GBC:

• Game & Watch Gallery 2: Holds a special place in my heart as the first game I ever owned. Has the best lineup out of all the collections, with 3 and 4 you can kinda tell they had used up all the heavy hitters.
• Mario Tennis: An incredible tennis RPG. And Mario doesn’t even show up until the postgame as a bonus boss, which I find hilarious. Has connectivity with the N64 version if you can get that running, lets you transfer your RPG mode character and unlock more content on both titles.
• Panel de Pon GBC: Better known under a name of a different IP it got reskinned with, but I’m a stubborn snob who will only ever call it by the original title. It’s a bit different from the console versions in order to compensate for the small screen, board is shrunk from 6x12 to 6x10, and the 1P Arcade mode is fake versus that gives opponents a health bar rather than their own board. I actually have a soft spot for this version, it’s different enough to stand out and be worth enjoying on its own, even if Gamecube is still the GOAT.

GBA:

• Boktai trilogy: Hideo Kojima’s greatest masterpiece. First game’s alright, second game is where it comes into its own. Note that you want the Solar Sensor hardware for the full experience, but emulating them is worth it over not playing them at all. And for the third game, you’d have to pick between original hardware or the translation patch anyway.
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow: It’s Castlevania. It’s good. Also check out Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance, but AoS was by far the best of the GBA entries.
• Golden Sun 1/2: These games were way ahead of their time for how they designed a combat system that encourages you to use all of your tools and not just click basic Attack as if you gotta hoard your MP for a rainy day. Fantastic puzzles too.
• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: If you’ve played any of the other Mario RPGs, this one’s great too. Has a 3DS remake but I haven’t played that version so I can’t tell you how it compares.
• Metroid: Zero Mission: The original Metroid has aged rather poorly if you ask me, but this remake does a perfect job modernizing it into one of the best games in the series. Fusion is good too, but some fans have opinions on that one.
• Mother 3: Surely you have already heard of this game and do not need me to tell you to go play it. Have you not played it by now? Why not? Well, okay, if you haven’t played Earthbound first, go do so, then play this.
• Rhythm Tengoku: A wonderful game about pressing the A button. Sometimes you press the d-pad too. Translation patch.
• Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1/2: If you’ve ever played the classic 2D Tales games, these are excellent spiritual successors to those. There’s a third game that’s JP-only, translation patch is being worked on but it’s been stuck in development hell for years…

Sounds like the game was too big to fit on the meager storage these flip phones had, so you’d have to download parts of it, then delete it to free up space and download the next part.

A lot of titles were just explicitly cut up into episodic releases for this reason, like FF4 After Years. I guess Square was experimenting with a different format to make this one appear more seamless.

• Celeste Mario’s Zap & Dash (NES): SMB1 turned into a Metroidvania with Celeste mechanics ported in. I think what impresses me the most is that they got 4-directional scrolling into this engine.

• Super Metroid and A Link to the Past Crossover Randomizer (SNES): It’s an absolutely incredible technical feat that this even works. SM and ALttP smashed together into a single ROM, with a few doors that take you from one game to the other, then the item pools are shuffled together so you have to go back and forth to find one game’s items in the other. Unfortunately because ALttP is a much bigger game with a lot more items it kinda overshadows SM, you may not find this to be as replayable as the standalone randos. But I recommend trying it once because it’s just so cool the first time.

• Unfortunately I can’t find an up-to-date download link for this one, just a few Youtube videos with no link, but there’s an ongoing Panel de Pon GBC Restoration Project based on a lot of unused assets buried in the ROM before it tragically got reskinned (again, this poor IP can’t catch a break). I’ve got an older build of this on my hard drive I could upload somewhere if anyone wants it, but the version I have is far from complete.

Headline says ‘only’, but the article says that’s actually an increase from last year.

• Celeste $4.99 -75% - A platformer with 8-way airdashes. I’m sure you’ve already heard enough about how amazing the base game is, so I just want to take a moment to shoutout the incredible modding scene for more content. My favorites are Spring 2020 Collab, Strawberry Jam, Glyph, Conqueror’s Peak, and Into the Jungle.

• CrossCode $9.33 -65% (for base game and DLC) - Phenomenal action RPG. Combat is fast and explosive, dungeons are very obviously Zelda inspired but with way more puzzles. Packed with tons and tons and tons of sidequests, many of which put unique twists on the combat system to keep you on your toes. Make sure to grab the epilogue DLC.

• Crypt of the Necrodancer $11.21 (bundle with DLC) - Rhythm game/roguelike sounds like the strangest mashup ever. But what’s even stranger is just how well it works. It’s just a matter of keeping 4/4 time, but forcing a steady pace forces you to think fast and not make any mistakes. Every death is clearly your fault as every enemy is designed to be beatable using only a base dagger without getting hit (and indeed there’s a challenge character that forces exactly this), but dealing with swarms is where it gets complicated. I especially recommend trying to speedrun, playing for speed really makes this game adrenaline-fueled as you have to pace yourself judging how much time you can afford to gather items if you want to make sub-15 or sub-10. Danny Baranowsky’s soundtrack absolutely delivers. Get both the Amplified and Synchrony DLCs.

• Mega Knockdown $7.99 -20% - A turn-based fighting game that’s fun for complete beginners to pick up and play, while still offering a lot of depth. Use this to entice your non-fighting game friends in.

• Skullgirls $2.49 -90% base game, $14.83 bundle with DLC - Still the best damn fighting game of all time. Almost never not on sale, hell you probably already own this by now and may not even realize it.

• Slay the Spire $6.24 -75% - Roguelike deckbuilder, basic idea is that after each combat you get to add a card to your deck, plus collect relics from elites/events/shops/bosses which provide passive effects. There’s a ton of depth in trying to assemble the perfect deck one card at a time, resource management gets very complicated balancing what you need in the short-term versus what you want to take to the endgame. Tons and tons of possibilities, you can pretty much expect to never build the same deck twice. Oh, and did I mention there’s 20 levels of hard modes once you think you’ve gotten A0 down? Also has a very powerful mod API with Steam Workshop support, check out Packmaster and Adventurer for my favorite must-plays.

• Them’s Fightin’ Herds $3.99 -80% - Another great fighting game, been waiting a long time for this port to bring us up to a grand total of two good fighting games on Linux. Has a lot of really cool features like a big story mode with overworld exploration, a cute lobby system with cosmetics to collect and treasure chests to fight for, a dynamic music system that reacts to the fight, and even a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler mode. Has crossplay with consoles as well. Full review. Word of warning: Baihe DLC is very busted and banned from tournament play. Long story about how the publisher fired the entire dev team and released her in an unfinished state. If you buy the DLC, just get the other three characters and skip her.

• Anything by Zachtronics - A bunch of different engineering puzzle games where you have to write code or build a machine to solve problems. Once you’ve solved the puzzle, you can see a histogram comparing your solution to everyone else’s on a few different metrics, encouraging you to go back and try to optimize it further. I recommend Opus Magnum as the best entry point.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]

UNI finally gets rollback, which means I finally gave the series a shot. The GRD system is a very unique concept that adds an additional layer of trying to win the advantage state, then pressing the advantage when you have it or respecting the opponent’s advantage when they do. And Vatista is just a very fun character to play, I’m having a blast with her.

I’m not falling for any Switch 2 leak that claims it’s actually going to be called Switch 2.

That’s not a fair comparison at all. In Mario Kart, you actually had to earn your first place spot fair and square.

They’re maybe not wrong. When every other game is using all kinds of dark patterns to keep players addicted, not doing the same risks losing your playerbase to them.

I get it. I hate it, but I get it.

If/when I can afford to upgrade - big if - I’m considering a foldable just to play rhythm games on, because some games I’ve tried feel like they aren’t designed for just thumbs and want a bigger screen. I dunno what else I’d use it for, but I see at least one niche use case for this gimmick and it happens to be a niche I’d use.

There’s going to be a modding API just like the original, so if he’s not in the base game someone can always port him in.

What do they think puberty blockers do?

If we weren’t capable of higher reasoning to ask this kind of question, it wouldn’t be a very good simulation, would it?

Combat is supposed to be the core gameplay loop. If you feel like that’s an unwanted interruption, I think there’s a deeper problem where the game has left you feeling like you don’t want to play its core loop.

It sounds like you’ve had bad experiences with games that just didn’t make their systems engaging enough to not feel repetitive. That was true of some older titles, but modern turn-based RPGs have learned a lot since then.

CrossCode - Console Release Date Trailer

One of my favorite tracks on the OST, and I love how they’ve synced all the cuts to the music. It’s a fantastic sizzle reel showing off little bits and pieces of everything that’s cool in this game.

I absolutely do not want Windows.

An Android device doesn’t run my Steam library.

I’m aware of Portmaster, but that’s a manual process that is only possible for certain engines. Whereas SteamOS can just run all my games.

What are you hoping to get from SteamOS that you aren’t able to get from any other Linux distro?

Hi. I’m the guy that wants a low-spec model that fits in my pocket. I exist. Just gimme something that can run my favorite 2D indie games and I’m happy.

I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus last year and ended up loving it far more than my Deck, which is actually just gathering dust still. And now I dream of seeing SteamOS in that size.

But nothing you’re describing will fit in that kind of form factor. So if you want to enforce minimum specs, you’re really telling me I can’t have my dream handheld.