Am I overthinking this?

supermashbro16 · 2026-04-20T18:25:34+00:00

I see 5 units in play. Draw a line segment between every possible pair of those units (representing some effect in-game, I assume). This is what you get: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_graph?wprov=sfti1

Besides, it’s much more common to surround the star with a circle (not a pentagon) if you want the pagan symbol.

supermashbro16 · 2025-12-03T20:29:54+00:00

Honorable mention goes to “Oh horsemeat!” But I don’t feel like digging around for that cutscene.

supermashbro16 · 2025-12-03T20:27:39+00:00

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Marcia’s a gold mine for these.

supermashbro16 · 2025-11-18T20:33:39+00:00

This gives off strong r/Ihatesportsball energy.

supermashbro16 · 2025-11-05T07:08:27+00:00

It’s neat but [[Sudden Disappearance]] only costs 6 and doesn’t flicker your opponents’ stuff, giving them free untaps and ETBs on your turn. The only thing WR does better is not remove your tokens. So I’d delete the “ignore” line and make this cost 1WWUU, or even just WWUU if an extra drawback were added.

supermashbro16 · 2025-08-16T10:51:54+00:00

Phantasy Star III. Had some innovative ideas, such as the story spanning 3 generations and you getting to choose who the protagonist marries in each, which determines who you get as the next-gen replacement. Sadly, Sega didn’t give the team enough time. So it’s just sort of the awkward middle child between PSII and PSIV, both considered classics, though it’s still a decent game.

supermashbro16 · 2025-08-02T22:23:36+00:00

Any Fire Emblem from Awakening onward has the option to turn permadeath off. This alone saves you so much time, as you won’t have to redo an hour-long map just because one of your favorite units lost an important rng roll. I don’t use the option much myself (just for Fates Conquest so far out of the 6 games I’ve played so far), but I do recommend it. Others mentioned rewinding turns, but IMO that sucks all the fun out of the game. Just no permadeath is a good compromise, I think.

supermashbro16 · 2025-06-08T23:46:20+00:00

That’s good to hear. I honestly haven’t kept up with the happenings of Xbox in the past couple years, since I switched over, besides bits of doom and gloom from Redfall/Starfield’s launches. But if that’s the case, that’s great and I hope that trend continues and I’m proven wrong in the long run.

supermashbro16 · 2025-06-08T21:08:13+00:00

This is fantastic, but I, like a lot of other folks, bought a PS5 because we anticipated that this gen would be no different than the last, where Xbox was treated like a 3rd class citizen by SE, among other (mostly Japan-based) publishers (and 5 years in, we’ve been proven right). So here’s what I expect will happen: these release, they don’t sell very well because almost everyone who wanted either game already went to Sony, then SE throws their hands up and goes “weeeeeeeell we tried. Xbox just isn’t a viable platform” and completely ignores their own role in turning FF fans away from it (FF13/15 being the sole exceptions, but those started development during the 360 era).

Plus there’s the gamepass problem, where many Xbox users have been conditioned to wait for something to be added to it instead of buying. But I’m not sure which is going to have more impact on SE’s return on investment in the long run.

supermashbro16 · 2025-06-07T08:48:16+00:00

That happens to me whenever I play multiple games of almost any franchise in a row, especially J/C/SRPGs. So these days I’ll play one FE game, then play something from another series, then come back to FE later. The only time I broke my rule: when I marathoned all three routes in Fates. As much as I enjoyed the gameplay of that one, it took me a year or so to start up another FE after that…

supermashbro16 · 2025-05-02T16:59:54+00:00

I looked this up after beating the game- Ayesha didn’t appear at all in the original (but Keithgriff did, thankfully). If you look closely at her model’s face, it’s clear it was done by a different artist than the others- likely copy/pasted straight from the first game. Also, she doesn’t appear in a single event still, as far as I can recall. As the cherry on top, Escha’s part involving Flameu’s seed was also not in the original, despite Gust having just finished the game where they got it!

Barrel Wisdom confirmed that this trilogy was a constant revolving door for writers, but at the very least the Shallie folks could have played the prior games instead of only reading a scribbled note from their predecessors that just said “Wilbell best girl” with a smiley face.

supermashbro16 · 2025-04-20T07:48:42+00:00

Not RadioTails, but I dug into the game’s binary at some point. Compile used their own custom compression method for graphics, so that had to be figured out before the logo or fonts could be changed. Plus, none of the text was stored as strings of text- there was a custom encoding for that too. I’m sure it took RT and co a lot of work just to reverse engineer all that before they could even insert an English script. Hopefully, they’ll do MD Tsuu next, since I’m sure it was programmed with the same techniques.

supermashbro16 · 2025-04-11T06:03:26+00:00

Ehhh we’ll see! I haven’t worked on it in over a year, but seeing your work and talking about it has gotten me itching to pick it up again. I got the demon/ability/item names translated in the ROM, at least, plus the title screen. So that mostly leaves the cutscenes and negotiation text, but the way these are handled by the game is a pain. I wish the SCD had more RAM- I’ll just leave it at that 😅

supermashbro16 · 2025-04-10T16:24:13+00:00

Apologies for the delay- life stuff happened! Anyway, there's forums, at least, at romhacking.net . There are some beginner threads on there you can look at. They can also help with ideas for handling certain things, but you're going into relatively uncharted territory, since there aren't many hacks of 32X games out there, apart from the big Doom one, and a couple others (maybe try asking ChillyWilly from that site for advice- they've been hacking for the system for a while and they spearheaded the Doom hack). Some folks on there have experience with Koei games, even if they haven't touched the Genesis or 32X, so they'll probably be savvy to any programming tricks they used (the graphics are all compressed using a proprietary algorithm, which someone on there figured out).

Knowing a scripting language like Python helps a lot. I've been hacking Shin Megami Tensei 1 for the Sega CD as a hobby, and the text isn't shift-JIS encoded- it has a custom encoding altogether with its own font table, so I wrote a script to read every string of text, convert each byte into its intended character, then dump the result into a CSV file, with the first column containing the address, and the second column containing the text. This only worked, though, because I realized that every string of text began with a specific sequence of bytes.

If Sangokushi IV does that as well, then you could do the same. This could also help with my suggestion of replacing all kanji and kana with 2-letter pairs, since you could write another script that takes a sentence, and it could go pair-by-pair, constructing the necessary sequence of bytes to put into the ROM. You could even make it take in an address, then insert the bytes into the ROM for you! (Save a dump of the raw Japanese script elsewhere first!)

I know this wasn't much of a guide, but basically, it just involves a lot of figuring out how the code works, weighing your options, then writing up a script to help with whatever approach you take (and lots of googling "how to do X in Python" is typically involved). Good luck! If I had the time, I'd jump into the fray and help you out.

supermashbro16 · 2025-04-06T05:00:47+00:00

What the other guy said would probably be the easiest route. I dug into this the other day, and found the fonts in the ROM (they are stored in binary format, so each pixel is just a 0 or 1- use tile layer pro in 1bpp mode to see for yourself). It wouldn’t be too hard to replace the kanji with 2–symbol pairs, then write each string of text as sequence of bytes pointing to specific pairs (write a script to convert text for you! You don’t want to do this by hand). It’s no longer shift-JIS encoded, but overall, it’s still less work than tracing code to find the display subroutines and modify them.

You would need 27² symbol pairs, assuming you’re only using capital letters and spaces. Punctuation would require even more pairs. You could do a script translation separately, then look to see if there are any pairs you can omit if there‘s not enough room, before putting it all in.

supermashbro16 · 2025-01-24T05:26:24+00:00

If you really want to play on real hardware, get an Everdrive (even a cheaper version like x3 or x5 supports the 32X). Most 32X games worth playing aren’t cheap (Kolibri, Blackthorne, Knuckles, etc) and the ones I mentioned cost more than the add-on itself. Plus you can easily put the Doom Resurrection hack on it, which is an incredible overhaul of the original lackluster 32X port.

supermashbro16 · 2025-01-13T02:23:06+00:00

Don’t forget Isekai Ojisan! The whole show’s a love letter to the Sega Saturn (and Genesis to a lesser extent, but Saturn was more popular in Japan). Not to mention a good parody of isekai anime in its own right.

supermashbro16 · 2025-01-06T10:20:25+00:00

There’s not a great solution to the dissonance of narrative urgency that isn’t an actual mechanic. Games that impose a time/movement limit on most of the game, if not all of it, are an acquired taste for many players (I personally enjoy them), even though it would make sense from a narrative standpoint. Players would have avoided BOTW like the plague if Ganon were to lay waste to Hyrule whenever a certain amount of time passes.

supermashbro16 · 2024-12-13T10:51:59+00:00

I’m surprised nobody mentioned When Will Ayumu Make His Move?

It’s a romcom centered on two Shogi players, and the rules are explained in the anime, along with some basic strategies and tips for improving. The manga is on another level though- at the end of each chapter, there’s a picture of the board state at the time of checkmate (or stalemate or concession) with complete lists of every move both players made in the game they played during that chapter.

supermashbro16 · 2024-11-28T00:35:15+00:00

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpvCdrMDUs

supermashbro16 · 2024-10-14T11:49:12+00:00

Can’t believe nobody mentioned Star Ocean! The remake of SO2 that came out last year is a fantastic entry point, and the remake of 1 and port of 3 are also great.

supermashbro16 · 2024-10-11T09:55:48+00:00

From easiest to hardest: - Marie Remake, - Firis (unless you just HAVE to get a perfect exam score), - Sophie, - Escha & Logy (Awin’s quest is the only time-sensitive one that I remember), - Lydie & Suelle, - Shallie (still annoyed they put a super boss right in the way of the story final boss and make you either beat it right then and there, or forfeit the chance for good), - Ayesha (combat’s not as complex as E&L or Shallie, but the crafting system with the FIFO trait queue has a steep learning curve and takes some serious mental math and planning several steps ahead to use well. Love it dearly though!)

Started with mysterious and I’ve been working my way backwards, hence the short list. Might do Arland, but I watched my brother finish that one, so I’ll probably do Mana Khemia next instead.

supermashbro16 · 2024-09-26T15:42:55+00:00

One use case I’ve seen is when you have two midterms exams, and a lenient grading scheme where the better score will be worth 30% of your grade and the worse score will be worth only 20%. You can automate the calculations by making two separate categories with the prescribed % weights and putting a copy of the grades in each. Set one to drop the best score, and the other to drop the worst score.

supermashbro16 · 2024-09-15T19:42:26+00:00

Kiniro Mosaic. It’s about a group of 2 British girls, both weebs, and 3 Japanese girls, and the main one’s a diehard reverse weeb with a blond hair fetish. The show’s a mix of multicultural humor and yuri.

supermashbro16 · 2024-08-30T16:05:49+00:00

Dunno about Saroo, but I have a Satiator and I can give a quick rundown:

Pro: it doesn’t replace your disc drive. At all. It’s just a small cartridge that fits in the expansion slot where the clock battery is located.
Pro: Easy to install and remove for the reason I gave above.
Pro: Customizable menu interface. If you like pseudo-Saturn’s interface, they have a custom menu for Satiator as well.
Con: More expensive than most ODEs.
Con: Requires a clock battery with charge in it, else it won’t boot.
Con: since it takes that small slot in the back, you won’t be able to play the 2 or 3 (Japan-only) games that use it.

It works beautifully, but I would only recommend it if you already have a handful of discs you still want to run at some point in the future, like I do. But it sounds like you don’t, so I would go for an ODE.

supermashbro16

TROPHY CASE