yukichigai

yukichigai, 1 day ago

If you compare that to the average cost of living in Japan it's a bit closer to $300 in terms of spending power.

Either way it's a lot cheaper than I'd expect to have to pay anyone for sex work, much less something that blatantly illegal.

Oh, as for the age of consent thing that change just made it a national crime. Every prefecture in Japan had already raised the age of consent to 16 (or higher) well before last year. The only places it didn't apply were some remote military bases and IIRC the portion of Antarctica that Japan claims. Still a good move but it's not like Japanese pedos were just having sex with 13-year-olds without consequence before then.

yukichigai, 3 days ago

EarthBound was the first JRPG I ever completed and the first JRPG I ever enjoyed. Before it I'd never been able to get into JRPGs: there was just too much complexity while also having too little going on. Wandering an overworld only to be randomly pulled out of it for no apparent reason was maddening. As a kid, trying to piece together the backstory of some undefined thoroughly detailed fantasy world while also taking in the emerging plot in the opening sequence wasn't anywhere near as appealing as firing up Mario or Mega Man and getting straight to the action.

EarthBound neatly sidestepped all of the things that had stopped me from liking JRPGs. The equipment system was simple without being braindead. The setting was a pastiche of suburban life that I could easily understand. The stakes were high but the tone was still whimsical and amusing. And above all I knew why I was suddenly getting dragged into battle with a snake or a crow or a dog instead of just being clotheslined by combat.

EarthBound still is my go-to recommendation in the (increasingly unlikely) event that someone says "I've always wanted to get into JRPGs, what should I start with?" It is the perfect "intro to JRPG" game without feeling trivial or like it cannot stand on its own. It singlehandedly made me love the JRPG genre, and I probably would not have played literally every other JRPG I've ever played if it wasn't for EarthBound.

yukichigai, 3 days ago

Yeah, you do have to grind a bit. Nowhere near as much as some games (looking at you, basically every Final Fantasy game) but the leveling is designed around you doing some extra fights for XP. Every new area generally has a "grind spot" that is moderately to incredibly obvious, typically some grouping of enemies that are enough to fight but not enough to overwhelm you, placed within reasonable walking distance of a bed, hotel, or other way to refill your HP/MP for cheap/free.

For the first town, before you take on the punks roaming the streets you should get some levels fighting crows, dogs, and snakes up near your house. Once you can kill them in two turns or less head into town and try taking on a single punk. If you survive that fight without being nearly dead, keep fighting punks. If you almost die, go heal up and farm a little more. And if you DO die... well you only lose half the money you have on you, so as long as you keep most of it in the ATM you haven't lost much of anything.

yukichigai, 3 days ago

That was someone's insane interpretation of the ending of the first Mother game (a.k.a. Earthbound Beginnings). It's not as out there as the guy who filled the Silent Hill wiki with claims that it was all symbolism for circumcision trauma (yes, really), but it's still kinda nutters.

yukichigai, 2 days ago

If you want to bypass grinding entirely then you'd need something like that, but it might trivialize certain parts of the game. Won't trivialize all of it though since several of the key fights rely on strategy.

yukichigai, 4 days ago

There? Really? There is where you draw the line? Killing a dog is fine, but lying about meeting a dictator is too far? Just trying to keep track here.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

Rolled Japanese style, aka tamagoyaki. That is really difficult.

Over easy is as easy as the name though.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

Zero. Every time I've been on the verge of blocking a community (or instance, since kbin can do that) it winds up vanishing anyway.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

Let 'em frown. You have Cinnamon Toast Vodka now.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

Could be a mix of the two, like Valve saying "look if you continue on with this plan we're going to issue blanket refunds to anyone in a non-PSN country" and Sony realizing they're putting their asses on the line (legally speaking) if they let sales in those countries continue.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

I'm actually really surprised that Valve is loosening up on this one. They usually play hardball when it comes to refunding a game past the 2 hour mark.

They make exceptions when a game has major issues or implements some significant change that dramatically alters the availability of the product. No Man's Sky, Starfield, and Cyberpunk 2077 all could be refunded outside the 2 hour window - at least for some people. And of course everyone who bought The Day Before was refunded entirely.

I expect they'll be allowing refunds for anyone in a country where PSN does not operate at a minimum. It's really hard to argue that the game is still playable when the required service is not available in your home country.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

The scuttlebutt is that they don't get to make that decision because the PSN mandate is a part of the contract they signed with Sony.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

Same boat here. I had no problems making a PSN account because I like the idea of crossplay, but if they were planning to add this requirement back in later they needed to be much more clear about it. Like "gigantic popup every time you load the game if you don't have a PSN account" clear, especially with PSN not being available in certain countries.

There's also the larger question of why this is required. Clearly the game works just fine without it. Whatever the reason is, it's not for the benefit of the players.

yukichigai, 5 days ago

Most anticheats don't have the track record of repeated data breaches that Sony does.

yukichigai, 14 days ago

Local safety regulations require a breathalyzer test before you're allowed upstairs.

yukichigai, 19 days ago

New Vegas is a tourist-based economy. If the NCR pulled out for any reason then it'd get pretty wasteland-ey pretty quick.

Also if House is alive in Season 2 then the only possible canon ending is The House Always Wins, since every other ending explicitly leads to his death.

yukichigai, 19 days ago

I second the idea of getting other KitH cast members involved. Have Scott Thompson voice Marilyn or Light Switch #3.

yukichigai, 20 days ago

Welp

yukichigai, 20 days ago

Naw he's off at RenFaire.

yukichigai, 21 days ago

I'm not predicting a Fallout-tier adaptation here, but as long as I get a few giggles then go on Comedy Central.

yukichigai, 28 days ago

Riot: we only have 800 Linux users

Also Riot: we've never supported Linux and our game is hard to run on it

You ever think these two might be related guys?

yukichigai, 28 days ago

The “distributions” argument always smells like bullshit. Developers actually interested on supporting Linux usually stick to one or two distros of their choice. (Typically Ubuntu.)

My thoughts exactly. It is not unheard of at all for Linux ports to only be guaranteed to function on specific distros. It's well within the realm of possibility and this is not a real stumbling block at all.

yukichigai, 28 days ago

If you’re going to have a shitty anticheat at least give people the option to play in anticheat disabled lobbies.

This, a thousand times. I can understand requiring anti-cheat for Ranked matches, but some of us just wanna screw around. If there's no progression tied to the match why should they care?

(Microtransactions, if I had to guess)