Only gaming I’ve done lately is beat the Elite 4 and Delta episode of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. Due to being underemployed and having other recent large expenses it will probably be a while before I pick up a Switch 2 or any other game, for that matter. I only got Pokemon and Kirby from a Christmas gift card. Time to go clear out the backlog.

(Finally) finished Fire Emblem Fates Conquest and started my run in Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. Got to the first gym slightly under-leveled, and the Nosepass almost swept me, but in the end I cheesed it by using Destiny Bond with my Ralts. I was hoping it and my Torchic would get some XP from the battle since they’re both going to be on my main team, but not losing to the first gym was more important, lol.

If I play anything on Switch it will probably be more Kirby’s Return to Dreamland. I’m on the ice world and it looks at first glance like this is a really short game, but I do know the plot twist so maybe there is a bunch more content coming. I’ll see.

The console looks like a nice upgrade and I’ll get one eventually, but with most games also releasing on Switch 1 at least for a while and not much announces for it that interests me right now, coupled with a personal financial situation that prevents me from comfortably affording a console regardless of its price, I can wait on it for now.

Ubuntu 8.10 in early 2009, after Windows Vista otherwise bricked my laptop. I’ve distro-hopped on a few occasions but most of my 16 years of Linux have been on Ubuntu. That said, I moved away from Ubuntu after a failed upgrade to 22.04 LTS, to OpenSUSE and then to KDE Neon, now I’m on Nobara and couldn’t be happier.

This looks like any Nintendo launch lineup I can remember: one “big” game they think will draw people in just for that (in this case Mario Kart) and not much aside from that. The fact we’re even getting more than one additional first party title is comparatively impressive, but overall Nintendo launch lineups are pretty much always sparse. I think you’re right and we’ll see the “real” launch window lineup around the holidays.

There’s a Monastery-like area in Engage called the Somniel. Unlike in 3 Houses, though, you don’t need to build a relationship with any characters to gain others - every unit and (base game) Emblem is automatically recruited in the main story. I recommend picking up both parts of the DLC, the stages to unlock the extra Emblems and the DLC side story, since some of the extra Emblems are fun to use (Tiki is straight up broken) and the DLC with the side story gives you more cool units and classes, though the side story is a fair bit more difficult than the main story.

Never had reason to check, is the Switch region-unlocked/region-free? That’s cool if true. But given that the DS was a pirate’s dream machine partially due to it being region-free I can see why Nintendo locked down the Wii/3DS/Wii U, annoying as it is.

I’m playing on an actual 3DS. Conquest is the last FE game I have yet to finish on it (I played Birthright before this). If I ever want to play Revelations I’d have to emulate or otherwise sail the high seas since the 3DS eShop is dead. My own 3DS is actually Japanese but I modded it to region unlock it.

I bought Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe a couple weeks ago and I’m a few stages in. Having a good time with it so far. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy a nice easy game to relax. I’m even enjoying the minigames in the Merry Magoland mode and getting all the masks (I will rarely use, lol).

I also bought Pokemon Alpha Sapphire because I’ve never finished a Hoenn region Pokémon game, but I haven’t started it yet because I’m still playing through Fire Emblem Fates Conquest. Like others I agree that Fates’ story, especially Conquest’s, is probably the worst I’ve played in the franchise (seriously, the game utterly fails to give Corrin any reason to choose Nohr when they make their “fateful” choice that’s supposed to be so difficult), but the gameplay is not bad. I would put it down for Pokemon but considering FE is my favorite franchise I feel a certain obligation to grit my teeth on the story and push through it to the finish.

Last weekend was the first time in 2 months that I actually played a game for more than just a quick test to see if graphics were working on my PC. Something in a game gave me an unexpected emotional response that didn’t feel right and caused me to just not play games for a while. I uninstalled thst game and stopped playing it. I’m feeling somewhat better now but the response was just a symptom of bigger issues I’m planning on getting help for.

As for what I did play last weekend, I did a bit of level/money grinding in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. It’s a big difficulty spike between Romaria and the pyramid and I got to the pyramid very under-leveled and underequipped. The grind is a slog though because monsters in the overworld don’t give out much XP. That said they do give decent money so maybe you’re supposed to rely more on items and equipment to get you through. Hopefully I don’t have to grind TOO much more to feel comfortable venturing back in farther than the first few rooms.

On the other hand, it’s not likely that it would have been difficult for Nintendo to get or extend the license to keep the game on the service if they wanted to. I figure that if they’re already discontinuing gold points, this is probably the first baby step towards winding down Switch Online on the original Switch in prep for the Switch 2. It would really help to have a launch date announced for the new console though.

Mull development has been abandoned. You might want to switch to IronFox, the community’s fork to continue its legacy.

The Gen 10 announcement could actually happen IMO. Gens tend to run on a 3-year life cycle now, gen 9 hit 2 years last fall. Announcement now for a fall release is about right. They’ll probably squeeze Z-A in there in the late spring/early summer to have SOME gen 9 game out other than only S/V. I would guess the original plan was to have Z-A out last year but maybe GF/TPC actually took fans’ response to the technical issues with S/V into consideration and delayed to this year to work on optimization for the Switch 1. That’s at least my optimistic take.

Only S/V battle I lost was the Eri boss battle in the fighting type Team Star base, which took several tries due to a similar assumption of level scaling. Didn’t lose a single battle in Sword/Shield or Legends Arceus. Hardest Switch game for me was BDSP, just from needing two tries at the Elite Four due to the difficulty spike, and I barely beat them on the second try.

Overall, in a general difficulty sense I think the most “challenging” core game I played was Ultra Sun. The totem pokemon provided a few surprises that made me have to resort to a few “plan B” options during battle, even if I didn’t lose to any of them, and trainers sometimes actually showed a modicum of intelligence. I was also at around opponent level or even underleveled throughout the game.

I used to walk to all sorts of places when I needed things, or even just for fun, while listening to music or podcasts, when my phone had a headphone jack. Now I never walk anywhere and just about never listen to music on my phone because I can’t keep the wireless earbuds connected to the phone or to each other and they’re always only at 50-60 percent charge if I’m lucky. Removing the headphone jack from my phone has literally made me less healthy. Thanks, Apple.

I personally vastly prefer mutable distros for my own system, but I understand the appeal for those who like them. As long as mutable distros remain an option I don’t mind immutable distros.

Mint or Pop_OS are likely the most widely recommended distros I know of for beginners. I haven’t tried either of them myself, but from what I hear about them I’m inclined to agree. Personally I would NOT recommend a rolling release distro to beginners. Too much potential to break things way too easily and way too often, which would likely require digging into the terminal to fix. Terminal-averse beginners wouldn’t be served well by that at all.

Even given that, I’d still think there would be an uptick in Linux market share, but only a small one. Certainly no “year of the Linux desktop” levels.

I definitely do the Firefox to LibreWolf (and also install Brave as a backup). I also replace the default video player with Haruna and VLC (but default to Haruna). I change music players all the time so I just replace the default with whatever I feel like using at the time. In the past I’ve replaced Thunderbird with KMail, but on my latest install I left Thunderbird alone since I like having available RAM.

I don’t remember if I went with the official or the pure KDE version. Either one should work. You can always try both out in a live USB before installing. The gaming focus refers to some modifications made to some drivers/software for the purpose of improving gaming performance. When you update your software you have to use Nobara’s update program in order to ensure that those mods are applied and preserved.