Vapor Dosh

It is 9th of March 2019, late evening in this timezone, you know what that means.

I could have added a pepper, but I stopped myself

Not only did I succeed, I wasn’t even tempted to fire up Windows. Sure, it’s not like it’s hassle-free, but the experience was overall positive and I wish Proton existed sooner. Oh, and of course I did play some games, which you most likely already figured out. Here’s stuff I played in these exciting times:

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

15.5 hours, 34 of 34 achievements
Native port

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I started this one on Windows and finished on Linux. Fun little science fiction VN, with a nice dose of humor and adult themes, but without going into eroge territory. Definitely gets a Dosh seal of approval.


Neko Navy

3.4 hours, 8 of 20 achievements
Proton

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Rather basic shmup, but still quite fun. I played on Hard (which is the middle of three settings) and most of the game went relatively smoothly once I figured out how bombing works with scoring. Also the final boss is BS bullet spam.

Proton handled it great, but controller made the game act weird. You can disable D-pad/stick controls in the menu, and then it works great with keyboard or something like Joy2Key.


Tadpole Treble

1.9 hours, 2 of 12 achievements
Native port

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I thought my sense of rhythm was not that awful after beating Crypt of the Necrodancer, so Tadpole Treble made me realize I was wrong. :P The game is still smooth sailing even if you're not exactly good at it.


X3: Reunion

72.2 hours, no achievements
Native port

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Started on Windows long ago… then dropped when I got to a fight where my basic ship couldn't do ship. I picked it up again, then switched to Linux. I forgot how much of a timesink this series is, huge chunk of my playtime is me trying to get money for a more decent ship, and I unfortunately must confess that even then I ended up using a cheat for an outside factor that made a certain mission extremely difficult. The game is still worth a try, but you probably won't have a good time unless you have plenty of free time.

It's the native port and, well, it works, but I do get lower framerates than in Windows. I wonder, maybe the optimizations were mostly for DirectX and they just went "eh" at OpenGL?


Phantom Brave

12.6 hours, 4 of 29 achievements
Proton

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Still playing this one, so it's probably not the time for final judgement yet. It's alright, but some of the mechanics don't feel very intuitive to me and I feel it's one of those games where you're expected to either grind a bit or abuse the mechanics to not get dunked on later on.

Works fine in Proton, but one in-game setting causes some graphical glitches. (not game breaking, but kinda distracting) Switching it makes the glitches go away, but then you have to play in fullscreen.


Sky Force Anniversary

5.2 hours, 11 of 27 achievements
Native port

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Level progression looks like it was made to pad the game out cause you're basically expected to play previous levels multiple times before unlocking the next one. Come on, I know you repeat levels for 1cc in arcade shmups, but that's not how it works…

Game is still alright, worth a pick if you don't have it yet.


Mega Man Legacy Collection

9.0 hours, 6 of 24 achievements
Proton

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It's the classic Mega Man, what can you expect? I did play ROM versions long ago and already beat 1-4 in this version before, but felt like finishing 5 and 6. Just play it if you haven't yet, piece of gaming history right here.

"PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%" launch option was needed for me to launch, then it's basically the same as in Windows.


Super Ledgehop: Double Laser

1.3 hours, 9 of 14 achievements
Proton

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It probably went under a lot of people's radar, which is too bad cause it's surprisingly fun. Twin stick shooter (I preferred KB+M, though) with bullet absorbing mechanic and very silly story. It's just a dollar/euro, why not get it?

Gotta disable Esync to make the game run longer than a minute, then it works basically perfectly.


LiEat

4.4 hours, 30 of 30 achievements
Proton

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Collection of three quirky RPGs. They feel more like adventure games with how easy the combat is, you're basically guaranteed to not lose a fight unless you intentionally throw it. The story is the main focus, and it has a fairy tale-like feel to it, hard to explain. Dosh seal of approval.
You can download the games for free elsewhere, so buying it on Steam is just for cards and supporting the developer.

As for Proton, disabling Esync does the trick, but the game process has to be killed manually when you exit the game. Also it might need an additional font downloaded if text is weird.


Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt

0.8 hours, no achievements
Proton

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Nice to see Daniel Remar is still hanging around. Weird combination of old jRPG world map, a shmup, and ZX Spectrum aesthetics somehow works. And it's free, so literally no reason not to try it out.

In Proton, only safe mode has sound and I couldn't find a solution for controller freaking out other than plugging it out. The sequel has a native port, so I wish they did it for this one too.


Graze Counter

2.4 hours, no achievements
Proton

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Another shmup, and closer to what I'm used to. Not much to say, it's a fun game, but the shield ability feels pretty OP.

Normally doesn't start, but there's a workaround involving renaming executables. After that, it works perfectly.


Safety First!

2.3 hours, 9 of 34 achievements
Proton

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To finish it off, here we have a shitpost, or should I rather say pisspost. The store page, or even the banner to the right speak for themselves. There is some fun to be had here, but it gets old fast, and ripping off your leg is way too easy to do accidentally.

The game is playable, but some UI elements don't show up properly and I don't know if there's a way to force them to appear.



And to be fair, like I said last month, Proton is not magic and it doesn’t handle everything. So here are some dishonorable mentions for things that I couldn’t get to work:

Catherine Classic

12.4 hours, 17 of 50 achievements
Attempted with Proton, finished before the challenge

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The game itself is good, yes. This also happens to be the one that delayed the challenge by a few days. Every report in ProtonDB for Catherine is borked, currently no hope. ;_;


Tales of Symphonia

0.0 hours, 0 of 39 achievements
Attempted with Proton

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I heard ToS port was a PoS when it came out, and while it might be playable in Windows these days, Proton still can't handle it. Most of the Tales games don't work according to ProtonDB, but for some reason at least Vesperia is said to work nicely.
Gotta play ToS on Windows when the time comes.


Mega Man Legacy Collection 2

22.2 hours, 13 of 21 achievements
Attempted with Proton

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This one's a bummer. I already beat all of the games in the collection, but I felt like screwing around after I finished MMLC1. Nope, while the collection technically works, it happens to be with some weird distortion that makes it impossible to play normally. Capcom, pls fix


Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.5 Meakashi

0.4 hours, 0 of 16 achievements
Native port, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

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Seriously, how? Why? I launch the VN and get a blue screen that fills almost entire screen and I have to log out to make it go away. The log for the game shows that it gets an error because my system can't handle images this big… why are they tens of thousands of pixels wide and tall? It's even more baffling because Higurashi 1 and 2 work just fine, it's just 3 and later that do it.

Luckily I can force Steam to run the Windows version in Proton and it appears to work properly, which is what I'll probably end up doing. Still, why?



So yeah, if you want to make the switch, there has never been a better time. Segment from LowSpecGamer’s video comes to my mind: https://youtu.be/8vXJlg0559c?t=11m28s

Daerphen

haha, another one who switched :D
Just did the same last weekend. So glad I finally got back to Linux again. And yeah, Valve does a great job with proton to make it much easier on linux.

So far I only had big issues with Shadow of the tomb raider, but I read they are planing to release it on Linux as well this year.

Kaleith

Even on windows I remember having issues with ToS, either the frame timings or whatever else made me sick within minutes of playing it.
You made me rember I still have to play LiEat, I should bump it up the list >_>

Vapor Dosh

If it wasn’t an SG win, I’d have considered just looking for the Gamecube version to emulate and save the problem. Bloody Bamco. :doubt:

LastM

I’ve been seen a lot of people switching to Linux lately and, if I may ask, why? Did Linux got better?

Vapor Dosh

More like Windows got worse, but I suppose Proton plays a significant role in it too. Ask someone who is hesitant to switch about why they’re not doing it yet, and you’re most likely to hear that they don’t want to give up games. These days you get a nice selection of native ports, and even if you can’t play every single Windows game, Proton still gives you a wide choice of games you wouldn’t have dreamed of running before.