May 27th, 2023
It's over... The semester is finally over... That was so stressful. I had to write a 10-page research paper on gambling in a week! I rushed it in three days and got a B on it, but that wasn't the final! I had to write another paper in only 3 hours about voting, but I got an A+ on that.
Splatoon 3 had a Splatfest this month for Legend of Zelda, as that series is getting a new game. This month's choices is Power vs. Wisdom vs. Courage. Congrats to this Splatfest for making me finally breaking my Frye streak! I chose Courage this time.
I didn't play for majority of it. I didn't feel like playing Turf War and I didn't want to practice my charger because I didn't want to throw games since I was so bad with it. I just waited until halftime to play the new Tricolor stage. I think my friends were also not playing until halftime, they're probably starting to get bored with Splatfest.
Halftime happened! At this point, I was scared. I saw a lot of people be extremely critical of the new Tricolor stage. They were saying that it was too easy to get overwhelmed and overtaken, it was scary! It wasn't until hours before the end time that I played. I hopped straight on to Tricolor to see if it really was bad.
This screenshot's score: 44.0%, 7.5%, 45.3%. The defenders lost pretty bad.
This stage is... not bad. It's pretty fun! I love it! I love triangles! It might be because I played with a bunch of attackers who didn't constantly try to kill me while the defending team has basically all the turf, but it was fun! I liked it! I didn't have any instance where I was boxed into my spawn. Maybe I got lucky?
I played on Dapples a lot for Tricolor, which I got the 4-star badge while playing this Splatfest. Beacons are pretty useful, as so many people overlook beacons near the bumpers. Tacticooler doesn't seem to be a good option for attackers, as it only provides 1 can per team, and you can't share with the other attacker team. I guess that makes sense, but I always use the special for the intent of helping out my team rather than myself.
Outside of that, I played with a couple of friends who also didn't play Splatfest until then. We planned on using the same outfit, clothes, and player species to get a x1.7 synergy bonus, just so we can reach the highest rank before it was over ASAP. One friend had to go right before they hit Ruler, how sad...
The Splatfest ended and Shiver took home all the points. I'm sad that I'll never play on that Tricolor stage again... until Tricolor Turf War gets into Private Battles in a year or so. I can only wait for the next Tricolor Turf War to happen, and I hope it's one that massively changes the layout like this one did.
So a few years ago, my PS2 clock battery died, which causes the system to think it's 1/1/2000 everytime it's turned on. Initally, I didn't care as I could just reset it if it happens. It started to get annoying when I moved the system to where I stream my games and reset. It also made my save data and installed games move all the way to the bottom of the memory card save data listing. With a bit of annoyance and boredom, I decided to replace that stupid battery.
I'm so glad MOST systems have their clock batteries behind an accessible door...
All I can say is... whoever decided that the clock battery should be this deep within the system should be sent straight to Hell. You have to remove the top and bottom shell, then remove the power supply and fan, then the disc drive, then the shielding, then you have access to the battery. It's not hard, but it's a LOT! There's also the amounting pressure of breaking or losing something, since every part there has it's purpose!
All that work so these orbs can move once more...
The only thing I need now is to get replacement front buttons, since my power button broke off, and some screws and feet to hold my console together. It's actually held together by one screw! I opened it to screw around in it nearly 10 years ago and didn't really care what happened to it. I proceeded to lose basically everything and didn't really care until I found out about the capability to use hard disks. Stupid me!
I also remembered I have two PocketStations lying around. I used these as a standard memory card, as PocketStation software usually is very huge! Some software take up the whole card! I also realized that uLaunchELF does let you manage a PS1 memory card from your PS2, which got me wondering... Could I try out PocketStation development? Maybe I can make my own programs on it?
Luckily, someone made a PocketStation SDK that I started to toy with. It's really simple to install, since most of it relies on devkitARM. Coding for it is so simple, there's barely anything going on. At worst, you will have to brush through a header file to get a slight clue on what the commands do, but that's it.
You can check out two simple programs I made by downloading this archive. There's 3 files types: MCS, PSV, and the raw data. There is an included text file with credits and additional install instructions for those with and without a PocketStation. I tried my best to explain how to install. If you have any questions, I may not be able to answer them, I'm sorry.
These are really fun to make. PocketStation software usually don't have that much to them. A lot of the time, it's just animations and maybe a game or two. I like making dumb animations for this! It's so fun! I might make a game but I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. I'm not too skilled in C. I take a look at the examples for libnds and I get confused.
The PlayStation talk isn't over though, since a package from Japan arrived too! Who would've known!? It's mostly PS1 and PS2 games today. I bought these games since I installed MechaPwn on my console, which lets me play any PS1 and PS2 game! Region be damned!
First, we'll be talking about the PS1 games.
Dancing Stage: Dreams Come True! It's an official DDR game, using the European name for whatever reason, with a songlist only consisting of music by Dreams Come True. I bought this as a friend recommended a remix of Asa ga mata kuru, which lead me to the original song, which lead me to this game. It was only a couple of yen so I bought it! I'm so glad I did, Dreams Come True is awesome!
The original arcade version comes with only music from Dreams Come True, and unlike the previous True Kiss Destination game, there's not a single Konami original song here at all. In the console release, you are able to play four extra songs if you own DCT's GREATEST HITS album. I do not own this album, so I'm unable to play those extra songs. I wonder how that works actually.
In the end, it's DDR but with some really funky music. This might actually be my favorite mix because I love ALL the music!
The manual advertises other BEMANI titles, such as the DCT version of 5-key beatmania. I wish to buy it, but I would need a 5-key controller, wouldn't I? Aren't the 5-key games, minus 6th mix, incompatible with a IIDX controller? Also, DCT beatmania is one of the more expensive 5-key games, I see it go for $30 usually. Other beatmania games go for pennies, mostly because they're all append discs, needing a previous version of beatmania to work.
Last PS1 game is Dance Dance Revolution EXTRA MIX. I won this in an auction for like $2. Some dude tried to fight me for it, but I won by a few yen. Lucky win! DDR games on PS1 go for real cheap. DDR games on PS2 is a whole other story though... Seriously, if you think DDR games are cheap in America, they go for $30 on Yahoo Auctions.
This version is mostly a compilation songs, only containing 2 new CS songs with the rest being from the spin-off AC games. The music within the game are really good, especially with an audio system. This old entry doesn't have any speed modifiers that I could find, so it makes it way more harder to play.
These games are much more fun when you're playing with an audio system. I hooked my PS2 up to my Sony AV reciever and some Sony speakers, both of which I got at Goodwill, and it sounds so GOOD!!! A lot of the music I think sounds bad sound AMAZING with this stuff. This is advertisement space for Goodwill, please go out and get some speakers, they'll probably be less than $20. I'm not sure, actually.
The final part of the package is the PS2 games. I bought four of them, as they were going for pretty cheap from the seller I bought them from. I had to stop myself from buying more! Those domestic shipping costs do add up...
First up is Puyo Puyo Fever, the hit puzzle game that came out in virtually every console that was around in 2004! It's so weird seeing this game be released on Dreamcast and the PSP within the same year. This game was SEGA's final title on the Dreamcast, at which point has been buried in the ground for years.
What's weird about this release is the Japanese version respects system settings and immediately starts up in English, both text and voices, typos and all. The PS2 version did get a European release, but still, I thought this version would be locked to Japanese only. The game lets you change voices and text language options seperately, but I find the rather cheesy English dialog to be a real treat.
In the end of the day though, the game is Puyo Puyo. I haven't played much Puyo since I was, like, 13 years old. I can barely make stairs and I can't think ahead enough to make longer chains. I mess up so many possible chains in this video... I guess I gotta keep practicing...
Next is beatmania IIDX 6th style! 6th style was when Konami had gotten Eurobeat licenses into IIDX. This version goes rather cheap on Yahoo Auctions and it's a style I never focused on before, so I see it as a good first IIDX pickup!
I haven't really dealt with the older IIDX games before 9th style, but I love 6th style. The music selection is so nice. The UI is so cool. It's been a while since I last played IIDX on a PS2 with an actual US Konami official controller, so my play is rather rusty. I still don't have a PS2 adapter for my Phoenixwan...
Next is Space Venus featuring Morning Musume. This is an early PS2 game that describes itself as "Music/Visual" software. It's not wrong, most of it is just watching music videos or concert footage from Morning Musume. This is geared towards fans of Morning Musume, especially to those who like the members at the time, since it also gives some exclusive videos from them.
There isn't really any "game" to this software. This was simply a thing for fans of Morning Musume to comb through. The only real game part is the minigame called Morning Musume TVDJ, which is an earlier PS2 game repurposed for this game. You choose a music video and you try mixing and adding effects on-the-fly. You have to continuously time your effects and make sure you don't extend a segment past 8 measures, or you have to redo that segment. It's actually very fun!
Since this minigame is actually just a watered down version of a full PS2 game, I might go pick it up.
One thing I would love to point out is the presentation of this software. The whole game takes place in space, shown with some really cool imagery of the future, one you could only really get from games around this period.
I hate how much space this game needs to save data. Despite the fact that most of the game has little to do, the save file is a whopping 1200KB! That's 15% of a standard 8MB memory card! I assume this huge amount of space is needed to save the TVDJ edits. While I do have a hard drive installed to move my save data around, 1.2MB is a lot of a PS2 save file. Many games don't even go above 400KB. All the IIDX and pop'n music save data I have average around 60 to 150KB!
You might think this game was just a stupid one-off thing Morning Musume did but no! This was something Sony was trying to push! They wanted to make some interactive software featuring artists and this was just their first assignment. After the release of this, they refined the camera hardware used (according to reports, the 360 degree camera in Space Venus was just a bunch of cameras literally taped together) and decided to make a few other titles. The other games are Ayumi Hamasaki VISUAL MIX, a Train Simulator Real game, and WONDER ZONE. After that, Sony would use the tech to produce gravure slideshows for the same console.
Lastly, Taiko no Tatsujin: Waiwai Happy Rokudaime, which is the 6th mainline Taiko game on PS2. I won this easily, as nobody really tried to fight my bid. Weird, because I don't see this game sold that often at the price this was listed at. Oh well, a win is a win. I don't play Taiko too often. I attended the latest location test from March and did pretty okay. I haven't played Taiko seriously in nearly a decade before that point, and I actually never bothered to play the game with an actual taiko drum before then!
I bought this version for one thing only, it has We Love Katamari's signature theme, Katamari on the Swing! Now you can see how bad I am at one-lane games!
I feel like this game would be a lot more fun with the drum controller, but I don't own it. I could buy one off Yahoo Auctions for rather cheap though, but I'm not sure about shipping. A lot of the listings have above 1,000 yen domestic shipping, so I'm worried how much international shipping will be for a single drum controller.
Well, that's it for new games. How does the closet look like now?
This is what the closet looks like now: Boxes! After two years, today marks the end of using my closet to put my collection in. I have moved on to bigger and better things... like a shelf!
Only a couple of pictures because the shelf is rather empty.
My new shelf! I bought this from IKEA after a friend tipped off that I should start moving things somewhere else. It's very depressing right now. I bought a pretty big shelf, so most of my closet barely takes any space from it. The bottom rows house my IIDX controller and some consoles that I just have in my room.
Depressing no more! I have already shipped out a good number of games from Japan to fill in the empty space. I will use this shelf to the fullest extent! Books, games, music, I need to fill it up!
Sorry this blog post was so short. I had to take a trip out of the country, which had very slow internet, so there's very little to write about this month. It'll be like this until halfway through June, so please bear with me. As of writing this, the site has been left untouched for months now due to college and this vacation, I hope this update has been worth the wait for what I can do.
By the way, Splatoon is still down. Next month is going to be the 3-month anniversary, so it would've been down for 1/4th of the year. At this point, I'm flip-flopping on the fact that they will never put it back up, or they will, but they'll immediately announce the discontinuation of Wii U online services. I really hope they don't leave it offline forever, atleast hoping for an announcement. I need to get to level 50 before the game is finally over!