Gray cartridges run in GB mode. The GBC can apply some limited colorization, the firmware has a database of game IDs to apply specific palettes to, or you can select one manually with a button combo on startup.
Black cartridges are dual mode, they'll run in GB mode on original hardware or GBC mode on a GBC.
Translucent green cartridges are GBC-only. If you try to boot them on an original GB you'll get an error screen telling you this game is only for GBC.
I know the economy sucks and we're all struggling. I'm in those shoes too. If you pirate games because you can't afford them, that's valid and I won't look down on you for it.
But I think it's wack as hell if you do look down on people who want to support official releases. It's a good thing for content to be available officially. What is it that you even want them to do, not release anything? What are you upset about?
I know what community we're in, but I do think that having content be available through legitimate channels is a good thing. Too much of gaming history cannot be accessed legitimately, and that's something that genuinely sucks.
There's an old saying that piracy is a service problem, and here they are trying to respond by offering a better service. Many of these compilations are actually pretty good in terms of extras offered, they go above and beyond just selling you a ROM.
Yes, Idiocracy misses that education matters far more than genetics. And education is something that has steadily gotten better for each generation. We stand on the shoulders of giants with access to the combined knowledge of everyone that came before us.
Yes. Some models even let you have multiple profiles configured with a button to toggle between them - on my Pro 2 I have profiles for Nintendo layout and Xbox layout.
Idiocracy is an entertaining fictional comedy, but any time someone tries to compare it to real life I want to smack them. IMO, the movie would've been improved if they'd chopped off the eugenicist intro and just said he'd been isekai'd into a world of idiots.
The movie portrays a world where everyone is stupid, no exceptions, but nearly all of them are well-meaning. President Comacho cares about doing the right thing, he just has no idea how to solve the problems the country is facing. But then when someone smarter comes along, Comacho at least understands that he can step aside and let Not Sure save the day.
The problems facing the real world come from people who are both intelligent and evil. Smart people at the top use propaganda to manipulate dumb people at the bottom. That's nothing like Idiocracy, not even close.
Think of him as a religious celebrity who can make headlines with everything he says. Not everyone will go along with him, there will always be a contingent complaining that this new Pope is too woke if he doesn't tell them what they wanted to hear, but a lot of people do listen to him. Just being in the headlines all the time is a form of soft power.
Been a while since I played, but I dusted my copy off to give it a shot and got a pass on the second try. Couldn't quite get the superb, but close enough. I didn't think anything stood out as too hard, it's just long so a few misses here and there will add up.
Any section in particular you're having trouble with?
It sounds like you're upset that a game that clearly put a lot of focus on PvP in its design, has PvP in it. I'm not sure it's fair to blame the game because you expected something else.
Puyo Puyo Chronicle. It's by far the boldest and most creative experiment Sega has ever tried with the series. It introduces a new flagship variant mode called Skill Battle, but the real gimmick isn't the ruleset itself but the story mode built around it. Previous games just had visual novel-style cutscenes for a story mode, but this time around it's a full JRPG with dungeon crawling, sidequests, equipment, recruitable monsters, and more.
It's a brilliant concept, and I think it's the kind of bold new idea that was needed to breathe new life into a dying genre. Versus puzzles have fallen off hard compared to the genre's peak in the 90s - Panel de Pon had been dead for longer than it was ever alive, Dr. Mario and Puzzle Fighter had both been turned into mobile gacha spinoffs and then shut down, Puyo Puyo was pretty much the last surviving IP left at this point. And I think a large part of this decline can be attributed to a lack of innovation.
I think what the JRPG does best is just give players incentives to keep trying even though the game's learning curve is rather notorious - instead of giving up at the first wall they hit, they'll want to keep going for the next level up, next party member, next skill, next dungeon. Making it a JRPG ensures you're never truly stuck because you can always grind, and time spent grinding is time spent practicing. By the time players get to the end, hopefully they'll have learned the basics at least a little bit.
But while I love the ideas behind Chronicle, I do feel like those ideas are held back by how short the game is. There's a lot more they could've done to flesh it out. It's a game that left me wanting a sequel to iterate on and refine these ideas.
Sadly, that sequel never happened. Chronicle was the last main series game they ever released, and nearly a decade later all they've been doing since is rehashing the same terrible crossover four times. They did try to cram a butchered version of Skill Battle into said rehashes, but without the accompanying JRPG I feel that adaptation missed the point.
8BitDo controllers have a few different controller API modes, but they're limited by those APIs. By default they recommend using XInput with PC, but XInput is based on 360 and limited to the set of buttons a first-party 360 controller normally has. This means that the Star/Share button doesn't exist, nor do the additional rear buttons. Instead, they can be mapped to certain functions within the controller firmware. Unfortunately you have to use the 8BitDo Ultimate Software to configure them, and that isn't supported on Linux (doesn't work in Wine either, I tried). There's also an Android version of the Ultimate Software you can try, but I think it only supports some older 8BitDos. There may be some default Star+button combos already, I forget what they do.
If you set it to Switch mode, that enables the Share button to work the way it does on a Switch controller, but software might not recognize it. And the rear buttons still don't exist as distinct buttons since Switch controllers don't have those, they are only ever for macro remapping within the firmware. I don't think there's any way to make them distinct.
I think this just a sign of changing times regarding how games are made. We've come a long way from the days when one programmer added multiplayer into Goldeneye at the very end of development, that could never happen today. And those are the footsteps Halo 1 followed in, they didn't even have Xbox Live until the sequel.
Today, I think trying to make a game do a little bit of everything may risk struggling to stand out against titles that focus all of their development resources on just doing one thing really really well. You do have a point that having solo content to fall back on is at least a safety net, but does the opportunity cost of implementing that solo content make it even harder to succeed as a multiplayer game in such a competitive market?
Does it have to be exclusively in a foreign language, or does it still count if a dub exists as long as that's not the original? If I can count it, A Silent Voice/Koe no Katachi (2016).
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - I tell people that if you only watch one anime, make it this one. An absolute masterpiece in every way, with a story and characters that I think can hook anyone. Season 2 is about to begin soon.
Bocchi the Rock! - If you want to see animators really having fun with their medium, the visual humor is what elevates this show above and beyond. Cutaway gags involve 3D models, claymation, paper cutouts, puppets, and even live action.
CITY: The Animation - Like Bocchi, this is animation for animation's sake, just go look at the trailer for this one. The only thing I like more than Keiichi Arawi's artwork is the production values putting it into motion.
Apocalypse Hotel - My anime of the year for 2025. This is one of those shows where if I can convince you to look nothing up and go in blind, you'll have a blast with its twists and turns. One season, 12 episodes, short and sweet and delightful.
Takopi's Original Sin - I can't recommend this one to just anyone, it is a horrifically dark gut punch covered in content warnings. But if you can handle its subject matter, it is the best kind of gut punch, and it's short. What really sells it is that it never crosses the line into just edginess for edge's sake, which allows it to hit harder because of how real and human the suffering feels.
Spy x Family - If you don't want to watch something as dark as Takopi, or if you did watch Takopi and you need a palate cleanser afterwards, here's a cute happy comedy about two bozos trying to be good parents to their adopted daughter. It is impossible to watch this show without grinning from ear to ear the whole time.
So then what do you want?