Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Project Octopath Traveler Developer Update

Project Octopath Traveler is a upcoming Switch game that looks to bring back some of the best parts of classic JRPG's from the 16bit era to modern gaming with a 3D flavor. The demo launched on the Switch last year and it showed a ton of promise but many people had issues with some of it. Looks like the developers of the game have addressed many of these concerns and talk about how they've updated the game in the developer update video above. Specifically they improved movement in terms of speeding up the character and allowing them to run much faster than before. They bumped up the encounter rate when running at full speed but that seems a fine trade off to get around... Read All

John Riggs Reviews The Retro-bit Super Retro Trio+

John Riggs reviews the new Retro-Bit Super Retro Trio+ that melds the Nintendo, Super Nintendo and Genesis together in an interesting way. Not only can you play nearly all of the game karts of those systems with it but it allows you to switch between the different regions as well as provides composite video/audio out as well as HDMI at 720p. Like all X in one systems it supports the controller ports from all the systems so all your controllers work as well as provides a fair NES & SNES Controller out of the box. I have the Hyperkin RetreoN 3 which works really well for composite video/audio but I am looking at picking something up that will do HDMI out and this... Read All

Awesome Games Done Quick Roundup 2: Mega Man Race & More!

Continuing the Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 wrap up series with another set of amazing speedruns starting with the Mega Man 1, 2 & 3 relay race with Team Auto, Team Beat, Team Roll and Team Rush in 1:26:59. 4 teams all racing through the three Mega Man games in under an hour and thirty. If you are interested in getting some tips on running these games, this is the run to watch.

Hyper Light Drifter by simplyfir in 31:16 - Hyper Light Drifter is a new Indie game that melds the classic Zelda formula with the soothing music of Disasterpiece. It's an expert run by simplyfir and if you want to soak in this game it's a quick way to do it.

... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Games Club: Excitebike

Cheerful Ghost Games Club is back with Excitebike!

You may remember this semi-regular CG event where we pick a game and invite everyone to come play it with us and discuss what we think. This time, we're changing things up a bit. We will do one game a month (or maybe more!) and tying the events into a Cheerful Ghost Radio series about classic games.

We'll review the games in an episode following the event, and include opinions and commentary from people who joined and chatted with us about it.

This month's game is Excitebike! Excitebike is an NES racing game that has been a fan favorite since its launch with the NES. In addition to the main tracks, Excitebike lets you... Read All

My Pickups From The 4th Annual PRGE/NWCGE Swap Meet

The local retro game collector community is pretty strong and as such we have a lot of local events strung through the year that are well worth attending even if you are lightly into the retro scene. In October Cheerful Ghost runs a booth at Portland Retro Game Expo and in January some of the same folks host the PRGE/NWCGE Swap Meet. It's hosted at the Portland Double Tree and it's much smaller and more focused on buying, selling and trading retro games. Will and I hit it up this year and were some of the first people in line to peruse the crazy amount of amazing retro games and collectables. One of my yearly goals is to limit myself to only buying 5 games this year... Read All The local retro game collector community is pretty strong and as such we have a lot of local events strung through the year that are well worth attending even if you are lightly into the retro scene. In October Cheerful Ghost runs a booth at Portland Retro Game Expo and in January some of the same folks host the PRGE/NWCGE Swap Meet. It's hosted at the Portland Double Tree and it's much smaller and more focused on buying, selling and trading retro games. Will and I hit it up this year and were some of the first people in line to peruse the crazy amount of amazing retro games and collectables. One of my yearly goals is to limit myself to only buying 5 games this year and that makes going to a retro game expo tough but I had a game in mind I've wanted to get for a long time. One of my favorite games on the Super Nintendo is King Arthur's World and it's one of the more obscure games on the platform. I never thought the game got the recognition it deserved as a kind of Lemmings inspired knights and wizards RTS. Since the game doesn't have a huge following it doesn't sell for a lot so I picked it up for a good price.

As Will and I were rounding the show floor I overheard a vendor saying they wanted to move their issues of Nintendo Power and were selling them for a dollar. They were bagged and boarded and in great condition so I immediately was interested. The guy that the vendor told that to directly nabbed each issue he could find but missed a box so after he left I swooped in and walked away with 18 issues. I'm thinking about slowly working to owning a nearly complete collection and this is a really great first step. The issues I bought were Top Secret Passwords, Super Mario Bros. Inside Out Part 1 & 2, Issue Number 9, 23, 24, 26, 28, 37, 45, 48, 55, 63, 68, 70, 71, 74 & 107. I'm thinking a complete collection up to about issue 70 or so sounds good so i'm fairly well on my way to that.

I also picked up a couple versions of Star Wars on VHS I didn't own yet in The Empire Strikes back 1992 release along with The Making of Star Wars VHS released in 1995. I've nearly completed my Star Wars on VHS collection and all I need to button it up is Empire and Jedi on the original CBS/FOX VHS run and Revenge of the Sith. I'm still not sure if I plan on collection all the versions of Star Wars on Laserdisc or if i'll just go for one version of the trilogy on Laserdisc. It's a really obscure format and like Betamax i'm interested in how hard it might be to find locally.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/26/2018 at 05:07pm

3D graphics and Dolby Surround Sound! I really don't remember this game at all. Hopefully I can see it sometime soon!

And that's rad about the Nintendo Powers. I remember having so many as a kid, but I don't remember what happened to them. I probably didn't take care of them, and they got recycled after falling apart lol

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 01/26/2018 at 05:34pm

It was funny, we found King Arthur at the last booth we visited. It was meant to be.

I picked up for the NES: Goonies 2, Fester's Quest and Batman and for the Genesis: Aladdin and Golden Axe.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/26/2018 at 06:06pm

Nice finds Will! Aladdin was great back in the day (I had it on the SNES), and I remember Fester's Quest and Batman from many weekend rentals :)

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 01/26/2018 at 06:32pm

Thanks! I had both Fester's Quest and Batman back when I originally had a NES, so I had to pick those up. I played Goonies 2 a lot at my friend's house back in the day and remember good things about it. I always wanted Aladdin for the Genesis, but never picked it up. As far as Golden Axe goes, it is just a fun game.

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Get The Amnesia Collection Free On Humble For The Next 24 Hours!

The Humble Store is giving away Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs as a collection right now for the next 24 hours. If you are interested in some of the more well reviewed indie horror games and don't want to spend any money, head over to Humble and grab a free Steam key.

A little taste of what's in store for you in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs...

"The year is 1899

Wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus awakes in his bed, wracked with fever and haunted by dreams of a dark and hellish engine. Tortured by visions of a disastrous expedition to Mexico, broken on the failing dreams of an industrial utopia, wracked with guilt and tropical disease, he wakes... Read All

Nintendo Is Shutting Down Miitomo May 9th!

It's a sad thing to hear that Nintendo is shutting down Miitomo only two years after it's initial launch in 2016. After it hit the scene Miitomo was pretty huge and most people on Cheerful Ghost and the local PDX indie game scene were playing it. That said, after a couple months, my usage of it faded entirely and it seems that was the same for most people as Nintendo is now shutting it down. It's a pretty epic rise and fall and shows the fragility of some online communities you can spend real money with to buy in game or app items. What happens to all your digital stuff you've payed for when the services goes away? In the case of Miitomo, almost everything is lost... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 01/25/2018 at 08:14pm

DLC is different from microtransactions in a server based game, but there’s definitely the possibility that you won’t be able to get it when Sony/MS decides not to let you download it again.

But for steam, GoG, and other PC platforms, the DLC and the game are basically in the same boat.

I can’t say I’m surprised Miitomo is leaving us. It was fun but not really sustainable.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/26/2018 at 03:47am

> DLC is different from microtransactions in a server based game, but there’s definitely the possibility that you won’t be able to get it when Sony/MS decides not to let you download it again.

Yeah that's true but it's the same problem if the server that hosts the games goes away. Like the original Wii store and all the games you bought and if you replaced or had to wipe your Wii.

Travis Admin wrote on 01/26/2018 at 03:49am

Yeah, Nintendo took a while to get their online distribution right. Still not sure they're there.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/26/2018 at 04:21am

At least they still sell game carts. That's the only way I know to keep Nintendo games long term. Some download games on the Wii never got a physical release, like Dr Mario, which I thought was sad as that's a great series and I wanted to play it but knew that buying it digitally meant it would go away some day and it totally is. I picked up Tetris Party Deluxe on disc which DID get a physical release after it's first download release.

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Minecraft Pro Tip (Getting Mending)

Quick overview on how to easily get Mending in Minecraft 1.14

Mending uses the EXP you gain to repair your gear

Simple method: Put a lectern next to an "unemployed" villager (see videos)

Longer method: Find a good seed with a village near spawn, recreate world until you get a librarian

Quick explanation with video: Sl1pg8r recently created an elaborate way of transporting Villlagers and changing their professions. However if you watch this video (starting at 4:09), you’ll get an extremely quick look at how to get what you want: https://youtu.be/XJrBuKckez0?t=249 For a more detailed explanation, watch the video I’ve embedded in this post. Although xisumavoid shows you... Read All Quick overview on how to easily get Mending in Minecraft 1.14

Mending uses the EXP you gain to repair your gear

Simple method: Put a lectern next to an "unemployed" villager (see videos)

Longer method: Find a good seed with a village near spawn, recreate world until you get a librarian

Quick explanation with video: Sl1pg8r recently created an elaborate way of transporting Villlagers and changing their professions. However if you watch this video (starting at 4:09), you’ll get an extremely quick look at how to get what you want: https://youtu.be/XJrBuKckez0?t=249 For a more detailed explanation, watch the video I’ve embedded in this post. Although xisumavoid shows you how to do this, I think his method is a bit more complicated than the very quick bit of video you should watch of Sl1pg8r changing a Villager’s profession to get the Librarian trade(s) he’s looking for.

Method details: Mending is perhaps one of, if not the, most valuable enchantments in the game. It’s now much easier to get! This is because version 1.14 has made it so that Villagers can now change professions and you can get them to do this easily. A lectern (https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Lectern) is a new block that will turn a Villager into a Librarian. Basically, you just need to place one next to an “unemployed” Villager. If they already have a profession, you may want to trap them and remove any Work Tables. For a full list of these visit https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Villager#Professions. When they become “unemployed,” you can then put a lectern next to them to turn them into a Librarian. Then, look at their trades and see if they’re offering what you want (like Mending). If not, pick the lectern back up and they’ll turn back into “unemployed” and put it back down. Repeat this until you get the trade you’re looking for. And that’s it! It’s incredibly simple to do now.

What is Mending? One of the enchantments recently added is called Mending, which is definitely a game changer. It uses experience gathered and repairs an item with the enchantment. From the wiki, “when an item with the enchantment is held (main hand, offhand, or armor slots), XP orbs collected will repair the item at a rate of 2 durability per XP instead of adding the XP to the player's total. If multiple items have the enchantment, one will be chosen at random for each XP orb collected, and if the chosen item does not need repair, the XP will be added to the player's total as normal, rather than choosing another item to repair.” For more details check the wiki: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Mending

Find a good seed: One way to get Mending is to find a village that has a Librarian. This could take you forever on a normal world with the Java version. You could just create some worlds until you get a village near spawn, but there are some good seeds out there already. Luckily, I found one that contains a village near a ravine. There is also an abandoned mine shaft under the village well (seed# 105899026). For more details check the link: https://minecraftseedhq.com/ravine-village-mineshaft-seed/ *Note* Since seeds can differ between versions, you may want to look online for a seed that contains a village near spawn for the version of the game you’re running.

With a good seed: The trick is to create your new world, go to the Librarian in the village, and see what you can trade. Librarians start off offering a random enchanted book for some emeralds and a book. If the Librarian isn’t offering Mending, recreate that world until Mending is the enchanted book being offered.

Legend of Zelda Ancient Stone Tablets is The Lost Link To the Past Sequel

Nintendo released a Japanese exclusive follow up to The Legend of Zelda a Link To The Past on the Satellaview. The Satellaview game broadcast went to subscribers over Satellite and Link to the Past Ancient Stone Tablets was one such game that went out to players in 1997. Youtuber AwesomeFaceProd created a really great historical breakdown of the game, the Satellaview and it's history as well as the team of people that brought this rare game to a playable ROM form and translated it. It's nice this game wasn't entirely lost to history and can be enjoyed by players today. I've seen this game pressed on recreation SNES carts and i'm thinking this might be a fun oddity to... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 13: The Future of Star Wars

Where is the future of Star Wars going and what do we want to see from it? We talk about everything from the upcoming Han Solo film to the rumored Obi Wan movie. If after our last two hour The Last Jedi special you wanted even more discussion here it is!

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 01/23/2018 at 07:41pm

I would like to see a big tent pole Star Wars movie every few years followed by smaller movies in between.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/23/2018 at 07:56pm

Really great episode! It was a lot of fun to listen to.

I had some random thoughts as I was listening, and I wish I wrote them down as I thought of them, but here are some random thoughts from the episode.

I agree that Han Solo, is the first movie I didn't want. I really enjoy going and seeing Star Wars movies on opening night with friends, but I kind of want to send a message to the studio that this is not what I want, so I'm thinking about not spending my money on it in the theater. It will be hard to wait for it to be available On Demand somewhere (HBO or Netflix, or maybe Disney's streaming service)... so maybe I'll just see it in a second run theater lol. I will wait and see reviews/spoilers/etc before going and seeing this one. But I'm torn because Opening Night has been a fun tradition... so we'll see how resolute I am when it comes time to buy tickets lol.

I'd love to see some sort of Goonies/Stranger Things/Chronicle type story about kids realizing Force powers and not knowing what to do with them. Or finding some ancient Jedi temple. Or something along those lines.

Similarly, to somewhat combine the first 2 points, I'm not interested in back stories of characters or events. I want the universe to expand and continue forward.

(My comment was too long, so it continues in the next comment lol)

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/23/2018 at 07:56pm

I am interested in a 3-movie story that Rian Johnson could tell. The more I think back upon The Last Jedi, the more I appreciate it. I hope he would take it in a new direction.

Oh, it was mentioned that it would be cool to see more populated areas in Star Wars movies. I think since the main story lines are focused on The Empire and The Rebels, it's natural to mostly see military bases and rebal hideouts. Neither which would have a huge population. But hopefully that changes. I do love Star Wars, and the rebels vs the Empire has been great for the story, but it really can't be used again. So, as other people are focused on, probably with Force powers, they could live anywhere, and I think likely would be in metropolitan areas.

Regarding multiple Star Wars movies per year, I think that's too much personally. I don't think Star Wars needs to try to replicate Marvel. But if Star Wars did something like this, I wonder if they'd have to drop "Star Wars" from the name. Imagine how wordy Marvel movies would get if they had to use Marvel in the title. "Thor Ragnarok: A Marvel Story" would be a terrible name. Sure, Marvel has the benefit of people already associated the characters with Marvel, since they're all based on the comic books, but still, Star Wars needs to make good movies, and not rely on just slapping it's name on something. I think they could actually expand their audience if they didn't super promote Star Wars, as every Star Wars fan is going to know a Star Wars movie when it comes out, but perhaps there are some people who aren't into Star Wars, but would be interested in a creepy monster thriller that I could tell someone "sure, it's set in the Star Wars universe, but it's it's own thing."

I feel like I'm rambling on now, so I'll stop, but more thoughts might come to me later lol

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 01/23/2018 at 10:51pm

Yeah, I don't want to see multiple Star Wars movies a year. I think the break in between all the movies has kept people hungry for more. I feel each year might be too much.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 01/23/2018 at 10:51pm

If Solo sticks to its May 2018 date, we will have more than a year between it and Episode 9, which will be nice.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/24/2018 at 04:17am

> I agree that Han Solo, is the first movie I didn't want. I really enjoy going and seeing Star Wars movies on opening night with friends, but I kind of want to send a message to the studio that this is not what I want, so I'm thinking about not spending my money on it in the theater.

We recorded this episode back in December and my attitudes have shifted somewhat as i've heard more rumors about how difficult Solo has been to make. Is it gonna be good? I don't know but i'm not expecting it to be BUT I want to see it now more than ever simply because i'm curious how it's gonna turn out. Even if Lucasfilm is making a movie I don't really want to see I'm interested in it now primarily to see how it turns out from Lucasfilm firing the original directors to Ron Howard taking over. I'm sort of interested in it now in terms of how well the Lucasfilm, Ron and the rest can work some force magic to make this a great movie. The had some reshoots on Rogue One and that turned out great so i'm hoping for something good here.

Also, like, you have to come see it with me. It's like tradition.

> Regarding multiple Star Wars movies per year, I think that's too much personally. I don't think Star Wars needs to try to replicate Marvel.

I agree and it's good to go some time between them to build the anticipation because from Rogue One to The Last Jedi that felt like the right amount of time and it payed off.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 01/24/2018 at 03:31pm

I had somehow forgotten a lot of the details around Solo, that Kasdan wrote it and that the reason Lucasfilm switched directors was because Kasdan felt that the original ones weren’t being true to the story.

So the struggle they went through makes me want to see it more because it shows Lucasfilm is dedicated to doing these things right.

Since they’ve targeted May for every release, but every one of those has slid to December except Solo, I kinda wish they’d just kept he December timeline for all of them. I like the Christmas break tradition and the time between TLJ and Solo seems way too short.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/02/2018 at 07:45pm

I just saw that in China, Disney is dropping "Star Wars" from the Solo movie because The Last Jedi did poorly there. I hope Disney does the same here for future Star Wars movies.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 02/03/2018 at 12:53am

It will now be called Solo: A Cup Story

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/03/2018 at 01:15am

Ha!

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/04/2018 at 07:54pm

Hahahaha. Aren’t they calling it Ranger Solo in China?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/05/2018 at 12:29am

Yeah lol

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