Have you seen what modern arcade games are like? In order to set themselves apart from consumer hardware you can get at home, modern games have been leaning heavily into unique hardware gimmicks (of course this has always been a thing to an extent ever since Beatmania and DDR, but it's much much much much more of a thing now since these are effectively the only kinds of games that get released in arcades anymore). Which does mean specialized cabinets are more expensive now, and maintenance is a whole can of worms - Wacca at my local Round 1 has had display issues for over a year and I've just assumed it's never getting fixed because Marvelous is no longer servicing parts for it.
Look up how much a Maimai or Chunithm cabinet costs. We've come a long way from the JAMMA era when operators could get new games on the cheap by reusing an old cabinet and just swapping out the PCB.
On top of that, some modern games even require revenue sharing agreements where the operator has to give the publisher a cut of every credit played, which cuts into profit margins even further. I think they literally can't just charge a quarter for some of these games.
Card-based credits allow the arcade operator to offer finer-grained pricing options than tokens that can only be spent in integer amounts. Whether that's a pro or a con is debatable, they can put less popular games on 'sale' to attract players to try them out, or they can gouge you on the hottest new title. It's also very much a way of obfuscating prices so you don't even realize how much you're spending. And are you really getting the best deal by loading your card with the maximum amount of credits at once so they give you a bonus, or is that just how they get you?
In the grand scheme of things though, I'm a lot less bothered by it than I am by the way modern arcades are mostly just gambling for kids now. At least most arcades still keep a few rhythm games in the back, actually I do love that arcade rhythm games are going through a sort of modern renaissance right now, but that's kinda just the only thing still worth going to an arcade for anymore.
I only watched three new shows this year but loved all of them. Got a lot more to catch up on (especially Spy x Family S3 and Apothecary Diaries S2).
CITY: The Animation - The only thing I like more than Keiichi Arawi's artwork is the production values putting it into motion. TBH though, I thought the writing was decent but mostly just carried by the artwork. And I'm fine with that, the animation carried hard.
Takopi's Original Sin - Binged it and had to go lie down. What really made this show so compelling was having it be told through the eyes of an alien that doesn't realize what's wrong, leaving the viewer to scream "Takopi no, stop, you're not helping, Takopi please stop!" Is it bad though that I kinda wanted the ending to twist the knife a little more?
Apocalypse Hotel - I want to say that it's hard to choose a favorite this year because both CITY and Takopi were fantastic, but on further reflection it absolutely has to go to Apocalypse Hotel. What an incredible ride this was from start to finish. If you somehow have missed this one, I urge you to look nothing up and go in blind.
I enjoy overanalyzing and theorizing about media as much as the next guy, but this isn't actually part of the text. You as the player are expected to regularly change up your party, why couldn't Green have also just decided to swap Raticate out for any number of reasons?
FightCade for netplay on all the platforms it supports. Standalone Dolphin for Gamecube/Wii. Sometimes Nintendo Switch Online for games officially available there. For everything else, Retroarch.
I had a page-by-page vocab list from Wanikani, but the goal is to use as little assistance as possible, only check words I don't know. If I read a translation side-by-side, I'm really just reading the translation rather than understanding the original Japanese.
This was the second manga (after obligatory Yotsubato) I read in Japanese as I started learning, some of the slang was a bit tricky but it was a fun read. Liked it enough that I then went back to read it in English again. So this one's got a solid place in my heart, very excited to see this adaptation.
It's a purely narrative game, the original version (this is now a remake of a remake in a new engine) was made in RPG Maker but without any RPG elements. Walk around, talk to NPCs, watch the story unfold.
The one big thing it has in common with Undertale is that the less you know going in, the better. If the art style and vibe is enough to get your attention, go ahead and give it a shot, go in blind.
Physical copies, yes. If it's a game I absolutely know I'm definitely buying and I want it badly enough to spend full price and I want to play it on day 1, I'll preorder to ensure it ships on day 1. Because if I actually ordered it on release day, it'd take a few more days to ship. Last game I preordered was Kirby Air Riders, and I'm very happy with that purchase.
As for Early Access, my criteria is to just evaluate the game in its current state - if it offers enough to be worth buying now, I'll buy it now.
As long as you don't do anything truly bad when shooting your shot, the worst that could happen is some mild embarassment. Which is something you have to be prepared to endure when putting yourself out there.
I'd argue that if a game doesn't have anything to nitpick at, it probably wasn't doing anything bold enough for me to truly fall in love with either.