Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes], Them's Fightin' Herds, and Skullgirls - Less than two months to go until Combo Breaker, gotta practice as much as I can. Mostly grinding UNI2 right now since it's shiny and new, and for the first time I'm playing a game I have active locals here for. But TFH is the one I'm hoping to get furthest in bracket in... knowing this might be our last big big major. SG, I love the game and I will enter every year, but after 9 years I'm not focused on trying to be super competitive anymore, I just periodically hop on Quick Match to unwind.

Mahjong Soul and Riichi City - The fact that I am playing two different Mahjong clients totally does not mean that I have a problem, I can quit whenever I want I swear.

Splatoon 3 - Still on hiatus from competitive, focusing on other games, but I did hop on for a little bit just to play a solo queue rotation earlier this week.

Missing Stars: Act One - Absolutely heartwarming VN that really resonated with me for... well, for how much of myself I saw in a certain character. Been in development hell for a long time though, waiting for the rest after falling in love with this demo will kill me.

Crypt of the Necrodancer - Reinstalled to check out the new Hatsune Miku DLC. Happy to kick the devs two bucks to support one of my favorite games of all time, but... this character is just frustratingly unfun honestly. It's really hard to predict, let alone plan for, what's gonna happen next after attacking into a swarm. Lack of a shovel hurts really badly too. But since I've reinstalled, maybe I should do another Cadence run or two or several dozen...

Clips of the week: Skullgirls, Them's Fightin' Herds

I'm venturing into new territory this week!

Back in the day, I never bought a PlayStation 2 - I wasn't happy with Sony's conduct throughout their lawsuits against bleem! and Connectix and had stopped buying their products, and even if that had not been the case, throughout its entire lifetime the PS2 didn't offer enough games that suited my tastes at the time to justify such an expensive purchase. And though that's not a PS2-specific thing, since that entire console-generation offered me very little, it sticks out in my memory because of how much Sony had sullied their reputation in my mind.

Still, that was then and this is now, and since I've given the Nintendo 64 (which I hated due to being burned by it in its time) another chance and discovered some new favourites, I figured that now was the right time to extend the same courtesy to the PlayStation 2. And, so, I have now played my first-ever PS2 game!


My pick this week is the simultaneously punnily and edgelordily-named Bomberman Hardball* for the PlayStation 2 (though, the Japanese version, Bomberman Battles, is oddly named, too, since the standard Battle Mode, while present, is not the focus). It's a Bomberman sports game that's a spin-off of a spin-off - specifically of the Bomberman Land mini-game titles, and it retains that sub-series' art-style (which admittedly I'm not very fond of, but that's not a dealbreaker).


*It's not too tough to see how early the seeds for Bomberman Act:Zero were planted if they felt a need to make a cute sports-game sound edgy, is it? As you can see, the English box-art was made infinitely angrier, as well. (Note that there's no US box-art here, because this game was only released in Japan and PAL regions.)

I mean, hey, why should Spider have all the fun with the sports games, right?

Seriously, though, although I'm generally not a sports type of person, I'm not averse to the occasional cute arcade-style adaptation - just not Mega Man's Soccer, thanks, since that game is unfinished and makes no sense. Unlike that game, this one's not as odd of a combination as you might think, though - Bomberman and his people have always been depicted as sporting and training-centric types;


A 1994 trading-card from my own collection, depicting Green Bomberman playing rugby.

The storyline? There is no storyline, so I get to make one up! There are no Turtles or April O'Neil, and certainly no Dorito Pope or Nacho Nun - the Banana Bint and the others aren't welcome here! It's simply a nice day for Pengling and some of her robot army to get out and about and enjoy some friendly sports in the sun, along with anyone else who'll join in.


Bomberman Hardball features several modes, namely tennis, golf, baseball, and the series' classic battle-mode, plus the ability to make your own custom Bomber. The latter is unfortunately hampered a bit by only being available for use in standard battles, and not any of the sports - that seems like a bit of an odd decision, since in Battle Mode you're barely able to see the customisations due to the overhead view. The game also features a slightly weird translation that goes against things that the series had already established loooooooong before that point; For example, White, Black, and Green are renamed to "Ivory", "Star", and "Jade" for no reason, and a member one of the teams (who all look identical to their captain) is given the name of an unrelated supporting character who's not even in this game - it's all very odd.


The controls for all of the sporting events feel spot-on and are mostly pretty intuitive, and all follow the conventions for other arcade-style entries in their genres (so, for example, if you've ever played a Mario Tennis game, you'll know that each face-button lets you make a different type of shot, and Bomberman Hardball adheres to that standard). However, being from a country where baseball is not a thing, I found that portion of the game to be almost incomprehensible! It's still fun though, and I'm sure that I'll figure it out eventually.


Unfortunately, I didn't like the implementation of the Battle Mode here - though it offers tons of options, the controls don't adhere to the standard layout that had been established long before this game was made (which is odd considering that the sports modes rightly stick to the norm) and the handling feels a bit "off" compared to most other games in the series. That said, it does have a nice feature in the form of showing replays with dynamic camera-angles after a match, and giving you the option to save them - that's a fun idea.


The menus are intuitive, and the presentation is great - there's a nicely-detailed crowd of Bombers spectating at most events, the loading-screens display a bouncing ball (or bomb!) from whatever type of sport you're playing, and you even get the option to have your chosen Bomber wear or not wear a cap for the relevant sport. However, I think the game would've looked better had it stuck with the Bomberman series' standard look, instead of the weird Bomberman Land style where most characters have half-length legs but standard arms, making them look like bizarre ape-like midgets. Every mode offers a bunch of options, so you can play short or long games with various different rules. The music is nothing special, and though it's all cheery and inoffensive, some of the loops are shorter than I'm accustomed to with the Bomberman series, giving the audio a bit of a half-baked feel at times; That said, the sound-effects and voice-clips are all on-point, at least!


There's also "Life Mode", which is a room where you can customise your own Bomberman (I named mine "Boomy", but he doesn't look quite how I want him to yet ), and use the coins earned from playing games to unlock new parts. You can also have them turn on their TV and watch AI matches for tennis, golf, baseball, and battles, which is a cute touch.

All in all, for what it is, Bomberman Hardball is a nice little package that's just as fun for solo play as it is for the multiplayer aspects. Whilst I wouldn't want to revisit its battle-mode again (it's just too far out of step with the series' standards for my liking), I can definitely see myself coming back to play more tennis and golf at the very least - and maybe baseball too, if I can ever figure out what the hell's going on! I give the game a kicking granny out of 10.

[+..••] Other stuff that I played this week;


Mario Party (N64)


Stardew Valley (Native Linux)


Super Bomberman R (Proton)

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderSounds effects are also good…… punches, kicks and webbing all sounds like the cartoon from around the time period…….

Does it use the same voice-actors from the show?

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderThe storyline.…… After Pengling killed the Ninja Turtles last week…… April O’Neil is still kidnapped…….. And no one has come to rescue her…….. “Good” yells Pengling from off camera……. “No one should rescue that Banana bint” She continues…….. “Now get on with Spider-Mans storyline” Pengling says with anger in her voice as she was interrupted from her hourly Bomberman session………..

Bloody right!

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderOverall…… I had the really a really good time with it....... I had the PC port of Spider-Man (Based on the Dreamcast version) when it came out and the PC port was so bad and filled with so many game breaking bugs that I never finished it…….. Im glad I finally got to finish something I started 23 years ago……….

It's always good to take care of games like that!

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderThe Road To PES Penguin 6

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The road to unlock the PES Penguin in Pro Evolution Soccer 6 is at 4100 PES points out of 5000……….

Only 900 left to go!

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderNow for my bad joke of the week……
God created the fart....... Then he added the smell so deaf people could enjoy them too.......
*ba dum.... tssssh…...*

EW!

Quoting: StoneColdSpider

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I wondered what happened to BlackBloodRum……..

Well, I'm glad someone found me!

After that, I sure have a:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5P5Tz3VH94

On Topic:
Been working a lot, but did play some old school GTA Vice City (non-remake). :)