Rg350 Emulation Handheld Thoughts

taking a photo with my phone of me playing Final Fantasy V on RG350

Yesterday’s post spawned a whole slew of interesting comments. First off I don’t want it to ever sound like my view of grinding is the penultimate view and that everyone should adopt it. In fact I think Bhagpuss has it right, that when I am talking about grinding I am actually talking about playing while in a “flow state”. Folks enter this in so many different ways, but for me I find it deeply relaxing to just do mildly enjoyable repetitive tasks while watching the numbers go up. Proof in point, what did I do last night while laying in bed? Well I started a new game in Final Fantasy V on my rg350 handheld emulator console and ground my level to 13… with a party that is multi-classed with level 3 of two different jobs. In theory you should be around level 6 when you arrive at the Ship Graveyard… so I mostly just did a bunch of repetitive nonsense while listening to the evening news and the late night shows.

Some look to gaming for a sense of adventure and discovery, and I absolutely love that at times. However there are a lot of times when I am playing, especially with MMORPGs that I am playing for comfort. My life is often times a little crazy, especially on the work side and what I am needing is some control. Repetitive and predictable gaming helps me feel like I am taming that chaos and that sense of calm allows me to weather uncertain times in other aspects of my life. I find myself needing it more than usual because during the pandemic my home life seems to be in not so much a state of chaos but more a state of forced stasis. My work life however is absolute chaos as we are trying to adapt to doing everything remotely. So the reaction to the upset balance in both of those spheres has lead me to crave something like leveling all of the alts in World of Warcraft because it gives me a sense of calm that I can use to shield me against the things that are otherwise unbalanced in my life.

Retro Emulator Handhelds

Random sampling of Emulator Handhelds on AliExpress

Over the last several years there has been a constant flood of relatively well designed emulator handhelds coming out of China. In the past these were blatant knock offs attempting to look like other systems, but something changed. Instead what we are getting are attempts at unique gaming experiences of their own and with them some pretty interesting developments on the software front. For the most part all of these handhelds run on a Linux Distribution called OpenDingux. This got its start as being a Linux operating system designed to extend the functionality of the Dingoo series of handhelds, which were for years effectively the best possible handhelds you could get out of China for emulation purposes.

What OpenDingux buys this current generation of hardware are some much needed standards and with that a certain measure of community and mod support. The handhelds function in a similar manner and because of that it makes them fairly easy to contrast and compare. While the emulator is generally the same regardless of the handheld, the hardware ultimately dictates how well the various games run on it. If for example you only care about Game Boy Advance games, then you have a wide variety of options and price points that will support those titles. If you want to start dipping into newer Arcade emulation or the Sony PlayStation, then you are going to need a bit more horsepower to back that demand up. I embedded the above video by YouTuber Taki Udon which gives a pretty solid rundown of the various options. His channel has been useful because he seems to review every one of these new handhelds as they release, however if you prefer the printed word here is a decent rundown by Retro Dodo of 16 handhelds.

The Original Pocket Go Release

I started down this rabbit hole originally because of the above unit. I’ve wanted something to play Gameboy Advance games on for awhile other than my Sony PSP, because for the life of me I never can seem to keep track of that console and or keep it charged. I wanted something that had good battery life and that I could more or less just chuck in my pocket for gaming on the go in those various moments where I am stuck waiting around. This is a fantasy I often have but never seem to actually make good on since when I am idle I tend to just keep scrolling twitter. The Pocket Go effectively was a handheld that was good at 8 bit and 16 bit era consoles as well as the Gameboy series of handhelds. The price however was ultimately what attracted me because you can pick one of these up for in the neighborhood of $30. So on a whim I decided to order one.

The RG350

Shortly after placing my order I was informed by the company selling it out of China, that they were currently out of stock of the Pocket Go, but for $5 more I could upgrade to the RG350, which admittedly was another option I had been looking for. I however largely ignored it because traditionally these are more in the range of $80-$100 which is out of the range of my normal “whim” purchases. Effectively I think in order to close out the books they were willing to sell me one at closer to their unit cost, which is entirely fine by me. I accepted and opted for the above color scheme… which in person looks more Gameboy as those buttons are actually maroon rather than fuchsia. The RG350 has considerably better hardware and with it comes two analog thumbsticks which in theory extended the sorts of games I could play on it.

I had not really talked much about this handheld up until this point other than randomly mentioning it one morning, because I wanted to spend some time with it before I ultimately decided if it was a good thing or not. At this point I have tested out all of the emulators that were installed on it and have some opinions of the handheld in general. First off lets start with a list of the platforms that are supported.

  • Nintendo
  • Super Nintendo
  • Genesis
  • Sega Master System
  • Sega Gamegear
  • Gameboy
  • Gameboy Color
  • Gameboy Advance
  • TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine
  • Wonder Swan
  • Neo Geo Pocket / Color
  • Sony Playstation
  • Mame
  • Final Burn Alpha
  • DosBox
  • Various Open Source game ports like FreeDoom

Of these I have played with everything but DosBox, only because I just never got around to it. The systems that I have spent the most time playing are Sony PlayStation, Super Nintendo and Gameboy Advance. I have to say while PlayStation games look pretty dated on a big screen, it feels amazing to play Legend of Dragoon on a handheld while laying in bed. The unit ships with 8 gb of onboard storage and the package I ended up getting shipped with a no name aftermarket 32 gb SD Card. When it comes to throwing multi-disc ISOs for the Sony PlayStation on a SD Card, you can eat up 32 gb really fast.

I opted to upgrade rapidly to a 256 gb card but ran into some initial problems. Firstly the unit comes with zero documentation, but thankfully the RG350 is fairly ubiquitous in emulation circles and there is even a Reddit devoted to the device. After some googling I figured out what the issue was. First off the card has to be formatted in FAT32… which in theory it already was but I wanted to reformat just to make sure. This lead me to have to find a third party formatter since Windows will not format a 256 gb drive in FAT32 by default. After doing this it still didn’t work, which lead to more research and finding out that the volume label for the drive must be “SDCARD” otherwise the Open Dingux installation will not mount the device. I share this anecdote not because it was difficult, but because you have to be willing to dig when you encounter friction when using a largely unsupported device like this.

After market thumbstick replacements for the RG350

As far as the games and gameplay goes, I am exceptionally happy with the handheld. I’ve heard tale that there are a few late release PS1 games that have slowdown problems like Bloody Roar 2, but these are the same games that generally have trouble in desktop emulators as well. The build quality of the unit feels solid and it has some heft to it, weighing about the same as a standard mobile phone. The only real complaint I have with it is the thumb sticks, which are unfortunately the dual analog sticks were one of the initial selling features. The sticks do not feel comfortable and there is something about the left stick that causes it to occasionally stick. The other issue is the fact that they stick up as far as the unit greatly hurts the whole “shove it in your pocket” aspect because they tend to hang on the fabric or pull random other things out of your pockets along with them.

There are a number of aftermarket mods available like these thumbsticks that I am showing you from Etsy. They are of course 3D Printed, but without a 3D printer or access to someone who has one I would have to ultimately order them online. I like the concept of having them sit flush with the device, so at some point I am probably going to order a set or try and find someone local to print them for me. I think I would also like to get a set of the Super Famicom colored buttons and maybe swap those out as well. However none of these complaints are really enough to detract from the function of the device. Since I am mostly playing JRPGs with the Sony PlayStation Emulator, it isn’t like I actually need the thumb sticks and have found it way more comfortable to just control everything with the dpad.

Would I recommend the RG350?

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to this question of whether or not I would recommend this device. If you only care about playing 8 bit, 16 bit and Gameboy era games, then I would probably go with something like what I was originally seeking out… the Pocket Go because it has an attractive price point at $30. Also the lack of the sticks makes the entire package more sleek and easy to toss around. For the price I got my RG350, which was ultimately around $40 I would absolutely recommend it. I am finding it way more enjoyable to play Sony PlayStation era titles on the device than I thought it would be. If you can find it for around $60-70 then I still think it is well worth the price to add better game support. However for the original release price of $100 I think I would probably pass and wait for newer devices to end up coming onto the market.

Regularly Playing: September 2019 Edition

For those who are new to this blog, I run a semi-monthly column of sorts where I track what I have been playing over the previous month. This does a few things but largely it allows me to track over the course of the years what I have been into at a given time. My blog serves as a bit of a record to jog my memory and help me firmly plant when certain events are happening. Also it allows my readers a window into what I am up to and what my thoughts are about a thing in short form. I also generally try and use this moment in time as a point to “true up” my sidebar widget.

To Those Remaining

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – PC / Switch

This one is sorta hanging on by a thread at this point, not for want of desire but more for lack of time. I have however booted it up and made a bit more progress over the past month as well as starting the Switch version. Word of warning, I would say if you are ONLY going to buy a single version of this game, maybe don’t buy the Switch version. It has some slowdown issues and the graphical fidelity are not up to snuff from what I have been used to with the PC version. As it stands I own copies of this I believe for every platform… largely because I want to support the hell out of this title and see more games in this series released.

Destiny 2 – PC / Xbox One / PS4

I have been playing considerably more of Destiny 2 than I had in the months leading up to now. There is a bunch of exciting stuff happening not the least of which is the enabling of Cross Save. I can now play my guardian on every single console platform in addition to the PC and have gone through the process of moving my character from Battle.net to Steam. I am super pumped about the launch of Shadowkeep coming up in October. Of note if you have ever played the PC version then it would behoove you to go through the process of moving your character from BNet to Steam because after October 1st it will not longer be accessible through the BNet client.

Diablo 3 – PC

I legitimately thought this one would be leaving my list this month. A new season started at the tail end of August and with the impending launch of World of Warcraft Classic a few days later, I fully expected to just skip out on this season. However I found myself once again logging in on a Friday night for the ritual Grace and I have maintained for the last several seasons. It is enough of a thing that it felt weird NOT to be playing Diablo 3 on an opening night. I had a lot of fun and we ran Demon Hunters just to make the season a little easier to complete. I’ve made it as far as unlocking the seasonal rewards and I am not sure if I will push any further.

Dragalia Lost – Android

This one is going to likely maintain a permanent slot on my list. Unfortunately I don’t really have any new screenshots because I no longer play on my phone where it is super easy to take screenshots. On my Galaxy Tab S4 I have to do a complicated volume down and power button to take a shot so I never do it. On my ZTE Axon 7 phone it is a 3 finger gesture to take a shot, and I am wondering if there is a way to restore that functionality to the tablet with an application or something. This game keeps my attention because they keep rolling out new events, with either brand new or revisiting boss encounters for me to play with. I pretty much play enough each night to complete the daily objectives and then head to sleep.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers – PC

I went from hot and heavy to barely at all on this one. I got in, completed the Shadowbringers story and leveled the Warrior to 80 and my Samurai to 80 as well. Then I disappeared once again because other things released that pulled away my attention. I will continue to play this it fits and spurts for the remainder of this month I am certain, because my attention is being funneled super hard away from almost everything else that I have on my plate. I would really like to level a Magic DPS and a Healer so that I can see all of the Shadowbringers role quests. Still a great game I just am waiting on more story content to drag me back into it.

Magic the Gathering Arena – PC

My attention span for this game has been limited this month, but with the upcoming release content for Throne of Eldraine and the Brawl event happening right now I want to poke my head back in. I have to say though I would play this WAY more if I could play it from my Tablet. My winding down and bed routine would probably include a quick rush through Dragalia dailies and then a few matches of MTGA. I feel like they are missing out on a lot by not having a tablet client, though I guess in theory I could stream this from bed with Parsec. I should investigate how feasible that really is. I sorta wish that I could configure Parsec to work in a sort of console friendly mode where instead of my desktop I am presented with a board of icons of applications to launch.

To The New and Returning

Monster Hunter World Iceborne – PS4

I am a sucker. I did in fact buy this on the PS4 to be able to play it now… when I would way rather have just waited to play it on the PC. The PC version is so superior to the PS4 version for my purposes… however for some reason Capcom is maintaining a staggered schedule of releases. I still love the game and as a result they are getting two purchases from me. I am what is wrong with games and I know I should feel ashamed. I am honestly not sure how much time I will have to devote to this but I really want to poke around and try and get used to a PS4 Controller again.

World of Warcraft Classic – PC

This is the grand daddy of all things on this list and is consuming the most of my time. As of last night I hit 28 on my Undead Warrior and am about halfway to 29. I have plans already made to run Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deep tonight with guildies, and this game is dominating my headspace at the moment. I cannot fully explain why it feels so good but god does it feel good to be back in Vanilla WoW. I knew I would be playing it because Grace had never gotten to experiment, but on some level I fully expected it just to be the two of us running around and doing nonsense. Instead we have a legitimately large guild full of friends all seemingly digging this experience. Long live House Kraken!

To Those Departing

Final Fantasy V – Android

This one largely lost focus somewhere around the Earth Shrine. I probably will return to it because I really like the idea of legitimately playing this without the Four Job Fiesta rules. That said on some level I agree with Ash on this one that the rules actually improve the game. Right now I feel like I need to do all of the things to min-max my characters, whereas playing under the rules dictates my actions. It limits the scope of what is available and causes me to focus on specific strategies. That said now that I know this is a reasonable option I might sign on next year for the Fiesta from my tablet. I just wish this version synced with any other version of the game so I could pop between playing on the PC for example and the tablet. Everything should have cross save.

Summary

The last several months have been pretty stable to be honest with not a lot of changes happening. Mostly a few things shift into focus as a few other things fall out of focus. I expect this month will be about World of Warcraft Classic with a side dish of Monster Hunter World Iceborne and a little bit of Destiny 2 especially as we get closer to the launch of Shadowkeep. Destiny has made me wish that literally every game had cross save if not cross play. I am mostly fine with having to buy a client for each platform, but I would love to be able to carry my characters over to it. There is no reason why Diablo 3 on the switch couldn’t have connected to Battle.net for example, and I have zero excitement over Overwatch Switch as it stands because I fully expect that it will not be connected to Battle.net either. I want more ability to play with my friends on the characters I have already spent time building, because quite frankly I don’t generally have enough bandwidth to level something new.

Mobile Matters

pokemongo_newpikachu

For years I have said that I really did not think that gaming on my phone was really my “thing”.  It was a platform that I largely felt didn’t quite fit my lifestyle, because in part I felt like I either had access to PC and Consoles…  or simply didn’t have the ability to game period.  Recently however I have been eating the hell out of those words.  For the last week or so I have been getting used to a new phone, and at some point I will probably do a proper review of it.  Functionally I could not bring myself to spend $800 to $1000 on a new phone… and my Samsung Galaxy s5 had lots of problems.  This lead me to branch out and look into some other options… and I finally landed on the ZTE Axon 7 which is a very solid attempt at a Chinese flagship killer.  When I finally do a proper review I will get around to more about that, however suffice to say I am enjoying it.  There is a thing that happens with PC gamers…  when we get new hardware.  We go through this phase of installing everything that we have cared about in the past… and trying it out on the new setup to see what has and has not improved.  With this new phone being so much more powerful than my previous one…  I found myself going through this same routine and testing out things like the android Hearthstone client.  When I say the previous phone had issues…  it is because once upon a time I rooted my phone in an attempt to bypass the AT&T blockade against tethering/wifi hotspots on my current plan.  I still have one of those ancient grandfathered in iPhone unlimited plans…  and while they have raised the price there is no way in hell I am giving up $25 a month unlimited mobile data.

ffrk_ffxiv

While the S5 is technically no longer rooted, I seem to have tripped some anti-tamper seal of a sort on the phone and it fails the Google Safetynet test that app manufacturers have started incorporating into their apps.  This means that I was forced to stop playing Pokemon Go when they patched in this protection, and similarly have been unable to experience Fire Emblem Heroes, Mario Run or a whole slew of newer games that just do this check by default.  The biggest problem with me and phone gaming in the past however was the battery life, and the way that a few minutes of Final Fantasy Record Keeper could shave off 25% of my battery before I even realized.  With the new phone this seems to no longer be the issue that it once was… and either because the processor does not need to work nearly as hard…  or the fact that I have a 3250 mAh battery (instead of 2800 mAh) I can functionally play games and still use my phone for everything else that I want to.  As a result lately I have been heading to bed fairly early and then chilling out there and playing mobile games until sleep finally claims me.  Similarly while I am out and about I am starting to play a lot more Pokemon Go, but have not really gone out on catching jaunts like I did around the release a year ago.  I contemplated going out last night but it was still over 90 degrees outside after 9pm, so I figured I would leave that to a cooler evening.

fireemblemheroes

The games that have seemed to clamp down the hardest on my attention however are Fire Emblem Heroes…  which is a thoroughly charming tactics style combat game and of course Final Fantasy Record Keeper that I already played a significant amount of in the past.  This is the point where I admit that I have never actually played a Fire Emblem game in the past, and while I am sure the actual games are not terribly similar to this mobile title…  it does make me a hell of a lot more interested in them.  The premise is largely nonsense…  but it is the sort of nonsense that I find myself enjoying at the moment.  The biggest problem with these games is that I really have no clue what I am doing on a regular basis… and not even sure what the best way to do anything in game is.  I’ve been slowly working my way through the story in Fire Emblem, and in Record Keeper I noticed that they seemingly have gotten less sparing with handing you a bunch of characters.  I worked my way through most of a Final Fantasy XIV themed event dungeon… and picked up Yshtola, Minfilia, Yda, Papalymo, and Cid…  and started working my way through a similarly FFXII Zodiac Age themed one.  Much like in Pokemon Go… the excitement for me is in the collection of new characters and not so much in the leveling and battle.

screenshot_2017-07-12-22-54-23

Lastly I have been slowly working my way through Final Fantasy V on the phone as an attempt to do things like play over my lunch break…  which admittedly has not actually happened yet.  I got completely wrecked last night by Garula, which means I am going to have to sort out a decent strategy for this one.  Of course I am not playing the game legitimately… and instead am doing the Four Job Fiesta…  which means I am attempting to take him down as a party of four Black Mages.  Its time to go figure out some strategery so I can get past him and get my next set of jobs.  I find the mobile FFV client a little wonky… and especially in mobiles where you need fine motor control…  that is not a thing the touchpad really gives you.  Getting through the poison plants at the top of the mountain was not really a thing…  so I simply opted to walk through a couple and take antidotes.  Regardless it works well enough for my needs and gives me a reasonable platform without really shackling me to a specific location for playing it.  I kinda hope we eventually get a version on the switch through either virtual console… or a release of this mobile port to it.  Whatever the case….  someone seems to have replaced me with a doppelganger that does not mind mobile gaming all the sudden.

 

Chain Run Dungeons

Worst Party Comp Ever

FFV_HorriblePartyTime Last night I was feeling more than a little out of it, or at least too out of it to actual do much of anything meaningful in Final Fantasy XIV.  So after finishing my hunt quest and randoming my way into an Aery dungeon group…  I opted to just log out for the night.  For a period of time I considered simply going to sleep… and this is honestly the option I should have taken.  The Four Job Fiesta is like a religion to my good friend Ashgar, and until the night before last I had not actually even registered for it officially.  So as I sat there swaddled in a comfy blanket on the very comfy sofa… I opted to dig the xbox controller out of the console beside me and officially start my fiesta.  The rest is history as I was up fairly late getting my start in the world.  In past Fiestas my party comp has not been terribly horrible… or at the very least I have bought my way to freedom using the Jobfair donation system.  This time however being I think my fourth year participating…  I am just going to let it ride.

So when the game assigned me monk for my Wind job…  I didn’t think much about it.  I figured that would be an easy beginning to the game.  When it gave me Berserker for my water job however…  I started to dread this decision I had made.  Then when I was assigned Beastmaster as my fire job… I realized this was going to be a really odd ride.  I figure the answer to my freedom will once again be out level the content, and I have already gotten a start on that notion as I just defeated the Library of Ancients at level 21 which is about five levels or so off the normal pace I believe.  Next time I play I will be going after my earth job.. and wondering if it will be salvation or another nail in the coffin on this horrible party.  Admittedly I have never actually used the Beastmaster but I always hated how fiddly Gau was in Final Fantasy VI and never actually used him as a result.  In theory this is going to be a return to that sort of thing, but I need to do some serious research on what all I need to do and when I need to do it, especially as I am just about to get an airship for the first time giving me a wider range of freedom to go off collecting abilities.

Chain Run Dungeons

ffxiv_dx11 2015-06-23 21-11-03-54 In part the reason why I opted to log out last night instead of play is that I am sitting on a strange wall.  Right now I am about half way to level 57 and I have a bunch of options on how to get there.  I could go do all of the quests that I missed doing while skipping my way around the world and ignoring most of the side quests.  I am sure that Square has intended me to level using these, and the fact that I am largely ignoring them is completely breaking their content design.  I could always go join a FATE train somewhere, as this has always been a viable method of leveling especially now that so many people are doing it and there are almost always FATE groups in the party finder.  It seems that Northern Thanalan is once again an active hotbed of FATE running, and in theory this would even be good experience for a Heavensward character.  I am doing my daily hunts but they are honestly more for the currency provided and while they each provide a decent chunk of experience… there are far better and quicker ways to get it.

All of these are completely viable options, but I would far rather just run a bunch of dungeons.  The problem is that my preference will always be to run dungeons with the Greysky Armada folks.  Unfortunately they are either quiet about what they need for dungeons, or have not unlocked a given dungeon yet.  I’ve run a few groups a night for the last several nights, but if I am going to rely on dungeons as a means of leveling I am going to have to step out into the larger community and just start random queuing.  Now we get into the dilemma last night…  I could have tanked a run for the guild, but I did not have the presence of mind to do so with strangers.  Don’t get me wrong I love the FFXIV community, but dealing with anyone that I don’t already know inflicts a mental toll on me.  My default and original state is that of an introvert… and over the years I have forced myself to be more extroverted…  but doing so…  drains me.  Last night I was an energizer bunny that had wound down, but tonight hopefully I will begin chaining dungeons once more in order to get the last of my level so I can move forward in the story again and hopefully unlock dungeon four.

Unusually Trying Week

Not really sure why but this week has been a really rough one for some reason.  In part I think it is because at the start of the week I had to deal with the being alone, as my wife was once again travelling.  Thankfully only for a few days and as of Wednesday she should be home for the rest of the summer.  It just seems like everything has been stressing me out far more than it should.  I labored over the decision to go ahead and cancel the World of Warcraft account, just to keep it from auto renewing.  I have stressed over a dozen different small issues at work, and I have been stressed that I no longer have the ability to do everything in Final Fantasy XIV.  Right now I am a tank… and if the group already has one of those it means I have to sit out and watch from the bench as the group goes off and has fun.  I liked that I could work my way into any group and fill whatever slot they happened to need, because in truth…  running things with my guild is always the thing that I love to do the most.

The problem is that I will get there once again, but there is an almost insurmountable amount of leveling standing in the way.  I have this odd relationship with grinding… I enjoy it, but only when I don’t realize it is there.  If I am grinding towards a goal of some sort…  then I realize how much work is going to be needed to get to where I want to go… and simply start to shut down.  When I am just grinding as part of my default state of running around and attacking everything in sight… it becomes a happy and carefree place instead.  The problem being that right now I know the end goal… and for whatever reason I am having trouble compartmentalizing and ignoring the finish line.  I think I am just wired strangely… because so long as I don’t know where the finish line is I will keep pushing ahead blindly until I finally accomplish whatever it was that I wanted to accomplish.  However once I know where the boundaries are, and what it is going to take to get there…  the game changes and in a strange way goal setting de-motivates me.  So long as I am on this fun romp of discovery, life is grand…  but right now I need to somehow figure out how to ignore the goals and go back to playing everything for sheer enjoyment.