any1there

Tough one - I don’t have a hard cutoff, but I’ve certainly started to slow down on buying retro games. I’ve spent over $200 CAD on a single game in recent memory (2022?), nowadays I wouldn’t really want to go over $100 CAD.
I’ve also been reevaluating and selling off some of my collection whenever I can buy ports / digital versions of some games (eg: Chrono Trigger, bought on Steam and sold my loose SNES cart, Xenogears bought on PS3 and sold my CIB copy, etc).
I only focus on two retro systems - SNES and PS1 - and I don’t really play on OG hardware anyways (Super Nt / Pocket for SNES, PS3 / Vita for PS1), so I don’t mind “owning” digital and ultimately downloading roms if necessary.

I’m still playing Persona 3 Reload and I believe it finally clicked for me.
I still don’t particularly like Tartarus that much, but I’ve been able to complete each section relatively quickly so far (and without grinding) so it’s certainly not too bad. The rest of the game has definitely opened up though (thankfully, I’m about 30-35 hrs in, haha).

Slowly making my way through Jeanne d’Arc on the side - gameplay wise it’s up my alley (minus grinding…), however the story is pretty subpar imo.

I guess the main question is where do you draw the line for “somewhat newer stuff”? 5th gen consoles only (and then which one) or even newer?
And what screen size are you looking for?

This is awesome. Radiant Silvergun isn’t my most played shmup to date but it’s definitely so so unique, I really enjoy it.
I certainly think romhacks/patches are a major benefit to older gen titles and I’m somewhat concerned we’ll lose that with newer gens.

Persona 3 Reload - I’m not sure whether I like it or not just yet tbh. I’m about 20 hours in (or 2 months of “in-game time”) and the plot is very slow to unravel.
I don’t like turn-based RPGs usually, so combat is a bit of a chore and the exploration of Tartarus is very samey. Social sim aspects have been fine, but I guess I expected a bit more interactivity? I’m not sure. Its been nice to learn more about side characters, albeit ones not present in the “core” team.
The only somewhat similar game I’ve played before is Fire Emblem: Three Houses and I absolutely loved it, but I was much more interested in the gameplay (T-RPGs are 100% up my alley) and social sim was okay as well.
I think my primary issue with P3R is the setting - which I didn’t think would matter so much - I really don’t relate to high school life / issues anymore and it’s making it hard for me to get into the game…
The OST is absolutely S-tier though (and it has made exploring Tartarus much more bearable!)

Absolutely! You could sort of “cheese” your way into climbing some parts of the world of Zero Dawn, but Forbidden West’s climbing is much improved - to the point that I’ve been getting sidetracked a number of times already just exploring and getting to great vistas.

I finally started Horizon: Forbidden West - gameplay changes compared to HZD keep trickling in and I couldn’t be happier. I love Aloy’s character so I’m really happy to be in her shoes again.

This past week was pretty disappointing before that:

• Hellblade II was good, but nowhere near as impactful as the first one for me. I’m left with a sour taste overall, although I’ll admit they did a tremendous job with cinematography and character rendering.
• Stellar Blade was insipid. Whatever could save it in my book - its gameplay - turns out stale pretty quickly, so I ended up abandoning the game midway. The story and characters were really uninteresting imo, couple that with how EVE is represented… I couldn’t really find any redeeming qualities.

I finished DMC 5 SE sometime last week (or the “primary” arc at least) and it was fun as heck.
I moved on to Stellar Blade, combat is very fun/engaging, but story is utter sh*t (so comparisons with NieR were definitely unwarranted IMO, seeing as it’s pretty much the opposite of my experience with Automata).

As far as this weekend goes, I am playing Hellblade II, which was probably my most anticipated game of the year. I am loving it so far!

Just finished Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty, which I enjoyed greatly, despite all the jank!

I’ll likely move on to DMC 5 now, since I left it unfinished a few years ago and would like a shorter / fast-pace game atm.

I’ve also been playing a fair amount of Guilty Gear Strive on the side, first real fighting game and it’s a blast so far trying to learn the right combos, cancels, etc…

Cyberpunk 2077. I just finished Act 2 last night and I’m (probably) about to begin Phantom Liberty.
Really enjoying most of the story and side quests so far!

PSP, hands down. So many incredible games, it was a RPG powerhouse, that screen was great for the time and for me it was an “everything” device (I remember browsing the web and reading mangas on the PSP… Janky but incredible all the same).

The Vita comes close - nigh “home console” games on the go and the OLED screen to make those shine.

Oh, that could likely be it - you might want to look into replacing the laser as they’re pretty cheap and easy to find (but that’s not really what you’re interested in atm I suppose).

Anyways, the emulator you want to look into is DuckStation. It is pretty much full featured (save states, fast-forward/rewind, etc) and the de-facto PSX emulator to beat.

I only played through most of the first one, but really enjoyed it! The second one is firmly on my backlog.

As for FFT (WotL), do you have a Vita lying around? Its around $10 USD on the store iirc. Same on Android, but I’m not sure about gamepad support.
A physical copy shouldn’t be much more, be it for the PSP or PSX versions.

Enjoy! Remake is really great and I’ve heard it runs like a charm on pretty much any recent handheld

I finished Final Fantasy VII Rebirth a couple days ago after about 110 hours, what a journey!

I’m currently playing a few shmups since I just purchased a (very cheap but perfectly adequate) arcade stick, easy modes for now and “moving up the chain”:

• DoDonPachi Resurrection
• ESP Ra De
• Espgaluda II
• Radiant Silvergun

After that, I’ll probably pick Cyberpunk 2077 back up (only 10 hours in from the free trial a few weeks ago).

The Nathan Drake Collection. Uncharted 1 is a bit rough around the edges, but I would recommend going in order of release either way.
Enjoy, those are wonderful games! (I might be slightly biased, Uncharted is probably my favourite video game series tbh)

You’re absolutely right, only the AGS 101 is backlit, my mistake!

Many options exist, depending on your budget:

• IPS screen mod for your GB, these are usually not too costly iirc ($60 USD?)
• GBA SP (AGS 001 is frontlit and AGS 101 is backlit), around the same budget for the former, the latter is more coveted and expensive. (EDIT - initial mistake, the GBA is not front/backlit)
• Open source cartreader to dump your carts and saves (and play ROMs wherever you want) - no idea about the budget tbh
• Analogue Pocket, it’s great but very likely overkill if all you want to do is play some GB games ($220 USD)
• Depending on how comfortable you are with downloading ROMs (and how ethical you feel that is, given you already have the games), you could just do that without spending a penny since GB games have been preserved and are easily accessible.

There’s also a handful of other options (GameCube GB Player, SNES Super GameBoy, etc), but that’s likely more consoles and accessories for you to purchase so I didn’t mention those in detail.

Simple Alarm Clock.
Extremely reliable during the ~10 months I’ve used it so far and it is indeed simple enough.

That’s mostly true, except for games made specifically harder so that you’d have to rent them multiple times (eg: ActRaiser 2 NTSC-U/C / SNES is much harder than its NTSC-J / SFC counterpart).