I just ate a burrito for the glory of the Empire!

If you want to bypass grinding entirely then you’d need something like that, but it might trivialize certain parts of the game. Won’t trivialize all of it though since several of the key fights rely on strategy.

That was someone’s insane interpretation of the ending of the first Mother game (a.k.a. Earthbound Beginnings). It’s not as out there as the guy who filled the Silent Hill wiki with claims that it was all symbolism for circumcision trauma (yes, really), but it’s still kinda nutters.

Yeah, you do have to grind a bit. Nowhere near as much as some games (looking at you, basically every Final Fantasy game) but the leveling is designed around you doing some extra fights for XP. Every new area generally has a “grind spot” that is moderately to incredibly obvious, typically some grouping of enemies that are enough to fight but not enough to overwhelm you, placed within reasonable walking distance of a bed, hotel, or other way to refill your HP/MP for cheap/free.

For the first town, before you take on the punks roaming the streets you should get some levels fighting crows, dogs, and snakes up near your house. Once you can kill them in two turns or less head into town and try taking on a single punk. If you survive that fight without being nearly dead, keep fighting punks. If you almost die, go heal up and farm a little more. And if you DO die… well you only lose half the money you have on you, so as long as you keep most of it in the ATM you haven’t lost much of anything.

EarthBound was the first JRPG I ever completed and the first JRPG I ever enjoyed. Before it I’d never been able to get into JRPGs: there was just too much complexity while also having too little going on. Wandering an overworld only to be randomly pulled out of it for no apparent reason was maddening. As a kid, trying to piece together the backstory of some undefined thoroughly detailed fantasy world while also taking in the emerging plot in the opening sequence wasn’t anywhere near as appealing as firing up Mario or Mega Man and getting straight to the action.

EarthBound neatly sidestepped all of the things that had stopped me from liking JRPGs. The equipment system was simple without being braindead. The setting was a pastiche of suburban life that I could easily understand. The stakes were high but the tone was still whimsical and amusing. And above all I knew why I was suddenly getting dragged into battle with a snake or a crow or a dog instead of just being clotheslined by combat.

EarthBound still is my go-to recommendation in the (increasingly unlikely) event that someone says “I’ve always wanted to get into JRPGs, what should I start with?” It is the perfect “intro to JRPG” game without feeling trivial or like it cannot stand on its own. It singlehandedly made me love the JRPG genre, and I probably would not have played literally every other JRPG I’ve ever played if it wasn’t for EarthBound.

The scuttlebutt is that they don’t get to make that decision because the PSN mandate is a part of the contract they signed with Sony.

Most anticheats don’t have the track record of repeated data breaches that Sony does.

Same boat here. I had no problems making a PSN account because I like the idea of crossplay, but if they were planning to add this requirement back in later they needed to be much more clear about it. Like “gigantic popup every time you load the game if you don’t have a PSN account” clear, especially with PSN not being available in certain countries.

There’s also the larger question of why this is required. Clearly the game works just fine without it. Whatever the reason is, it’s not for the benefit of the players.

I’m actually really surprised that Valve is loosening up on this one. They usually play hardball when it comes to refunding a game past the 2 hour mark.

They make exceptions when a game has major issues or implements some significant change that dramatically alters the availability of the product. No Man’s Sky, Starfield, and Cyberpunk 2077 all could be refunded outside the 2 hour window - at least for some people. And of course everyone who bought The Day Before was refunded entirely.

I expect they’ll be allowing refunds for anyone in a country where PSN does not operate at a minimum. It’s really hard to argue that the game is still playable when the required service is not available in your home country.

I’m not predicting a Fallout-tier adaptation here, but as long as I get a few giggles then go on Comedy Central.

If you’re going to have a shitty anticheat at least give people the option to play in anticheat disabled lobbies.

This, a thousand times. I can understand requiring anti-cheat for Ranked matches, but some of us just wanna screw around. If there’s no progression tied to the match why should they care?

(Microtransactions, if I had to guess)

The “distributions” argument always smells like bullshit. Developers actually interested on supporting Linux usually stick to one or two distros of their choice. (Typically Ubuntu.)

My thoughts exactly. It is not unheard of at all for Linux ports to only be guaranteed to function on specific distros. It’s well within the realm of possibility and this is not a real stumbling block at all.

Try to see if there are any that do that little Javascript-evaluation-to-render-the-client-side-site thing, and if there are, have them mine cryptocurrency for you.

Using your evil powers for good I see.

They have free coffee and croissants in the mornings and their chairs are decadently plush.

My high school had a “no hats indoors” rule and even that was regarded as dumb. No hats at all? Screw you if you wanna keep the sun out of your eyes I guess?

No hats. Toques are allowed, everything else is banned.

It’s always rough when a gang of Chefs take over a school.

Supposedly there was a similar policy at my elementary school early on, which led to a kid being forced to eat something they were allergic to. As the story goes, they vomited violently all over the lunch monitor and then had to be taken to the nurse’s office. Their parents were not amused. The policy did not stay in place.

Blades my beloved.

Never forget what they took from us.

Also no need to buy a Steam Deck version of that game you bought on Steam ten years ago, it’s already there and probably runs great.

Android could have had this same advantage too, but Google’s now pushing this whole framework version check thing.

TIL people don’t like Fair Haven.

I mean it’s not the best or anything but I thought it was kinda fun.