

Comparatively speaking, Genesis is easier to exploit (wouldn't be surprised if some aspects of the design are more well-documented considering it's got a 68K, Z80, and Texas Instruments-derived VDP) and since all of that hardware is in the base system (unless targeting Sega CD or 32X), you're guaranteed to be able to run your stuff on more setups.

@ThisIsPete I'd add Sony moving PlayStation's headquarters to the US (California) in 2016 is also a major contributor to that shift. No accident that after the move, we saw a near-complete flip towards Western AAA from Sony's first-party studios.

And now I think they're reaching the limits of that approach, because I don't sense anywhere near enough hype for games like Laufey or even Wolverine compared to when Uncharted 4, God of War 2018 and TLOU2 were revealed and getting shown off. Sony's made a ton of other bad decisions this gen compounding that, sure, but even on a games-only basis I don't think the interest is where it once used to be.

Intergalatic might be a make-or-break moment for their first-party studios IMHO.

Well Shawn, you had a chance to bring out a new Parappa AND Vib-Ribbon when you ran PS4, but you never did. So you're kind of part of the problem. Tho IIRC the dude who VA'd for Parappa went off the deep end and got into legal trouble.

Aside that though, he's right. Unfortunately, the modern landscape for companies like Sony and Microsoft is dominated by best practices and homogenization (and sanitation) of ideas. The only hope for a new Parappa is going to come from indies on PC; don't count on a company like today's PlayStation to invest in that type of IP.

@PopetheRev28 Yeah, basically this. And I'm American, so no price increase for us seemingly.

Blaze basically took the Nintendo route, so relatively speaking the price increase isn't that bad. They could've gone full Corpo Greed Mode and done what Sony and Microsoft have done. Thankfully it seems Blaze actually give a crap about respecting their customers.

Actually, if they want to do something KINDA like this, why not enter talks with Panasonic/Matsushita to release a commercial version of the M2 similar to what Plaion & SNK are doing with the Neo Geo AES+? M2 rights are solely owned by one company; yeah there'd be almost zero games, but people in the retro scene would love to port the arcade games to the console version.

Others would make new games for the M2 or port existing titles to the M2 hardware. Maybe fan-made completions of the original D2 from WARP for example. And M2 isn't that well supported for emulation, so a cycle-accurate hardware device could draw in some decent sales especially as games support grew.

Aaaaaaaaannd just like that, ALL of my interest straight out the window.

@Allnightgaming Absolutely agreed. The "screw AI" zealots online who (IMHO) just do it for virtue-signaling, can't even organize correctly. Like you said, push for better legislation and, preferably, a way to hold the companies who profited off of stolen art & related stuff financially liable to pay back the original owners of the stolen assets with some type of monetary (or stock) compensation.

And yeah, make it so that legal protections are enacted to regulate AI & AI companies going forward. Regulations for the data centers, channels for companies to actually require people to opt-in to having their work used to train models, etc. Trying to get the AI industry "cancelled" has to be one of the biggest wastes of time I've seen in my life.

People are gonna have to grow TF up and realize that AI is here to stay. But at the end of the day, it is simply a tool and whether it's used for good or bad, or used ethically or unethically, comes down to the PERSON who is using that tool!

We're potentially losing out on a cool PS1-like game, likely made by a single or small team of folks with a low budget, because virtue-signaling puritans on AI are too stupid to distinguish a difference between a single dev/small indie team responsibly using AI vs. a giant megacorp abusing AI to fire thousands of employees.

Like enough with the conflation already. We're gonna lose out on some potentially really cool things because of idiots who group all people using AI and all use-cases of AI as being the same as Big Tech abusing AI to displace the workforce. Focus the anti-AI sentiment where it actually belongs, not at a small indie dev making a Densha-de-go PS1-style game who likely wants to actually finish making the game while still alive (and being able to spend time with friends & family instead of crunching).

@AllieKitsune It doesn't seem like too big a deal because from what I've seen, when you defeat enemies you gain health back. So as long as you're exploring and progressing forward, seems difficult to lose in those situations.

In any case, I'm just happy this finally got completed. I'm gonna try making some time to start it up this weekend, hopefully today. Big props to Hilltop for doing non-Japanese speakers a solid!

@Ruka I mean technically, yeah, they didn't. But in terms of cultural impact in the West and other countries like Brazil, that leaked document doesn't change any of that impact. The cultural movement Sega were able to get in those markets thanks to Genesis/MegaDrive is still very, very real.

@Bluelink45 I don't quite remember it that way. Most core gamers during that gen went with 360 or PS3 (or both); some definitely did get a Wii but outside of Nintendo diehards, most of Wii's customers were families. Moms & dads, grandmas & grandpas, wanting to play games for the first time or join in gaming with their kids (who were likely Nintendo fans anyway).

If there's one reason Nex won't hit Wii numbers, it's because they aren't Nintendo. They don't have the IP of Nintendo or the games at Nintendo's quality & level of mass appeal (and respect among casuals & core gamers). That's the real reason why, IMO. Second factor is probably gonna be that most of those casuals now have phones & tablets for mobile gaming, so that's some competition Wii didn't really have back in its day.

Gamers like you and I aren't gonna be any more (or less) impactful on Nex succeeding than we were with the Wii succeeding. But I agree that Nex approaching Wii numbers is completely laughable, just...for different reasons 😂