BouncekDeLemos

I'm playing Sonic Frontiers, and it's... Mmmeeehhhh...

It's not too terrible, but some things bog it down a bit for me. It had a loooonnnng pause to finish downloading, too many McGuffins, puzzles are annoying, and menus aren't the snappiest. I did enjoy the music and environments.

I might just quit playing and get back into TMNT Radical Rescue, I've been on a Ninja Turtle kick lately.

On 3/27/2024 at 3:50 PM, NostalgicMachine said:

I don't care about football at all, and I LOVED this game when it came out. Lots of good memories. I give this a 9/10. 

Anyone else remember the NFL Blitz arcade cabinets that let you load an N64 memory card?

The fact that you don't really need to know much about Football to play this makes it a pretty great game to pick up and play. One of the few sports titles I actually enjoy!

And I totally remember those cabinets! Pokèmon Snap had one similar too iicr. 

14 hours ago, koifish said:

Have you cross-referenced these pictures against other tarot card sets? Frankly I struggle to see the connection on several of these being the fact that they're presenting the same base idea, and that the frame around the cars is the same. If you could demonstrate that the shared tropes were unique to these two sets and that they wouldn't have been typical or common in tarot sets available in the 80s and 90s, or if you could get some sort of affirmation from the nights artist, then I'd be more inclined to believe it. Otherwise it's more likely to me that the cards were modeled after similar motifs and depict the same subjects than it was an intentional homage.

Awesome questions!

As I stated about three years ago, no other card that I've seen has used the same frame, which led me to the Jojo cards that had a very common base style that seems to've been drawn from. No other card after the fact that I've seen had any similarities, but that's not to say any weren't used as a sort of reference, due to the nature of some artistic liberties taken on a few of these cards alone.

Chariot, Sun and Magician uniquely and visually matches the reference points more clearly than the others, not just the boarders but the style and symmetry. Whether they relate or not, the biggest liberty seems to be taken when naming each card two other card names in Greek.

Let it be known (and I should have prefaced this 3 years ago... I'm an idiot), that a lot of my findings and conclusions are 100% speculative observations based on my own biased experiences as an artist rather than any conclusive conformations. Conjecture at it's finest. lol If I mislead anyone here thinking these were straight facts, I appologize. Unless I cite a reference, these will remain speculative.

You have made a great valid point on affirming! I really wish I knew the original artist to help both confirm and state anything that I've found to be fact or not--or even expounded upon. Maybe it's something I should look into?

Also, any flawed logic I may bestow (then or now) could be attributed to me not going to bed at a reasonable hour. Again, I'm an idiot.  But I hope I've answered or addressed any concerns, and if not I appologize for that as well.

I'm hoping people would find this all interesting at least!

 

18 hours ago, NostalgicMachine said:

I have no idea about these connections, all I know is I LOVED Nights into Dreams on The Saturn back in the day! 

Same! Still my all-time favorite game! 

Small lil' ol' bump. It's been a few years, how're y'all doing?

Okay, so wanting to jump back into this as I've been randomly thinking about this again. I've been wanting to translate some of the Greek that was presented on the in-game cards, as I want to try my hand in recreating them as the Saturn, PC and PS2's textures all are pretty much the same cruddy pixel resolution.

Well I came across this: https://cohost.org/lifning/post/336431-locks-the-door-behi

Apparently, somebody that goes by "liffy" already tried their hand at it, and did a pretty dang good job as well! What's exciting is that both of our finding's kinda relate, down to us not knowing if #5 is the fool or not. But there's some differences and some things I want to redact, as well I give some cross-observations. The cards don't seem to follower one idea, but is a hybrid of other cards it seems. More on that as we go along here:

So the new list goes as follows:
#1: The Chariot card: "Death/the tower".

Liffy mentioned that the picture looks more like it should be death/chariot, and BINGO! It's indeed the Chariot's design. But Death's card is very similar too, as the Death card in Jojo holds a similar scythe. 

I don't see how the Tower fits. 

#2: The High Priestess: "The Emperor/Judgement"

So I wanted to say that I was a little wrong on this first. This was the first time I realised that whoever made these cards used more than one card as reference. The Emperor card in Jojo does explain the very similar cane/scepter. HOWEVER, the crown more matches the High Priestess IMO.

I yeah, I guess I can chalk this up to this probably being some sort of a "hybrid" card. They're both similar, both the Priestess and the Emperor have their eyes looking up.

I did mistake the cane/scepter as a building on my first look, and the translation clearly says it's the Emperor, so I'm now going with the Emperor. It makes much more sense than it being the Priestess since the Tower card shows the same Scepter. (I mean, despite the Priestess-looking crown.)

Not sure how the Judgement card fits. 

#3: The Sun: "Temperance/Strength"

I can definitely bet that this was another hybridtized idea. 

#4: The Tower "Devil/Tower"

This is turning out to be my favorite card. Like I said a few years ago, I love that it tells a story. Like the Emperor lost both his crown and scepter. "Pride before the fall" as they say. 

Yes, it's mostly "Tower", but this is yet another hybrid card. Looking at Jackle in the background, he's wearing similar clothing to the Devil in the Jojo Devil's card. 

So the Devil who wears a Priestess's crown, and holds the Emperor's cane, falling as the tower crumbles.

#5: The Fool/The Hermit/Wheel of Fortune 

Still a bit stumped on this one. Liffy could only get the "eta to lambda" parts from this card, but made a guess of Hierophant, Hanged Man, Devil and Fool. 

I still think this looks more like the Hermit, but again, it's probably a hybrid card (hence why I can't seem to find the reference), but I can see a bit of the Hanged Man in there. 

#6: The Magician "The World/The Magician"

So another hybrid? The translation was a well-educated guess, as it seems to have "The World" as part of it's text followed by "The Magician".

The World is a totally different card, the image depicted is from The Magician.

---------------

So that's it for now! 

I might edit this late for clarification, my thoughts are all scrambled on this as most of this I found out on the fly as I was writing it! lol

Also, it's around 4 AM here, I might go back to this with a fresh mind and re-edit some things. So glad to see this game still being researched on.

First off, big fan of the game. So when news came out that the PC/remake port was datamined, I knew I was in for a big treat. 

Namely what stood out to me the most was Jackle's tarot cards. One was only shown in the game, many others where shown in the hint screen, but now they're available for all to see:

A Youtuber by the name of Digi Valentine posted these discoveries a while back and asked for conformation on some of the cards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Qsk62g5AU

While researching I may have found what art was referenced for these cards.

They were referenced from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Yes, a freakin' Jojo reference.

Not kidding, this blew my mind. It's so interesting that they went with this style. 

Breaking down each card, I'll explain my findings and how the styles match to one another in the picture below. 

Note: You can already see how they used the same arcs in the framing. No other Tarot card I've seen uses this style frame to my knowledge, which is a good giveway.

#1: The Chariot card. 

You can really see the similarities between the Nights card and the Jojo one. Both have similar colors, similar chariots, etc. It's fun to note that most Tarot cards aren't in this style, and as you'll see on the others, some things have been slightly altered to remain a legally safe reference. 

#2: The High Priestess.

This one is a tad bit difficult to spot. What gives it away is the crown, the building in the background, and the purple pillow/seat to represent the chair. 

#3: The Sun.

This one's a bit easier, still much has changed. The squinted eyes and teeth are a giveaway, as well as the pedals.

#4: The Tower.

Now this one may be the only one that ISN'T referenced off the exact Jojo card, however, this style with a person falling from the tower is in actual Tarot cards. I guess the artist wanted to change it up a bit?

Like most cards, I think the character represented here is Jackle. He's in the High Priestess and Magician cards, so I have no doubt that's him in this card. 

Things to note are the spade/shovel/scepter(Scepter from the Magician card?) in the ground and what looks like the Priestess crown he had in the other card. Almost as if this card was meant to tell a story.

#5: The Fool/The Hermit/Wheel of Fortune.

It's the only Nights card I can't really match to the Jojo cards. Seems to be a mix and/or was referenced elsewhere. The character on the card looks like the Hermit, but looks to be walking to their doom much like the Fool card, but all the swirlies in the background looks to be similar to Wheel of Fortune. 

I... can't explain this one. Anybody with ideas, please share.

#6: The Magician.

This one stumped me for a while. However, a key element to the background showed what card this was.

See the curtains on the Nights card? The only card with curtains like these are the Magician. But why is Jackle mirror-flipped upside down on the Nights card?

My theory is that seeing the knife on the table might have seemed too violent? It's a theory, but makes a bit of sense seeing that there's a guillotine in Jackle's boss area. Dude seems like a nutjob.

It's very hard to see, but it also looks as if Jackle is holding a scepter (ball facing down), much like the Magician is in the Jojo card.

#7: Lastly the backs of the cards. While they don't look exactly the same, they do share the same design symmetry.

That's it for now. In closing, I got to say that the more we dig into this game, the more and more info is release on how it's created. Heck, it was a while until we found that one of the songs from this game obtains voice samples from movie Home Alone. (I'm not kidding)

Any fans of this game, please share this info to any of the major Nights fan groups. (Mainly because I have major troubles trying to register to any of them... can't get into any of them. lol)

Guuuhhh... Tried to get the Shantae deck board, but it sold out while I was processing the order. I even tried to preemptively sign in, but that still didn't give me a chance.

What're you guys thanking me for?

Even though I work on some homebrew projects, I had no involvement on this game. lol I just bought it because of the support and also it's something right up my alley.

Got mine in!

I gotta say, beautiful presentation on this. I'm a sucker for titles with alliteration, but I'm even a bigger sucker for craftsmanship. You guys did a tremendous job!

Missed out on Haradius Zero (If there's ever a second batch, I'd love to join in if I could), but I might even go for the special offer that comes with GGGG (Not sure if I should say what it is, but if anyone's curious, buy GGGG! lol)

Since a few people're havin' trouble finding the storefront, for future reference just go to the top of the page, click "Merch & Subscriptions" then "Store" (Mobile users, click on the icon on the top right with the three bars to navigate)

Enough ramblin'. Here's some pics:

I fomo so bad that I buy things while at work when I'm not supposed to.

Got my order in!

6 hours ago, drxandy said:

New week means new gets, the cycle continues. Like sands of the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

Starting off with a big woo woo to @BouncekDeLemos

Sent me the Sega Saturn modchip that was mucking up their Saitiator from working. Gonna pop it in a Saturn at a later date, thanks again dood!!

Next up some cheap Wii stuffff

And then 360 (oh yeah a ds game too)

First Templar sealed, display only art copy of too human because I have a sealed copy and dang it I want to play it eventually without opening that one. (Just justifying the display only art )

Couple Wii U:

Not a steal at 15 each but not too bad either. Our Wii U was the MK8 digital bundle so it's nice to have a hard copy other than the switch one.

 

Continued in next post>>>

 

Glad the modchip made it's safe over there in your neck of the woods! :D

Hajimemashite!

I've learned a small amount of Japanese back in high school 20-something odd years ago, not as an elective or anything, but just for shits n' giggles. Most of my studies came from library books. ( Because internet wasn't the same in the "before Dreamcast" days? lol)

I'm not fluent by any means, (I'm still very amateur) but I now study it every now and then in my off-time. Mainly due to life, work and other distractions taking over most of my attention, it's very difficult to maintain. But I still do love studying it. I've forgotten how to read it, and mostly stick to the verbal aspect of it. So far I can ask where something is, show where something is at, name certain objects, and identify various certain onomatopoeia.  Maybe very small greetings and stuff. 

My only advice, study anything and everything. Download tons of apps, read books, talk to people who are fluent, find many dialects, etc... I don't think there's a right or wrong way since everyone takes in learning differently, but eventually you'll find something.

A kind of related, but unrelated protip: If video games are your thing, and you're into imports, and there's a game you'd like to play, but don't know the language? Just Download the google Google Translate app. It's much better than the web-based translate. There's an OCR camera viewer on it that translates text in real time. I usually slap my phone into a tripod, point it at the screen, and let it do it's thing. It's not perfect, but it'll give you an idea what's going on somewhat. lol I'm sure outside of that, there'd be other uses for a OCR reader, so have fun with that.  
 

Nice. Despite all the bugs and stuff it still may have, I'll probably see myself still enjoying this game.

So, I hear that PS4 Cyberpunk is coming back to the PlayStation store in about a week?

20 hours ago, phart010 said:

Is it enclosed in plastic or is it just a little sticker seal

Sealed in plastic, no sticker seal.

I've got a new sealed refurb New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii in my storage.

It comes in a white case instead of red. 

Sorry to hear about your loss, Estil. 

10/10. 11/10 if there were such a thing. Love this console more than any other.

Unpopular opinion: Saturn Doom isn't as bad as most people say it is. 

Of course, this is coming from a guy who thinks Starfox on SNES still holds up. I'm just a complete wacko. lol

On 6/6/2021 at 12:51 PM, Sumez said:

Oh my god, I love this! Do you have a high res version of the TNWA artwork??

I'll have to look when I get home. It's sitting on my HDD somewhere. I'll definitely share!

I doodle n' stuff. Make art for friends, cover art for video games, that sort of stuff.  

My style consists of a very anime inspired background, but with very eye-bleeding bright contrasting colors. I'm also very experimental and self-taught.


This one is cover art to a video game I'm making that I still haven't made a good dent on creating in the past 8 years. Still workin' on it though:

My version of Bowsette:


Couple of bunny girls. I drew one when I was a kid, and the other many decades later. Can YOU tell which is the one I drew a long time ago? :V


Commission art for a friend during national spooky day:


Art asset from my game if you can believe it:


I used to challenge myself to "edit out" all the text and logos from various video game box art. 


NES sticker label I made for Second Dimension:


Pirate girl. 


Eggman. Note the fuzzy dice. Very important detail.

I use a Nakitek game saver + for my sfc games. I use it more as an adapter than a save-state device. 

9 hours ago, drxandy said:

Heck yeah! Glad to see it kickin' and that being the only issue. You should sign it as "demodded by"

I was thinking about that.

4 hours ago, drxandy said:

Yeah they absolutely did it quick and dirty, maybe it was even shorting out? Idk but I don't blame you for wanting to make it right and clean it up, plus good skills to have down the line for cleaning and repairing things.

Ooo sure, I'll take it! Sending ya a PM now.

Looking forward to see your progress!!

Okay, got the little booger out!

Speaking of boogers:


The ribbon cable(s) were too short! They weren't the stock Saturn 21 pin. However-- the Satiator bypasses all this, so there wasn't a real need for it anyway. (So, the Saturn doesn't have any checks when the cable isn't inserted, it'll just keep trying to "read" a disc) I may get a new cable later down the road.

Before and after:



Happy to note that my ODE runs games no-prob now! Thanks again! Chip's on your way, bud. Thank you so much!

6 hours ago, drxandy said:

Apparently that's how that type of chip is instructed to be installed (taking power off the PSU that shoddy looking way) there shouldn't be anything else done under the Mobo.

But it looks easy to remove, just plug the stock ribbon cable back and if you don't care too much about looks you probably can just yank the cable off the PSU, or even cut it and tape the end to be safe. If you wanna heat up the solder and pull the wire but don't wanna do the cleanup you can leave the blob because that pin is insulated by the plastic housing.

As long as that wire isn't feeding any electricity to anything and the ribbon back to stock you should be good.

Cool beans! Thank you! 

I've looked up the way most of these are installed, and yeah- long cable to the PSU. However, I think this particular mod could've been a little better about it. I hate to be so harsh, but to reiterate it's just so much exposed conductors are scary to me, especially ones hanging out on the power supply and the fact that the chip itself was just dangling around all willy-nilly despite the tape holding it down. 

I've mustered up the confidence and I'm gonna see if I can do the ol' heat-and-pull. Just bought a cheap soldering iron. To be safe, I'm disconnecting the modchip from the main board first, and I'm gonna make sure to not have it plugged in while attempting this surgery. lol Got some wick ordered, figured I'd soak up the rest of the solder from the power later down the line, just to make it look a bit cleaner.

I'll post results.

After this, would you like the modchip? I'll send it to ya no charge. If not, I'll throw it in a free topic somewhere (if we have one) It seems to work fine, probably a little too fine since it likes to fight with Satiators. lol

So some news, and kinda a weight off my shoulder: My Satiator was indeed conflicting, and that was because there was a modchip in my Saturn!!!:
 

So yeah, that's fun. Who would've thought there'd be a conflict between a modchip and an ODE?! lol

I knew it had to be a Saturn problem rather than the Satiator. Which is why I said that most Saturns aren't always the same as they seem. In this case, it's moreso the modchip than anything else, but to my credit, I did get this Saturn out in the wild.

If anyone here has any problems with any sort of ODE, and you're not sure where your Saturn came from, just open 'er up like I did. 

Hopefully I can get this chip removed. I don't need it since my laser is dead (I think this chip allows playback to backups and games from other regions?) If I botch this up, I'll just dig up my other Saturns from storage.