Kitsune Tails - Cute little platformer, but maybe a little too on the nose in just how much it copies from SMB3. I think they didn’t need to put Kuribo’s Shoe in there.

Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers - Liked the demo a lot, but my opinions keep going back and forth on the full version. At first it felt like there just isn’t enough player agency to consistently get out of the early game or deal with everything the endgame throws at you, but then I started to work out the winning strat by just repeatedly forcing the opponent to bust. Doing that all the time is a little linear though, and the gap between broken cards and worthless cards is a lot.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - Did alright in this week’s bracket. Hyde still terrifies me.

Splatoon 3 - lol, lmao

Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - the usual

Any particular reason you would want SteamOS on a desktop over any other distro? It’s pretty much designed for console use, I would not recommend it elsewhere.

Favorite:

• Nintendo DSi - The DS just had such an incredible library, with tons of unique titles you could never experience elsewhere. Though the sad thing about how unique it was is that… you can’t properly experience a lot of these titles elsewhere. Emulation just isn’t the same. While it came out very late and wasn’t worth upgrading to if you already owned an earlier model, the DSi was a very nice and sleek evolution on the hardware. Much more softmod-friendly too.
• Miyoo Mini Plus - Bought this last year on sale as an impulse buy. Ended up liking it so much I wish I’d bought a more expensive model with analog sticks. My ultimate dream is to someday get something that runs SteamOS in this form factor.
• My custom built fightstick - Put this together last year to replace my old Hori RAP4. Really happy with how it turned out! Love the GP2040-CE, I used to have to go through an adapter to use the HRAP4 on Switch and I can feel the difference not having that added latency anymore.

Hard for me to name least favorites, because I haven’t owned a system I actively disliked, and I don’t wanna just say CD-i or N-Gage or whatever. But I guess I’ll list ones that I have mixed feelings on:

• Wii - The Wii had a few great games. It also had a lot of duds. The saddest thing about it is how many games had to shoehorn waggle gimmicks in, and how few of them actually did it well.
• Steam Deck - As a Linux nerd that wants to see the platform grow, I love that the Steam Deck exists. It’s arguably the most important thing that has happened to Linux gaming. It just isn’t for me at all. It’s too big to be a handheld, I grew up on a Game Boy Color and I still love curling up with handhelds in bed, but this doesn’t feel cozy to play with at all. I do occasionally use it + dock as a portable setup I can take to FGC events, or when I have guests I’ll sometimes hook it up to the TV for Jackbox, but it mostly gathers dust the rest of the time.
• Switch - Great library, and the hybrid form clearly worked out for Nintendo just because they don’t have to divide their output between two platforms. But like the Deck, it’s not what I want in a handheld, mine doesn’t leave the dock. It’s also rather frustrating how many bad ports the system got, I wish developers would simply stop trying to port games it clearly can’t handle - especially when there are plenty of older titles in their back catalog that I’m sure could have good ports but get overlooked. And don’t get me started on JoyCons!

Them’s Fightin’ Herds - Glue Cup was short on commentators this week, so I volunteered to fill in. Been a long time since I’ve done proper commentary, honestly missed it a lot.

Mega Knockdown - Took 4th in the 2nd Anniversary bracket, and streamed top 4 on my own channel.

Kitsune Tails - Cute little platformer, but maybe a little too on the nose in just how much it copies from SMB3. I think they didn’t need to put Kuribo’s Shoe in there.

Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers - Liked the demo a lot, but my opinions are already a little more mixed on the full version. It has cool ideas, but it feels like there’s just not enough player agency, and a lot of ways to get stuck in stalemates. Maybe I need to give it a little more time to figure out strats I’m missing.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - Casual practice, no cool clips worth sharing this week. Or maybe I just don’t feel like dumping my SD card right now.

Splatoon 3 - Also just practice sessions.

Slay the Spire - The usual.

Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - Running out of things to say here.

Or just don’t delist it at all? There’s no good reason to do this.

CrossCode is my favorite RPG of all time, and that’s a high bar. Super excited for anything else Radical Fish Games does.

If you haven’t, I beg you all to please go play CrossCode.

I mainly used Reddit for communities dedicated to niche games and hobbies. None of those communities exist on the Fediverse, because the venn diagram of very niche interests x Fedi itself being niche has too little overlap. Fedi would have to be substantially bigger to replicate that part of Reddit, only when there are a ton of users to begin with will I be able to find the small percentage of them who also want to talk about the stuff I want to talk about.

Has there been any word on a Linux port? Since it’s in Love2D I saw people were able to unofficially inject it into the native runtime, so it would be great to have that made official.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - I’m back on my bullshit again. Uzuki arc was fun, but when it comes time for bracket I gotta lock in. And by lock in, I mean still play like a clown.

Them’s Fightin’ Herds - Glue Cup was short on commentators this week, so I volunteered to fill in. Been a long time since I’ve done proper tournament commentary, I’ve honestly really missed doing it.

Mega Knockdown - Took 4th in the second anniversary bracket. Shoutouts to Stealphie’s $100 airthrow.

Splatoon 3 - Didn’t have too much time to practice this week, but had one good session. Really trying to work on more actionable callouts, coordinating with our specials and planning a push together rather than merely announcing things after they happen.

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story - Man, forgot how annoying it was that you have to always go for weapon breaks against bosses or else you miss their blueprint forever. Also, RHDN shutdown has me wondering, if/when the third game’s translation patch ever gets finished, where do I even look to find out about it?

Slay the Spire - I can quit any time I want, I swear.

Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - Came dangerously close to losing my Master 1 rank on Soul, but got a few wins so I’m safeish now. I know I’m too reckless and I’m trying to work on that. I did play one of the best games I’ve had at club this week, had the discipline to fold several tempting hands and it turned out to be correct every time. Sometimes protecting second place through smart play is more satisfying than lucking into first.

Kitsune Tails - Cute little platformer, but maybe too on the nose for how much it copies SMB3. Kuribo’s Shoe, really?

Same as last week.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - I’m back on my bullshit again. Uzuki arc was fun, but when it comes time for bracket I gotta lock in. And by lock in, I mean still play like a clown.

Splatoon 3 - Didn’t have too much time to practice this week, but had one good session. Really trying to work on more actionable callouts, coordinating with our specials and planning a push together rather than merely announcing things after they happen.

Persona 4 Golden - Still just post-Kanji dungeon. At the rate I am going I will finish this game… someday.

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story - Man, forgot how annoying it was that you have to always go for weapon breaks against bosses or else you miss their blueprint forever. Also, RHDN shutdown has me wondering, if/when the third game’s translation patch ever gets finished, where do I even look to find out about it?

Slay the Spire - I can quit any time I want, I swear.

Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - Came dangerously close to losing my Master 1 rank on Soul, but got a few wins so I’m safeish now. I know I’m too reckless and I’m trying to work on that. I did play one of the best games I’ve had at club this week, had the discipline to fold several tempting hands and it turned out to be correct every time. Sometimes protecting second place through smart play is more satisfying than lucking into first.

There’s a reason why not a single arena fighter has managed to attract a playerbase dedicated enough to keep a competitive scene going. They focus on quantity over quality and it shows.

It’s not like licensed games can’t succeed, but something has gone deeply wrong with the arena formula. More people are still playing JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, an arcade game from 1998, than any of these modern arena games.

Turn-based: Bravely Default. A stellar evolution of FF5 that gives you so many toys to play with, and the titular Brave/Default mechanic opens up a lot of cool ideas just by giving you flexibility in when to take your turn. Specifically BD1 and Second though, I felt like BD2 was a massive step back by trying to introduce a turn order system at the expense of no longer queueing everyone together at once.

Action: Tales. Hard to pick just one, and there are still a bunch I haven’t played, but I think I’ll go with Vesperia specifically for all the advanced tech it allowed for.

Honorable mention to CrossCode as well, but I know someone’s gonna debate whether it counts as J or if it’s just sparkling Secret of Mana.

I’'m that guy who’s been disgruntled for years about how Sega has been handling Puyo Puyo. After so many years of waiting, we finally got a new standalone game that isn’t a crossover… but they made it exclusive to Apple Arcade.

The game was so dead on arrival that if you try to play online, you simply get matched with bots. Which means Sega knew the game would be dead on arrival and tried to cover it up, as opposed to, I dunno, not taking the damn exclusivity deal then.

I primarily play competitive fighting games, so I’d just be looking for a steady stream of opponents to challenge myself against. That’s something I can grind for five years.

Damn, no multiplayer hurts like hell.

Slay the Spire - I could grind Packmaster forever. And everything else on the Workshop. And vanilla.

Stepmania - You said I have access to all existing mods and content, so I’ve basically got a trillion charts to play. Maybe I’ll even have time to actually get good at a rhythm game?

Crypt of the Necrodancer - Had to think long and hard about a third game. Been a long time since my Cadence speedrunning days, but I guess five years on a desert island might give me time to try and shoot for Coda.

I’m shy.

Learned that the people I thought were my friends… weren’t. Set off an awful chain of events that cost me my dreams.

I feel like don’t know how to make friends anymore, and I don’t know how to trust people.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - Uzuki is here! I haven’t been playing much since Combo Breaker, but now I gotta boot it back up to check out the funny girl with the big hat. She’s an absolute blast to play, I just love big buttons. Streamed an open lobby night, have some highlights: 1 2 3 4 5

Splatoon 3 - Had a long session with our coach picking apart two replays from our last LUTI set, they thoroughly exposed how incompetent we all are gave us a lot of helpful advice on what our team needs to work on.

Persona 4 Golden - Still early in, finished Kanji’s dungeon. My attention’s getting split between too many other stuff but I will finish this thing eventually.

Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - Last two weeks have been rough at the local club, I am not doing so hot in league standings. Shoulda drawn better tiles.

Summon Night Swordcraft Story - Browsing through what to play next on my Miyoo Mini Plus, just felt like revisiting an old childhood favorite. Still waiting for the third game’s translation patch…

Slay the Spire - Packmaster runs are second monitor content while I watch Youtube. Chill comfort game.

I miiiiight have had an existing list sitting around to just paste here.

Gamecube:

• F-Zero GX: It’s been over 20 years since the GOAT dropped and all we’ve had to show for it is that damn 99 game. Go play this and weep that we’ll never see another like it.
• Kirby Air Ride As a racing game, it’s okay. But City Trial mode is one of the best damn party games ever made. Check out the hack pack for extended goodies.
• Nintendo Puzzle Collection: The best version of Panel de Pon, but SNES is a close second if you wanna play on a device that can’t run Dolphin. GBC is also kinda noteworthy for having a unique singleplayer to work around platform limitations - opponents have a lifebar rather than a board. Just don’t bother with 64.
• Tales of Symphonia: This game got a PS2 rerelease with some extra content, and the HD remasters are based on that version. But the catch is that they were downgraded to 30fps, and yes that includes the so-called remaster. So I still recommend playing the Gamecube original at 60.

Wii:

• Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary: The absolute pinnacle of the series (by which I mean it’s all downhill from here, I will never forgive Sega for what came next ), crammed with a whopping 20 game modes. I really love the challenges where you have to chain under bizarre restrictions. I prefer the Wii version for its 480p assets, and it’s the easiest to emulate, but if you care about story mode the translation patch only exists for DS.

GBC:

• Game & Watch Gallery 2: Holds a special place in my heart as the first game I ever owned. Has the best lineup out of all the collections, with 3 and 4 you can kinda tell they had used up all the heavy hitters.
• Mario Tennis: An incredible tennis RPG. And Mario doesn’t even show up until the postgame as a bonus boss, which I find hilarious. Has connectivity with the N64 version if you can get that running, lets you transfer your RPG mode character and unlock more content on both titles.

GBA:

• Boktai series: These games were so near and dear to my childhood, especially 2. Really though you want the Solar Sensor hardware for the full experience, but I love these games too much not to plug them anyway. Emulating them is worth it over not playing them at all. And for the third game, you’d have to pick between original hardware or the translation patch anyway.
• Golden Sun 1/2: These games were way ahead of their time for how they designed a combat system that encourages you to use all of your tools and not just click basic Attack as if you gotta hoard your MP for a rainy day. Fantastic puzzles too.
• Mother 3: Surely you have already heard of this game and do not need me to tell you to go play it. Have you not played it by now? Why not? Well, okay, if you haven’t played Earthbound first, go do so, then play this.
• Rhythm Tengoku: A wonderful game about pressing the A button. Sometimes you press the d-pad too. Translation patch.
• Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1/2: If you’ve ever played the classic 2D Tales games, these are excellent spiritual successors to those. There’s a third game that’s JP-only, translation patch is being worked on but it’s been stuck in development hell for years…

Romhacks:

• Celeste Mario’s Zap & Dash (NES): SMB1 turned into a Metroidvania with Celeste mechanics ported in. I think what impresses me the most is that they got 4-directional scrolling into this engine.
• Super Metroid and A Link to the Past Crossover Randomizer (SNES): It’s an absolutely incredible technical feat that this even works. SM and ALttP smashed together into a single ROM, with a few doors that take you from one game to the other, then the item pools are shuffled together so you have to go back and forth to find one game’s items in the other. Unfortunately because ALttP is a much bigger game with a lot more items it kinda overshadows SM, you may not find this to be as replayable as the standalone randos. But I recommend trying it once because it’s just so cool the first time.