Damo

@RetroGames Sorry, I did include a note to point this out. There are literally no images of this thing yet!

@PFG9000 You know what, you're correct. I've altered that question. Those who have already voted, though, don't worry - your scores remain unchanged.

@-wc- My fully boxed copy of CV2 on the GB cost me £12.99 from a local indie game store in the late '90s. Last time I checked, I think it was worth about £400-£500 in that condition. I'll be passing it down to my kids!

(Unless, of course, it begins to drop in value as all of us old gits pass away and nobody wants to pay that stupid price)

@RetroGames At least somebody gets it!

We push a lot of 'new' retro products, including the Analogue Pocket, MiSTer, Polymega, 8BitDo, 8BitMods, Evercade, etc. Feels odd to be attacked for covering another, but we live in an odd world, I guess?

@KitsuneNight The 'old' Sega Forever was that, sure - but, more recently, it was a vehicle for Sega Europe / Danny's efforts to preserve and celebrate the company's history. That work now seems to have ended, which is a crying shame, and the fact that Danny's tweet alludes to a less-than-satisfactory working environment makes it worse.

@OldManHermit That film doesn't get enough praise; great soundtrack by Damon Albarn, too!

@Andee It certainly is. https://image.api.playstation.com/vulcan/img/cfn/11307TAFxlnwB1KK4tj7dWZ62MucOjFqg8GynfHKLxeORMrY27h_X_tArQK7IGY8uMB2xMVxHi-AXz518vAn-sbaulwbsSin.png

@KitsuneNight None of the EGGCONSOLE games have English localisations, as far as I'm aware. They're the Japanese PC88 versions, none of which were released in English.

However, this isn't a text-heavy RPG, so you should still be ok.

@MysticWangForce PSX was the codename for the PS1 during its early development, I think? Well, 'PlayStation-X' was, at least. I'd imagine this was to set it apart from the earlier SNES PlayStation project.

@BulkSlash Fixed - thanks!

@bring_on_branstons The video upload says July 1993, so yes, I think he might be incorrect on that one.

@kkalata Given that you need to complete the first two books to access the third and fourth, how does the game know that you've done that without the save data?

EDIT: So, as I understand it, the character stats are the only thing you can't carry over in this case - so the 'rumour' is still true in one way, as most people are going to want to retain their progress from books 1 and 2 when playing the other two books.

I'm happy to update this piece to finally put this to rest, if it is indeed incorrect!

@GhaleonUnlimited I encountered this issue myself (with the EUR version admittedly) and there are numerous other reports online of people hitting the same roadblock regarding the save data. Are you 100% sure your memory isn't playing tricks on you?

I'm happy to be proven wrong but I'm almost 100% sure I didn't get around to playing the third book for precisely this reason back in the day. Unless I was just being dumb!

Some other posts on this matter:

https://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1280
https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?146983-Shining-Force-CD-RAM-cart-MegaCart
https://segaretro.org/Shining_Force_CD

While I take your point on people parroting what they've read on the internet, what makes me think this is legit is the fact that A) I was aware of this problem before the internet came along, and B) several forum posts seem to indicate other players hitting the exact same problem independently. But again, I am happy to be proven wrong here if you can get solid evidence - and I will update this post to reflect it.

@jamess That press release says:

"The business also holds shares in Outside Xbox, Digital Foundry, and Hookshot (which operates Nintendo life, Push Square, Pure Xbox, and Time Extension)."

So it is correct, but perhaps could have made it more clear.

@jamess IGN hasn't acquired Hookshot. Ziff Davies (IGN's owner) has purchased Gamer Network, which has a shareholding in Hookshot. Ziff Davies doesn't "own" Hookshot, nor does it have any say in our editorial stance.

@gingerbeardman I'm still sore about that whole episode. Last time I spoke to the developer, he said he basically has no control over when the game gets released. A real shame, given how promising it looked, even a decade ago.

@GhaleonUnlimited This cart totally overcomes the region lock out, it will play games from any region, regardless of the console's origin

@NinChocolate Most of the games have English fan translations now

Ah sorry, yeah, I misread your comment, I don't think GBA games can be dumped to the Polymega yet, but perhaps in the future?

@Gerald You can use the N64 GB transfer pak to do that https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/12/polymegas-n64-module-allows-support-for-game-boy-and-game-boy-color-games

@-wc- It's an odd choice, for sure. I'm not sure what they were thinking.

@smoreon It's been a long day (thanks for the save!)

@Steel76 Many 'modern' carts are going to go the same way. DS and 3DS both use flash memory for save data, and sooner or later, that will refuse to be written to any longer, making some games unplayable.

The Switch will last longer as there's no read / write function on those game cards (I think?) - save data is on the system, not the card.

@Profmcstevie My point with the easy mode is that even an average player can blast through it on their first try, and if they're not bothered about getting better at the game and chasing scores, they might not return to it. I agree that it's wonderfully accessible, but I do think the ease in which you can get to the end credits might reduce some people's interest in the wider game.

@-wc- I had to say something because I love this handheld. It's literally my dream portable, thanks to that D-pad.

@Moroboshi876 As far as I'm aware, this is digital-only.

@Poodlestargenerica RetroArch has no emulation capability whatsoever. All of that is down to the inclusion of cores, which are entirely optional – you can remove and download the cores you want, so it's absolutely a front-end.

@Azuris Exactly.

@gingerbeardman I meant to tag the first poster as well, so apologies for that.

Not sure what you mean by the second bit of your message?

@gingerbeardman And my point is you don't know how much he paid, and you also don't know the motivation of the seller - perhaps he was happy to let the game go for a lower-than-normal price because he knew it would get played and not put in a sealed protective case and resold on eBay?

My point is, we don't know, so if we don't know, then "being excellent to each other" surely extends to not jumping to conclusions on such things?

@gingerbeardman How can he be "scalping" GameStop when they set the price? It's not like he forced them to put the games on sale for massively below their retail value.

And we don't know what he paid the seller for PDS, so to speculate that he paid under the odds seems a bit presumptuous to me, personally.

The tweet suggests that both parties were happy with the 'deal', so I'm not sure it's worth throwing shade at, certainly not with all of the genuinely bad stuff that's happening in the world right now.

Scoring a bargain is one of life's little pleasures, and if the seller was happy with the price he got, then I don't see any reason to react negatively to any of this.

@Diogmites Massive respect for the Herzog Zwei love. Absolutely stunning soundtrack.

@Kushan The review cart I have is a NA one and has a plain, printed label on it - so you'd know for sure.

Maybe that version got out in the wild in small numbers somehow?

@Kushan Magazines in the UK were sent a review ROM which had the anime pictures still in place, but the final retail version I played had them removed.

Perhaps you remember seeing the screenshots in magazine reviews, and your mind has filled in the blanks?

I was actually gifted one of the review carts by a games journalist from the '90s, so I can verify the anime portraits were still there.

@nilcam Long story short, it's an arcade standard with replaceable carts, very much like the Neo Geo MVS. It's also very expensive and aimed squarely at arcade operators.

https://exa.ac/en/?v=0f177369a3b7

@Uncle_Franklin There's a huge community behind the Game Boy, not just in terms of modding / restoring / upgrading the original hardware, but creating new software, too. As the recent 35th anniversary proved, lots of people still care a lot about this machine.

@Andee Quite possibly - Jaz Rignall was quizzed on this recently but he had left EMAP by that point.

@RetroGames Probably worth remembering that Leslie was a pretty big name in TV back then, but yeah, he's not ideal casting for sure!

@Hexapus @DanijoEX-the-Pierrot We've tried to keep it limited to one system per entry here, so a vote for KOF 97 basically counts all versions of the game. If we'd have opened this up to every port, the list would have need huge

@mrfield Quite right - thanks for the save, this has been amended.

@bring_on_branstons They got into trouble for selling import Nintendo games and R1 DVDs, is what I heard. I think there are news reports online somewhere

@BulkSlash My Nomad cost £99 fully boxed and mint. So, yeah.

@GhaleonUnlimited From what I've heard, they're a bit of a nightmare to open up and fix / mod.

@Impossibilium Bingo

@JabooMooseKeys As the OCuLink port was referenced in our Flip KB review I didn't mention it here (outside of the spec sheet) but you're quite right, it's worth pointing out - I've added something in.

@-wc- I know what you mean - we've certainly lost a certain something in the shift to capacitive screens when it comes to input. The DS stylus is still a wonderful means of interacting with a touch interface. That's why I still love firing up the 3DS even today.

@-wc- Resistive screens are no longer used on any touch-based hardware, as far as I'm aware, so yes, I would claim the tech is primitive by modern standards. And as for reliability, I have two DS consoles which now have faulty touchscreens; what seems to happen is that dust gets stuck under the edges of the display, applying subtle pressure and thereby registering a touch (or, as in the case of one of my DS Lite consoles, no touch input at all).

Regarding your opinion on the review score, you're perfectly entitled to make that call, but it might be wiser to instead attempt to try out this device first. Yes, it cannot play DS or 3DS carts like a DS or 3DS can, but neither of those machines are capable of playing Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360 or Baldur's Gate 3, as far as I'm aware

@Spider-Kev A) Resistive touchscreen panels are generally less reliable than capacitive ones.

B) The 8840U is more powerful than the 7840U.

C) Yes, that's a typo, it's fixed now - thanks!

D) It has TV-out via the USB-C port, yes.

@JJtheTexan Nope

https://www.timeextension.com/features/an-open-letter-to-tim-and-chris-stamper-founders-of-rare

@ralphdibny That's not mine - it belongs to the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester. Not sure about all the signatures but Simon Butler's is one of them!