If you want to bypass grinding entirely then you’d need something like that, but it might trivialize certain parts of the game. Won’t trivialize all of it though since several of the key fights rely on strategy.

That was someone’s insane interpretation of the ending of the first Mother game (a.k.a. Earthbound Beginnings). It’s not as out there as the guy who filled the Silent Hill wiki with claims that it was all symbolism for circumcision trauma (yes, really), but it’s still kinda nutters.

Yeah, you do have to grind a bit. Nowhere near as much as some games (looking at you, basically every Final Fantasy game) but the leveling is designed around you doing some extra fights for XP. Every new area generally has a “grind spot” that is moderately to incredibly obvious, typically some grouping of enemies that are enough to fight but not enough to overwhelm you, placed within reasonable walking distance of a bed, hotel, or other way to refill your HP/MP for cheap/free.

For the first town, before you take on the punks roaming the streets you should get some levels fighting crows, dogs, and snakes up near your house. Once you can kill them in two turns or less head into town and try taking on a single punk. If you survive that fight without being nearly dead, keep fighting punks. If you almost die, go heal up and farm a little more. And if you DO die… well you only lose half the money you have on you, so as long as you keep most of it in the ATM you haven’t lost much of anything.

EarthBound was the first JRPG I ever completed and the first JRPG I ever enjoyed. Before it I’d never been able to get into JRPGs: there was just too much complexity while also having too little going on. Wandering an overworld only to be randomly pulled out of it for no apparent reason was maddening. As a kid, trying to piece together the backstory of some undefined thoroughly detailed fantasy world while also taking in the emerging plot in the opening sequence wasn’t anywhere near as appealing as firing up Mario or Mega Man and getting straight to the action.

EarthBound neatly sidestepped all of the things that had stopped me from liking JRPGs. The equipment system was simple without being braindead. The setting was a pastiche of suburban life that I could easily understand. The stakes were high but the tone was still whimsical and amusing. And above all I knew why I was suddenly getting dragged into battle with a snake or a crow or a dog instead of just being clotheslined by combat.

EarthBound still is my go-to recommendation in the (increasingly unlikely) event that someone says “I’ve always wanted to get into JRPGs, what should I start with?” It is the perfect “intro to JRPG” game without feeling trivial or like it cannot stand on its own. It singlehandedly made me love the JRPG genre, and I probably would not have played literally every other JRPG I’ve ever played if it wasn’t for EarthBound.

Local safety regulations require a breathalyzer test before you’re allowed upstairs.

Naw he’s off at RenFaire.

Try to see if there are any that do that little Javascript-evaluation-to-render-the-client-side-site thing, and if there are, have them mine cryptocurrency for you.

Using your evil powers for good I see.

The other guy is worse, so we really don’t have to listen to a damn thing you say at all and you have to vote for our guy, get that through your poverty addled brains.

I mean I hate to say it but this is unironically true. As bad as things are now The Other Guy absolutely would make things worse. Neoliberals may be a scourge but MAGA is cancer. One of the bad cancers. Not even prostate cancer, like pancreatic cancer.

Kbin already has it. I’ve yet to feel the need to make use of it, but it works pretty well by all accounts.

I still act respectful in churches and other “sacred” places, not out of any fear of the Magic Sky Wizard, but simply because other people respect them and it seems like a useful thing to encourage, even if I don’t agree with the underlying reasoning. Having a place which most of society agrees should be a quiet, comforting sanctuary is not the worst thing at all, even if the comfort is derived from extreme wishful thinking.

Also, Christmas. Christmas music is great. A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of the best holiday albums ever, though we always skip “Hark the Herald Angel Sings” 'cause it’s such a tonal shift compared to the rest of the album.

How about last week?

Why yes this comic made me think of our users, why do you ask?

Unfortunately it’s becoming the norm. Some are less obtrusive or take up relatively little space, but every Smart TV I’ve used in the last year has some un-removable portion of the home screen that displays an ad. So far it’s almost entirely limited to TV shows or movies or services or otherwise TV-related things, but it’s really not hard to imagine that expanding to other goods and/or services.

Every smart TV is like that now. Every single one has ads of some kind, at least that I’ve tried. I mean there might be one weird knockoff brand that doesn’t but chances are it’s got even larger problems, and forget about finding apps for it.

But yeah, I have my TV connected to the internet. One of the things I had plugged in to my old “dumb” TV was a Chromecast, and the Android TV has one built in… but that requires it be on the internet for it to work. It is running Android so you bet your ass I loaded it up with all sorts of sideloaded goodness (Revanced, SmartTube, Retroarch to name a few). I just haven’t gotten around to replacing the launcher to get rid of the ads, since it’s a bit involved.

Oh, also it didn’t originally have ads, that came in an update about a year later. I’d care more if I spent much time on the home screen, but most of the time the TV’s just displaying the output of the Roku.

I’ve taken to calling people out who use the term unironically. Remind them that we’re adults and we don’t need cutesy euphemisms.

For what it’s worth, when I do the response is generally supportive.

It’s everywhere, and for no good reason. I’ve yet to find a Lemmy instance that will work without JavaScript enabled.

Another one that gets me: buying things but not actually owning them. You buy a game but you don’t actually own the game, you own a license to play a game on a service that might shut down sometime in the future or change their mind about the license they sold you. You buy an e-book but the storefront you bought it from might change or remove it, and then forcibly update or remove any copies you have on e-readers. Most people don’t even buy movies or TV shows, they just subscribe to some streaming service, and if they do “buy” an electronic copy it’s the same issue as e-books.

At least physical copies of movies and tv shows and books are still a thing, but even then we’re heading towards a future where physical media may require phoning in before it’ll play.

It’s not just that they’re smart, it’s that the “smart” features actively interfere with normal operation, though it’s bad enough that you can’t find “dumb” versions. TVs for example: a few years ago I tried to replace my dying “dumb” TV and discovered that they basically don’t sell TVs that aren’t smart. I figured “eh, worst case I can just use it as a normal TV” only to discover that on some models no, I could not. I’ve come to despise Roku-integrated TVs: standalone Roku devices are great, but their TVs lock down basically every single adjustment you’d find on a normal TV other than brightness and volume, so too bad if you have to deal with glare I guess?

Finally wound up going with an AndroidTV, which at least lets me change inputs and adjust the picture as needed… but also the home screen is loaded with ads that you can’t disable. At least it still lets me have it boot straight to a specific input instead of showing the home screen.

The Sega Dreamcast. Live CD distributions of Linux were really taking off around then, so some enterprising sorts decided to see if they could get Linux running on the Dreamcast. They partially succeeded, though accessing some of the hardware was… dicey. That said, the Dreamcast had a native keyboard adapter and they managed to get support for that going pretty quickly.

Unfortunately the project kind of stagnated, but you can read up on more of it on the sourceforge project page.

You still can. Not only that, you can install emulators and Retroarch, the thing is capable of running consoles up through PS1 games, though the button mapping for most games is a bit awkward.

Also !sbcgaming if you’re into that sort of thing.

We always just hung plants from them.

That or a Sky Chair, though ironically they kinda look like sex swings on their own.