Believe me, no one gives a damn about a critic.

The game is deliberately pretentious? Okay. Then the negative reviews are justified.

No, the game is really just pure, uncut heroin for engineering nerds. It’s designed to appeal to their deep desires for automation, clever designs, and optimization.

Those people don’t really care about economics, they care about creating little engines that process one type of resource into another.

Yes, it seems we do have different ideas of the word medieval. To me, medieval is not an abstract idea, it’s a specific period in European history. To be medieval a setting has to bear significant resemblance to that period.

This is not medieval. It’s very ornate but it bears no resemblance whatsoever to medieval art or architecture. If anything, it’s closer to Victorian than medieval. Everything I’ve seen in HK screenshots tells me it’s a fantasy pastiche of elements. It has no affinity with any particular period in human culture. Rather, it’s a cut-and-paste construction. (I hate the word appropriation because it implies theft. I do not want to imply that).

Like if a fantasy game is set on Mars with a bunch of green skinned Martians as characters then it’s not medieval even if the characters use Anglo-Saxon instead of English. It’s a pastiche of science fiction, fantasy, and medieval elements and it suffers from the same issue that a lot of bad Star Trek episodes had (see: planet of hats), which is verisimilitude:

Why did this society, which otherwise seems completely alien, just happen to evolve a conspicuous element that’s uncannily similar to an element in human history?

HK games are not set in China, but they are both firmly set in a medieval fantasy world

??!

I guess we have completely different ideas of the word medieval. This to me looks like a completely separate, unique fantasy world with no resemblance whatsoever to a historical medieval setting of the sort that games like D&D are based on.

It’s fine if they have created this wonderful unique setting of their own, but then it leaves me with the question of how the language aspects of medieval society ended up there despite all the other differences. I mean these characters don’t even resemble humans!

I have played plenty of other games where characters speak in a classical style. Unless it’s being done to mark the characters as old fashioned (or the world is literally set in medieval times) then it comes off as extremely pretentious.

Edit: I know Hollow Knight is sacred in the indie game community. I’m just saying this is something that annoys many people (including me) who prefer verisimilitude and authenticity.

It’s not about liking/not liking poetry, it’s about credibility and verisimilitude. When a character says something, is it credible for the character to have said that? A guy walking around in the Harry Potter wizarding world speaking Shakespearean English is not credible, he’s a laughingstock.

I don’t know much about Hollow Knight but from what I can see it is not set in a fantasy Classical Chinese setting. Having characters in the game speak in the Classical Chinese style is not credible. It does not fit the setting, regardless of the broader similarities between Hollow Knight’s setting and Wuxia novels. It’s culturally tone deaf.

I’ve never played either game but I’ll be honest: that English text looks really pretentious to me. I can imagine how bad things could get if that were carried over into the Chinese translation.

Everyday Chinese speech is very plain, blunt, and utilitarian. The Great Classical Chinese novels are anything but. They are as important (arguably even more so) to Chinese as Shakespeare is to English. Speaking in that style should come off just as pretentious in Chinese as a video game character speaking Shakespearean style would in English. Generally, in English fiction (especially TV shows), characters are brutally mocked for speaking in that style unless they are literally reading, rehearsing, or performing Shakespeare.

I’ve been accused twice so far! I never use that AI slop!

Besides, it took off after I turned 35. I’m officially in “get off my lawn” territory on this one.

I’m not sure actually. I’m into the hobby but I have only a New 3DS. I plan to get one of those handhelds at some point but I’m not there yet!

I believe a lot of the folks into these retro handhelds ditch the default Android system and install a community made distro specifically for running these retro emulators! TechDweeb talks about them.

Hey thanks for the recs!

Ahhh okay. I tend to leave my N3DS turned off all the time. I only use sleep mode for short term. Maybe that’s why I don’t have an issue?

Some of those definitely look like weird and creative games!

I’m not too fond of the post-6 Final Fantasy games, mostly for their looks, so Dissidia doesn’t appeal to me. I do really like Final Fantasy Tactics though I can play it on my N3DS (along with FFTA and A2).

My friend has been begging me to get into the Fire Emblem series and when I do that will be a big rabbit hole. I also want to play the Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton games (which really take advantage of the DS hardware).

Did you try it on a 3DS or a New 3DS? They look so similar and have such similar names that it’s easy to confuse them but the hardware difference is enormous.

Also when did you last try it? There’s been a ton of work put into the dynarec PSX core (I forget the exact name of the emulator. It’s basically an alphabet soup name) for RetroArch that’s made night and day performance improvements.

I can’t help much on the travelling bit. I’m actually surprised that a PS Vita would last multiple days of all-day gaming while travelling without being able to charge.

My N3DS runs PSX games just fine via RetroArch.

The Bluetooth audio sounds really nice though.

I don’t know anything about the PSP or Vita libraries so I don’t know why I would want them. The DS and 3DS library is absolutely ginormous so that’s a big draw for me.

As for sleeping/power drain, I haven’t had too many issues since I turned the brightness down. I don’t have enough free time in a day to drain the whole battery and I plug it in to charge every night. Maybe the sleep issues with emulators have been fixed? I use RetroArch and it seems to work fine coming in and out of sleep.

There are loads and loads of really cheap Android-based emulator handhelds. The YouTuber TechDweeb does lots of reviews of these devices. These things have effectively spawned their own retro gaming ecosystem around them.

An alternative is to pick up a used New Nintendo 3DS (New being part of the name, distinguishing it from the original 3DS which is way less powerful). This device can be hacked to run many different emulators and play thousands of games. While the screens are not as good as the best Android handhelds, the form factor is ideally suited for running DS and 3DS games (which obviously run natively on the device) while still being great for older single-screen systems (the unused touch screen is excellent for emulator controls such as pause/resume and save/load state).

Evolution is not our friend. Evolution favours reproductive fitness, not happiness. Happiness is just one of many tools in the toolbox for getting us to reproduce.

The current situation with low birth rates due to the availability of contraceptives is a temporary blip. Right now you can witness a wide range of forces arrayed against that status quo. Note that for humans, evolution operates not only at the genetic level but also at the cultural level since parents can pass their culture on to their children.

We’re witnessing a major backlash and reaction against secular liberalism, a return to authoritarianism and a revival of religious membership. Religion has always been one of the most powerful of evolution’s cultural weapons for increasing reproductive fitness.

I guess not many people remember that Microsoft was convicted of antitrust violations against Netscape (which effectively destroyed that command).

Don’t forget to paint over those cracked weld joints!