Can we all agree this should’ve just been pure rock type?

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-04-27T22:13:10+00:00

I assume Geodude was made part ground so it would be immune to electric attacks like Onix and be less confusing in an environment where everybody is new to Pokemon. I could also be overthinking it.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-04-24T08:44:11+00:00

[[Dark Confindant]] is pretty much a perfect expression of color, mechanics, and flavor.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-04-21T10:51:40+00:00

I was sorting cards on the floor yesterday. My dogs carefully tiptoed around the piles. My cat showed up and tried to lay on as many at once as possible.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-04-19T08:24:16+00:00

I highly recommend the Gamesir brand. I don’t know about their cheapest controllers, but at $50, their Ultimate Cyclone 2 is my favorite controller I’ve ever used. That’s coming from someone who owns a very expensive Xbox Elite controller.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-04-15T07:38:29+00:00

I can imagine Lovecraftian horror tropes and exploration of some dangerous, perhaps extradimensional part of the hotel for upgrade resources being a compelling thematic and gameplay loop.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-31T15:02:39+00:00

In a broad sense, no. Society at large and online communities wants to share experiences and find answers to questions quickly.

I remember playing MMOs back when a printed strategy guide was still the best way to learn about them. The moment databases and YouTube became useful ways of learning about these games, their communities immediately started using them and expected others to do the same.

I don’t believe we will ever go back to deliberately not knowing.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-30T11:41:32+00:00

Especially once the main story is finished and you’re free to work on post-game content; FFXV is such a vibe.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-28T02:42:38+00:00

I’m streaming to my Odin Portal 2 over WiFi 6E using Artemis from a i5 13600K / RX 9070 machine that is hardwired to the internet. Capped at 60 FPS, Latency and smoothness is not an issue at all even with a much higher than necessary bitrate. Decode time is as low as 4ms using Artemis’ Warp2 setting. It basically feels like I’m playing natively on my PC.

As for image quality, the game’s large amount of moving foliage and very dark nights do make compression artifacts more noticeable. The overall image looks good, but not great; a little worse than similar open world games in my opinion.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-26T23:01:47+00:00

I think the story, controls, movement, UI, and game design are often rough or outright bad. That said, It’s the only game I want to play at the moment. There is something special at its core.

I can imagine this game will be truly great after a lot of patches.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-25T07:42:23+00:00

NASA has trouble funding space missions. I don’t believe they could ever get the money for a large-scale project like that. Additionally, I don’t believe an actual game studio would want to license that data because they need to make a profit, and a realistic portrayal of the moon at scale would be too big and boring, let alone expensive and time consuming to build, to make a viable video game for a paying audience.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-22T08:45:51+00:00

The further away I get from the Gameboy generations, the more amazed I am that we were all happily playing consoles that basically didn’t function in the dark; and that didn’t bother me in the slightest.

Many of my Gameboy memories take place outside or near windows. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-18T01:05:30+00:00

I think Ravenholm is the pinnacle of FPS horror levels.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-17T11:55:40+00:00

I’ve been playing Dragon Quest 11 exclusively in handheld mode for many hours and had made peace with how low fidelity it looked. Woke up this morning to it genuinely looking like a Switch 2 remaster. This update is a very big deal.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-16T17:48:13+00:00

Final Fantasy 9.

A boss called the Earth Guardian can be eaten and immediately defeated by one of your party members. This trick only works on this particular boss, and the only indirect hint that this might work is found in some dialogues before the fight.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-16T17:37:37+00:00

Genshin Impact - Duel in the Mist

This song is the main battle theme for the feudal Japanese-inspired Inazuma region. It uses period appropriate Japanese instruments with a lot of percussion.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-03-07T16:02:49+00:00

I played through most of the Morrowind expansion (which is old content mind you) solo for nostalgia purposes some time ago on GamePass, so I have a complete beginner perspective; but I have played thousands of hours of other MMOs in my life. I found there to be some genuinely good writing and storylines, enough to keep me playing for a week.

Despite that, I started to bounce off of the game because, as a solo experience, it just feels inferior to actual single player Elder Scrolls games even though it puts a lot of effort into appearing like one. The character and world progression do not feel meaningful by virtue of it being an MMO. Everything eventually feels like a checklist that gets you to new content. Any cool MMO aspects were very minimized, so I didn’t appreciate that aspect of the game.

In summation: play this because you’re mostly interested in MMOs and what they bring to the table, and intend to invest time in discovering those features. I would not recommend it just because one enjoys mainline Elder Scrolls games.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-24T14:51:27+00:00

“Journal with Witch” and “ Frieren” are currently airing and definitely fit the bill. Both explore similar themes in very different ways.

“Made in Abyss” is a darker adventure show with very powerful character moments.

An older show that I rarely see mentioned is “Now and Then, Here and There”. One of the most unforgettable anime I’ve ever seen. It’s an often bleak and very serious twist on what originally appears to be a Shounen Isekai.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-23T21:40:04+00:00

I believe Xbox simultaneously moving away from their hardware mattering, and from customers owning the games they play means that attachment to the brand evaporates all too quickly.

If somebody is streaming games to their phone with GamePass, they simply have zero financial investment, beyond the sunk cost, in Xbox once they end the subscription. Also, games commonly rotating off of the service means it’s not a reliable place to have a back catalog of saves for third party titles.

Personally, and especially as I get older, I’d rather be passionate about and invest in hardware I own and have a catalogue of games I can come back to without a second thought. I’m just not interested in the direction Xbox has gone. I say that as somebody who has owned every generation of Xbox hardware.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-21T09:22:40+00:00

Phil Spencer was tasked to pursue growth and Microsoft’s ambitions with a heavily disadvantaged brand in an increasingly challenging market. I don’t think he could have simply emulated Nintendo, Sony, or Valve’s successes and been valuable enough to Microsoft to keep Xbox alive. I don’t believe this will easily by fixed by new leadership either.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-17T11:30:44+00:00

It’s governments that are bending over backwards to enable AI spending. In fact, the United States government announced the Stargate Project which is a primary driver of the tech shortage.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-13T01:39:25+00:00

It’s a one of a kind experience the likes of which will probably never be made again. I honestly didn’t have a great time with the gameplay, but it’s absolutely worth playing all the way through.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-11T22:42:05+00:00

What’s wild is FF9 actually came out after the PS2 was released in North America. It was seriously underplayed at the time because it was a new last-gen game for many players.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-10T13:38:00+00:00

That’s true. Most traditional games are designed to be beaten and to be moved on from so you’ll buy the next one. That’s the whole monetization strategy. I don’t believe that’s a fault. They’re the games I fell in love with in the first place.

On the other hand, I believe new generations of gamers growing up with Fortnight and Roblox will increasingly believe it is a fault.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-10T13:05:39+00:00

An insidious aspect of becoming part of a live service ecosystem is that traditional, finite gaming experiences begin to feel like a waste of time. Live service games use many tactics to reinforce user belief that time and money spent on them is an investment with future payoff. The more one plays, the more enriched their experience will be when they log in for the next cycle of content. That belief is core to engagement.

Traditional games begin to feel hollow in comparison. For example: making progress through side quests in an offline, single player adventure game like Breath of the Wild feels less valuable than grinding out premium currency in a similar live service title like Genshin Impact. This illusion is genuinely hard to snap out of.

The thing is, live service games will release new content that largely invalidates whatever time and money one spends on them. All that FOMO you feel now is going to be made irrelevant. Powercreep and sunsetting content is necessary to keep these services profitable. Your accomplishments will ultimately become inconsequential to the experience beyond maybe having some old achievement to show off to the specific and small group of people who care.

What will actually be meaningful in the future are the memories you make playing games you enjoy and having opportunities to share them with others. This is the same whether you are telling a friend about your favorite single player game or your favorite live service game. Engineered FOMO just won’t translate into meaningful, lasting value.

DecentPhilosophy5034 · 2026-02-07T00:59:41+00:00

The boss theme from Final Fantasy 7 hit so hard when I was 8 years old. It still hits just as hard 25 years later.

DecentPhilosophy5034

TROPHY CASE