AXM

I'll list my in-game play time for all three, 'cause that wouldn't make sense otherwise. I tried talking to NPCs as often as possible (their dialogue updates very often) and cleared every marked side-quest. FC: 41:19:16 (Steam: 46.9 hours) SC: 69:56:47 (Steam: 71.9 hours) 3rd: 56:40:57 (Steam: 49.6 hours)** Mind you that I made very, very good use of the Speed Up button both in-battle and in fields (the time counter speeds up with the game only in-battle)**: these games have incredibly slow battles and a lot of walking -- I'll be honest, I would have never beat them without it, especially SC. For that reason alone, do play them on PC if possible. **The 3rd is much more battle-heavy, hence the huge discrepancy. FC I might have dropped it before restarting it, not sure, I forgot.

This is an issue Jeremy's also having and I'm not seeing it, even on a smaller screen. I wouldn't say it's night and day -- that's going from a very cheap no-name TV to a mid-range Samsung screen like I did -- but it's relatively noticeable. Probably the quickest way to check if you can actually notice the difference is by playing one of those countless "showcase" 4K videos on Youtube (of the space kind, underwater kind, nature kind, the like) and quickly switching from 1080p to 4K and viceversa. We did the same as soon as we bought it and we couldn't believe our eyes. Sure was tough going back to our 1080p-only consoles for a day or two.

Since the year is now over, I can announce that I beat a grand total of 121 games in 2020. That's a lot. So it seems fair to list some of my favorites, in no particular order because I'm lazy. Also I haven't played enough new games, so expect more than a few Most Awesome Games Played In 2020 Not Necessarily Released In 2020. Favorite games - Hades - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 - Final Fantasy VII Remake - Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - Dragon Quest XI S - Trails in the Sky the 3rd - Danganronpa V3 - Demon's Souls - Halo 2 - Pokemon Moon "I can't believe I actually grew up and don't despise this anymore" Award Call of Duty (the Cold War demo was fun) "I felt miserable the whole way through" Award Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux Honorable mentions: Resistance 2, Secret of Mana My new year's resolution is to maybe play less games but more good ones. I really don't want to force myself to beat games I can't stand anymore.

...which is exactly what happened today with Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith! I did end up 1CCing it later, but man, that hurt a lot.

Yesterday I accomplished something almost by complete accident, or at least something I didn't expect to do right there and then: I finished Touhou 8: Imperishable Night on a single credit on Normal (True ending, using the Reimu/Yukari team). Took me just under four hours of play total, but a running time of *ahem* 1235 hours, apparently. It's clearly the easier game in the series from the ones I've played -- it also gives you plenty of time to use a bomb after you're hit to save yourself (at the cost of two bomb stocks) -- so it's not that big an achievement, but I'm still very proud of myself. I hadn't played it in a while, too, and the true final stage I'd never even seen before. And unlike with my Metal Slug 1CC, I actually have concrete proof of it thanks to the in-game Replay function. I had no lives left and my last bomb I spent half-way through the true final boss's very last, seemingly neverending phase. I died seconds into the following "bonus" attack pattern, which thankfully was completely optional. I'd have been real sad if I lost at the very very end.

Apparently SC was published in the west by XSEED themselves, while FC was handled by Ghostlight in Europe, who also, among other things, published Persona 2 Innocent Sin and 3 Portable on my end. The latter decided not to renew their license, so it's gone. The same can't be said for the Persona games, which are still available. Their decision is understandable, I wouldn't have bought it myself back then if FC wasn't in a digital bundle with P2IS and on sale all those years ago, the series wasn't nearly as popular and respected back then as it is now. I was just feeling lazy. Yeah, I was surprised to see that one shy fairy-ish girl there.

Haha, that's fair. I'd only ever heard of Pandora's Reflection once in a PSP RPG Tier List video I mostly just listened to a few months ago, I forgot it was a thing. The guy liked it enough to put it in A tier, and another review I skimmed through also seemed to be favorable, but I still want to reiterate that Breath of Fire III is probably regarded as a classic for a reason. I wouldn't know, I haven't played it -- something that sadly applies to a lot of JRPGs, classics or otherwise -- but still. Anyway, there's no chance these games will be on sale ever again, so there's no real reason to fret. Go with which one interests you the most, an old, traditional turn-based RPG or a real-time strategy game thingie, and buy the other whenever. The base price of Pandora's Reflection in Europe is twenty bucks, which is pretty dumb. Still better than Fate/Extra and the PSP Persona games' (sans the first one) thirty. Huh, Trails in the Sky seems to have been delisted from the store on my end, but not SC.

The PSP version of Breath of Fire 3 got released in early 2016 in the US, so yeah, don't feel ashamed for not knowing that. I've heard lots of good things about it, I have not heard lots of good things about Generation of Chaos. About Trails in the Sky SC, it lasted me close to 70 hours to beat -- with all but the most hidden side quests completed and with a lot of talking to NPCs (all of their dialogue changes with every advancement in the plot) -- so there's a good chance that's the only game you'll ever need to buy for the next year.

Atariboy, I was wondering if it was possible to put the archived posts inside of spoiler tags. It'd make threads much more readable, I feel. O's Musical Emporium's already a bit too long, I shudder to think what would the Off-Topic look like. Of course, you're free to ignore this, mine is just a suggestion.

Hey, it's not my fault it decided to ask me that and not "How many buttons did Atari's first joystick have"! ...I would have answered that on my own...

Hello. Took me long enough. I'm a lazy butt, sorry. I actually had to look up the answer to the Security Check question on Google while I was signing up. I didn't remember Combat was the pack-in for the 2600. I guess it's illegal for me to be here. I'd say the "What are you playing right now?" topic, because of course, but if Chris is giving us a copy of the DB, I don't think I mind if it's going to be gone. I'll miss it immensely, but it's not worth the hassle, unless someone objects, of course.