Grungie

As a fan of JRPG’s, a lot of franchises tend to have that one entry that’s significantly more popular than the rest of the series. A lot of the time, there isn’t a big change in the gameplay, and more to do with timing, or what console it was released on. So I always tend to find those entries overrated, because if you’re disconnected from its release, it doesn’t really stick out in the context of the franchise. An easy example is Persona 5. Gameplay wise, there weren’t any significant changes from Persona 3 and 4 to warrant the meteoric jump in popularity. It was just the entry that was released in a timely fashion. Persona 3 came out on the PS2 the same year as the PS3 and Wii, and Persona 4 came out in 2008… on the PS2. Persona 4 was also remastered… for the Vita. If this happened to Persona 3 instead, it would make sense, as there was a massive overhaul in gameplay mechanics between Persona 2 and 3. Though going from Persona 4 to 5, my reaction was “yup, it’s a Persona game”. I would also say that the jump in the popularity of anime between 2008 and 2016 also helped too. Since a lot of anime fans that weren’t into RPG’s also went out and bought Persona 5.

I haven’t had a cable service since I moved out of my parents house. I also run a Plex server.

Sometimes you run into a debate of semantics where they're technically correct. They did remake the game using the sequel's engine as opposed to what they did for the PS4 remaster, where it was just upscaled and ported. Though at that point it falls into personal interpretation when it comes to vague terms. It's like people having different interpretations of being "late to work". Most people won't debate over whether 30 mins is considered late, but people will argue whether you should let people slide by with 5-10 mins late. Or if that guy is considered an asshole by saying 1 minute late despite being technically correct.

Funny how I explained distribution in the first post, but it clearly got ignored.

The issue with the Steam Deck is that not every game in the Steam library is compatible with it, whereas with the Switch, there isn't any compatibility issues. Well except for a few games for the Switch Lite.

Looking at EBay, the console prices haven’t changed in at least 5 years at about $80. That’s pretty average for most older consoles. The list is pretty decent, but I think the entry of Final Fantasy Tactics is kind of “cheating”. As I personally think listing ports is kind of lame. I do wish Trails in the Sky was on there.

Tbh, what exactly were you expecting out of this remake? I find it weird to buy a remake and go “it’s the same game!” after buying it. Was it advertised as being different?

I’m impatient, so I look it up. I do enjoy seeing the foreshadowing after the self spoil.

Plenty of people enjoy going to the theaters to watch movies, but it is becoming more niche. People still enjoy the experience of it, but I'm sure over time the younger generations won't have an attachment to going to a theater to experience a movie. Though streaming hasn't fully killed things like physical media or even the Red Box rental service. Not everyone has access to high speed internet, or can even afford paying monthly for streaming services. I can go to places like Walmart and see lower income people sifting through the $5 DVD bin. So I can see that over time it might happen, but that depends on the internet infrastructure for those in rural areas, or these services becoming affordable to those of lower income.

It depends on which distro you’re using. Ubuntu, Mint, and elementary are pretty set it and forget it. If we’re talking about Arch and Gentoo, then that’s a different story.

Iirc Android is built off the Linux kernel. I have a Chromebook, it does what it needs to do. I’ve never used Chromium OS, but I think you have to compile it yourself. I’m far too lazy for that… I also don’t know if Chromium supports Android apps, but those can be hit and miss. My Chromebook has an ARM processor, so compatibility isn’t an issue, but the user experience can be lacking. It can be worse than Android tablets.

Tbh a lot of Linux distros can be run in only terminal only form, it's common on the server editions of the same distros. You can save on resources when you don't have to run a GUI. It's common when you're running a server that only runs a single piece of software. In the enterprise world, you also run into closed source distros of Linux, but Chrome OS is a desktop distro that's closed, but has an open source variant called Chromium. Unix is an older family of OS's that Linux got inspiration from (hence why it's categorized as a Unix-Like OS). The most common home desktop OS that's in the Unix family is MacOS. There are a lot of terminal commands that work on Linux, so on that end, you can get by on Unix if you know a lot of Linux commands. The OS's in game consoles are also usually based off of either Unix or Linux, as is a ton of the OS's that enterprise hardware run off of.

What part are you lost at? To hella sum it up: DOS = old Microsoft (pre-2001) And Linux and Unix are two separate “families” of different operating systems.

To super dumb it down, they’re different operating systems. At face value, seeing a command line interface makes it all look the same to the untrained eye, but not all commands and functions are universal. DOS was largely tied to Microsoft operating systems, and has largely faded out of use. Windows pre-XP was essentially just a skin running on top of DOS, hence why Windows OS’s like Windows 95 had you run in MS-DOS mode to run games in DOS mode. Unix is a different operating system, but you’ll almost never run into “pure” Unix. I’m not familiar with the terminology, but there’s different variations of it. The most famous or widely used variation of Unix (too lazy to fact check) is MacOS. Like different variations of Windows, Unix based operating systems all have a similar core underneath, but have different “skins” for the user interface. Linux is another operating system. It’s a Unix-like operating system where it’s an operating system that has similarities to Unix, but isn’t. Like Unix, you’ll rarely run into “pure” Linux. The variations of Linux are called distributions or distros. Some common distros are Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, Mint, elementary, Debian, Gentoo. They’re essentially like different skins, and some are built on top of each other. Some of it can be convoluted where you have a distro that’s built off of one distro that’s built off of another one. Linux is usually open source and free to download. There are exceptions to this. Linux is pretty popular with computer nerds, because some distros like Gentoo are really popular with tinkerers. It’s also less locked down than Windows and MacOS where if you know terminal commands (Unix and Linux’s term for the command line), you can really have full control over the operating system. I can go deeper, as I do IT for a living.

Honestly, anti-piracy tends to make it more of a pain for legit customers than the pirates. Most DRM gets cracked very quickly, so it only deters it for like… 24 hours. I wish I could pirate software at work, and it’s not because I want to save my company money. It’s because it’s less of a pain. Enterprise licenses are jank af.

My understanding was that they had a bad CEO that ran them into the ground. He made some decisions that racked up a lot of debt, and refused to modernize their stores and business model. They apparently also were inconsistent with their prices between different stores. Sears price matched products, and it became dumb to price match for your own products.

They do have a limited number of read/write cycles, but for the average user, that takes ages.

Well downloading gives the benefit of basic instantaneous level of going to the store with the convenience of not leaving the house like ordering online. It’s like, why bother at that point you know?

Even before the pandemic, digital distribution was taking over physical sales. It was also never been a secret that the convenience of digital distribution was that you don’t have to leave the house for it, like why else would AAA titles get digital distribution? I’m not singling anyone in particular out for this, but an observation I’ve seen that’s pretty common, is that people who are really anal over physically collecting for one form of entertainment they care about are okay with digital distribution of a hobby they don’t care about. I’m a big music nerd, and some people here might scoff at this, but I’ve run across a ton of people who complain about people listening to music through streaming and MP3’s, and tell you that physical is the only way, but they’re okay with consuming video games and movies/shows through digital means. People who consume all their media via physical means are the true rarities out there.

It doesn't come with it, but it's free to download. You can also just sync your gmail account to their mail app as well.

I’ve been playing JRPG’s and Zelda for years, so it never really bothered me.

We all have them at my workplace. They’re the ones with a button to raise or lower the desk. I tried standing once to test it out, and my lazy ass just stuck to sitting down.

I hate when I’m scrambling in the morning for my keys, and they were in my hand the entire time.

Nice to see Dragon Quest get mentioned

I love Jack Frost from the Megaten franchise. This one is easy to pick on, but Bubsy was pretty obnoxious.