Coalescence

One of the most notoriously difficult to replicate consoles with the peddlers of the worst recreation units is surely a match made in gaming hell.

I stopped having problems with this after I learned how to work with hitboxes on shmups. Once you can get that wider vision of the playing field and awareness of your hitbox, navigating things like the Turbo Tunnel becomes much more manageable. Thinking it's about memorization is the wrong approach. You need the zen of spatial awareness, same as getting through the bit.trip games. I think the parallax scrolling messes people up too.

But yeah, agreed there's much harder things ahead. The snakes mess me up more than anything. And hard disagree to the old criticism that it's bad design. The turbo tunnel is a bear masterwork of tight challenge.

Good exercise for reminding people not to take these ratings so seriously. Whether metacritic, rateyourmusic, or whatever, people act like these things are the ruling supreme authority and not just the mushy averaging of purely subjective scores on obtuse individual rating systems.

Funny stuff. Reminds me of way back in 1999 when we pooled together on the Internet to vote a New Kids on the Block song into MTV's Total Request Live.

This is cool, but Yasunori really set the bar impossibly high with the Chrono Cross Radical Dreamers concert. That group of crazy talented musicians and vocalists performing passionately with the man himself on brilliant arrangements is easily the best video game music concert recording I've ever seen/heard. The blu Ray of that performance is solid gold. And they did a majority of the soundtrack. I was hoping he'd do something similar for Trigger.

Looks nice, but that's a steep cost for what looks to be a slight improvement.

I sure wish Karl hadn't screwed the pooch with that whole Billy Mitchell fiasco, because it's going to damage his credibility and he did some incredible work exposing WATA's scummy practices.

r/gradedgames is a good hate watch. The winners on that sub are something else, and they pretty much get off on posts like this decrying their silliness. But they'll show us when they someday buy a house with that sealed up spicy battery.

I learned about this game from Gareth in The Office, and it really makes others look way too small in breadth.

Their whole business model is rotten so it's probably not going to change much, maybe they'll have slightly better quality and less scummy practices at least.

Nostalgia from people who discarded their childhood units and the resellers taking advantage is certainly a factor. But it's more than that. The 3DS and Vita are the last of their kind: fully dedicated portables from the big console makers, and they are kind of ultimate ends of the line with great displays, solid hardware, and perfect form factors. And both are emulation powerhouses. The 3DS also has the two libraries of exclusives as mentioned with a visual effect you can't get anywhere else. It's currently the best place to play most Virtual Boy games without the real hardware (Teleroboxer is sadly a real pain on red viper). As time goes on more units are lost and the people who already have them, like myself, will never ever give them up. That price is only going one way and the more popular retro gaming becomes the more there will be spikes.

I'm super glad I obtained almost everything I wanted retro-wise long before this happened. I wanted some more TG16 games and the CD add on, but the ship on this being a niche hobby is long sailed.

Cool, but the Super NT being able to copy roms and saves from carts and play them via fpga wins out for me.

Well deserved. They're frequently late with terrible communication but Analogue ultimately always delivers. Remains to be seen if the M64 will match their pace (certainly promising the moon bolstered by the modretro bros), but despite a few rough edges the 3D is doing what it should and that's a plug and play modern N64 with some gentle upgrades keeping it as close to the original experience as possible.

@PopetheRev28 Only one crying about words on the Internet is you.

Exhausting is right. Analogue should have tempered that marketing just a little so they didn't come across like the 3D would be absolutely bulletproof - especially when their previous consoles haven't been either. But this constant clickbait/outrage porn everyone is slinging is way too incendiary for the actual problems.

Analogue's products are great plug and play options for using original carts and controllers. They'll never be as robust or ever-evolving as a mister solution. They also aren't going to magically make decades old games look like modern ports, and the silly people who bought the 3D in a rush without understanding the product are a big part of the pile on.

stfuajpg moment

Kind of underscores why I like to stick with the Analogue Pocket for retro handheld games. Just plug and play. Fiddling with settings is for the birds.

I would really love to hear what the band thought of this considering how they are strictly against licensing their music. I could see Mike D just having a laugh at these guys who probably took Fight For Your Right at face value. Anyway, regular reminder to look up the original title for License To Ill.

Regardless of whether it's true or not I'm just going to live with the yellowing. Why even risk any potential damage to aged expensive hardware just for aesthetics.

Not a shocker. Fpga based retro consoles are crazy complicated and expensive to pull off, and the tiny audience of people willing to pay that premium have high expectations. There's good reason why Analogue has almost no competition outside of a crazy person like Palmer, and why they probably keep Kevtris locked down with a massive salary. I'll be pleasantly surprised if this thing gets finished. I have a Mega SG and love it, but I'd double dip for a unit with the 32X built in.

The salt is exploding from reddit. Fragile people shouldn't be early adopters.

As a Michigan resident I've always wanted to see this rereleased. Hopefully they keep the ultra cheesy acting. It will be interesting to see if those upskirt shots stay in a US version lol

Shame he biffed so badly. I didn't kickstart because it sounded pretty dubious from the start, but video games live was a fun show. I attended a few shows, my wife sang in one of them, and I did the Kickstarter for most of the CD releases which all came through with the promised bonuses. No doubt he screwed up bad and deserves the exodus, dude probably needed someone to reign in his out of control hypesmanship and keep him away from the big dollar decisions.

Wow. I hardly ever buy video game shirts but these are outstanding. That Ginkei especially is tempting.

Always with the misterbros. There's overlap but they are different products for difference audiences, not sure why that's always a struggle to understand.

Looking forward to playing around with this feature. Body Harvest is one of the first carts I want to play when my 3D arrives.

Great review. Analogue is always late, always lousy at communication, but always comes through in the end. Can't wait to add this to the collection. I'm way past the days of wanting to tinker with mods and other solutions. The plug and play setup of these consoles is second to none for playing old carts on a modern set.

@RupeeClock They've said from day one the 3D will not get openfpga, like the Duo.

Also worth noting that while the 3D probably will get a leaked official unofficial 'jailbreak' firmware (which isn't actually a jailbreak, just alternate official firmware with the load from sd feature), these have been coming later and later with each console and the Duo's is very far behind the official firmware release, so getting the option to play roms from the sd card comes at the cost of missing fixes and features. The Duo has save states, but the 'jailbreak' firmware doesn't have that update.

'Hamaguchi explains that the one thing he didn't want to do was "overwrite the original game with my own fan perspective version of it and create a new version of the game which is essentially a fan fiction of it."'

George Bush Mission Accomplished vibes lol

Nothing to do with ownership over a notoriously valuable NES game, riiiiight. That's totally not why they picked this otherwise very average game over any number of NES gems.

Finally, a streamlined solution to the terribly inconvenient task of recharging the battery.

But that is pretty cool and I love the color coordination.

Big pass on that. There's a world of difference between a brute force machine translation and a proper translation & localization. Just as there's a world of difference between Mato's Mother 3 translation or Neill Corlett's Seiken Densetsu 3 translation, and the J2E Final Fantasy IV translation. If I'm going to sink time into a big text heavy game, I want some quality behind the translation.

I'm actually thinking about buying a copy now. That is comedy gold. And fitting jank for Mortal Kombat.

He's spot on about the unstable aspect of live music. That's also why I can't jive with music made by 100% virtual instruments most of the time (Celeste's soundtrack being one big exception). There's a roughness to music and other art that I crave. People who have been fine with ultra glossed processed & homogenized music will probably be able to slide right into AI stuff and not even know the difference, but for me there's no substitute. The tech isn't going away when there's money to be had, it'll just take artists like Nobuo to have the discipline to keep original art alive.

I backed this one and couldn't have been more pleased with the final product. The print quality is vibrant, top notch, with nice layouts. The regional differences are pretty fascinating, and his commentary is all worth reading. I've ended up checking out a whole pile of NES games based on how cool the endings looked or how he described some of the experience. I'm a bit exhausted of all the video game related books coming out lately but this one is absolutely solid.

I like these guys and what they're doing, but any NES or other retro aesthetic nowadays just feels like the same digested mush tossed over with a paint bucket onto any product for nostalgia association.

As an enjoyer of Internet misery it is absolutely hilarious that the two options for plug & play fpga N64 consoles are Analogue and Modretro - with people constantly crying about the former's lack of communication & closed sourcedness, and people constantly crying about the latter being a Palmer Luckey joint. Meanwhile the misterbros are doing their usual thing and Takibros are a rising force in smugness. It's going to be a new fandom war, with the extra spice of politics & business ethics as people buy their M64 or 3D or Superstation and the tribes start to really balkanize.

It's a deal, but definitely the lesser version of SOTN. The new dialogue lacks the theatrics of the original, the new voiceovers are flat, and it's a good deal buggier than the original while fixing helpful glitches like the money duplication. But the biggest issue is that the music volume is too low compared to the sound effects (which are also handled poorly) and there's no way to adjust. The closing credits song is also changed. One of the best OSTs ever recorded and they nerfed it. 4.99 is probably worth it for checking out Maria mode, but this is such a lousy port. At least Rondo wasn't manhandled so badly.

Gotta say, the system reminds you about breaks on startup and many titles prompt you in-game. If you didn't take breaks, that's on you. 2 hours isn't healthy to stare at any screen directly with no breaks. Even my stupid 12 year old self took the breaks and I never had any eye strain or headaches.

Neck discomfort and awkward positioning though, all day. The playing on your back with the VB on your face was the lie sold on that Nintendo Power letters section. There was that photo a kid sent in where he supposedly took his on a camping trip and enjoyed the bliss of nature by laying in the grass with the headset balanced on his eyes. I tried that immediately after getting the VB as I suspect many did and yeah there's no way. Going facedown into the unit presents its own challenges.

Worth it though. I got mine in 96 when it was already marked a failure, so my mom was able to get a gently used demo unit dirt cheap as a birthday present. It even came with a free Teleroboxer because it was left in the slot (along with the Mario Tennis pack-in). I grew up in a crowded small house. The TV was a fiercely defended resource. Portables were better but still invited unwanted over the shoulder attention. Sticking my head into the VB was the perfect escape.

Might as well just watch a let's play if you're going to completely remove a game's teeth. Nerfed enemy spawns was the only one really needed. 2x damage and removing a level altogether is just putting these in kiddie mode.

Better level design? Improved physics? There's a reason this game is still enjoyable today and really needs no updates other than a superfluous fresh coat of paint. Come on now.

I would guess Nintendo's legal team became aware of the situation and put the screws to Sega (or Sega was doing a CYA measure before that happened). They definitely don't want to lose their now-ally, and so they jostled up the police who in that region are all too eager to do some seizure and roughing up of the citizens. Sucks for the guy caught in that but it's quite a ripping yarn.

For sure some marketer saw the response last time as an easy way to rack up engagement, assuming the last one wasn't also intentional for the same reason. It's not like it's a big secret people can't help but engage when there's a glaring error and an opportunity to feel superior on the Internet.

Weird that I grew up with the Game boy and Tetris, and never once played the multiplayer mode. Mostly because I had no link cable and never knew anyone with a link cable until the Pokemon days.

Anyway, it's crazy cool that they are releasing updates that can be applied to the cart but it's also introducing the annoying release a game incomplete and patch it later that modern console gaming has never escaped ever since the units went online.

That is awesome. I don't get into much anime but I love Mushishi so much. It's like a full series of the little bits I enjoy in anime and Ghibli films. Can't wait to load this onto my 3DS.

Looks like a Game Boy and six button genesis controller had an unfortunate transporter accident. But it really nails that vibe of bootleg consoles that merge a bunch of designs together because the company doesn't know or doesn't care the aesthetics belong to competing companies, and you're the sad kid whose family didn't get the real deal.

Really bizarre choice for a company that just seems in it to make money. The Analogue Duo isn't perfect but it's only a bit more expensive with fpga power and a drive to play burned games since there's no copy protection. The alternate firmware allows loading roms though no save states yet.

The Pocket + Dock is an option as mentioned already. Mister options are getting cheaper and more accessible. Anyone who wants to dip their toe into the libraries without the more expensive fpga solutions has any number of cheaper software emulation devices with all the bells and whistles.

This thing is not even aesthetically pleasing.

If you're going to do anything on the Internet, you need to learn how to ignore the vocal whiners. Not excusing them but they're always going to be there and they'll never be satisfied with anything.

An okay idea with terribly slapdash execution and a weird contempt for fans of the original. Hell yeah, I knew who Vision was back then and loved playing as him in the arcade. Definitely not bothering with this.

Great review, glad to see this is finally out and seems to have cashed in on all its potential. I'd say Michiru Yamane edged out Koshiro with that Bloodlines OST but he's an absolute master of his craft and I can't think of a better type of game for him to helm.

@failaz1986 That's some astonishingly strong bad faith in that argument, well done. I don't know though, maybe if you had like ten more examples I would be turned.

And just look how happy he is.

Back in high school I had a summer job quality checking car sunvisors (part of an under the table paid crew slipped in to pick up union slack, but we won't get into that). For 10-14 hours a day we'd be sitting there going through crates of sunvisors, checking for any visible blemishes and more importantly, exercising the pivot and hinges from all angles. We were told they always did these checks by hand because a machine couldn't predict for the random ways a human would stress the parts. That was a while ago, but it looks like tech still isn't able to catch things like this. Maybe if these companies weren't pumping out new models every five minutes there could be more money invested in quality control.

@mjparker77 Same. Controller looks fine, cool even. But I buy Analogue consoles to get as close as possible to the original experience on a modern set. If I'm going to be using a totally new controller like this then I may as well just go the software emulation route.

Youtuber finds out running a business is a little more involved and complicated than gathering donations and playing videogames.