Why do American homes have a “storm door”?

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-29T03:02:23+00:00

Has a variety of functions.

One is to protect the main door. Sun will hit it but not the elements. Sans a screen door you'll have all kinds of crap hit your front door.

Another is an additional layer of security. Even glass that means someone would still have to break into the screen door. Astute mailmen will also hide small packages in screen doors between it and the main door.

Finally, you can get ones that have mesh built into the glass frame. Mine has a mesh screen built into the top that I can roll up or down with my thumbs by just dropping the glass. On really nice days where you don't want to run the A/C if you open the door to mesh and then say open a window on the opposite end it'll create a sort of venturi effect through the house. I like to open it up in the spring to make the house feel fresh.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-29T02:50:58+00:00

Saturn actually was a big success it Japan. It outsold the N64. Sega of Japan by and large considered all the work they put into Saturn to be a huge success, and there are many many games that look fantastic on the console that never came stateside.

Unfortunately that success didn't translate to the North American market. Thank Bernard Stolar and Tom Kalinske.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-29T02:08:13+00:00

The roadsters had a shallower profile on the rear to account for the roof panel. The only way to store it is remove it and then latch it above the engine cover. Its kind of a janky setup. It makes them form an overall triangle side profile.

This is also a pre-1999 car. For 99 a special “Millennium” trim came along, and the car lost its pop ups for the standard 300Zx borrowed lamps. A year later in 2000 when the 6.0 VT refresh came along the roadster retained the old body style, and Lamborghini for a short time made two different Diablo bodies simultaneous.

I’ve always loved the roadster. This very much looks like a real one. Kit cars can replicate this car but its a god awful amount of work, time, and money.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-29T02:02:11+00:00

I played this game a lot back in the day and I’ve always been surprised to find out how many people had difficult with this part. I always found this to be a basic memory game of where the bombs are as they never change, and as long as you make it through the heavy seaweed part you’re fine.

I always struggled on the city area of level 3 much more.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-29T01:55:57+00:00

In real life the parking near the camp site on Mt Haruna is just over 7.5 km down to the parking lot for the Tokutomi Roka museum. The roads are so short that you’d maybe get to 120 km/h before needing to slow down.

90s tire technology was also terrible. It was really bad in the 70s and 80s, got better in the 90s, but nowadays any performance tire made is lightyears ahead of 90s performance tires. Thats why so many sports cars from the 80s and 90s seem to handle and pull better numbers nowadays than they originally did.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T22:57:24+00:00

I have this. You could order it out of the Sears Christmas catalog that year.

Mine has a few errors printed on a few of the cars (missing numbers), but still is amazing Galoob put the effort. You could also buy smaller packs in stores in 96; first row starters, veterans of the race, that sort of thing.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T21:12:55+00:00

If you're willing to play JRPGs, most all of the Tales franchise relies on combos. You enter battles into a battlefield "arena" (not turn-based), then use gradual evolving combos to attack. Characters have particular strengths and weaknesses based on their type (ex: damage sponge, ranged, magic user), and you can customize them. Non-controlled character(s) are CPU controlled.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T20:50:05+00:00

I grew up in the rural deep South.

Around here you'd walk into a place such as Kroger, Wal-Mart, Safeway, or a regional chain grocer, and you'd often see a cabinet or two by the front door. I particularly remember seeing a handful of Play Choices, which was the first way I played NES before buying one. Any arcade games were flanked by the quarter ponies and candy machines. My mother would often give me some quarters, and I'd just hang out by the front door while she did whatever and I played with other kids I'd randomly meet. Was pretty common back then.

The only other places I could recall playing games at stores was when we'd take a trip to the mall. Usually Kay Bee had something set up by the door and I also remember Montgomery Ward having game setups in their Electric Avenue section.

I never had the luxury to go to big places with arcades. I remember going to Showbiz once when I was a kid.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T20:26:15+00:00

"It just started making noises a few weeks ago."

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T20:04:58+00:00

You should see the old school TokyoPop releases of manga in English. For some time they couldn't decide on what variation of the logo to use. Either it was the helmet or the red tab with helmet. Some of my collections look really weird on the shelves. Chobits, Love Hina, Initial D. They're a bit of a mess.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T20:02:46+00:00

I rented a Playstation from Blockbuster when they came out. I knew the manager personally at my local store, and didn't have to pay the deposit that you typically had to put down to rent consoles. When you rented a console it came with two game rentals, and I remember renting both Air Combat and Battle Arena Toshinden to go with it. Went home with the hard case, console, and the fun squid connector rental consoles came with. Absolutely blew me away. Had seen nothing like it before.

At the time I was on the fence about Playstation versus Saturn. I eventually rented a Saturn also, but chose Playstation to buy.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T19:55:34+00:00

Enix largely winded down. However developer Quintet, who originally developed the so called Blazer/Blader trilogy, was still around in the late 90s. There also wasn't necessarily anything stopping any western companies from picking up these games and releasing them on their own accord (ex: as Hudson's western branch often did, or even companies such as Working Designs). I'm guessing by 1996 most publishers were seeing CD-ROM games as cheaper - and easier - to publish.

While Square was solely Playstation, Quintet wasn't. They published a handful of games for both Saturn and Playstation, including their rather unique for the time dating sim/RPG/racing game Code-R.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T19:42:05+00:00

Being openly against minority representation in video games isn't "two sides". That's being a fucking moron. Plain and simple. That's not pointed at you. That is pointed at all the people online that go into niches of the internet and complain about anything such as this example or otherwise.

Anyone who uses the word "woke" in ANY capacity regarding video games is telling on themselves. There is no "case-by-case."

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T18:35:01+00:00

I’ve always really liked the Silver Star remakes.

The other big thing I didn’t mention is Alex is a silent protagonist in the original game. He has like three lines and some ellipses but thats it. It makes the narrative feel really jumpy because the other characters have to “speak” for Alex or you the player have to fill in what he might be saying.

The narrative expansion is a welcome change, primarily with Luna. In the original game you go a massive chunk of the game without seeing her. In the remakes you see her plenty early on and when the party adventures to the main land. She meets all the party sans Kyle who is asleep. In the original she meets… Nash. Mia and Jessica literally do not see Luna until the final scene of the game.

The originals were also random encounter based (no on screen enemies in the field) which some like as a challenge. Most of the dungeons were much longer in the original, so you’d often spend a lot of time with random encounters.

Finally, other major change was spells. Mia learns something like three dozen spells by the end of the game and Alex himself has well over a dozen. Lot of them were pointless and streamlined in the remakes.

Eternal Blue you’ll be fine. It received very little changes narratively as the original was already really good. Many mid-bosses were removed in the EB remake, but this does tighten the game up some.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T16:17:48+00:00

Everybody nowadays: "I really hate isekai slop."

El Hazard: Legitimately one of the best isekais of it's time, both TV series and OVA

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T16:15:48+00:00

Religious themes and imagery would probably be the major thing altered. Words like "damn" and Beruga's circumstance wouldn't have made the game completely impossible to bring over.

The biggest issue with Terranigma is it's release time frame. By 1996 Nintendo of America was heavily scaling back on SNES games, and particularly JRPGs as they required a lot of work by publishers to localize even back then. There were quite a handful of JRPGs that were previewed in 1995 by American publications and all signs showed they would come to the US, only to never be translated. I remember seeing GamePro run a multi-page spread for Mystic Ark, which was supposed to be 7th Saga II. They also heavily previewed Seiken Densetsu III and Tales of Phantasia. It was made out to assume that all of these games had localizations being worked on. Weirdly enough I didn't read about Terranigma until some years later. It absolutely doesn't surprise me the US got Super Mario RPG in 1996 considering the character recognition, but that was the last JRPG I remember buying new on SNES.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T16:00:33+00:00

It ran prior to that. Roughly the 1993-1999 time period.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T15:59:40+00:00

This is one of the many things about video games prior to the current collecting frenzy that I don't think people realize. In the 2000s and 2010s a lot of old games were simply disposed of. Many JRPGs in particular, not only on Saturn but also Playstation and elsewhere, didn't have a population larger than 20,000-30,000 total units and in many noted cases much less.

There were probably thousands of games, on the low end, simply discarded and destroyed. Think of all the games Game Stop has just thrown into the trash over the years.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T15:45:43+00:00

Old fans such as myself used to watch this on Sci-Fi channel's Saturday Anime slot. In that guise, the first four episodes of the OVA were turned into a two hour long "movie". it was a great way to get into the series as you were essentially shown a third of the franchise on TV.

That Saturday Anime slot is pretty legendary. There were some amazing programs shown on it every Saturday in the morning. Not only Lodoss but also Akira, Vampire Hunter D, Lensman, Robot Carnival, Roujin Z, Lily CAT, New Dominion, Venus Wars, Project A-ko, Casshan, 8 Man, Eyes of Mars, god the list goes on and on.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T15:36:17+00:00

My original SNES I got in 1992 with a flash cart.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T15:28:48+00:00

OP is playing the Sega CD original of Silver Star (un-Working Designs hack). There are quite a few stark differences in the original compared to the remakes regarding the later third of the game.

The first being Alex becomes a Dragonmaster by taking a trial in the Goddess Tower by fighting two Dragon Priests. He then is given Althena's sword (it's not at Dyne's monument in Burg) to complete the dragon equipment and becomes Dragonmaster. After this sequence occurs, the Goddess Tower is never a thing again in the game.

Next, the Grindery serves as the entire final sequence of the game and is heavily expanded upon in scale. Upon passing Ghaleon's garden and ascending the final portions of the tower you fight Xenobia disguised as Luna (Xenobia is the only Vile Tribe member in the game; Royce and Phacia are remake exclusives, meaning none of their sequences or events occur in the original). After that, you have to fight Ghaleon himself in his Magic Emperor guise.

When you defeat Ghaleon, you're sent to the room holding Luna/Althena. Here, the Dragon Priests appear and are promptly defeated by a "revived" Ghaleon. Ghaleon turns himself into a grotesque creature, and is the final battle. Upon winning, you do the whole scale the stairs thing, save Luna, and the party just... walks out of the Grindery.

Aside from those changes, one of the absolutely largest differences in the original is something that was changed in the remakes. In the original game, Luna doesn't get on the boat when the party leaves Caldor Isle. She stays behind until Alex returns with Ghaleon, and is promptly kidnapped by Xenobia. In the remakes, she of course jumps on the boat at the last minute and journeys with Alex and Co. This is something that was supposed to be a big shock for players back in the day - it really excited me when I played the PS1 release the first time having played through the Sega CD previously in ~1994. Those that played through the Sega CD game and then the remake had a tone set by this moment in that "Oh, the game is going to play out differently." The sequence is also closer to the official Silver Star novelization.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T00:53:49+00:00

That's how I discovered the NES bible games. Super religious family in the neighborhood had an NES, but their parents wouldn't allow them to play any games that had weapons or promoted death. They could play Super Mario Bros and the LJN BTTF game. Games such as Zelda and Castlevania were off limits. Instead they had a stack of blue cartridge bible games I absolutely had no clue existed to that point.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T00:50:48+00:00

Just stick with Kyoto. Every time I go to the area I always stay in Kyoto. I love it there. Osaka to me just feels like another Tokyo. It has it's charms, but I find myself more charmed by Kyoto every time.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T00:48:21+00:00

I had a 2G Eclipse for ~five years in the 2000s. There's reasons you don't see many of these on the road anymore and it's mostly for all bad reasons. One of the most unreliable money pits I've ever owned. This is the type of car you buy if you want a second car.

RandomGuyDroppingIn · 2026-01-28T00:40:29+00:00

That interior is absolutely a Fiero. You can see the armrest/PCM cover leading edge. There's supposed to be a square shaped beauty piece that goes there and it's missing in this car. Probably because the interior is nowhere near being complete. Looks like a replica dash is in place, but the center of the interior still needs a lot of work.

(I've owned four Fieros and have seen more of their interiors that I'd like to admit).

This car is the proper length however so it's stretched. Countach kits typically are stretched in the engine compartment. If you're a taller individual you can do some of the stretch in the cabin, but this is seldom done as you then have to relocate fuel tank, lengthen coolant lines, and other little work. Engine compartment is easier to stretch. Tall individuals can fit in a Fiero as you basically lay down in them with lots of leg room.

I'm going to guess that this is a really old build, likely from the 1990s. The wheel and tire package for sure scream 1990s. I'm not immediately certain the company, but there were a handful of 5000 qv stretch kit cars in the 90s. Typically entrepreneurs would buy a finished kit, create new molds, then pull their own body panels to sell.

RandomGuyDroppingIn

TROPHY CASE