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CrossCode, a retro, Japanese-style action RPG on Steam

I bought this game on a Steam sale the year before last because the ad for it reminded me of Super Famicom action RPGs like The Secret of Mana and Zelda: A Link to the Past. I just played the prologue and when I saw that the gameplay is far more complex than I was expecting, it proved to not be just something I can pick up and play for a bit. Since it was a bit more involved, I decided to play it later. I sort of forgot about this game until last month when I decided to give it another try.

The pixel art in this game is beautiful. It is definitely 16-bit inspired and the in-game sprites are cute and well-detailed, but no Super Famicom could handle the cool lighting and shadow effects that this game has. This game actually comes from Germany and while the up-close character designs show that this is not a Japanese-made game, the actual in-game graphics look very much like a sprite-based, 16-bit style JRPG.

It’s taken me some time to get used to this game’s controls. You definitely need a modern controller with two analog sticks. You have two attacks: a melee slash and a projectile. Enemies vary with which weapon is more effective. Another button activates a spin that helps you dodge. There’s a lot of platforming in this game with pitfalls, but you respawn if you make a fatal fall. Jumping is conveniently automatic, so you don’t have to time jumps perfectly. You also won’t make any accidental jumps.

There are no random encounters, unless you get ambushed as part of the story. Most enemies don’t attack you until you attack them. As you level up, you can upgrade yourself by making additions to your “circuits” by spending CP. This raises your stats and enables you to learn new special attacks to dish out heavy damage. When you begin battles, your rank is at D and the more enemies you defeat, your rank goes up. When you reach rank S, the music changes and you get a disco lighting effect. The more you can defeat at higher levels, the more experience you gain and therefore the more quickly you level up.

I’m at the point now where I’ve learned fire attributes. This helps makes short work of the ice monsters in the mining cave dungeon.

Here’s the jibungous enemy robot in the ice mine. Look at the size of that thing!

Like I said, it takes a bit to get used to the controls. There is a lot of puzzle-solving that involves a lot of platforming. You’ll also have to align surfaces to bounce your projectile in a way so that it hits every surface in order to unlock a door or whatever.

So yeah, the sprites in this game are very cool. You’d think that they came from a Japanese game developer in the ’90s rather than a German indie company! But this is why I’ve come to really love Steam: companies like Konami may as well just not even exist anymore since they have completely abandoned their fans. The big name gaming companies have become pretty boring and I can’t expect Capcom to ever make another sprite-based game again. But these indie game developers are keeping the retrogaming spirit alive, and it’s why I like to talk about them on this stupid blog of mine that hardly anybody looks at.

I found these sprite animations by doing an image search. I assume that these are from the game, but if they are then I haven’t gotten to them yet. Anyhow, play this game or you suck. This game was made in HTML5, incredibly. So, it’s native in Linux, Win, and Mac. It runs fine on my laptop with its 16:9 display, but I have to use Glorious Eggroll to get it to display properly on my desktop’s 4:3 display monitor.

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Neon Inferno, a new retro-style game on Steam!

Holy crap, this game is beautiful. Featuring gorgeous pixel art with a configurable CRT shader, this game is a cross between Metal Slug and Wild Guns. This is a neo-retro game by Zenovia Interactive, who also made Steel Assault.

Here’s the title screen. So beautiful. The music at the title screen is very Vangelis’s Blade Runner-inspired synthesizer. FANTASTIC!

There are two characters, Angelo and Mariana. Mariana is so beautiful, so I always play as her. There doesn’t seem to be a difference in how these characters handle. The character animations are very well made. It took me a bit before I realized that busty Mariana’s boobs bounce as she runs. It’s very natural and pretty bouncing, and not over-the-top exaggerated as many games are like. Nowadays there are so many Japanese-made games with girls featuring what I call “moon boobs” because it looks like the are nearly weightless. It looks creepy and I can’t stand it. Here Mariana’s tits bounce like they have proper weight to them.

Character designs are by Tsukasa Jun of Psikyo fame, who did the designs for games like Gunbird and Sengoku Blade. Kickass.

The Blade Runner/cyberpunk scenery is wonderful, showing New York streets covered in snow. The lighting is gorgeous, and you will see light sourcing at work. The graphics make this game more reminiscent of 24-bit Neo Geo games rather than the 16-bit Super Famicom.

The left trigger button locks the direction of your shooting while the right trigger button has you stand in one place while you can aim around you. There is a dodge roll to duck bullets like in Wild Guns and you can parry bullets and knock the bullets back where they came from, or you can hold the button down to enter “bullet time” and you can change the direction of the bullets. The parry acts as a melee attack which does stronger damage than your gun, helping you make short work of stronger enemies at close range.

At times the enemies are in the background. Use the RB button to fire at them. Here you can take cover behind the police car. In the game, you fight against the enemy gang members as well as the corrupt NYPD apparently.

You steal a racing bike and action ensues on the road. You can shoot at the background or foreground as well as behind, front, and above you. The above screenshot was taken with the CRT filter disabled.

Here is your bounty: a yakuza guy.

You have to take out this mobile weapons truck’s cannons as well as shoot at your target bounty guy who is in the open doorway shooting at you.

Finally you fight him after the truck is destroyed. He will fly into the background as well as shoot at you from the foreground. You have to wear down his shield until he dies.

Here’s the game over screen. I could beat the game in Medium mode, but not in Arcade mode. It’s pretty tough in Arcade mode as there are no checkpoints.

This is just the free demo of the first level. I’m really looking forward to when this game gets released! What’s more, I did not have to specify any compatibility tool version to get this to work on my Linux desktop. The game just loads without having to do anything. Nice!

EDIT: I didn’t have the same luck running the game on my laptop. I had to enter this for the boot option to get it to work: PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%

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Monday morning Windows 10 blues

So coming into work Monday morning, I had to put up with this gay crap. The laptop had installed an update Friday evening when I left, then when I turned it on again it wasted more time. The computer couldn’t be used for nearly 20 minutes. Let me guess: Windows 11 is more of the same, right? Assuming this laptop can even be upgraded to Win11 by October, it’s just going to get even slower. With Linux, your computer is usable while updates are installed, without having to shut your computer down. It just updates in the background. You may need to restart your browser or sometimes logging out and logging back in is required, but there’s no thumb twiddling like there is with Windows. I hate Windows. This would would be a better place if businesses and institutions would just switch to Linux. I feel like the escaped slave from Plato’s Cave trying to convince his fellow cave dwellers of the existence of blue skies and green grass, but everyone would rather focus on the shadows on the wall of the cave. Windows sucks!

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Nostalgic screenshot of Fedora Linux circa 2006 I found, plus some Linux memes

While doing a Duck Duck Go image search, I found this image of a Fedora desktop, circa 2006. This looks exactly the way my old laptop did after my friend installed Fedora on it, breathing new life into it. This is just so nostalgic for me. That was my first real experience with Linux. I’ve updated the essay I wrote a few years ago in the Greg’s Life section with the above image.

Another friend shared this article with me. The journalist is rather excited about SteamOS putting a dent in Microsoft’s market share. But since SteamOS can’t just be downloaded for free and put on any random computer, I’m not sure how far it would go. Still, people are getting very sick of Windows. Windows is like Star Wars and Star Trek… it’s like an abusive, violent husband whose battered wife refuses to dump him. “BUT I NEED HIM AND HE LOVES ME!” No, you can do better. He needs you; you don’t need him. Leave him! The way people refuse to leave Windows is like battered wife syndrome.

Here are a few Linux memes I saw recently.

One interesting thing about Win10 was the return of the Blue Screen of Death. I hadn’t seen the BSD since my WinXP days. Good going, Microsoft. I have to admit though that my Mint computer can screw up at times, but usually it’s Steam playing a Windows-made game through the Proton or Glorious Eggroll compatibility tools.

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I got a new hand-me-down laptop! Linux Mint Macross desktop wallpaper

While staying at the in-laws’ place, I upgraded my mom-in-law’s Fujitsu laptop. I had set her up with Mint Cinnamon nearly 5 years ago and she needed a major update. Going from version 19 to 22, she remarked how nearly identical the versions are, unlike Microsoft where they reinvent the frickin’ wheel with every damned iteration of Windows and make it gayer with each release. “Hey, you got used to finding what you needed, huh? Well too bad! Now it’s all in different places. Go ahead and get tons of vaccines and eat bugs while you’re at it, too.” Go to hell, Microsoft!

I was hoping to find a used laptop on Yahoo Shopping or Rakuten or something, but the chances of getting some crappy refurbished laptop that will croak after the warranty expired is too high. Or having the keyboard not work properly, etc. The best scenario would be to obtain a laptop from someone who had taken good care of an old laptop, and that’s what happened! I’m glad I didn’t buy one because I got this for free. I had told myself that whenever I got a laptop that I’d install Zorin OS to try it out, but I ended up just going with Mint Mate, the same as my desktop computer. This laptop is about 12 years old. 750gb HD, 8gb RAM, and even a bluray drive. I can’t get it to play any bluray movies yet, but this is still good. It was designed for Win8, but Yukari had upgraded it to Win10. She said that it would take about 10 minutes just to boot up. Now that it’s running on Linux, it’s quicker, of course! Go to hell, Microsoft! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Just go straight to hell and don’t come back with your totalitarian bullcrap. Eat a bag, Bill Gates!

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Tron Lightcycles desktop wallpaper Linux Mint November 2024

I’ve been in a bit of a Tron mood lately, especially after I bought my Tron/Tron Legacy bluray pack. I made sure to buy it used so as not to give Disney anymore money. I updated my wallpaper to this image a few days ago. I’ve heard that there are plans to make a third Disney movie, but the company has really gone downhill since Tron Legacy was released in 2010. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 14 years already!

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New Nadia desktop wallpaper Linux Mint October 2024, plus Mint 22 install woes

Here is my newest desktop wallpaper, and it’s Nadia with a beautiful sunset. I was running Mint Mate 20 Ulyssa, and my 1TB SSD hard disk was maxing out. In august I bought a 2TB HD, and in September I installed Mint Mate 22 Wilma. It wasn’t a smooth experience like version 20 was. The first problem I had was when I plugged the old 1TB drive in and tried copying my files directly from there. Upon reboot, it wouldn’t even boot up and was scrolling text. I re-installed Wilma. Then updating the Nvidia driver caused the computer to freeze up. I had to get help on the Linux Mint Forums and learned how to modify the boot kernel. After that, it was fine. However what remains is apparently the USB device manager might not function properly.

I’ve done three fresh installs of Retropie on Linux Mint Mate 22 and each time the controller input is screwed up. I am using a Logitech F310 USB gamepad, which is pretty standard. Retropie on Mint 22 is flawed. Controller problems.

  1. When accessing the in-game menu by pressing the hot key (to take a screenshot, save state, etc), the joypad locks up. I have to press select for it to work again. When returning to the game, the joypad is again locked up and I cannot play the game. I must press select again to regain control.
  2. When accessing Retropie-Setup from within the RetroPie GUI, joypad input ceases to work. Not even the arrow keys can be used. The workaround for this is to run the setup.sh via terminal and the controller works. Just not when accessed through RetroPie itself.

For this third time, I did not copy over any config files and I did the controller setup for my joypad from scratch. I thought perhaps that there might have been a problem by just copying the entirety of the ./opt/retropie folder and all of its subfolders, but this is not the case. I did a full uninstall, then a reinstall. The problem remains.

I am wondering if it is a problem with Mint 22 itself. I had zero problems installing and using RetroPie on Mint 19 and 20. However, with Mint 22 I’ve noticed that at least with Space Invaders Extreme on Steam, the game does not recognize my controller at all, regardless of which version of the Linux Proton compatibility tool I am using.

I’ve been advocating people switching to Linux for years now, but this latest version is making me hesitant. My experiences with installing Mint 19 Tricia and Mint 20 Ulyssa were smooth, but Mint 22 Wilma has given me some headaches. Posting my problems online, I was told by others who are disappointed with 22 Wilma’s USB capabilities. One guy said he has some external hard drives that 22 won’t recognize. Another said that his Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse combo is wonky, and replacing this with a generic wireless set did not solve the problem. I do hope that these issues will be addressed soon. I would not have known what to do with my Nvidia driver without the help of the Mint forum. I was told that my GPU is old, but it’s from 2017 so it can’t be that old.

For now, Steam is fine, more or less. Retropie is fine until I have to bring up the menu. Having to press the select button though, it makes me hesitant to plug in my Saturn controllers, since they do not have a select button.

EDIT 10/27: I ran an update over the weekend and the first issue with RetroPie freezing after calling up the menu is now fixed.

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Nadia desktop wallpaper Linux Raspberry OS June 2024

Just in time for the summer, Nadia relaxing on a beach now replaces the USS Enterprise wallpaper I’d had on my Raspberry Pi for a while now. I had to sudo apt install Kazam because Raspberry OS does not come with a default screen grabber that simply uses the print screen button on the keyboard.