Shihali

joined 2 years ago
[–] Shihali 3 points 2 years ago

There's nothing quite like Chrono Trigger.

Dragon Quest IV/Dragon Warrior IV was a strong influence on Chrono Trigger's medieval era. If you wanted an entire game about the Hero, DQ4 is the closest you're ever likely to get. (Does that make Recettear a sister game to Chrono Trigger?)

Phantasy Star IV has a similarly fast-moving and cinematic plot, but the graphics and gameplay are more archaic as befits a 1993 game. Strongly recommended if you want to play older JRPGs like DQ4.

Final Fantasy VI (released as "Final Fantasy III") is similar in quality and difficulty, but much longer and more complex.

Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross continue the story, but they have a much darker tone.

Earthbound/Mother 2 came out the same year and is another of the greats, but that's where most of the similarities end. Earthbound might be the only 16-bit classic whose tone is "all of them". Earthbound can be quite hard early on, so don't get discouraged.

[–] Shihali 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

For me it got good as soon as I went through the first time portal.
It got great at the second visit to the past.
It became immortal at the first visit to the dark ages.

I find the first visit to the future to be a slog for the most part, although it has one of the strongest scenes in the game. Power through that segment and it gets better in a hurry.

Also, don't play Chrono Trigger with the sound off until you can play the soundtrack in your head. The soundtrack doesn't gently suggest atmosphere like a modern game. It sets the tone for the scene.

[–] Shihali 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I think it's useful to construct simplified models to show how changing just one thing works without getting lost in the mire of other effects, counter-effects, and opportunities to twist the answer. Even if it's unrealistic until you add those effects back in.

After thinking about it some, I was surprised how much "magic" was required to get something reasonably like equality of opportunity. Equal schools, yes, but also food, maybe clothes, neighborhood pacification, and trying to find an answer to the runaway loop of rational prejudice. In a more complex example, I'd have to deal with green kids growing up in worse conditions and anti-green prejudice opening a bigger gap between collective green success and collective purple success.

My math went like so: assume that purple people average 100 IQ (because the test was made for purple people), green people average 90 IQ on the purple scale, distribution is normal, and the standard deviation is 15 (like a real IQ test). Adjusting the mean and making the averages 105/95 doesn't seem to affect the math. However, if there's a combined IQ test in this world, the standard deviation is probably larger than the 15 that real IQ tests aim for and that would wreck my math.

[–] Shihali 1 points 2 years ago

Upper South.

Although it's a trick question of sorts. Eastern Kentucky, the Golden Triangle, and the Purchase might not all be in the same region of the US.

[–] Shihali 1 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Quoting your previous post:

Whether the IQ part is true or not, there’s basically no reason for the average person to bring it up or account for it.
Finally, let’s say for the sake of argument people with a certain skin color are just plain 10% intelligent...

I'm running with your "for the sake of argument" scenario and constructing a fairy-tale-level example to illustrate why the average citizen of a democracy has a reason to care. Namely, the average citizen votes on policy, and a policy of equality of opportunity doesn't lead to ethnic equality when there is a big gap in average intelligence, or tenacity, or health, or what have you.

Let’s say I’m a purple person with completely average intelligence. If I meet 100 random other purple people, statistically 50 of them are going to be less intelligent than me. Right? Now I meet 100 random green people. How many of them on average are going to be less intelligent than me?

If I've got the statistics right, on average 75 of those random green people will be less intelligent than you (and 25 more intelligent). I am surprised and expected the numbers to be less skewed. I wouldn't expect 75 of those random green people to also be poorer than you, but 60-65 sounds reasonable.

If I had to choose - without knowing my color in advance, I’d have no problem going for the world where if I lucked into being born as purple my ability to be wealthy would be subject to a slight limitation.

Then my post did its job of making you think about what policy you'd vote for in this situation.

[–] Shihali 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

The problem comes up when making policy. Let's say there are green people who average 10% less intelligent than purple people, and that jobs for smart people pay better than jobs for stupid people. Waving a magic wand to end racial prejudice and provide equal schools, safety, housing, and food would still leave the average green person worse off than the average purple person. You could wave the magic wand to end racial inequality of opportunity until your arm falls off and not get rid of the average pay gap between green and purple people because less intelligent people are being paid less no matter whether they are green or purple but more of them are green. If you want the average green person to be as well off as the average purple person, you need to make jobs for stupid people pay as well as jobs for smart people or take money from the mostly-purple rich and give it to the mostly-green poor.

If you are a commoner in an absolute monarchy or a subject in a dictatorship, maybe it's best for you to forget about that because policy-making is in the hands of your betters. But you probably live in a democracy which means you have a small say in policy and need to think about whether a policy will do what you want before you support it.

[–] Shihali 4 points 2 years ago

qpdb are completely symmetrical in Bierstadt, so no.

[–] Shihali 3 points 2 years ago

Agreed that it's wider at the same point size. Not sure if it's easier or harder to read yet, especially that "a". Seems a little heavier to counter display technology that makes old fonts so thin (and maybe superthin fonts falling out of fashion?). Probably blends better with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean due to being squarer and having shorter descenders, but I don't trust my eye.

[–] Shihali 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

The update hasn't happened for me yet, so we've still got some time to get used to Bierstadt a.k.a. Aptos. It has a curve at the bottom of the lower-case l like Liberation Mono, DejaVu Sans Mono, and Cascadia Code, but without the top serif.

[–] Shihali 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Do you have an opinion on CK2+ versus Historical Immersion Project?

[–] Shihali 1 points 2 years ago

My corners of Reddit -- the apolitical, narrowly to very narrowly focused subs -- never protested or gave up. Some are trying to move to various platforms: one to Lemmy, another to Squabbles, a third thinking about Tildes. The one that posted about moving to Lemmy appears to be a moderate success; the others not.

[–] Shihali 2 points 2 years ago

Pro kio multaj homoj eklernigis la tokiponan lastatempe?

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