Inquisitive Raven

I don't think what I'm saying here can be conveyed through these photos, as they don't look the same way I saw these screens on the games (also some smoothing happening on the camera I don't know how to turn off), but man... After finding a good CRT overlay for this, I think I'm pretty much settled on playing as many games on this little thingie as I can

For example, Tokimeki Memorial 2 is an objective improvement over the first one in many aspects, but one I didn't felt as 100% improvement were the visuals. The pixel art in the original one looked looked really good no matter how I played, but then playing the sequel in an emulator on a modern screen made the the compression artifacts on the sprites and backgrounds really stick out and the low res text not look as crisp as the former pixel art one (though still easier to read)... fiddling with settings and filters helped making them look better but no miracles.

But here, even though the config is just stretch to 480p and add a simple CRT overlay, it looks pretty much look as HD as this game can get. the small screen does wonders into giving that impression here. I haven't played these games on a CRT (or any in years) at all, but I feel this might be closer to what they looked like in there, or maybe they looked even better? I don't know, it really makes me curious to try it out somewhere down the line.

At any rate, when buying this device (Anbernic RG35XX) I already expected for the experience emulating handhelds like GBA or NeoGeo Pocket to be better than playing on a big screen by the simple nature of being games designed for portable play, but I didn't expect that PSX games would also feel like this much of an improvement, I'm really surprised and excited to try out more games on this thingie!

Also I was worried that with my vision being not great it would make things difficult to read, but I'm glad it wasn't the case at all and I can continue to brush up my japanese playing these games.

i guess one of the takes floating around fgc discourse spaces was 'is $5 too much for a tournament entry fee', so that's another excuse to bump an essay from a few years ago.

i don't charge entry fees for my brackets because my primary motivation for running stuff is to hang out with cool people and encourage new folks to try out the games i like, and charging them $5 for the privilege of immediately losing just feels like a tax that weaker players pay to stronger players. it's harder to get new players to join if there's a cost involved, and i like it when stronger players pull up because they want to play the game, not collect tribute.

these days most NorCal brackets don't charge entry fees, just venue, and its led to some real good vibes that keep people coming back. i'm not tryna hang out with people who are hella $ driven anyway so it works out nicely. cash prizes are fun, just not ideal for every event. the decisions you make as a TO affect the experience pretty heavily, and i think a lot of people don't quite understand that when getting into events themselves or criticizing others' events.