>The SD card features a folder that allows your own disk images to be added and easily loaded from the OS. It’s baffling to us why the designers would allow disks to so easily be used but not ROMs, but we are grateful – though even this isn’t without complications.
This is pretty standard MSX behavior. Even on a vintage MSX, if you don't have a cartridge but rather a ROM file, you typically put it on a disk or a hard drive and then load it with one of the many ROM loaders available. Sofarun would be a good choice in this regard because it's designed to be navigated entirely with a gamepad. Put Sofarun and all of the games you want on one MSX-DOS disk, add Sofarun to your AUTOEXEC.BAT, load THAT disk, and then use the Sofarun menu to select what you want to play. If the MSX0 lets you use HDD images then you can even put regular DSK files on the disk and load them with Sofarun
the form factor of this one has me thinking: with a few tweaks, i wouldn't mind one of these with cellular service. replace the analog sticks with 3DS sliders so it's actually pocketable and make the screen a bit bigger and you basically have a smartphone with tactile controls, like sony's xperia phone from way back. it seems like every phone generation is worse than the last, getting rid of essential features like audio jacks and SD card slots, and meanwhile like kitsunenight says the dedicated gaming handheld market is getting very crowded, so it'd be a win win with them getting a new market and us getting better phones that double as gaming devices
i honestly miss when controllers only had one stick. people complain about the cameras in early 3D games but i'd take them over modern games that force you to control the camera manually any day. oh well!
woah! i feel like the VGS-Zero engine is worthy of it's own story. i always thought it'd be cool for there to be a fantasy console that used an existing processor- turns out it's already been done! if i'm reading this right, it's basically a Master System with a new custom VDP, "hardware" support for multiplication, randomization, and trig, and has Famicom+VRC6 audio hardware. shame it doesn't use the VRC7 considering Nitta is doing the music, but still- super cool!
hahaha this rules. definitely on the extreme side if you grew up with composite, but having raw soundchip audio, emulated otherwise, zapped straight into our ears over the last two decades has definitely warped our perception of how these games "really" sounded. even on something like the game gear with a headphone jack, you still had all sorts of hum and distortion caused by the other electronics on the board and probably a crude low-pass filter, too
plogue is a company that makes virtual instruments for writing chiptune, and their bitcrusher plugin has some extra features like adding the misc audio imperfections of the circuitry between the soundchip and your ear kind of like this. ironically, modders go to great lengths to remove these sounds and isolate them in post, but sometimes you just wanna play in the mud!
that entire video series was such a good watch. i always figured that the 64DD was just a then-modern FDS or SEGA CD, i had no idea that it was a mail-order subscription service with online features. i wonder if it's failure is why Nintendo went on to take the slow and steady approach to online features, with only a handful of GCN games having broadband and the Wii having very barebones online functionality.
then think of how Miiverse and Mario Maker were a redemption of sorts for a lot of ideas originating with the 64DD. pair that with the 3DS being a better Virtual Boy and it paints that whole generation in a very different light
this isn't just a mystery dungeon game, but the very first one, predating Shiren the Wanderer and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. it's a very cool piece of history! shame a private colector has it, but hey, at least it isn't in a basement in Miami or something. and like Nicolaus said, there is a fan translation of this and many other JP-only Mystery Dunegon games, which i highly recommend checking out
aw man, they were doing great work. all sorts of cool lost art was popping up towards the end of Forever's run. i hope Danny landed or will land his feet somewhere where his talents are appreciated and his concerns are taken seriously
@-wc- that's the survivorship bias that my comment and this article were talking about. in other parts of the world aside from the US, nintendo was hardly a blip on the radar for decades. here in the US, there are plenty of adults i know who were gaming back when nintendo was one of many atari 2600 devs. when i was a kid, i have the gamecube to thank for my Incredible Taste In Video Games, but that was the console you got if you were a nerd (i say with pride and affection) or a sheltered child while everyone else was playing Grand Theft Auto 3 on their PS2. now Nintendo is the only player left in the hardware game with a back catalog going back that far to leverage, which makes them the definitive retro gaming gateway drug and lingua franca, which in turn makes it seem like everyone grew up with a Nintendo
i think the biggest thing is ultimately that for modern gamers, Nintendo is their introduction to retro gaming. if you grew up with anything from the Wii onward, all of the major players of yore were already out of the game and your main window into that world was the virtual console. from there, it becomes your vantage point- even if Mario isn't your favorite platformer, you'll probably tell your friends that your favorite is "like Mario but better!" which ironically keeps Mario at the center of the discussion. it can be infuriating sometimes but also think of all the folks who wouldn't be playing retro games if Nintendo didn't give them that first hit. heck, i'm as big of a SEGA fan as i am today from growing up with Sonic Mega Collection on the Nintendo GameCube!
sorry for anyone confused by this half-comment earlier, i accidentally hit enter too early hahaha
this is really cool. and here i thought phantasy star was the first console MMO! the Saturn's online capabilities in general seem to get overshadowed by the Dreamcast's, and understandably so, but maybe the same tech that got NetLink games back up and going could get this back up as well
it's wild just how much the term has shifted. i was reading an old review of Etrian Mystery Dungeon the other day and they opened with something like "Roguelikes and dungeon crawlers may seem like oil and water, but-" what???
hopefully having easy access to this now will make people more informed. while the modern concept of roguelikes as just "look, we reinvented arcade games!" is frustrating, classics like nethack and shiren can be a ton of fun if that's your thing
the Esper Genesis system is built off of the chassis of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, which is a bit of a bummer because 5E is a rather convoluted game that doesn't really benefit from the extra complexity. it's hard to blame them though because D&D has such a stranglehold on the market. i am still excited, though, because this outta be chock full of cool setting info that can easily be ported into other scifi tabletop games. i hope this is the first of many licensed SEGA ttrpg books!
one of the things that appeared in a prerelease VHS but not in the final game was doors for the kids to walk through, which are thought to either lead to secret bosses or some sort of special stage. i think demphasizing the kid platforming was ultimately a wise move in the end because the draw distance is so low in NiGHTS, a non-issue for the 2.5D flying sections but a pain if you wanna walk around on foot. for superfans, though, this is a really cool look at what could have been both for earlier versions of NiGHTS and the version of Sonic Xtreme that ran on it's engine. i'm just thrilled i'll be able to wander without worrying about that diabolical egg alarm!
always a bummer to see this much negativity surrounding a project. yeah, there isn't a whole lot that's concrete yet, but money hasn't changed hands either, so there's no sense getting worked up about it. if the crowdfunding starts and they still have nothing concrete, that's a very different story!
i'm also torn. all my favorite 2600 games are paddle games, but the wood grain beckons me as well... hopefully this sells a gazillion units and everyone starts offering wood grain options
first SEGA Rally, now this! arcade racer fans are eating GOOD. i like that it has background music, too. i know the original VR was going for realism but it felt kinda lonely between jingles
my Saturn's internal memory wipes itself on the regular, and my cart port is currently occupied by a psuedosaturn kai to bypass region lock, so knowing this can perform both functions AND speed up load times makes this a must-buy for sure
i don't think i could come up with a funnier name if i tried. if this is a joke then it's next-level trolling and i have nothing but reverence and awe. yeah, the name should change, for the sake of not misleading customers, but i hope the PCB itself still says Mr. Pi on it hahaha
fascinating article. it's unfortunate how much gaming history is trapped behind language barriers, and while it's great that there's a lot of folks out there putting the time and effort into translating japanese primary sources, it's always nice to see anywhere else given attention as well! Very awesome of Dr. Perani to both provide the article and do the translation.
"If you find this interesting, please make it known that you'd like more coverage of academic research by the press." raises hand
this certainly beats a digital copy shackled with DRM, but that's less praise for LRG than it is a condemnation of steam. with optical drives now being a thing of the past, just how to release a physical PC game is an interesting question. i vote we go back to cassette releases
Tower of Druaga came out the same year which is a much more likely influence, although as someone unfamiliar with Sabrewulf before this article it looks very cool!
@Max_the_German i vaguely remember (so i could easily be wrong) reading somewhere that the western Sony staff didn't think westerners woukd associate 'O' with 'Yes,' but might associate 'X' with 'Yes' because "X marks the spot."
i really wish they had just kept the original japanese setup. regardless of the symbols, pressing the bottom button to confirm and the right button to cancel will always be unintuitive to me. and don't get me started on games which swap the run and jump buttons to follow that convention!
kudos to the devs on this- they very easily could have made the level editor a clumsy windows program but they really went the extra mile. now all we need is a way to download levels via dialup!
@LowDefAl i search "PC-88" and "PC-88コンピュータ" on buyee every so often and see a lot of software (and kurzweil digital pianos) but rarely ever any hardware- are there better search terms to use? should i be going directly to YAJ instead of through buyee? am i just stupid (very distinct possibility LOL)?
it suprises me how hard it is to get your hands on a PC-88 despite how popular they apparently were in the day. usually i write off these mini consoles because ultimately you're paying a premium for a fancy case and a handful of preinstalled games on a cheapo single board computer, but in this case i may very well be enough of a sucker to pay said premium price for said fancy case. i guess it all depends on whether the price is right and what fraction of the games I can play without needing to read
if you want good VGM vinyl, Jeffrey Roberts was an engineer on the Gimmick! and Phantasy Star OST releases, and he's part of the band Marshall Art as well who have released a few records on vinyl
the most ironic part is that the atari is probably the cheapest console to collect for. if your local game shop doesn't have 2600 games for sale, yes it does- you're just gonna have to look under a shelf in the corner to find a milk crate covered in dust. lower yourself to the ground with your knees, not your back. it'll have a post-it note with a 3 for 2 buck or something bargain on it. there are gonna be a few colecovision games mixed in and the cartridges look very similar so make sure you read the label! it might be the only console where a flash cart and sailing the high seas is less economical than getting original cartridges. but sure, i'll buy a ten-pack at a hundred bucks a pop
the Saturn is one of if not my favorite console but it's hard to judge people for not appreciating it. it's a pain in the butt to emulate, a pain in the butt to collect for physically, and SEGA won't even give us the privilege of the pain in the butt racing to get limited edition Saturn minis would be. Lots of it's best games were also standalone titles not part of a series, unlike the Mega Drive and Dreamcast where you might play a modern game and then work your way there backwards. the fact that anyone still cares about it all these years later is a testiment to how incredible it was, and thanks to improved emulators and ways to load games off of SD cards and a slowly but surely growing list of modern ports and fan translations, the tide is finally changing. Saturn really is our future!
yeah, GEMS has a reputation for having Not Great presets, but you ever look at the program itself? at a time when your main options were MML, trying to port an Amiga sound driver over, or just writing music by hand in a hex editor, GEMS actually allowed you to use professional MIDI sequencers and controllers to essentially "record" game music. that's an impressive feat of engineering and Jon ought to be proud of making FM more accessible to westerners
it's interesting how basically all of the interviewees seemed to agree one of the big advantages of software emulation is the easier setup. i very quickly rededicated my retropie into a home server because i was spending way more time with setup and performance tuning than playing games, meanwhile the only setup i needed to do with my 1chipMSX was the same setup you'd have to do with a real one. that said, nowadays you have mini consoles and evercades that are plug and play and it sounds like you could spend an eternity customizing MiSTer with all of the available add-ons so i guess it's a your-mileage-may-vary thing. i do love my retroid flip!
it's wild what a 180 third party controllers have done. back in the day i used to have to pry the stuck A button back up after even gently tapping it on my madcatz gamecube controller. these days i more or less only use 8bitdo and hori products!
the SNES has a similar hacking scene. they've "fixed" signifigantly more games, which is interesting given how much better vanilla SNES audio apparently is
joking aside, it is really wonderful how fans of both consoles are continuing to find new and interesting ways to keep them alive, and the active chiptune scenes for both consoles also show that neither really need fixing- just more music!
at the end of the day i am really only looking for one of two things in a video game: spaceships and 80s anime hair. it's nice to finally see someone have the courage to take on both pillars of gaming at once
i'm glad @PaulDriver mentioned MiSTeX because if i had to bet on a horse, that would be the one. i appreciate all of the hard work going into MiSTer and MARS but they're both ultimately prohibitively expensive, and Analogue being perpetually out of stock doesn't help the situation. meanwhile we have a new contender that aims to make things way more accessible to everyone price-wise and is also doing a fair amount of future-proofing by making everything portable. in my mind that's much more worth our time and effort than starting the next console war
yeah i'd say three quarters of BAFTA's list, including the winner, aren't household names, which you'd think would be the bare minimum in calling a character iconic let alone most iconic. pokemon is the highest grossing multimedia franchise of all time so i feel like that title has to go to pikachu by default, although mario and pacman are also synonymous with gaming. steve minecraft will probably join that pantheon if he isn't there already. sonic, link, master chief, and maybe cloud and snake could make the cutoff, but for the rest of the list i doubt most people would even be familiar with if you did a random poll on the streets.
or maybe i'm wrong and we're all just old and out of touch!
between now and my last comment i found out that Sipeed does already sell what i was proposing- you can get a Tang Nano 20K with PlayStation controller ports kit and a number of FPGA cores have already been ported to it (see: nestang, MiSTery). very exciting how quick this is all unfolding!
@BowsersBuddy not exactly correcting you here because for a lot of people it does just come down being able to use the original carts, so you are right, but for context: the other big draw of fpgas is the idea that they mimic game hardware with hardware rather than software, so you (typically) get better accuracy with less setup than a software emulator might require. one of the most popular fpga solutions right now is MiSTeR, which also loads games directly from an SD card instead of cartridges. at the complete opposite end of the spectrum you have stuff like the Retron 5 and Adam+ that do all of the emulation in software but load games from original cartridges- we really are spoiled for choice these days! and as the years go on, the performance issues with software emulators become more and more of a moot point anyway. so what's competing with what all comes down to what you're looking for
Comments 73
Re: Review: MSX0 Stack – Handheld MSX Revival Is A Bitter Disappointment
>The SD card features a folder that allows your own disk images to be added and easily loaded from the OS. It’s baffling to us why the designers would allow disks to so easily be used but not ROMs, but we are grateful – though even this isn’t without complications.
This is pretty standard MSX behavior. Even on a vintage MSX, if you don't have a cartridge but rather a ROM file, you typically put it on a disk or a hard drive and then load it with one of the many ROM loaders available. Sofarun would be a good choice in this regard because it's designed to be navigated entirely with a gamepad. Put Sofarun and all of the games you want on one MSX-DOS disk, add Sofarun to your AUTOEXEC.BAT, load THAT disk, and then use the Sofarun menu to select what you want to play. If the MSX0 lets you use HDD images then you can even put regular DSK files on the disk and load them with Sofarun
Re: Random: Hacker Turns $5 Paw Patrol Toy Into A Cool Way To Play Sega's Super Hang-On
i've wanted to make a motorcycle "wheel" like this for a while now but never thought to use a toy- very economical idea and seems to work well
Re: Review: AYANEO Pocket Micro - A Truly Portable Android Emulation Handheld
the form factor of this one has me thinking: with a few tweaks, i wouldn't mind one of these with cellular service. replace the analog sticks with 3DS sliders so it's actually pocketable and make the screen a bit bigger and you basically have a smartphone with tactile controls, like sony's xperia phone from way back. it seems like every phone generation is worse than the last, getting rid of essential features like audio jacks and SD card slots, and meanwhile like kitsunenight says the dedicated gaming handheld market is getting very crowded, so it'd be a win win with them getting a new market and us getting better phones that double as gaming devices
Re: Fresh From Revealing The Pocket Mini, GoRetroid Has Unveiled the Retroid Pocket 5
man, all these companies must be getting the deal of the century on these LED analog sticks!
Re: Here's The "Hidden Meaning" Behind The Dreamcast's Start Button
i honestly miss when controllers only had one stick. people complain about the cameras in early 3D games but i'd take them over modern games that force you to control the camera manually any day. oh well!
Re: New $38 'FlippyDrive' ODE Lets You Keep Your GameCube's Optical Drive
38 dollars, holy smokes! this is redundant for me because i have a wii but i hope this team can work their magic on more consoles in the future
Re: The Sega Game Gear Is About To Get Another Promising Shoot 'Em Up
woah! i feel like the VGS-Zero engine is worthy of it's own story. i always thought it'd be cool for there to be a fantasy console that used an existing processor- turns out it's already been done! if i'm reading this right, it's basically a Master System with a new custom VDP, "hardware" support for multiplication, randomization, and trig, and has Famicom+VRC6 audio hardware. shame it doesn't use the VRC7 considering Nitta is doing the music, but still- super cool!
Re: SuperSega FPGA Team Understands Why You Think Its Console Is "Vapourware"
@UK_Kev Saturn has been in beta on MiSTer for a while now, including 3D titles https://youtu.be/mcMbHKS-vIo?si=YN9nPh1FzINHJ0KR
Re: This RetroArch Audio Filter Makes Your Games Sound Crappy, Just Like You Remember Them
hahaha this rules. definitely on the extreme side if you grew up with composite, but having raw soundchip audio, emulated otherwise, zapped straight into our ears over the last two decades has definitely warped our perception of how these games "really" sounded. even on something like the game gear with a headphone jack, you still had all sorts of hum and distortion caused by the other electronics on the board and probably a crude low-pass filter, too
plogue is a company that makes virtual instruments for writing chiptune, and their bitcrusher plugin has some extra features like adding the misc audio imperfections of the circuitry between the soundchip and your ear kind of like this. ironically, modders go to great lengths to remove these sounds and isolate them in post, but sometimes you just wanna play in the mud!
Re: New YouTube Video Debunks Old 'Ultra Donkey Kong' 64DD Rumour
@Markiemania95 good catch, these videos were actually the first i heard of RandNet so i think i just got my wires crossed haha
Re: New YouTube Video Debunks Old 'Ultra Donkey Kong' 64DD Rumour
that entire video series was such a good watch. i always figured that the 64DD was just a then-modern FDS or SEGA CD, i had no idea that it was a mail-order subscription service with online features. i wonder if it's failure is why Nintendo went on to take the slow and steady approach to online features, with only a handful of GCN games having broadband and the Wii having very barebones online functionality.
then think of how Miiverse and Mario Maker were a redemption of sorts for a lot of ideas originating with the 64DD. pair that with the 3DS being a better Virtual Boy and it paints that whole generation in a very different light
Re: Dragon Quest SNES Prototype Worth $50,000 "Lost For Good"
this isn't just a mystery dungeon game, but the very first one, predating Shiren the Wanderer and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. it's a very cool piece of history! shame a private colector has it, but hey, at least it isn't in a basement in Miami or something. and like Nicolaus said, there is a fan translation of this and many other JP-only Mystery Dunegon games, which i highly recommend checking out
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
aw man, they were doing great work. all sorts of cool lost art was popping up towards the end of Forever's run. i hope Danny landed or will land his feet somewhere where his talents are appreciated and his concerns are taken seriously
Re: Want To Know The Real Scale Of The Virtual Boy's Failure? Visit A Japanese Game Shop
and here i always figured they were rare because not enough were produced, and never thought to even look into what they cost. the more you know!
Re: Talking Point: Does Video Game History Have A "Nintendo Problem"?
@-wc- that's the survivorship bias that my comment and this article were talking about. in other parts of the world aside from the US, nintendo was hardly a blip on the radar for decades. here in the US, there are plenty of adults i know who were gaming back when nintendo was one of many atari 2600 devs. when i was a kid, i have the gamecube to thank for my Incredible Taste In Video Games, but that was the console you got if you were a nerd (i say with pride and affection) or a sheltered child while everyone else was playing Grand Theft Auto 3 on their PS2. now Nintendo is the only player left in the hardware game with a back catalog going back that far to leverage, which makes them the definitive retro gaming gateway drug and lingua franca, which in turn makes it seem like everyone grew up with a Nintendo
Re: Talking Point: Does Video Game History Have A "Nintendo Problem"?
i think the biggest thing is ultimately that for modern gamers, Nintendo is their introduction to retro gaming. if you grew up with anything from the Wii onward, all of the major players of yore were already out of the game and your main window into that world was the virtual console. from there, it becomes your vantage point- even if Mario isn't your favorite platformer, you'll probably tell your friends that your favorite is "like Mario but better!" which ironically keeps Mario at the center of the discussion. it can be infuriating sometimes but also think of all the folks who wouldn't be playing retro games if Nintendo didn't give them that first hit. heck, i'm as big of a SEGA fan as i am today from growing up with Sonic Mega Collection on the Nintendo GameCube!
sorry for anyone confused by this half-comment earlier, i accidentally hit enter too early hahaha
Re: 25 Years Later, Saturn Online RPG Dragon's Dream Is Finally Playable Again (Kinda)
this is really cool. and here i thought phantasy star was the first console MMO! the Saturn's online capabilities in general seem to get overshadowed by the Dreamcast's, and understandably so, but maybe the same tech that got NetLink games back up and going could get this back up as well
Re: The Game That Inspired The Term 'Roguelike' Is Now Available On Switch
it's wild just how much the term has shifted. i was reading an old review of Etrian Mystery Dungeon the other day and they opened with something like "Roguelikes and dungeon crawlers may seem like oil and water, but-" what???
hopefully having easy access to this now will make people more informed. while the modern concept of roguelikes as just "look, we reinvented arcade games!" is frustrating, classics like nethack and shiren can be a ton of fun if that's your thing
Re: Phantasy Star Is Getting Its Own Tabletop Roleplaying Game
the Esper Genesis system is built off of the chassis of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, which is a bit of a bummer because 5E is a rather convoluted game that doesn't really benefit from the extra complexity. it's hard to blame them though because D&D has such a stranglehold on the market. i am still excited, though, because this outta be chock full of cool setting info that can easily be ported into other scifi tabletop games. i hope this is the first of many licensed SEGA ttrpg books!
Re: New "Pedestrian Mod" Turns NiGHTS Into A 3D Platformer
one of the things that appeared in a prerelease VHS but not in the final game was doors for the kids to walk through, which are thought to either lead to secret bosses or some sort of special stage. i think demphasizing the kid platforming was ultimately a wise move in the end because the draw distance is so low in NiGHTS, a non-issue for the 2.5D flying sections but a pain if you wanna walk around on foot. for superfans, though, this is a really cool look at what could have been both for earlier versions of NiGHTS and the version of Sonic Xtreme that ran on it's engine. i'm just thrilled i'll be able to wander without worrying about that diabolical egg alarm!
Re: "We Are Waiting For A Reply From Sega" - SuperSega FPGA Console Team Talk Price, Release Date And More
always a bummer to see this much negativity surrounding a project. yeah, there isn't a whole lot that's concrete yet, but money hasn't changed hands either, so there's no sense getting worked up about it. if the crowdfunding starts and they still have nothing concrete, that's a very different story!
Re: Evercade Maker Blaze Is Releasing Two New Super Pocket Consoles This Year
i'm also torn. all my favorite 2600 games are paddle games, but the wood grain beckons me as well... hopefully this sells a gazillion units and everyone starts offering wood grain options
Re: Super Polygon Grand Prix Is A New Virtua Racing Successor Coming To Steam
first SEGA Rally, now this! arcade racer fans are eating GOOD. i like that it has background music, too. i know the original VR was going for realism but it felt kinda lonely between jingles
Re: Sega's Cancelled Neptune Console Is Getting Revived In FPGA Form
ah man, that silver case is slick looking, and the online store is a great idea. this is gonna be tempting for sure
Re: Review: SAROO - A $60 Sega Saturn Flash Cart That's Worth Every Penny
my Saturn's internal memory wipes itself on the regular, and my cart port is currently occupied by a psuedosaturn kai to bypass region lock, so knowing this can perform both functions AND speed up load times makes this a must-buy for sure
Re: $99 MiSTer FPGA Clone Finally Has A Name, And It Hasn't Gone Down Well With Everyone
i don't think i could come up with a funnier name if i tried. if this is a joke then it's next-level trolling and i have nothing but reverence and awe. yeah, the name should change, for the sake of not misleading customers, but i hope the PCB itself still says Mr. Pi on it hahaha
Re: Taito's Chairman Was Almost Kidnapped By His Own Employees
fascinating article. it's unfortunate how much gaming history is trapped behind language barriers, and while it's great that there's a lot of folks out there putting the time and effort into translating japanese primary sources, it's always nice to see anywhere else given attention as well! Very awesome of Dr. Perani to both provide the article and do the translation.
"If you find this interesting, please make it known that you'd like more coverage of academic research by the press." raises hand
Re: Limited Run's New "PC Micro Edition" Hasn't Gone Down Well With Some Fans
this certainly beats a digital copy shackled with DRM, but that's less praise for LRG than it is a condemnation of steam. with optical drives now being a thing of the past, just how to release a physical PC game is an interesting question. i vote we go back to cassette releases
Re: Did The Stampers Really Think Miyamoto Copied Sabre Wulf With Zelda?
Tower of Druaga came out the same year which is a much more likely influence, although as someone unfamiliar with Sabrewulf before this article it looks very cool!
Re: Ever Wondered What The Symbols On The PlayStation Controller Really Mean?
@Max_the_German i vaguely remember (so i could easily be wrong) reading somewhere that the western Sony staff didn't think westerners woukd associate 'O' with 'Yes,' but might associate 'X' with 'Yes' because "X marks the spot."
i really wish they had just kept the original japanese setup. regardless of the symbols, pressing the bottom button to confirm and the right button to cancel will always be unintuitive to me. and don't get me started on games which swap the run and jump buttons to follow that convention!
Re: 'Mario Builder 64' Is Super Mario Maker For Mario 64
kudos to the devs on this- they very easily could have made the level editor a clumsy windows program but they really went the extra mile. now all we need is a way to download levels via dialup!
Re: We're Getting A "Classic Edition" Of The PC-88, Japan's Iconic '80s Computer
@LowDefAl thank you!
Re: We're Getting A "Classic Edition" Of The PC-88, Japan's Iconic '80s Computer
@LowDefAl i search "PC-88" and "PC-88コンピュータ" on buyee every so often and see a lot of software (and kurzweil digital pianos) but rarely ever any hardware- are there better search terms to use? should i be going directly to YAJ instead of through buyee? am i just stupid (very distinct possibility LOL)?
Re: We're Getting A "Classic Edition" Of The PC-88, Japan's Iconic '80s Computer
it suprises me how hard it is to get your hands on a PC-88 despite how popular they apparently were in the day. usually i write off these mini consoles because ultimately you're paying a premium for a fancy case and a handful of preinstalled games on a cheapo single board computer, but in this case i may very well be enough of a sucker to pay said premium price for said fancy case. i guess it all depends on whether the price is right and what fraction of the games I can play without needing to read
Re: Limited Run Under Fire For "Horrible" Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vinyl Release
if you want good VGM vinyl, Jeffrey Roberts was an engineer on the Gimmick! and Phantasy Star OST releases, and he's part of the band Marshall Art as well who have released a few records on vinyl
Re: On-Rails Shooter 'Bat Galaxy' Is A Colourful Take On Star Fox And Panzer Dragoon
between this and Air Twister we might actually be seeing a resurgence of this type of game. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this
Re: Random: This Mega Drive / Genesis Clone Looks Like An N64, Because Why Not
yo if they sold those Saturn-shaped MD pads seperately i'd buy two in a heartbeat
Re: Atari Fans Spent $1000 On 50th XP Collection Only To Find Two Of Its Games Are Broken
the most ironic part is that the atari is probably the cheapest console to collect for. if your local game shop doesn't have 2600 games for sale, yes it does- you're just gonna have to look under a shelf in the corner to find a milk crate covered in dust. lower yourself to the ground with your knees, not your back. it'll have a post-it note with a 3 for 2 buck or something bargain on it. there are gonna be a few colecovision games mixed in and the cartridges look very similar so make sure you read the label! it might be the only console where a flash cart and sailing the high seas is less economical than getting original cartridges. but sure, i'll buy a ten-pack at a hundred bucks a pop
Re: Is It Time To Change The Narrative On The Sega Saturn?
the Saturn is one of if not my favorite console but it's hard to judge people for not appreciating it. it's a pain in the butt to emulate, a pain in the butt to collect for physically, and SEGA won't even give us the privilege of the pain in the butt racing to get limited edition Saturn minis would be. Lots of it's best games were also standalone titles not part of a series, unlike the Mega Drive and Dreamcast where you might play a modern game and then work your way there backwards. the fact that anyone still cares about it all these years later is a testiment to how incredible it was, and thanks to improved emulators and ways to load games off of SD cards and a slowly but surely growing list of modern ports and fan translations, the tide is finally changing. Saturn really is our future!
Re: Jon Miller, Creator Of The Sound Driver Used In Hundreds Of Mega Drive / Genesis Games, Passes Away
yeah, GEMS has a reputation for having Not Great presets, but you ever look at the program itself? at a time when your main options were MML, trying to port an Amiga sound driver over, or just writing music by hand in a hex editor, GEMS actually allowed you to use professional MIDI sequencers and controllers to essentially "record" game music. that's an impressive feat of engineering and Jon ought to be proud of making FM more accessible to westerners
Re: FPGA Vs Software Emulation - Which Is Best? We Asked Four Experts To Find Out
it's interesting how basically all of the interviewees seemed to agree one of the big advantages of software emulation is the easier setup. i very quickly rededicated my retropie into a home server because i was spending way more time with setup and performance tuning than playing games, meanwhile the only setup i needed to do with my 1chipMSX was the same setup you'd have to do with a real one. that said, nowadays you have mini consoles and evercades that are plug and play and it sounds like you could spend an eternity customizing MiSTer with all of the available add-ons so i guess it's a your-mileage-may-vary thing. i do love my retroid flip!
Re: Did Mad Catz Really Create "The Worst Video Game Controllers Ever"?
it's wild what a 180 third party controllers have done. back in the day i used to have to pry the stuck A button back up after even gently tapping it on my madcatz gamecube controller. these days i more or less only use 8bitdo and hori products!
Re: Someone Has Finally "Fixed" The Mega Drive's Audio Shortcomings
everdrives can already play back wav audio and "mode 1" hacks of mega drive games allow them to trigger CD playback. here's a roundup of such hacks:
https://arcadetv.github.io/msu-md-patches/wiki/Status.html
the SNES has a similar hacking scene. they've "fixed" signifigantly more games, which is interesting given how much better vanilla SNES audio apparently is
https://www.zeldix.net/t2684-alphabetical-list-every-snes-msu-1-hack
joking aside, it is really wonderful how fans of both consoles are continuing to find new and interesting ways to keep them alive, and the active chiptune scenes for both consoles also show that neither really need fixing- just more music!
Re: Stories From Sol: The Gun-Dog Is A Visual Novel With A PC-98 Vibe
at the end of the day i am really only looking for one of two things in a video game: spaceships and 80s anime hair. it's nice to finally see someone have the courage to take on both pillars of gaming at once
Re: Kickstarter For Star Control Successor Free Stars: Children Of Infinity Funded In 3 Hours
@DestructoDisk thanks for the tip!
Re: Kickstarter For Star Control Successor Free Stars: Children Of Infinity Funded In 3 Hours
I just started replaying Star Control II last night and was wondering if there was anything modern like it. Mystery solved- how's that for timing?
Re: All Is Not Well In The World Of FPGA Retro Gaming
i'm glad @PaulDriver mentioned MiSTeX because if i had to bet on a horse, that would be the one. i appreciate all of the hard work going into MiSTer and MARS but they're both ultimately prohibitively expensive, and Analogue being perpetually out of stock doesn't help the situation. meanwhile we have a new contender that aims to make things way more accessible to everyone price-wise and is also doing a fair amount of future-proofing by making everything portable. in my mind that's much more worth our time and effort than starting the next console war
Re: BAFTA Poll Declares Lara Croft The Most Iconic Video Game Character
yeah i'd say three quarters of BAFTA's list, including the winner, aren't household names, which you'd think would be the bare minimum in calling a character iconic let alone most iconic. pokemon is the highest grossing multimedia franchise of all time so i feel like that title has to go to pikachu by default, although mario and pacman are also synonymous with gaming. steve minecraft will probably join that pantheon if he isn't there already. sonic, link, master chief, and maybe cloud and snake could make the cutoff, but for the rest of the list i doubt most people would even be familiar with if you did a random poll on the streets.
or maybe i'm wrong and we're all just old and out of touch!
Re: Outgoing PlayStation CEO Claims PS2 Has Sold 160 Million, Yet Some Don't Believe Him
my uncle works at nintendo and he told me that the wii u sold 160 million and 1 units
Re: Analogue Pocket Is Getting A Game Boy Micro-Style FPGA-Based Handheld Rival
between now and my last comment i found out that Sipeed does already sell what i was proposing- you can get a Tang Nano 20K with PlayStation controller ports kit and a number of FPGA cores have already been ported to it (see: nestang, MiSTery). very exciting how quick this is all unfolding!
@BowsersBuddy not exactly correcting you here because for a lot of people it does just come down being able to use the original carts, so you are right, but for context: the other big draw of fpgas is the idea that they mimic game hardware with hardware rather than software, so you (typically) get better accuracy with less setup than a software emulator might require. one of the most popular fpga solutions right now is MiSTeR, which also loads games directly from an SD card instead of cartridges. at the complete opposite end of the spectrum you have stuff like the Retron 5 and Adam+ that do all of the emulation in software but load games from original cartridges- we really are spoiled for choice these days! and as the years go on, the performance issues with software emulators become more and more of a moot point anyway. so what's competing with what all comes down to what you're looking for