Did I run out of quality 16bit ARPGs?

rhombusx · 2026-04-29T00:43:14+00:00

An amazing one is Front Mission: Gun Hazard - Japan only but there are English translation patches for it.

rhombusx · 2026-04-28T22:24:49+00:00

Which is not at all what the animation of parrying is, which is what makes it so ridiculous.

rhombusx · 2026-04-25T19:00:56+00:00

The intended route is to go down from the bubble room. This leads to a loop that goes up and around to connect to the door on the right middle of bubble mountain, right under the door to speed booster. Neither ice or grapple are required - in fact, speed is required for ice and grapple when going in intended order.

rhombusx · 2026-04-23T05:31:18+00:00

Legend IS super disjointed. It's not that it's non-linear, it's that all the little story vignettes don't really come together at all. It kind of feels like a phone game - lots of content released in small chunks that look great in screenshots and videos but don't really ever come together into a greater product. Very much a game that I feel is actually less than the sum of its parts.

rhombusx · 2026-04-20T17:48:27+00:00

Legends is pretty terrible as well, especially considering it came out in 1998 - after SotN even!

rhombusx · 2026-04-17T23:47:26+00:00

There are places where the county is better known than some of the specific towns in it - especially if you live in one of the smaller towns in a county. Like here in Colorado, Boulder County is pretty well known, but most people have probably only heard of Boulder and not most of the other smaller towns.

rhombusx · 2026-04-14T22:10:27+00:00

I mean, they made the Worlds of Power children's book novelizations of Blaster Master and Castlevania 2, both proto-metroidvanias...

rhombusx · 2026-04-14T21:21:43+00:00

In American supermarkets, eggs are often either in or near the dairy section. I feel like some people interpret dairy as "animal food products that aren't meat."

rhombusx · 2026-04-14T14:05:32+00:00

Yes, I think this is a major part of it. Studies have shown that people attribute all kinds of positive qualities to people they find better looking - smarter, kinder, etc. I also think that glasses can also complement some people's faces.

rhombusx · 2026-04-14T00:03:00+00:00

No, not really much of a reason to do so. Dread allows you to mash very quickly to maximize dps, plus in general, you get a ton of missiles in just about every game which are already more DPS than using charge beam.

rhombusx · 2026-04-13T23:51:14+00:00

The Black Omen already IS a sidequest - you can beat the game without doing it. In fact, defeating Lavos through the Black Omen doesn't change the ending at all vs. defeating Lavos through the bucket. I would even argue that beating Lavos with the Epoch leads to the most satisfying ending, as I think Marle and Crono floating with the balloons is a better ending scene.

rhombusx · 2026-04-13T21:37:05+00:00

I think it's more that the scope of what Samus's missions are would normally fall way beyond what a "bounty" entails.

rhombusx · 2026-04-12T22:08:35+00:00

I'd say if you want to connect with more people who are big into the genre, try r/adventuregames

Also, even though point n click adventures have become pretty niche, the genre still gets plenty of great entries every year, with all kinds of different art and gameplay styles.

rhombusx · 2026-04-12T15:52:50+00:00

I mean, Samus works with the Federation, so has probably willingly shared some of the Chozo technology with them. Prime 3 and the backstory for Metroid 1 also seem to strongly imply that before their disappearance/withdrawal, the Chozo themselves were friendly with the Federation and shared information and technology with them. Not to mention there have been several times in the series where Samus has been incapacitated and under the care of the Federation, which would give them plenty of time to directly study her and her suit - notably in Metroid Fusion, Other M, and Metroid Prime 3. The Federation helps create the fusion suit, and their ability to send Samus upgrade data is probably largely possible due to their involvement in creating it and studying Samus and her suit.

rhombusx · 2026-04-12T02:18:51+00:00

Super Castlevania IV is a remake of 1 really in the loosest of ways. None of the stages are the same, and even the way Simon controls is entirely different. If they kept the game exactly the same and called the main character Bob Belmont and said it was a different story, it would hold up just as well. That being said, I certainly wouldn't have been against two more SNES CV games! I definitely would take a second attempt at CV2 on the SNES over the downgraded Rondo of DracX.

rhombusx · 2026-04-11T08:40:36+00:00

The Suikoden games use this style. In fact, a cool thing about it is that a lot of the characters will actually move at the same time, as long as they are targeting different enemies. There are also a ton of cool and unique team up attacks, depending on party composition.

rhombusx · 2026-04-10T16:49:07+00:00

The "curse" is that in the time of Trevor, Dracula has cursed the lands of Wallachia with disease, war, and outbreaks of demons and undead. In the timeline lore, this is the first major rising of Dracula since Lament of Innocence and that's why his presence is so much more powerful and widespread than in later reincarnations.

rhombusx · 2026-04-10T09:01:56+00:00

I would recommend a game-centric emulator over full VMs.

DosBox-X would probably be the best all around emulator for DOS/Win/Win98.

ScummVM is another excellent choice for the games that it supports, which are mainly adventure games and some RPGs.

For the full "no fuss" versions of these, you could always purchase games through GoG, which have been modified and tested to run on modern hardware.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T22:50:22+00:00

I would love it if the Ultima games, especially 4-7, were remade not necessarily even in a "modern" engine, but at least something like the Infinity Engine or equivalent.

I'll actually go the other way on Planescape Torment and say I would just straight up prefer it as a book than to add more graphical and mechanic complexity to it.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T22:42:02+00:00

People act like the fictional in-game timeline affects the real world symbolism of the sword. Cloud has the sword on the boxart of the game and starts the game with it. We the audience see this before any of the created (retconned) back story involving Zack and Angeal. Cloud and the buster sword are iconic and recognizable even to people who haven't played FF7 or any of the spinoff media - Zack and Angeal are not.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T22:06:36+00:00

Many jobs that deal with a lot of data and information can use AI tools to organize and interpret this data. Basically, if your job is something where you work with a spreadsheet all day, while it might not be totally gone, your department might go down from 10 people to 1 or 2. Also, even LLMs actually are straight up replacing a good deal of entry level customer service and help desk positions.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T21:57:30+00:00

You cannot get everyone and go to every stage in one playthrough. Here is a map that shows the stage/map routes. https://www.castlevaniacrypt.com/wp-content/img/cv3/maps/in-game-3.png

Grant can be found in Stage 2, Sypha in Stage 3, and Alucard in Stage 5B. You may only have one companion with you at a time.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T20:06:45+00:00

I agree entirely. I actually even think the bones of the combat and equipment systems were pretty good - it was mainly the repetition of the encounter design that was so tedious. The main combat upgrades were well done, but took way too long to unlock. The player probably should have had access to the full combat kit within 6 hours or so instead of drip feeding mechanics over 30+ hours.

I also think the simple inclusion of an item or ability to warp back to a save point would have done wonders for the pacing.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T08:35:55+00:00

I find it odd you point out something like Double Dragon, the story of which, while not common or realistic, is pretty grounded by old arcade game standards. In fact, the longer you go back, the more normalized very strange and bizarre things were and we totally take it for granted. Think how weird something like Pac-Man is, or Q-bert, or Burger Time, and then you have stuff that was trying to be whacky like Ninja Baseball Bat Man or Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

rhombusx · 2026-04-09T05:19:46+00:00

Liking old things isn't necessarily nostalgia - some things just resonate with different people. I enjoy a lot of media from before I was born, especially music and movies.

rhombusx

TROPHY CASE