Comments 446

Re: "Thought I'd Give It Another Go" - Super Play Artist Wil Overton Reimagines The Debut Issue's Cover

Daniel36

@Guru_Larry I still doodle from time to time, but not in any serious capacity. My daughter, however, is working hard on her skills.

Personally, I went into the direction of painting miniatures and building scenery, which I still enjoy, and making music, which is more difficult but also more rewarding. Also finally picking up DJ-ing. Have a small gig this Saturday.

I have some house tracks about ready to be released, which I am quite proud of. So that is sort of all kicking into gear.

How about you, anywhere I can see your art?

Re: "Thought I'd Give It Another Go" - Super Play Artist Wil Overton Reimagines The Debut Issue's Cover

Daniel36

@Guru_Larry Sounds like he has been a top bloke to a lot of people. One of the few "celebs" where so many people have a personal story to tell.

A long time ago I sent artwork to N64 Magazine, was featured with the caption "Wil's favourite", which was a very obvious highlight of my life.

Years later I decided to send him an e-mail, to thank him for that. He replied and we had a few back and forth e-mails. I didn't want to hassle him too much, so it was only a few e-mails, but it just goes to show he is a genuinely cool guy!

Re: Exclusive: "It's Not About Putting An Old Game In A Nice Box For The Sake Of It" - Utopia Is Getting A New Physical Release On SNES

Daniel36

I absolutely LOVED this game so much. This was one of those purchases I made where the box art drew me in, and without knowing anything about the game, I bought it on a whim.

And boy was I glad I did.

It wasn't perfect, mind you. There wasn't really a "You won this scenario" type deal, so there wasn't really an end game, but I loved building up my empire.

Would love a sort of remake with the same graphics (and music, my goodness the music!) and gameplay, but with some added quality of life stuff and an existing end game thing. And maybe some more planets. That would make me happy.

Re: "Thought I'd Give It Another Go" - Super Play Artist Wil Overton Reimagines The Debut Issue's Cover

Daniel36

@Guru_Larry It looks digital, but I have seen this type of art done with ink, so who knows. Probably digital, though. Too many different elements over each other, would have been a pain to do traditionally.

Nostalgia might be speaking, but I still prefer the original. The new one is great too, though. Wil Overton is a really nice guy, so I wish him all the best with this.

Re: These Photos Of Old Japanese Arcades Remind Me Of What We've Lost

Daniel36

What we've lost is a LOT of noise, though it is kind of cool to see those Animal Crossing arcade cabinets in real life. There is a retro arcade in my country, which I've visited with my kids. We had a lovely time but boy was I overstimulated for days afterwards.

Arcades were never really alive in my home country, anyways. I do fondly recall going to one in the US, when I was there a long time ago, but other than that, this isn't a nostalgic thing for me.

We've lost much more than just arcades though. The arcades are just a small part of an era where many, MANY things were just... better!

Re: A Post-Space Invaders Shooter From Taito & A NES Hoverbike Game Are This Week's "Archives" Releases

Daniel36

That is so funny. I was just recently searching for the name of Seicross.

I remembered it well as one of the better, or at the very least more exotic, games on a friend's illegal multi-cart. His cart had some absolute bangers. My 31-in-1 had as well, but his had more.

Magical times, when you had a multi-cart full of games from far-away lands, where you had no idea what you were doing.

Re: This Game Boy Cart Uses ChatGPT To Create "Personalised Scenarios Tailored To Each Player"

Daniel36

Hmmm...

So I once entertained myself with trying to get ChatGPT to write me a "Choose your own Adventure" thing, and it started out absolutely awesome. Solid choices, and even when I said "No, I actually want to do this..." it complied and really sucked me in.

But before long, it couldn't keep characters, their placement and who was carrying what apart and the entire thing fell apart completely.

So, I am not too confident this game will be able to accurately create scenarios with ChatGPT and keep internal logic.

It WAS pretty awesome though, while it lasted.

Re: Japan-Only Sequel To "Crap In A Box" Action RPG 'Blaze & Blade: Eternal Quest' Is Now Playable In English

Daniel36

@Sketcz Don't beat yourself up about it. Look at it another way; pre-internet, you were the quality control. Without reviewers, maybe game devs would have been less inclined to hold themselves to high standards?

And the readers, they should have compared reviews. They should look at more than just the final grade; the arguments are far more important.

Let's face it, though. This game could have been way better. It had a vibe, but it never fully embraced the vibe with proper gameplay. I can name a few more games that had vibe, but weren't exactly fun to play.

EDIT: You know what, I am going to continue a bit on your thought. Way back when, when magazines were all we had and the internet was just a far-off dream, reviews gave me SO SO SO much joy! There have been reviews that I must have read a hundred times, not even exxagerating. And I suppose the "crap on it" reviews were just as fun, if not more, to read than the glowing reviews. And let's not forget, especially in the NES/SNES era, rental was a huge thing, so you just rented a game, even if you had read a review that said it was bad, just to see for yourself.

I have rented so many absolutely awful games, and let me tell you, I rented them more than once!

So honestly, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

That said, ain't no time like the present to change such behaviour and from this day forth be more... mellow about games. Except for asset flip slop. Honestly, I have thought about starting a website just to review asset flip and AI slop on more than one occasion. I won't do it, but I have thought about it many times.

Should... should we do it? I mean... we have NL, PS, PX and Time Extension... We could one hundred percent add another one to the list.

Re: Japan-Only Sequel To "Crap In A Box" Action RPG 'Blaze & Blade: Eternal Quest' Is Now Playable In English

Daniel36

Sounds like I am in excellent company, seeing as I too greatly enjoyed the first one and have fond memories of playing it.

Was it a good game? No!

But it had SUCH a vibe. On of the very few games that felt like it nailed a certain 90s fantasy animé aesthetic I craved, and also one that allowed you to sort of create your own character, sort of.

I always wanted to create something similar, but alas, I am not a game developer.

Re: "It Does Not Save Time Or Offer Anything Of Value" - Translator Hilltop Isn't A Fan Of AI

Daniel36

There's nothing wrong with getting the basic gist of the translation out of the way using AI.

In a game like this, a huge percentage of the text is going to be pretty cultural and context-heavy. It needed a thorough localisation anyways... half of it was probably never going to make sense to English players regardless. It's like me saying "That's the whole egg-eating", only Dutch folks will know what I mean.

So a game like this was always going to miss half of the intended meaning. It's a bit odd to demand a "perfect" translation when we won't even understand it.

Re: "At EA, We Were Voted The Worst Company In America Because Of The End Of Mass Effect"

Daniel36

Sure, choosing EA over really, REALLY awful companies which have done extensive damage to the world, out of spite for a videogame character is silly. But you know what, so is wanting to humanize EA, which is also just a seriously ***** company. Why would you want to humanize that? (I know the answer)

EA is a ***** company. Not nearly in the same league as those other companies, but still. And sure, call your consumers volatile, why don't you? Not that you're wrong (some gamers and football fans are scum), but the companies that provide the products play a very large part in creating such toxicity, or at least not trying to diminish said toxitiy.

I am sure he can wipe away his tears with a few dollar bills anyways.

Re: Aegis Force Is Inspired By Shining Force, Fire Emblem And Final Fantasy Tactics, So Of Course It Has Our Attention

Daniel36

When I see stuff like this I am like "Man, I should've learned to do this too!", but then I am like "Too many hobbies already!"

Fortunately my son has taken an i terest in game dev, so who knows, maybe we can make something together. I can make music and probably some pixel art too, if he does the programming side...

Anyhoo, I will keep an eye on this one.

Re: Talking Point: What Are Your Retro Gaming Resolutions For The New Year?

Daniel36

Finally caved and got the Nintendo Plus subscription and spent New Years' destroying my kids on N64 games, which have aged surprisingly well. I severely disliked the N64 when it was new, but I sort of forgot how great the good games were. Granted, there weren't many for my fave genres, but we cannot say 1080, F-Zero or Starfox aren't absolutely brilliant.

Even my wife joined, and is now addicted to Tetris x Puyo Puyo 2 (does that count as retro?)

So, I actually got really into retro these past days. But it's fighting for my attention with games like Octopath Traveler 0.