Modder, programmer, and all around tinkerer. Yes, I’m that New Vegas and Deus Ex guy.
You can also find me over at lemmy.sdf.org under the same username.
Seriously. For the same price as McD’s I can go to In-n-Out. That’s just comparing fast food places. For the price they’re charging for a Quarter Pounder I may as well go to a sit-down restaurant.
If you compare that to the average cost of living in Japan it’s a bit closer to $300 in terms of spending power.
Either way it’s a lot cheaper than I’d expect to have to pay anyone for sex work, much less something that blatantly illegal.
Oh, as for the age of consent thing that change just made it a national crime. Every prefecture in Japan had already raised the age of consent to 16 (or higher) well before last year. The only places it didn’t apply were some remote military bases and IIRC the portion of Antarctica that Japan claims. Still a good move but it’s not like Japanese pedos were just having sex with 13-year-olds without consequence before then.
If you want to bypass grinding entirely then you’d need something like that, but it might trivialize certain parts of the game. Won’t trivialize all of it though since several of the key fights rely on strategy.
That was someone’s insane interpretation of the ending of the first Mother game (a.k.a. Earthbound Beginnings). It’s not as out there as the guy who filled the Silent Hill wiki with claims that it was all symbolism for circumcision trauma (yes, really), but it’s still kinda nutters.
Yeah, you do have to grind a bit. Nowhere near as much as some games (looking at you, basically every Final Fantasy game) but the leveling is designed around you doing some extra fights for XP. Every new area generally has a “grind spot” that is moderately to incredibly obvious, typically some grouping of enemies that are enough to fight but not enough to overwhelm you, placed within reasonable walking distance of a bed, hotel, or other way to refill your HP/MP for cheap/free.
For the first town, before you take on the punks roaming the streets you should get some levels fighting crows, dogs, and snakes up near your house. Once you can kill them in two turns or less head into town and try taking on a single punk. If you survive that fight without being nearly dead, keep fighting punks. If you almost die, go heal up and farm a little more. And if you DO die… well you only lose half the money you have on you, so as long as you keep most of it in the ATM you haven’t lost much of anything.
EarthBound was the first JRPG I ever completed and the first JRPG I ever enjoyed. Before it I’d never been able to get into JRPGs: there was just too much complexity while also having too little going on. Wandering an overworld only to be randomly pulled out of it for no apparent reason was maddening. As a kid, trying to piece together the backstory of some undefined thoroughly detailed fantasy world while also taking in the emerging plot in the opening sequence wasn’t anywhere near as appealing as firing up Mario or Mega Man and getting straight to the action.
EarthBound neatly sidestepped all of the things that had stopped me from liking JRPGs. The equipment system was simple without being braindead. The setting was a pastiche of suburban life that I could easily understand. The stakes were high but the tone was still whimsical and amusing. And above all I knew why I was suddenly getting dragged into battle with a snake or a crow or a dog instead of just being clotheslined by combat.
EarthBound still is my go-to recommendation in the (increasingly unlikely) event that someone says “I’ve always wanted to get into JRPGs, what should I start with?” It is the perfect “intro to JRPG” game without feeling trivial or like it cannot stand on its own. It singlehandedly made me love the JRPG genre, and I probably would not have played literally every other JRPG I’ve ever played if it wasn’t for EarthBound.
There? Really? There is where you draw the line? Killing a dog is fine, but lying about meeting a dictator is too far? Just trying to keep track here.
Try to see if there are any that do that little Javascript-evaluation-to-render-the-client-side-site thing, and if there are, have them mine cryptocurrency for you.
Using your evil powers for good I see.
Knowing him this is less of a matter of conscience and more a “fuck it I’mma burn this bitch to the ground on the way out”.
Also, don’t put all your eggs in one basket: diversify, diversify, diversify. Make a main account, but have more on at least one other instance. Instances go down for maintenance, software gets updated, owners change moderation policies, so on. If you can’t get to Lemmy through your main, use your secondary.
Personally I use lemmy.sdf.org as my secondary. It’s run by a bunch of retro-enthusiast Unix nerds who more care about the functionality of the tech than anything else. No blocked communities there, and AFAIK they haven’t defederated from any instance outside of ones that were hacked/compromised. That does not mean you can just go there and be a shitbird though, they do have standards.
Good as that is, I gotta endorse the Utah Philips version. It comes with context and a story, and also he’s hilarious.
Thanks, though I am honor-bound to point out that Sandbox6 has been maintaining YUP for the last several years now. Doing a great job, too.
AFAIK they’re not on Lemmy or I’d tell you to thank them more directly. Still!
I didn’t check literally every one, but I did a few spot checks and none of them had problems.
That’s me. Nevadan to the bone, even if it’s the opposite end of the state.
We’re not yet at the point where people are huffing drugs made from fermented cow poop, but I feel like that’s not as far away as polite society would like us to believe.
Sparks, Nevada. Reno’s parasitic conjoined twin.
Good point. For all I know I’ve got the last viewable copy of “Sodomy Cream Pies” in existence.
Child’s Play is my go-to. They provide video games and consoles to hospitalized and often terminally ill children who literally can’t go out and play. It was founded by the creators of Penny Arcade back in the early 2000s and so far to my knowledge hasn’t had a single controversy or hint of anything nefarious. It’s just nerds helping other, young, sick nerds/would-be-nerds get their nerd on.
I mean Doctors Without Borders definitely does more important work on the balance, but giving pediatric terminal cancer patients countless hours of joy isn’t a trivial thing either.
Which ones and why?
I sense a fun story and I’m here for it.