Friday, September 12, 2025

128Mb, huh?

Test Chamber was released for Virtual Boy and it's a 4Mb game, so that's five titles now. Looks like MrCART is the best value going forward, but I'm not in any rush.

...And then they announced Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics! It's missing eight games, there's no word on mutliplayer support, and the image quality doesn't look very good (pleas make filters) but I'm buying one anyway.

Started Hi-Fi RUSH; looks incredible, deep and rewarding combat, and I'm getting kinda bored between cutscenes. Will finish it.

Started Sifu... It's fine; not really getting into the flow though.

Finally started Bloodborne in earnest - five hours in, and I want to like it more but it's just kind of exhausting. I get it; it scratches all sorts of itches really effectively, but it just wastes so much time. I'll keep at it, but spread-out over time.

Finished to Horizon Zero Dawn and The Frozen Wilds (not Remastered), and while it was never quite a chore, I think I just like the setting and not much else - the presentation is a little rough around the edges, the combat is still fine and plenty deep, the story is uneven... It's a very good game, but I'm mostly only interested in Forbidden West for the graphics, am absolutely not shelling-out for a PS VR2 for Call of the Mountain, and I'm so far removed from the Lego games in general.

Grabbed Heretic + Hexen, played through Faith Renewed as well as Vestiges of Grandeur, and they're both great.

Pretty much done Super Mario Wonder - green checkmarks all around except for Special World; working on The Final-Final Test Badge Marathon. Game is a masterpiece, maybe a little easy, incredibly charming, and vaguely reminiscent Virtual Boy Wario Land with the multi-layer playfield, eye-tracking, exploration, etc...

Pleasantly surprised by Echoes of Wisdom, albeit repetitive. Wetlands writing is particularly hilarious; maybe halfway through, and excited for more.

Totally missed GBADoom - very impressive, and looks like the best way to play on Analogue Pocket. The new SNES DOOM, while also seriously impressive (and still tempting), just isn't the same as GBADoom, DOOM 32X Resurrection (3.3a!), DOOM CD32X Fusion, or the Saturn Doom fix patch - those were achieved using contemporary hardware, whereas the new SNES DOOM was not. The FX3 is neat, but it just didn't exist back then.

Found a sealed TrickleStar AV Advanced PowerStrip+ for $5, and what a silly device.