Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to those who celebrate! If not, I hope you have a good end of the year in general. I'm laying off the forums for awhile, so it'll likely be a bit before I respond again.

@Mariotag That abysmal internet speed sounds a lot like what I used to get on a 6 MB/s connection I was paying for on Frontier Communications during high traffic hours. That's probably roughly what my parents average in a weekend too. They live in a wooded area so can't rely on phones for Internet, so they use that old broadband line instead.

I'm not adverse to buying DVDs for something I really like, but I have to know for sure first. Maybe I'll have luck on the same site I used to watch the Layton's Mystery Journey anime. I'd probably recognize a lot of the VAs since I did indeed watch a lot of the classic Pokemon anime. I religiously watched it until it moved to Toonami/Cartoon Network, which I didn't have access to at the time. I watched it on Saturdays on the local Fox Network before that. The crusher things would stack on the old crusher things, but I had to make sure they were at the top of their drop sequence before summoning a new one on top.

I might consider buying a used GCN capable Wii, but it isn't a high priority right now. Some of the not ported GCN games I do wanna try are expensive even secondhand though.

I don't recall needing CD keys for those games, but it's been so long that IDK for sure. I loved Chamber of Secrets on PC. Never played Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone there, but I've heard of it. PoA on PC was fun. Goblet of Fire was meh. I didn't have the rest. Supposedly the best place to start in the Trails series is the Trails In the Sky trilogy, though some say you can ultimately start with any arc as long as it isn't in the middle. There are plenty of opinions out there for it lol. 358/2 Days still sounds fun, but not one I'd play without a guide for those speed run bits. I like genre switches in games if I'm expecting them and if it isn't too many at once, so I'd probably like Re:Coded.

Haven't played the Trails series yet, but there are four arcs. In the general suggested play order:

• Liberl arc (Trails In the Sky FC, SC, 3rd)
• Crossbell Arc (Trails From Zero, Trails to Azure)
• Cold Steel Arc (I, II, III, IV)
• Trails Into Reverie (This supposedly ties up stuff with both the Cold Steel and Crossbell arcs)
• Calvard arc (Trails Through Daybreak I/II (II isn't localized in English yet; releasing in Feb) + more?)

It can seem overwhelming, so generally it's recommended to take the series one arc at a time. Plus, if you don't like it, obviously nothing is forcing anyone to continue lol. I think I'll like the series since I like world building and don't mind slow burns, but that isn't for everyone.

@Pastellioli I more often than not try to stick to official art or video game images. I could always upload my own I guess, but NL is the closest thing to social media I use these days. I just wish I could rip screens directly from my Switch. But yeah, I don't blame you at all for wanting to credit the original artists when possible.

I have basic NSO but not the expansion pack since it's higher, and frankly I only sub to have a legal backup source (Still salty I can't make local save backups....). I do play MK8D online but can live without it. I do take advantage of the Retro titles sometimes, but I have the majority I'm interested in already in older systems through the Virtual Console. Nintendo does seem to be supporting NSO better, though it does still seem like a dripfeed at times. Limited resources I guess.

I'd probably use a guide for Nuts and Bolts in your shoes too. I do use guides for some games, sometimes sparingly if I get stuck. Or a lot or I follow along if I don't want to miss certain items, want a certain ending, etc. Free time is limited. Some purists never use guides, which I'm fine with. But I don't think using or not using them is wrong. It depends on the person. I thought the game was a spinoff? I don't personally think it's for me.

I'm watching what's next with Holy Horror Mansion from Level-5 too, though I'll admit both Professor Layton and The New World of Steam and Decapolice are top of the list. Their new ghost concept is promising. I just hope they can deliver.

@Mariotag the game gets discounted a ton, and I’m glad I bought it at the right time. GoldenEye 007 was a nice addition to it, but I haven’t completed it and it’s been nearly two years since I last played it. I think it would have been nice if they did include GoldenEye on physical copies of Rare Replay like what they did for digital copies, but they never did, which stinks to hear.

I’ve just really lost interest in subscription services for gaming. I’m content with the game collection I have already so I don’t really have a want to get a subscription service on my Xbox, though I feel like nowadays there are a million subscription services in general. There isn’t many game subscriptions compared to film and television subscriptions, but so many game companies want to also start their own services like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, but I really don’t want gaming to have a million of those game subscriptions and having specific games tied to those services and delisting games. I read recently Sega said they were considering starting their own subscription service, but I just feel like that would be a disaster, and some people in the comments of NL’s article did a good job explaining why it likely wouldn’t work. For some reason, every time a game company makes their own subscription service, it always doesn’t get attention or does poorly. One of the comments mentioned there already being Genesis games apart of NSO, which I do think would make a Sega subscription service kind of redundant. Subscription services were fine years ago, but now I feel like there are way too many now after almost every company saw how successful Disney+ was and wanted to replicate the same success, but I hate how sometimes some media is split between services. As an example, I wanted to watch The Matrix for the first time months ago and we had HBO Max, and since Warner Bros. owns HBO Max and The Matrix, surely they would have all the movies and the first one on there, right? Instead, Max had all of The Matrix movies on there except the first one, which was on Netflix instead for some reason, and it’s weird because Warner doesn’t even own Netflix. It just bothers me that subscription services don’t even have everything all in one place and you have to sub to multiple to watch film series you wanna see.

If I go against an amiibo, I know for sure I’m instantly losing haha. They are so skilled, it’s kind of like playing against a competitive player.

To my surprise that’s all of the 360 games they have playable on newer hardware. It’s still nice but I just realized they don’t cover a lot of games for backwards compatibility. The OG Xbox backwards compatibility is bad with how most games are incompatible with the Xbone and Series X and S. I remember watching a video that released a few days after the Expansion Pack released, and the video was going over Nintendo’s emulation for older games (which covered the retro game library for NSO on Switch and Virtual Console) and the video pointed out the Virtual Console games were darker looking compared to NSO, but people said Virtual Console’s emulation was better than NSO’s emulation in the Expansion Pack for N64 games, because everyone was pointing out that the NSO’s emulation for the N64 games were poor, at least when they were first released, though I also think it was because the N64 games were emulated versions of the originals and kept in stuff like the frame rates getting slower for some games instead of remastering, remaking or enhancing the games for newer hardware since some of the games in NSO have remasters or remakes that aren’t playable on the Switch or any Nintendo hardware. I didn’t catch a lot of the emulation issues since I’m not much of a technical person and it was my first time playing a lot of the N64 games on there, but some games did get slower frame rates at times when I was playing though.

That sounds so cool! I wish I could have experienced that. It sounds like the previous Smash games had a lot of fun stuff and modes that Ultimate didn’t bring over unfortunately. I still like Ultimate and it’s Classic Mode, but it could have had way more variety with the other game modes instead of making a lot of them mob modes or kind of tedious fight after fight.

Crime makes me worried quite a lot, as well as losing stuff or having private info accessed by others and leaked online. I usually envision stuff in my head and stuff that will happen in the future, but it tends to be negative and scary stuff and it lingers for a bit. Usually my paranoia stops if I do something fun or if I get reassurance from a family member that something bad won’t happen. My self-esteem is pretty low and I’m negative too much, but I try to imagine positive stuff and thinking about the future in a positive light, sometimes me just thinking of something happy or something I enjoy (like my video game) help me a lot and take my mind of negative things. I am sorry you have felt paranoid sometimes.

I think the Midori situation was the first time I saw leakers actually getting angry at each other and starting beef with each other because of leaks being “borrowed” and “stolen,” but I wonder what leaker culture actually is with people who leak stuff because I think there has to be more to it beyond “borrowing” leaks and leaking game info. Midori was scummy and one of the reasons I just stopped reading rumors and leaks, along with that rant Pyoro went on just after getting a single “leak” wrong because he had a flawless reputation when it came to Nintendo leaks. If I recall, prior to the June 2024 Direct, he claimed there was going to be another Zelda remake in the same style of the Link’s Awakening remake, and while the Direct did have a Zelda game in the same style as Link’s Awakening, Echoes of Wisdom was a completely new game and not a remake. I think that’s what caused Pyoro to get upset, but despite that, I just stopped because I realized that leakers don’t have a good reason for releasing game info besides just for clout and popularity.

That rumor was probably the funniest Smash “leak” I’ve heard of and probably the one that got the most attention when it came to Smash Ultimate “leaks.”

I am excited to see Sonic 3 very soon. I’ve been avoiding spoilers and reading/watching most reviews for the film and luckily haven’t seen any spoilers, but I’ve seen a bit of what some other NL users have said about it in the movie thread. I am aware of there being a post-credit scene, and I’m super excited to find out which character they have been teasing and what game the next movie is going to take inspiration from.

@Tyranexx Yeah, usually for my profile pictures, I stick to official renders of characters or game screenshots (like the one I have right now), and I feel like it’s easier for people to identify where the screenshot or character in my avatar is from. When I use fanart or fan content as an avatar, I feel like it’s hard for someone glancing at my avatar to know where it came from since finding credits for the creator is hard online, especially if the person doesn’t have a signature or if the artwork is a repost from another person on another site. It’s also hard if the artist has deleted social accounts and can’t be found anywhere else.

I used to have the Expansion Pack for around a year, but only used it for the N64 games, mainly Banjo-Kazooie but I recall playing some of Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars, Paper Mario, and Mario 64, but I also used the Sega Genesis app for Sonic games. My sub ended before they added significantly more titles and retro consoles to the service, and I just have the standard sub with the NES and SNES games. I liked the Expansion Pack when it released, but I think it’s because I never played a majority of the N64 games on there before and I would say I’m an easy to please person when it comes to games. I know some of the N64 games apparently had emulation and technical issues when they were released, and I understood why people disliked how some heavily requested N64 games for Switch were locked behind a subscription service, plus the game roster with the N64 app at the time was small and games were released very slowly, I think it was one game per month but sometimes it would take more months for them to release games on there.

I tried to replay the game back in August with the intent of beating it, but I couldn’t remember what to do next and my first mistake was not using a walkthrough, so I lost interest in playing it and quit. I intend to start a new file and actually use a walkthrough so I know what to do. I used to be able to complete games without walkthroughs, but I find I struggle a bit with some games nowadays and figuring out what to do, including retro games. I used one when playing through the first Banjo game and a lot of games included in Rare Replay. I had to use a walkthrough the most with Conker’s Bad Fur Day because the game has a huge spike in its difficulty level much later on (though some objectives and levels were easy to figure out) and one for Perfect Dark because the game kinda does a terrible job at explaining objectives and making them obvious. The final level was the worst in that regard and I had to actually use a YouTube comment to help me figure out what I needed to do. The game did look like a spin-off, but it has references to previous games and it’s supposed to be a sequel (the intro I believe says the game takes place 8 years after Tooie) but it kind of doesn’t feel like a sequel because of the genre shift and the game not being a traditional platformer. I’ll still be trying to play Nuts and Bolts soon, hoping I can complete it swiftly like the N64 games.

I heard of those other two games. They look cool too and are the most hyped for sure. Hopefully I hear good things about them when they release.

@Anti-Matter that sounds like a really cool take on the Wizard of Oz. I knew the musical was super popular, and what you told me sounds super interesting. Maybe I could give it a watch. Usually the only musical movies I watch are animated Disney movies.

@Tyranexx Funny thing about that, I'm in a wooded area with no reception too. We've occasionally dipped down to 0.5mbps lately.

I was pretty close to the same for the OG anime. Watched it right up until it switched to a paid network. I tried keeping up with youtube and the like, and was actually so frustrated with it no longer being normally available that I didn't really pay much attention to how grating the new voices could be, or the fact they replaced all the original soundtrack with free stock music. They were clearly trying to just save a few bucks and charge so much more... Interesting about the crushers, and I can understand GC capable Wii not being a super high priority atm.

I got a package of the first three HP games for PC at Walmart. There were keys I had to enter on slips of paper inside the case. The PoA one was lost before I knew anything. I got to the last boss of the first one, but got stuck in the second. Didn't really like Goblet of Fire's game in the sense it wasn't really memorable. I did appreciate that they had characters in who weren't in the movies at least.

I'll definitely need a reference for the Trails series. My dad was looking for Trails in the Sky just last night to gift to someone, but couldn't find it anywhere actually.
358/2 Days is a very different experience if you start the franchise with it. I swear, Nomura during that era intentionally was making people as depressed as he possibly could.
Re:Coded is absolutely a fun time, or at least, it was for me, outside the one dungeon intended to be used with like, the precursor to Streetpass. I forget if it was 50, or 100 floors, depending on how many ppl you encountered, or how long you left your DS in wireless...

Happy holidays!

@Pastellioli Yeah. I was lucky with a sale when I got mine. A rare Gamestop deal they obviously decided was too generous, any 4 used games for $30. And yup. It sucks that physical copies don't get Goldeneye.

Yup, though I never really trained my amiibo..

The subscription situation is frequently compared to cable TV. It's gotten so insane. I only really go for the gaming subs that are required for online play, on systems I use online on. But even that feels like overkill. Sony got away with axing their lowest priced sub already. I like anime, but it's utterly insane having to find all the sub services. Not to mention getting them to work. Also, Disney Plus is successful? With the terrible optimization they have? During the time I had their sub, I couldn't get a single video to work, even with decent internet! And yeah, I prefer owning my own games, but as with the immortal words of Ubisoft "Gamers better get comfortable with not owning their games".

Yeahhh, I'm still amazed, but as long as the games I want to play are playable on the consoles... Of which, Sonic 06 is not compatible with newer systems. Or anything that got rereleased in a collection or anything.
The darker screen was mostly a Wii U thing. I don't recall OG Wii having it so dark. And I could see the possibility of framerate drops and the like. N64, as much as I hate to admit it, was a long time ago. Played on SD Televisions.

I mean, if you own the prior games, you still can experience it. Imo, Melee's Event Match mode was the best the series had, perhaps in spite of being single player. Instead of just customized battles, you absolutely had some unique designs in there, one of my faves I can recall right now being having Captain Falcon sprinting across the adventure mode stage of Mute City while avoiding the racers, at super speed. And yeah. It does feel like the modes of Ultimate really are just fight after fight.

Honestly, I'm rather the same with negativity, and envisioning bad things. Thanks for your concern btw!

I never actually realized leakers fought amongst themselves. That's both weird and funny. I've not really kept up with leakers, or leaks in general. So I honestly dunno much besides the occasional mention.

Heh. Sonic 3 is good, but I think I must've walked in unknowingly depressed or something, cause I didn't get as much of a kick out of it as I shoulda. And yea. Make sure you stay in the theater until the very end of the end.

Happy holidays!

@Mariotag I do see a lot of good games go on sale on the Microsoft Store near holidays or spring. Since I have a Series S every game I buy has to be digital, so I haven’t been to a game store like GameStop in years. That deal I haven’t heard of and it sounds pretty good! Does GameStop do any of those sort of deals anymore? I haven’t kept up with GameStop in a while and all I recall reading was that they were starting up stores selling retro games and consoles but people thought they didn’t have any good deals for retro games.

I only used my amiibo in occasions, but I leveled them up fast from battling them a ton. I won against the amiibos initially, but they got harder to fight against the more their levels increased, plus the amiibos have these kinds of fighting behaviors they get and develop from learning during fights. Since a few of the amiibos I have were used in Smash 4 and were already at Level 50, they already started at Level 12 when I used them in Ultimate, so they had an early head start when leveling up. I never sent the amiibos on any amiibo Journeys to gain experience. All the experience the amiibos got was just from fighting me, and them seeing my play style is probably why the amiibos developed fighting behaviors that counteracted my attacks.

I only really got Xbox Game Pass to get extra points and accomplish missions for games I owned that were apart of the Game Pass library, though I cancelled it later and got Game Pass Core/Live Gold for online play for a few games, but I didn’t use it much because of the time I had and the fact some of the online games I had were free-to-play, and Microsoft says that free online games do not require a sub to play. I only have one service for anime and that’s Crunchyroll, but I saw it’s missing a few well-known animes and films, and a few shows I wanted to watch on there were not on Crunchyroll and were likely on some obscure streaming service I had no interest in subbing to. I found Disney+ worked kind of fine for me, but I think all the companies seeing the large amount of subscribers Disney got shortly after releasing Disney+ wanted the same too and copied what Disney did, either to success or failure. That comment Ubisoft said about owning games just sounds ignorant. All everyone wants is for companies to give everyone options, either to buy stuff physically or digitally.

It’s kind of shocking that Sonic 06 isn’t backwards compatible with newer Xbox hardware compared to the older Sonic games released for 360, but I also think it could be because Sega delisted the game from the Microsoft Store because it got not so great reviews and they probably don’t want to release 06 again. Game collections/compilations are super good and have such great value. I think Rare Replay is probably one of the best with its presentation, effort and quality, but I know there are a ton more with great effort that I could find and buy too.

Wow, Event Match mode sounds interesting, and that battle sounds super fun to play. I just read, and Event Match mode was actually in WiiU and I played it but I didn’t remember until now. I’m reading some of the conditions for a few battles in the mode, and they sound way more fun than the ones in Spirit Battles because some of them have specific goals that need to be met besides fighting and KO’ing opponents; I just read an article about some Game and Watch battle where you win by attacking the opponent with a number 9 Judge attack, and it says that KO’ing the opponent without a 9 makes the match still go on and the opponent respawns. The special conditions on those battles depending on the character sound way more fun and I’d say it sounds like they have more variety. It would have been so cool if they were brought back in Ultimate and maybe did some for DLC fighters too, though Spirit battles I think replaced that with specific conditions and rules, though I find Spirit battles sometimes reuse the same conditions and rules and can sometimes be tedious to play through.

I’m trying to get better with my positivity, but it’s going to take me a lot of work to not act so negative. I’m often self-deprecating, but I need to break out of that bad habit and just thinking about stuff that is positive, like something I’m excited about or something I like, helps my thoughts a lot. You’re welcome, I hope you are doing fine.

I think the Midori situation was the only time I saw leakers fight with each other. I never really saw that happen with any other leakers besides that one situation.

That’s good to hear about the movie being great. I wonder if its better than the previous two movies…. I will stay and see what the post-credit scene is when the movie is almost over! Super excited to see what character they’ll be revealing this time. The post-credit scene I think is what most people are talking about right now, and I like how the scenes in the films indicate what game the next film is going to take inspiration from. I am wondering if the theaters will be full, given this film was hyped up all year and it being near the holidays so everyone and their families are off of work, but I won’t mind a kind of crowded theater. I like sharing the same experiences and reactions with people, and I found some of the audience’s reactions was fun when I saw Sonic 2 two years ago.

Happy holidays to you as well! Thank you! Hope you have a good time with your family celebrating.

@Pastellioli Huh, well, the deal was from a number of years ago, potentially from even before the Series S released. Any followup deals using the same format have included a maximum price for the used games you can pick, which isn't surprising. The fact they actually had a deal where you could pick any four used games from any combination of platforms at any price, and just pay $30 for the whole lot had to have been an oversight to begin with. Also, shame you went digital only tbh. I know you have to fully download the game anyway, but options are a good thing! And imo, the retro deals aren't usually spectacular. But every so often, you might find something. And, the retro games aren't limited to the retro stores. In the case of mine, you have to specifically ask to see them.

Honestly understandable given how the amiibos were designed. I rarely used them. Heck, I rarely ever even got amiibos!

I personally don't care for game pass. My internet here is awful, as I've said many times before. Which is part of why I hate Sony axing their lowest price option, as I can't even use the benefits of the higher priced ones! When I got online, it was just to play online, though in the 360/ps3 era, there was the added benefit of actually owning the regular free games instead of only when subscribed. I got enough of them on my 360, I actually had to pick and choose what I wanted to keep. 250 gigs went away so effectively there. Crunchyroll was a downgrade from CR plus Funimation imo. CR lost a fair few licenses in the merger, including classics such as Slayers. On top of that, the movies that Funimation streamed are not a thing on CR. Not that I could get either to fully work... Disney Plus, I'm more confident about it being messed up cause I tried it at my mom's house, where she has good internet. Not the best, but good enough it should be able to run stuff, and 2.5 day updates at my place only take like, a couple hours most there. Ubisoft with their quote is a rhetoric I've heard before tbh. Too many ppl high up don't want ppl actually owning things.

Amusingly, in spite of 06's bad rep, or perhaps because of it, it's actually in demand for a remake or remaster. Other popular options are Sonic Heroes, and maybe the Sonic Adventure games, plus Unleashed. Your reasoning makes sense for sure. And yeah, though I have previously had a hard time finding good sales for collections. I waited too long on the Return to Arkham one.

Honestly, yeah. Event Match was changed quite simply to Events between Melee and Brawl. A few of the more unique types of scenarios were removed, and replaced with the option for coop. Spirits are genuinely worse than the Events mode at that. I dunno why everything felt like a downgrade after Brawl. (Except for the Classic mode tbh, and the roster and stage selection.)

I see. Leakers don't frequently fight then.

Yeah, negativity is like a poison. One that I'm susceptible to. I'm still trying to figure out how to get past some stuff that happened in April...tbh, I didn't sleep at all last night because of it.

I rarely get to enjoy a true crowd at theaters. Sonic 3, for me, while it was absolutely good, I must've stumbled into the theater depressed without knowing it, and it just killed the movie for me. As for post-credits... Honestly? You shouldn't leave until after the movie actually completely shuts off for this one. I can think of two possibilities for what the next one might adapt.

Thanks for the well wishes! Though, I dunno how well I'll enjoy the get togethers. Aside from my bro and my dad, I'm not entirely sure I want to spend this year's holiday with family. It's more an obligation this time, between three bickering households...

@Pastellioli
Sonic 06 is also available on PS3 version in physical.
You can search from local game store or internet and the game was pretty cheap.
Also, the Backward Compatibility system from XBOX machine is suck.
It didn't BC by disc emulating, but it was by software compatibility from database.
The unpopular / niche games will not get BC and it suck because I will never able to play my DDR Ultramix games from OG XBOX and DDR UNIVERSE games from XBOX 360 on newer XBOX machine.
BC by disc emulating like Wii + GameCube, Wii U + Wii, PS2 + PS1, PS5 + PS4 are really great because you can play any games in disc on better machine.

@Mariotag That deal kind of sounded like a steal back then and now, I think it’s super rare for game stores and shops to do deals like that for used games and having them really cheaper than their original price, cuz now if you bought maybe 4 used games the prices would add up rather than just being $30 total altogether. I think nowadays it’d be hard to find game deals like that given prices are getting higher. I only see similar deals like that with non-video game stores. There was an art store I used to go to called Michaels for my art supplies and they did similar deals like that, like “buy one, get two free.” Michaels was super pricey though, and I don’t buy stuff from there anymore, and most of the time the items were still kinda pricey even with those deals and coupons, even before prices started to get higher.

I know that retro games are super pricey to buy and retro game collecting is a popular but expensive hobby. I find it is really hard to find inexpensive prices for most retro games, especially if they are hard to get and find. Even though some retro games are available on modern platforms (usually for cheaper) the original versions still go up for high prices. There are probably a few notable retro games that are super expensive to buy, but one that comes to my mind is the original N64 cartridge of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. If I remember reading, the game goes for at least $500 or higher mainly because of its uniqueness with the gameplay, it being different from most platformer games, and it being considered one of the most technically impressive N64 games of all time. The remake goes for way lower than that (usually around $15-$20) and a lot of N64 copies of Bad Fur Day went unsold since the game failed commercially, but it’s crazy its that expensive when it’s available on Rare Replay for way cheaper and has some enhancements and improvements because of the newer hardware the game is on, though I read on an N64 subreddit that some people have been able to snag N64 copies for cheaper, because I recall someone got a copy for $20 I believe on the Facebook marketplace. I think getting retro games at a price like that is hard (plus online shipping can make the game price even more expensive), but I think with enough searching you can find a good deal.

I only have a few Smash 4 amiibos and Splatoon amiibos, so my collection is limited but I don’t use amiibos a ton. I would buy more but probably just one and that’s all, but I’m not into figure collection or collecting amiibos and game equipment.

I still liked Game Pass when I had it, but I just don’t use it anymore or have the want to subscribe to it. I used to be apart of a Game Pass game club on Pure Xbox, which was kinda fun and I did it so I could get the most out of Game Pass, but I only participated at least three times (Rise of the Tomb Raider in April, Conker in August, and Banjo-Tooie in September) but I dropped Tomb Raider and Banjo very early (also cuz I was busy) and I only completed Conker, but discussion on that game was dead (it was only me and the guy leading the game club that discussed it) so I didn’t even have much fun. Either some participants dropped the game very early, some people played the game but didn’t post about it, or a lot of game club members were busy when we were playing it, so we chose a bad time to play it. I just think online game clubs are unreliable because of that, because sometimes discussion is popular but other times it’s dead. My lack of time is also why I didn’t use Game Pass much and only for one game or so.

Oh so Crunchyroll did have a ton of anime but their licenses expired and they removed a few popular shows? I didn’t know that, as well as the fact Funimation had a few movies that can’t be streamed on CR. I know Crunchyroll has films on there but I don’t know how many, I feel like it could be less than the anime shows they have on there. Disney+, with me, would disconnect, but only on occasions and it was the internet causing it because our internet in the past would cut off at the worst times ever and would take minutes to turn back on, and sometimes when you reconnected to it, it would work for a minute or a few seconds before disconnecting again. It wasn’t good especially if I was trying to do something important or play online games.

Oh yeah, we were discussing 06 one time! I do remember maybe a month ago one of the members of Sonic Team said he was interested in remaking 06. Months ago before he said he wanted to remake 06 there were reports that a remake of Heroes was greenlit and in development but there haven’t been any updates on that one ever since that report came out, plus the remake hasn’t been officially announced so no one knows if it is actually real and being worked on. The Adventure games are also heavily requested remakes and I am a but surprised they haven’t made them yet, given the Adventure games are super popular and everyone loves them, I think a lot of people would buy an Adventure remake really fast if one did exist.

I had so much fun with the Event Match battles in WiiU, and I just really think Spirit battles aren’t as fun as Event Match. I did find Spirit battles fun when I was into Smash a ton, but I find only a few are fun and the rest tend to be tedious and sometimes repetitive and difficult. I am still glad I nearly completed the Spirit collection, but I really think the battles are kind of unfun. The only easy spirits to get are Fighter Spirits (since you can buy them from the store when they pop up or get them at the end of Classic Mode routes) and Spirits that have a low difficulty level. The Spirit battles try to reference the Spirit characters with the character, stage and items, but I feel like that some of the scenarios and conditions are repeated for a few of the other Spirits instead so it’s not as fun and interesting in my opinion, where with Event Match I felt that the conditions and rules felt more fair and had variety. I definitely agree that the roster, Classic mode, and stages have gotten better and improved a ton. I am curious to see what the next Smash game will do for those three.

Oh, are you ok? Not getting sleep because of something bad happening is awful. Sometimes negative thoughts can keep me up or just bother me throughout the day. They can go away but it takes me doing something like an hobby to make my negativity go away.

The crowd I was with when I saw Sonic 2 mainly consisted of adults and families with children. The younger audience members absolutely loved the movie a ton, and the post-credit scene in 2 with Shadow excited them so much, I could even hear a lot of the audience gasping at the scene once they saw what character was on-screen. I already knew it was coming up because I chose to spoil it for myself for some reason. When I see any movie I like to stay during the credits and see if there are any extra scenes left. I remember online I saw this photo that showed a sign in a theater that told customers what films had post-credit or mid-credit scenes so they would know if they needed to stay to see the scene before leaving, which sounded pretty helpful. I can’t wait to see what character they have for 3 at the end. There was a NL article they recently published where the director was talking about two characters requested for live-action, but I avoided reading it because I didn’t want to spoil myself and get a hint at who it is they had in 3’s post-credit scene, though luckily the headline didn’t say anything about what two characters the director was talking about. I have a good feeling 3 might be better than the previous films, but I need to see it first before coming to a conclusion! I can’t recall much of the first movie but I remember 2 so much and liked it way more the the first one. Sorry that you felt like that when you saw it, are you okay?

Me and my family don’t really do get-togethers with other members during the holidays since everyone is away. Christmas is pretty fun for me, though we don’t do much besides doing fun stuff and eating sweet food and maybe a little bit of shopping. I love eating a ton of candy during the holidays haha. I hope you still have a good time during the holidays and do fun stuff.

@Anti-Matter 06 still is on the PlayStation? I’m surprised they didn’t delist it there too given Sega delisted a ton of low-rated Sonic games off the Xbox at one point, and I would have assumed they did the same with other consoles given that have had a bad reputation and is disliked a lot.

I think the backwards compatibility on Xbox is good, but it only covers half of the 360 library and only a handful of OG Xbox games, and I realized they didn’t add backwards compatibility for smaller and more niche games. Most of the games apart of backwards compatibility are more well-known or popular games. They also don’t really cover licensed games either.

I think the Wii and most Nintendo consoles supported backwards compatibility for most of all game I think? I understand liking the backwards compatibility on those a bit more because of the bigger game library it supports, but I have to look up what games Nintendo’s backward compatibility supports.

@Tyranexx Merry Christmas!

@Pastellioli
The digital version of Sonic 06 PS3 was already gone but the physical version of Sonic 06 PS3 is still available.

Speaking about PS3 cover design, the old version with logo on left sideways was looked terrible. I heard there was a patent issue with old PlayStation 3 font name as the old PS3 font used the same font of Spiderman so after late 2009 during FF XIII era, the PS3 font changed and PlayStation 3 renamed as simply PS3.
The PS3 font is being used again for PS4 & PS5 logo.

And speaking about PS3, O also have PS3 machines with more than 70 PS3 physical games + PS3 Move with camera.
I have tons of niche and casual PS3 games such as PS3 Move games, the cartoon franchise PS3 games, the kids movie to PS3 games, Dance Dance Revolution (2010), Skylanders games, UDraw games, etc.
But I also have certain great 1st party Sony kids games on PS3 such Ratchet & Clank games, Sly Cooper games. I have all of them on PS3 and I quickly collected them during pandemic year 2020. Ratchet & Clank games on PS3 was my introduction of 3rd person kids shooter & platformer games and somehow I prefer Ratchet & Clank games over 3D Mario games.
Well... Probably I'm already tired with same silent Mario and typical damsel in distress plotline story from Mario games, so the storyline from Ratchet & Clank games with voice acting gave me a new experience.
There are 7 Ratchet & Clank games on PS3, they are:
1. Tools of Destruction
2. Quest for Booty
3. A Crack in Time
4. HD Trilogy (3 games of PS2 version in HD Remastered)
5. All-4-One
6. Q-Force (PAL, Asia) / Full Frontal Assault (USA)
7. Into the Nexus (USA) / Nexus (PAL, Asia)
8. PlayStation Move Heroes

My personal favorite are A Crack in Time, HD Trilogy and Tools of Destruction.
Three of them are very fun to play, HD graphics in 60 fps, have a lot of weapons choice and different planets to visit.
Quest for Booty have same 60 fps but the storyline was too short and very linear (you can't go back to previous places unless you still have multiple save slots in different areas).

Ratchet & Clank games also have the spinoff series such as All-4-One with rogue style with beat em up scrolling and co-op feature even you play Solo.
Q-Force is Tower Defense style but this game is too hard. I still haven't finished Q-Force since year 2020.
PlayStation Move Heroes is the party style game with using PS3 Move like Wii mote to play the mini games and introducing the 3 cartoon franchise from Sony IP : Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper and Jak & Daxter.

Oh, btw.
Do you have PS3 too?
There are also tons of kids friendly games on PS3 that you can experience for alternative entertainment and getting new experience.

@Pastellioli Yeah, that deal was absolutely a steal. The deals they have now don't come close. And considering that used games tend to just be like, up to ten dollars less than new there, yeah.
I used to get games from older gens for fairly cheap, but I honestly have no idea how to fairly compare that to now.

Yeah, I'm not an amiibo collector either. Not huge on figurines or merchandise.

Your talk of a gamepass club reminds me of the old tournaments that happened here 2014-2015. It definitely felt like a club. But ultimately, the people hosting it ended up disbanding it, cause the company they worked for, while not involved in the group, treated them poorly. So the entire staff quit their jobs practically all at once, and moved away.

I'm gonna have to correct you on this next one. Funimation and Crunchyroll were both bought out by Sony. Sony decided, after a few years of letting Funimation handle dubs exclusively, and Crunchyroll handle the subs, that the two should be merged. The licenses Funimation had weren't all carried over. Crunchyroll doesn't appear to stream the movies as far as I can tell, but they do promote and sponsor theater releases iirc. My troubles with Disney Plus were not really disconnect errors. More loading, and glitches.

Sonic 06 being remade is an interesting thought. There's a lot they could smooth out, and change. The story, particularly the final story, ended up causing much controversy on top of not actually adding much to the overarching series. Storywise, you could quite literally say it never happened, and not be completely wrong. Heroes ultimately contributed something that's been frustrating to the franchise since, namely normal enemies with HP bars. It being remade to just be less tedious would be massive. The Adventure games, while popular and iconic, do have major flaws. In SA1, of the I think 6 characters you could do stories for, at least two had somewhat unfun gameplay unless you were willing to be persistent. SA2, in spite of being lauded as one of the best, only had two of the six characters being like, especially good to play as. Each good side character had a dark counterpart, so Knuckles's proven frustrating emerald hunting from SA1 was not only frustrating in SA2, but also transferred to Rouge. Tails and Eggman had a sort of shoot 'em up style of gameplay, which while not terrible, could be a pain at times.

Yeah, Event Matches were a highlight of Melee for me for the longest time. I feel that spirits don't live up to that in the slightest. It is neat that more characters get represented somehow at least though.
I was more referencing the increase in both numbers, and diversity of characters and stages. There are some stages left out from Ultimate, but not too many.

Yeah, sleep issues are a major problem. Tbh, I'm up way too late typing this. I might actually get a normal number of hours in sleep tonight! (For some stupid reason, when I can sleep, I sleep 12+)

Yeah, that sounds like it was a fun theater for Sonic 2! My personal big memory of a theater was when I saw a screening for the entire Batman Dark Knight trilogy when the last movie came out. Ppl in the theater cheered when The Joker showed up. There was occasional small talk, and it was lively. Plus it had intermissions. As for how I've been feeling, I think when watching the third movie, I was experiencing depression. It isn't always an obvious you feel sad. At times, it can just be there without you knowing it, affecting your mood, thoughts, and emotions, draining the life out of everything. It's subtle, but truly bothersome. As for what kept me up that night, I'll just keep it to dark thoughts regarding events from back in April, that coincided far too well with my life offline, and ended up causing much grief.

My family is split fairly effectively into two factions. So there's two different celebrations to go to. Unfortunately, again, depression. Hope yours goes well!
Also, to comment on your other reply, 360 copies of 06 still exist too. But now you can only get the dlc on ps3. Nintendo systems actually did not offer backward compatibility outside the handheld lines until the Wii. Which, I think I mentioned this before, was also when Nintendo dropped support for anything prior to Gamecube.

@Anti-Matter Which Ratchet and Clank games would you recommend starting with? I got a few collections digitally on my ps3. Avoiding God of War because gore and investment though.

@Mariotag
I would say these recommended Ratchet & Clank PS3 games.
1. A Crack In Time
2. Tools of Destruction
3. HD Trilogy (Up Your Arsenal, Going Commando)

Merrrrrrrrrry Christmas everyone!! I love yall (in a platonic, not-creepy way lol)

Phew....
My calendar 2025 is almost finished.
My head felt quite dizzy, my body felt tired. 🥴
I only have 1 more design that I still stuck on the background design idea and it must be finished tomorrow.
Gotta sleep...!

I just wanted to drop by to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I hope you're all having a wonderful day. 🚂🎄🎁 May as well tag @Pastellioli, @Tyranexx, and @Sunsy here, thanks for being my pals!

Just stopping by to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Hope everyone is having a good holiday today. Mine was mostly spent watching Christmas movies with mom.

@MarioVillager92 Thanks! Same to you too!

Don't worry @Tyranexx, @Pastellioli, @MarioVillager92, and @MarioTag, I still have your replies. Just been enjoying the holiday season and gaming lately. Hoping to get to them by the weekend.

@Anti-Matter Starting with A Crack In Time?

@Mariotag The prices for used games now (at least at GameStop) do seem inexpensive, but the prices for pre-owned games that are on now discontinued consoles are so pricey, even ones that are only a decade old. The prices for retro games though are way more ridiculous compared to those though, sucks it makes playing some super old games really hard since people slap expensive price tags on them compared to the original price when they were still being sold. I find that retro games are priced really high compared to the retro console the game released on.

I do like seeing people’s amiibo and figurine collections (I saw some cool ones show up on Instagram and even Reddit) but I’m not that big on merchandise and figurines. Not saying they are bad or trying to insinuate anything, but I wouldn’t have the time or space to buy any. I’d maybe buy one or two figurines but that would be it, though it would never be Funko pops. However, I’m far more interested in plushies.

I see. Game clubs do seem fun but I feel like they are better executed in person rather than online, and if everyone is cooperative and friendly with each other and can manage it well. I wouldn’t say the Game Pass club was badly treated or that anyone was rude, everyone was nice and treated each other well, but the small amount of participating members and the fact that the club wasn’t super active besides the leader of the club and others made the experience kind of not fun like I hoped. It really makes me disappointed I completed one game in the club during a month where the most active members were busy or chose to not participate…Stinks that they were treated poorly and that they had to stop those kinds of tournaments. Game clubs and tournaments seem a bit non-existent now unfortunately besides the occasional Smash tournaments I hear about.

Gotcha, thanks for the correction! I didn’t know Crunchyroll supported theater releases given I don’t hear anything about that. I didn’t really know that Disney+ was glitchy or loaded long sometimes. A random question, do some devices run Disney+ more glitchier than others?

I see. I have played the Adventure games, but I don’t recall some of the gameplay flaws because it’s been so long! However, I think the last time I played Adventure 2 a few years ago on the PS4 I did think the gameplay was slightly off and flawed, and I didn’t really like the emerald hunting segments and I found it was time-consuming and sorta annoying. There are plenty of old games I like that have flaws with the gameplay, so I do think those issues could be fixed a lot with a remake. I still do wonder if that Heroes remake is real, and I’d definitely think 06 could be fixed a lot with a remake. I actually think that would be cool to see despite how hated 06 is.

Yeah, I do think Spirits do a good job at referencing more characters beyond fighters like in Event Matches, but Spirit battles don’t really feel super special. I do think the large amount of characters they got for the Spirits are cool, but only if the fights for them were more fair, had variety and were more fun. If they were less tedious, I think I would have found the World of Light mode more fun despite the lack of fighter interactions and cutscenes and the cool map acting like a board game.

It was a great experience when I saw it. Also, update, I just saw Sonic 3 and it was so darn good and fun! Definitely an improvement over the previous two. I thought that it was way more interesting, had a good balance of humor and action and seriousness, and I thought the humor was better this time. The post-credit scenes REALLY shocked me, so I’m excited to see what they’ll do for 4. Super popular movies like the Dark Knight must have a lot of fun audience experiences and reactions, especially in theaters. I can’t recall any other similar experiences I had like that besides Sonic 2 though…However, I do remember I saw these clips online showing audience reactions in a theater to scenes from Avengers: Endgame a few years ago and the audience went crazy so much. I’d love if I could have more theater experiences like that often, but the feeling of sitting down in a huge theatre room and watching a movie on the big screen with loud sound makes me happy already, even if the theater isn’t full. Well, I hope you are ok now, that feeling is really bad.

Thank you again! I still hope your holidays went well, if you already celebrated them.

Oh yeah, I do know physical 360 copies of 06 exist, but the digital version (which would be easier to get now I assume) is delisted. I wonder how much physical 360 copies of 06 go since it was delisted, but I think I read that in some countries it was put back up on the Microsoft Store only two years ago, but I never saw a listing of it when I searched up Sonic games a few months ago.

@MarioVillager92 Late reply, but you are welcome! Hoping you are having a good holiday!

@Sunsy Merry Christmas! Hope you are having a good time gaming

@Anti-Matter I want to say happy holidays if you are celebrating and hoping that you are having a good day too

that’s interesting that PS3 copies of 06 are easier to get and play, while they delisted 06 on the 360 and made it harder to get. I am surprised they only delisted it from the Xbox instead of both since I think at one point they delisted a lot of Sonic games on the Xbox 360 that got bad reviews and were critically panned.

Ah, I see you mentioned Skylanders! I actually had one of the games on the WiiU with a few figurines and the stand, but I didn’t complete it and I don’t have it anymore, though I thought it was fun when I played it. Though, I similarly had Disney Infinity and had way more figures for that, I played all three versions (1.0., 2.0., 3.0.) on the WiiU. I haven’t really played the Ratchet and Clank games besides a bit of the first one on the PS4, but my dad used to play, I think the remake they released back in 2016 and I saw him play some of it once. He played way more Ratchet and Clank games than me.

I unfortunately don’t have a PS3, but I would love to get another PlayStation console again at one point for some of the games on there. Since Ratchet and Clank is a platformer and I love those a lot, I would like to try them out a bit. We had a PS4 but we traded it in and wiped the data off it, including the profile data and game data. My brother played it way more than me though, but there were so many games on there that I remember playing. I loved LittleBigPlanet so much and got close to finishing the third game with my siblings but we never beat the game.