Hot takes

[Sfjeov]

Not really a hot take because retroarch menu is ugly. Also, I would rather spend time emulating the game that I want to play instead of spending hours having to fiddle every settings. However, I do like dosbox and amiga cores tho.

 

[DanCalibur]

I just can't accept an UI that convoluted this day and age when ZSNES showed how it's done more than twenty years ago

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I mostly use RetroArch on my vita because it supports RA and it's quicker than trying to find a bunch of stand alone emus for stuff I wanna play.

 

[Mopeybloke]

Bad opinions containment thread is a great idea.

 

[moonbits]

Mass Effect only got progressively worse with each sequel. Even though I like ME2 a lot it just took away a lot of the best things about original instead of improving them.

Yes, the elevators were quintessential kino experience

 

[Gabrinius]

I never got to make it work, using it is horribly complicated, so i simply gave up and back to using standalones... i don't know if your thread is a hot take or not, but i do know that retroarch is hot shit.

of those "multi-emulator" things, Ares is way easier to go, even bizhawk.

 

[Stookymalarkey]

Mass Effect only got progressively worse with each sequel. Even though I like ME2 a lot it just took away a lot of the best things about original instead of improving them.

Yes, the elevators were quintessential kino experience

Damn straight. Mako > Hammerhead any day of the week.

 

[TechBlisSTer]

I never got to make it work, using it is horribly complicated, so i simply gave up and back to using standalones... i don't know if your thread is a hot take or not, but i do know that retroarch is hot shit.

of those "multi-emulator" things, Ares is way easier to go, even bizhawk.

One thing you can do when Retroarch stops working is delete everything and start from scratch. It's because the desktop UI is such garbage you can accidently change settings with your mouse clicks that destroy your installation.
The UI is so bad that it's easy to make invisible selections with mouse clicks. So another tip would be to set it up with a controller even though you're on a desktop PC.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I like XMB but why is this a hassle to setup?

Post automatically merged: Nov 19, 2025

of those "multi-emulator" things, Ares is way easier to go, even bizhawk.

I need to try BizHawk someday.

Mesen 2.x is great too.

 

[GoodGods]

Since we're talking retroarch, i have to ask: how do I get pc-fx games to run on it? I put the BIOS in the system folder, but it just doesn't boot up any games, no matter what.

Edit: actually, nevermind, just figured it out. Turns out, on emudeck, just place the pc-fx BIOS in the BIOS folder (and not in the pc-fx folder contained within), as that's the path it looks for. (deck/emulation/bios)

 

[Honja.7z]

I think RetroArch has it's place and is very useful for just being the centre of your emulation, but I've always disliked how it's annoying it is to change settings per emulator, and I've always preferred using standalone emulators to be able to tweak everything to my liking. But that's just me, I wanna hear your opinions about how I'm wrong and stupid

I think almost everyone will agree with you. But some of the more hardcore guys and gals may prefer it as a one stop emulation source for low to mid level consoles.

Me personally I use it for NES all the way up to PS1. I use standalone software for psp, ps2, dreamcast, gamecube and wii/Wii u. They usually work better or have really nice easy to use frontends that make it a breeze.

You can usually get away with most universal settings for lower end console emulation. Ofcourse there’s shaders and textures but generally speaking those low end consoles dont need much to run great through retroarch.

 

[redux007]

Temporal association is a blinder marketers, reviewers, and even ordinary conversation enjoyers misplace for genuine quality standards slipping and customer satisfaction not being met. What sucked in the past, sucks now. As it is above, so it is below.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

crash 2 > crash 3

I dunno about some of that other shit but this be the truth.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I think the Yakuza franchise is kinda mid, they recycle alot of assets, town maps, mini games and sitting through some of the scrolling dialogue text is a real slog when not much of anything interesting is going on.

Modern God of War is awful, many slow moments, force walking & talking segments and unskippable scenes, put too much emotion & emphasis on father-son bonding, reuse of early bosses as filler later. Has Marvel humor. They used The Last of us & Joel/Ellie relationship as a light template and made that into the now new God Of War style.

IMO of course.

 

[moonbits]

Modern God of War is awful, many slow moments, force walking & talking segments and unskippable scenes, put too much emotion & emphasis on father-son bonding, reuse of early bosses as filler later. Has Marvel humor. They used The Last of us & Joel/Ellie relationship as a light template and made that into the now new God Of War style.

I was willing to move past all of that, give it a proper chance but the combat is just not good. The camera angle, the magnetism, the sponginess, the enemy variety, the combos. It just doesn't do anything right but it sums up to be a somewhat competent experience that is glorified beyond my understanding.

and lets not even talk about those mediocre shoehorned rpg mechanics and statistics.

 

[PhaseJump]

New God of War is more like a 3D Metroidvania followup to stuff like Batman Arkham Asylum.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I was willing to move past all of that, give it a proper chance but the combat is just not good. The camera angle, the magnetism, the sponginess, the enemy variety, the combos. It just doesn't do anything right but it sums up to be a somewhat competent experience that is glorified beyond my understanding.

and lets not even talk about those mediocre shoehorned rpg mechanics and statistics.

OMG you gave me a heart attack, i though i was gonna get slammed by you for a sec lol

In some ways i kindaaa respect it, you know there are cool cinematic moments but...eh call me an old fashioned horse, i just like the old style gameplay & scene to action loop.

 

[moonbits]

OMG you gave me a heart attack, i though i was gonna get slammed by you for a sec lol

In some ways i kindaaa respect it, you know there are cool cinematic moments but...eh call me an old fashioned horse, i just like the old style gameplay & scene to action loop.

I can't respect it The old games did cinematic action too and were competent action games with variety, weapons, enemies and puzzles.

But I won't hate it or the people who made it, they struggled to make a new IP for half a decade so Sony-chan forced them to go back to GoW.

 

[Beellucizarus]

I prefer the online phase of Phantasy Star to the classic phase.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I prefer the Online phase of Phantasy Star to the Classic phase.

Either way both are better than whatever New Genesis is trying to be.

 

[Beellucizarus]

Either way both are better than whatever New Genesis is trying to be.

Without a doubt

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Without a doubt

I can kinda understand people liking Online over the Classics.

As much as they got good stories they require a lot of energy and perseverance.

Phantasy Star I without a proper GameFaqs map (or drawing them yourself) is harder to do. The Sega Ages 2500 series version on the PS2 called Phantasy Star Generations was a pretty good remake mechanically but at the cost of having a "cheap" looking game with a 2D art style that doesn't have the charm of the original nor the quality of the Online nor Universe games it's harder to get into. The Switch version of the Sega Ages release added an automap (which fills as you advance) and an easier mode for people who don't want to grind but sadly it's digital only on the Switch.

At best you can try the SMS Power romhack that vastly improves the game while having a more faithful script but once again it doesn't have an automap. I'd love to see the best of both worlds.


As for Phantasy Star II the story is much better but alas, the dungeon and battles are a hassle to do because of the slowness of characters that aren't on the center of the screen (so this makes bad visibility) and the flashing that are an eyesore. The Genesis Mini II release apparently fixed many issues (as well as the Phantasy Star Collection version on the Saturn with fast running yet is only in Japanese).

Phantasy Star III is the black sheep for a good reason and we needed more save files for each generations to get to see each endings so you'd need savestates specifically for them.

Phantasy Star IV is on the other hand perfect (despite the grinding) but that's because it was the end of the series.

Online may have a clunky battle system (with combos to keep) and the lack of Photon Arts make it stiff yet I still prefer it over spamming PAs which is sadly what HL becomes in PSU and PSO2...

I still think that Portable 2 (Infinity) has made my opinion of Universe much better. PS Zero could've been a better PSO if the DS had a proper stick and had a ZL/ZR.

I need to get into PSO2's first trilogy of episodes which was a solid story before they changed director for Episode 4.

That franchise had a see-saw kind of release, both good (if not really good) and mediocre releases...

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

The NES Simpsons games arent that bad

 

[petran79]

it is the best solution currently if you are into shaders as the parameters and options are far ahead of any other emulator.

Also it is mandatory if you are using old crts or play in 240p monitors as other emulators have issues with the menus.

for the rest, standalone are better as retroarch cores lack the features of the original emulator

 

[Dyne]

The UI and settings were very difficult to navigate for a long time and it earned the reputation of not being user friendly.
To be fair, its gotten much better. Setting Core-specific Options is pretty straightforward nowadays. But its never going to be as simple as the more modern single-system QT emulators.

Personally I think Retroarch is great for GB/GBC/GBA and 8/16-bit emulation. Everything else has superior standalone emulators.