GhaleonUnlimited

I'm old in videogame terms (almost 42) but I still use FAQs. It only (me at least) a few seconds to find just the part I need, and I can keep one open and follow along as needed (playing FO1 with one right now actually).

I wonder how many other people do though lol

I hate spoilers too so I'd rather see the game for myself, even when I just need a little advice on how to proceed

Thanks for this piece, I never heard of any of this and saw it reported anywhere

Thanks for the feature! I've been in love with Starcon2 since it came out, and it's pretty exciting the original creators are finally continuing their story.

Great interview! Great questions and great answers.

I've never backed a KS before, but I gave them enough for the physical books and stuff since my grandpa pirated SC2, so it's back interest for that too lol.

I hope they get to the voice acting tier!

In case anyone isn't familiar and doesn't pick it up through the interview, The Urquan Masters is Star Control 2 with a bunch of enhancements for PC, and it's free.

I'm not sure how it would feel if you've never played it before, but it's def one of the best games ever. It was easier to merge genres while keeping them all serving the core game back then, and SC2 does it better than most any game I can think of off the top of my head. And the story / writing are the main draws, and just fantastic.

This project is basically Star Control 3. There IS a Starcon3 as mentioned in the piece, but it wasn't made with their involvement and it pretty much sucks on top of it.

Cool, I wondered what the story was worth this game when it showed up in the Switch NES games!

They've STOPPED the Library of Congress from actually doing something about this???

They know where their bread is buttered, and everyone loses except for the publishers.

It's def up to fans to do this stuff. The question is funding then ;/

How's the reliability on these? And are they are easy to fix as SEGA CDs or more complicated?

For the lover of God, if you like retrogames, explore the Saturn!

The most popular games, the JP version is generally still dirt cheap!

Carpetbaggers have ruined the US secondary market so the Phantom mod chip is about $40 and easy to install, and now the Pseudo Kai cartridge does mostly the same thing and is like $40 (and no install).

If you talk to a Saturn fan, there's a good chance they will tell you that it has a bunch of the greatest games ever that for some reason no one in the States except for Gamefan covered.

Most of the great games have aged REALLY well too since it's a sprite-pushing monster. And tons and tons of hidden gems.

And there s no modern update or equivalent to many of the games, or even indie homages - like there is nothing, anywhere, exactly like Dragon Force, for instance.

I just got Nanatsu no Kaze Shima Monogatari (umm The Tale of the 7 Winds Island?), which I only heard of like a month ago, and it's one of the best-animated games of all time. It's been my fav system since 1995 and I'm still finding amazing new games from Japan I've never even heard of. There's more than 800 JP games!

This system is crazy! I hope you check it out.

Thanks for the post! These are awesome

Thanks for the piece! I've never played MSR but have heard reality good things. Will finally give it a shot myself

@JayJ Yeah, I know these YouTube people expose people to games they didn't know about, but it sucks ass reading about some obscure Playstation 2 or Mega Drive game and you already know it's going to be $50-200 on ebay now.

SNES is the worst. "Oh, Metal Warriors. I never heard of this before... Oh, it's $400 loose. Wtf".

And worse is that people let these sit on ebay way overpriced, so you really have to wait for an auction go get a remotely fair priced game. And if there's like one auction up you have a bidding war to deal with.

I started being able to buy lots of old games in 2000, when I started college (USA) , and it was so exciting to go to a used store and find something you'd read about years before. "Oh cool, Mega Man 7 for $7." "Awesome, Snatcher! $15, cool." (Real pickups).

And yeah, JP stores are amazing. It sucks to see stuff that was super cheap like boxed SNES RPGs steadily climbing just because people want to stare at it.

YouTube culture really emphasis just having these things sit on a shelf for your video background, and people even back to AVGN are completely disingenuous about the actual games.

I enjoy the fan translation scene a lot because people are working really hard so people can just enjoy games they couldn't otherwise and (generally) aren't doing it for money, it's a passion thing.

DC version with Twin Sticks is the way to go!

That's an expensive solution though so cool to see this on so many platforms now

@Gridatttack No, I/they know to play in 480p... You won't find a more knowledgable community about its game than Melee.

I also used to hook my DC up to my HD CRTs via a ready nice Audio Authority VGA->Component converter, and it def slightly lagged because I used it for a national Marvel tournament as our flagship monitor and the players could tell it was slightly laggy, to my dismay.

It isn't crippling LCD lag but it's there. The Melee kids told me that every HD CRT has that lag. I haven't done any testing myself so can't speak to it more than that, but I've had 4 HD CRTs myself.

I do think they're great for 480p though despite the ever-so-small lag.

The tink is the best solution I've found for 480i, so I hope you enjoy it!

@Poodlestargenerica So Square flipped over the expense and limitations of carts, upending the entire console industry and abandoning a key ally, which in Japanese culture is EXTREMELY risky, because they're lazy. You might want to take that to a conspiracy YouTube channel or something.

@Diogmites It's fun, unique, and never gets old, kind of quintessential SEGA!

@Gridatttack A few years ago, from getting into the Smash scene I found out that all CRT HDTVs lag some. Always assumed they had zero lag. And yeah, they aren't great for retrogames.

Kind of the only reason I wish I had one available still would be 1-player GC and Xbox games, but it's not worth having a giant extra tube just for those when I can use a Retrotink 5x for those, along with Playstation 2 and its 480i slop, on a PC CRT :/

@Poodlestargenerica So because everything worked out OK 25 years later, this wasn't a mistake in your eyes? You're entitled to your opinion. Probably the 64 and Cube could have done much better. Japan LOVES RPGs and was a huge source of dominance for the SFC

If not for Pokémon, and later Nintendo trying radical new things with the DS/Wii that paid off (which VB/Wii I did not), they could be a 3rd party like SEGA now

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot Make sure to do some research - HD CRTs actually suck, more or less

@Cboyung Good question! Answer is the replacement 72-pins are all garbage. The pins bend VERY easily on the replacements, so you'll just be in the same position again except much sooner.

It's a way better option to maintain your original one (and it's free) . Optimally, you can bend the pins back manually once like every decade and/or lightly mod your console in a few easy ways, without soldering.

BLWs make it almost impossible to get your carts out, and for anyone not used to manhandling videogame carts, it's seemingly impossible.

If you re gonna pay anything for a mod, something like this is the way to go.

Crud. I have one hooked one up to my main reteogaming CRT last week and was wondering how long they would keep the store open.

@Sketcz keep fighting the good fight man!

Really excellent book. Read it!!

@Sketcz exactly lol!

Good example how short-term corporate greediness (Nintendo wanting to keep banking off that cart manufacturing) can screw your entire company's future.

It's really terrible to learn someone you really respected has a problem as deep as this. Man, wtf NickRox.

@-wc- I played it a little when it came out on ios. Was pretty choppy, but this was a decade ago now. I would hope it runs perfect on modern devices. Seemed just like the PSX version otherwise

@Sketcz Glad you wrote this, as I forgot all about this game. I've been on an RPG kick after I played Suikoden 1 and 2 last year, but Shadow Hearts (which seems cool), Star Ocean 2 (seems fine), and Xenogears (takes forever to do anything, kinda ugly, pretentious-but-nonsense Evangelion vibes) haven't held my interest.

I absolutely love Quintet and was introduced to Terranigma through Hg101, and now it's one of the top 16-bit games I've ever played!

Slapstick sounded cool but this was the best analysis of the game I've seen anywhere. Everyone's been petty dismissive of it. I really wish the Quintet games got more respect. I found Chrono Trigger to be a good RPG but nothing affected me like even simple stuff in each Quintet game.

After I concert my SFC cart to EN I'll finally play this! Quintet games all have a unifying God/nature thing I really like.

I was hoping you'd played through Granstream and give it a write up because I found the story / setting pretty interesting but playing it sucks, lol.

@Sketcz Magazines were spoiling FFVII regularly by 1998. Before I had a Playstation, a mag in their tips section showed how to meet Aeris in Tactics, and said "see what she's been up to since her supposed death in FFVII."

I tried to make my brain forget what I read, but alas.

I'm sure the Remake will handle things differently, whatever happens, so I'm skeptical the average gamer is going back to play Lego FFVII on PSX honestly

Wonderful feature! These remained on my to-play list since release until late last year. I sure wish I had played them back then. Loved S1, and S2 is without a doubt one of the best written and localized RPGs I've ever played (yeah, it has some typos, but I'll take this over bad writing any day.) All-time great for sure, and certainly has aged better than the angsty, nonsensical, flashy randomness FFVII left in its wake.

Great stuff here! Loved it!

Just shows you how dumb these algorithms are and why having these tech companies serving as our thought police is probably bad.

@KGRAMR Man, I hope so. I know some of those MSX guys a little and I'm not sure they would be interested in working on another system besides MSX.

But that's awesome if they're close!

Thanks for this! LucasArts games were best of the best back then. Really great to hear how this came about and bring me back to it, since it's rare I play back through them now.

@LinktotheFuture thanks for the feedback, yeah, I just did the best I can with these. I'm sure there are much better videos to show the actual guts of what I'm doing, but I wanted to mostly explain what I was doing at least in case it was helpful for anyone

Normally I wouldn't have anything to say about ad-running ROM sites, but CDRomance is run and maintained by a really dedicated videogame fan. He actively updates the fanhacks on his sites and writes lengthy and accurate descriptions, respects fan translators who ask if their work not be posted in pre-patched form, and works pretty tirelessly to answer people's questions quickly. Everytime I have a little update to my PSIV retranslation he has it updated within 24 hours with a reply, which is pretty amazing considering how big the site is and he probably has a real life beyond it!

It's not because of the pre-patched ROMs that the site has gotten to be such a great resource.

Glad the site is continuing!

I am sorry to be a dbag but I IMO you don't need any of these devices to make your NES work almost completely error-free, and it's just as much work as putting one of these devices in your NES.

Idk no one talks about this, but the NES screws up almost completely from the pins bending from the toaster action, not from corrosion.

If you disable 1 pin of one of the chips (I know this is common knowledge) you don't have to push down carts for them to play.

You just take the additional step of replacing the springs on the toaster device with a screw or bolt so the toaster can't be pushed down.

My channel isn't monetized so I don't pimp my videos, but I made a how-to because I hate BLWs so much as they make it impossible to get your carts out.

Retrogaming feels like it's all about selling people crap now. I know not everyone wants to mod their own stuff but it's fun and a lot cheaper if you do, haha. And these things won't work forever so it's really good to learn basic maintenance.
https://youtu.be/ZNL98-9dYk0?si=4CdN6J0hnrbQtSdT

You also can bend the pins in your connector back manually and it'll be good forever if you clean it quickly. DO NOT buy those replacement 72-pins. They're cheap crap. The one in your console is way better!

@Sketcz Nice! I just found a copy of that at a reasonable price a few years ago, always wanted to try the 4P mode since Nintendo Power featured it in their 4P issue!

Maybe when my girls get older ;/

You guys need to hear Anticipation's soundtrack before submitting any final answers. #10stars

From experience, I feel like I can try to address some of the questions in the comments here.

@KingMike 1. This isn't about pixel-perfect razor-sharp unnatural emulation-style graphics from a SNES. It's making most SNESes look more akin to a 1CHIP, which is just a baseline/clear signal as opposed to a muddled picture.

2. If you re happy with your SNES output, then don't do/buy anything else!

@-wc- 3. The video output on most SNESes (the 2CHIP) is blurry across all inputs when compared to a stock Gen/TG16/etc. The 1CHIP fixes this (tho all stock SNESes have certain issues).

I'm not a OMG SCANLINES 4K kind of guy, I just want games to have a CRT look that's on par or better than Svideo. I don't really think the RetroRGB page really shows the difference. I feel like it's Emperor's New Clothes when I'm staring at comparisons EXTREME CLOSEUP screenshots.

The 2CHIP has almost a N64-like vasoline-y video output. If you're happy with it, that's fine! You can probably notice though on even a nice CRT in Svideo as long as you play other game systems on it. If you play on an HDTV via RGB+OSSC or whatever you will REALLY notice.

I ve used 20 SNESes over the last few years and I have 5 or 6 1CHIPs, and I use consumer CRTs and HDTVs. Each SNES revision is honestly a little different. But the 2CHIP models' signals are overall poor compared to any other retro console.

If you can't tell or don't care then no worries! But it's a huge thing to be able to fix this for most SNES consoles.

That said, just look in the wild for SNES consoles with a serial of "UN3XXXXX" (idk what the British or JP equivalent is but I believe it's similar).

You can probably find a 1CHIP out there eventually used. Just flip it over and look at the serial. Most likely it hasn't been MOBO swapped. If you open it up the mobo does say "1CHIP" on there.

Even if you get one for like $150 it's better to have a whole new console than pay $100 for a mod where you have to do all the work (and used shops will usually give you controllers / AC adapter included for that price) . If it were a $35 chip like the old N64 RGB chip for early consoles that'd be different.

@somnambulance man I tried to get my daughter into Balan, but she looks watching games but not playing ;( I wish she was into it so I'd have an excuse to power through it

I forgot if the list mentions Doom Resurrection, but it's basically remade to be Doom 1 and 2 more like the PC version, but on 32x. Idk why you wouldn't just play it on PC with kb/mouse support now (mods) but it's cool to see on the 32X for sure.

@shouryuuken a redesigned Chaotix would be like the greatest thing SEGA has done in 20 years!

Popful Maaaaaail! Woo!
I'd put it at 4th-best SCD game (Lunar, Lunar EB and Snatcher) , and a must-play for every retro gamer for the script and voice acting! It has like 3 hours of audio, and it might be WD's best voice over work because of how much there is and how entertaining to boot.

If you find it too hard just play the Unworked Designs patch ver, which keeps the top-notch localization with the breezy JP difficulty.

Amazing news!

Brave New World

This is another reason why it's one of my favorite movies, haha. Glad to see this as a story on the site!!

It perfectly captured a brief snapshot in history where the DC was the supreme hotness.

It's kind of ironic to be so excited about all the SEGA branding when the point of the film is that branding is assaulting us everywhere and it's a terrible way for us to exist.

But whatever. We make an exception for SEGA lol

Every time I play Chaotix I just wish it was 10x better than it actually is. The level design is atrocious. So much wasted potential ;(

I hate being that guy who criticizes these lists but I really think Star Wars doesn't belong here, even considering the 32X library.

NBA Jam 32X is one of its best ports!

MKII is in a few ways better than the SNES (and a few ways not), but either way it's one of the best 32X games too.

Just a bummer that it couldn't have gotten more time or been designed to enhance Genesis games in some way.

I always try to find the games on every system that every real gamer should play, but really I don't think there's anything really great on the system. Shadow Squadron is prob the closest game to that, but even then you've got the sequel on Saturn (which just got fan translayed into EN!) I still have my launch one :/

Wow, I had no idea she also worked on Lunar!

Great piece as always!

@GOmar Seeing as how Strictly Limited re-release is just as prohibitively expensive to get, yeah I'd say it's news. I'd love a cart of this, and it'd be fun to have this tea cup. Just put in my order actually, will be curious to see a Columbus Circle release.

@Chinesus @-wc- Roy Crock told business classes all the time that his business was real estate, not burgers.

Their success was built on location and turnkey franchising/food production, not quality of the food.

$200??? Holy crap man.

I would really be curious who needs this when you can do SCART->GBC-C for RGB HDMI for a little over $100.

From doing a ton of research on why the ones with RCA jacks are so regarded, supposedly DO NOT use the RCA jacks. It's the regular multi-out connector that yields the audio benefits of this machine. Supposedly.

I'm deaf in one ear plus have tinnitus in it now. But that's what I read. I have both versions of PSX and use all my retro systems regulaly and I can't tell a real difference. But it's not expensive to get"the best"model and replacing the laser is pretty easy if you just get a broken one. So it's nice to have.