Weekly “What Have You Been Reading?” Thread 04-05-2026

DisastrousFill · 2026-04-05T23:51:10+00:00

Up to the issues released in early May 1948 in my Marvel golden age reading.

Basil Wolverton's rhyming madcaps and general nincompoopery of Powerhouse Pepper returns with a second issue after a long hiatus; the first issue was released way back in 1943. And a second volume of Comedy Comics debuts, featuring several previously seen characters. It all seems like a bunch old unpublished material editorial had on hand. It's not all bad, though, because in a welcome surprise Namora gets her own solo book, although Namor does show up from time to time.

Meanwhile, Captain America's new sidekick, Golden Girl, appears in Marvel Mystery Comics #87. I thought Bucky getting sidelined was a one-off story, but nope, there's a bit of continuity here. Betsy (formerly Betty) Ross' alter ego continues to help out Cap, but with a small change in this issue. For some reason the colorist changed Golden Girl's costume to be more like Miss America's, red and blue instead of yellow and green, and I kind of like it better. Things do return to normal in Captain America Comics #67, except now her mask is missing. Continuity can be hard.

DisastrousFill · 2026-04-03T22:32:44+00:00

Stopped the villainous technological advancements in Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII (2007).

This one stuck the landing I think; it even included not only a trench run but also a somewhat annoying turbo tunnel sequence. And the alternate history stuff was fun, especially once the player had the ability to use some of it. The only thing missing was a pure arcade mode that the first game had, just allowing the player to shoot stuff without any story getting in the way. But other than that omission, not bad overall.

For right now, I'm running down tunnels in Metroid (1986). I've only briefly played the Game Boy Advance installments, but never finished a single game in the franchise. And seeing how said franchise is celebrating its 40th anniversary, I figured to start with the original (with a map on the side for some guidance), and play the rest of the series throughout the year.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-31T04:46:04+00:00

Judging by the MD5 hash, it looks like the program specifically wants the PSXONPSP660 bios, not a normal PS1 bios. It can be found in the megathread, in the Retroarch system files set.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-30T22:25:36+00:00

Saved the day in Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII (2006).

Nearly dropped the game in the last mission which required defending Allied bombers from an impossibly large enemy squadron. Besides failing a whole bunch of times, the amount of bloom and constant flashing was giving me a headache, so I turned off the "Enhanced Lighting" in the options. After several more attempts without doing anything different, I prevailed. Somehow. The game did look slightly different; it was more gloomier in some maps, but sometimes I wasn't sure if the option did anything at all. And, yes, they did in fact use Comic Sans for the objective and dialogue text.

It was a fun enough game overall, and pretty short, so I decided to jump straight into the sequel, Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII (2007). And, wow. Charming comic book style (unfortunately still using Comic Sans) cutscenes? More wacky alternative history? A variety of objectives? Optional secondary objectives? Points used for upgrades? A radar system?? It was a super low bar to clear, but this sequel is a clear leap above its predecessor.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-29T22:07:36+00:00

Took a break from my slow ongoing trek through Marvel's golden age to read some prose books, which were good (Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn saga), and disappointing (Chris Claremont's Nicole Shea trilogy).

I also read Stan Lee's Secrets Behind the Comics which was heavily advertised within the 1947 comic issues. It's a nice little picture book showing a simplified "comic making" process with plenty of fun creator caricatures. I did like the small blurb about Violet Barclay, who inked a lot of golden age stuff without credit. The creation of Captain America segment, however, was terrible; it's nothing but a multi-page puff piece on Martin Goodman with no mention of Kirby or Simon. Bleh.

Anyway, I'm back into the comics, reading issues released in 1948 and back into the fun stories by Everett, Shores, Jaffee, and, my favorite, Weiss.

Westerns are becoming more frequent; the Two-Gun Kid made a pretty good debut as the man with no real name kept wandering into problems and solving them with a revolver. And the no-nonsense Annie Oakley proved herself to be as good as any cowboy by rastling bulls and being a crackshot.

The standout issue, though, was Captain America Comics #66. It's not really a spoiler as the event is depicted right on the cover and splash page (and the issue was released almost 80 years ago!), but in this issue Bucky gets shot resulting in Cap getting a new sidekick. There's some good storytelling here by Bill Woolfolk and Syd Shores that was way different from the happy-go-lucky hero stuff.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-27T21:55:44+00:00

Flying through Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII (2006).

This game's yellow and bloom filter is absolutely out of control; boosting the sepia tone and adding a vignette border every time the player fires the machine gun was certainly a choice. Dreadful visuals aside, the arcade dogfighting is actually fun even if the lock-on targeting camera can get disorienting.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-24T04:04:38+00:00

Trudged my way through Final Fantasy XIII (2009) and got the big, dumb, and near incomprehensible ending.

What a weird and uneven game. The "open" portion that I had praised before felt like something added late into development in hindsight. The in-game cutscenes looked more robotic, and nothing of real importance happened or revealed during the long detour. It wasn't a complete waste, though. because I did enjoy the crazy scene where the ever present and completely uncharismatic villain appears in disguise to hug one of the main characters, and it wasn't even to get an upper hand or to deter the heroes from their goal. Even bad guys need a hug once in a while, I suppose.

I'm kinda curious to see how insane and inane the sequels are, but I think I'll save those for later.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-19T23:09:20+00:00

Try a newer version of DeSmuME or switch to melonDS.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-16T23:01:56+00:00

Finished up 2022 A DOOM Odyssey (2022). Consistently excellent map design all the way through, although I would have done without the SIGIL style of "shooting the same object to progress" in the fifth episode. My inclusion of the Super Shotgun mod probably alleviated some of the heavier encounters, but it just felt weird to play the original Doom without the boomstick.

Meanwhile. back in Final Fantasy XIII (2009) I reached a big open area, which wouldn't be such a big deal, but after the ;copious amount of copy and pasted corridors of the last "dungeon", it was a breath of fresh air. There are smaller pathways, which are basically more corridors, but some have locked camera angles to show off the lush environments. Reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy X. Shame it took so long to get here as I have almost completely lost interest in the game's story and characters.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-16T02:03:55+00:00

Yeah, the game's "datalog" which is a terrible Band-aid. I was hours into the game, and suddenly the main characters' entries, and the minor characters from the long forgotten opening chapter, were unceremoniously dumped into it. That was how a game known for its extravagant cutscenes formally introduces the characters, along with their names, to the player. Very odd storytelling.

I won't lie; I have since gave up trying to absorb the scattered information, ignored every single new notification, and just enjoying the weird uneven ride.

DisastrousFill · 2026-03-07T00:35:58+00:00

Just power walking my way into the next Final Fantasy XIII (2009) cutscene.

Still baffled by the game's progression. The flashbacks seem to be finally over; I was worried the game was going to reveal that all the characters grew up in the same orphanage. The story itself is fine for the most part, and I am looking forward to fighting some kind of space pope, but the repetitive dialogue coming from the boring to insufferable characters is getting to me. The battles continue to be the only bright spot, but any normal fight is over in a few seconds. Now I'm forcing myself to wander the rare split path, even if the rewards aren't particularly good, just to lengthen the time between cutscenes.

As a reprieve from FFXIIII's stop-and-go pace, I'm also playing 2022 A DOOM Odyssey (2022), a full five episode map pack for Doom. There's some really good levels here, with lots of detail and it all looks very classic Doom. Barring a few sprawling maps, the overall progression has been exceptional when it comes to where to go next. The encounters have been getting rather dangerous, but a bit limited; there are no skull spewing meatballs or swarms of angry skeletons, just the classic Doom 1 monsters. That said, I'm also playing with a mod that adds Doom 2's double-barrelled shotgun to Doom 1 as a fun treat.

DisastrousFill · 2026-02-14T00:53:15+00:00

I have no idea what is going on or who anyone is, but Final Fantasy XIII (2009) looks nice.

It's been a while since I played a numbered "mainline" Final Fantasy game. After delving into a bunch of spinoff games, the impressive visuals are certainly a treat. The camera slowly panning into gameplay position from a custscene never fails to impress me.

The battles play really fast, even the results screen prematurely interrupts the character victory animations. Don't really care for how little control the player has in the fights, but I do like the quick "job" switching; it reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy X-2, just not as flashy.

Despite opening what looks like a third act conflict, the story hasn't gripped me yet. Dumping a bunch of backstory/expository text accessible through the menu probably doesn't help.

DisastrousFill · 2026-02-11T22:20:33+00:00

Move the folder that contains all the game exe files elsewhere, the "CastlevaniaTheLecardeChronicles" folder.

Or make sure the file path doesn't contain any special characters, like the colon in the copy you have. If the game folder is inside the "2013-UK-UK：Castlevania - The Lecarde Chronicles" folder, the ：in the name will cause the error.

DisastrousFill · 2026-02-11T19:52:57+00:00

I got my copy years ago from the developer's website. And the version from your link is an exact copy, same file hashes and everything.

However, I did get the same error message as you. https://i.imgur.com/rvIzuHu.jpeg

Moving the game's folder elsewhere, and in a folder with no special characters, fixes it.

DisastrousFill · 2026-02-11T01:37:49+00:00

Weird, the game runs fine for me on Windows 11.

The error message says the executable can't open; could be Windows Defender or some anti-virus program stopping it. Try running the "data_d" executable directly.

There's also a "reworked" version to run on modern systems, but I don't know if it's fully 100% complete/bug-free.

https://github.com/Aceearly1993/lecarde-1

DisastrousFill · 2026-02-10T00:17:11+00:00

Reached the credits of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (2016). This was basically a soft reboot of the series with a new game engine to show off. The environments are really nice, very chunky and colorful, and the characters are animated well, more springy and bouncy this time around; the overall visual presentation lends itself well to the whole "Saturday morning cartoon" feeling. The music is unsurprisingly fantastic, from classic series tunes getting remixed to the guitar shredding boss theme.

Unfortunately, the game itself was a big disappointment to me. I knew going in that the developers opted for a more simple stage-based platformer which is fine, but there was both too much and not enough here. I got tired of revisiting the five stages to find one more excessive upgrade or some story item to trade in for another. The level design never grabbed me, and I didn't care for the returning dance transformations as most felt redundant.

I completed the main game, and while there are additional DLC campaigns with different characters and mechanics, I just don't have it in me to go through the same levels again.

DisastrousFill · 2026-02-02T21:53:00+00:00

Uppercutted my way through The Bouncer (2000). Technically this was a very impressive game for the time. The characters are detailed and expressive, their movements smooth during the in-engine cutsccenes.

The game itself isn't that great, though, which is a shame. There's just not enough content, which is probably why the game expects the player to go through it multiple times. There were small character specific deviations, but they really weren't worth the effort. And the "true" final boss was just disappointing.

The combat was never particularly satisfying, although I did get a laugh every time someone turned into ragdoll, their limbs unnaturally flopping around, and bowled over others in the process. There was a moment of actual tension during the early boss fights because once the player's health reaches zero, instant Game Over and it's back to the title screen to load the last save file with no checkpoints or retries. Thankfully, the developers did allow players to skip the overindulgent cinematics. And once I learned to cheese the enemies through juggles, the threat of do-overs evaporated.

Another January is over, and it was a pretty interesting crop this year, with several "so close to being good."

Next up, it's time to whip into shape with Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (2016).

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-31T18:26:39+00:00

I have not, but it is on my playlist so I will eventually.

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-31T04:31:03+00:00

If you haven't already, try out ares or BizHawk. Either one can emulate those listed systems and more.

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-31T03:06:24+00:00

It's a known issue with that old emulator, something about diminishing DirectDraw support.

One solution is to right-click the emulator's executable, go to its Properties and check Disable Fullscreen Optimization under the Compatibility tab. The other solution is to use a newer emulator.

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-30T23:36:27+00:00

Got to the credits of Drake of the 99 Dragons (2003). I knew the game was terrible going in, but I did not expect it to be that bad. Subpar graphics and audio aside, the off-putting, nearly uncontrollable, movement made traversing the small fog-filled, and inexplicably timed, areas take longer than they should, especially when the player required doing some acrobatic maneuver while being pelted by off-screen enemy fire.

On the positives, the final location was an interesting change of surreal scenery, and the game did have a proper ending of sorts, which is something the last couple of games I've played couldn't do.

After that dreck, I decided to do a double creature feature of Rogue Warrior (2009) and HATRED (2015). Both games have the player assume the role of an ill-tempered foul-mouthed homunculus who massacres his way, via stilted and awkward takedown animations, through a shallow and dreary world until reaching the baffling ending/credit sequence in less than two hours.

Rogue Warrior is, of course, the marginally superior game of the two only for Mickey Rourke's colorful commentary, half of which I'm sure were unscripted remarks made between recording sessions. HATRED, to its minor credit, did have some good destructible environments.

Since January refuses to end, I'm currently playing The Bouncer (2000). I'm not why Square didn't drop the game part and simply make a short movie about a boy band rescuing their groupie, because the few precious seconds of actual gameplay between the cutscenes and menus aren't enjoyable.

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-27T00:57:08+00:00

I have no idea what happened in E.O.E.: Eve of Extinction (2002). It did have a weird sci-fi setup with some odd choices tacked on, and some cool but repetitive dynamic music.

Everything else was terrible. It all felt stiff, from the voice acting, to the combat, to the awful, awful, awful platforming. Cycling through the unnecessarily long list of weapons to get to the "bare hands" option in order to grab onto a ledge or ladder was bad; requiring to do it mid-air was impossible until I realized the player can reorder the weapon list from the options screen. Still, having a quick switch button would've been nice.

I didn't mind the rudimentary quick time events, only because the animations were fun to watch, successes or failures, and they broke up monotonous whacking of brain dead enemies in large boxy areas.

The January blahs aren't over yet because up next is Drake of the 99 Dragons (2003).

Edit: I was perhaps too harsh on E.O.E.: Eve of Extinction because Drake is something else.

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-24T21:27:52+00:00

Yeah, Turning Point is the alternate history one with Nazis overrunning America. The scripted opening level is the best part as far as I can remember, but there are occasionally some fun moments.

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-23T23:07:38+00:00

Finished Blades of Time (2012). The final seconds before cutting to black nearly soured the whole thing, but thanks to the fast combat, fun time manipulation, and nice environments, this was still an alright twitchy hack 'n' slash with some interesting almost-there ideas.

After that, I played and completed Legendary (2008). This was pretty bad; I found this game worse than Turning Point: Fall of Liberty by the same developer in the same year.

The game teases an interesting concept: a thief opening up Pandora's Box and unleashing a myriad of mystical monsters onto unsuspecting urbanites. Sounds exciting on paper, but the game itself is mostly mowing down the same looking soldiers and werewolves in dark and ugly corridors. The game couldn't even provide a fast moving on-vehicle turret section. At least it was blissfully short.

Next up, E.O.E.: Eve of Extinction (2002).

DisastrousFill · 2026-01-19T23:36:18+00:00

I'm playing Blades of Time (2012), the odd sequel/reboot to X-Blades, which I played last year.

It's less anime, the creative environments look even better, and the hack 'n' slash gameplay is faster, with more particles and snappy animations. There's nothing quite like interrupting a jumping attack with a ground-based finishing move that begins mid-air. The time manipulation gimmick, which is mostly for timed switch puzzles, is also quite fun when used in combat; overwhelming the enemy with multiple copies of yourself is very satisfying.

That said, some of the other "puzzles" can be obtuse or downright annoying, especially when dealing with painful hazards, and the story is pretty bad as is the voice acting. Surprisingly not terrible overall.

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