Sketcz

The demo of Keio on Mega CD is the same. The level select cheat allows you to access the whole game in the demo.

Interesting they did a fresh localisation. Vic retained the rights to all of his - has there been any official statement as to why they weren't licensed? I'm thinking of this and the Mega CD games on MD Mini 2.

Ahh, Super Mario 128. Forgot about that tech demo. Had a quick look and... Apparently it's not in the gigaleak?

I have a horror story about memory cards:

Early into owning a PS1, a friend lent me a game.

So I'm playing, and the options say "Format Memory Card".

And I had never owned a PC before, so hadn't heard the term.

So I checked the manual, and it said: use this to format memory card. That's all it said.

And I'm like: I suppose I should select which format it is, so the game can save correctly.

I think I was like 12 maybe? I checked the card to be sure, and it was an official Sony 15 block PS1 format card.

I'm gonna need to know that after I click format card and I need to select from the list of available formats! 🤓

So click format.

And it says formatting.

And then nothing happens.

That's weird.

This game is boring, let's play another.

Huh... I can't find my save.

The whole card had been ERASED.

I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

Up until then every cartridge game I'd owned had used the word ERASE or DELETE.

I had no idea what the word FORMAT meant.

I learned a painful lesson that day.

@Akibiyori Scepticism is good! It's healthy.

We're each given a finite quantity of time on this planet, so I don't want to suggest anyone spends this finite time on a game they ultimately end up hating. I can only describe what I experienced and hope it resonates with others.

I approached Robotrek with less than zero expectations. I also share the same feelings on EarthBound - the battle system is just reheated Dragon Quest, and what makes the game good is the stuff other than the battles. Towards the end it was a massive grind.

The others you mention I've not played (Xeno, BoF, etc.).

Robotrek's battle system is versatile. One of the reasons I love the game is just how different it is. People draw parallels to Pokemon, and sure I guess. But for me it was all about tinkering and customising. It felt very Western in that regard - you can do some wacky things.

The map system is also excellent. It gets complaints for being linear, but actually... Each spot on the map offers exploration. The "linear" overworld however prevents you getting lost. I actually took a two month break in the middle due to real life. When I came back: instantly knew what to do and where to go, because it meant going to next red dot on the line.

Within those areas though there's plenty to uncover.

I understand your scepticism. I feel it too. So many RPGs are just reskins of Dragon Quest, or a game which copied Dragon Quest. And really isn't DQ just Ultima and Wizardry at its core?

I can't promise you'll have the same experience I did. But my motivation for writing this was born of the same scepticism you describe.

If anyone emulates it, I recommend finding scans of the poster that came with the game. Print it off. One side lists the run commands, the other side the items to combine.

Also make it a priority to unlock all 3 robots. Once you do, the whole strategic field is open.

The localisation starts off pretty good, quite sweet and nostalgic, though the last 10% of the game is sadly gibberish. I actually have no clue what the last few screens of dialogue before the very end were meant to be saying.

If you play it, report back! If you hate it, fair enough, at least you gave it a shot.

I saw someone on Twitter commenting on how the writing in this connects it to Quintet's Souls trilogy. I never overtly stated it, there was so much to cover in the piece, but I agree with that assessment.

When playing Robotrek, it doesn't feel like some odd duck out, it very much feels a part of the spirit of Quintet's other games, which Yokota alluded to when describing Miyazaki's motivation. No one has been able to find Miyazaki, so we can't ask. But having played all of them you get that impression.

As also stated, it has the same experimental nature as other Quintet games. For example, Illusion of Gaia has no currency system, and the entire game world has only a finite number of healing items to find. Which surprised me when I first realised it. Apart from Actraiser 2, all the 16-bit games were inventive and fresh.

For me it's never been about nostalgia.

It's always been about discovering games I'd never played before.

Each era of games will have particular and distinct styles of design, controls, visuals, and audio. I play old games to experience these. Modern retro styled games tend to feel inauthentic; I much prefer discovering something from the time.

I rarely play games I rinsed in my youth. Why would I? There's more excellent games in existence than I can experience before I die. I don't have time to retread what I already know.

Almost tempted to reinvest in a printer. I recall my brother taking our GB Camera to school and photographing friends and teachers; we took a bunch of our family.

We printed them all off before selling the printer and camera, but sadly that heat paper has faded over time. Miss the little thing.

We never did get much other use out of the printer.

I quite like ROB and the Gyromite set for NES.

You control the game using a remote control robot and pair of weighted spinning tops.

It's like nothing else I've ever experieced and a lot of fun.

@BulkSlash thanks! (Great name btw - big fan of the Saturn game I take it?)

@BulkSlash where did you get the steel bowls? I need some myself...

Multiple kids at my school at the time eschewed the DC in favour of the PS2, soley because MGS2 was coming out on PS2.

Me and one other guy bought a DC and loved it. And we praises it to those who hadn't yet made the generational jump.

All of them were waiting to get a PS2 for one reason only: Metal Gear Solid 2.

I can't vouch for if this was the whole UK, but Kojima's game definitely helped Sony attract buyers.

I try to imagine a world where MGS2 was a DC exclusive...

I never liked how the JP and US logo was red.

Anyone else think that the blue logo in Europe just feels right, given how the Sega logo was always blue?

Plot twist: The cards were rigged!

I'm loving seeing how these cards are being resurrected.

Someone in that background is seriously enjoying eating a shank of some variety.

I love old sprite backgrounds.

Caps. I've had to have systems recapped, and snipped a few redundant dead caps (og Xbox has one cap that likes to leak and destroy boards).

Caps are easy though.

Hopefully my stuff lasts longer than my meatshell body. I don't care what happens after I die.

Am I the only one who prefers the original PS1 voices, with the "What is a Man?" line?

I've been enjoying my modded SNES a lot in recent days. Thanks for making my new year utterly terrifying now.

Jeez, it's only 30 years old. Why is this happening?

My Vectrex is older than that and still going strong (after a £150 refurb).

@PasokonDeacon Good call on Star Cruiser! I played the X68k and Mega Drive remix, and it was massively ahead of its time.

And they say Japan can't do FPS.

Which reminds me, if we can vote for X68k games: GEOGRAPH SEAL.

It's basically heavy metal Jumping Flash! Released around the same time as Doom on Western computers, this to me is Japan's Doom. In some ways, in terms of height, it might even be a little more accomplished than Doom.

Tempted by this, but have a question:
Many years ago I tried HIGAN on a PC hooked up to a 720p HDTV. It's the "flawless" SNES emulator.

Despite the many CRT filters it offered, every single option still resulted in the most awful horizontal motion blurring possible.

In that instance I was playing the Deep Space 9 platformer. On my actual SNES, on a CRT TV, the screen scrolled left and right with no motion blur at all. The backgrounds were constantly crisp.

On HIGAN it looked good when static, but moving left or right caused terrible blur. Yuck.

I decided then and there to abandon ever trying to upscale retro consoles. If a flawless emulator with filters couldn't do it, nothing could.

Does this 5X fix this?

If you play a SNES platformer, will the bsckground scroll with crystal clear sharpness of an RGB SNES on CRT?

Ashe for PC-8801, by Quasar Soft. Remade as Energy for PC Engine, but that wasn't very good.

The original fpr Japanese computers is like a proto Metroidvania.

Given just how expensive it was, I wonder how different Sega's fortunes would have been if they'd just said "no" to Suzuki's idea. Hypothetically.

@Asaki I finally had a moment to give this a go and it's a thing of beauty.

Is it possible, using this format, to insert "game logic" into it? By which I mean, have it recognise when someone has 3 lose symbols, and classifies that as a lose?

On the flip side, if we're being up authentic, there was nothing stopping kids in the back scratching everything off, even if they lost.

No further news on my end, but whoever suggested the forum, that's a good idea, since can keep track of developments a little easier, rather than checking if an old article has a new post.

Did you want to start it or shall I?

lol. Everyone getting worked up about Hideo Kojima games has clearly not played Onechanbara Z2 with the fruity feeldoe DLC.

His stuff is mild.

Never change Japan, never change.

@KingMike Thanks for these, I'll add them to my list to check out.

As for Quintet, I loved pretty much their entire 16-bit portfolio. (Are we counting Actraiser 2?) Each hit similar notes, while still retaining a distinct flavour.

No one ever gives Robotrek any love. I did a Quintet binge last year, replaying the entire SNES catalogue - Robotrek was done last given how negatively it's spoken about. (I also tried Granstream Saga, but hot damn, that game is trash!)

I discovered Robotrek to be the forgotten gem in Quintet's crown, with a story that had similar beats to Earthbound, and play mechanics which are seemingly unlike anything else (your 3 robots can be be repeatedly recustomised to suit any combat situation; you can hotkey combo attacks!).

It might be my favourite of Quintet's entire catalogue.

@Yoshif3 I played the GBA version when writing this - the resolution is very low and it loses something in the conversion. DS would have been perfect - dual screens! There's MAME if you're ok with emulation. Donkey Kong G&W is supported by the Analogue core and works well, so I'm hoping for an update that supports Zelda.

But you're right. Nintendo should release the ultimate compilation of all their G&W bavk catalogue. There's a lot. Some are still great, like Bomb Disposal.

@Asaki Someone emailed with a huge stack of packs they were considering opening. They offered to provide scans or anything else needed. I asked them to record some audio if they did.

Secretly hoping this gets inserted into the Mega CD port.

@Asaki Yeah, measuring the coordinates for the buttons is what made me go with a text parser and text results - it prints to the same position each time, below the cards.

I only purchased a single card - #5 in the spider woods, because I had to see for myself if those arrows were on the right side in every card, or if there was a misprint.

There are a few people on YouTube opening the sealed packs. You could listen and then make a best guess approximation of unfolding or tearing paper. My scratching fx was just me rubbing my fingernail on my laptop's microphone. Be like old movies that dub sound effects in. Sawing through bone for example I've heard was replicated by slicing through cabbage.

Good call on zooming. I have "zoom text only" activated, but I can disable for this. A splashscreen instructing players would fix this without needing to calculate everything.

Good luck! A full set of 60 plus variants would be quite the undertaking.

@Asaki My version is on Itch and it has the card images. I did a search of "Zelda" before uploading, an there's like 30 other Zelda games. So unless someone reports it, they seem to turn a blind eye.

It's linked in the above article:
https://szcz.itch.io/game-pack-simulator

Also, HOLY CRAP! Your demo is amazing. It's basically how I imagined my version in my imagination.

Asaki, I am officially abandoning development of my inferior version, and instead vow to playtest yours and help as best I can. Once you've finished, and uploaded it, I'll put a link to your Itch page from my Itch page, and we can update this article.

The resolution might need tweaking, I need to scroll the page horizontally to see the backside of the card on the right. My desktop runs at 1280x720, out of choice, not due to an inferior monitor or rig. Higher resolutions make the icons and text small to the point where it's painful to read anything. 1280 is comfortable for me. What does everyone else use?

I like the idea of purchasing more packs. I like this idea a lot. It's kinda why I put a dollar count with inflation - it's interesting to me to consider how much one might have spent on these, when a full NES game cost... Was it $40 to $60 back in 1989? Because $40 is like 800 cards at 5 cents a card.

Would you end up doing the entire 60 card set (+variants), or just Zelda?

I suppose, if you acquire cards through purchasing, using in-game currency, you could have like a portfolio of cards, showing how many of each. And each time you play a card it decreases by one? So you might have 3x Zelda scene #4, but after playing it once it goes down to 2x? But successful memorisation and completion unlocks it permanently?

I dunno, I'm just throwing ideas out. Your version should be YOUR vision. But since it's better than my vision, you have my full support for this.

Mine took 25 hours. How many hours did you put into that scene one demo?

It uses the mouse and everything. Well done! I love it.

Everyone - I'm officially retiring my project, we have a new contender in town.

@Asaki Link #10 has a similar need to get swordstrikes on the left first. Could be deliberate.

For hosting how about Itch? It's free.

What is your card randomiser and how does it work?

@KingMike That was Patrick Scott Patterson. Now, just to play devil's advocate here: I followed events from when he found them, and I spoke to him for a statement in The Untold History of Game Developers Volume 5, where I collected all my Akira interviews (Tom Meigs chats about making the Game Gear version, for example).

Now, I suspect some will think I'm being an apologist for him, but having followed the buying and selling of protos since the ASSEMbler days, back in 2005, I've witnessed countless time how game fans tend to be very aggressive when it comes to unreleased material. My god, the "scene drama" is off the scale!

I love the idea of the Akira games, and have dreamed of playing them (I even helped get the Genesis version leaked), but based on PSP's statement I can understand why he decided to sell them. I saw the anonymous threats online, and that stuff is scary and wrong. He put the legwork in to find these relics, and the community should have been calmer rather than immediately threatening him.

Ultimately it's a downgraded port of the horrendous Amiga version. No one really lost much. Be happy the US developed Genesis prototype was leaked - it's obviously very early, but I strongly believe that if it finished development it had the potential to one of the best games on the system.

I secretly fantasise about someone taking the incomplete Genny / MD ROM and finishing it using the suite of homebrew dev tools now available. If someone can port Arcade Simpsons to the Mega Drive, then someone can finish Akira. It's pretty well fleshed out. The ROM is out there, give it a go.

(The guy who leaked it was able to find and contact a programmer who had a test cartridge, after I gave them the contact details of this programmer's former colleague.)

Anyway...

PSP's statement, from page 317, is below:

The story of the Akira Game Boy prototypes isn't as sexy as many want to believe. Basically, I got introduced to a former THQ programmer who told me he had a bunch of "old work stuff" in his attic. He said I was welcome to it if I wanted to come by, as he figured otherwise it would just sit there until he passed away, likely to be junked by his family at that time. I took him up on his offer and as I left, I only knew of one development cart that was present in the batch, memorable by his 20 foot toss of it into one of the boxes. I live-streamed my exploration of the stash when I got home and found several protos. Right there, live... I was as stunned as the viewers to find FOUR different Akira prototypes. My plan was to get legal permission to release them, with one version combining the most complete parts of them all to give a relative idea of what could have been. The incomplete versions would have also been included. But fans of this stuff are a unique type. False narratives and assumptions lead many to demand I dump them or give them over to them. One even threatened to come break into my home and take them by force. Once it got there, I scrapped my plans and found them a new home. But it was cool for a time to play - a game that many thought was long lost forever and maybe someday the new owner will complete what I started to do with them.

@Asaki Thank you kind reader! I asked, and I received. This is fantastic. All eBay? Because I browsed current and ended auctions and found only a few. This was UK eBay with international ticked, so were you on US eBay directly?

It doesn't matter. I now feel confident about several things.

We have enough data to replicate the original odds.

Cards definitely had fixed symbol positions!

This morning my S1 Link #5 card arrived (spider woods). I found that a cotton bud and warm air breathed onto it, followed by gentle circular motions, allowed me to remove the latex ink. I think it possibly is just a bit dry, and people on YouTube were too aggressive with their keys and coins.

The silver is removable through gentle constant friction.

And here's the other thing: some of these cards have strange odds. Let's focus on that card #5, because it definitely features 2 arrows on the right side. Was this simply a means of having two useless symbols? Sort of like how the shield is actually useless, providing neither a win nor a lose condition? Or is it a misprint?

I feel it is misprint, since there's only 2 swords on the right. Meaning if you fail to get a sword on the left, and end up on the right first scratch, the best you can hope for is 2 useless arrows, 2 sword strikes, and then dying due to there being 4 spiders.

Unless they really expected kids to replay this multiple times (I have to LOL at the scratched cards, where the kid obviously died after scratching a third enemy strike, and then was like: yeah, I'm not going to scratch the rest, I'm playing this fair and square).

On the other hand, swapping those right arrows with the left side swords give you a 4:3 win ratio on the left, and a 4:4 win/lose ratio on the right, which feels more fair and logical.

I'm finding myself oddly intrigued by the minutiae of this whole endeavour.

What are readers thoughts on implementing actual odds? Also, does anyone even want a shuffled mode, given the difficult odds and expectations to memorise symbols?

I need to finish the Zelda games article, and the Adventure Books feature, but at some point I will be updating this (and crediting Asaki for their help).

@Asaki Excellent! The Zelda and Link ones would be handy.

By the gods Sega, please, please, PLEASE do not butcher the Jet Set Radio art style like it was butchered in Roller Champions. Make the JSR characters cool, not hideous mutants. Thanks Sega. Your fan.

@Asaki Do you mean pre-scratched, for sale, or high res scans? The previous eBay auction gave me pretty much everything I needed at a tolerable resolution (obviously not high enough for archive purposes).

@sdelfin In case anyone else wants them, here are direct links to the Flickr albums mentioned earlier:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/historyofhyrule/52681872584/in/album-72157629221232021/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/historyofhyrule/52686168849/in/album-72157629221285423/

The 2nd contains the variants.

@sdelfin You need a Twitter account to get full Twitter access, but that specific tweet is a reply to an earlier tweet, and the earlier tweet has the Flickr links.

Thank you for the eBay link!

I think we have solved the mystery of the second set now! And it includes Metroid!

I can't promise when, but I am saving these images and will be trying to incorporate the Link ones into the game at some point.

Also, the nine Metroid cards might make their own nice little standalone game. Sadly it looks like the symbols on the Metroid cards get pretty complicated! A best guess attempt will be tricky. Still, my friend at The Metroid Database will be keen to see these.

I suggest anyone interested save a personal copy of those 2nd set images from eBay, because I have not seen a full archive of them online yet. I will also ask the seller about higher resolution images.

Great work everyone!

@Asaki I'm on my phone, which might be affecting what shows up, but...

That tweet links to two Flickr albums, which state the images in them are in the Internet Archive set, which they then link to.

However when I go there, that Int Arch set seems to be missing the 9 variants from the Link set, which are shown in the preceding Flickr album.

Meaning the Flickr album has all of them, including these 9 extra cards, whereas the Int Arch does not.

Also, while I'm glad we've found these variant cards, with their even cooler artwork, I can't seem to find the backs of these 9 variants?

As said, I'll have a proper rummage tomoz at a proper computer.

Great work - thank you!

@Asaki Thank you for finding this tweet - looks like we've found the variants for the Link game!

Great work!

I'll save them tomorrow.

Though it'll be a while before I can implement them into the code.

@mattesdude when you say "different", do you mean different to the current know set of 10 and 10?

The mysterious Canadian cards I refer to?

If so, please post photos online somewhere, front and back, since not even the Zelda wiki has info on this mysterious second series.

@mattesdude Thank you! But I would prefer people don't sacrifice intact cards - not yet anyway. I'm hoping someone kept a bunch already scratched just for the art.

Thanks for the tip on the alcohol. I'll see what else I can do when my card arrives.

@Spider-Kev Not sure who VS is. Pure coincidence though. I discovered the cards last week when searching the Internet Archive for a PDF of the Zelda adventure books (which I ended up buying). Or perhaps the universe was channeling the idea of them...

@MoriyaMug Our hero has entered the communal discussion! Thank you kind sir for your efforts. (I'll ping you on messenger in a bit.)

Thanks also for clarification on the versions. I'll go with NGCD in that case.

Not sure if I should try installing a NG CD emulator on my original Xbox, or wait for this to be implemented in the PS1/Saturn version, and then use that on my PSIO or Fenrir ODE... What's everyone else doing?

I actually planned to import one back in the day. I was envisioning Zelda add-on quests, etc. Ultimately all the good games came out on cartridge so I passed. Thankfully!

Anyone remember that? N64 Magazine speculating on all the cool RPG stuff that it could be used for. Anual update disks for Zelda with a slew of new adventures. Etc. I find it ironic that the magazine had a dedicated RPG section, even though the N64 only had like 7 or so RPGs released for it.

I wonder if there's any way to back up the saved data in the 64DD design software? Presumably it saves to the magnetic disks and can't be transferred to PC?

Just installed this. It also supports Tiger LCD games.

Sadly Zelda G&W, the reason I downloaded it, isn't supported yet. Ah well.

@KoopaTheGamer To reiterate what others said, if one likes a game, owning an award for that game would be super cool.

I never played Medievel. But he also made Silverload. As a collector, if Silverload had gotten a Bafta, I'd love to have it on a shelf next to my big box PC copy, and PS1 edition.

It would make a fun talking point.

I'd also be willing to sell it back again if he got back on his feet and wanted it.

Someone mentioned fake acceptance speeches. I'd do that. Get some mates round, some beers, everyone would standing at sone point, holding the award, giving a fake speech.

"I would like to thank all the little people who made this possible. I'm told this mask was hand carved by a hundred tiny Borrowers, hewing it from solid granite."

@Captain_Retro If you did make an app, would there be the possibility for user reviews of games? Something like Letterboxd, but instead of films, games?

I've been hoping for such an app for years. None exists. So I figure, if a large database providing entity is considering an app featuring a database/collection of games, I'd ask: will we be able to track our collections, follow our friends, and write reviews of games?

Either way, good luck growing the site. Ebay utterly sucks these days.