iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 11h

Of course, the silver lining is that this game was the best thing to come of the movie.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Live A Live is the singular instance where even I concede a game benefited from the HD-2D treatment. It really takes advantage of the dramatic camera angles and the zooms to better fulfill the original dynamic vision. The remake also just has more comprehensible balancing.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

That's all very fair! I didn't have issues with input lag either, and I agree the demo showed too little to actually judge (which is unfortunate, since that kind of defeats the purpose of a demo). I hope this game doesn't wreck Leon Belmont though.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I've been very curious to get your thoughts in general.😅But I did finally play the demo last night and decided to hold off for a sale. I had originally planned to buy it at launch just because it's Castlevania, but now I feel like I have much better games to play this month.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

They're way ahead of you. bsky.app/profile/fran...

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I love the cape on the third one.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Phantasy Star IV remains one of my favorite games ever, and the towns in Phantasy Star II remain my mental default when I imagine utopian futuristic city planning.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

May I ask how the MSL localization is going in general? I've been very excited about it ever since I first heard about it.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Every time Simon S. Andersen posts something, it looks like something the best Capcom pixel artists of the late '90s would have agonized over.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

That's the default Bluesky experience.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Wow, those graphics look pretty cool.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I'm a lousy artist of extremely limited ability, but for what it's worth, I know you said you were concerned about plateauing in your artistic abilities, but I don't think you should have that concern at all. Because before I knew you as an excellent pixel artist, but now I feel you can do anything!

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The IP has apparently generated billions of dollars, so it might be the most popular IP to never *really* penetrate the US?

Simon S. Andersen @snakepixel.art · 25/08/2026

Reposted by John Friscia

When I submitted the design for Cactus Man for MegaMan Dual Override, this is roughly what I had in mind. I've based the mockup on the player filling the arena with sand in this playthrough. #pixelart #ドット絵 #megaman

Megaman facing off against cactus man in a stone chamber. The room underneath their platform is filling with sand. Several robotic cacti are visible around the room

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Beautiful work as always! You're my absolute favorite pixel artist.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Mega Man X just looks like its hideous mobile port now in that trailer lol.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

The game I'm making draws some aesthetic and conceptual influence from MQ. It's a really underrated game all around.

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Reposted by John Friscia

Chris Kohler @kohler.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Pretty crazy stuff if you haven't seen it - a game store owner had a box of Super Mario/Duck Hunt carts that turned out to be - brand new - manufactured in 1993 (!) - an extremely late variant unknown to collectors nintendowire.com/news/2026/07...

nintendowire.com

We discovered a new variant of Super Mario Bros.

Inside, were 97 individually wrapped, brand-new copies of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Each game was wrapped in the same baggie that would have come in an

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

And none of them are as handsome as the real deal!

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Everything you make is so gorgeous.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

The prospect of you painting Berserk is very exciting!

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

At this point, the big news would be if *anybody* is working on it.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Are all these wrestling games retroactively titled WWE in your archive when they were all named WWF? Surely that isn't a change the game publishers could have made?

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

There was a pretty unusual Reddit story recently about Sega (or somebody else) potentially having plans for this. www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeak...

reddit.com

From the GamingLeaksAndRumours community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the GamingLeaksAndRumours community

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

You're saving money by not buying them for twice the price on eBay years from now! 👉🧠

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

I just know this is going to be awesome.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Masters of the Universe getting the Darren seal of approval is the most exciting film development I've encountered all year!

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Roughly five-ish new game announcements in 70 minutes is not a sign of a healthy AAA scene.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

This is great! I just wanted to point out a tiny mistake on the Atari page. It lists the publisher as "Digital Eclipsea," meaning if somebody clicks it, they just get redirected to a "Digital Eclipsea" page instead of the Digital Eclipse offerings. atari.com/products/toy...

atari.com

Toy Story: Retro Roundup! + Toy Story 3 Complete Edition Double Pack

Discover classic consoles and cartridges, modern titles and never-before-seen art and collectibles from Atari.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Not only are you an incredible artist in general, but I really just think you're the all-around best active pixel artist we have. You could have been dropped into the team making the PS1 Breath of Fire games without missing a beat.

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The game has some lofty themes whose execution just never connected with me, and I thought the writing was much better in the intimate, skippable camp scenes than it was during the important narrative moments. It feels like the whole game exists *just* above a state of pretentiousness.

I would say the ending is actually one of the things the game does very well. But for me personally, the explanation for the game world ended up being a bit trite, and I thought the game foreshadowed some of its biggest twists so heavily that I was like "yeah, of course" when they finally hit.

But if you're enjoying the story, then you're already liking it more than I did. I thought all the characters were fine and likeable enough, but the story never captivated me at any point from start to finish. I know I'm in the minority there though.

John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

I spent so much time complaining about this game as I played it lol, even though in the end I scored it (in my head, not professionally) an 8.5/10. I would say Act 2 is the best section of the game by far, as far as pacing, and you will eventually get an explanation for why the world's so weird.

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I really think Bluesky has the same proportion of lunatics that Twitter has, except Bluesky's lunatics are self-righteous about their lunacy. It's pretty frustrating when you all want to do is have a pleasant conversation.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Wow. I somehow completely missed that Wish Upon a Star ever got an official NA release.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

I actually tend to be this way as well. I usually already know if I want a game or not.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

I actually don't think most people observe reviews as "objective" because there is already so much distrust of them. If anything, it's simpletons using numbers attached to reviews they didn't read to try to support an arbitrary agenda, which is its own problem of a media-illiterate era.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

I don't think so. Even in the early magazine days, there were earnest reviews alongside the sensationalized & truncated reviews. When I was an editor, I made sure reviews articulated issues clearly and got rid of any language that suggested snarkiness. The aim of a review is to educate an audience.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

I was speaking generally for several people I know. I am aware that other opinions might exist in the vastness of the cosmos.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Meanwhile, the Star Fox freaks are not, in fact, happy.

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John Friscia @johnfriscia.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

I hope I've turned a few people on to Shadows of Adam over the years, between my written review and just recommending it to randos. I myself am looking to tap into a little bit of that Mystic Quest flavor with my game.