• Them’s Fightin’ Herds went through a very tragic downfall. Publisher fired the entire development team at the end of 2023, before the final DLC character was even finished, and then released her in a completely broken state. Much later they would eventually put out a hotfix patch with several pages of nerfs, and this character is still banned competitively. They did promise further fixes, but they promised that a long time ago and it’s been radio silence since. All other promised content updates, including Story Mode, are canceled.
  Despite all that, the community’s still here. I’m about to leave for Combo Breaker 2025 this weekend, where TFH will be one of the brackets I’m entering. Only a side event, bracket’s small, but as long as there are brackets I will show up to them.
• Skullgirls is somehow still here, 13 years after release. It’s had a long history of perpetual development troubles, and yet has always been kicking. Earlier this year it came out that the developers are suing the publisher over $1.2 million they haven’t been paid, so it looks like this actually is the end of development for real now. Fortunately the final patch is in a very good state, they went out on a high note and I’m happy with the finished product.
  But again, the community? Still here. Also at Combo Breaker 2025, as a main stage headliner. Skullgirls will never die.
• Puyo Puyo Champions is the most functional version of the game, in fact it’s the only version on modern platforms that is faithfully accurate to original Tsu rules. Sega let it fall by the wayside in order to sell buggy rehashed crossovers and mobile subscription service exclusives, but PPC is the version you should be playing, don’t buy the shovelware that is skinwalking the IP now. Unfortunately, Sega’s mismanagement has split the playerbase because of all the shovelware they’re pushing, and the west in particular is a hopeless mess because of it. For best results, queue when Japan is awake. But you can still play this version, and you should!

‘Civilized’ is definitely not the right way to describe less privileged nations. People there certainly aren’t ‘uncivilized’, and to describe them as such carries heavy colonialist overtones.

Though really you should’ve recognized the red flags from this person the moment they tried to justify the use of slurs.

Obviously they’re referring to the lore of Under Night In-Birth.

Here’s the actual patch notes from Nintendo instead of this blogspam.

Most of these games were mentioned previously, but now we have actual patch notes.

If you try reading those patch notes they’ll tell you exactly what kinds of modern hardware some of these changes are targeted at:

• Steam Deck optimizations
• Improved controller support
• Default gamma reduced since you’re probably not playing on a CRT anymore, and resolution no longer defaults to 640x480
• Ultrawide FOV support for ultrawide monitors
• Lowest quality settings removed since no one is running hardware that weak anymore
• Software renderer fixed on hardware that doesn’t support 16-bit color

It does take some dedicated study to get to a point where you can start to comprehend even the most basic content. If you just start reading/listening from zero, none of it will be comprehensible.

The goal for comprehensible input should be i+1, meaning you understand almost all of a sentence but one word or grammar point, which then allows you to work out the missing piece from context.

Look up community-made resources for the language you want to learn. Depends on the language, but you should be able to find plenty of great materials. Without knowing which language you’re trying to learn, it’s hard to give any better of a generic answer than that.

That said, flashcard apps like Anki are probably the single most powerful tool available, and vocab card decks will be the first thing you see at the top of those community resources. Any reason in particular you’re averse to something like that?

“This is Your Life” is the Ronnie James Dio one, released in 2014, and was the album I came here to mention. Tenacious D’s cover of The Last in Line won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance.

Is one of those ideas Boktai 5?

Because they’re professionals in unrelated fields. Understanding AI was never part of their job description, this strange and confusing technology snuck up on everyone and most people don’t really know what’s going on, they were never ready for this.

This is why native support still matters. Anything not supported can pull the rug out from under you at any time.

One more reason why I don’t see Proton as a replacement for official native support. Things can and will break, and they’ll say it’s not their problem because they only support Windows.

Skullgirls, Slay the Spire, Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary

In middle school they called me “hey” and “you there”

To play perfectly and still lose is what _____ is all about.

(it’d be too obvious if I didn’t redact a word)

Oh my gah

A game can be fun in spite of balance. MvC2 is a beloved game even with its six character meta. But when there’s room for improvement, and the internet now makes improvement possible, devs should take the opportunity to improve as much as they can.

Also, speaking of Tekken 5 - are you talking about the initial arcade release, the rebalanced console port, the “5.1” arcade rerelease, or Dark Resurrection? Because those totally count as patches.

Normally games shouldn’t allow players on different versions to connect to each other. Version checks may be something devs need to explicitly implement, but surely most games should already have them or else I have questions for the developers.

Also, in the context of fighting games specifically, this is largely a nonissue. Fighting game netcode works by sending button inputs only, and the other client will play back those inputs to independently verify the outcome. There’s very little cheaters can try to do that won’t just result in a desync. To my knowledge there’s only ever been one cheating scandal in the FGC, and the accused turned out to be innocent in the end.

It’s not like I’m saying I hate classic fighters, or that there aren’t any I still enjoy today. I’ve got plenty of hours on FightCade just dicking around in various random kusoge. I’m traveling to Combo Breaker in two weeks, and I signed up for six different brackets, two of which are retro titles (Waku Waku 7 and Twinkle Star Sprites) (you could also count Mystery Bracket, but the point of Mystery is to play trash that doesn’t hold up).

But the games that have stood the test of time are few and far between. They’re the exception, not the rule. If you think your game is too good for patches because it worked for Vampire Savior, you’re a lot more likely to end up like SVC Chaos.

From a developer’s perspective, they have to adapt to a changing market. All your competitors are iterating and improving their games, you need to keep up.

And hell, some of the most popular classics are patches in a sense. People play Super Turbo and Third Strike, but no one’s playing World Warrior or New Generation. At least now players don’t have to buy those kinds of ‘patches’ for full price.