We all could see that Unity’s layoff was coming, that pricing backlash not only drove away many developers, also probably was driven by troubling financial within the organization.

Twitch is sort of unexpected, but when I see the number of impromptu rules they rolled out and rolled back last year, whether from restricting multi-streaming, to limiting showing brands logo on stream, to restricting / unrestricting female streamers from showing too much skin, etc. I assume that means that even with all those intrusive ads, Twitch is still losing money.

I guess from now on, when a tech company starts to arbitrarily change their T&C / rules to either protect their revenue / market share, and maybe rolling back from backlashes, then it’s a sign that there’s trouble brewing (if you work at those companies, beware)

I’ve just finished replaying the base FF7 Remake, in preparation of FF7 Rebirth. Also I haven’t touched INTERmission yet.

Some of the games that I’m excited to play in 2024: FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor ReFantazio, Eiyuuden Chronicles, and maybe Dragon’s Dogma 2.

I don’t know if it fits all the prereqs of a FOSS, but there’s mycroft and there’s also jasper

But I have no idea how advanced they are, or how good their 3rd party integrations are.

I finished (again) God of War 2018. I thought it was going to sour on me, just like how my 2nd playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn did (and subsequently my 1st playthrough of Forbidden West). But no, it’s still a very good game. Combat is simple but still satisfying, side quests aren’t excessive like Forbidden West, story is still good but less intense than TLoU. My only complaint is that the fast travel is just way too slow. I’m looking forward to Ragnarök now.

My top is probably FF16, I have soft spot for this type of siblings story, also loving the Asura’s Wrath section.

No, there’s a mac version of retroarch. OpenEmu is a bit better in term of user interface.

And RetroArch has a history of harassing emulator devs, e.g. Stenzek who made Duckstation, were harassed by them until Stenzek went hiatus. IIRC, they might have harassed Near (developer of Snes9x), Near eventually killed themself.

I try to minimize the use of RetroArch

I played thru Octopath Traveler, and the story doesn’t tie everyone together until that secret last boss. Nothing much interesting in the writing until that part, I guess.

I read that Octopath Traveler 2 rectified that, and it’s one of the best JRPG of this year. I bought that on sale, but haven’t touched it yet.

I dropped Tunic halfway thru, the combat just doesn’t gel with me.

• I finished the first Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney from the remake trilogy

  • The game is really frustrating, because at times it feels more like you’re supposed to guess what’s the developer want you to do, instead of presenting things based on logic / evidence to the witness’ statement
  • The writing can be very awful, some characters are just straight up annoying in order to pad the game. People veer off conversations all the time, trying to be funny, but they are not. And the melodrama that’s supposed to convey the character’s feeling, can be repeated on every new scene that it’s very tiring to play thru it.

• I’ve also finished Curse of the Monkey Island

  • It’s still a such a hilarious delightful game. Many people stopped by my stream to tell me that they love this game. I was expecting to the game to be not clicking with me since Ron Gilbert departed after Monkey Island 2, but apparently it’s still a very good game.
  • My main complaint is the clicking mechanic, where you need to click and hold to bring up the talk / observe / use option.

• I’m currently replaying God of War (2008)

  • Apparently I forgot to upload my save to the cloud, so I can’t do NG+
  • It’s still a very good game. I’m at the Alfheim region now, and unlike Horizon Zero Dawn, I have yet to feel fatigue replaying this game. Maybe it’d happen later in game

I just realized that I don’t know much about Xmas games.

Here’s some that I found from the web:

• Christmas Nights into Dreams (Saturn). Saturn emulation might be less mature / updated than PSP, not sure if RG405M can handle that.
• Daze Before Christmas (SNES)
• Parasite Eve 1 & 2 (PS1). Not quite Xmassy though
• Die Hard Trilogy (PS1). There’s a lightgun shooting part that might be Christmassy, but it’s a light gun game

Oh no, if you’re starting Ultima 7, then you might want to consider running it using Exult

Exult has some QoL additions, fixes, mods that should make your playthrough more enjoyable

Guile = Gooey Leh

I kept mispronouncing Red13 as Red7, but on hindsight, his real name is Nanaki, so I was close.

Oh wow, I’ve never even heard of Mobius FF. That song bops

Games wise, very likely. There are way too many 2023 games that I bought (that’s on sale) that I haven’t even touched yet, and still more heavy hitters that I’m waiting for a bigger discount (e.g. Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Yakuza Gaiden, Spider-Man 2, etc). It’s not only newer IPs, there are many games based on older IPs that are well received, e.g. Dead Space, FF16, RE4, Armored Core 6, etc.

Game devs wise, it’s probably one of the worse. There’a already more than 9000 layoffs, with many studios shuttered. Half of them probably came from Embracer Group. We are probably gonna be seeing a rapidly shrinking number of mid-size games within the next 5 years.

I actually enjoy the Spider-Man games a lot, I am only surprised that Venom is coming first than Wolverine.

However, I doubt that we will see Sunset Overdrive in the near future, the game only made $567 in profit

I was initially expecting to see Wolverine released end of next year / early 2025, was not expecting it to be around end of 2026. I assume it’s easier to create Venom’s game based on the existing Spidey’s engine.

I wonder what exclusive game would Sony announce for next year’s holiday? Maybe Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima 2?

• I’ve finished Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising, as a preparation for Eiyuden Hundred Heroes.

  • It’s not a good game, but it’s not terrible either. I played it while watching TV.
  • The combat is interesting, you have 3 attack buttons, and each of them switches your main character. However it’s really unpolished, you can’t do uppercut or downward attack before upgrading your weapons.
  • The story… is not interesting at all. It’s largely fetch quests for the residents to build / expand stuff.

• I’m halfway thru Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

  • This is a bad game. The gunplay is okay, but the level design, the enemies become increasingly dull and boring in later chapters. Halfway thru the game, I just find most chapters are way too long, empty, and repetitive.
  • The story / writing is not good at all. All those Deepground characters are boring, cliched, and annoying.

Also, I’m back with my BS, where I play Resident Evil Zero with a guide and skipping all the cutscenes, so that I can get the infinite rocket launcher, before replaying the entire game for the story.

Subscription only makes sense if there’s an ongoing service, e.g. processing in the cloud, cloud data storage, etc.

Apps that don’t need to be subscription:

• Camera apps like Halide or Filmic Pro, wtf
• Any todo / habit apps, the ‘cloud’ part is usually iCloud / Google Drive
• Notetaking apps, e.g. GoodNotes, wtf
• Duolingo, mainly because the contents of some lessons are outdated (missing audio, etc).

Let’s hope it doesn’t stumble and fall, by properly paving paths that connects people.

Errrm, errrm, I’m gonna turn off my WiFi and BT connection while watching it. Whales.

I played a lot of great games this year, but also many that didn’t click with me.

There’s a huge spikes of games that I played this year, because I decided to start tackling my backlog by streaming them, these include games I’ve bought on sale, and those that are on PS+ Extre.

IIRC, Nemo was bit unsatisfying to play in DMC4, and the issue kinda exacerbated in DMCV. He feels underpowered compared to others.

I also remember being really frustrated by the platforming for the secret stages in 4.

They are still good games though.

I just finished replaying DMC V. After replaying DMC 1 - 4 + DmC in the past 6 months, made me realize that I don’t like playing as Nemo. He feels underpowered at times, and his skillset are kinda boring compared to Dante.

In DMC V, I enjoyed my time playing as Dante and V.

V is a change of pace, being slower and ranged, while Dante has really satisfying moves and weapons. I like Nemo’s robotic arm, but the idea that it’s a consumable and sometimes you might ended up picking up an arm that you are not familiar with, does disrupt the flow. Even his basic swordplay feels kinda lacking.