Glen-i

Difference is that The Zelda was dated even back then!

"The" Zelda? Are you 60 or something? Man, I just got flashbacks to some old fogie saying that to me in the 90's.

There is something there, but you're not able to do it yet. Leave it for now.

WHAAAAA!? What would ever make you think that!? ...Yeah, she is. Vampire Survivors is absolutely jam packed with references to games that aren't Castlevania. From Final Fantasy XIII, to Ultima. Knife guy is decent, 1 extra projectile is a solid benefit, but it doesn't scale, which can become a problem later on. Anyway, nothing stopping you from giving "Not-Bayonetta" Knives, she actually utilises them better, get to a high enough level, and she just melts through enemies like a... well, you know the saying.

Stamina format tonight at 8pm.

Next week is the start of September, which means... FRESH PRINCE NIGHT! If you want to go all in on the theme, here are those excellent Miis @RedShell made for you to try and recreate. Of course, I imagine most of you regulars already have one from a previous year, but if you wanna switch it up, there they are.

@BowserBasher and @S.C.G in that last Perfect Dark match! Nice to finally have a case where I spawn surrounded by mines, and it being the best thing that could've happened!

Saw that on Era, and it seems so obvious now!

After finishing FF4 Pixel Remaster, I am once again reminded that, as far as standard boss music goes, nothing has ever beaten this one! It's so good, a Mario game nicked it!

They get an extra 1% strength every level. Also, they start with two weapons that are way more effective then the knife. They make surviving Dairy Plant far more feasible on a first attempt.

The thing you get from the first coffin is totally worth it, BTW. Definitely spend money on that. My favourite character in the base game!

Laughter is how we mask the pain!

It would completely undermine the main mechanic, don't you think? Why play as Zelda, if she'll just be an expy of Link? Might as well just play as Link, in that case. Anyway, that trailer has finally allayed a lot of my concerns about dungeon design, still not convinced on the overworld, but it's progress.

Heh, that's funny. I literally said to @BowserBasher that your setup is less then stellar last night. Acceleration is easily the most important stat. Don't let that go below the halfway point.

I agree, except BBC showed the latest series of Pokémon a while back, so there was precedent there.

You're using garlic, you have no leg to stand on with criticising pentagram. The absolute pinnacle of early game hell, late game awsomeness!

Keep in mind, that the refund doesn't apply to characters you've unlocked. Once you buy a character, that's it.

Why the hell are you discussing Vampire Survivors here!? But yeah, learning stuff as you play is the best way to go. The sense of discovery this game has is immense! Finding out a new way to break things over your knee is a joy!

Yes, Meteor missed. That wasn't luck. Completely planned. Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster is a remake of the SNES game Final Fantasy II (Not a typo) that released for the Switch and PS4 in 2023. Unlike the first three entries in the Pixel Remaster collection, I've not played this one previously, although I have played FF IV plenty of times. The game follows Cecil, captain of the Red Wings, the air force unit of Baron. He's been ordered to steal a crystal from the small town of Mysidia. Cecil has misgivings about this, as Mysidia is a tiny village and utterly defenseless. When Cecil voices his concern to the King of Baron, he's demoted immediately and ordered to take a ring to the village of Mist. I'm sure it'll be fine. Much like the actual NES Final Fantasy II, this game has defined characters for the purposes of the plot, something that every mainline Final Fantasy game after this would also do. It's... fine. The game tries to have some tragic deaths along the way, much like FF II, but the game has a habit of just undoing those deaths, which kinda undermines the sacrifice. Don't try flinging yourself off a flying boat, and blowing yourself up, you probably won't survive. Don't use this game for life lessons. I would too, if it didn't matter most of the time Final Fantasy IV marks a notable shift in how battles work. This game introduces the ATB (Active Time Battle) system. In battles, each character has a bar corresponding to them. This bar fills up in real time, and when it's full, they can perform an action. Enemies have this as well, so they'll attack while you're doing stuff (Unless you turn on the "Wait" option). I love this system, it's very dynamic, and the game quickly shows the stuff it can do with it from the first boss. I do kinda miss it, even if the next 5 Final Fantasy games do also use it. Interestingly enough, this game takes a couple of things from the 3D remake of FF IV. Arrows aren't a finite resource, so bows don't suck, which means Rosa and Rydia can actually contribute to damage without using magic. And the siren item can be bought. Even better, is that the "Pink Tail" item, a notoriously rare drop from a notoriously rare enemy in the final dungeon, has been made significantly easier to get in this version. So with the infinite sirens, getting five of those is actually reasonable. Which means everyone can be decked out in the best armour, and that's why Meteor missed in the video above. It's really broken and funny! Only healed once during the final boss, and it wasn't really neccessary! Anyway, this was a SNES game originally, so the more 8-bit style of the sprites the Pixel Remaster employs really starts to look not as good as the source material. FF IV is a relatively early SNES game, so the downgrade is not as pronounced as the later games, but still. Music is amazing, as always. Final Fantasy IV is absolutely rock solid, and the same is true for the Pixel Remaster. It's not my favourite Final Fantasy, hell, it's not even my favourite SNES Final Fantasy! But that only goes to show how good a certain game is. It's, like, avant garde and junk!

Pauline's in. Why you'd ever pick her over the likes of Boo, Monty Mole, Spike, or Shy Guy is beyond me, but there you go.

Got a free slot for four player NSO shenanigans tonight at 8:30pm if anyone wants in. Also, feel free to suggest games you want to play. Anyway, I have to share my latest "Tale of Woe". I've been playing through Fire Emblem. Slowly. But I have been playing it. The thing is, I'm not a huge fan of Fire Emblem games where the amount of experience you can get is limited, because I feel like if I ended up investing into a character who turns out not to be too great, then it feels wasteful. I know the series as a whole is designed around being flexible with how you handle the game, but my mind doesn't think like that. Efficiency. That's how I play. Marcus and his spongey EXP tendencies can shove it. Anyway, I've done research on which characters to invest in, and I'm studiously employing save states and the rewind feature of NSO (Because if you're gonna force permadeath on me, I'm gonna cheat as much as I can). And then Nino showed up. For the sake of information, Nino is a character of the "Est" archetype. They're the character who joins your army at a lower level than you'd expect, but if you put the effort into training them up, can become absolute powerhouses. My kind of unit! But with no grinding possible in this game, that's difficult. Also, Nino joins extremely late! Chapter 26 is no place for a level 5 Mage! Nino 55 50 55 60 45 15 50 That's Nino's growth rate (It's a percentage, so she has a mostly 1 in 2 chance of any stat going up, except Defense), so I guess I'll put the effort in... Chapter 26 isn't a great place to feed her EXP, so 26x will have to do. I've spent three hours on this map... The first attempt ended in disaster when Lyn got berserked and went on to punch Nino in the face. She didn't take it well. My bad for not bringing a Restore staff. It's the second attempt that was heartbreaking. It was going well, I funneled enemies through the one tile bridge with Lyn as bait, letting Nino slowly pick everyone off from behind her, making sure not to get in range of that berserk user (Restore staff makes this unneccessary, but still). Nino got to level 20, I managed to send Florina to pick off the thieves as they arrived, and it was time to clear up. Except I forgot to bring lockpicks with me... No bigs, I can just go to Merlinus and... Wait, where's Merlinus? I've deployed him in every chapter, why isn't he here? Well, it turns out this is the one chapter where you can't bring Merlinus. I hate this game... Sacred Stones is so much better, add that to NSO, Nintendo.

The optimistic side of me is hoping it's like Tales of Vesperia where it's 30 outside of fights, but 60 in battles. But then again, they also did the Tales of Symphonia "remaster", so I'm not too hopeful...

Welp, that's put me right off then. Oh well, guess Konami will be getting that money for some old DS games then. ...After I play Aria of Sorrow first.

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.