@Daggot Yeah, on that last point, Acclaim comes to mind as one with a similarly rough story: they went bankrupt, and all of their physical assets got auctioned off to who knows where- including any workstations, servers, or tapes containing the repositories, backups, and dev materials.
A treasure trove of beta content (along with the ability to bring some lost classics to modern consoles) was jettisoned in ~2004, and for all we know, someone could have wiped and reformatted it all away, just so they could put some boring accounting database in its place or something.
@BulkSlash Is it common for publishers to keep a copy of the developers' repositories? It probably has been done before, but I find it hard to imagine it is (or especially was) common.
Guess I land right in the middle- I started with the NES and a bootleg cart containing a ton of pre-1986 titles (including many that were otherwise stuck in Japan!), but this was in the early '90s, like 1992-93.
The NES stayed popular for a long time: well into the late '90s, at least in my family/friend circles.
@Serpenterror But imagine how wonderfully awful it could have been! Maybe it would have starred Samus and American Kirby (complete with muscles and facial hair, like in the commercials) working together in a side-scrolling shooter, like the Rolling Thunder games, but with a buddy cop kind of story tying it all together.
I've always wondered: if Shinobi III is the third game, then which one doesn't count? Shadow Dancer, presumably, since "Shinobi" only appears in the subtitle? Or Shinobi (1), since it was only on the 8-bit systems?
The Japanese numbering makes more sense to me, since it separates the Shinobi series into two games of each style: Shinobi and Shadow Dancer have the slightly slower pace, with lots of ledge hopping and hostage rescuing. And then Super Shinobi I and especially II amp things up with more moves, crazier enemies and situations, etc.
I was not expecting this relatively obscure game to get a remake, but I'm glad it is! Shadow of the Ninja is already great, and Tengo Project has turned out nothing but gold for the past several years, so this should be a great match.
@AJB83 Thanks, but you don't need to go to the trouble! I haven't even played this enhanced port yet, but when I do, I won't mind cutting and looping one track. Unless you want to for your own sake, in which case, have at it!
@AJB83 Thanks! I checked it out now, along with the album version, and it seems the latter would actually work pretty well as-is. The reason I mentioned radio edits was because I was familiar with the album (Risotto) version of Goodnight Lover, and that one would definitely need editing. Otherwise, the race would be ending just as the music really gets going!
I don't know why Nintendo didn't take advantage of Yoshi's inclusion in Tetris Attack: the game itself is full of Yoshi characters, but they're nowhere to be found on the box art!
And when they lost the Tetris branding, that should have been all the more reason to set things right: rename it "Yoshi's Puzzle Attack" or whatever, and whip up some new box art featuring Yoshi and friends. Nope. A couple of releases with Pokemon (at the height of Pokemania, to be fair), but then it was all bland, straightforward presentation from then on.
PS: I'm not so sure, though, that an English release of Panel de Pon under its original title (back in the day) would have worked. Any would-be purchasers would be like "What the heck is a Panel dee Pawn? Or Panel day Pwn? Or whatever?"
Very cool! I'd been considering picking up Wipeout 1, and this looks like a great enhancement!
I've only ever played Wipeout 64- I assume that takes after the Wipeout 2 model? (Scraping a wall can kill your momentum pretty quickly, but it's not as bad as Wipeout 1 sounds.)
Speaking of Wipeout 64, I wonder if Absurd and Goodnight Lover have radio edits that are suitable for racing... without being chopped up and compressed, I mean. Those music tracks would be great to race with.
@samuelvictor You got it. With 60 different images per second, A and B (even and odd lines) will never match unless there's no motion at all!
The high-level hardware rendering offered by many emulators can bypass the whole issue of video signals (see basically any N64 emulator, for example!), though this is a less accurate approach than a software renderer that closely mimics the original console. You may find that a lot of Saturn games only work well with software rendering for now, but high-level emulators with 480p and HD support should eventually offer the nicest experience, if their accuracy keeps improving!
@samuelvictor Interlacing on a CRT does give the illusion of a crisper image than would otherwise be possible with just 240 lines. There's a bit of fuzziness, but the comb effect isn't usually noticeable on CRTs (with some exceptions).
Your solution in video editing probably involves combining every two fields into one frame: you end up with 30 solid frames instead of 60 fields (or "incomplete frames" with gaps in them, if you will). This works well on 30fps content, but 60fps content (games like Virtua Fighter 2, as well as many old sitcoms and soap operas!) looks terrible with this deinterlacing technique, as every one of those 60 fields is unique, and splicing them together in pairs just creates a comb-filled mess.
Ignoring every other line, like you mentioned (called "bob" deinterlacing), is a better way to do things on 60fps content, and it's an option on the PS2 emulator, PCSX2. Not sure about other emulators, however.
PS: Hope that all makes sense. It's kind of hard to explain without picture/video examples- there are better explanations on the internet, but there's also a lot of misleading info floating around, which conflates 30fps progressive and 60fps interlaced.
@samuelvictor Yeah, there are a few emulators out there (for various systems, not just Saturn) that insist on accurately replicating interlacing... which is fine as an option, I guess, seeing as it's authentic. But most of us just want a clean, progressive picture!
I knew that the Saturn had some 480i games, which is why I suggested upscaling to 480p, as it should be about as close as you can get without enabling the ugly comb effect. I wasn't about to assume that you wanted 480p, though, as some people are sticklers for having the most accurate output- even if it seems (to me) to be a very strange preference in some situations!
@samuelvictor I wouldn't know about interlacing (I personally try to stay away from it!), but there are emulators that support arbitrary high resolutions, so you can do full 1080p, or I suppose there'd also be 704x480 progressive, if you want something semi-authentic.
IIRC, Yabause is one that does HD, but is less accurate, while Mednafen has accuracy, but is stuck with native resolution. Still not ideal, in either case.
@samuelvictor Saturn emulation was pretty rough about 10+ years ago, but it has come a long way since then. I admittedly haven't spent much time with it either, but it looks like a majority of games are playable with minimal bugs on emulators like Mednafen. I have a fairly old PC, too, but it runs well.
I'd also be up for collections from those platforms you mentioned! Sega/Mega CD, 32X, and Model 3 have all had an especially terrible record (i.e., close to zero) for re-releases so far. MD/Genesis collections are everywhere, which is great, but there's still so much Sega history trapped on arcade machines and, well, every other platform that's not Genesis.
I've said this before, but Sega should just bring their back catalogue to modern platforms. Offer ported or emulated versions of all of those classics (and oddities) that have been missed: Skies of Arcadia, Burning Rangers, the Panzer Dragoon series, JSRF, Ecco: Defender of the Future, even Chaotix!
Or do a Saturn Collection containing 20 games, or whatever.
As far as the difficulty of emulation, any semi-modern platforms should be up to the task, including Xbox One, 10-year-old PCs, and probably the Switch.
@Uncharted2007 In their defense, this does have to be a low-cost device, so it will be less capable than even a $200 phone.
Also, we're talking about emulation, not native ports: remember that the PS1 Classic Mini already struggled to run some games at full speed. The Saturn is a complex beast, and is a lot harder to emulate than the simple PS1.
I appreciate the acknowledgement that your hands are on the smaller side- it explains why the Nano didn't look quite as small as I expected- plus that and the comparison to a box of matches are both a lot more helpful than simply making subjective statements!
(I could see some reviewers just saying it's "small, but fairly comfortable" or "slightly cramped", and leaving it at that.)
Amazing game, and one of my favourite racers of all time. Too bad Nintendo is celebrating the 25th anniversary the same way they celebrated the 20th, and the 15th, and the 10th.
Anyone have any good ideas for keeping track of ongoing mods/homebrew projects? Or even some good lists of complete, fully-playable projects?
I keep coming across lists like this, as well as presentations like SAGE and F3, but a lot of projects are unfinished... and then I eventually forget about them. (This list is unusual, in how many of these are already complete!)
I've tried to keep a plain old written list of projects to watch... and this has worked okay, if not great.
@SpeedRunRocks I wish game companies would have taken this stuff seriously from the beginning. For movies? There was a precedent set by book and art preservation already, I guess, but people probably saw movies as more of a fleeting medium like live theatre, so I'll cut them some slack for not having the foresight that time. But video games had the previous lessons of movies and TV (on top of the aforementioned media) to learn from, yet source code, dev materials, and even finished products have all been thrown away. I find that harder to take.
Great to see that Spyro mods are a thing now (I have not kept up with the ROM hacking scene!). But are they showing that glitches have to be exploited in order to finish this hack? I'd totally be down for this, if it was Sonic Adventure... but Spyro? This might be just a little bit above my skill level!
@no_donatello Oh yeah, emulation is definitely preferable in those cases (among others). Personally, I would just use standard PCs and set things up myself, but I can understand the desire to streamline things, especially if kids or light guns are involved!
I do wonder if this is a small niche, though...
Also, part of what I was commenting on previously was the choice of mini consoles for re-purchasing classic games: Do I want to see more Saturn and Dreamcast games brought to modern platforms? Absolutely! But do I want to buy a $200 box for each system? Not so much, especially when I already own many of the DC's biggest hits twice over. Similarly, I'd love to see Jet Set Radio 3, Sonic Adventure 3, Shenmue IV, you name it! I'm just not as thrilled with the idea of buying a hypothetical Dreamcast 2, whether it's a $600 modern console or a $300 "potato" with retro graphics.
@UK_Kev Is it an anti-PC gaming thing, maybe? People don't want to play an emulated game on their PC, so they get a mini console... which is a budget PC in disguise, which runs emulators in disguise?
I also find the desire for more consoles (N64 mini, Dreamcast 2, etc.) a bit puzzling. I'm all for making old games legally available for purchase again (digitally or in compilations), but having to buy a dedicated machine for each batch of games starts to become a waste of money and space. Okay, I do understand it at the surface level, but it just doesn't hold up when I think about it.
The graphics are already looking great, and well ahead of the NES version. Sound is also really well done... even though the PSG can only do so much, unfortunately. (I'm curious, though, what could be done with PCM drums and FM for the rest. I bet it could be a lot like the arcade.)
That's a weird thing for Kirkhope to say, considering these same guys did their own attempt at a Banjo game, and it sold well (despite some criticisms).
To say nothing of the millions of fans clamouring for "Banjo-Threeie" for the past 23 years!
@GhaleonUnlimited There is already a 60fps mod for Journey of Dreams! As far as I know, it needs to be disabled to get past one specific section, but it works flawlessly for the rest of the game.
PS: Sonic's cousin? I guess that is true, in a sense...
The N64 homebrew and modding scene is relatively young (compared to something like Genesis), but it has already started to produce some impressive stuff. I'm looking forward to this, and to whatever else comes after!
Nice! A subtle upgrade, but this sounds like the definitive Zelda 1 experience. My next playthrough just might be with this on an emulator, instead of the original cart.
Most of my games are stored in a dark room with no sunlight, and the others are only getting a bit of indirect light.
That said, while it's always preferable to have games that are pristine, undamaged, and CIB, I'm ultimately in it for the gameplay experience, much more than the collecting itself. And it's good, because there's so much that can go wrong: our stuff won't last forever, and it's always just one incident away from damage or destruction. Better to enjoy it, than to stress out over it!
Yeah, it's unfortunate that F-Zero has been neglected for so long, though I am glad that at least Fire Emblem and Metroid weren't left to the same fate!
So essentially, Sakamoto and Tanabe are using their clout to keep Metroid alive? (That theory holds water, as there probably aren't any influential figures advocating for F-Zero.) In any case, I can't see that the issue is specifically GX's sales, as it reportedly sold well over a million copies, landing in the top 20 on GCN- and outselling all of the Metroid games on Wii, I might add! But it could be that the cost of developing a modern sequel is considered too high for a game that will only bring in maybe a quarter of Mario Kart's sales, at best. Why spend $10M developing that, when you could spend next to nothing and get Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? ...or maybe Miyamoto still has a chip on his shoulder. Who knows?
At the end of the day, Nintendo makes some frustrating and/or baffling decisions as to which series they develop, and when, and to what degree... "Nintendo gonna Nintendo", as they say!
@Tobunari Yeah, both SA games let you move the file, but not copy it. I forget if any games like GX, etc., are fully locked or not.
Right, you can offload your stuff to an external drive, but it's still tied to that specific console. Nintendo did offer migration tools to go from one Wii U to another (or from a Wii to a Wii U), but those delete the original data- unless there's an exploit involving a last-second unplug!
@Tobunari Good catch. Seems I misremembered that one.
Another couple of files that are locked, however, are the Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 Chao Gardens, so again, some of the files that people might care most about backing up. Fortunately, I didn't notice any others from this quick glance. And I backed up all of my saves via unofficial means a few years back, so I'm covered!
I don't think Wii U allows backing up in any form. IIRC, I looked into it years ago, and you can only move all of your save data to another console- no cloning.
It's cool to see these making a return, but man... if I stopped being a cheapskate and bought all of the re-releases like this that interested me, I'd be at least $1000 poorer by now. Or more like $1500 in Canadian money.
El Viento is one of the most tempting ones, though, as I hear it's really quite good, plus it has an early Sakuraba soundtrack. And I've always had a strange curiosity/interest in the hilariously janky follow-up, Earnest Evans.
@Tobunari My point is that Fire Emblem was a niche series (much more than F-Zero), but it was given more chances, and it eventually became a big success, starting with Awakening.
You do make an interesting point: Awakening appealed to a broad, casual audience by being easier and focusing more on stuff besides the actual strategy- and that was when FE's fortunes hit a turning point.
Would Nintendo have to dumb down a new F-Zero, or at least change how they market it, in order for it to succeed today? Maybe, looking at Fire Emblem's journey. On the other hand, it's not the '00s anymore. Nintendo has a huge install base this time around, and tons of passionate, hardcore fans. It's easily conceivable that there are plenty of potential buyers who are eager to either revisit the series, or to see what was so special about it- and who won't be put off by some challenge. Not enough to generate Mario Kart sales numbers, obviously, but easily enough to be a success.
On that note... what sales figures would you consider a success, if a new F-Zero came to Switch? And what would GX have had to sell, to count as a success?
@NatiaAdamo Yeah, as far as actual record-keeping goes, I'd put this in a separate category, at best... though it can be hard to confirm whether any game was continuously in development, or if it had gaps in between.
Apparently, Duke Nukem Forever was actively in development for all of its 15 years? I assume Metroid Dread was shelved for a while, though, so it wouldn't count. What about Beyond Good and Evil 2?
@no_donatello Haha, I always hated that so many people flocked to the PS2 and left the GameCube struggling- it was even commonly believed back then that the PS2 was technically superior!
While the PS2's engineering had plenty of downsides (remember the failure rate?), the console had tons of great games that I've enjoyed catching up on- and in the hands of the right programmers and artists, even the hardware could really sing!
And I agree that the sixth gen was the peak of gaming, in most ways. (Back then, though, we didn't have $3 Steam deals, so there's that!)
This is a pretty obscure selection (only heard the occasional reference to Madoola, personally), but it's great to see Sunsoft making a comeback in general.
Here's hoping Journey to Silius is next! (And Gremlins 2, Batman for Genesis, and Return of the Joker for NES, if anyone's taking wishes!)
I'd love to see the actual Goemon games from the '90s- especially the first N64 one- make it to modern platforms, as I missed out the first time around.
This also looks great, though! Hopefully it comes to PC/Xbox as well as Switch.
Is this a record for the longest game development, from inception to release?
Also, I wonder how much Brixius will be overhauling the game now, and if the final result will be a mix of old and new design sensibilities. (Seeing as there's voting involved, it's safe to say that he's not sticking to his original docs 100%.)
@FatPlumber Strange. I distinctly remember my friends running into problems when mixing JP and NA saves. I looked it up to confirm just yesterday, and sure enough, that's the common knowledge- that the card needs to be dedicated to either Japan or other regions, but not both at once.
It might depend on the game, where some force a reformat, but others just have text glitches. (Do any of your save names have glitch characters where the kanji/kana should be?)
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Re: Activision Might Have "Lost" A Bunch Of Amazing Transformers Video Games
@Daggot Yeah, on that last point, Acclaim comes to mind as one with a similarly rough story: they went bankrupt, and all of their physical assets got auctioned off to who knows where- including any workstations, servers, or tapes containing the repositories, backups, and dev materials.
A treasure trove of beta content (along with the ability to bring some lost classics to modern consoles) was jettisoned in ~2004, and for all we know, someone could have wiped and reformatted it all away, just so they could put some boring accounting database in its place or something.
Re: Activision Might Have "Lost" A Bunch Of Amazing Transformers Video Games
@gingerbeardman Right, they could get a bunch of these running without the source code if they just emulated them... i.e., put them on back compat.
Re: Activision Might Have "Lost" A Bunch Of Amazing Transformers Video Games
@BulkSlash Is it common for publishers to keep a copy of the developers' repositories? It probably has been done before, but I find it hard to imagine it is (or especially was) common.
Re: Talking Point: What Was Your First Video Gaming Experience?
Guess I land right in the middle- I started with the NES and a bootleg cart containing a ton of pre-1986 titles (including many that were otherwise stuck in Japan!), but this was in the early '90s, like 1992-93.
The NES stayed popular for a long time: well into the late '90s, at least in my family/friend circles.
Re: Like Zelda And Mario, Donkey Kong Was Supposed To Get A Philips CD-i Game - What Happened?
@Serpenterror But imagine how wonderfully awful it could have been!
Maybe it would have starred Samus and American Kirby (complete with muscles and facial hair, like in the commercials) working together in a side-scrolling shooter, like the Rolling Thunder games, but with a buddy cop kind of story tying it all together.
Re: Simon The Sorcerer Origins Will Feature Music From (Reads Notes) Rick Astley
This is a weird twist, but as someone who actually listens to Rick Astley's music unironically, I'm interested in seeing how this turns out!
Re: Anniversary: Sega's Shinobi III Is 30 Years Old
I've always wondered: if Shinobi III is the third game, then which one doesn't count? Shadow Dancer, presumably, since "Shinobi" only appears in the subtitle? Or Shinobi (1), since it was only on the 8-bit systems?
The Japanese numbering makes more sense to me, since it separates the Shinobi series into two games of each style: Shinobi and Shadow Dancer have the slightly slower pace, with lots of ledge hopping and hostage rescuing. And then Super Shinobi I and especially II amp things up with more moves, crazier enemies and situations, etc.
Re: Tengo Project Teases Remake Of NES Classic Shadow Of The Ninja
I was not expecting this relatively obscure game to get a remake, but I'm glad it is! Shadow of the Ninja is already great, and Tengo Project has turned out nothing but gold for the past several years, so this should be a great match.
Re: WipEout Phantom Edition Is An Enhanced PC Port Of The PS1 Classic
@AJB83 Thanks, but you don't need to go to the trouble! I haven't even played this enhanced port yet, but when I do, I won't mind cutting and looping one track. Unless you want to for your own sake, in which case, have at it!
Re: WipEout Phantom Edition Is An Enhanced PC Port Of The PS1 Classic
@AJB83 Thanks! I checked it out now, along with the album version, and it seems the latter would actually work pretty well as-is. The reason I mentioned radio edits was because I was familiar with the album (Risotto) version of Goodnight Lover, and that one would definitely need editing. Otherwise, the race would be ending just as the music really gets going!
Re: The Puzzling Legacy of Panel de Pon And Puzzle League
I don't know why Nintendo didn't take advantage of Yoshi's inclusion in Tetris Attack: the game itself is full of Yoshi characters, but they're nowhere to be found on the box art!
And when they lost the Tetris branding, that should have been all the more reason to set things right: rename it "Yoshi's Puzzle Attack" or whatever, and whip up some new box art featuring Yoshi and friends. Nope. A couple of releases with Pokemon (at the height of Pokemania, to be fair), but then it was all bland, straightforward presentation from then on.
PS: I'm not so sure, though, that an English release of Panel de Pon under its original title (back in the day) would have worked. Any would-be purchasers would be like "What the heck is a Panel dee Pawn? Or Panel day Pwn? Or whatever?"
Re: WipEout Phantom Edition Is An Enhanced PC Port Of The PS1 Classic
Very cool! I'd been considering picking up Wipeout 1, and this looks like a great enhancement!
I've only ever played Wipeout 64- I assume that takes after the Wipeout 2 model? (Scraping a wall can kill your momentum pretty quickly, but it's not as bad as Wipeout 1 sounds.)
Speaking of Wipeout 64, I wonder if Absurd and Goodnight Lover have radio edits that are suitable for racing... without being chopped up and compressed, I mean. Those music tracks would be great to race with.
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
@samuelvictor You got it. With 60 different images per second, A and B (even and odd lines) will never match unless there's no motion at all!
The high-level hardware rendering offered by many emulators can bypass the whole issue of video signals (see basically any N64 emulator, for example!), though this is a less accurate approach than a software renderer that closely mimics the original console. You may find that a lot of Saturn games only work well with software rendering for now, but high-level emulators with 480p and HD support should eventually offer the nicest experience, if their accuracy keeps improving!
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
@samuelvictor Interlacing on a CRT does give the illusion of a crisper image than would otherwise be possible with just 240 lines. There's a bit of fuzziness, but the comb effect isn't usually noticeable on CRTs (with some exceptions).
Your solution in video editing probably involves combining every two fields into one frame: you end up with 30 solid frames instead of 60 fields (or "incomplete frames" with gaps in them, if you will). This works well on 30fps content, but 60fps content (games like Virtua Fighter 2, as well as many old sitcoms and soap operas!) looks terrible with this deinterlacing technique, as every one of those 60 fields is unique, and splicing them together in pairs just creates a comb-filled mess.
Ignoring every other line, like you mentioned (called "bob" deinterlacing), is a better way to do things on 60fps content, and it's an option on the PS2 emulator, PCSX2. Not sure about other emulators, however.
PS: Hope that all makes sense. It's kind of hard to explain without picture/video examples- there are better explanations on the internet, but there's also a lot of misleading info floating around, which conflates 30fps progressive and 60fps interlaced.
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
@samuelvictor Yeah, there are a few emulators out there (for various systems, not just Saturn) that insist on accurately replicating interlacing... which is fine as an option, I guess, seeing as it's authentic. But most of us just want a clean, progressive picture!
I knew that the Saturn had some 480i games, which is why I suggested upscaling to 480p, as it should be about as close as you can get without enabling the ugly comb effect. I wasn't about to assume that you wanted 480p, though, as some people are sticklers for having the most accurate output- even if it seems (to me) to be a very strange preference in some situations!
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
@samuelvictor I wouldn't know about interlacing (I personally try to stay away from it!), but there are emulators that support arbitrary high resolutions, so you can do full 1080p, or I suppose there'd also be 704x480 progressive, if you want something semi-authentic.
IIRC, Yabause is one that does HD, but is less accurate, while Mednafen has accuracy, but is stuck with native resolution. Still not ideal, in either case.
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
@samuelvictor Saturn emulation was pretty rough about 10+ years ago, but it has come a long way since then. I admittedly haven't spent much time with it either, but it looks like a majority of games are playable with minimal bugs on emulators like Mednafen. I have a fairly old PC, too, but it runs well.
I'd also be up for collections from those platforms you mentioned! Sega/Mega CD, 32X, and Model 3 have all had an especially terrible record (i.e., close to zero) for re-releases so far. MD/Genesis collections are everywhere, which is great, but there's still so much Sega history trapped on arcade machines and, well, every other platform that's not Genesis.
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
I've said this before, but Sega should just bring their back catalogue to modern platforms. Offer ported or emulated versions of all of those classics (and oddities) that have been missed: Skies of Arcadia, Burning Rangers, the Panzer Dragoon series, JSRF, Ecco: Defender of the Future, even Chaotix!
Or do a Saturn Collection containing 20 games, or whatever.
As far as the difficulty of emulation, any semi-modern platforms should be up to the task, including Xbox One, 10-year-old PCs, and probably the Switch.
Re: Sega President Explains Why A Sega Saturn Mini May Not Be On The Cards Just Yet
@Uncharted2007 In their defense, this does have to be a low-cost device, so it will be less capable than even a $200 phone.
Also, we're talking about emulation, not native ports: remember that the PS1 Classic Mini already struggled to run some games at full speed. The Saturn is a complex beast, and is a lot harder to emulate than the simple PS1.
Re: Flashback: How InXile's 'Baby Pals' Found Itself At The Center Of A Moral Panic
More like pareiDOLLia!
Sorry.
Re: Review: Anbernic RG Nano - What Is This, A Game Boy For Ants?!
I appreciate the acknowledgement that your hands are on the smaller side- it explains why the Nano didn't look quite as small as I expected- plus that and the comparison to a box of matches are both a lot more helpful than simply making subjective statements!
(I could see some reviewers just saying it's "small, but fairly comfortable" or "slightly cramped", and leaving it at that.)
Re: Anniversary: F-Zero X Is 25 Today
Amazing game, and one of my favourite racers of all time.
Too bad Nintendo is celebrating the 25th anniversary the same way they celebrated the 20th, and the 15th, and the 10th.
Re: Best ROM Hacks, Mods And Homebrews Of 2023
Anyone have any good ideas for keeping track of ongoing mods/homebrew projects? Or even some good lists of complete, fully-playable projects?
I keep coming across lists like this, as well as presentations like SAGE and F3, but a lot of projects are unfinished... and then I eventually forget about them. (This list is unusual, in how many of these are already complete!)
I've tried to keep a plain old written list of projects to watch... and this has worked okay, if not great.
Re: Shocking Study Reveals 87% Of Classic Games Are "Critically Endangered"
@SpeedRunRocks I wish game companies would have taken this stuff seriously from the beginning.
For movies? There was a precedent set by book and art preservation already, I guess, but people probably saw movies as more of a fleeting medium like live theatre, so I'll cut them some slack for not having the foresight that time.
But video games had the previous lessons of movies and TV (on top of the aforementioned media) to learn from, yet source code, dev materials, and even finished products have all been thrown away. I find that harder to take.
Re: This New Spyro 3 Hack Will Put Your Skills To The Test
Great to see that Spyro mods are a thing now (I have not kept up with the ROM hacking scene!).
But are they showing that glitches have to be exploited in order to finish this hack? I'd totally be down for this, if it was Sonic Adventure... but Spyro? This might be just a little bit above my skill level!
Re: Atari And Polymega Maker Playmaji Are Joining Forces
@no_donatello Oh yeah, emulation is definitely preferable in those cases (among others). Personally, I would just use standard PCs and set things up myself, but I can understand the desire to streamline things, especially if kids or light guns are involved!
I do wonder if this is a small niche, though...
Also, part of what I was commenting on previously was the choice of mini consoles for re-purchasing classic games:
Do I want to see more Saturn and Dreamcast games brought to modern platforms? Absolutely! But do I want to buy a $200 box for each system? Not so much, especially when I already own many of the DC's biggest hits twice over.
Similarly, I'd love to see Jet Set Radio 3, Sonic Adventure 3, Shenmue IV, you name it! I'm just not as thrilled with the idea of buying a hypothetical Dreamcast 2, whether it's a $600 modern console or a $300 "potato" with retro graphics.
PS: Your son is very lucky!
Re: Atari And Polymega Maker Playmaji Are Joining Forces
@UK_Kev Is it an anti-PC gaming thing, maybe? People don't want to play an emulated game on their PC, so they get a mini console... which is a budget PC in disguise, which runs emulators in disguise?
I also find the desire for more consoles (N64 mini, Dreamcast 2, etc.) a bit puzzling. I'm all for making old games legally available for purchase again (digitally or in compilations), but having to buy a dedicated machine for each batch of games starts to become a waste of money and space.
Okay, I do understand it at the surface level, but it just doesn't hold up when I think about it.
Re: This Sega Handheld Doesn't Exist, But We Sure Wish It Did
@themightyant Between that ambiguous button/nub thing and the way the start/select are on the screen bezel, it's giving me a bit of an AI vibe.
Agreed that it looks uncomfortable: besides hand cramps, that D-pad looks like it's hard enough to leave an imprint on the player's thumb.
It's a cute little (mock-up) device, though, and I also miss the old days of Sega. I just wouldn't necessarily want to actually play on this!
Re: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Is Coming To Master System
The graphics are already looking great, and well ahead of the NES version.
Sound is also really well done... even though the PSG can only do so much, unfortunately. (I'm curious, though, what could be done with PCM drums and FM for the rest. I bet it could be a lot like the arcade.)
Re: Former Rare Staff Not Sure We Need More Banjo-Kazooie Games
That's a weird thing for Kirkhope to say, considering these same guys did their own attempt at a Banjo game, and it sold well (despite some criticisms).
To say nothing of the millions of fans clamouring for "Banjo-Threeie" for the past 23 years!
Re: You Can Now Enjoy Nights Into Dreams At 60FPS On PC
@GhaleonUnlimited There is already a 60fps mod for Journey of Dreams! As far as I know, it needs to be disabled to get past one specific section, but it works flawlessly for the rest of the game.
PS: Sonic's cousin? I guess that is true, in a sense...
Re: N64Brew Is Putting On A Summer-Themed Game Jam To Raise Money For Charity
The N64 homebrew and modding scene is relatively young (compared to something like Genesis), but it has already started to produce some impressive stuff. I'm looking forward to this, and to whatever else comes after!
Re: The Original Legend Of Zelda Has Now Been Ported To SNES
Nice! A subtle upgrade, but this sounds like the definitive Zelda 1 experience. My next playthrough just might be with this on an emulator, instead of the original cart.
Re: Poll: Are You Concerned About 'Sun Fade' Ruining Your Retro Game Collection?
@ganonms I take it sunlight's not an issue, but what about humidity? Even in Canada, I've seen it do a lot of damage to DVD cases, in particular.
Re: Poll: Are You Concerned About 'Sun Fade' Ruining Your Retro Game Collection?
Most of my games are stored in a dark room with no sunlight, and the others are only getting a bit of indirect light.
That said, while it's always preferable to have games that are pristine, undamaged, and CIB, I'm ultimately in it for the gameplay experience, much more than the collecting itself. And it's good, because there's so much that can go wrong: our stuff won't last forever, and it's always just one incident away from damage or destruction.
Better to enjoy it, than to stress out over it!
Re: Random: Football Team Shrewsbury Town Use Sensible Soccer To Announce New Signing
At first, this seemed like a crazy way to announce the signing. But when you think of it, it's really quite Sensible.
Re: F-Zero Gets Another Spiritual Successor In The Shape Of XF - eXtreme Formula
Yeah, it's unfortunate that F-Zero has been neglected for so long, though I am glad that at least Fire Emblem and Metroid weren't left to the same fate!
So essentially, Sakamoto and Tanabe are using their clout to keep Metroid alive? (That theory holds water, as there probably aren't any influential figures advocating for F-Zero.) In any case, I can't see that the issue is specifically GX's sales, as it reportedly sold well over a million copies, landing in the top 20 on GCN- and outselling all of the Metroid games on Wii, I might add!
But it could be that the cost of developing a modern sequel is considered too high for a game that will only bring in maybe a quarter of Mario Kart's sales, at best. Why spend $10M developing that, when you could spend next to nothing and get Mario Kart 8 Deluxe?
...or maybe Miyamoto still has a chip on his shoulder. Who knows?
At the end of the day, Nintendo makes some frustrating and/or baffling decisions as to which series they develop, and when, and to what degree... "Nintendo gonna Nintendo", as they say!
Re: Review: 8BitMods MemCard Pro GC - A Next-Generation GameCube Memory Card
@Tobunari Yeah, both SA games let you move the file, but not copy it. I forget if any games like GX, etc., are fully locked or not.
Right, you can offload your stuff to an external drive, but it's still tied to that specific console. Nintendo did offer migration tools to go from one Wii U to another (or from a Wii to a Wii U), but those delete the original data- unless there's an exploit involving a last-second unplug!
Re: Review: 8BitMods MemCard Pro GC - A Next-Generation GameCube Memory Card
@Tobunari Good catch. Seems I misremembered that one.
Another couple of files that are locked, however, are the Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 Chao Gardens, so again, some of the files that people might care most about backing up.
Fortunately, I didn't notice any others from this quick glance. And I backed up all of my saves via unofficial means a few years back, so I'm covered!
I don't think Wii U allows backing up in any form. IIRC, I looked into it years ago, and you can only move all of your save data to another console- no cloning.
Re: Sol-Deace And El Viento Are Getting Physical Re-Releases This Year
It's cool to see these making a return, but man... if I stopped being a cheapskate and bought all of the re-releases like this that interested me, I'd be at least $1000 poorer by now.
Or more like $1500 in Canadian money.
El Viento is one of the most tempting ones, though, as I hear it's really quite good, plus it has an early Sakuraba soundtrack. And I've always had a strange curiosity/interest in the hilariously janky follow-up, Earnest Evans.
Re: New Doom 64 Mod Adds New Features From Nightdive Remaster Into N64 Original
Very cool that they pulled this off!
...but on the other hand, I don't really see any reason to actually play this over the 2020 PC version.
Re: F-Zero Gets Another Spiritual Successor In The Shape Of XF - eXtreme Formula
@Tobunari My point is that Fire Emblem was a niche series (much more than F-Zero), but it was given more chances, and it eventually became a big success, starting with Awakening.
You do make an interesting point: Awakening appealed to a broad, casual audience by being easier and focusing more on stuff besides the actual strategy- and that was when FE's fortunes hit a turning point.
Would Nintendo have to dumb down a new F-Zero, or at least change how they market it, in order for it to succeed today? Maybe, looking at Fire Emblem's journey. On the other hand, it's not the '00s anymore. Nintendo has a huge install base this time around, and tons of passionate, hardcore fans. It's easily conceivable that there are plenty of potential buyers who are eager to either revisit the series, or to see what was so special about it- and who won't be put off by some challenge.
Not enough to generate Mario Kart sales numbers, obviously, but easily enough to be a success.
On that note... what sales figures would you consider a success, if a new F-Zero came to Switch? And what would GX have had to sell, to count as a success?
Re: Sega Shop Europe Gets 'House Of The Dead' And 'Virtua Fighter' Vinyl Albums
So Sega does have the rights to the HotD1 soundtrack?
I still don't know why they had to have it redone for the remake.
Re: YouTuber Returns To Finish RPG He Started Making Almost 40 Years Ago
@NatiaAdamo Yeah, as far as actual record-keeping goes, I'd put this in a separate category, at best... though it can be hard to confirm whether any game was continuously in development, or if it had gaps in between.
Apparently, Duke Nukem Forever was actively in development for all of its 15 years? I assume Metroid Dread was shelved for a while, though, so it wouldn't count. What about Beyond Good and Evil 2?
Re: The Making Of: PlayStation 2, The World's Most Successful Video Game Console
@no_donatello Haha, I always hated that so many people flocked to the PS2 and left the GameCube struggling- it was even commonly believed back then that the PS2 was technically superior!
While the PS2's engineering had plenty of downsides (remember the failure rate?), the console had tons of great games that I've enjoyed catching up on- and in the hands of the right programmers and artists, even the hardware could really sing!
And I agree that the sixth gen was the peak of gaming, in most ways. (Back then, though, we didn't have $3 Steam deals, so there's that!)
Re: Sunsoft Wants To Revive Three More Classic Famicom Games For Switch & PC
This is a pretty obscure selection (only heard the occasional reference to Madoola, personally), but it's great to see Sunsoft making a comeback in general.
Here's hoping Journey to Silius is next!
(And Gremlins 2, Batman for Genesis, and Return of the Joker for NES, if anyone's taking wishes!)
Re: Good-Feel Reveals Its 'Ganbare Goemon' Spiritual Successor In Japanese Direct
I'd love to see the actual Goemon games from the '90s- especially the first N64 one- make it to modern platforms, as I missed out the first time around.
This also looks great, though! Hopefully it comes to PC/Xbox as well as Switch.
Re: YouTuber Returns To Finish RPG He Started Making Almost 40 Years Ago
Is this a record for the longest game development, from inception to release?
Also, I wonder how much Brixius will be overhauling the game now, and if the final result will be a mix of old and new design sensibilities. (Seeing as there's voting involved, it's safe to say that he's not sticking to his original docs 100%.)
Re: Slick OutRun-Style Racer Slipstream Getting Free Expansion This Month
@AJB83 It's actually a free update. Guess you'll just have to buy another copy or something!
Re: Review: 8BitMods MemCard Pro GC - A Next-Generation GameCube Memory Card
@FatPlumber Strange. I distinctly remember my friends running into problems when mixing JP and NA saves.
I looked it up to confirm just yesterday, and sure enough, that's the common knowledge- that the card needs to be dedicated to either Japan or other regions, but not both at once.
It might depend on the game, where some force a reformat, but others just have text glitches. (Do any of your save names have glitch characters where the kanji/kana should be?)