Marc Robledo's done fantastic work with Game Boy colorisation and translation patches, especially the Mega Man World titles (3 through 5). I'm keen to check this one out later today.
I would understand if they could add a disclaimer to the game that it's a relic of its time, but I don't see why they can't modify the graphics with the help of someone who has the expertise to do so.
I'm very interested, but the ergonomics look off. The d-pad and face buttons look a bit too close to the hinge, and risk bumping your thumb tip into it when you're really getting into a game, especially if you prefer to use the joint of your thumb over the d-pad's pivot.
Even before opening the article, I sussed it would've been "primary and secondary", but not the whole CAD thing, where X and Y are used for axis co-ordinates in 2D space (or 3D if you include Z).
@N00BiSH Nintendo seems to have a big focus on celebrating their history at the moment, particular with the Nintendo Museum based in Kyoto, which they keep featuring in Nintendo Direct presentations.
@Moroboshi876 Like the article mentions, simply run the Universal Updater homebrew app and it can take care of installing or updating Red Viper for you. The app when launched will take care of the 50hz switching automatically, there's nothing extra you need to do.
@N00BiSH I guess the only way it made business sense was if they could sell some expensive plastic on top of needing to pay a subscription fee.
It was a huge missed opportunity for Nintendo to do Virtual Boy Virtual Console titles on the 3DS, I wonder why they never did it?
The 3DS stereoscopic screen curiously has the perfect specs to do it, a 400x240 display capable of both 60hz and 50hz modes, where the Virtual Boy featured an effective 384x224 resolution at 50hz. The initial builds of Red Viper ran at 60hz, until it was identified that the 3DS could set the screen to 50hz and allow for accurate timing. It's very noticeable with the propeller blades on Wario's jetplane on the Wario Land title screen.
@The_Nintendo_Pedant I think they're referring to the 1280x960 display? Most of these devices end up being 640x480 which is pretty good, but 960p affords it pretty great shader and filter options.
@1040STF Very much so, whilst I'd say Modretro does produce good products and there are passionate people working there to make it happen, the reluctance to do any business with the man at the top of that structure is understandable and could stifle the adoption of new FPGA standards. The Analogue Pocket has an active scene dedicated to getting many FPGA ports running on there, ideal for docked play.
Modretro aren't the only ones out there looking at progressing the FPGA console scene though. The Game Bub, which currently has its crowd funding campaign running over at Crowd Supply, is an FPGA handheld sporting a Artix XC7A100T FPGA. It too would be an open sourced competitor to Analogue if it takes off. I'm not familiar with FPGA chips though and where this stands in relation to the Mister's DE-10, or the Cyclone 10GX.
Whilst important, these are more like significant maintenance updates as Dolphin continues to be maintained for its users in shifting technology landscapes. They're responding to changes in hardware, since the Bluetooth passthrough implementation is older now, as is the Dual Core mode that made perfomant emulation possible a lot sooner than we had access to such powerful host CPUs.
Really, the developments in how they cracked the emulation issues with the "Disney Trio of Destruction" was maybe the highlight of the latest progress report, and it's a reminder of the smart shortcuts they need to take in emulation in order to make performance feasible whilst staying broadly compatible.
Fascinating, they actually prototyped a Bubsy 4D for the PlayStation way back then? I'd love to see that in any form.
I was already familiar with the technical breakdown of Bubsy 3D's visuals, that the choice to use 640x480 resolution heavily limited the textures they were able to use. That was due in part for the intentional art direction from Chuck Jones, where the alien landscapes were inspired from his previous works such as the Duck Dodgers short, and they could get away with using solid colors for environmental polygons.
This is one I've had my eye on, as a horizontal form factor FPGA system ideal for Game Boy Advance games, compared to the Analogue Pocket as a multi-system or the Modretro Chromatic as a dedicated Game Boy Color device.
It's a bit pricey though, and that's before you get to checkout and see the shipping, handling, and taxes. It's also relatively unproven as this is one man's DIY project and a Croatian manufacturing company handling mass production for this one campaign. I'm still weighing this one up.
@missingno_fgc Yeah, the few GBC games that are "advanced" by the GBA if I recall correctly are doing some kind of header check, and little more.
Shantae is another notable example, putting a major piece of unlockable behind it, but also changing the color palette to one better suited to the GBA.
The Oracle games, if you want to play them with the GBA content on modern hardware, you also have to suffer a color palette change that makes them look noticeably worse. Thankfully, there exist patches to force the GBC palette to be used in the GBA mode, good for playing on flashcart for a GBA or an Analogue Pocket for example.
Interesting, so it's not like Animaniacs, where it could display additional colours and use a sound effects library built into the Super Game Boy, and it's not like Space Invaders, where it actually launches a SNES ROM stored on the Game Boy cartridge.
Since the flickering is annoying, and it seems to be reading graphics data present on the Super Game Boy rather than data present on the Game Boy ROM, I'd understand why the feature was never completed. It could've however, been creatively implemented to do things like display hidden messages that can only be read when played on a Super Game Boy, sort of like how Link's Awakening DX had the Color Dungeon, or Oracle of Ages and Seasons had the Advanced Shop.
Could Silksong's release be any part of those delays? A number of games appear to have delayed their releases just to avoid releasing against that juggernaut.
ININ and Strictly Limited at least seems to be getting their act together somewhat, a lot of their physical pre-orders have been stalled long enough as it is, and the whole Parasol Superstars thing was done just to satisfy the separate pre-orders for Parasol Stars and Spica Adventure whilst reducing the physical number of goods needing production.
Color palette management is important, I'd never really considered that the Mega Drive had a more limited simultaneous color display than its competing systems. You wouldn't know it, looking at games like Dynamite Headdy.
It's a known issue for some games though, where certain sprites and background elements have to share colours. Sonic the Hedgehog is a known example of that, where Sonic's blue is re-used for many background elements and cited as a reason why Sonic & Knuckles lock-on technology didn't make Knuckles playable in Sonic 1.
Looking really snazzy, and obviously it offers performance far beyond what's really needed for DS and 3DS games, but can do more than just that.
For something to specifically play DS and 3DS games though, the price point would be total overkill like Scollurio says, and it may not have full 3DS compatibility if it doesn't have built-in gyro for motion controls.
I've a soft spot for the Ruby Spears Mega Man cartoon, in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. There's pretty famous moments like Mega Man taking a shot to protect the statue of Abraham Lincoln, the "Gutsman's Ass" meme, and one of my favorites is Mega Man taking Pharaoh Man's power, then promptly getting punched in the face.
@101Force I'd have to look into it more, but if it's AI processing of any audio data you provide it, sort like an "AI auto-tune", that seems fine.
That said, there are "non-generative" ways to use generative AI. Stable Diffusion has an "image to image" mode where you provide an input image, and your parameters modify the input. However it uses the same process as "text to image" with the diffence being the former generates an image from a basis, and the latter generates an image from pure noise.
The tool in question, Synthesizer V, does in fact appear to be a form of generative AI, however it appears to entirely ethical and above board in its use of voice models from consenting voice actors? I certainly doubt object to the use of this in pre-production materials ahead of hiring proper performers for the final production, but the use of Synthesizer V itself would probably also be ethical as the voice talent was paid for their contributions in the development of that software and service. It means real humans were involved in proxy and proper process.
It's a tricky thing to evaluate, because consenting to having your voice likeness reproduced by AI can go wrong. It certainly did when James Earl Jones' Darth Vader performance was used for real-time AI responses in Fortnite, and that was something that he and his estate may have not accounted for when he signed over his rights for AI recreation.
Interesting that they're including Conker's Pocket Tales. Did you know that when you play that game on a monochrome Game Boy DMG or Pocket, you get a completely different game from the Color version? I wonder if they've accounted for that?
I've pre-ordered the Switch physical version of Earthion and looking forward to playing it that way.
That said, I feel like the Earthion release is at odds with the current landscape of retro gaming. Earthion is in effect an aftermarket unlicensed release, and has to exist in the same space as Itch.io homebrew games that sell ROMs to load onto a flash cart or emulator of your choice. Even many retro games sold on Steam will provide you the ROM data to use, such as Goodboy Galaxy.
Doing a nice physical only release of the game to use on original hardware, or selling a digital version that can only be played on PC or console (especially in a proprietary and restrictive emulator), isn't going to satisfy customers that want to play the game on a open source retro handheld for example.
Of course, this is no justification for distribution of pirated software, but this does highlight a service issue with the game they're selling on Steam.
Okay, this is something that I have given some thought towards.
Too often, generative AI focuses on generating the flattened output and not the processes involved, think like an exported image file versus a PSD document with all the layers.
So let's apply that to a completed software title with robust modding tools, and use machine learning with the formats for those tools.
Lunar Magic, the level editor for Super Mario World. They're in an MWL format, and define a full course in the game, such as Mario's entry point, the enemy and object placements (including checkpoints and pipes), terrain and sublevels, special features like water levels or ice physics, P-switch doors, keys and key holes, and the exit(s).
You could have a model trained on all of the vanilla courses from Super Mario World in MWL format, and use this to generate extrapolated levels based on tokenised characteristics (e.g. Cave level, Ghost House level, vertical climb or horizontal sprint, easy level, difficult level, etc).
You can require that certain aspects be required and follow certain guidelines, e.g. Mario's entry placement is always on the farthest left side, the goal is always on the right, the inclusion or exclusion of pitfalls.
On top of this, we introduce an adverserial aspect to refine the model's training, such as MarI/O which is able to play a SMW level through to completion and can be used to evaluate if the generated output can be played to completion. https://youtu.be/qv6UVOQ0F44
These together could hypothetically be used to generate an unlimited number of vanilla-grade human completable Super Mario World courses, and another tool could be used to package the output of the dozens of courses into a ROM which is used to generate and distribute an IPS or xDelta patch file online.
The output might not be that interesting to play, it would never compare to the hand-crafted works of the talented Super Mario World hackers and designers at places like SMW Central, but as a theoretical demonstration it could be very interesting.
This however would still be very legally dubious as the machine learning process is being trained on Nintendo's own data; their designs for the game's courses. It could be argued as being transformative, but also as derivative.
@mattysaurus Considering these things are premium, I'm frustrated that ModRetro haven't offered an official protector carry case for the Chromatic. I don't want to get some random drop shipped case from Amazon or wherever.
Frustratingly, the rechargable "power core" battery can't be purchased on its own, as least not in "my region due to shipping regulations". I got my Chromatic from DragonBox Shop, but this would be a problem for anyone that bought a 1st edition directly from ModRetro's site too.
@Coalescence That's something that definitely caught my eye about the new stock. They've revised the colour schemes of all of the returning colours. The bottom-left corner's colour bands have been changed, differentiating them from the 1st editions.
I got a lot of wear out of my RG35XXSP, so much so that the face buttons sunk in and became unresponsive, which was a shame and a known problem with the launch units. I'm hopeful that the RG34XXSP might address that, but I'd need to see a teardown. The other part is that I wouldn't ever consider using the stock firmware on an Anbernic device, and MuOS on the RG35XXSP is great, but not yet supported on RG34XXSP. I might have to look at Rocknix or Knulli instead.
There was also this unusual finding about the screen that it appeared to be a 4:3 panel and firmware trickery to make it function as a 720x480 3:2 display, but that didn't appear to be true. Strange, right?
Regarding the ROM modifications. I think this is for emulators, as mGBA is capable of emulating Game Boy Camera and can make use of a webcam on PCs, or the cameras on a homebrew enabled 3DS.
As PZT and RextheSheep already said, ports can be the fruit of a decompilation project, but they are not the goal, and ports are usually done by groups external to the decompilation effort.
There are exceptions such as the Sonic Advance 2 decompilation project, which does have the goal of producing enhanced ports with work-in-progress builds available, but these are usually an exception.
The Zelda Reverse Engineering Team to date have fully decompiled Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Minish Cap, but the Zelda 64 ports were handled by a separate group called Harbour Masters with their Ship of Harkinian project. Minish Cap to my knowledge doesn't have a port available
Decompilation projects usually have the goal of getting an in-depth understanding of a goal at the lowest possible level, which advances speedrun theory for both what's humanly achieveable, and fascinating on a tool-assisted scale.
They're also fantastic for preservation purposes as it gives insight into developmental processes, and can indeed be used to make the games accessible on newer hardware if necessary.
80% is a promising milestone for any decompilation to reach, but the last 20%, 10%, or even 1% of code can be painstaking to finish.
@Profchaos Valve issued that cease and desist because the Portal 64 dev was using Libultra, which is Nintendo's official SDK for developing N64 games and needs to be properly licensed to be used legally. The dev put out their own video on the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDNU9k8uTc4 Valve's reasoning for the C&D would've been to distance themselves from the fan project that was treading on Nintendo's toes, because they want to maintain a good relationship with Nintendo, but also their fans that operate above board.
This is the same situation that Portal 64 fell afoul of, unlicensed code designed to run on Nintendo's system was not entirely clean room due to making use of Nintendo's own code or tools to compile.
It's a tragedy that this fact may've been unknown or swept under the rug, because it compromises the entirety of the Wii homebrew scene.
This isn't just some virtue signalling issue, this makes The Homebrew Channel devs vulnerable to legitation, I'm sure Nintendo would love to get back at them for helping to facilitate the Wii's rampant piracy problem.
@KingMike The specific context here is that the Evercade line originated as handhelds only, and that the home console "VS" line launched after the Namco carts were made. So the understanding or line of thought was that Namco only licensed the cartridges for handheld use, not home console.
In practice, the Evercade cartridges are really basically just SD cards. Despite the large number of pins on the PCB, only 8 are used, and in the same configuration as an SD card. It's a bit of a facade really.
It's interesting that they claim that the imports are illegal, is that actually true? I remember that Lik-Sang got shut down by a Sony lawsuit over the import of PSP and PS3 consoles from Asia to Europe, with Sony arguing things like compatibility of Blu-ray media and consumer safety standards with voltage supply differences. https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/lik-sang-com-out-of-business-due-to-multiple-sony-lawsuits.19066/
Truth be told, this was an issue I had with a Japanese Wii I imported from Play-Asia to play Super Smash Bros. Brawl at the earliest opportunity. I had used an incorrect voltage converter with the JP Wii's power supply, and fried that power supply (but thankfully not the Wii itself).
Love the continuing preservation efforts of the Keitai Wiki community, and discovering all the bits of IP that were never accessible to the West before.
Huh, so in spite of that grievance, they still ultimately went ahead and made Tetris & Dr. Mario for the SNES. They took a crack at doing a mixed multiplayer mode for the two different puzzle games, long before Puyo Puyo Tetris, you know!
Considering Analogue have yet to actually demonstrate their own Analogue 3D product, and it's supposed to ship in Q1 2025, I'd be curious to see what Modretro is offering. Analogue have gotten too comfortable in their own FPGA bubble.
The NES carts were infamous for having that empty space, due to some very early NES carts like Gyromite actually housing Famicom boards with a Famicom to NES adapter. The idea of an NES-sized cartridge having two boards and two adapters on opposite sides is novel though, and I'm surprised it only happened now. Years back it could've been a novel solution for selling old stock in new SKUs, but Nintendo would've probably never approved it with their strict licensing and limitation of how many titles could be published per year.
@Futureshark Not at this stage, since Android devices are typically ARM not x86/x64. The tool currently only recompiles for x86 devices like Windows or Linux desktop and laptop computers.
The screen resolution is a bit unfortunate. 480 width is going to be less than 2x scale for the DS's 256px wide screens. That'll be an awkward 187.5% scale, and Drastic as a standalone emulator doesn't have the nice scaling/shading options that Retroarch does.
Taki Udon mentioned that one of his projects is replacement Nintendo DS screens, in his recent video for the Switch Lite replacement screens. That's something I'd like to see come to fruition since DS Lite and DSi screens have not aged particularly well; they're known to yellow due to the use of adhesives within the screen.
Wonderswan being one of the licenses is interesting, considering that's an entire platform and not just one franchise. Still, if they're open to having some franchises return if other developers want to make it happen, in the way that Konami have done recently, I'm supportive.
I was astonished to see that we jumped from N64 static recompilation straight up to Xbox 360, I never imagined we'd see something like this. A fantastic cause too, Sonic Unleashed had become so inaccessible due to only being on 360 and PS3 (not counting the PS2 and Wii versions which are effectively a different game).
@AngelFox It'll probably end up getting a Carbon Engine release months after the GBA version. That's what they're doing for Shantae Advance, GBA physicals first for an exclusivity window.
What happened with their 3DO D release and Rugrats + PioPow NES releases, is by their own admission evidence that their QA processes are lacking at least as new releases or changes in process are concerned. I do hope that they learn from that.
It's not just QA issues with physical media, their Carbon Engine games developed in-house are known to have a few issues. The 1.0 release of Ninja Five-O that they shipped (weeks ahead of the digital release) has strange bugs like the intro video failing to play in Docked mode, or the gallery failing to display box art or game manuals.
LRG will be fulfilling the GBA physical release of Shantae Advance Risky Revolution soon, and I believe this is their first ever GBA release? Aftermarket GBA releases are rare so I'm keen to see if they get this right, especially as they just announced they're doing a GBA physical for Sigma Star DX, which I'm also interested in as a WayForward fan.
In terms of just fulfilling physical releases for modern systems, I do feel that LRG have turned it around and are back on track with made-to-order fulfilments, but the stigma of items instantly selling out and unfortunately long waiting times has stuck around. There's also that LRG doesn't seem to be a fully preservationist as they used to be, if they're willing to ship Switch physicals ahead of or in-line with digital launches so that they're not fully patched and updated, or may not have full DLC on-cart like with the Switch release of Rain World.
@Pillowpants There's a good chance that they'll support English language when you plug them in anyway. A lot of digital releases are true multi-region and set a language based on your Switch system.
I imported the SuperDeluxe release of Chicory, and it has full English language support. It also had the surprising advantage of being much cheaper to order from Amazon.co.jp versus the Limited Run Games release, so something to consider.
The key pad buttons are big you could punch them, that's hilarious. Adjacent to it looks like the back of a PC case with connecting ports, with oversized USB or VGA ports and 3.5mm audio jacks? So surreal.
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Re: Miyamoto's "Forgotten" Game Boy Masterpiece Mole Mania Gets The Unofficial 'DX' Treatment
Marc Robledo's done fantastic work with Game Boy colorisation and translation patches, especially the Mega Man World titles (3 through 5).
I'm keen to check this one out later today.
Re: "Nintendo Has Made Serious Objections" - Last Ninja Collection Delayed On Consoles
I would understand if they could add a disclaimer to the game that it's a relic of its time, but I don't see why they can't modify the graphics with the help of someone who has the expertise to do so.
Re: It Looks Like Anbernic Is Going All-In On Its Nintendo DS Clone
I'm very interested, but the ergonomics look off.
The d-pad and face buttons look a bit too close to the hinge, and risk bumping your thumb tip into it when you're really getting into a game, especially if you prefer to use the joint of your thumb over the d-pad's pivot.
Re: Here's Why Controllers Have 'A, B, X & Y' Buttons, And Not 'A, B, C & D'
Even before opening the article, I sussed it would've been "primary and secondary", but not the whole CAD thing, where X and Y are used for axis co-ordinates in 2D space (or 3D if you include Z).
Still, better than having O U Y A buttons, right?
Re: Forget Nintendo Switch, You Probably Own A Great Way To Play Virtual Boy Games Already
@N00BiSH
Nintendo seems to have a big focus on celebrating their history at the moment, particular with the Nintendo Museum based in Kyoto, which they keep featuring in Nintendo Direct presentations.
https://museum.nintendo.com/en/index.html
Re: Forget Nintendo Switch, You Probably Own A Great Way To Play Virtual Boy Games Already
@Moroboshi876
Like the article mentions, simply run the Universal Updater homebrew app and it can take care of installing or updating Red Viper for you.
The app when launched will take care of the 50hz switching automatically, there's nothing extra you need to do.
@N00BiSH
I guess the only way it made business sense was if they could sell some expensive plastic on top of needing to pay a subscription fee.
Re: Forget Nintendo Switch, You Probably Own A Great Way To Play Virtual Boy Games Already
It was a huge missed opportunity for Nintendo to do Virtual Boy Virtual Console titles on the 3DS, I wonder why they never did it?
The 3DS stereoscopic screen curiously has the perfect specs to do it, a 400x240 display capable of both 60hz and 50hz modes, where the Virtual Boy featured an effective 384x224 resolution at 50hz.
The initial builds of Red Viper ran at 60hz, until it was identified that the 3DS could set the screen to 50hz and allow for accurate timing. It's very noticeable with the propeller blades on Wario's jetplane on the Wario Land title screen.
Re: AYANEO Reveals Its Pocket Air Mini "Entry-Level" Retro Handheld Will Cost The Same Than Some AAA Games
@The_Nintendo_Pedant
I think they're referring to the 1280x960 display?
Most of these devices end up being 640x480 which is pretty good, but 960p affords it pretty great shader and filter options.
Re: Company That Cleared Sega's Offices Of "Stolen" Nintendo Dev Kits Is A Charity, New Evidence Reveals
@Carck
And that somehow excuses SEGA using the British police force to raid the house of a private citizen?
Re: ModRetro's M64 Could "Replace MiSTer FPGA", Says New Report
@1040STF
Very much so, whilst I'd say Modretro does produce good products and there are passionate people working there to make it happen, the reluctance to do any business with the man at the top of that structure is understandable and could stifle the adoption of new FPGA standards.
The Analogue Pocket has an active scene dedicated to getting many FPGA ports running on there, ideal for docked play.
Modretro aren't the only ones out there looking at progressing the FPGA console scene though. The Game Bub, which currently has its crowd funding campaign running over at Crowd Supply, is an FPGA handheld sporting a Artix XC7A100T FPGA. It too would be an open sourced competitor to Analogue if it takes off.
I'm not familiar with FPGA chips though and where this stands in relation to the Mister's DE-10, or the Cyclone 10GX.
Re: Dolphin's Latest Update Focuses On Stability & Improved Wiimote Support
Whilst important, these are more like significant maintenance updates as Dolphin continues to be maintained for its users in shifting technology landscapes.
They're responding to changes in hardware, since the Bluetooth passthrough implementation is older now, as is the Dual Core mode that made perfomant emulation possible a lot sooner than we had access to such powerful host CPUs.
Really, the developments in how they cracked the emulation issues with the "Disney Trio of Destruction" was maybe the highlight of the latest progress report, and it's a reminder of the smart shortcuts they need to take in emulation in order to make performance feasible whilst staying broadly compatible.
Re: "It Makes Me Happy To Know That Bubsy Is Getting Another Chance" - Bubsy 3D Dev Hopes Revivals Will Lead To "New Fans"
Fascinating, they actually prototyped a Bubsy 4D for the PlayStation way back then? I'd love to see that in any form.
I was already familiar with the technical breakdown of Bubsy 3D's visuals, that the choice to use 640x480 resolution heavily limited the textures they were able to use. That was due in part for the intentional art direction from Chuck Jones, where the alien landscapes were inspired from his previous works such as the Duck Dodgers short, and they could get away with using solid colors for environmental polygons.
Re: Crowdfunding For Open-Source FPGA Game Boy Clone 'Game Bub' Is Now Live
This is one I've had my eye on, as a horizontal form factor FPGA system ideal for Game Boy Advance games, compared to the Analogue Pocket as a multi-system or the Modretro Chromatic as a dedicated Game Boy Color device.
It's a bit pricey though, and that's before you get to checkout and see the shipping, handling, and taxes. It's also relatively unproven as this is one man's DIY project and a Croatian manufacturing company handling mass production for this one campaign. I'm still weighing this one up.
Re: Homebrew Coder Breaks Nintendo's Rules To Create The First Super Game Boy "Exclusive"
@missingno_fgc
Yeah, the few GBC games that are "advanced" by the GBA if I recall correctly are doing some kind of header check, and little more.
Shantae is another notable example, putting a major piece of unlockable behind it, but also changing the color palette to one better suited to the GBA.
The Oracle games, if you want to play them with the GBA content on modern hardware, you also have to suffer a color palette change that makes them look noticeably worse. Thankfully, there exist patches to force the GBC palette to be used in the GBA mode, good for playing on flashcart for a GBA or an Analogue Pocket for example.
Re: Homebrew Coder Breaks Nintendo's Rules To Create The First Super Game Boy "Exclusive"
Interesting, so it's not like Animaniacs, where it could display additional colours and use a sound effects library built into the Super Game Boy, and it's not like Space Invaders, where it actually launches a SNES ROM stored on the Game Boy cartridge.
Since the flickering is annoying, and it seems to be reading graphics data present on the Super Game Boy rather than data present on the Game Boy ROM, I'd understand why the feature was never completed.
It could've however, been creatively implemented to do things like display hidden messages that can only be read when played on a Super Game Boy, sort of like how Link's Awakening DX had the Color Dungeon, or Oracle of Ages and Seasons had the Advanced Shop.
Re: "The Reasons For The Delay Are Complex" - ININ Cancels Parasol Superstars' Planned September Launch Date
Could Silksong's release be any part of those delays? A number of games appear to have delayed their releases just to avoid releasing against that juggernaut.
ININ and Strictly Limited at least seems to be getting their act together somewhat, a lot of their physical pre-orders have been stalled long enough as it is, and the whole Parasol Superstars thing was done just to satisfy the separate pre-orders for Parasol Stars and Spica Adventure whilst reducing the physical number of goods needing production.
Re: "With Love, Anything Is Possible" - Could Parodius Finally Get A Genesis / Mega Drive Port?
Color palette management is important, I'd never really considered that the Mega Drive had a more limited simultaneous color display than its competing systems.
You wouldn't know it, looking at games like Dynamite Headdy.
It's a known issue for some games though, where certain sprites and background elements have to share colours.
Sonic the Hedgehog is a known example of that, where Sonic's blue is re-used for many background elements and cited as a reason why Sonic & Knuckles lock-on technology didn't make Knuckles playable in Sonic 1.
Re: AYN Teases Odin 2 Successor & A DS-Style Android-Based Handheld To Rival AYANEO
Looking really snazzy, and obviously it offers performance far beyond what's really needed for DS and 3DS games, but can do more than just that.
For something to specifically play DS and 3DS games though, the price point would be total overkill like Scollurio says, and it may not have full 3DS compatibility if it doesn't have built-in gyro for motion controls.
Re: Mega Man's 1994 Animated Series Is Getting The Definitive Home Release Fans Have Been Waiting For
I've a soft spot for the Ruby Spears Mega Man cartoon, in a "so bad it's good" kind of way.
There's pretty famous moments like Mega Man taking a shot to protect the statue of Abraham Lincoln, the "Gutsman's Ass" meme, and one of my favorites is Mega Man taking Pharaoh Man's power, then promptly getting punched in the face.
Re: "No Generative AI Was Used In Earthion's Final Version" - Yuzo Koshiro Debunks GenAI Rumour
@101Force
I'd have to look into it more, but if it's AI processing of any audio data you provide it, sort like an "AI auto-tune", that seems fine.
That said, there are "non-generative" ways to use generative AI.
Stable Diffusion has an "image to image" mode where you provide an input image, and your parameters modify the input.
However it uses the same process as "text to image" with the diffence being the former generates an image from a basis, and the latter generates an image from pure noise.
Re: "No Generative AI Was Used In Earthion's Final Version" - Yuzo Koshiro Debunks GenAI Rumour
The tool in question, Synthesizer V, does in fact appear to be a form of generative AI, however it appears to entirely ethical and above board in its use of voice models from consenting voice actors?
I certainly doubt object to the use of this in pre-production materials ahead of hiring proper performers for the final production, but the use of Synthesizer V itself would probably also be ethical as the voice talent was paid for their contributions in the development of that software and service.
It means real humans were involved in proxy and proper process.
It's a tricky thing to evaluate, because consenting to having your voice likeness reproduced by AI can go wrong.
It certainly did when James Earl Jones' Darth Vader performance was used for real-time AI responses in Fortnite, and that was something that he and his estate may have not accounted for when he signed over his rights for AI recreation.
Re: Rare And The ZX Spectrum Are Coming To Evercade
Interesting that they're including Conker's Pocket Tales.
Did you know that when you play that game on a monochrome Game Boy DMG or Pocket, you get a completely different game from the Color version? I wonder if they've accounted for that?
Re: "Please Support Us" Pleads Yuzo Koshiro As Pirated Earthion ROM Appears Online
I've pre-ordered the Switch physical version of Earthion and looking forward to playing it that way.
That said, I feel like the Earthion release is at odds with the current landscape of retro gaming. Earthion is in effect an aftermarket unlicensed release, and has to exist in the same space as Itch.io homebrew games that sell ROMs to load onto a flash cart or emulator of your choice. Even many retro games sold on Steam will provide you the ROM data to use, such as Goodboy Galaxy.
Doing a nice physical only release of the game to use on original hardware, or selling a digital version that can only be played on PC or console (especially in a proprietary and restrictive emulator), isn't going to satisfy customers that want to play the game on a open source retro handheld for example.
Of course, this is no justification for distribution of pirated software, but this does highlight a service issue with the game they're selling on Steam.
Re: Talking Point: If You Think AI Can Make SNES Games, We Have Some Magic Beans We'd Love To Sell You
Okay, this is something that I have given some thought towards.
Too often, generative AI focuses on generating the flattened output and not the processes involved, think like an exported image file versus a PSD document with all the layers.
So let's apply that to a completed software title with robust modding tools, and use machine learning with the formats for those tools.
Lunar Magic, the level editor for Super Mario World. They're in an MWL format, and define a full course in the game, such as Mario's entry point, the enemy and object placements (including checkpoints and pipes), terrain and sublevels, special features like water levels or ice physics, P-switch doors, keys and key holes, and the exit(s).
You could have a model trained on all of the vanilla courses from Super Mario World in MWL format, and use this to generate extrapolated levels based on tokenised characteristics (e.g. Cave level, Ghost House level, vertical climb or horizontal sprint, easy level, difficult level, etc).
You can require that certain aspects be required and follow certain guidelines, e.g. Mario's entry placement is always on the farthest left side, the goal is always on the right, the inclusion or exclusion of pitfalls.
On top of this, we introduce an adverserial aspect to refine the model's training, such as MarI/O which is able to play a SMW level through to completion and can be used to evaluate if the generated output can be played to completion.
https://youtu.be/qv6UVOQ0F44
These together could hypothetically be used to generate an unlimited number of vanilla-grade human completable Super Mario World courses, and another tool could be used to package the output of the dozens of courses into a ROM which is used to generate and distribute an IPS or xDelta patch file online.
The output might not be that interesting to play, it would never compare to the hand-crafted works of the talented Super Mario World hackers and designers at places like SMW Central, but as a theoretical demonstration it could be very interesting.
This however would still be very legally dubious as the machine learning process is being trained on Nintendo's own data; their designs for the game's courses. It could be argued as being transformative, but also as derivative.
Re: This New ROM Hack Introduces "Revolutionary Force Feedback" To The SNES Classic Star Fox
Calling it Shindou Edition is a nice throwback to Super Mario 64's Shindou Edition, the rumble pak upgrade that was exclusive to Japan.
Re: ModRetro's Chromatic Is Back In Stock, Alongside Sabrina The Teenage Witch
@mattysaurus
Considering these things are premium, I'm frustrated that ModRetro haven't offered an official protector carry case for the Chromatic. I don't want to get some random drop shipped case from Amazon or wherever.
Re: ModRetro's Chromatic Is Back In Stock, Alongside Sabrina The Teenage Witch
Frustratingly, the rechargable "power core" battery can't be purchased on its own, as least not in "my region due to shipping regulations".
I got my Chromatic from DragonBox Shop, but this would be a problem for anyone that bought a 1st edition directly from ModRetro's site too.
Re: ModRetro's Chromatic Is Back In Stock, Alongside Sabrina The Teenage Witch
@Coalescence
That's something that definitely caught my eye about the new stock. They've revised the colour schemes of all of the returning colours. The bottom-left corner's colour bands have been changed, differentiating them from the 1st editions.
Re: Two Previously-Lost Games Based On Mega Man & Galaga Have Been Rescued From Japanese Flip Phones
There's an undeniable charm to Rockman The Puzzle Battle there, it feels like something that could've been a DSiWare title.
Re: Review: Anbernic RG34XX SP - Another GBA SP Clone, But One That's Worth A Look
I got a lot of wear out of my RG35XXSP, so much so that the face buttons sunk in and became unresponsive, which was a shame and a known problem with the launch units.
I'm hopeful that the RG34XXSP might address that, but I'd need to see a teardown.
The other part is that I wouldn't ever consider using the stock firmware on an Anbernic device, and MuOS on the RG35XXSP is great, but not yet supported on RG34XXSP. I might have to look at Rocknix or Knulli instead.
There was also this unusual finding about the screen that it appeared to be a 4:3 panel and firmware trickery to make it function as a 720x480 3:2 display, but that didn't appear to be true. Strange, right?
https://youtu.be/e528oYFmsYI
https://youtu.be/FJJCwSIBC4
Re: This New Game Boy Camera Tool Will Make Managing Your Photos Significantly Easier
Regarding the ROM modifications.
I think this is for emulators, as mGBA is capable of emulating Game Boy Camera and can make use of a webcam on PCs, or the cameras on a homebrew enabled 3DS.
Re: Soon, You'll Be Able To Play Diddy Kong Racing Natively On Your PC
As PZT and RextheSheep already said, ports can be the fruit of a decompilation project, but they are not the goal, and ports are usually done by groups external to the decompilation effort.
There are exceptions such as the Sonic Advance 2 decompilation project, which does have the goal of producing enhanced ports with work-in-progress builds available, but these are usually an exception.
The Zelda Reverse Engineering Team to date have fully decompiled Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Minish Cap, but the Zelda 64 ports were handled by a separate group called Harbour Masters with their Ship of Harkinian project. Minish Cap to my knowledge doesn't have a port available
Decompilation projects usually have the goal of getting an in-depth understanding of a goal at the lowest possible level, which advances speedrun theory for both what's humanly achieveable, and fascinating on a tool-assisted scale.
They're also fantastic for preservation purposes as it gives insight into developmental processes, and can indeed be used to make the games accessible on newer hardware if necessary.
80% is a promising milestone for any decompilation to reach, but the last 20%, 10%, or even 1% of code can be painstaking to finish.
Re: Wii Homebrew Community "Built On Lies And Copyright Infringement"
@Profchaos
Valve issued that cease and desist because the Portal 64 dev was using Libultra, which is Nintendo's official SDK for developing N64 games and needs to be properly licensed to be used legally.
The dev put out their own video on the issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDNU9k8uTc4
Valve's reasoning for the C&D would've been to distance themselves from the fan project that was treading on Nintendo's toes, because they want to maintain a good relationship with Nintendo, but also their fans that operate above board.
Re: Wii Homebrew Community "Built On Lies And Copyright Infringement"
This is the same situation that Portal 64 fell afoul of, unlicensed code designed to run on Nintendo's system was not entirely clean room due to making use of Nintendo's own code or tools to compile.
It's a tragedy that this fact may've been unknown or swept under the rug, because it compromises the entirety of the Wii homebrew scene.
This isn't just some virtue signalling issue, this makes The Homebrew Channel devs vulnerable to legitation, I'm sure Nintendo would love to get back at them for helping to facilitate the Wii's rampant piracy problem.
Re: Evercade's Namco Carts Now Work On The VS, Thanks To A Stealthy Update
@KingMike
The specific context here is that the Evercade line originated as handhelds only, and that the home console "VS" line launched after the Namco carts were made.
So the understanding or line of thought was that Namco only licensed the cartridges for handheld use, not home console.
In practice, the Evercade cartridges are really basically just SD cards. Despite the large number of pins on the PCB, only 8 are used, and in the same configuration as an SD card.
It's a bit of a facade really.
Re: 34 Years Ago, Nintendo Begged Fans Not To "Risk" Importing SNES Consoles From Japan
It's interesting that they claim that the imports are illegal, is that actually true?
I remember that Lik-Sang got shut down by a Sony lawsuit over the import of PSP and PS3 consoles from Asia to Europe, with Sony arguing things like compatibility of Blu-ray media and consumer safety standards with voltage supply differences.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/lik-sang-com-out-of-business-due-to-multiple-sony-lawsuits.19066/
Truth be told, this was an issue I had with a Japanese Wii I imported from Play-Asia to play Super Smash Bros. Brawl at the earliest opportunity. I had used an incorrect voltage converter with the JP Wii's power supply, and fried that power supply (but thankfully not the Wii itself).
Re: Thanks To Fans, This Lost Puyo Puyo Fever Game For Mobile Has Finally Been Preserved
Love the continuing preservation efforts of the Keitai Wiki community, and discovering all the bits of IP that were never accessible to the West before.
Re: "I Was P****d Off" - The Tetris Company's Henk Rogers On Nintendo's "Blatant Attempt" To Copy A Classic
Huh, so in spite of that grievance, they still ultimately went ahead and made Tetris & Dr. Mario for the SNES.
They took a crack at doing a mixed multiplayer mode for the two different puzzle games, long before Puyo Puyo Tetris, you know!
Re: This New Mario & Sonic-Inspired Steam Game Looks Like Platforming Perfection
I noticed this one on YouTube some weeks or months ago, and have been looking forward to the Kickstarter campaign starting.
Re: Palmer Luckey Just Invoked 'The Matrix' To Tease A New Nintendo 64 Console
Considering Analogue have yet to actually demonstrate their own Analogue 3D product, and it's supposed to ship in Q1 2025, I'd be curious to see what Modretro is offering.
Analogue have gotten too comfortable in their own FPGA bubble.
Re: Random: This Two-Sided NES Cart Is Blowing Our Tiny Minds
The NES carts were infamous for having that empty space, due to some very early NES carts like Gyromite actually housing Famicom boards with a Famicom to NES adapter.
The idea of an NES-sized cartridge having two boards and two adapters on opposite sides is novel though, and I'm surprised it only happened now. Years back it could've been a novel solution for selling old stock in new SKUs, but Nintendo would've probably never approved it with their strict licensing and limitation of how many titles could be published per year.
Re: New Xbox 360 Recompilation Tool Will Give Lost Classics Another Chance To Shine
@Futureshark
Not at this stage, since Android devices are typically ARM not x86/x64.
The tool currently only recompiles for x86 devices like Windows or Linux desktop and laptop computers.
Re: This $75 Handheld Could Be The Best Way To Emulate Nintendo DS In 2025
The screen resolution is a bit unfortunate. 480 width is going to be less than 2x scale for the DS's 256px wide screens.
That'll be an awkward 187.5% scale, and Drastic as a standalone emulator doesn't have the nice scaling/shading options that Retroarch does.
Taki Udon mentioned that one of his projects is replacement Nintendo DS screens, in his recent video for the Switch Lite replacement screens. That's something I'd like to see come to fruition since DS Lite and DSi screens have not aged particularly well; they're known to yellow due to the use of adhesives within the screen.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Launching A New Initiative To License Out IP Like Ridge Racer & Soul Calibur
Wonderswan being one of the licenses is interesting, considering that's an entire platform and not just one franchise.
Still, if they're open to having some franchises return if other developers want to make it happen, in the way that Konami have done recently, I'm supportive.
Re: This New Unofficial PC Port Of Sonic Unleashed Could Be The Best Version Of The Game Yet
I was astonished to see that we jumped from N64 static recompilation straight up to Xbox 360, I never imagined we'd see something like this.
A fantastic cause too, Sonic Unleashed had become so inaccessible due to only being on 360 and PS3 (not counting the PS2 and Wii versions which are effectively a different game).
Re: GBA Classic Sigma Star Saga Is Getting An Enhanced 'DX' Cartridge Release, 20 Years On
@AngelFox
It'll probably end up getting a Carbon Engine release months after the GBA version.
That's what they're doing for Shantae Advance, GBA physicals first for an exclusivity window.
Re: Interview: "We’ve Certainly Made Mistakes" - Limited Run's Boss On Winning Back The Trust Of The Community
What happened with their 3DO D release and Rugrats + PioPow NES releases, is by their own admission evidence that their QA processes are lacking at least as new releases or changes in process are concerned. I do hope that they learn from that.
It's not just QA issues with physical media, their Carbon Engine games developed in-house are known to have a few issues.
The 1.0 release of Ninja Five-O that they shipped (weeks ahead of the digital release) has strange bugs like the intro video failing to play in Docked mode, or the gallery failing to display box art or game manuals.
LRG will be fulfilling the GBA physical release of Shantae Advance Risky Revolution soon, and I believe this is their first ever GBA release? Aftermarket GBA releases are rare so I'm keen to see if they get this right, especially as they just announced they're doing a GBA physical for Sigma Star DX, which I'm also interested in as a WayForward fan.
In terms of just fulfilling physical releases for modern systems, I do feel that LRG have turned it around and are back on track with made-to-order fulfilments, but the stigma of items instantly selling out and unfortunately long waiting times has stuck around.
There's also that LRG doesn't seem to be a fully preservationist as they used to be, if they're willing to ship Switch physicals ahead of or in-line with digital launches so that they're not fully patched and updated, or may not have full DLC on-cart like with the Switch release of Rain World.
Re: "These Short Games Mean Nothing To Me" - Retro-Bit Translator Denies Wrongdoing In "Baffling" Rant
This kind of conduct is how you get yourself blacklisted from the industry.
Re: Superdeluxe Is Giving Us Serious FOMO With These Castlevania Deluxe Editions
@Pillowpants
There's a good chance that they'll support English language when you plug them in anyway.
A lot of digital releases are true multi-region and set a language based on your Switch system.
I imported the SuperDeluxe release of Chicory, and it has full English language support.
It also had the surprising advantage of being much cheaper to order from Amazon.co.jp versus the Limited Run Games release, so something to consider.
Re: Random: A Giant Telephone Keypad Is Causing Confusion In Tomb Raider's Remaster
The key pad buttons are big you could punch them, that's hilarious.
Adjacent to it looks like the back of a PC case with connecting ports, with oversized USB or VGA ports and 3.5mm audio jacks? So surreal.