• Some Pokemon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh

There are definitely some good pokemon fangames on PC that aren’t super difficult from what I remember.

• Pokemon Hidden Place ( Spanish fan game with English translation IIRC )
• Pokemon Bizarre ( another Spanish/maybe Portuguese ( I don’t fully remember ) one with English translation ). Has some memes here and there but it’s manageable.

Most other fan games I could think of are either too long, have a good amount of difficulty, or have some sort of QOL thing preventing me from recommending it.

They’re gonna be in my backlog for a while, but earlier I got Kerbal Space Program 1 ( with DLC ) all for less than $15USD before tax and the Steins;Gate visual novel for something like $3.99 before tax. Would have gotten S;G Zero as well, but I am low on funds as of now.

In my opinion ( haven’t played or really seen the DLCs, so I’m just talking about base game ), Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

Definitely had ups and downs when I did my only playthrough. Absolutely middle of the road compared to the official games ( completed gen 3, part way through gens 4-7 ) I have played and still even middle of the road compared to some of the fan games I’ve played over the years.

I personally think AROS ( AROS Research Operating Syste ) is pretty cool. Same with just the basic Amiga Workbench 3 series ( the only one I have any experience with ).

Obviously Amiga Workbench isn’t daily driver ready, but neither is AROS since it’s, from what I can tell, just an Amiga OS passion project trying to make a more modern more open source Amiga OS.

Technically I don’t think there’s a tutorial level per say as much as there is a tutorial set of levels, but Baba Is You.

The game starts off with only the controls on how to move and teaches you about how you can change the rules of the level to beat it if it isn’t possible normally, without explaining anything. Just from you exploring and testing different things. The only other time you’ll ever see any other form of level hint is maybe in the level names or if you end up in a position where you have to undo or restart the level from breaking the " [ object ] is you " rule in some way.

A lot of the game before you escape the testing track, minus maybe the point you are told about momentum jumps, feel like one big tutorial without even realizing you’re in one. It’s done very well.

I personally make a guess depending on certain games as to how long I’ve played them. I’ve definitely lost track of how long I’ve played certain games ( especially on console ) like Borderlands or Sonic Unleashed on xbox360. Especially since I never wrote any of that kinda stuff down in middle/high school because I didn’t care how long I had been playing in total.

Though, I will say that I like and dislike how Steam tracks your progress in playing games. I was roughly 4-6 minutes off of playing for 2 hours in order to buy some game related account themes but now I’m 2.7 hours in accoring to them because I ended up leaving it on in the background. In the future, I’m not gonna remember I did that, so I’ll assume I actually played all that time. There’s no nuance in their monitoring. If the game runs, so does their meter of how long it’s been on, regardless of you playing or not.

Though, I assume a good solution would be using any form of note taking program and jotting down your play times and dates and any other notes you want. Or using a spreadsheet with that same information. As long as you don’t lose that/those file(s), depending on what solution(s) you choose to take, it should be fine as long as you actually remember to do it and aren’t lazy about that, like I would be.

A lot. Though it’s hard to put a price on some things because they’re software for discontinued products ( old game consoles, Amiga software, etcetera ) and aren’t sold as they were, even if some of them are still sold for other platforms.

That is absolutely egregious. 200GB game with a 45GB update? You’d be lucky to see me installing a game that’s around 20-30GB max anymore because I consider that to be the most acceptable amount of bloat for a game anymore.

• Sonic the Hedgehog ( Genesis/Mega Drive )

• Chuzzle Deluxe

• Borderlands

• Baba Is You

Those would be some picks I would say are objective masterpieces, but that’s subjective, I guess.

The only reason I had my bluray player connected to the internet was because the yahoo who dropped it off at the thrift store didn’t bother signing out of their pandora account, so I could listen to ad free music. Otherwise I would never connect to the internet since all the old applications ( including a blockbuster app of all things ) probably wouldn’t even work.

Knowing this could happen, I will definitely be sure to completely disconnect from the internet the next time I turn that thing on since last time I tried using pandora it wasn’t working.

I feel called out. Should definitely make an alias or two that auto CDs me the amount of times I need…

Ever since I first heard it a few months ago, it has never left my mind for even a second.

Free by Crush 40

Sadly this great song was tied to a spin-off series killing game.

They may be dead, but we still have some amazing alternative OS’s that exist that, as far as I’m aware, are still being updated. First thing that came to my mind was AROS ( Amiga Research Operating System that had to change the name to AROS Research Operating System ).

I personally don’t use it since I don’t use Amiga software, but it’s still really cool. Under no circumstances would I recommend it as a daily driver because any software based around Amiga is purely hobby at this point, but it’s still cool to check out.

I swear, the moment this comes out on one of my favorite websites, in good enough quality, I’m watching it as fast as possible. If this came out maybe 2018-2019 I would have definitely been running over kids and their parents at the theater to see it, but now I’d rather just wait for it to be released on a certain site.

Hell, the first time I saw the original, it was on a sketchy website where someone filmed in a theater ( English dub but Chinese subtitles for some odd reason ), so I’m definitely doing something similar, but this time from a certain site that tends to be a lot safer than going to random websites like I did back then.

Yeah, definitely gonna stop those pirates who soft/hardmod their systems and never connect to the Internet/run updates in order to dump their games or play pirated copies or whatever they wanna do! That’ll stop them!

/s

Edit:

This seems to be more about their online account services and their updated privacy policy than anything else, but I still think my point stands, just not for this article.

An EA published game series for the first 2 entries, but Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 1 and 2. Still on entry 1, so I’d like to avoid spoilers, but they definitely feel indie compared to every single triple AAA game that’s come out in the past well over a decade due to the passion you can tell had to be out in for the game to have sold well.

Also learned the 4th game wasn’t even available on PS2 because of its’ 2015 launch, so if I ever get around to finishing the first 3, I gotta get it on PC because there ain’t no way I’m buying a copy for switch.

Edit:

Saw a trailer for the 4th game on Krome Studio’s website and I’m probably gonna skip it because it looked too much like a mobile game for my tastes.

Ever since the switch to 3D, I knew they would never look back. Biggest reason why fan games are so valuable to me. The only thing I like about the upper half gens (not including 5) are the pokemon (case by case and not including regionals) and the terastal mechanic, in terms of the games and their mechanics. Gens 6-9 I really don’t have almost any care for any of the important characters outside of the designs for characters/character art for characters like Geeta, Diantha, Brasius, Kiawe, and Rika. Those are pretty much the only characters who’s names I could even remember.

That’s mostly due to, in my opinion, when I think they started absolutely dumbing and watering down the story and characters so they could start focusing on nostalgia baiting people to keep them coming back while also completely dumbing down exploration as well. I think two of the only characters from gens 6-9 I really care about were Lysander and Kiawe because I thought Lysander’s genocide plot was interesting enough and Kiawe only because of the episodes of the anime I saw (which is kinda cheating since the anime is where they put every ounce of character into 99.99% of all important NPCs).

Pretty sure a large amount of fans would absolutely love returning to an older form, at least aesthetically, myself included, but good luck convincing Sintendo of anything without getting their corporate legal open secret stasi (lawyers) getting involved.

If we’re talking windows LTSC, there’s no way you’d get my dad to buy into it. It’d probably be easier for both of us, but what happens after LTSC ends? It’s just delaying the inevitable, unless he gets a new laptop running 11, which I doubt he’ll do for as long as he can use his current laptop.

I’m probably gonna be the unlucky soul who has to do all this for my dad, if he chooses Linux Mint. I’ve showed him the cinnamon version and I’m probably gonna be the one helping him do a clean install after he backs up everything he needs/wants from his laptop. Alongside helping him learn a few things so he can run his laptop without too many issues.