Lucho Díaz 🧉

I saw a Reddit post asking for the same and some replies were Soul Reaver and Castlevania SOTN???

No, I'm talking more like Akuji The Heartless, Incredible Crisis, Racing Lagoon...

I want HIDDEN gems.

Hey, what are your PS1 Hidden Gems?
Games that you absolutely adore and you're certain not many people played.
I want to get more games on my R36.

Drawing. A whole cast of characters in a poker night.

This one took a while, but I'm so happy with how it turned out!
Commission for @voln.phnod.net!

People told me I would get easily disoriented and... Didn't happen, lol.
The only moment when I got "stuck" was in the torches room because I was subconsciously ignoring it because how are they going to give me a fire puzzle at the Water Temple? Makes no sense. So it took me a while to notice it.

Yeah, I even had an extra bit of annoyance because for some reason the pause screen didn't come up immediately after pressing the button. It took around 5 or 6 seconds each time. Emulation issues, I guess.
And even then, by that point I got used to it, lol.

I feel empty now.

Cover.

Savefile with my name, showing the maxed-up health and all stones and medallions.

Pause screen. All 20 hearts, all 100 skulltulas.

18) The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64, 1998)
[100%]

This is one of the greatest games of all time for a reason. Wow.

🟢 I mean, what's not to love about this one. It's extremely charming and fun.
🔴 Come on, the Water Temple is not that bad. I've played worse water levels.

And every moment I'm not playing I'm thinking about it.
I don't want it to end :(

I started playing Ocarina Of Time last year (first time, on my R36S).
I was playing it casually, taking my time to backtrack and get all the skulltulas and heart pieces. Then I kind of abandoned it right after the Fire Temple.

I got back, beat the Water Temple and... It clicked. Can't stop playing.

Drawing.

Commission for Miguel Orea!

DUDE.

However just the other day, after reading the post by @luchosfactory.bsky.social, we discover he’s not only stolen @terradrone.bsky.social patreon work and uploaded it to a site called kemono, but also copied the discord server for our project the second great war!

Cover.

Ending.

17) SegaSonic The Hedgehog (Arcade, 1993)

There's no quick review of this one, considering it was designed for a trackball arcade machine and not a cheap retro handheld console from AliExpress, so while my experience was subpar and full of visual glitches, I didn't play it on the intended hardware.

Reminder to check if he's following your Patreon. Your content may have been leaked already. Take care.

Cover.

Trophy screenshot for beating the final boss.

Ending screen. "TO BE CONTINUED".

16) Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon (PS4, 2018)

This is Castlevania III, but somehow better!
...
"Castlevanian't"

🟢 It has all the awesome aesthetic and music from the classic games, the game is really fun to play as a whole.
🔴 It retains plenty of "jerk design choices" from the classic games.

Drawing of Vale, from Max Comix, in two different outfits. On the left, pastel purple short overalls over a striped black & white t-shirt, black & white striped socks and pastel purple sneakers. On the right, a black top with some rings in the middle, over a white medium sleeve shirt, a black skirt, some black & white striped socks and black boots.

Trying some outfits for Vale.
Which one do you like the most?
A or B?

#MaxComix

Cover.

Status screen showing 100% completion.

PlayStation Trophies showing both the base game and the DLC at 100%.

15) Kao The Kangaroo - Bend The Roo'les (PS4, 2023)
[100%, All Trophies]

A good idea, with a poor and undercooked execution.

🟢 Funny enough, the Hard version of the levels ended up being easier because they were less broken.
🔴 Audio still breaks, framerate still drops.

Dark level in Kao The Kangaroo - Bend The Roo'les, with the intended brightness setting. The platforms are barely visible.

The same area as the previous screenshot, now with the brightness setting to the max. The rendered shadows disappeared, leaving with a flat and unfinished look to the whole stage, but a perfectly visible one.

LMAO.
But hey, this is one of the undercooked aspects that actually makes things easier rather than harder, so it's a welcome cheat.

Also the game is on mute because the audio broke again before I started recording, lol.

In case you don't believe me, lol.
Changing the brightness level completely breaks the gimmick in this level, lmao.

Also yes, I'm still playing it. Somehow the Hard version of the levels seem to be less broken than their Easy counterparts. The Hard version is somehow easier, lol.

Cover.

Final Boss level complete screen.

Trophy for beating the final boss.

14) Kao The Kangaroo - Bend The Roo'les (PS4, 2023)

This was a hard challenge, for all the wrong reasons.

🟢 It's charming and has a lot of good ideas.
🔴 It's severely undercooked. The unstable performance gets in the way too often. Your main cause of death will be stuff not working properly.

Anyway, I wanted to raise the brightness on the settings and it turns out it doesn't change the brightness of the screen, IT CHANGES THE OPACITY OF THE RENDERED SHADOWS.
So if you put the brightness at max, there's no shadows. Everything looks unfinished, but you can see EVERYTHING.

Like, the difficulty is due to hitboxes not registering properly, animations failing to properly start or general stuff breaking.
I just went through a dark level that kind of wants to emulate Crash Bandicoot's dark levels? But executed poorly. The fireflies can't light up anything.

Update on this: THE AUDIO BROKE. I'm playing it on mute because instead of music, voice lines and sound effects, there's a HORRIBLE broken audio noise.
Luckily there's no actual dialogue or cutscenes, and the music was kinda repetitive anyway.
I'm at level 5, and I feel like the game is... Easier?

The results are in, and yes, the difference is practically unnoticeable, I was just making things harder for me just for the sake of it.
So... What does this mean for you? Not much, lol. The quality of my Render work won't change in that regard, but I may be able to get it done quicker now.

Also, speaking of Render, some of you may remember you had the option for a "cheap render", for the price of Cel Shading or even Flat Colors, if the character was simple enough.
That was an experiment on my end, to see if I could achieve the same results from my usual Render technique, easier.

Basically, instead of making like that two-layer flat shading, I'll focus mostly on cast shadows. Also remove the backlight, unless strictly necessary (like a light source behind the characters).
Mostly to differenciate it further from the higher quality level, Render.

Hey, btw, remember what I said the other day? About changing the way I handle shading?

This is what I had in mind for Cel Shading.
You'll notice it's simpler than what I usually do, but it looks more... stylish?
Anyway, the other thing was to remove Flat Colors, since I'll rather do this.

Drawing of Vale, from Max Comix, in two different outfits. On the left, pastel purple short overalls over a striped black & white t-shirt, black & white striped socks and pastel purple sneakers. On the right, a black top with some rings in the middle, over a white medium sleeve shirt, a black skirt, some black & white striped socks and black boots.

Trying some outfits for Vale.
Which one do you like the most?
A or B?

#MaxComix

The base game is not bad actually.
I mean it really REALLY *REALLY* wants to sit next to Crash 4 & Spyro Reignited, you can tell by the artstyle.
But I remember enjoying my time with the game (I didn't do a refresher run before starting the DLC tho).