Attenuation

Upgraded my parents' place to IPTV because their service provider was forcing them to migrate from their old mixed analog/digital service. One of their TVs was simple - 4K and Dolby Digital stereo over HDMI; the other is a 57" 1080i set and only has DVI, component, S-Video, composite, or coaxial... It was also connected (thankfully) to a DVD player + 5.1 A/V receiver combo... Which lacks any digital video I/O. Ended-up with the coaxial cable going into an attenuator, then a surge protector, then the new modem, then Wi-Fi to the cable box, then HDMI to one of these, then an HDMI-to-DVI adapter to the TV alongside TOSLINK to the receiver. Already had everything but the extractor, $35 is cheaper than a new TV, and 1080i is just fine. The service provider, to their credit(?) did offer us an HDMI-to-composite extractor... Ergh.

Finished Lady Sia... It is not a good game, but it is interesting.

Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue - smaller and simpler than I'd expected, and the final boss rush is annoying; but still not a bad game. Looks better than Back from the Sewers, and Fall of The Foot Clan is still my favourite.

I restarted Final Fantasy II/IV and V on SNES alongside III/VI, and they all hold-up; actually having a hard time focusing on just one.

Also finally started playing-around with the Samurai Shodown RPG translation (been waiting for this one since the '90s) and Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition (slick!)

Passing Breeze

So Landstalker doesn't get any less annoying toward the end... Still not done.

Phantasy Star is way more impressive than I realised; seriously, a new translation and an automap would perfect this as an all-time classic... Which is already a thing, I'm now reading, in the Switch release... And it's from M2 because of course it is; they're the best. Kinda wishing I'd started it there, but I'm halfway through, so... Ergh.

Anyway, before I get completely distracted, I want to write about how I got distracted from Phantasy Star by Phantasy Star IV and ended-up ploughing-through it pretty quickly. Really good game, but not sticking with me after the fact - at least not like how the first two SaGa games, various Final Fantasy games, pretty much all of the Ys games, or the Personas have... It's weird. I've at least tried most of the Phantasy Star series, and IV is wonderfully streamlined - top-notch traversal, combat options, enemy design, and cutscenes layered on top of an expertly distilled collection of franchise hallmarks makes for a breezy and mostly-accessible (download the manual) RPG that I very much enjoyed... But I dunno; I feel like it's gonna be another Golden Sun or Bravely Default for me, where I found a lot to like but just kinda moved on afterward.

Speaking of moving on, I'm finally tackling Final Fantasy III/VI in earnest.

Unrelated: Glad that OutRun2006Tweaks exists; been happy with my XBOX copy, but now it's 1440p@240Hz!

Also, I think I don't like Alan Wake II... I'm trying, and it's really nifty, but I'm just not getting into it and I'm a third of the way through it now.