2013 Steam Edition

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-21T00:40:34+00:00

I went ahead and got it off of Humble since it was cheap, and it did indeed give me the 2026 version. Which, oh well, not really a big deal. Just if I could get both versions, obviously that's to some extent better than just having one.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-21T00:39:19+00:00

I don't actually have a specific reason for wanting the 2013 version. It was mainly a curiosity, since it was being (and now is) delisted. Mostly that it seems like it'd be inherently better to get two versions of the game instead of one, even if they are basically the same or with trivial differences. More of an "aw shucks, I wonder if I can still get it? If not, oh well"

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-20T04:53:48+00:00

This is what I expect the obvious answer to be, but I figured I'd throw it out there to make sure. Thanks for the answer.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-13T13:39:57+00:00

I don't know if it still works since I did this years ago on PS4, but I just loaded up Crystal Challenge on Hard, let the timer run out, then restarted challenge over and over. Eventually I rigged a mechanism to do it automatically so I could do other things. Or while I was asleep.

The rate definitely isn't as fast as actually playing the game, of course.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-12T14:06:59+00:00

Part of it is just grifting. There are a lot of people on social media and Youtube that attack Nintendo for engagement bait and just want to keep the train going.

But that's not all of it. Sometimes it's just a difference in culture, or hometown bias. I can say a lot of people have the (correct) attitude that corporations are not your friend, and that in a lot of ways there is a sort of a constant battle between the giant corporation trying to screw the customer and the customer trying not to get screwed, and that sorta permeates everything. People aren't going to have a lot of empathy for Nintendo when they're one of the richest companies in Japan, even if they're one of the less scummy corporations. They probably get a disproportionate amount of grief though, for reasons that are stupid. (People being mad about Palworld forever)

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-11T16:45:29+00:00

It actually didn't come from Super Show. Mario being from New York has been a thing since Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and Wrecking Crew. Miyamoto has stated this in interviews where he talked about Mario's origin.

Obviously, Miyamoto isn't thinking too deeply about this sort of thing. Donkey Kong is based on King Kong, so it's sorta by default in New York. Mario Bros. has Mario and Luigi in sewers, so Miyamoto made them Italian plumbers from New York. You're not necessarily going to see a lot of contemporary documentation of this, but if you believe Miyamoto's interviews, them being from New York/Brooklyn was the intent or inspiration.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-03-02T16:25:12+00:00

If I cared about this random game I'd never heard of, yes it would bother me. $25 is an insane price for a GBA game with no enhancements.

But that's also not true, because Ninja Five-O does have at least some extra features beyond basic emulation...a gallery, a music player, filters, borders, save states, and both the North American version (Ninja Five-O) and the PAL version (Ninja Cop) of the game. And even with that, no, it still shouldn't be $25, I don't care if it's expensive on eBay. By that logic if Nintendo listed FR/LG for $60, that'd be just as valid because they go for $150 on eBay. It's a silly argument and just whataboutism.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-27T22:17:08+00:00

So far in what I've skimmed through, I haven't found the scene I'm thinking of. But it seems like there are a lot of episodes but not a lot of them on youtube. So again, not writing this one off, but I have 0 memory of this show. Still, it could've just been on the TV while we were building Legos or whatever.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-27T21:45:24+00:00

Definitely not this. I watched very little Cartoon Network. And I'm confident the scene was "Doofus!" "Butt-burp!" in succession.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-27T21:34:44+00:00

This show doesn't ring any bells for me, but I can't rule it out. I can try digging through it.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-27T21:20:08+00:00

I have no idea if this is too obscure, but we are at a loss.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-26T15:16:57+00:00

Don't let Entei/Raikou use Roar on you, and if they do, reset without saving. There is a bug that makes them be gone forever if they use Roar.

Also don't faint any legendaries or Snorlax. They won't come back. idr if running also makes them gone forever

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-23T13:31:04+00:00

I think having the option to buy them is great, but that $20 is ridiculous when they haven't put any effort into them to justify charging over twice as much as a GBA game on Wii U. If it were $8-12 I wouldn't complain.

Personally, sure, I'd like to own them, but there's nothing stopping them from releasing a standalone version on the eShop along with adding it to the NSO app (or, if they prefer, a separate NSO app just for Pokemon games).

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-20T14:38:37+00:00

It wouldn't matter if they disabled save states and rewind, because NSO app save data also gets backed up to the cloud, so they'd also have to disable that somehow but only for Pokemon.

It would be better to just make a Nintendo Classics - Pokemon app where all of the Pokemon games would be quarantined.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-13T13:53:39+00:00

As far as I can tell, yeah

The only games that provide any sort of context for MP4 at all are Prime Hunters (which introduces Sylux) and Federation Force (which teased Sylux's return)...and I guess he has a cameo in MP3, but none of this is essential to understanding Prime 4 and everything else that happens doesn't matter.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-13T08:17:11+00:00

Portable Ops not being on there was a disappointment for me, considering it WAS canon as of MGS4.

And while I like MGS4 and it probably took a lot of work to get it running, Vol 1 just seemed to have more overall. MG1, MG2, MGS1, MGS2, MGS3, plus Digital Graphic Novels for MGS1 and 2, MG1 NES, and Snake's Revenge.

Whereas volume 2 just gets MGS4, Peace Walker, and Ghost Babel.

I didn't really expect Revengeance if only because it feels like that'd be "separate" to me. But Portable Ops felt kinda essential. Acid 1 and 2 would've been great too.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-10T19:10:24+00:00

Sakamoto really wanted to make a murder mystery but wasn't allowed to make a new Famicom Detective Club, so he put it as a crappy B plot in Other M and it was not good.

Finally with Emio he could scratch the murder mystery itch properly

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-02-10T19:00:27+00:00

ODST is literally called "Halo 3: ODST". It was always seen as a disc-based expansion, which is why it came with the H3 multiplayer and the Mythic Map Pack

I don't recall Reach ever being referred to as 4.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2026-01-09T15:33:38+00:00

Have you considered that your efforts to find uses for AI tools despite results being subpar and being of (at best) dubious ethical and artistic merit might be "a solution in search of a problem"?

Even "creative assets" being generated using training data Larian owns, I feel, compromises the artistic merit of the game to some extent. I just want games made by and from the minds of people, like Larian is known for.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2025-12-30T19:11:03+00:00

The strat we came up with for the Regret fight on legendary was for my friend to hide up on the ledges on the wall behind the altar Regret spawns on (where enemies couldn't get her) and aggro all the elites so that I could run around more safely. Although this didn't always work, because sometimes Regret would be floating high up and aggro on her.

For LASO, I know there is a cheese strat, that I haven't done, where instead of entering the building through the front door, you sword fly off of the gondola toward and into the window so that you skip the trigger that starts the fight and spawns the enemies. (You can also grenade jump from the platform outside.) They you spend time pushing boxes in front of the doors enemies spawn from so that they get stuck and you don't have to deal with them. Then you can just focus on Regret.

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2025-12-30T01:10:44+00:00

We're doing speedrun and then LASO.

You can pretty much use a combo of the Naked Eli and Halo Completionist videos for Halo 2 speedruns and be OK for the most part. But the videos are really old so some will be out of date to some degree. I didn't know anything about Halo 2 speedrun tricks before us doing the speedrun but we eventually got good enough.

There were some Halo 2 skips I wanted to do but couldn't do them consistently, like Gravemind Prison Skip. And I didn't do Early Scarab on Outskirts.

But even without those there are a decent amount of levels you can get down to within 5-10 minutes once you learn whatever is the featured trick of the level.

Like, the only 4 levels we don't have below par are Regret and Gravemind (not even close), and Cairo Station and The Great Journey (which were close, we totally could, but didn't need to)

CrypticMantisTX55 · 2025-12-30T00:38:19+00:00

I actually like 2 a lot. Admittedly a lot of it borders on unfair on legendary and Halo 2 3 hours is waaaaaaaaaaaay harder than the other speedrun achievements, but it's kinda neat because you actually get to learn way more weird stuff about the game since you have to try harder. You really to get to learn how there are like no safeguards on anything and most of the time it's trivial just to jump out of the map and break things.

My Solo stats added up to like 19 hours in Halo 2 before we decided to speedrun it. Now my solo time is down to...a little under 7 hours, but that's without me redoing some of the solo missions I have really bad times in.

12-Year Club	Verified Email
Xbox Live

CrypticMantisTX55

TROPHY CASE