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Post by Ex on Jan 2, 2019 11:17:29 GMT -5
Since the days of the Game Boy, there have been many handheld RPGs. By that measure I am including JRPGs, action-RPGs, SRPGs, DRPGs, and even WRPGs. For those of you who are fans of portable RPGs, what are your favorites from times past? Any Sword of Hope, Madou Monogatari, or Boktai fans around? Feel free to share your experiences and recommend lost gems. I'll be back later with my own rec's.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 15:33:00 GMT -5
So, thinking about Boktai, which in a lot of ways was a cutesy fusion of Castlevania and Metal Gear, got me also thinking about Lunar Knights. I played that back when it came out on DS, and while you can use the Boktai carts for additional help with their solar sensor, you didn't have to have them. (In fact, I didn't use them.) I found it to be a very enjoyable action-RPG, certainly very much worth playing.
Also, obligatory shout-out to Link's Awakening, still my favorite Zelda title of all time. (Followed closely by A Link to the Past.)
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 2, 2019 16:16:25 GMT -5
I feel like I'm always going to be playing a bitch of catch up with handheld games, though that kind of works out so I haven't burned a lot of money and at this point can work off the highest of high recommendations from others. Handheld gaming has never been my love for personal reasons but I've enjoyed my 3DS a lot since I've had it around and I think I'm always going to have some GB/GBA stuff to discover, since they're an extension of some of my favorite eras in gaming, 8/16bit. And to top everything off I know that a lot of Japanese developers took refugee on handhelds after awhile since productions costs were lower. So I'm sure there's a handful of must play JRPG's I'd probably really love.
Not sure what all is legal but I really wish Soma Bringer got localized. I'll just have to emulate that one someday, I assume DS emulators have come a long way since I last tried them like 10 years ago.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 16:49:07 GMT -5
If you have a DS, you could always go the flash cart route. That's what I'm going to do when I get around to it. That being said, yeah, DS emulation is a lot better these days. I suspect it has a lot to do with the architecture being pretty well known; the ARM9 and ARM7 have plenty of documentation. I don't know much about the graphics chip, though, which appears to be a bit more off the beaten path and likely causes more consternation for emulator devs.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 2, 2019 16:51:20 GMT -5
I like that idea. Or does the DS have Everdrive equivalents? GBA too? I do still have my DS Lite around (think I might even have my OG model somewhere too).
Oh yeah Everdrive = flash cart haha. Shows how much I know about these things.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 17:11:08 GMT -5
Well, I mean they are carts, but no, I don't think there's an EverDrive for DS. The most popular these days is the R4i Gold 3DS, which despite its name is a DS-only flashcart. It just happens to actually work on the 3DS, which occasionally locked out various carts via firmware updates. If you've got a Lite, and not a DSi/XL, then you don't have to worry about any of that, though. Any old flash cart (Acekard 2, original R4, M3i Zero, etc.) will work. However, you probably want to stick with a newer card. I'm not even sure you can get Acekards anymore, to be honest, but that's what I use.
The GBA does have an EverDrive, though. If you want to go cheaper, though, you can use a 3-in-1 Expansion Cart in conjunction with a DS flash cart instead. That's also what I'm doing, as the ED-GBA is pretty pricey and I don't bust out the GBA enough to care to upgrade to a slightly better experience.
A quick aside on the 3-in-1: it has two different types of memory on there. You can load 128 Mbit games into PSRAM. It isn't super fast, but gets the job done. Those disappear when you turn the system off, but saves of course remain. You can also flash a game to the NOR memory, which is permanent, and supports the full 256 Mbit capacity. You'll need that for games like Mother 3. You can also flash it using a DS, then take it to any other GBA system and play there, if you don't care for playing on the DS (a Game Boy Player, perhaps).
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Post by Ex on Jan 2, 2019 17:19:38 GMT -5
Xeogred I use an original R4 cart, with a Kingston (Japan made) 2GB Micro SD, and the Wood R4 firmware. That combination has never failed me. You can still buy legit R4 carts online if you look around carefully enough. My preferred DS of choice is the Cobalt & Black DS Lite - which has the best screens for reasons I don't have time to explain right now. And yes DS emulators have come a long way. DeSmuME is as good as it gets on PC, and by "good" I mean damn near perfect. There's a fork of DeSmuME called X432R that converts DS graphics into higher res polygons, which can be fairly dramatic.
There are a lot of games I want to post in this thread. I might not have time until this weekend though.
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Post by anayo on Jan 2, 2019 19:15:05 GMT -5
And yes DS emulators have come a long way. DeSmuME is as good as it gets on PC, and by "good" I mean damn near perfect. There's a fork of DeSmuME called X432R that converts DS graphics into higher res polygons, which can be fairly dramatic.
I really enjoyed looking through that gallery, thanks for posting it. I'd have never expected those assets to hold up so well under such intense scrutiny.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 2, 2019 19:23:07 GMT -5
Yeah, maybe I'll just stick with simple emulation then!
It makes sense with how good those upres screens look, I've assumed the DS is more powerful than the N64/PSX. But still those screens caught me off guard for sure, really impressive. And I figure the mouse is easily used as the stylus which is probably awesome.
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Post by toei on Jan 2, 2019 20:02:19 GMT -5
GB - Link's Awakening is my second favorite Zelda so far. I really liked Dragon Quest Monsters 2, which felt more like a proper DQ.
Game Gear - Defenders of Oasis is the best. Crystal Warriors, Royal Stone, and Shining Force Gaiden 3 are all good SRPGs.
GBC - Both Oracles games are good. I liked Lufia: The Legend Returns at the time, don't know how I'd feel about it now.
GBA - Minish Cap is my favorite Zelda. Shining Soul 2 is pretty good. DQ Monsters - Caravan Heart is decent. Mother 3 blows all of these out the water. There are ports of great SNES games, but they don't count.
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