I’ve been replaying Final Fantasy 9, but this time on my phone with Duckstation and a BSP-D8 controller

Yeah that seems about right. For Xemu, you need the BIOS, MCPX and HDD Image Files separately, which can be found here. No further setup or config needed. You can find the ROM at The Vault. Ninja Gaiden 2 ROM is also available there.

I can send you my config file for Xenia if you want to avoid most of the fiddling, but most of it came from YouTube videos and Reddit threads I found when googling “NG2 Xenia”. It ran really well for me in the end. I experienced the audio bug maybe five times, and restarting fixed it every time. The graphical glitch artifacts were somewhat annoying the first handful of chapters, but still worth it for the higher resolution and completely disappeared after that (apart from during loading screens, but who cares about that).

You said you’ve played before so maybe you already have some fundamentals, but watching a tutorial video on YouTube that goes over basic principles can help a lot. The games sort of expect you to rely on certain mechanics that are never explained, and while you can figure it out yourself it’s probably smoother to watch a tutorial. Also just experiment with combos and weapons: NGB felt very well balanced and encounters that seemed impossible at first felt very possible once “figured out”.

I’ve been working through my endless backlog.

I finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It is a masterpiece.

I bought the Sniper Elite Humble Bundle that came with games 1 through 5. I have played through 1 to 4 already. It makes me miss games that can be finished in 20 hours instead of the endless grinds every game expects now. I also miss when Nazis were the evil bad guys.

I’m also playing through Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. This one is set in Hawaii which is a coincidence since I’ve also just finished Kitchen Sync: Aloha!, a cooking game set in Hawaii.

Clone Hero! I missed how much fun Guitar Hero was

ive been boring and pretty much only playing hypixel skyblock, basically an mmorpg lol. some mario party with my girlfriend too

I actually liked Watch Dogs: Legion a lot more than I thought I would. That game had a lot of gameplay mechanics in it that were just super fun and I think would have made games like Cyberpunk a lot better if they had them too.

Oh I’ve been meaning to pick up Valheim again, we did a long run before the fire area was finished so we’ve got a lot of new stuff to catch up with.

sorry but I have been a dillatant lately while I install the smallest games from the great on steamdeck filter of steam. One funny note was I had hunter stories and found it ultimately relied to much on rng and did not let me build up enough from things just made available. I think they should have had an option to buy normal eggs maybe level gating the type and then left the rng for rare powered up types. Anyway booted that out and just started palworld and wow is that ever the opposite. Does not explain stuff much at all whereas monster hunter stories was basically on rails. eventually I will get to the witcher at which point I likely will have to start deciding what stuff I want to take off if im to get anything larger on it.

EDITED - ooh. forgot to mention one stand out. nino kuni II revenant kingdom. Im playing each thing a bit and then putting on a new game but nino kuni had this very sorta fast casual fighting style that reminds me a lot of kindom hearts and I had a hard time stopping. Will likely be the game I binge once im good with what I have on the deck.

this is one where I kinda want to start again to do things more correctly but at the same time I can easily respec. I played with no addons to and Im tempted to start again with addons.

Ha yeah that knight is a pretty brutal eye opener!

I got a Humble Bundle with a bunch of racers so I have a bunch but I’d even buy one if it’s the right one. I’d love to relive the glory days of Gran Tourismo with the career mode and collecting cars and modifying them. I’ve done Horizon and that sorta scratches the itch but it’s just soooo arcadey. But it’s the closest I’ve found so far.

Nothing too invasive. Container Glow so I don’t have to walk around the world with a paper weight attached to my right mouse button. Map Quest Objectives so I don’t have to switch quests in the UI just to see that there’s a quest objective 2m from me. And finally Over 9000 so I don’t have to run back to my stash every 10 minutes.

Hades 2 Death Stranding 2 Overwatch 2

And to keep with the theme, thinking about checking out Grounded 2 next week.

Only insofar that it’s free.

It does suffer from FOSS (fully open source software)-iness, since you have to install Luanti, then go into the content downloader (like Minecraft’s mod store) and install Mineclonia.

There’s also less documentation on Luanti than on Minecraft but Mineclonia is pretty 1:1 so you can use the MC wiki for pretty much everything.

So actually now that I write it out yes lol, that way you’re not having to pay $30 to see if you like a game.

ETA: Luanti also has Voxelibre, which started as a Minecraft clone but has diverged into its own game. Also less documentation but if you want different gameplay there’s a lot more you can install for free!

Grim dawn for nostalgia. Enjoying the new classes and dealing lightning, fire and ice damage.

Oh hey, I grew up playing Gran Turismo as well! I actually dug out the old Playstation 1 when I was seeing family last Christmas and we had a splitscreen session racing each other on the 1997 one. It was a blast

That kind of in-depth career mode is oddly rare in modern sim racers. A lot of them are very online PvP-focussed. And I get that, but still, it’d be nice to have more. Things that come to mind are:

• The original Assetto Corsa is a bit old now and the Content Manager and Custom Shader Patch mods are basically mandatory, BUT it is extremely flexible to mod and you can make it look exactly like a Gran Turismo game if you want. It has a career mode, but it’s only a series of specific racing challenges and there’s no collecting or modifying of cars
• Assetto Corsa Evo is in very early access right now, but it might just be exactly what you’re looking for when it does fully come out. It’s due to have a single player career mode, it looks like it’s going to do some kind of car collection mechanic, and it even has honest-to-god Gran Turismo style licence tests
• Automobilista 2 does not have a career mode (yet? It’s on the main menu but greyed out), but apparently a fan decided they were going to do it themselves. AMS also comes with the advantage of having much better multiplayer than Assetto Corsa if you want to play with friends; AC’s multiplayer is quite limited and does not let you add AI to fill out the grid
• Grid Legends might be worth a look, but I can’t tell you what it’s actually like to play because I haven’t tried it. I have played Dirt Rally 2 by the same devs and it does have a very GT-esque career mode. It describes itself as simcade, though, so it may just be another Forza for you depending on how it drives
• Le Mans Ultimate is a more specialised experience, of course, but it’s due to get a proper in-depth career mode soon

It is a pretty dim time for the single player sim racing experience, but there’s fun to be had!

Did you play Zero Dawn previously? How are you finding Forbidden West, play-wise? It feels “heavier” to me, somehow. Maybe I just got used to fully-upgraded Aloy in HZD…

Some of my favorites right there! I guess I should try Geometry wars since it seems like we’re on the same page.

I should probably dive into RDR2 again, I always start it at the wrong time and always seem to bounce after the extensive intro and tutorial. I suppose it all probably opens up right after that, right?

Nah, lots of train nerds doing train nerd stuff.

Surprisingly little Thomas fan-mods tho.

I finished Horizon Zero dawn and I just started playing Forbidden West. I can’t give you a detailed impression but so far, I like it.