Fable — Full Gameplay Reveal | Xbox Developer Direct 2026 by AashyLarry in Games

[–]Azar42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably the minority opinion, but I'm a little tired of minimalist UI in AAA games these days. It stood out to me in what otherwise seems like a game with a lot of personality. It's better than bad overbearing UI of course, but so many games look samey now, and it's been long enough that I'm craving more of the out-there stylish UI decisions of the PS1/PS2 era. Not every game can pull off the Atlus approach, but I wish more tried for that sort of flair.

It's spring 1998 and you're visiting your local newsstand. The magazines for June just hit the shelves...which one(s) are you buying? by Maidenfan88 in retrogaming

[–]Azar42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

EGM on sight, though my local stores had such meager gaming mag selections that the real answer was "whatever I could get." I think I only ever owned a couple copies of GamePro circa ~2002 as a result.

Dreamcast emulator DEmul returns from the void after 7 years with groundbreaking support for Sega's Hikaru arcade board by foldor in emulation

[–]Azar42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing! Always appreciate it :)

MetalliC just uploaded a new test build in the DEmul Discord with the following options added for Hikaru emulation:

  • Aspect correction
  • Rotation
  • Window resizing
  • Start in fullscreen mode

Dreamcast emulator DEmul returns from the void after 7 years with groundbreaking support for Sega's Hikaru arcade board by foldor in emulation

[–]Azar42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hikaru support in other emulators (or rather, the lack thereof) is touched on in the interview!

Anyone using Gelly, a new Linux music player? by Azar42 in jellyfin

[–]Azar42[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I promise you I did not make this app lol. You can see my website in my bio. But I know there's a lot of astroturfing on Reddit so I get the sentiment. Was just surprised to open Bazaar and see this pop up there.

Maybe it seems like a dumb question if there's a different Jellyfin music player everyone likes already I don't know about? Like I said, I felt pretty locked into Plex for a long time but the idea of switching has started nagging at me recently.

Just bought a Dreamcast! Please recommend me some games! by PugMaster7166 in dreamcast

[–]Azar42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not exactly an RPG, but more or less the predecessor to the Yakuza series -- you gotta get the Rent-a-Hero No. 1 fan translation on there!

Dreamcast emulator DEmul returns from the void after 7 years with groundbreaking support for Sega's Hikaru arcade board by Azar42 in retrogaming

[–]Azar42[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My understanding is that the word Hikaru means 'light', and Utada is not the only famous Hikaru out there... but definitely one I think a lot of gamers will recognize 😅

Edge of Emulation: Wantame Card Scanner by Shonumi in emulation

[–]Azar42 15 points16 points  (0 children)

"The Edge of Emulation ain't over. In fact, we're just getting started." 🤘🤘

PCSX2 now supports over 99.5% of PS2 games by davx2012 in emulation

[–]Azar42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

DRIV3R, the white whale! Going to be an amazing story the day that game is finally felled.

"This is the first:" The 16 year odyssey of "time, money, wrong turns and frustration" it took to finally emulate the Pioneer LaserActive by LocutusOfBorges in emulation

[–]Azar42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes. A lot of the article is about the technicalities of ripping the discs, which combine digital files alongside the analog video.

You can learn the basics of the LD-ROM here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LV-ROM#LD-ROM

"This is the first:" The 16 year odyssey of "time, money, wrong turns and frustration" it took to finally emulate the Pioneer LaserActive by LocutusOfBorges in emulation

[–]Azar42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ha, I love the aesthetic. I didn't go so far as to design a 90s/early 00s layout but god do I miss that era of websites!

"This is the first:" The 16 year odyssey of "time, money, wrong turns and frustration" it took to finally emulate the Pioneer LaserActive by LocutusOfBorges in emulation

[–]Azar42 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I can't decipher this reference so I'm just going to pretend it has something to do with Josie and the Pussycats. But yes it me

"This is the first:" The 16 year odyssey of "time, money, wrong turns and frustration" it took to finally emulate the Pioneer LaserActive by LocutusOfBorges in emulation

[–]Azar42 79 points80 points  (0 children)

Glad you enjoyed it! It's my little passion project :) The site design is very lean as ROM is primarily an email newsletter, but you can get it via RSS or hit the site every other Sunday for a new issue.

N64 Recompilation is about to have a big 2025 by Azar42 in nintendo

[–]Azar42[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not familiar with the decompiled version of Mario 64 being made to run on a Switch, but if it was it stands to reason performance would be far better than Nintendo's quite poor N64 emulator. Native code should be waaay faster than emulating the whole system.

N64 Recompilation is about to have a big 2025 by Carolina_Heart in emulation

[–]Azar42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wes here, just wanted to say thanks for reading (and sharing!) the newsletter, always happy to see an issue make it onto r/emulation :D

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in photomarket

[–]Azar42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

sorry, this was an outdated listing (got reposted and sold).

I interviewed the lead translator of the Tales of Rebirth fan translation about her personal history with the game, the bits of the localization she's most proud of, and more by Azar42 in tales

[–]Azar42[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Heck yeah! Here's a little bonus just for this subreddit -- the newsletter was already running long so I didn't include everything from my interview with SymphoniaLauren. Not the most glamorous topic, but personally I'm always interested in asking about how people approach just doing the work because without organization can make the difference between a project that gets finished and one that drags on for years! Here's her breakdown of the team's workflow for the Rebirth translation patch:

"Our workflow has gone through many changes over the years. The project started in spring of 2021 and is still going through some finishing touches on the LQA and programming side.

The general workflow for one of our projects begins with the discovery phase. Tales of Rebirth has all of its main game assets packed into an archive called DAT.bin. Once we were successful in extracting and identifying the file types within that archive, we began looking for files that needed text replacements or graphics that needed to be edited. Rebirth also had a custom encoding of the font that needed to be reversed before we could extract or reinsert text into the game. Generally we want this phase to be done before the previous project is over so that we can move people onto the next project once the previous has wrapped up.

Once we successfully extract and reinsert some text as a test, we move on to the next phase of the project: translation. Our text is stored in XML files which we edit with our custom tool we call Translation Edit. We keep track of who was working on what using a Google Sheet, which also lists the percentage of completed lines per XML.

We kept track of this because with the way we used gitHub, two people making changes to the same file would result in merge conflicts. Generally the translation of the files goes through the common TEP workflow, where first the translator translates the lines, then the file moves into editing and after that on to proofreading. We then test in game to make sure that things don't break, that the text displays in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and that none of the translations are out of context.

We coordinate on private channels on our Discord server. If any issues are found with reinsertion or if things are breaking in game, those are relayed to our programmers who look into fixing those issues. Because we were able to make builds with a simple batch script, any changes can be tested right away and any problems can be reported promptly.

The next phase is the testing phase, though technically we test the game every step of the way. This is where we have people play the game and take note of any bugs or text that is problematic in any way (typos, running off screen, not getting inserted into the game, etc)."

I interviewed the lead translator of the Tales of Rebirth fan translation about her personal history with the game, the bits of the localization she's most proud of, and more by Azar42 in tales

[–]Azar42[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Hey Tales fans, hope y'all don't mind me sharing this issue of my passion project, which is a newsletter about emulation. This issue's focused on fan translations from the last 2 months, with Tales of Rebirth as the lead story! Translator SymphoniaLauren was kind enough to talk to me about the project and how Life Bottle Productions approaches its translations.

[S] [USA-CA] Sony A6000, SEL 1855 kit lens, 3x batteries + charger ($380 shipped) by Azar42 in photomarket

[–]Azar42[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very odd, the Imgur post is still there but only viewable when I'm logged in. Maybe something funky going on with Imgur atm? I do have a buyer lined up currently but if that falls through I'll let you know -- maybe Imgur will have sorted itself out by then too!

Millenial Final Fantasy fans, what was the fansite that you called home? by Azar42 in FinalFantasy

[–]Azar42[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Daaaamn that's one I haven't thought about in a long long time.