barleybap
@barleybap.bsky.social
Trans retro gamer (she / her), sometimes translator, and mostly dormant streamer over at https://www.twitch.tv/barleybap.
Phantasy Star IV changes to the "one tile per step" type of scrolling, FWIW. Can't help but wonder how some of its dungeons might have felt had it scrolled like PS2. They're certainly nowhere near as mean in terms of design, but feel like it still would have been rough at points.
(Though better visibility obviously doesn't help with a few of the meaner teleporter / pit mazes. Fucking Ikuto, man)
Pop it into 16:9 and the dead end straight up ceases to be an obstacle. On the fence about whether to support widescreen, but think it's interesting to look at. Makes you realise how a lot of the designs would have looked much more manageable seen from a more macro scale during planning.
Combine that with the slow walk speed, the sheer scale of the areas, and the extra layer obscuring the player's vision and you really start to see why they're such a nightmare to navigate. So many little things that would be fine in isolation, but become absolutely brutal in tandem.
Rebuilding the dungeons in this game is making me realise just how much their issues are compounded by the slow scroll speed. When the screen scrolls one tile with each player step like a lot of major RPGs, you see to the end of this dead end five whole steps faster than the original.
Another sticker also uses the dated and now vaguely yikes-y abbreviation for Japanese. Because of course it does.
Some familiar Britpop hit blares from a little boombox behind the counter. Probably Supergrass.
Some truly "90s independent game store in the UK"-ass vibes to the stickers on the box of this game I bought. Can already picture a vaguely greasy guy behind the counter with long hair who is scowling at ten year old me because he knows I have no money to spend and just want to gawk at the boxes.
"You need to learn how to step outside of your comfort zone and into mine."
I want one of these a lot. I don't know how much I'd realistically use it, but everything about them sparks joy.
Always knew I liked the first half of VI, and it's the World of Ruin I never vibed with, but forgot just how much I love that first half. Coming home from work and playing an hour or two before bed this week has been so cosy, and totally overwhelmed by the music and memories. So glad I bought it. <3
(watching the FFVI opera scene)
Me: "Okay tear ducts, we've got our partner sitting a short distance away. Don't be super-cringe and cry at the funny little MIDI vocal track 'singing' Celes's theme."
Tear ducts: "No problem boss."
MIDI Celes: 「愛しの あなたは 遠いところへ・・・」
Tear ducts: "Fuck it, I'm done."
Aw, that'd be nice if I progress a little further with it and it becomes more of a thing. ^^ I'm not very good at sticking to stuff to be honest, so want to make some proper progress first. But I'll definitely let you know! <3
Every dog has its day. And today is the day that that wee shite gets what's coming to him.
Oh god yeah, 100%. Ditto to A Wish immediately running through my head any time I'm out walking in the snow. Some enormously evocative songs on the soundtrack.
Find myself thinking of that title screen. The whale sounds, and the massive tree towering over the tiny heroes. It always carried this sense of reverence and awe at the grandeur of the natural world for me as a kid.
Was easily one of the most mindblowing graphical moments I had through that entire generation. Especially as a Sega kid who hadn't seen much of the whole Mode 7 pseudo-3D effect to that point.
It was 2 that was the really big one for me at the time, too. Was one of the few pre-FFVII Square games we got here in Europe, and saw a friend flying around the world map on an endgame save in the 90s. Stuck with me for years, and was the first SNES game I downloaded when I discovered emulation.
Fair, yeah. I absolutely love 2's aesthetics as well. And it's arguably even more impressive relative to the era it came out of. Only 1993, and so far ahead of anything Square had done before visually. Really set the pace for that wave of god tier pixel art from them in the SNES's later years.
Look at that fucking Seiken 3 art. Absolutely unreal that it was on the SNES. Just a total mastery of 16-bit pixel art.
Could just be CG I guess (though wouldn't be the first time folks have destroyed expensive shit for clicks), but still, kind of fucked to see how out of touch these ghouls are with how most people live, and what some of those things actually mean to ordinary folk.
Like the day I got that piano from my friend was a huge deal. Was an ancient thing that probably isn't nearly as nice as the one here, but I was poor as shit, so genuinely felt like one of the nicest things anyone had done for me. And gave me more joy than any iPad. Advertising is the fucking worst.
I taught myself piano on electric instruments, one of which was for kids and had tiny, non-weighted keys. Dreamed of owning an acoustic piano for well over a decade, and when my friend offered me her old upright, I nearly bit off her hand. Seeing one crushed for a shitty bit hurts my soul. Fuck off.
Seeing this horrific Apple ad, I can't help thinking how we're destroying the humanities and arts at universities in order to force everyone into vocational majors like "marketing" where they'll learn to produce soulless crap like this.
The replies are 100% negative.
twitter.com/tim_cook/sta...
Tim Cook on X: "Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. https://t.co/6PeGXNoKgG" / X
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. https://t.co/6PeGXNoKgG
twitter.comIt's the Russia thing that makes it so shameless imo. Like the idea that fucking Eurovision can ever be apolitical is itself nonsense, but if they hadn't banned Russia they'd at least have that flimsy pretence to cling to. As is, they're just straight up saying that white people dying matters more.
I rarely watch a dub of anything in any language, and still think this is cringe as all hell. The same energy as people shaming others for listening to audiobooks instead of reading. Fuck off and let people access media in a way they're comfortable with.
I was playing the game very slowly the first time (it was my high school exam season), and had completely forgotten the opening by the time I hit the point where it was actually relevant. Only fully understood what was going on with it on replay. Iconic opening, though.
Though no shade on the Gen 2 team, obviously. It's a totally valid approach to translation. Just not the one I'd prefer myself.
Reminds me a bit of the many character names in Shining Force 3 that are just ordinary English words like "Dominate", "Tyranny", "Profound", "Spirited", etc... Sometimes a literal translation isn't going to be the one that best reproduces the same experience for a very different audience.
Reminds me a bit of a lot of the many character names in Shining Force 3 that are just ordinary English words like "Dominate", "Tyranny", "Profound", "Spirited", etc... Sometimes a literal translation isn't going to be the one that best reproduces the same experience for a very different audience.
That too! Given that the audience for an English localisation is probably more likely to know some German (heck, I don't speak German, and I still knew words like feuer), you have to consider that the literal words will probably play differently there than they do to the original Japanese audience.
Probably partly due to living in a smaller country, too. Feel like it took a while for Scotland to really buy in, even after the internet was already pretty well established in larger markets.
Whoa, had no idea this existed. As someone who didn't get an internet connection until like 1999 and was largely unaware of it as a thing until about 1997, I'm always impressed by how advanced things actually were from such an early point for those who had the money to buy in.
Kind of a "what might Phantasy Star 2 be like if it released later in the generation and skewed closer to late 16-bit RPG sensibilities than the more 8-bit RPG style of the original" sort of thing. Not trying to create a definitive version of OG PS2 so much as just another take on a game I love.
And not really aiming for a literal translation of the Japanese anyway. There are already retranslation and balancing projects for the original providing that kind of thing, as well as Gen 2. Shooting for more of a very loose reimagining of the game, as I think that's more fun and more interesting.
Glanz and stuff? Thought about it. Though feel like if they wanted the names to be spelled as the literal German words, they maybe would've done it in PSO in 2000 when they updated a lot of the English names (Resta, Foie, etc...). Decided to stick more closely to the updated spellings there instead.
Haha, I did wonder about that! Looked much too blue at the first stage compared to the game. I'll fix it. Though even with the wrong colours, it still looks much more convincingly early 16-bit that way. Appreciate the heads up there. <3
Item and skill menus are largely just a case of feeding different data into the same code and altering a few minor elements of the UI, so just got to set up targeting and we'll be done with the input stage of the battle system. Guess I should start ripping and setting up some of the animations now.
Tech menu is basically complete now too, correctly breaking down spell lists into pages and allowing you to switch between them. Just running with randomly generated tech lists and random three digit numbers for TP costs at the moment to test that everything is working, but no problems so far. <3
Not too much left! I now know more about Motavian tree formations than anyone should reasonably know in 2024. Do not recommend. That way madness lies.
Not too much left! I now know more about Motavian tree formations than anyone should reasonably know in 2024. Do not recommend. That way madness lies.
Getting there. Have actually mapped a big chunk of the south part of the map too, but the bridge over there isn't functional yet. :'D
Real men go exclusively barefoot and get hookworm like God intended.
Always read this in the voice of the "Mr. Prime Minister" guy from the Australia episode of The Simpsons.
"'ey, Mr. Governor! Andy!"
Was cackling at being added to one for "probably transphobic Englishmen" for having a polite, mostly good-natured conversation with that "British people say pasta funny" person a while back. I'm not a man, not English, and trans myself, but I'm sure it's just an honest mistake.
