Comments 935

Re: Konami Announces A New Gradius Collection Featuring An All-New Sequel To Salamander

KingMike

@Quick_Man I've only somewhat recently learned arcade Darius II and Sagaia are more localization than just a title change.
Arcade Sagaia might be even more brutal than Arcade Gradius III in what it asks out of the player the moment they start the game. Game Over being Sagaia can even finish its cheesy opening monologue is a very real possibility.
(they rearranged the level order between the versions, from what I've heard the Zone A in Sagaia was like Zone N or O in Darius II. In effect, dropping the player right into a Round 5 stage immediately, and it sure feeling like it.)

Re: Next Week's Evercade Showcase Will Reveal "Upcoming Neo Geo Products And More"

KingMike

@Damo I have read the "home console" was originally envisioned as a rental console, to be effectively like renting an arcade machine in your own home.
It seems SNK had gotten JUST enough people who were willing to pay the price needed to own it themselves.

I guess that's why SNK was so willing to license out its IP to the more affordable mainstream consoles, there was probably little overlap.
I can't recall if their own advertisements even made the explicit references, but I believe it was marketed as the Ferrari of consoles, and its competition were the Fords. It's probably fair to say if you were buying the latter, you were probably never going to buy the former even though you might wish to.

Re: Random: "This Is Not What We Were Expecting" - Ex-Nintendo Employee Shares The Story Behind Zelda's Early TV Ads

KingMike

@JJtheTexan Certainly "Genesis Does" had the most pressure on Sega, to get successfully on the US market before whenever Nintendo finally releases the SNES.
Of course, we recall by the mid '90s, both companies were firmly in the mold of angry American advertising that was far too prevalent in those days. They could both stood to have calmed down just a little bit.

Re: Retro-Bit Apologises For Using Fan-Translations Without Permission

KingMike

@MoriyaMug It's called the Berne Convention. Someone who has made a translation without the consent of the copyright owner does not legally own the rights to their work. The only thing the copyright owner has to worry about is bad PR, and possibly loss of employees paid to translate. A fan surely can try to sue a copyright owner, but they'd get shot down right away.
The first I heard of a company using a fan translation was some My Arcade thing which used a Don Doko Don 2 NES translation. Now Taito probably wasn't personally involved with the creation of the device but regardless they own the game and legally can take the work of the fan who never had Taito's permission in the first place. It's a shame the fan credit was (reportedly) deleted, but that's how laws work.

Re: Retro-Bit Apologises For Using Fan-Translations Without Permission

KingMike

It's impolite to the work of fan translators, but honestly fan translators don't have a legal right to the work they made without permission of the game copyright owners.
Legally the game copyright owner can use a fan translators' work without owing them anything.

I am very aware of this and I have produced several translation patches.
I'm only upset that none of my work has been used by official work.

Re: GamesCare's New Genesis Dev Cart Will Help "Create Games Beyond The Power Of The Console"

KingMike

@Profchaos The majority of NES mappers merely increased the amount of ROM available to the CPU (something nearly all 8-bit consoles/computers needed. The 32-48 kilobyte ROM max size those CPUs could afford otherwise was pretty limiting even by 1985 standards.) Even the most "powerful" NES mapper, the MMC5, I think at most video-wise allowed every 8x8 pixel tile to have its own palette definition (the NES normally allowed palettes to only be assigned in 16x16 pixel, or 2 tile x 2 tile square, increments). Not a huge stretch.
Adding on a whole other mini-computer (which essentially what an FPGA is) that probably far outclasses the host console is another thing.

I do wonder it would have been like if that Hellraiser "Super Cartridge" for the NES would have been if it had been developed. Then again, Color Dreams didn't have the highest quality standards in the games they did release.

Re: A Full Set Of Street Fighter II Toys From The '90s Has Just Been Preserved

KingMike

@Sketcz Throwing out magazine scans? Sounds worse when you know that magazine scans were usually made by tearing them out of the binding.
I mean, it unfortunately had to be done to get higher quality. I scanned my Japanese video game manuals, and I have a couple Famicom games with bound instruction manuals rather than stapled, and since I absolutely didn't want to tear them apart, the scan quality suffered a bit (even though I pushed down on the scanner to get the pages as flattened as possible).

Re: Capcom's SNES Shooter 'Super Pang' Is Getting An Unofficial Mega Drive Port

KingMike

@-wc- I just checked and no, the SNES port doesn't have a 2P mode.
Another fun thing: ZSNES, that old and outdated emulator some people claim is perfect and doesn't need replacing... add Super Buster Bros. to the list of games it has major graphics problems with. The HUD just glitches out, and even the startup menus sometimes partly glitch out. I had previously known Maka-maka and an obscure maze game called Gangan Gan-chan, I think.
I only keep it around for certain debug/ROM hack aspects, or when I want to boot up to check something quick and don't want to hook up my gamepad I have configured for some serious gaming time.

Re: Feature: The Tale Of Final Fantasy VII's Lost Prequel, And The Fans That Are Trying To Save It

KingMike

Too bad Square-Enix didn't port it to anything.
I know at least one Front Mission game and I think a Kingdom Hearts game made for Japanese phones got ported to DS.
FM 2089 and I think KH:Coded were designed as mobile games.

And of course, a few ports of FF4: The After Years. I do recall Clyde Mandelin stream FF4TAS years ago and was disappointed, as a huge FF4 fan, but I suppose it's good that it is at least available.

Re: Four Years Later, The Revival Of The SNES Run 'N Gunner 'Nightmare Busters' Gets Its First Trailer

KingMike

@JackGYarwood The game was originally planned to be published by Nichibutsu in Japan in 1995. It got a single mention in Nintendo Power.
That is why old bootleg copies from Japanese sellers had the Nichibutsu logo on their cover art. I guess someone maybe did their research because the artist assigned it catalog #17 (the actual 17th game Nichibutsu published on the SFC was Puzzle'n Desu, published April 1995, which fits the timing at least).

Re: "This Cartridge Is A Tiny Time Bomb" - Limited Run Accused Of Selling Carts Which Can Damage Your NES

KingMike

@BulkSlash I'm not experienced in the field, but I'm told appropriate voltage ROM chips aren't produced anymore by chip fabricators.
I'm guessing is that what the voltage regulators are supposed to address?

I bought a reprint copy of the Japanese Battletoads but I've avoided playing that on my official Famicom for that reason. I guess I'll have to wait and obtain a clone console at some point before playing.

Re: This New Famicom Disk System Game Could Be A World's First

KingMike

@BulkSlash The holes in the bottom of the disk, below the label, are the copy-protection-defeating method (an original disk had the word "NINTENDO" with certain parts of the lettering deeper).
Well, that and there was also some software-level protection to deter unlicensed third-party developers, along the lines of the Genesis TMSS and the Game Boy boot screen. But I'm sure some developers found some way around that, as there were a number of NSFW games released in its original lifespan. Either that or Nintendo didn't bother to sue them, which was they main thing about that sort of protection.

Re: Streets Of Rage Composer Yuzo Koshiro Worked On SNES RPG Terranigma, He Just Forgot About It Until 28 Years Later

KingMike

@themightyant I feel glad to have picked up a complete Japanese copy (admittedly not in great condition) back when I could get it for like $10, though I imagine even that version is considerably more valuable these days.
Still hoping my Japanese skills will improve to finally enjoy it sooner than later, 20 years on. When it was then a choice for playing on an American console, to play it easily with a language problem, or go through expensive trouble trying to get a PAL copy running.

Re: WaterMelon Insists Its Terminally Delayed Brawler Paprium Isn't Dead

KingMike

Even if the ROM were dumped, it would need the custom chip or whatever they used emulated.
Which at this point, maybe they should officially do and release as a PC port so people can actually play the game.

There is a novelty in playing on a Genesis, but if that chip is more powerful than the original console (the stats they released sure sounded like more than a stock Genesis could handle), are we really playing a Genesis game anymore?

Re: The Video Game History Foundation Digital Library Is Now Available In Early Access

KingMike

@RetroGames Twitter has been dying. You're the one accusing me of being racism by saying trending happens solely because of "the algorithm" tracking me, and I'd appreciate you stop doing that. You have no idea what I've been posting or been reading. Please just don't post a reply then if that is the only direction your thoughts on this matter are going.
If you think a website that has been known to deter many good people in its recent years, is that defensible that you need to make such accusations, well then those are thoughts you should keep to yourself. Or discuss over there. I don't care since I won't see it.

Re: The Long-Awaited Video Game History Foundation Digital Library Launches This Month

KingMike

@RetroGames No, sorry, there is no possible way I have said or done anything to suggest I have any interest in racists.
Twitter is just that dead.
Social media can insert whatever it wants into "recommendations". I know youtube had inserted its own recommendations into my Watch Later (or save for later or whatever it's called) category because I sure have never clicked the button for that on a video in my life. If I ever need to "watch later", there's already a history. And whatever junk youtube suggested is surely not something I would have clicked on.

Re: Megami Tensei Author On Why The Game Got Two Versions For Nintendo Famicom & Japanese Computers

KingMike

"This eventually led to Nishitani making a partnership with Atlus and Nihon Telenet instead."
Was Atlus a company yet in 1987? Maybe they were solely as a developer, but I don't think they published anything until like 1989 or 1990 at the earliest. Recalling that the two Famicom games were developed by Atlus but published by Namco (even the SFC compilation remake of the two FC games retained a Namco copyright even thought Atlus published it).