Have you seen what modern arcade games are like? In order to set themselves apart from consumer hardware you can get at home, modern games have been leaning heavily into unique hardware gimmicks (of course this has always been a thing to an extent ever since Beatmania and DDR, but it’s much much much much more of a thing now since these are effectively the only kinds of games that get released in arcades anymore). Which does mean specialized cabinets are more expensive now, and maintenance is a whole can of worms - Wacca at my local Round 1 has had display issues for over a year and I’ve just assumed it’s never getting fixed because Marvelous is no longer servicing parts for it.

Look up how much a Maimai or Chunithm cabinet costs. We’ve come a long way from the JAMMA era when operators could get new games on the cheap by reusing an old cabinet and just swapping out the PCB.

On top of that, some modern games even require revenue sharing agreements where the operator has to give the publisher a cut of every credit played, which cuts into profit margins even further. I think they literally can’t just charge a quarter for some of these games.

Card-based credits allow the arcade operator to offer finer-grained pricing options than tokens that can only be spent in integer amounts. Whether that’s a pro or a con is debatable, they can put less popular games on ‘sale’ to attract players to try them out, or they can gouge you on the hottest new title. It’s also very much a way of obfuscating prices so you don’t even realize how much you’re spending. And are you really getting the best deal by loading your card with the maximum amount of credits at once so they give you a bonus, or is that just how they get you?

In the grand scheme of things though, I’m a lot less bothered by it than I am by the way modern arcades are mostly just gambling for kids now. At least most arcades still keep a few rhythm games in the back, actually I do love that arcade rhythm games are going through a sort of modern renaissance right now, but that’s kinda just the only thing still worth going to an arcade for anymore.

I enjoy overanalyzing and theorizing about media as much as the next guy, but this isn’t actually part of the text. You as the player are expected to regularly change up your party, why couldn’t Green have also just decided to swap Raticate out for any number of reasons?

That’s nothing more than headcanon. I don’t think you can compare that to the actual text of Z-A here.

Might be fun. I’ve been going through a few of my old unlocalized favorites (Puyo Puyo, Panel de Pon) for some immersion practice, but at my level I’m only picking out bits and pieces.

It’s a purely narrative game, the original version (this is now a remake of a remake in a new engine) was made in RPG Maker but without any RPG elements. Walk around, talk to NPCs, watch the story unfold.

The one big thing it has in common with Undertale is that the less you know going in, the better. If the art style and vibe is enough to get your attention, go ahead and give it a shot, go in blind.

Physical copies, yes. If it’s a game I absolutely know I’m definitely buying and I want it badly enough to spend full price and I want to play it on day 1, I’ll preorder to ensure it ships on day 1. Because if I actually ordered it on release day, it’d take a few more days to ship. Last game I preordered was Kirby Air Riders, and I’m very happy with that purchase.

As for Early Access, my criteria is to just evaluate the game in its current state - if it offers enough to be worth buying now, I’ll buy it now.

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Sadly I think I might be the only person here who plays.

Solar Sensor? It’s been a childhood dream of mine to be able to play Shin Bokura no Taiyou: Gyakushuu no Sabata with both the translation patch and the Solar Sensor at the same time.

They’re kind of just really damn bad at being currencies. Transaction times and fees make them too difficult to use for anything short of money laundering. But actually decently suited to that one purpose since other forms of laundering are usually even more expensive.

Even worse though is the deflationary nature also disincentivizes ever using them as currency. They’re instead being treated as speculative assets, people buy crypto not because they actually want to use crypto, but because they expect to sell it to another bagholder later. But of course the only way to profit off crypto in this way is for someone else to lose. And yet people still try to pretend it’s a currency even when no one will ever use it as such, because it sounds more legitimate that way.

And this in turn has made crypto an incredibly attractive target for scams and grifts. Pump-and-dumps are everywhere, but even when people know this they still try to get in hoping they’ll be the one to win this time.

Crypto really is just a solution in search of a problem, and every now and then you’ll see cryptobros insisting they have the next big thing in NFTs, smart contracts, whatever bullshit they’re pushing next. But none of it has ever been anything more than a vehicle to try and find a new way to rip someone else off. They just need to convince you they have something to sell here so that you’ll be the next sucker.

Bitcoin has been around since 2008, and in all that time, it’s still not amounted to anything more than one big grift.

The person I replied said Nintendo wasn’t making their old games playable at all. You’re complaining about something else.

Panel Attack

Bit of an odd example to cite since both Golden Sun games are officially available on NSO.

The top reason being that they don’t like the idea of life being taken away.

Well then it sounds like you know the answer to your question. Are you actually asking to ask, or just to soapbox?

Does “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” count for both?

We don’t know. Valve has said they have no plans for a Steam Deck 2 any time soon, not until they can offer whatever they consider to be a substantial enough upgrade. It’s possible ARM could be a means to that end, but we don’t know. FEX probably needs to make a lot more progress before they can even consider it. Maybe it will by the time Deck 2 enters the conversation. We don’t know.

Attending Combo Breaker is the highlight of my year every year. In 2025 I was able to fit Frosty Faustings into my travel budget too. Managed to place 17th in Mystery Bracket both times, and they were very wild bracket runs. I saw Gyakuten Puzzle Bancho and turned to my opponent to utter a sentence no one wants to hear in Mystery: “I’m sorry, I know how to play this game.” Also at CB I was able to make it out of pools in Under Night In-Birth II, and it was a hella stacked bracket so I’m pretty happy with that one.

Been focusing more on my mahjong career, attended Riichi Nomi Open and Philadelphia Riichi Open as my first two tournaments. Didn’t do so hot though. But of course, when I win it’s because I’m skilled, when I lose it was just bad luck.

New arcade opened up near me with modded Maimai, Wacca, and Chunithm cabinets. I told myself I’m never going back to Round 1 again, though R1 does have the new official international Maimai now so I guess that’s something. I also got back into Dance Dance Revolution a little, but I’m still not very good.

As for actual new releases, Deltarune is obvious. Kirby Air Riders is a sequel I waited 22 years for, and it was worth the wait. The original is one of my favorite games of all time and I’m blown away by how much higher they raised the bar. Online City Trial is everything childhood me ever dreamed of. And I have to shout out Rhythm Doctor finally exiting Early Access, the final chapter is a wonderful conclusion that gave me a lot of emotions.

Visual novels would be good if you’re looking for something low-energy.

I respect Sakurai saying he put everything he wanted into the base game and doesn’t want to do DLC. But man, I just can’t stop thinking how cool it would be to add the classic City map as an alternate. Feels like a big omission.

And Adeleine.