sdelfin

The DVD aspect of the PS2 no doubt helped significantly, but the strength of the Sony Playstation brand going into that generation was the main factor for the system's early success. Both Sega and Nintendo made things easy for Sony. Sony also was notorious for a bit of hyperbole at various points to keep potential customers from defecting to other consoles while waiting for the new system. But the Dreamcast launched so early that it was somewhat caught between two generations. It was a significant jump over the PS1 and N64 and it had a respectable polygon output compared even to the Model 3 boards, but Sony's market position and that extra time they had allowed them to have much higher potential polygon output, so it was a legitimate reason to wait. That may not have been apparent in the early games, and the Dreamcast may have had superior graphical features and image quality in some ways, but the potential was there and would definitely be realized. I've played Tenchu 3 and Tenchu Fatal Shadows(the real Tenchu 4, in my opinion) on both PS2 and PSP and the cutbacks for the PSP version, which is still a good version, make me think that's what a Dreamcast version might have looked like in a lot of ways.

@no_donatello I've also thought that the long gap between the Japanese and North American launches may have hurt them for the reasons you mention. I think there were some unfortunate issues that would have made that difficult. First, they did need time to build up the hype for the machine, as they did in 1999. I do recall reports at the time that they had difficulty producing enough units stemming from yield issues with the GPU. They may have needed the time to build up a reasonable stock for the NA launch. I sometimes wonder if they should have tried to launch in NA first, as that is the territory that needed it. That might have hurt the brand in Japan. It would have lengthened game development for launch, maybe not by too much for the arcade-style games, since they would have to be localized before the system was available. That's a more minor issue, but it could also have added months to development time. There may also have been the belief then that they had to launch between September and December in NA and that may simply have not been possible if they did launch earlier. It's hard to say for sure without knowing more. I do think the Dreamcast would have still had a very successful NA launch at $250 as SoJ wanted. The guy in charge went rogue as I recall and announced the launch price at $200 at a time when Sega didn't need to bleed more cash than necessary.

@Scollurio There are some tangible benefits to FPGA. Some of it I think is a bit more a psychological thing regarding the accuracy, especially since we now know some cores at least are not yet fully accurate internally. People say it doesn't introduce lag and that is true, but then software emulation can remove the lag using clever workarounds. FPGA may be better with peripherals like original light guns with CRTs. Some people seem to find the tinkering required with FPGA to be easier or less intimidating than the tinkering required with software emulation. There may also be benefits to power consumption when running off a battery, especially compared to x86 handhelds like the Steam Deck.

What we're seeing right now is the same kind of growing pains that software emulation went through in the past as far as the core development. It will likely go a bit faster due to enthusiasm being higher now. There are talented people that work on both software and hardware emulation too. Perhaps the best thing I can say for FPGA existing is that truly accurate cores will preserve the hardware properly including odd behaviors and glitches. There are cases when homebrew and ROM hacks won't work on original hardware due to those quirks. While a small thing, I think preserving the way the hardware truly functioned has some value, if it gets to that point. Emulators can be made hyper accurate under the hood too, but it's probably far less practical to do so due to the CPU requirements.

To be clear, I strongly favor software in this debate. It is my preference. I'm just trying to be fair in pointing out what the FPGA fans often talk about as positives. I agree with you that it's nice that it exists as an option. Retro games are fun, properly set up, either through software or hardware emulation.

@SlCKB0Y I've been anticipating a reply like that. The lack of understanding is entirely on your part. This is exactly the type of myth I am talking about.

To address your points:

1 - it's not eliminating any of that. The lag is there using frame advance when RunAhead is disabled. Enable it correctly, and the lag disappears. You can very much feel it at full speed too.

2 - It's not the opposite at all. Emulators process and display frames. Using frame advance in Retroarch might do it slowly, but it's the same number of frames as it would be in real time(edit for clarity: Retroarch will process frames the same way with frame advance as is does at full speed). That's why the lag is still there using frame advance without RunAhead. The amount of processing power to process frames in real time for the older systems is trivial for many modern-ish CPUs(most of mine are a decade old), in the range of 1-3 percent CPU utilization. This is not an issue.

3 - display lag is largely irrelevant here. This is a huge reach on your part. Plus, display lag would be the same for anything using the same screen, emulation, FPGA, original hardware. It is a non issue.

In your suggestions, you are making the same fundamental mistake as others have. Taki himself did the LED test(and busted a myth doing so, as he intended). Even the original hardware has lag in that method. GBA had two frames in that test. GBA emulation had an additional two frames. That's total lag. The only thing that matters for this discussion is additional lag. If original GBA hardware has two frames of lag with that method, it is essentially zero for the purposes of this discussion because it cannot have more lag than itself and all the games would be made with that in mind. That means emulation has an additional two frames, not four. There's no need to do the LED test because, one, it has already been done, Two, it is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is frames. GBA has two frames of lag? Cool. I can take them out. Response is next frame at full speed. The responsiveness is instant and the performance is consistent if you play through games that way. There's no mistaking it.

As I have already said, all of these assertions are moot. If I were to do your LED test(no need), and if I was unpleasantly surprised(fallacy), I could literally just subtract more lag out of the game. If you know how RunAhead works(do you?), then you know that is possible and you should know it's possible to actually subtract more lag than the emulation has(and as I'm properly set up, there's no additional lag left, further proving there's no "unpleasant surprise" to find). That would of course be bad as it would eliminate visible frames and create a noticeable jitter, but it is also proof of what I have been saying. In fact, that's an experiment I think you should do. You will "discover" that what I have been saying is correct. I know this because I have already done it in a practical application, and others have been doing it for years before I ever bothered to try it. It works, and works extremely well. Remember, I'm not arguing lag doesn't exist, though it's typically very low(1-2 frames most of the time), I'm pointing out it can be removed, which it very much can.

If save states are a priority, then FPGA is not the way to go right now. But it is good to see that feature implemented in more cores for more people to enjoy. Hopefully it works well enough to be incorporated into the stable version. Hopefully they get that sorted on all the cores for which it is feasible. Always good to see such progress.

It's been some years now, but it doesn't feel like all that long ago when we had similar developments on the software side. I remember limited state support in FBA arcade emulation, including limited support for Capcom CPS games(they worked, sometimes). I think Dreamcast didn't have save states for a while either. They're not 100 percent stable last time I checked, but they're good enough.

I don't automatically go for the Game Boy aesthetic, but I do appreciate when it's done well, authentically or not, with strong visual design, and this looks to be one of those cases. It looks very nice. Some of the animation is impressive. There's not much more than a glimpse in the trailer, but the boss with the skeleton hands and ram horns looks really cool. I like what I'm seeing here and it's clear the developer is putting a lot of effort into it.

@Sketcz I believe it's either the video encoder or signal noise. I've heard that some of the board designs introduced a lot of signal noise and that simply taking the lines off the board leads to some improvement. Considering that Sega made mistakes with the audio circuits of some of the revisions, I can believe that. Sega did a lot of things right, but their MD board design wasn't one of their better things.

Apparently, there is an RGB mod for the system for those who want their RGB to be, somehow, different from the stock system. You are correct that the system outputs RGB natively. There's also an S-video mod, which I figured is worth mentioning.

@avcrypt What issues are you referring to and with which emulator? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

@Buizel Ergonomics is definitely one reason I imagine people would give. For those with larger hands, some DS models might be too slim. The controls might also be an issue. I always liked the DS controls, but they might be on the small side for some, and others seem to hate the D-pad. Another reason could be wanting better screen quality than what the original offered at the time. I agree that the appeal to emulate goes down when various gimmicks are involved, though DS seems reasonable enough if hardware like this isn't a problem for these device designers.

That's the thing about gaming on CRTs back then, there were many variables and inconsistencies. There are those who say that the dithering effects didn't blend on the CRTs they had the way it did for others. I recall seeing that happen in some cases, though it probably relies partly on the picture settings as well. There's also the issue of the Genesis having problems with rainbow banding with the lesser video out options. Those rainbow bands were always there, and look a lot like they do in those later pictures. I love the Genesis, but its video output was quite poor for many people. I have no nostalgia for that level of authenticity. I have RGB cables for my Genesis systems and like the output. On emulation, you also get an RGB-quality image and I have my preference for processing and scanlines with that.

@Soupbones I don't know much about this one, but it looks like it's the original Super Volleyball from 1989 that got a port to PC Engine in 1990 and even to the Mega Drive a year later. Power Spike looks to be the second arcade entry in this series.

Great news and this is the right way to do it. Not much point in remastering the game without updating the controls to be more modern. But it also doesn't make sense to revive this game and not have tank controls for those who enjoy that from the original.

I revisited Croc several years ago. I specifically wanted to play an early 3D platformer with D-pad controls(tank style). I was in an odd mood. I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it, but I ended up having a really good time with it. I even enjoyed it a lot more than a much more prominent 3D platformer from the 1990s that I revisited a couple of years later. It helps that I played the PS1 version this last time. I had previously played the Saturn version when it was new and didn't enjoy it, and a big part of that is the camera which is more zoomed in on Saturn and that causes problems. PS1 version was more playable.

I didn't become aware of Toaplan until I became a retro gamer in modern times. It didn't take long for me to see why people like their games so much. In many cases, Toaplan shmups(yes, I said it) are among my favorites. Grind Stormer and Dogyuun were standouts for me. The home versions of Truxton are a lot of fun because I can turn the difficulty down and the red shot isn't near useless. It's nicely made. The sequel is super tough, but it has great visuals and sound, so it's still fun.

@nocdaes I had the Game Gear version back in the day, but never got very far in it then. I revisited it several years ago and ended up enjoying it as well. It was nice to go back and get more value out of a game I played as a kid. There was one stage close to the end I thought was poorly designed, but that happened sometimes in old games. I wonder if I'd still think that. Save states to the rescue in that case. The Garfield sprite looked pretty good on the Game Gear.

@YANDMAN Thanks for letting me know about that. I'll have to check it out. It was clear the Genesis could do a good version of Double Dragon that could stand up to the arcade original, so it was a shame it was deficient. I haven't played the arcade games in a while. I know the first game has slowdown. I remember it more in the second game, and that it was really bad, but it should not have been in either and probably hurt the series in the long run.

@DestructoDisk Yeah, it's a good time in the retro gaming community in a lot of ways. I know I said this to you before, but I was very interested in FPGA when I first heard about it. And that was before there was RunAhead available to reduce lag on the software side, so that was one reason I was interested. It just took so long for a real product(as opposed to fake ones like the Coleco Chameleon....lol) to materialize that I realized I was already happy by the time the MiSTer came out. There were also certain specific factors that made emulation work better for me. But I think it's cool and am glad it exists in a form people can buy, and in this case at prices that aren't inflated due to shortages or whatever. I'm glad to see some of the comments from happy users up above as well.

These are good times as you say. I remember not that many years ago Dreamcast emulation was stagnant. It didn't have the arcade support it has now. I've seen other cores improve in recent years. On the FPGA side, I've been impressed to see that they've managed cores beyond what was expected initially from the chips used, and that's thanks to some smart people. On the software side, RunAhead is such a clever idea and almost seems like magic. And then you have these ways to bring light gun games to modern TVs like that Time Crisis box in a story today. It sounds like it works similarly to the Sinden gun, which a friend of mine picked up. He lent me one of them because he wanted someone to show him how they worked. We have to get back together for that part, but having used it, it's very cool to see how well it works. It may not stack up next to your setup, but it's a good option, especially as most people won't have a CRT. It also kind of feels like magic.

At the end of the day, games are meant to be enjoyed(except in stretched 16x9, screw those guys). Having good options to do that is a great thing so I'm right there with you in your overall sentiment.

@DestructoDisk Because I use software emulation, I consider light guns to be a special case. I have no choice but to do so. All my CRTs are long gone anyway, so even FPGA wouldn't work for me there. I think, simply based on the odds, that most people who might want to get into FPGA won't have CRTs either, though I'm sure the subset of people who do have them are a significant portion of the audience as they would be enthusiast types. And in that case, score one for FPGA. As for the rest, you and Damo have pointed out that there are so many devices, many of them low power, that lag mitigation would not work for many of them. I guess you can say the lack of hardware variation is another plus for FPGA. With that said, it is trivial to acquire the kind of hardware that can do lag mitigation well these days. A lot of people may have old computers that can do it just fine. In that case, they don't have to buy another device(unless they simply want to). My aim here is the same as it was before, to simply dispel some misconceptions. Like I said above, the "best software emulation", which is what was mentioned in another comment, will use mitigation features(otherwise it's not the best) which will provide consistent and reliable performance to achieve next-frame response, which will be exactly the same as an FPGA box on a modern screen. If people know that and they still want to go with FPGA, perhaps because they think it's easier or some other reason, then good for them and I hope they enjoy it because it would then truly be a matter of preference.

@Bonggon5 "Even the best software emulation has lag." Yes. But the best software emulation can subtract the lag through RunAhead or Preemtive Frames. You can even go lower than the original hardware technically speaking. Of course that wouldn't be good unless the game has lag built into it, and equally among all inputs. Even then, it would be like cheating. The point is, and I have said this here many times, myths about lag persist and that thinking is many years out of date. The only way you can get better latency with FPGA is if you have a CRT and the specific game is reading inputs and outputting the results mid frame.

And I tried Punch Out with lag reduction. It's great, though I personally don't enjoy that game anymore. You can totally react to Tyson. I think the game has lag built into it, though. I've seen other people besides Ex who have beaten Tyson using software emulation. It's no big thing.

The trailer doesn't show a ton. My preliminary reaction is that it doesn't look very appealing. The Double Dragon franchise has been very spotty since the beginning. I think one of the problems it has today is a huge inconsistency within it. Most recently we have seen Double Dragon Gaiden which goes for a goofy look to it which is not like other entries. I think that inconsistency hurts the franchise, or at least holds it back now.

I loved the first DD as a kid. The Master System port was one of my favorite games of the day. I still enjoy the first arcade game. DD2 arcade is a bit of a mess, in my opinion. Genesis port is terrible. NES port is pretty good. My favorite version is the PC Engine Super CD version. Double Dragon 3 existed. I never played DD4, but I remember there were complaints. I seem to recall it didn't have V-sync. My favorite Double Dragon is the GBA game. That is such a good beat-em-up and it does a good job retaining the feel of the original while adding a lot to it. I think DD Advance should be the starting point for any modern versions because it's hard to go wrong with that core gameplay. The only downside to the game for me is the low resolution of the GBA.

I'd apply, but my confluence management and administration is not up to par. Also, what is confluence management and administration?

@-wc- Android does provide some benefits for something like that. I didn't realize Huntdown was on Android. I finally got around to playing it on PC after having purchased it a while back. I was sick for a few weeks over the summer and working on my game backlog was a way to help me feel better. Huntdown was one of the highlights, so I think you're in for a great time. Playing it portably sounds interesting as the screen isn't too small. Have fun!

Pro tip: Playing Cuphead while very ill is not much fun. Like, why did I even hit a button that's not mapped to anything?

@Lanmanna The draw is the idea that it's more accurate and recreates the systems at a hardware level. It's cool and I have no problem with it. Will most people actually see a difference with that kind of accuracy? No. There's a definite placebo effect. There have been studies done where you can change people's perceptions of the same thing depending on the description provided or the presentation. It's a psychological thing. I think that largely applies here. Some people just like knowing their emulation box is more accurate, even if it doesn't amount to anything for them in a practical way.

On the accuracy front, FPGA cores can be inaccurate too. That just comes down to the quality of the emulator or the core. Some emulators are extremely accurate. I just recently encountered my first emulation glitch, a very minor one, in quite a few years. But there's a ton of misinformation out there about lag. People talk about lag like it's counted in seconds. In a good emulation setup, the lag is often one or two frames, usually one for me. That's very playable. But it's also a moot point since good emulators now have the ability to subtract the lag so you can get it to respond next frame. This appears to work on everything up to PS1 right now.

Fun fact, I tested out Simpsons arcade a few months back and it had zero lag without any of the lag reduction I was talking about. I was quite surprised to see that.

@BulkSlash As I recall, the original name was Mr. Pi. I get what they were going for. It's like the MiSTer(Mr.), but also similar to the Raspberry Pi in terms of size and form factor. It was clever, but perhaps too clever. However, I remember that there was supposed to be a name change with a twitter poll determining the winner. The winning name was "Retro FPGA" which was much worse in my opinion. I didn't see any stories about another name change back to a variation of the original. Perhaps that other name was too generic to be a usable product name they could trademark. I don't really know what's going on in that regard.

@JohnGuyJohn It would also be a throwback to the sports team in King of Fighters '94 and '98. The basketball guy used the ball as part of his fighting style, so it wouldn't even be unprecedented.

I wonder how many of these they can produce. It's probably not going to amount to much. I do wonder where they're getting the systems or parts at low enough cost to make this viable. They could be new-old stock, damaged stock, surplus boards, along with broken systems, perhaps otherwise meant for electronics recycling. I don't love the idea of good whole systems getting sacrificed for stuff like this, but that may not even be the case. This might actually be salvaging systems and keeping more out there, even if not in original form. Of course, there are far better ways to play Saturn than this. I know Saturn has a reputation for being hard to emulate, but that reputation is from almost a decade ago and is outdated. Saturn emulation took a big step forward around 2018 and a lot of modern hardware can run it easily now. It has only gotten easier since then as I assume further optimization has been made. Then there's the FPGA side which is also a good way to do it if the cores are in good shape.

Incidentally, I have two Saturns, my original from 1995 and a model 2 I got in 2015 because my original one stopped reading discs(could be a few things). That second one developed issues with the power supply a few years later. My original Saturn also needed two trips to the warranty department back in the day. I love the Saturn and I may just be an outlier as I haven't heard a lot of stories like that, but it was easily the most troublesome system for me.

As someone said, it's remarkable how far removed EA is now from how it was started. But that's how corporations are. People change, and different people are making decisions there. The modern EA has a long history of not being a great place to work and for making questionable decisions. In some ways, Steam got to be so successful because of the crazy DRM methods the big publishers were pursuing. EA doesn't have a lot that particularly interests me these days, but I made a conscious choice to not buy anything of theirs again. It did come into play once. I intended to get Mass Effect 3 when it came out, but by that point I was exasperated with EA. Part of that was withholding the game from Steam to push their own distribution. I seem to recall their own platform was a bit of a mess at the time too. Who could have imagined that?(me....many others) I'll just have to live with the Mass Effect sage uncompleted for me. Such a shame because I heard the saga's ending was very satisfying(sarcasm).

It is funny to hear they had that reaction. Perhaps some looked down on the Marvel characters for being from western comics. Perhaps it was just that they were not prominent in Japan compared to Street Fighter at that point and could make SF less popular. It worked out though and they did a nice job making it cohesive. The Marvel characters are the best sprites Capcom ever worked on in my opinion.

If anything tarnished Street Fighter from my perspective, it was the minor updates to SF2 as opposed to making a proper SF3 at the time. When they came out with Alpha instead of 3, it felt like a practical joke.

It's so strange that Gimmick got such a limited western release at all, in the Scandinavian region. I assume it was originally supposed to get at least a wider European release, especially since localizing required some arrangement to the music and those countries used PAL.

I almost posted a comment on the FPGA toxicity about how the retro-development scene is largely the same at its core, whether it's FPGA or software emulation. Sadly, toxicity is a part of this scene. I've never used Duckstation, though I have heard good things. Duckstation was the center of prior drama a little while back. The reason he's saying he knows how licenses work is because statements he made the last time indicated he didn't understand how they work and people have pointed that out. As I recall, he was claiming that Duckstation was only partly GPL which makes no sense as far as I can tell. I also don't think changing the license or going closed source applies retroactively. It has already been forked. Even if it is the best PS1 emulator, there are other PS1 emulators that work great. I'd rather not see development shut down this way, but PS1 emulation will be fine either way. Also, people can't "take issue" with license violations they don't know about. I don't know if the rest of his grievances are sound, but his prior statements seemed questionable and there's no detail here to go on. Regardless, it's his right to change the license, but, once again, the forks exist.

I don't want to make it sound like I am certain this developer is the problem. I know this is not their job and they don't owe anyone anything in this regard. There's plenty of toxicity in the development community directed at developers. I remember Dreamcast emulation being a bit of a roller coaster for a while. And more recently, the developer of PS2 emulator AetherSX2 stopped development due to apparent death threats and other nastiness, which is absurd behavior to direct at a software developer.

@PopetheRev28 I definitely enjoyed the Saturn more than the Dreamcast. Perhaps timing had something to do with that. There's no question the Dreamcast was more capable. Saturn had the better standard controller though. For me, it comes down to the kinds of games that were popular in the mid 1990s. When the Dreamcast came out, developers were looking to try new ideas and a lot of those weren't for me. I enjoyed the Dreamcast as well, but the library wasn't as much of what I wanted compared to the Saturn.

@KitsuneNight thanks for taking the time to make suggestions. I'll see if any of those fit my requirements.

I do believe that physical makes more sense for video and audio media. Films and albums don't need patches. Digital makes more sense for gaming. Luckily, we also have digital platforms for PC that seem to do things better than some of the big video streaming platforms and other competitors in the market. Some games just aren't suited to physical distribution. Even if major releases were held back to not need those major day-one patches, there is still a need for patching and updates. Some games are still very well suited to physical releases. Games like Shovel Knight and Cuphead are perfect for physical. The only downside there is that any DLC content, in Shovel Knight's case it was DLC that was planned and known from the beginning, often means physical releases have to be held back and players can wait years to get the full physical package. This is a good argument to use a mix of digital and physical as a player. Both of those games are excellent with DLC to match. In both cases, I bought the games through GOG so they are completely DRM-free so they are fully preserved for me as they are now.

I do understand the preference for physical for many and share the view for video and music. While I did find the idea of digital distribution intriguing early on, I've seen the downsides of that as well, so I have bought more DVDs and BDs in the last handful of years than I ever did when those formats were at their sales peaks.

It is a valid view, and it wouldn't be the only game or movie or show that depicted a bit of a rivalry between the two nations in fictional terms, but as previous posters said it may simply be coincidence as it may not be what the designers intended, or it could be viewed as a friendly rivalry. An explanation that is just as valid, if not even more plausible and compelling, is that Japan and the United States were the biggest arcade markets for Capcom so they wanted the two main guys to be representative of those two countries. There are probably a number of other plausible explanations, but never underestimate the idea they simply found the designs cool and fitting for the two countries.

@KitsuneNight I know what you mean about the technical stuff. And I prefer PC at this point, but as my tastes are far more retro, I've always been able to get by without really caring about GPUs as the integrated graphics have served me well in about 98 percent of cases. I've always found the GPU market confusing compared to everything else. Keeping track of CPUs I like. But I'm an enthusiast in a strange way, as I like used machines, and low-power stuff. But the reason I'm even replying is I have just been shopping over the last couple of days for my first actual GPU card in a very long time. I found it exhausting. I was looking for a good second-hand deal(anything above a certain number just made no sense for me) on something old. But what was the reason? I just wanted to finally be able to play Guilty Gear Xrd on it. I actually bought that on Steam early last year on a sale(four bucks!) with the expectation to get something to play it later. There will be other benefits, but that should cover most of my PC needs for a very long time because I find older stuff more fun for the reasons you say. And I'm also the type to enjoy the same games multiple times which makes me a bad consumer to those with something to sell.

It does seem to be an odd choice to not include the drive and stand for what will be their premium console. It is reminiscent of the Sony that was marketing the Vita when it was new. It seemed like a nice system, but they just couldn't resist gouging on the memory cards. It didn't turn out all that well. Maybe their calculation is to get some sales from the hardware enthusiasts(similar to whales for online games) and then drop it later, but the PR hit seems like a high price for them to pay to sell it at such a high price.

I'd rather have a disc drive than ray tracing. 3DO wins this round.

@KingMike Gauntlet 4 is also prone to the PCB issues. People have said there's some oxidation involved. Some have reported some success by cleaning the through-hole vias on the PCB. I had previously only heard of the transplanting, but was reading about this cleaning method earlier this year as I was curious about Gauntlet 4 carts. I've come across a couple of people saying they've acquired two or three Gauntlet 4 carts and someone told me, after I mentioned it, that they weren't getting a signal on all the pins. So I may have helped a guy salvage a couple of copies of it.

I bought the original series and it's on my list to watch sooner or later(I'm stockpiling). This looks pretty interesting and I'll keep an eye on it. But he's so tiny in most of it!

@PopetheRev28 There are many myths about lag. As others have said, this is not Bluetooth, so unless they screwed up their hardware, it should be essentially lag free. To put it in perspective, I tested out my two oldest Bluetooth controllers which are about a decade old on Android tablets(which are also claimed to add lag) with various cores on Retroarch. Straight to the point, the Bluetooth controllers had no additional lag compared to USB on the tablets or compared to PC USB. Things have only gotten better for controllers since then and the wireless hardware in these things is likely way faster than the Dreamcast processes inputs. If it somehow has measurable lag, they would just be a failure of implementation.

Day one? I was seven or eight months ahead of day one. Being a Saturn owner got me very comfortable with importing. Luckily, by the late 1990s, importing didn't carry a heavy premium, so I ended up ordering an Asian region(outside of Japan) Dreamcast because I just couldn't wait. It was a lot of fun, and very cool having it well before most people did. It arrived on the perfect day too. As I recall it was right as I was off from school for a week. It was a fun time.

Looks a lot like a Saturn controller. I definitely approve of that. In fact, the best controller I ever used on a Dreamcast was a Saturn controller, thanks to an adapter.

@IceClimbersMain Sadly, the worst examples of software emulation have been official collections. There's a long history of companies putting out shoddy emulation collections and products. I used to be able to rattle off about a dozen examples without thinking about it, but it was such a common occurrence I stopped keeping track. Software emulation can be done very well when the developers care about it. The same goes for FPGA, as the cores have to be well implemented. As far as I know, NGP emulates just fine in software, is trivial to do, and is likely better than those collections.

@Blast16 I'm glad my comment was helpful. If you're curious, you can see comparison videos. At first, the difference with the camera doesn't look like much, but because it's tighter to Croc on the Saturn, you start to see problems when enemies are behind you(harder to see them), and when there's platforming to do(harder to judge distance). The platforming issue is even worse in caves as platforms get in the way of the camera more often on Saturn. The PS1 is also likely superior in other ways due to it generally having better 3D graphics in most cases with multi-platform games. And if you're after a physical copy, I figure the PS1 version should be much more common as well. So the PS1 is definitely the way to go in every way, I'd say.

Back in 2019, I was in an odd mood to play a 3D platformer(I'm by far a 2D guy) from the early days of the genre which did not use analog controls. I did say it was odd. I remembered Croc and that's what I decided on. I originally had the Saturn version when it was new. I hated it due to the camera. But when I revisited it, I played the PS1 version.

The PS1 version has a better camera setup than the Saturn version. For the PS1, the viewpoint is a bit zoomed out by comparison, which helps a great deal with visibility. I enjoyed revisiting Croc and felt like I got my money's worth out of it finally. I ended up enjoying the game a lot more than some of its much higher profile competition when I revisited other stuff. I enjoyed the relatively small stages and sections. I liked rescuing those little creatures. So I like the idea of Croc getting spruced up with an HD update. I hope they do add analog controls, but I also hope they keep an option for digital controls, because they worked just fine.

Tosaki has spoken extremely highly of Nintendo, so I don't think this is a case of trying to steal some of their thunder. I think this is plausible. Sega, with their arcade ties, were always trying new things. Their deluxe arcade games were practically rides. They worked with holographic visuals. Sega, Namco, and perhaps others saw the utility of polygons quite a few years before they had their 3D boards. Same thing with various companies and CDs.

@RoboJ1M I agree with you that DVD would have been a great feature, as it was for the PS2. The only issue is that Sega would have had to pay licensing fees for that, some of which would have gone to Sony. I'm not sure how much that would have been, but it might have seemed to be unnecessary at the time. The Dreamcast launched at a strange time with both the move to DVD drives and major advancements in 3D hardware happening after the hardware was finalized. That timing put them in a tough spot.

From a different interview with Tosaki that I saw recently "It was the game developers that didn’t want dual analog 3D sticks at all." What's not clear is whether they were looking into it and the developers were adamant about not wanting two, or if it's more along the lines of what he says here and that there was no demand at the time for it. It could be a translation thing. Also, dual analog was still fairly new at that point and perhaps it wasn't seen as particularly useful when they were designing the Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast controller is one of the worst aspects of the whole package. The cable coming out of the bottom was a minor annoyance, but still annoying. The reduction in face buttons from six to four wasn't great, especially for the Capcom fans. I was fully on board the SNK train by then, so four was good for the fighting games I wanted to play. The change to that stiff, cross-style D-pad was a huge step down and was probably the worst thing about the controller. That thing legitimately hurt my thumbs playing King of Fighters. It was the first system to do that to my hands since the NES when I first got one. On top of that, the novelty of the VMUs wore off for me pretty quickly, and the L and R triggers were not nearly as durable as the ones on the Saturn 3D pad and could break fairly easily. That happened to me and I was always really careful with my gaming stuff. I've opened both controllers and saw how much better built the triggers were for the Saturn 3D pad.

Happy anniversary King of Fighters. I have a soft spot for KOF as it really helped shape my tastes at a time when I was getting into a rut. A friend of mine brought me to a local shop to see Street Fighter 3 for the first time. He was impressed. I could see why, but I just didn't like Capcom's character designs in a lot of cases. Right next to it was King of Fighters '97. It was technically less impressive than SF3, but the animation was still excellent, along with the sprite work. The characters were more stylish and the gameplay looked great. I was mesmerized. I didn't play it there, but I did get it for the Saturn when it came out a few months later and I loved it. I had that experience a few times where I just knew I'd love a game almost immediately upon seeing it. It reignited my enjoyment for fighting games, and 2D games with nice pixel art. And it was a nice late addition to my Saturn library as the system reached its end thanks to the looming release of the Dreamcast later that year.

@KingMike I think I guessed Jaguar on that one too. I'm not familiar enough with it to know what its layout is by memory, other than that keypad.

I missed the Gamecube(been a while since I used one of those cotrollers), the Gamate, and the Euro Mega Drive six-button pad. I'm surprised the other ones I had to guess went my way.

I like the Prison City demo from a year ago. Finally picked the game up about a month back, when I was pretty sick and was catching up with my Steam and GOG games to pass the time. Fun game. It gets pretty tricky in spots that remind me of why I love save states so much, but I have been enjoying it. I have to jump back in and resume it. Hearing that this is by the same guy makes me more interested, though I already liked the creative title and some of the comedy elements with this one. It's a game I'll definitely read the review for when it's done. I like the claw machine in one of the screenshots above.