GravyThief

What I find ironic is that a good few of Koji Kondo’s iconic melodies (and other Nintendo music) sound like they have sections outright copied from other pieces. I know there’s the “interpolation” argument, but they go way beyond that to my ear. I forget what exactly, there was a good YouTube video demonstrating loads of examples. I suppose it’s one rule for Nintendo, a different rule for everyone else!

It’s no exaggeration to say this game had a profound impact on me as an 11/12 year old. And the main reason for that was the soundtrack.

At the time I’d never played such an epic adventure, nor heard such realistic sounding music on my SNES. Playing it again recently, the story and dialogue certainly doesn’t hold up anymore through an adult’s point of view (I can see now the translation was rushed out and bits of the game cut out from transition from CD to cartridge), but the music absolutely does.

I played music from this game to my daughters when they were babies and I was bathing them.

I can only imagine what the game would have been like had it been able to release to its full potential on CD as it was first envisaged.

Thanks for the interview.

@occamyDG yeah I’d like to understand what this means in practical terms. Or maybe that is the big change? I know my login details got exposed from emuparadise when that got hacked, so maybe most people would think twice about creating a login on a rom site again.

I haven’t used CD romance in well over a year, but I always see it as a reliable place to get ROMs and pre-patched translated ROMs, so if this was to go away fully it would be a sad day indeed.

So was the SNES version not 60fps? Most 2D pixel games of this era were typically 60fps as standard I thought?

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot I’m guessing their point was that as this is a UK site and the writer is from the UK, it seems odd they would use the US name for the console. I would agree. I’m British and would never refer to the console as the Genesis, even though I know what the Genesis is.

I remember finding the SNES Pixel book difficult to read. I can’t remember why exactly but I didn’t enjoy it and stopped reading the text. Obviously I could still enjoy the pictures. I totally forgot about it until seeing mention of it in this review, maybe I’ll have to try it again.

@LuigiBlood I did look at the User Guide, as I was struggling to work out the default button mapping. I just didn’t notice (or understand) the toggle you mention.

Yes I also remapped R to ZR so it matches ZL for Z, feels more natural.

Although what this is telling me is that it’s just better to play them with the official N64 NSO controller, which alleviates all of these issues.

@LuigiBlood I didn’t know about that trick of holding down ZR to then use XYAB as C buttons. I’ll have to give it a try. Although I think I’ll have a problem. I’ve changed the button mapping on the right Joycon for N64 games, so A is mapped to B and B is mapped to Y. This mimics the original N64 layout for A and B more closely, but will mess up this little trick I suspect for the C button.

To be honest I mainly use the N64 NSO controller for N64 games as it really does feel like a genuine controller. It’s just sometimes it would be nice to play in handheld with the joycons as normal.

I’m a big retro gamer. I have all the main original consoles for Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation, and two CRTs to play them on (got to have a back-up!). I do play on original hardware a lot, but I also find the convenience of NSO to be too tempting to resist. I completed Super Metroid recently and played Ocarina of Time over the weekend (to show my daughters what Daddy’s favourite Zelda game looks like). And I must say I haven’t really noticed any major input lag. I’m sure if I played them side by side at the same time I would, but to just casually play them it feels absolutely fine. Admittedly I will never play shmups, but platformers need decent response times and I can play them fine.

The main thing I noticed was with Zelda: it looks way too clear and clean for my tastes! I know this is a result of the upscale to HD, which does look very clean, but I like my N64 games blurry and foggy. That’s how they were originally made and it loses so much atmosphere as a result of being so clean.

I definitely see the usage of AA batteries as a massive plus point. I have lots of handhelds from the past 20 years (GBA SPs, DS Lites and 3DSes), and I have to make sure I charge them up every 6 months if I haven’t used them in a while, just to try and keep the batteries going as long as possible.

Until manufacturers work together to create a set of standard sized lithium ion batteries to be used by all mobile and handheld devices, I’ll always prefer AA/AAA batteries.

As for this device, I’m glad it seems to be reviewing well. I really like the look of it. The only thing putting me off are the postage and import prices into the UK. It’s too expensive. Unless they arrange a deal with a UK based distributor, I won’t be buying this unfortunately.

These marketplace sites are idiotic, with idiots working for them. Before I had an eBay account, I used their guest checkout over the course of a few years. I eventually decided to open an account properly. After 6 months to a year they banned me saying I’d set up loads of different accounts. Unbeknownst to me, everytime I’d used their guest checkout, they set up an eBay account with my name and address. They never told me this, so it looked like I had loads of accounts. I tried explaining this to the idiots who work there, but they couldn’t understand this simple situation and decided I’d set them all up myself in order to defraud their precious community. Morons.

They then banned my wife because she had the same address. I’m glad eBay has had to drop seller fees because they’ve been performing so poorly. I keep my fingers crossed that they will one day go bust. I don’t hold grudges 🤣

I have a 1 chip PAL SNES and a 2 chip Super Famicom. The 1 chip PAL SNES definitely looks sharper, without a doubt. But do I play it the most? Do I heck! My Super Famicom can play NTSC versions of games, and that far outweighs having sharper pixels for me. I literally cannot play PAL versions of SNES games after playing the NTSC versions. Not just the speed difference, the borders on PAL games are MASSIVE!

I feel sorry for my 90s self. Not only did I only play PAL games, it would have been a 2 chip console too 🤣

I could never get into Killer Instinct. I loved the look of it, and hearing it in the arcades back in the day. But I could never string the combos together.

Batteries for ALL mobile and handheld devices needs standardisation fast! We wouldn’t have any of these issues (and waste) if manufacturers stopped using proprietary batteries for every single variant of every single device. There can be various sizes and capacities, but they need to be standardised.

And yes you can buy new batteries for your PSP, GBA, DS Lite etc, but these batteries are rubbish. They don’t last half as long as the originals, and half the time they don’t even fit properly.

@Sketcz so does the story make a lot more sense with the English re-translation? I remember not following the story completely back in the day. I haven’t played it since then so I don’t know if it was my young teenage brain not making full sense of the story, or because of the poor translation job. I still loved the game regardless!

I don’t know. Clubbing baby seals seems much more in line with Donald’s personality. He’s a right grumpy old sod.

Will this be heading to Switch? I don’t use Steam but love the look of this game.

I’d also love some kind of sequel to Shadowgate 64, or another Shadowgate game in the same vein as it. I thought it was a great game, the atmosphere was amazing. I had to use a guide to complete it but that didn’t stop me enjoying it. I only played it a few years ago so it isn’t nostalgia clouding my judgement either.

@JackGYarwood that sounds awesome, I hope you manage to get enough to publish something.

I really like the soundtracks for Sim City and Pilotwings, they’re very relaxing and nostalgic!

I’d love to hear an interview with the guy who did the original Starwing/Star Fox soundtrack. It’s very unique for a Nintendo game, sounding almost like it’s from a film soundtrack. Easily the best soundtrack of any Star Fox game since. The guy who did it left Nintendo afterwards as he didn’t realise he wouldn’t own the IP/rights to the music, which he wasn’t happy about.

I don’t recall seeing rainbows back in the day, but I may have just forgotten.

I know I don’t see them on my PVM via RGB, but that’s not how me (or anyone) played these games back then. I do have a small consumer CRT that accepts RF so I’ll have to try it. That’s how most of us played it back then.

On a side note, I tested a Master System via RF a while back on the small CRT. And while the quality of the picture was obviously poor, it was infinitely more nostalgic than playing via RGB and I still think it looked great!

Have the voice actors all been identified? The voice actors for Barry Burton and Raz Karcy (from Overblood) are the best voice actors ever to grace videogames. Still haven’t been beaten nearly 3 decades later.

I’ve kept a lot of my collection in the loft. But I ensured the loft was ventilated (vent tiles), and each game is individually stored in a grip seal bag with at least one silica gel pouch (sometimes more). My wife thinks I’m crazy, but it’s stories like this that drive why I do it. Even then, I’ve been selling a lot of my collection off in recent years. I just don’t want stuff like this to make it worthless. I much prefer having a leaner collection which means more to me and has more games I actually want to play. Everdrives and modded CD based consoles help too, allowing me to play most games on original hardware regardless of whether I own the original or not. I’ll probably continue to sell off more of my collection as the years go by, especially as I read more stories like this 🤣

Wow. Someone really LIKES saying the word LIKE don’t they? Quick search on my phone… it appears over 50 times 🤣

I had to, like, stop reading after a bit. It was, like, doing my head in.

What I like best about this is that it’s OLED, 4K and under 40”. If only you could get a normal 4K OLED TV that isn’t a stupid size. 40” is plenty big enough, and you get better pixel density.

I would love a version of Ridge Racer Type 4 where it expands the story/progression aspect of it. I liked what was there but you only did one ‘season’ with a team and that was it. You either repeated it again with the same team or did it with a different team as if you were never part of the other team before. Regardless, the music, aesthetic, atmosphere and feel of RR Type 4 still make it the best one.

I’ve completed the first game a few years ago, after having it back in the 90s but getting stuck on a certain bit and giving up. I won’t pretend I follow the story, but I enjoyed it none the less.

I still need to play the second game. I should get around to it at some point.

I hadn’t played a Goemon game until about 3 years ago, and this was my first one. I think it’s a great game, even without any nostalgia, and I’m happy to overlook its jankyness as that’s just to be expected from this era of early 3D games.

I’ve since played the SNES game, and while I enjoyed it I didn’t enjoy it as much as this one.

I need to get around to playing the second Goemon game on N64. I understand that’s supposed to be the better the game. I did have the original PAL version but decided to sell it after realising I could get £350 for it! Thankfully I have an Everdrive so can still play it regardless. It’s just finding the time to fit it around all the other great games I still want to play.

Is there any Amiga ‘Classic Mini’ type console available that lets you play Amiga games easily? And is easy to load Amiga games into it? I never had an Amiga growing up but a friend did and there are a few games I’d like to play. I want something hassle free. I tried an emulator on my laptop and while I got some games to work, it was super fiddly and not all games worked. In the end I couldn’t be ar*ed.

Hopefully the FX PAK Pro build is also compatible with the SD2SNES. There’s no way I’ll be buying another flash cart for my SNES.

I played Starfox recently on my SNES. While it obviously has a sub-30fps frame rate, it’s perfectly playable and I had a blast!

@BulkSlash I know what you mean. The whole MSU stuff for the SNES falls into that category in my opinion. All those ‘enhanced’ soundtracks and FMVs just feel like you’re not playing a SNES game anymore. And they really don’t go with the games at all. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

@RetroGames I didn’t remember writing my comment a few days ago, I was really confused. Then I realised my comment’s from August 2022 🤣

I do like the idea of this, but I won’t be preordering one until I see real reviews, by which point they may be unavailable. Oh well.

Those wondering what’s the point of this compared to the Anologue Pocket, I’d say it has its own niche. It actually looks and (I guess) feels like a real Game Boy, and the screen sounds like it will look like an idealised version of the original. We don’t all want ultra super HD 4K screens for playing retro games, I’d much prefer one that’s more authentic. And the batteries. More modern gaming devices should take AA or AAA batteries. I have a few original GBA SPs and their battery life is rubbish. I’ve bought brand new after market ones and they’re just as rubbish brand new, and they don’t even fit properly. Same with my DS Lites. All the batteries in our Switches, Anologue Pockets and so on are going to be rubbish in 10 years time and we’re not going to be able to replace them. AA and AAA batteries have stayed the same for decades!

Rant over.

@PigmaskFan £50k would be more important to me than preservation to make some random internet people happy.

@Missingno128 if the value wouldn’t go down from releasing the rom, then sure. However, I wouldn’t risk it and let the new owner decide that.

To be fair if I owned it I’d sell it to the highest bidder at that sort of value. I wouldn’t release the rom for it either as it would likely devalue it.

@KitsuneNight absolutely. Whenever I see a speed running video, I’m in absolute awe of their skills, whether they’re doing the level normally or trying to break the game. I’d love to see a speed runner go back in time and be a contestant on Games Master. See everyone’s reaction 🤣

I briefly owned a Virtual Boy in the early 2000s. I’m very glad I experienced it, unfortunately I never got to play the Wario game which looks to be the best one. I sold it soon after when I realised it would just be a novelty piece taking up space.

Nintendo really missed a trick not releasing VB games on the 3DS.

People who say speedrunners that don’t do 100% completion aren’t skilled and just cheat, need to watch this. If that isn’t skill then I don’t know what is.

Have they stated if this would work with the GB Everdrive?

@AceGrace ah dang. I was hoping the fact the site quoted the price in £ meant it was being distributed from the UK for UK customers.

It’s a shame because I like the look of this. I’d still want to wait for some real reviews though.

I’m glad this uses AA batteries. All these proprietary lithium batteries will hardly hold a charge in 10 years time and you won’t be able to buy decent replacements.

Still, I’ll wait to see real reviews before I buy one. I’m very interested though.

I love the soundtrack for Ridge Racer Type 4. They did a 20th anniversary remix of that soundtrack which is really good too.

What if there was a hotfix AND 7 commits in the same month? What then? I must know!

I don’t know what a commit is (I know what a comet is), nor a hotfix, and I’ve never used this emulator, but still, I must know how the version number convention works in this situation!

Awesome. I’ll use it for work calls and blame network issues.

This is precisely why I wrap myself in tin foil and wear a tin foil hat. Now I know I can play the Japanese version of Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive without fear of being harmed. Who’s laughing now, eh?

“ widely used to augment existing titles with better music”. Technically better, yes. But otherwise it’s subjective. Every MSU patch I’ve heard just doesn't sound right for a SNES game. It sounds like someone’s replaced the music with something different from somewhere else, which is literally what they’ve done. I also think the original SNES soundtrack sounds better compared with the snippet shown above.

The main thing here for me is that it includes circle strafing, and I’m sure it appears to run smoother and faster in the snippet above, but that could just be an illusion from it playing in a little window on a phone screen.

I don’t know if it’s a combination of my age, the fact we’ll never go through the technical shifts we had in the 90s and 00s, or that information is just so readily available to us in an instant, but I never get excited about games anymore like I did back then.

Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy my Switch, but I’m struggling to get excited about this new Zelda game. BotW and TotK have destroyed my enjoyment of 3D Zelda games. I was looking forward to there being a new 2D Zelda game that goes back to the traditional formula for the old guard like me. This doesn’t look like it will fill that role. It doesn’t help it uses the style of the Link’s Awakening remake that I found very ‘meh’.

Still, I’ll keep an open mind! 🤣

@WaveBoy I was replying to someone who said they wished they had the space for a CRT. I recommended a 14”/15” one as they’re reasonably sized (for a CRT) but you still get the CRT vibe from them so worth a punt if it’s only size that’s stopping you. I have one and have played PS2/GC games on them fine, they look great.

My main TV for playing retro games is a 20” Sony PVM which is fantastic. I think a 20” screen is more than adequate, but even by this point the size of the TV becomes an issue. A 14”/15” doesn’t look as good, but it still looks great, so I would always recommend this route for people who don’t have the space but really want a CRT.

@GameGear1991 if you can find space for 14”/15” CRT I highly recommend it for retro consoles. They don’t take up too much space, and they still look great, small screen and all. In some ways I prefer it to using a bigger CRT, it dials the nostalgia dial up to 11!

I’ve only had a Switch for a year, but I think it has to be their best console, regardless of this Zelda stat. Although A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are the best Zelda games, and that doesn’t look like it will ever change, at least they’re both playable on Switch.

I loved SNES Doom back in the day. Despite its limitations it was the only way I could play Doom and I didn’t really mind anyway. I completed the whole thing, finding every secret (with the odd help from a guide). Even playing it today my muscle memory kicks in and I can play it no problem.

It was actually the most complete version of Doom 1 on console back then, having more of the maps than the other versions, even more than the PlayStation version as far as the first 3 episodes of Doom 1 are concerned. Obviously the PS1 version had more levels overall but that included episode 4 and Doom 2.

I’d love to try Doom 2 on the SNES. Does this play on real hardware via the SD2SNES?