Lapbunny's recent activity
-
Comment on CGA-2026-02 đšī¸đ INSERT CARTRIDGE đĸ Racing Lagoon in ~games
-
Comment on Super Monkey Ball web game in ~games
Lapbunny Link ParentHuh, I was gonna correct you that Super Monkey Ball was GameCube, not Dreamcast... But the original Monkey Ball arcade release was actually on NAOMI arcade hardware, which was Dreamcast...Huh, I was gonna correct you that Super Monkey Ball was GameCube, not Dreamcast... But the original Monkey Ball arcade release was actually on NAOMI arcade hardware, which was Dreamcast architecture with some upgrades. SMB must've been a fairly significant test case to determine how easy DC-GC ports were, looking at the billion Sega rereleases over the next few years on the system.
-
Comment on Colossal Game Adventure Schedule: September 2025 - March 2026 in ~games
Lapbunny Link ParentThank you for posting this ahead of time, I might need to replace my PSP battery... This also might run OK via Psx-ReARMed on the 3DS, for what it's worth. Does running it off flash memory speed...Thank you for posting this ahead of time, I might need to replace my PSP battery... This also might run OK via Psx-ReARMed on the 3DS, for what it's worth.
Does running it off flash memory speed up the loading screens?
-
Comment on CGA-2026-01 đšī¸âĩđĄī¸ REMOVE CARTRIDGE âī¸ The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in ~games
Lapbunny (edited )Link ParentWill repurpose some thoughts since I think it's sort of an answer here. I've played The Legend of Zelda, Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Oracle of Seasons, Wind...- Exemplary
Will repurpose some thoughts since I think it's sort of an answer here.
I've played The Legend of Zelda, Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Oracle of Seasons, Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures, Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword, Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom in some regard. Majora's Mask was very formative to me as my first console game, despite the fact I never got past Woodfall Temple. (I still haven't beat it!) The level of quality for these games has never been low, as a product. As an experience, there's a clear level of intention around most of their gameplay that serves the feeling of high adventure.
I only beat a few of em, though. And I find quite a few of them, personally, very boring and repetitive! I had little drive to complete them. Wind Waker ain't one of those, though. I LOVE Wind Waker.
There are a lot of faults dancing around the core Zelda tenets with stuff they tried in Wind Waker; the Tingle quest really could've used some tuning (pun intended!) (and it got tuning in HD!), the first dungeon being a stealth experience is a little wonky and negatively affects the pacing, and the experience is very compressed for a Zelda game. Rather than presenting the game and sort of nudging you to make your own decision about exploring it's nooks and crannies, the ocean kind of funnels you directly to those places during the latter half; from that, there seems to be less to discover yourself by the end. But iunno, man, I just don't care about any of the problems. I think this swashbuckles more than anything else I've ever played, faults be damned.
As mentioned in the thread, people saw this game with confusion at the start, and some celebrated when the Twilight Princess trailer signaled a return to a kind of conservative outlook on what Zelda "should" be, even before that game came out. You can boil Zelda games down to how they execute their gameplay motifs; dungeons, fights, Link's arsenal, the Hyrulean mythos, handling the Master Sword as the central macguffin, what the fuck an Octorok looks like, etc. But from a gameplay standpoint, Wind Waker feels kind of ironically on the conservative side of Zelda, very iterative - they don't really shake up the grand skeleton of the things that conventionally define the series. If anything, it goes backwards in raw number of dungeons.
Instead, I feel like they polished the formula into the finest sheen they could manage by distilling Zelda stuff. The lore feels like it's at its most well-developed up until this point. Link's weapons aren't too crazy, but the Deku Leaf especially allows you to get more free-form in navigation. Regular enemies are more interesting to fight than those in the earlier games. The dungeons work around very neat concepts, even if the side character gimmicks are a bit clunky via Command. And oh my god, the bosses. Chef's kiss. All of em. God I fucking love the bosses in this game.
I bounced off Twilight Princess, I bounced off Skyward Sword. I think I expected them to turn into something that captured a new, fresh way to tell the story. Personally I think the team was mired in Ocarina cues, and Ocarina was already technically mired in Link to the Past cues. Wind Waker tried to capture a different spirit without losing the general narrative, and I think that's what felt so fresh to little me at the time.
And man do I fucking love the aesthetics. The visual style never drops the weight of the story any more than 8-, 16-, or 64-bit graphics ever did, even while it's so super-deformed. It gets your guard down, but it delivers stuff like the Helmaroc King fight that's so grand and personal through that "cartoony" demeanor. The music drives all this with one of the most gorgeous, stylistically-diverse soundtracks the Nintendo sound team could manage. Even the writing feels very lively; every little thing on Windfall feels oddly quaint and loaded with some individual conflict, unaware of what's literally below the waters. The characters are more dimensional; many of the good guys are abrasive, and even the grand evil is extremely relaxed and charming. That all results in a very refreshing, cathartic climax, which is tinged with some bitterness but acts as a serious tale of movement. Nintendo didn't seem to get that message for a bit.
But! If you don't latch onto the aesthetics as much, or you don't think they prop up the gameplay narrative enough, or you just plain dislike Zelda in any reconstituted form? No, I think it's extremely valid to find it's "just" another Zelda game. Anyone who doesn't feel those so viscerally, though, I believe should give it a fair shake.
-
Comment on What's a culture shock that you experienced? in ~talk
Lapbunny LinkWhen my wife and I went down south to South Carolina and Florida we did our usual chart of Celiac-friendly gluten-free food so we can, practically, plan the trip backwards from where we eat. Up...When my wife and I went down south to South Carolina and Florida we did our usual chart of Celiac-friendly gluten-free food so we can, practically, plan the trip backwards from where we eat. Up here in NJ it's often a minefield with cross-contamination; even when we find a new place that'll do a GF order, we take a huge chance and my wife occasionally gets horribly sick for a day a few times per year. We thought food prep was going to be worse down south.
Nope! Holy shit, so much better. Not only is there some real good GF food down there, but restaurants who were serving GF were way better about managers swinging by to make sure they got her order correct. There was a GF chicken and waffles chain, Bantum and Biddy, that was like crack in Amelia Island. We ate there three times in 24 hours. Zero glutenings in a whole week. Y'all got it good.
-
Comment on Hooters | Bankrupt in ~food
Lapbunny (edited )Link ParentFunny opposite story - my wife and I were looking for gluten-free restaurants when we were in Vancouver and found a place called The Black Lodge. We laughed at the name, then looked at the menu...Funny opposite story - my wife and I were looking for gluten-free restaurants when we were in Vancouver and found a place called The Black Lodge. We laughed at the name, then looked at the menu and realized that, yes, it was actually a Twin Peaks-themed restaurant. Unfortunately I think we caught them right before COVID shut them down, and I think the newer owners at the time bought the place without having watched the show, lol. But they did keep some stuff like a little shrine to Laura Palmer in the corner, and their cherry pie was a miracle.
-
Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society
Lapbunny (edited )Link ParentThere's a funny soundbyte from Trump signing the recent EO about loosening CAFE, where he says he went to South Korea and saw subcompact cars that were "very small and very cute", and you're "not...There's a funny soundbyte from Trump signing the recent EO about loosening CAFE, where he says he went to South Korea and saw subcompact cars that were "very small and very cute", and you're "not allowed to build" them as his justification. I have no doubts this will be a negative for the environment, where American car manufacturers will address none of the concerns you mentioned out of laziness and no motivation for innovation, and that this will drive zero market interest in small cars. As a car enthusiast, though, if he convinces even one brodozer-driving MAGAt to march to a dealership and buy a kei car I will laugh. Hysterically.
-
Comment on CGA-2026-01 đšī¸âĩđĄī¸ INSERT CARTRIDGE đĸ The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in ~games
Lapbunny Link ParentI don't have time to join, but I have ran part of a rando before and found what I was able to play at the time extremely enjoyable. Ran out of obvious checks at one point and realized I had to...I don't have time to join, but I have ran part of a rando before and found what I was able to play at the time extremely enjoyable. Ran out of obvious checks at one point and realized I had to navigate through Dragon Roost with the Deku Leaf...
-
Comment on A treatise concerning the properties and effects of coffee (1792) in ~food
Lapbunny LinkI'm reading those as 'f'. you can't stop me.I'm reading those as 'f'. you can't stop me.
-
Comment on Street Fighter (2026) | Sneak peak in ~movies
Lapbunny (edited )Link ParentEl Fuerte is in there, albeit getting his ass kicked. Not sure what you're trying to say, though..? The SF2 cast is central to any plot. (Or at least, at this point after 3...)El Fuerte is in there, albeit getting his ass kicked.
Not sure what you're trying to say, though..? The SF2 cast is central to any plot. (Or at least, at this point after 3...)
-
Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
Lapbunny Link ParentNot even joking - I wrote this, was looking for the draft stats thing, found Fleem in my chat history, and immediately regretted not mentioning Fleem.Not even joking - I wrote this, was looking for the draft stats thing, found Fleem in my chat history, and immediately regretted not mentioning Fleem.
-
Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
Lapbunny (edited )Link ParentDFDanger's post is a succinct, good answer. But since you left, you missed a particularly and hilariously colossal fuck-up. First off, I held a draft of the Final Fantasy set. It was a great...- Exemplary
DFDanger's post is a succinct, good answer. But since you left, you missed a particularly and hilariously colossal fuck-up.
First off, I held a draft of the Final Fantasy set. It was a great experience! Good draft set first and foremost. And as very slim flavor example, their Tonberry felt, mechanically, exactly what a Tonberry would do on a Magic board. 2/1, doesn't untap for two turns, but it has First Strike and Deathtouch for only one black mana. So you can cheese it with a kill spell or better strategy, but mashing a typical fight against it will get you killed. Perfect! The rest of the set does this with other iconic FF stuff to great effect.
I adored it. Good Magic product, good Final Fantasy product. R&D is capable of making a Universes Beyond set that can tell a flavorful narrative of their featured IPs through Magic gameplay.
ANYWAY, that aside:
-
Standard has been expanded to three years per cycle, because Standard was kind of unpopular and that doesn't make any sense for the main competitive format.
-
A Spider-Man set got announced and was ramping up for release. Keep in mind that these sets have potential multiple-year cook times, so it's been in the oven for a while. Additionally, WotC has multiple Marvel sets planned.
-
Before Spider-Man came out, there was a set called March of the Machines: Aftermath, which was a "micro" set of 50 cards for the giant Phyrexian multiplanar invasion story thing that happened. This set got leaked, which caused the whole Pinkertons thing.
-
By the way, if you didn't know about the Pinkertons thing, seriously, read that. It's sitting under all this and is such hilariously bad PR that I've gotta separate this out into a bullet point for a second. Jesus fuckin' christ. Anyway.
-
Aftermath sucks! It was the lowest-rated randomized set they've ever put out and ended a huge story with a wet fart. They decide they are never doing that again.
-
Standard, in addition to getting expanded, is also going to now officially include all sets that come out which aren't specifically oriented towards legacy formats like Vintage, Legacy, Commander, etc. Yes, that means competitive Magic is now a metaverse thing with Dr. Doom fighting Chocobos.
Suddenly, there were a bunch of problems mixed together:
-
Snag #1: Spider-Man is designed as a "micro" set. So they expand it out to a whole set.
-
Snag #2: Uh oh, now it's a full set and the draft experience isn't good. So they insist that there's this whole new way to play draft called Pick Two that this is oriented around.
Okay, at least it's a set, right? Ship it, move on.
-
Snag #3: Whoops, Marvel Snap is a digital Marvel card game product. Snap has legally-binding exclusivity to Marvel character likeness on a digital card platform. Y'know, MTG Arena is a digital card platform! Apparently someone on the legal team of either company, or both... Completely forgor?? đ
-
Snag #4: Wait, MTGA is a premier product for competitive MTG! You can't just have an entirely different Standard format there without Spider-Man, it needs to be the same. So, what do they do? They rework the entire aesthetic of the Spider-Man set, such that everything is happening in different planes. Here's the set. It's ugly as shit.
-
Snag #5 is that all of this is so much easier to scuttle than to put a modicum of effort into, of course. Who wants to be in the middle of a tournament and be reporting on Chizak, Apex Arachnosaur the inexplicable Spider Dinosaur Hero? And what if any of these cards are good? They have to keep thinking about them for the next two - no, three years?
Turns out the last one isn't a snag, it's the fucking solution. So it comes out kneecapped, and the set is ugly, split, and shit.
Oldheads hate this, and even with the Spider-Man coat of paint
it's just ass game design. (A good article I can't find the link to points out that comic books are about heroes; Magic is about summoning creatures, and using the characters as color. Spider-Man just doesn't work having ninety legendary creatures vying for attention.) Draft players also fuckin hate all this. Marvel fans get a shit product that they can't even play online, and interest in a Marvel set gets absolutely jettisoned. No one is happy about this. A survey goes out, is flooded with a movement to communicate how awful this set is, and is immediately closed.As this is going on, Vivi Orniter's card is terrorizing standard for multiple months, eventually getting banned. This was after The One Ring was an auto-include in every Modern deck for over a year before getting banned, having people cry foul about financial conflict with partners. Then a Monster Hunter Secret Lair gets announced, released for pre-order, and is immediately canceled and rescheduled because it was awful.
Also, this.
Magic is fuckin washed. But at least The Office fans are happy, if they can get their hands on the limited-release FOMO Secret Lairs! (They can't.)
-
Comment on 2025 Spotify Wrapped is now out in ~music
Lapbunny LinkYouTube Music stopped tracking me in January, so I took matters into my own hands and just made Topsters. 5x5 new albums I listened to 3x3 + 1 of what I was listening to on repeatYouTube Music stopped tracking me in January, so I took matters into my own hands and just made Topsters.
-
Comment on I Wanna Lockpick: a free puzzle game in ~games
Lapbunny Link ParentFunny enough, I think the original I Wanna Be the Guy is the first thing I tried with Wine a little after it came out on my Macbook...Funny enough, I think the original I Wanna Be the Guy is the first thing I tried with Wine a little after it came out on my Macbook...
-
Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games
39 votes -
Comment on CGA-2025-11 đ´đĄđĩđĸ REMOVE CARTRIDGE âī¸ PlayStation WHAT? in ~games
Lapbunny (edited )Link ParentYup to everything you said! Morality aside - and I didn't really have enough to say about it besides "wow it stinks" to bring it up - this month is a good case for attention to game preservation....Yup to everything you said! Morality aside - and I didn't really have enough to say about it besides "wow it stinks" to bring it up - this month is a good case for attention to game preservation. Vib-Ribbon is weird to get going! Pepsiman is such a meme that it's literally hundreds of dollars for a copy, and the weird legality issues probably have it in a mire! The digital ports of Parappa weren't well-received without lag adjustment! And we didn't even try to play something with a Guncon, which is impossible on a modern digital TV. Old games are a mess.
We'll probably run into all of this with Racing Lagoon again, too. But hey, it ain't a Colossal Game Adventure without some conflict, right? Actually, don't answer that.
-
CGA-2025-11 đ´đĄđĩđĸ REMOVE CARTRIDGE âī¸ PlayStation WHAT?
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
Hey! You wanna know why we're here? Go read this. It's because Sony UK's marketing department misappropriated ÂŖ100k for random campaigns they couldn't possibly get in front of higher execs in time, which they used to make cardboard flyers saying the PS1 was "more powerful than god" and had perforations in the perfect size to roll up as roaches for people to toke up in the Playstation room at your local club. Yeah, baby.
They also mention the same T-Rex that Rodney Greenblat saw! That had to have been one rad fucking dinosaur. Anyway.
We've had more than our fill of rapping, bunnies, crises, electric shocks, and Pepsi this month. Outside the novelty, why do these crazy-ass games matter? WELL:
-
It's great upheaval! CDs weren't just a major shift in storage, but production and cost. CDs took something like a week to order instead of two or three months. Imagine you have an extra eight weeks or so to develop an idea and put it in front of an exec, and they're not spending buckets on the cartridges. Why not accept those ideas? Why not take the risks? We're not quite at the indie boom and the internet, but it was certainly quite a step in development and risk-taking for the end product.
-
Fuckin' money! Much like Nintendo's infamous war chest, Sony firmly planted themselves at the top of the pole for a long while. All this speed meant that - per GamePro's approximation in 1997 - there were 400 PlayStation games were in development by the end of 1996, whereas the Saturn had ~200 and the N64 had ~60. That variety lead to something like a 4-game attach rate to people buying a PS1 console, and the games themselves cost less because the CDs were cheaper. I was an N64 kid, but those cartridges were expensive. (Plus all the rando peripherals - the transfer pak? Expansion pak? The VMU for Hey You Pikachu!? Jesus, my parents were good to me.) The PS1 probably gave people leeway to take a buying risk on a zany idea. Even from more conservative spenders, it had to have been way more appealing to anyone on the fence.
-
Music games! We had two here, and the Playstation was the home of Bemani for quite a while. Not much question why for the developer of the Walkman...
-
That T-Rex! Golly!
-
Age! Mascots and color grabbed kids, but kids aren't necessarily attracted to cool vector line art and an outlet for enormous CD collections. (They also, hopefully, weren't rolling too many joints at the club?) There was plenty of room to attract kids with Spyro or Crash - why not push the median age up at the same time? One study estimated that the "average gamer" was something like a 30 y/o woman in the 00s; nudging that number up and broadening the appeal had a lot to do with Sony's aggressive marketing. Another neat idea I saw mentioned was that the number of extreme sports games being produced gave video games another angle as a sort of lifestyle machine; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater itself was just as skate-punk as its people and bands. It sounds like a lofty thought, but THPS2 got me to pick up a skateboard, sooo...
-
Finally, Japan! Obviously the 80's and early 90's brought so many mascots and characters out of Japan with enduring appeal, like Mario and Sonic, but their impact was very often with localization or marketing crews adapting that. Here we have stuff that's very distinctly Japanese making its way over here, rather than getting edited in trepidation over the original idea attaching. Why not? Throw a couple CDs our way, see what sticks.
And as a reminder, we're only scratching the surface! This console is a trove. I wanted to wait until the Remove thread to discuss more games, so the biggest one I'd leave everyone with is LSD: Dream Emulator, which is as much an art installation as it is a "game". You wander around randomized environments and "wake up" after 10 minutes or by being killed by things like lions, cars, or giant dudes coated in kanji characters. It's pretty fucking weird, and it was a fairly obvious point of growth from other projects like Yume Nikki, itself a springboard for dozens of ideas in games like Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale. More recent popular projects like hypnagogia åŦį čĄ and Ena: Dream BBQ have obvious lineage - the former was from an LSD-themed game jam!
There are SO many others. Gaball Screen, a shoe-flying simulator (??) released by a music label where you collect music videos produced by Tetsuya Komuro. There's Heart of Darkness, a puzzle-platformer and influence for contemporary "gore game" horror titles. Its greatest puzzle is perhaps its absolutely baffling E rating! And No One Can Stop Mr. Domino... Really? No one?? Who possibly can???
We're left a neat legacy of ideas, experiments, and a time capsule for the advent of the CD-ROM, to those brave enough to dig through the library. Nintendo may leave a creative mark of their on their games, but the marks all over these games are maybe left by the machinery itself. A console that was willing to foster weirdos and prop up their chance to shine? The Playstation was radical.
Yo, and that T-Rex tho?
That concludes this month of our COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURE! I imagine this was a less-accessible month, so for those tenacious enough to get the games running I salute you!
This topic is to share your thoughts on our selection, and weird shit on the Playstation in general:
The good The bad The fun The interesting What ideas aged well What ideas were total crap The things it reminded you of Other games that belong here And absolutely anything else!We've got an extra ten days. so feel free to keep playing or to throw other PS1 curios at the group.
Next month, December 2025, will be The Secret of Monkey Island, hosted by the esteemed u/balooga! Thankfully that should be a MUCH easier game to get running than Vib-Ribbon, so be ready to walk the plank! (For less than twenty bucks!)
Month Game Host December 2025 The Secret of Monkey Island u/balooga January 2026 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker u/datavoid February 2026 Racing Lagoon u/Kawa March 2026 Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru
(The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls)u/J-Chiptunator 17 votes -
-
Comment on PSP: The rise and fall of Sony's first portable in ~games
Lapbunny Link ParentComing across this on forums was how I learned the phrase viral marketing! Back then, as a DS fanboy, I thought it was extremely stupid. Unfortunately now I find it worked - the rap pops in my...Coming across this on forums was how I learned the phrase viral marketing! Back then, as a DS fanboy, I thought it was extremely stupid. Unfortunately now I find it worked - the rap pops in my head 3-4 times each Christmas season.
Shoutouts to the squirrels, too. That marketing was nuts. (you could play, NSFW audio warning, outside!)
-
Comment on Best recommendations for PC couch multiplayer games? in ~games
-
Comment on Giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight at night? No thank you, astronomers say. in ~space
Lapbunny Link ParentAlso the exact thing that spawned the phrase "Simpsons did it!", for anyone who didn't know!Also the exact thing that spawned the phrase "Simpsons did it!", for anyone who didn't know!
So I gave this a very quick try on my PSP. First off, ohhh boy is this maximum 90's vibes. A PS1 Square RPG about street racing, with street-Sephiroth pontificating about cars, a jazz fusion soundtrack, and the dorkiest neon jacket tuner fashion sense? Fuck me up.
Except like, then I jumped into the game proper. You learn about the rule where you have to lose a car part whenever you lose, and the game throws you - equipped with a
Toyota AE86-Levin Corolla, a car with an absolutely anemic engine even by 90s standards - into a random encounter drag race? This is absolutely combative levels of obtuse game design, holy shit. I'm probably going to give this another try because the people who like this really seem to like it, but I think I'm either gonna need to take advantage of this save file with a tricked out car from the beginning, or I'm gonna need some crazy-ass hints on how to get past this learning curve...