PixlBit

I do sometimes enjoy tinkering, but the stuff on the Deck is stuff that's not available on Switch or PS5, for various reasons. And every once in awhile, a game that was not available for wide distribution suddenly becomes available on Switch and PS5. When that's the case, I'll play it on Switch/PS5. The most recent example of this was Senkyu (localized in the 90s as Battle Balls), a very rare puzzle arcade game that wasn't available commercially for decades. Guess what? It just got an Arcade Archives release last week, so going forward, I'll play it on Switch (or PS5) instead of on the Steam Deck. Generally, I do just want  games to play, but I want to play old abandoned stuff from time to time. In that regard, Arcade Archives has been a godsend, especially when it comes to Nintendo arcade games like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros (I still have to use an emulator to play Popeye, though).

That, and the Steam Deck's official dock from Valve is complete dogs**t. Unlike the Switch's dock, which works instantaneously and consistently, the Steam Deck dock frequently doesn't display when it gets turned on or changes between game/desktop modes, and apparently this is a Valve issue rather than a user issue.  So every game that shows up on Switch saves me a lot of aggravation of plugging, unplugging, and restarting stuff when I want to play old games. That said, it plays my favorite Atari 8-bit games, plus a lot of arcade games that are almost guaranteed not to get re-released, as well as old RPG favorites like Ultima, Nethack, and Umoria. 

I told you this already, but I've actually been tinkering around with emulators on my Steam Deck. I limit my emulation to stuff that isn't available on Switch, PS5, or Steam. So that means a lot of old computer systems like the TRS-80, Atari 8-bit, and a bit of Apple II, though I wasn't really into the Apple II like I was the Atari or TRS-80. Right now I'm trying to get the TI-99/4a working, and it's proving to be frustrating. I'm pretty much stuck with online emulators for that one. I also got Saturn emulation working, and Saturn emulation was notoriously tricky to get right because of how bizarre the design of the Saturn was. But I've gotten Shining Force III, Sakura Wars, Albert Odyssey, and Magic Knight Rayearth working on it, and I think the huge cult status of the Saturn has pretty much resolved most emulation issues now. I've also been on a SRPG kick on Switch, getting back into Fire Emblem Engage, Advance Wars, and Super Robot Wars.

I also play a lot of old arcade titles on Switch as well as abandoned arcade games on the Deck. Recently, an old favorite Neo-Geo puzzle game of mine dropped on Switch, Senkyu (released in the U.S. as Battle Balls), and I play Atari 50 and Donkey Kong fairly often when I want some light gaming.

When I get off work for this week, I will probably pick up Xenoblade Chronicles X. I missed out on that on the Wii U, so this will be a new experience for me.

I'm thinking of picking up some Looney Tunes DVDs and Blu-Rays, since David Zaslav seems determined to strip Warner Bros. for parts and is now rumored to be looking to sell the Looney Tunes. 

My favorite anime TV shows are Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 and Kosuke Fujishima's (the artist behind many of the Tales games and Sakura Wars) Oh My Goddess! I also watched Magic Knight Rayearth (and played the Saturn game), Black Jack (from Osamu Tezuka), Galaxy Express 999, and the Samurai Pizza Cats, who are getting a new video game with the crazy English dub. I've also dabbled in Demon Slayer.

On the movie side, my favorites are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, the Project A-Ko series, Akira, Ninja Scroll, and Perfect Blue. Last year, I went to see The Boy and the Heron in theaters.

I mostly associate anime/manga with gaming, since the first exposures to anime art that I knew of were The Legend of Zelda and Kid Icarus. I also got into Dragon Quest (Warrior) early on and even watched the few episodes of the Dragon Quest anime that were localized by Saban and came on at weird hours. Sega CD RPGs like Lunar and Vay only further solidified the anime-video games connection for me. When Dragon Ball Z came out a few years later, I thought it looked a lot like Dragon Quest. Most people who saw DBZ first were more surprised the first time they saw Dragon Quest VIII and realized that it looked like Dragon Ball. But a lot of the cartoons that aired in the US had subtly Japanese styling thanks to the fact that many of them were contracted out to Tokyo Movie Shinsha and other Japanese studios. Even a couple of the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials were very animesque because most of those were produced in Japan. I probably also saw a couple of episodes of those Christian animes that Tatsunoko produced for CBN.

My main is Pai Chan, the Chinese lady. Vanessa is a good choice as well. 

Last full release was Virtua Fighter 5, which was in arcades back when the PS2 was still the big console. They've done multiple refreshes of it, including a recent face-lifted version on PS4/5 and Steam, which was done by the Ryu Ga Gotoku team. VF6 will be the first true sequel in 20 years. Sega should have capitalized more heavily on Tekken 4 being a weak game back in the day.

I'm hyped over the Switch 2. Thinking about trying to get into the Switch 2 Experience in Los Angeles. 

I hope Virtua Fighter 6 comes out this year. Tekken seriously needs competition, and I always liked VF better.

I remember reading ths Doom II backstory in the manual. It's neat that Doom Eternal let us see how the actual war played out.

It's funny. I was pretty bored with gaming in the mid-10s. The Switch re-ignited my gaming interet as well. 

And it still gets great stuff. I'm playing One Piece Odyssey and Tokyo Xanadu ex+ on mine, and am looking forward to Echoes of Wisdom.  My favorite game of the year so far, Unicorn Overlord, runs beautifully on Switch.

Nintendo has always been able to make games look good regardless of the hardware. It's why I still play my Switch even in the era of PS5/XSX|S. I am looking forward to the Switch 2, which should give things a boost on the Nintendo front, but I still see loads of great games on Switch. A lot of them being former PSP/Vita games like Falcom's games.

So, are you voiced by John Travolta?