@breach187 Sadly, that may not be possible. There are games that exceed the 64GB capacity of a Switch 2 game card, like Final Fantasy VII Remake. And there are games that apparently require the full speed of internal storage or microSD express, like Star Wars Outlaws. Apparently, Switch 2 game cards aren't fast enough for data streaming, which Star Wars Outlaws uses.
@leogames There admittedly is some value in using it for prototyping and pre-production. I've seen a project manager use Claude Code to have it produce a functional prototype of what they have in mind, when discussing what work they want done from a proper developer who knows how it will fit into their existing work project. The prototype is far from fit for purpose, but it's suitable as a communication aide.
That again though, falls into the same trapping as letting the AI do a lot of the heavy lifting and design work, and effectively the thinking for you.
@leogames
The core of criticism is "learn to do it yourself and do it properly", not "do things this very specific way" (though standards matters when contributing to a code repository).
AI used as a predictive text processor for code in its current state is terrible at critical thought processes and decision making, and should not be used to offload work where precision and meaningful decisions are needed.
At best, it can help for rubber ducking and discovering avenues you were unaware of, as long as you actually explore them yourself to verify the AI didn't hallucinate something.
I disagree that porting work can't be creative. If it weren't, Harbour Team's various ports of N64 titles wouldn't be feature rich with enhancements and new functionality like randomizers and modding support, and a proper system for supporting user mods.
If you're porting something forward with absolutely no changes, why wouldn't you just play the original version? Even commercial releases of retro games frequently have common emulator features like save states and rewind.
I hope that this might lead to a commercial re-release of these apparent hidden gems, since there's a lot of attention on them right now. Maybe the original Hoi, the Amiga and PC versions of Moon Child, and the other games that the Hoi team worked on?
Making playable versions of the cut guest stars is a cool idea. If they're going for Punch Out deep cuts, they could take a look at Arm Wrestling, which featured Bald Bull as "Mask X", and originals like Texas Mac, Kabuki, Alice & Ape III, and Frank Jr.
@Z-GRADT The closest thing I can think of is Mesen's HD NES packs, which are resource packs designed specifically for an NES ROM being emulated with Mesen. https://youtu.be/NF132cqW25w They can do pretty elaborate things with custom code, audio, and graphics beyond the capabilities of a stock NES, but the core program is still running under the hood.
Two other similar things involve NES games being played on SNES. First Infidelity frequently works on porting NES games to SNES, through manual assembly work making use of the Mesen emulator's debugging functions. Second is Project Nested, which is an NES emulator for SNES that works with Just-In-Time (JIT) instructions and passthrough of similar instructions present in both systems. These are possible because the NES and SNES both use Ricoh processors, the Ricoh 2A03 and Ricoh 5A22 respectively, which use the 6502 instruction set.
This was something I pondered with Game Boy software being made to run on Game Boy Advance, as the system has both its ARM7TDMI main processor, and a Sharp SM83 legacy processor. GBA games ran on ARM architecture (which is still common today), whilst Game Boy games ran on something close to the Z80 instruction set. GBA games used that SM83 exclusively for sound processing (sounding much the same), so it couldn't be used for program or graphics, a lot of GBA games processed audio on the ARM processor as to avoid sound outdated.
The point there being a path to convert or force Game Boy games to run on a Game Boy Advance system isn't really there, so Iván Delgado's work on GB Bridge is likely doing its own traditional emulation work (mapping one system's instruction set to a host's instructions), running something like a resource pack to patch in program changes, but may still be leveraging the SM83 co-processor for Game Boy audio.
As an aside, part of why Switch emulators perform so well on mobile devices, is because they mostly all run on ARM processors like the Switch does (which is very similar to an Android tablet to begin with). A lot of the instructions can run with little to no change.
@h3s LRG only opened pre-orders for the console versions earlier this month, the cartridge production won't begin until after the open pre-order window closes early May 2026, and probably not ASAP.
For Switch games, LRG and other publishers have to put in an order for a number of cartridges in multiples of one thousand. That could mean if there are 6500 pre-orders, they may produce 7000 units so they can cover replacements, 8000 or 9000 units so they can have some additional back-stock for a second-chance sale, etc.
Since they need to know an exact number for that order request, they won't place manufacturing requests in advance of closing pre-orders.
@KingMike The main reason for Goomba's existence (the Game Boy Color emulator on GBA), is that it's not possible to develop a Game Boy Advance flash cart that can dual-operate as a Game Boy Color flash cart. Aside from the little mechanical switch in the GBA slot that when pressed makes it boot in Game Boy mode, I recall that the GBA circuit board and/or chip set can't really serve Game Boy ROMs.
That is some truly fascinating stuff, all of the examples shown so far are side-scrolling platformers however.
That's likely because of the horizontal screen scrolling logic being better suited to it, whilst something like a top-down adventure that uses screen boundaries (Link's Awakening or The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls come to mind) might not get away with it so easily when each screen is designed to an exact fit.
There's something unintentionally hilarious about "MR. SANDAMN" from "AAAAAAAA, AAAAA".
The prototype cartridge being produced with mask ROM is intriguing, especially if contemporarily they had already been producing prototype cartridges using EPROM. It's entirely speculative, but maybe it could be explained by them trialing cartridge or ROM chip production processes as a one-off, or maybe there was an intended long-term use case for the cartridge, such as for display in a kiosk where you may only need video display without sound (given the ROM has zero sound output).
Another point I'm curious about is the ROM's build date, TCRF's page doesn't mention one so I would guess one is not present within the ROM. It has 1987 on the title screen like the limited distribution Japanese "Gold" release, though the earliest public release was September, with Mike Tyson's Punch Out releasing in October / November / December across international territories. That might suggest that the development time for Punch Out may have been surprisingly short?
@Serpenterror I believe it'll depend on what games Epilogue have in their database, they'll likely get flagged as Homebrew releases, or show up as unrecognized otherwise. This is what happened with my cartridge of Tanuki Justice when I checked it on their Playback software back in September.
@GravyThief I think the idea is to provide a portable non-invasive way of checking cartridge authenticity, without needing to pull out a Windows laptop. Just your phone and the GB Operator when you visit a retro goods store, a gaming convention, etc. A seller might acquiesce to this method of checking, but you're right that just opening the case to check the PCB is the definitive way to check for fakes; as long as you know how to identify them.
I have a GB Operator, and part of how this works with the GB Operator's Playback software on Windows, is that it checks if the ROM chip is reflashable.
This seems to be a bit more involved if it's got a fuzzy confidence rating of authenticity, which I'm guessing might be leveraging some kind of database and/or machine learning model on their server that seemingly factors in market pricing.
The majority of aftermarket homebrew Game Boy / Color / Advance(?) physical releases use reflashable media, so they are prone as showing up as counterfeit or reproduction.
The Playback tool also relies on the ROM header information being correct. Limited Run Games' recent GBA releases of Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, and Sigma Star Saga DX, both fail to identify proper headers so Playback was failing to identify both the ROM and the actual ROM size. It'd show up as an unreleased prototype of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for some reason.
These two carts use 128 megabit (16 megabyte) ROMs, but Playback would only dump the first 64 megabits (8 megabytes) and produce a useless partial ROM. I haven't checked in a while if they've maybe updated their Playback software to address this.
Edit: Checking out their site, I can see that they're identifying homebrew GBC releases too. I'll definitely try this out after work.
Linda did specifically mention it did more than portable gaming, I think she was referring to the multimedia capabilities of the PSP. It also functioned as a web browser, a VoIP device, a video and audio player, it was doing a number of things that we take for granted in modern smart phones and mobile devices. Earlier handheld systems generally did not do these things, at least not out of the box.
@Martin_H
Good, that's hiring a person that can develop skills and earn a living.
If someone's earned a degree, they've at least gone through a learning and training process.
@QuarterSwede
AI is enabling unskilled workers to produce unskilled works.
The code may run, and appear to give desired results in limited "happy path" use cases, but they aren't aware of problems under the hood that could cause problems later on.
@QuarterSwede
Bad analogy, AI is used as a service as alternative to a skilled worker, to produce a product.
It's more like not trusting the house is safe because the bricks were poorly made; regardless or who or what made them, or how.
AI has an inherant distrust in code reliability because AI programming models are trained on amateur answers scraped from the web, and amateur GIT repositories.
It seems like they were talking about the Wii U in comparison of relative capabilities, since it was on about the level of 360 and PS3, even though the Wii was the system that was available in that generation of gaming.
@tonyhoro I would argue that their methodology was deeply flawed. From what I understand they used an AI draft to help navigate the software and checking their changes for delivering a new script (that part deserves credit), but the AI draft translation was also forming the basis of their understanding of the source material, instead of actually knowing the language and how to translate and localise it properly. As a result, the translated text is inconsistent and gets a lot of things wrong, and does not do the source material justice in the capacity of either an objective translation OR a localisation effort.
Beyond the complicated corporate side of things, another challenge a re-release would face would be what to do regarding Apu's inclusion. Apu is a major playable character in the game and features throughout all parts of the campaign. https://simpsons-hit-and-run.fandom.com/wiki/Apu_Nahasapeemapetilon
Whilst streaming services like Disney+ do show the majority of the original seasons of The Simpsons without altering Apu's inclusions, the character has been retired from episodes produced from 2017 onwards with Hank Azaria refusing to perform the voice since.
A remake or remaster of Hit & Run could be a new product rather than a re-release or re-issue. Whilst you could have an entirely new voice performance for Apu portrayed by a South Asian performer, this only goes part way of addressing the controversy with the character.
It could become an opportunity to re-introduce the character to the show, however, if they ever figure something out.
Dithering being used as it is now works very well for high resolution games, and the best implementations I've seen make use of dynamic densities, where the concentration of dots can increase or decrease as needed to show or hide more of the obstructed object or actor. Particularly, one of the best uses is a dithered silhouette of the player character in front of the objects that obstructs the character itself, such as in Super Mario Odyssey.
People have become conditioned to recognise a very common aesthetic from AI generated artwork; at least the common slop that comes from people using very basic prompts on free online services. This artwork unfortunately somewhat has that aesthetic, but it's coupled with being so professionally done that people looking for human flaws or errors aren't going to find those! It's in the same way that people are getting accused of leaving AI generated comments in discussions, because of their writing style or just trying to give a well written response.
I spend a lot of time looking at rendered images in pretty close detail, both human made and AI generated, and there really aren't any hallmarks of AI in here. Conker's render does look very, very close to a 3D software render, but that could just be superb drawing skill, or maybe a reference was used.
Putting out dissapointing, mediocre, or bad products would be one thing, but nobody is calling Nintendo the worst company for putting out massive letdowns like Metroid Prime 4, or Capcom for putting out the likes of DmC Devil May Cry.
Surely any of the contemporary articles covering EA being voted Worst USA Company, will tell you the actual reasons; and it's not "entitled gamers".
@H_Hog I have the Neo Geo edition of the Super Pocket, and the shoulder buttons are possibly the worst ones ever designed for games that need them. Which as it turns out, is quite a lot when you're playing Evercade cartridges like Good Boy Galaxy. That game runs at 240x160 (given that it's a GBA ROM), so it doesn't look great on the 320x240 display.
I'm surprised that they're still making new models of the Super Pocket, granted that they're pretty cheap. Some games have been exclusive to the built-in storage of the Super Pocket, and are technically not Evercade as a result of that. I'm hopeful that should there be a Rare Collection 2, that Banjo Kazooie is in there as to not make it exclusive to a Super Pocket.
@wizzgamer Evercade introduced 64-bit console emulation in 2024 with Glover, which apparently involved rebuilding the ROM and optimising it for their emulator implementation. https://evercade.co.uk/introducing-64-bit-console-gaming-on-evercade/ There's a good chance that this Banjo Kazooie release also uses an optimized ROM, but it's more likely to be based on the Xbox release as to remove the Nintendo brandings.
@H_Hog They're showing a screenshot of Banjo Kazooie as it appeared on the N64, and list it as "64-bit console". If this were the GBA game it would've been "32-bit handheld console" instead.
@RextheSheep Conker's Pocket Tales was previously released on Evercade cartridge as part of Rare Collection 1, and as I understand that one only plays in GBC mode, so you don't have the option to play the monochrome version which is technically a different game.
@carlos82 SEGA considers Panzer Dragoon to be a legacy IP, and putting any new product on the market is just a way of saying they're maintaining an IP. Even if it's a D-list studio doing a shoddy port or remaster.
@Peteykins It's a slight nuisance if you want to get the Android data to use with the superior decomp-based ports. But let's be real, those APKs are not difficult to find, and all you're doing is extracting the relevant data from them without ever installing them.
@PowerPandaMods
The only way to play it before was the DoJa SDK emulator, which wasn't very good as it had all kinds of performance and sound issues. That, or have a 2000s Japanese flip phone.
This native PC port fixes those performance issues with a stable 15 FPS (what the game is designed to run at), and fixes the audio issues so that sound effects don't cancel out music playback.
Keitai app audio was heavily limited as it was MIDI based and they couldn't do simultaneous music and sound effects, unless you did very specific timing of MIDI sound effects between notes in the music sequence.
This is what the Rockman EXE Keitai games tried to do, and it might be better on real hardware, but in the DoJa SDK emulator had the unfortunate effect of Rockman.EXE's attacks sounding like striking a piano and interrupting the battle music.
The PC port is also far, far easier to play than the DoJa SDK emulator, having straight-forward window scaling options without needing to rely on any secondary applications like ShaderGlass.
Keitai apps at Java applications for said flip phones, and whilst there is an effort to build a dedicated emulator for them, progress has been pretty slow. SquirrelJME is a Java ME 8 Virtual Machine, that already has a Libretro core available for Retroarch, but if things go well and it becomes a mature application could mean being able to play these Keitai apps on various Linux retro handhelds.
I gave this a quick spin, and that's some incredible work.
A quick tip, press F1 to bring up basic settings for remapping controls and changing your window scaling.
If you have save game progress from an earlier DoJa SDK emulator playthrough, that'll carry over when you copy across the .jar and .sp files.
Ultimately, I'm hopeful that this can get a Linux port too, because that could be the basis for playing this on a wide range of retro handhelds like Anbernic stuff. This would be absolutely perfect on an RG34XXSP as the game runs at 240x240, and should cleanly upscale to any 480p display.
@Broosh There's also something to be said about the touch screen experience on DS and 3DS, the software is really designed around the resistive touch screens and how they only respond to a single but precise touch point. You lose a lot of that on modern touch devices that expect you to use your finger.
@Broosh My time spent with the RG35XXSP and the RG34XXSP has really renewed my interest in them too. The former was slightly larger than the GBA SP, whilst the latter is much closer to it in scale and display. The latter model has much better build quality too, though it's slightly small for my hands and makes me want to see a "GBA SP XL" from Anbernic. I've not personally tried any of Miyoo's offerings yet.
This is 100% of the titles I first thought of when RT64 and recompilation hit the scene (among things like Mischief Makers). A real hidden gem that always needed some more love, and maybe a few bug fixes. 100% completion was impossible because one of the collectible trophies had no collision, and therefore couldn't be collected.
@smoreon The Note Saving feature is off by default in the recompilation, but a welcome change to anyone that prefers the Xbox feature, or struggles with the original game. I'd prefer to play with Note Saving turned off so there's an actual challenge in staying alive to collect all 100 notes in one world.
The other major change is you can enable analogue camera controls, for smooth camera control with a right analogue stick. The original camera control used incremental turning with the C-buttons, similar to how Super Mario 64 does it.
One of the major features of Wiseguy's Nintendo 64 recomp tools, is compatibility with the RT64 graphics plugin to bring raytracing to Nintendo 64 games. This is slated as an upcoming feature for the Banjo Kazooie recompilation and I'm looking forward to playing through the game with that enabled.
@Razieluigi I'm reminded of the Japanese release of the Western developed Kid Chameleon. Titled Chameleon Kid, the Japanese cover art is a manga style recreation of the Western cover, and the character details are actually more accurate to the in-game sprites, such as Cyclone being depicted in red and pink, not gold. https://segaretro.org/Kid_Chameleon#Physical_scans
@Matroska Right, but it's come to light that the international all ages releases, did in fact ship with the data in some form. The law isn't concerned with whether or not that data is conventionally accessible, cases like the Tiger Woods EA golf game that included South Park videos on the disc, or the unfinished "Hot Coffee" content in the PS2 version of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, still caused legal headaches.
Huh, so this saucy material is present on every physical copy of this ESRB E / PEGI 3 rated game? The PS Vita may be old news, but that's the sort of thing that's gotten game publishers in trouble before!
I supported the Kickstarter for this one, progress has been a little slow but promising, and I'm looking forward to playing it.
The physical on the other hand, I'm not confident that their original supplier, First Press Games, will deliver on that. That company has been largely radio silent in the past year on fulfilling pre-orders, and are still accepting pre-orders for Good Boy Galaxy, a title that they lost the rights to publish with ongoing legal disputes from the developers.
Seeing gameplay of Acrolyte in action, I have to wonder if this is made by the talent behind the cancelled fan-made Metroid Prime 2D. I'm seeing a ton of similarities in the graphical style, movement, gameplay, and engine.
Holy Magic Century, or Quest 64, (or Eltale Monsters in Japan) had the unenviable task of delivering a "next generation JRPG" for the Nintendo 64 in 1998, which ultimately were in short supply especially outside of Japan. Fans of JRPGs from the SNES, were left with later 1998 games like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time or Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, which were often miscategorised as RPGs at the time.
Since all the big names in JRPGs had jumped ship to the Playstation with its CD-ROM capabilities, it was left to Imagineer, better known for the Medabots (Medarot) series, to produce what might be the single JRPG available internationally on the Nintendo 64, unless you count Paper Mario which is very much its own brand of Mario RPG.
The expectations were impossible to live up to, for what would've been an easily forgotten title were it a SNES game, where JRPGs were prolific.
The decompilation process itself has made some very big strides over time. Systems previously not considered for decompilation efforts have now become commonplace, with many more GameCube and Wii titles being reverse engineered. News of any reverse engineering projects is always exciting, even if it's for games I'm not likely to ever play myself.
I was a Kickstarter backer and just recently did my playthrough of this, it was a sweet time with wonderful music, stage design, and gameplay, but held back by some of the jank that comes with GB Studio like bad frame pacing on the more ambitious levels, and occasional graphical bugs like sprites displaying the wrong tiles.
Despite that, it's a title I'd recommend checking out, and I placed an order for a proper cartridge when I got word of its availability.
Comments 243
Re: "I Want This Title Packaged!" - Superdeluxe Wants To Know What Games You'd Like To See Get Physical Releases
@breach187
Sadly, that may not be possible.
There are games that exceed the 64GB capacity of a Switch 2 game card, like Final Fantasy VII Remake.
And there are games that apparently require the full speed of internal storage or microSD express, like Star Wars Outlaws.
Apparently, Switch 2 game cards aren't fast enough for data streaming, which Star Wars Outlaws uses.
Re: "Learn How To Code" - Team Behind PS3 Emulator RPCS3 Has Had Enough Of People "Peddling AI Slop"
@leogames
There admittedly is some value in using it for prototyping and pre-production. I've seen a project manager use Claude Code to have it produce a functional prototype of what they have in mind, when discussing what work they want done from a proper developer who knows how it will fit into their existing work project.
The prototype is far from fit for purpose, but it's suitable as a communication aide.
That again though, falls into the same trapping as letting the AI do a lot of the heavy lifting and design work, and effectively the thinking for you.
Re: "Learn How To Code" - Team Behind PS3 Emulator RPCS3 Has Had Enough Of People "Peddling AI Slop"
@leogames
The core of criticism is "learn to do it yourself and do it properly", not "do things this very specific way" (though standards matters when contributing to a code repository).
AI used as a predictive text processor for code in its current state is terrible at critical thought processes and decision making, and should not be used to offload work where precision and meaningful decisions are needed.
At best, it can help for rubber ducking and discovering avenues you were unaware of, as long as you actually explore them yourself to verify the AI didn't hallucinate something.
Re: "A Hollow Victory" - '100% AI-Generated' Smash Bros. PC Port Comes Under Fire
I disagree that porting work can't be creative.
If it weren't, Harbour Team's various ports of N64 titles wouldn't be feature rich with enhancements and new functionality like randomizers and modding support, and a proper system for supporting user mods.
If you're porting something forward with absolutely no changes, why wouldn't you just play the original version? Even commercial releases of retro games frequently have common emulator features like save states and rewind.
Re: "The First-Ever Stoker Family-Authorised Dracula Video Game" - 'Dracula: Dark Reign' Is A Castlevania-Style Title For Your Game Boy
Color me interested, I'll give the demo a go.
I'm a bit wary of GB Studio developed games, but let's see how this one pans out.
Re: Ever Wondered What Happened To Star Fox's Puppets? The Answer Isn't Good
Huh, the puppets used actual animal fur and feathers?
That almost sounds like some kind of, taxidermy puppetry.
@N00BiSH
The Star Fox Zero and Nintendo executive puppets made for E3 2015 were made by Jim Henson studio, so I'd imagine they either exist in that studio's archives, kept at one of Nintendo's headquarters, or were gifted to Miyamoto, Iwata, and Fils-Aimé respectively.
Re: "I Almost Can't Express How Joyful It Is" - '90s Euro Platformer 'Moon Child' Goes Viral
I hope that this might lead to a commercial re-release of these apparent hidden gems, since there's a lot of attention on them right now.
Maybe the original Hoi, the Amiga and PC versions of Moon Child, and the other games that the Hoi team worked on?
Re: Punch Out!! NES's Cut "Guest Stars" To Appear In New Fanmade Game Boy Color Remix
Making playable versions of the cut guest stars is a cool idea.
If they're going for Punch Out deep cuts, they could take a look at Arm Wrestling, which featured Bald Bull as "Mask X", and originals like Texas Mac, Kabuki, Alice & Ape III, and Frank Jr.
Re: "No Point In Keeping It Under Wraps Any Longer" -This New Emulator "Ports" Game Boy Titles To The GBA
@Z-GRADT
The closest thing I can think of is Mesen's HD NES packs, which are resource packs designed specifically for an NES ROM being emulated with Mesen.
https://youtu.be/NF132cqW25w
They can do pretty elaborate things with custom code, audio, and graphics beyond the capabilities of a stock NES, but the core program is still running under the hood.
Two other similar things involve NES games being played on SNES.
First Infidelity frequently works on porting NES games to SNES, through manual assembly work making use of the Mesen emulator's debugging functions.
Second is Project Nested, which is an NES emulator for SNES that works with Just-In-Time (JIT) instructions and passthrough of similar instructions present in both systems.
These are possible because the NES and SNES both use Ricoh processors, the Ricoh 2A03 and Ricoh 5A22 respectively, which use the 6502 instruction set.
This was something I pondered with Game Boy software being made to run on Game Boy Advance, as the system has both its ARM7TDMI main processor, and a Sharp SM83 legacy processor.
GBA games ran on ARM architecture (which is still common today), whilst Game Boy games ran on something close to the Z80 instruction set. GBA games used that SM83 exclusively for sound processing (sounding much the same), so it couldn't be used for program or graphics, a lot of GBA games processed audio on the ARM processor as to avoid sound outdated.
The point there being a path to convert or force Game Boy games to run on a Game Boy Advance system isn't really there, so Iván Delgado's work on GB Bridge is likely doing its own traditional emulation work (mapping one system's instruction set to a host's instructions), running something like a resource pack to patch in program changes, but may still be leveraging the SM83 co-processor for Game Boy audio.
As an aside, part of why Switch emulators perform so well on mobile devices, is because they mostly all run on ARM processors like the Switch does (which is very similar to an Android tablet to begin with). A lot of the instructions can run with little to no change.
Re: "I Don't Know Who Failed Due Diligence Here" - Sigma Star Saga DX Updated After Violating GBA Emulator's License
@h3s
LRG only opened pre-orders for the console versions earlier this month, the cartridge production won't begin until after the open pre-order window closes early May 2026, and probably not ASAP.
For Switch games, LRG and other publishers have to put in an order for a number of cartridges in multiples of one thousand.
That could mean if there are 6500 pre-orders, they may produce 7000 units so they can cover replacements, 8000 or 9000 units so they can have some additional back-stock for a second-chance sale, etc.
Since they need to know an exact number for that order request, they won't place manufacturing requests in advance of closing pre-orders.
Re: "No Point In Keeping It Under Wraps Any Longer" -This New Emulator "Ports" Game Boy Titles To The GBA
@KingMike
The main reason for Goomba's existence (the Game Boy Color emulator on GBA), is that it's not possible to develop a Game Boy Advance flash cart that can dual-operate as a Game Boy Color flash cart.
Aside from the little mechanical switch in the GBA slot that when pressed makes it boot in Game Boy mode, I recall that the GBA circuit board and/or chip set can't really serve Game Boy ROMs.
Re: "No Point In Keeping It Under Wraps Any Longer" -This New Emulator "Ports" Game Boy Titles To The GBA
That is some truly fascinating stuff, all of the examples shown so far are side-scrolling platformers however.
That's likely because of the horizontal screen scrolling logic being better suited to it, whilst something like a top-down adventure that uses screen boundaries (Link's Awakening or The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls come to mind) might not get away with it so easily when each screen is designed to an exact fit.
Re: "I've Never Seen Anything Like This" - This Freshly Released Punch-Out!! NES Prototype Has Historians Stumped
There's something unintentionally hilarious about "MR. SANDAMN" from "AAAAAAAA, AAAAA".
The prototype cartridge being produced with mask ROM is intriguing, especially if contemporarily they had already been producing prototype cartridges using EPROM.
It's entirely speculative, but maybe it could be explained by them trialing cartridge or ROM chip production processes as a one-off, or maybe there was an intended long-term use case for the cartridge, such as for display in a kiosk where you may only need video display without sound (given the ROM has zero sound output).
Another point I'm curious about is the ROM's build date, TCRF's page doesn't mention one so I would guess one is not present within the ROM. It has 1987 on the title screen like the limited distribution Japanese "Gold" release, though the earliest public release was September, with Mike Tyson's Punch Out releasing in October / November / December across international territories.
That might suggest that the development time for Punch Out may have been surprisingly short?
Re: You Can Now Check If A Game Boy Cart Is Fake Using Your Smartphone And This Awesome Device
@Serpenterror
I believe it'll depend on what games Epilogue have in their database, they'll likely get flagged as Homebrew releases, or show up as unrecognized otherwise.
This is what happened with my cartridge of Tanuki Justice when I checked it on their Playback software back in September.
Re: You Can Now Check If A Game Boy Cart Is Fake Using Your Smartphone And This Awesome Device
@GravyThief
I think the idea is to provide a portable non-invasive way of checking cartridge authenticity, without needing to pull out a Windows laptop.
Just your phone and the GB Operator when you visit a retro goods store, a gaming convention, etc.
A seller might acquiesce to this method of checking, but you're right that just opening the case to check the PCB is the definitive way to check for fakes; as long as you know how to identify them.
Re: You Can Now Check If A Game Boy Cart Is Fake Using Your Smartphone And This Awesome Device
I have a GB Operator, and part of how this works with the GB Operator's Playback software on Windows, is that it checks if the ROM chip is reflashable.
This seems to be a bit more involved if it's got a fuzzy confidence rating of authenticity, which I'm guessing might be leveraging some kind of database and/or machine learning model on their server that seemingly factors in market pricing.
The majority of aftermarket homebrew Game Boy / Color / Advance(?) physical releases use reflashable media, so they are prone as showing up as counterfeit or reproduction.
The Playback tool also relies on the ROM header information being correct. Limited Run Games' recent GBA releases of Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, and Sigma Star Saga DX, both fail to identify proper headers so Playback was failing to identify both the ROM and the actual ROM size. It'd show up as an unreleased prototype of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for some reason.
These two carts use 128 megabit (16 megabyte) ROMs, but Playback would only dump the first 64 megabits (8 megabytes) and produce a useless partial ROM. I haven't checked in a while if they've maybe updated their Playback software to address this.
Edit: Checking out their site, I can see that they're identifying homebrew GBC releases too. I'll definitely try this out after work.
Re: Random: "Blink Twice If You Need Help" - The Internet Dunks On Ex-WWE CEO For Claiming PSP Was "The Beginning Of Life On The Go"
Linda did specifically mention it did more than portable gaming, I think she was referring to the multimedia capabilities of the PSP.
It also functioned as a web browser, a VoIP device, a video and audio player, it was doing a number of things that we take for granted in modern smart phones and mobile devices.
Earlier handheld systems generally did not do these things, at least not out of the box.
Re: "Let's See How This Goes" - Mega Man 2 Could Soon Be Getting The Proper SNES Upgrade We've All Been Waiting For
Redrawn with assets taken from Mega Man 7, you say?
Re: "AI-Coded Slop, No Thanks" - Animal Crossing's Native PC Port Was Made Using Claude Code
@Martin_H
Good, that's hiring a person that can develop skills and earn a living.
If someone's earned a degree, they've at least gone through a learning and training process.
Re: "AI-Coded Slop, No Thanks" - Animal Crossing's Native PC Port Was Made Using Claude Code
@QuarterSwede
AI is enabling unskilled workers to produce unskilled works.
The code may run, and appear to give desired results in limited "happy path" use cases, but they aren't aware of problems under the hood that could cause problems later on.
Re: "AI-Coded Slop, No Thanks" - Animal Crossing's Native PC Port Was Made Using Claude Code
@OldManLav
The decompilation process did not use AI, this port is based on the decompilation effort and used AI to build it.
Re: "AI-Coded Slop, No Thanks" - Animal Crossing's Native PC Port Was Made Using Claude Code
@QuarterSwede
Bad analogy, AI is used as a service as alternative to a skilled worker, to produce a product.
It's more like not trusting the house is safe because the bricks were poorly made; regardless or who or what made them, or how.
AI has an inherant distrust in code reliability because AI programming models are trained on amateur answers scraped from the web, and amateur GIT repositories.
Re: "AI-Coded Slop, No Thanks" - Animal Crossing's Native PC Port Was Made Using Claude Code
@BulkSlash
Open source doesn't necessarily mean free to grab and modify, most GIT repositories declare licenses that control how the code is allowed for usage, modification, or distribution.
https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository
Further, licensing is adapting to explicitly deny AI training.
https://github.com/non-ai-licenses/non-ai-licenses
Re: Xbox 360, PS3 And Nintendo Wii U Are "Officially Retro", Says GameStop
It seems like they were talking about the Wii U in comparison of relative capabilities, since it was on about the level of 360 and PS3, even though the Wii was the system that was available in that generation of gaming.
Re: "It Does Not Save Time Or Offer Anything Of Value" - Translator Hilltop Isn't A Fan Of AI
@tonyhoro
I would argue that their methodology was deeply flawed.
From what I understand they used an AI draft to help navigate the software and checking their changes for delivering a new script (that part deserves credit), but the AI draft translation was also forming the basis of their understanding of the source material, instead of actually knowing the language and how to translate and localise it properly.
As a result, the translated text is inconsistent and gets a lot of things wrong, and does not do the source material justice in the capacity of either an objective translation OR a localisation effort.
Re: "We Know People Love It. We Know They Want It" - The Simpsons Showrunner Doesn't Rule Out 'Hit & Run' Remake
Beyond the complicated corporate side of things, another challenge a re-release would face would be what to do regarding Apu's inclusion. Apu is a major playable character in the game and features throughout all parts of the campaign.
https://simpsons-hit-and-run.fandom.com/wiki/Apu_Nahasapeemapetilon
Whilst streaming services like Disney+ do show the majority of the original seasons of The Simpsons without altering Apu's inclusions, the character has been retired from episodes produced from 2017 onwards with Hank Azaria refusing to perform the voice since.
A remake or remaster of Hit & Run could be a new product rather than a re-release or re-issue. Whilst you could have an entirely new voice performance for Apu portrayed by a South Asian performer, this only goes part way of addressing the controversy with the character.
It could become an opportunity to re-introduce the character to the show, however, if they ever figure something out.
Re: "The Sega Saturn Was Truly Ahead Of Its Time" - Here's Why Modern Games Use 'Dithering' Instead Of Transparency
Dithering being used as it is now works very well for high resolution games, and the best implementations I've seen make use of dynamic densities, where the concentration of dots can increase or decrease as needed to show or hide more of the obstructed object or actor.
Particularly, one of the best uses is a dithered silhouette of the player character in front of the objects that obstructs the character itself, such as in Super Mario Odyssey.
Re: "Definitely Not Created By AI" - How An Innocent Conker Celebration Drew Rare Into A GenAI Debate
People have become conditioned to recognise a very common aesthetic from AI generated artwork; at least the common slop that comes from people using very basic prompts on free online services.
This artwork unfortunately somewhat has that aesthetic, but it's coupled with being so professionally done that people looking for human flaws or errors aren't going to find those!
It's in the same way that people are getting accused of leaving AI generated comments in discussions, because of their writing style or just trying to give a well written response.
I spend a lot of time looking at rendered images in pretty close detail, both human made and AI generated, and there really aren't any hallmarks of AI in here.
Conker's render does look very, very close to a 3D software render, but that could just be superb drawing skill, or maybe a reference was used.
Re: "At EA, We Were Voted The Worst Company In America Because Of The End Of Mass Effect"
Putting out dissapointing, mediocre, or bad products would be one thing, but nobody is calling Nintendo the worst company for putting out massive letdowns like Metroid Prime 4, or Capcom for putting out the likes of DmC Devil May Cry.
Surely any of the contemporary articles covering EA being voted Worst USA Company, will tell you the actual reasons; and it's not "entitled gamers".
Re: Evercade Range Expands With Two New Carts And A Banjo-Kazooie-Packing Super Pocket
@H_Hog
I have the Neo Geo edition of the Super Pocket, and the shoulder buttons are possibly the worst ones ever designed for games that need them.
Which as it turns out, is quite a lot when you're playing Evercade cartridges like Good Boy Galaxy. That game runs at 240x160 (given that it's a GBA ROM), so it doesn't look great on the 320x240 display.
I'm surprised that they're still making new models of the Super Pocket, granted that they're pretty cheap.
Some games have been exclusive to the built-in storage of the Super Pocket, and are technically not Evercade as a result of that.
I'm hopeful that should there be a Rare Collection 2, that Banjo Kazooie is in there as to not make it exclusive to a Super Pocket.
Re: Evercade Range Expands With Two New Carts And A Banjo-Kazooie-Packing Super Pocket
@wizzgamer
Evercade introduced 64-bit console emulation in 2024 with Glover, which apparently involved rebuilding the ROM and optimising it for their emulator implementation.
https://evercade.co.uk/introducing-64-bit-console-gaming-on-evercade/
There's a good chance that this Banjo Kazooie release also uses an optimized ROM, but it's more likely to be based on the Xbox release as to remove the Nintendo brandings.
@H_Hog
They're showing a screenshot of Banjo Kazooie as it appeared on the N64, and list it as "64-bit console".
If this were the GBA game it would've been "32-bit handheld console" instead.
@RextheSheep
Conker's Pocket Tales was previously released on Evercade cartridge as part of Rare Collection 1, and as I understand that one only plays in GBC mode, so you don't have the option to play the monochrome version which is technically a different game.
Re: "What In The F*ck Have They Done" - Panzer Dragoon Zwei Remake's Steam Demo Has Upset Some Fans
@carlos82
SEGA considers Panzer Dragoon to be a legacy IP, and putting any new product on the market is just a way of saying they're maintaining an IP.
Even if it's a D-list studio doing a shoddy port or remaster.
Re: Another Set Of Sega Classics Are Being Discontinued On Mobile
@Peteykins
It's a slight nuisance if you want to get the Android data to use with the superior decomp-based ports.
But let's be real, those APKs are not difficult to find, and all you're doing is extracting the relevant data from them without ever installing them.
Re: Rockman.EXE Phantom Of Network Has Just Got An Unofficial PC Port, Finally Making It Playable Without An Emulator
@PowerPandaMods
The only way to play it before was the DoJa SDK emulator, which wasn't very good as it had all kinds of performance and sound issues. That, or have a 2000s Japanese flip phone.
This native PC port fixes those performance issues with a stable 15 FPS (what the game is designed to run at), and fixes the audio issues so that sound effects don't cancel out music playback.
Keitai app audio was heavily limited as it was MIDI based and they couldn't do simultaneous music and sound effects, unless you did very specific timing of MIDI sound effects between notes in the music sequence.
This is what the Rockman EXE Keitai games tried to do, and it might be better on real hardware, but in the DoJa SDK emulator had the unfortunate effect of Rockman.EXE's attacks sounding like striking a piano and interrupting the battle music.
The PC port is also far, far easier to play than the DoJa SDK emulator, having straight-forward window scaling options without needing to rely on any secondary applications like ShaderGlass.
Keitai apps at Java applications for said flip phones, and whilst there is an effort to build a dedicated emulator for them, progress has been pretty slow. SquirrelJME is a Java ME 8 Virtual Machine, that already has a Libretro core available for Retroarch, but if things go well and it becomes a mature application could mean being able to play these Keitai apps on various Linux retro handhelds.
Re: Rockman.EXE Phantom Of Network Has Just Got An Unofficial PC Port, Finally Making It Playable Without An Emulator
I gave this a quick spin, and that's some incredible work.
A quick tip, press F1 to bring up basic settings for remapping controls and changing your window scaling.
If you have save game progress from an earlier DoJa SDK emulator playthrough, that'll carry over when you copy across the .jar and .sp files.
Ultimately, I'm hopeful that this can get a Linux port too, because that could be the basis for playing this on a wide range of retro handhelds like Anbernic stuff. This would be absolutely perfect on an RG34XXSP as the game runs at 240x240, and should cleanly upscale to any 480p display.
Re: Review: Miyoo Mini Flip - Seriously Pocket-Friendly
@Broosh
There's also something to be said about the touch screen experience on DS and 3DS, the software is really designed around the resistive touch screens and how they only respond to a single but precise touch point. You lose a lot of that on modern touch devices that expect you to use your finger.
Re: Review: Miyoo Mini Flip - Seriously Pocket-Friendly
@Broosh
My time spent with the RG35XXSP and the RG34XXSP has really renewed my interest in them too.
The former was slightly larger than the GBA SP, whilst the latter is much closer to it in scale and display. The latter model has much better build quality too, though it's slightly small for my hands and makes me want to see a "GBA SP XL" from Anbernic.
I've not personally tried any of Miyoo's offerings yet.
Re: This N64 Classic From The Developers Of GTA Has Gotten A Native PC Port
This is 100% of the titles I first thought of when RT64 and recompilation hit the scene (among things like Mischief Makers).
A real hidden gem that always needed some more love, and maybe a few bug fixes.
100% completion was impossible because one of the collectible trophies had no collision, and therefore couldn't be collected.
Re: Banjo: Recompiled Adds Better Frame Rates, Widescreen Support And More To Rare's N64 Classic - And You Can Play It On Steam Deck
@Sindayl
Yes it's already possible, it just takes considerable effort to complete a recompilation.
Majora's mask recompiled already has raytracing!
Re: Banjo: Recompiled Adds Better Frame Rates, Widescreen Support And More To Rare's N64 Classic - And You Can Play It On Steam Deck
@smoreon
The Note Saving feature is off by default in the recompilation, but a welcome change to anyone that prefers the Xbox feature, or struggles with the original game. I'd prefer to play with Note Saving turned off so there's an actual challenge in staying alive to collect all 100 notes in one world.
The other major change is you can enable analogue camera controls, for smooth camera control with a right analogue stick.
The original camera control used incremental turning with the C-buttons, similar to how Super Mario 64 does it.
One of the major features of Wiseguy's Nintendo 64 recomp tools, is compatibility with the RT64 graphics plugin to bring raytracing to Nintendo 64 games. This is slated as an upcoming feature for the Banjo Kazooie recompilation and I'm looking forward to playing through the game with that enabled.
Re: Huge Eyes? Big Head? Lara Croft Almost Looked Very Different For Her Japanese Debut
@Razieluigi
I'm reminded of the Japanese release of the Western developed Kid Chameleon.
Titled Chameleon Kid, the Japanese cover art is a manga style recreation of the Western cover, and the character details are actually more accurate to the in-game sprites, such as Cyclone being depicted in red and pink, not gold.
https://segaretro.org/Kid_Chameleon#Physical_scans
Re: Huge Eyes? Big Head? Lara Croft Almost Looked Very Different For Her Japanese Debut
Who knew that Lara Croft moonlighted as Tifa Lockhart in Japan?
Re: Hallelujah! The Dubious Quest To Find Monkey Ball's Lost "Adult" Levels Is Complete
@JayJ
Sonic the Hedgehog had a cross promotion with Hooters in Japan, to promote Sonic Forces for some reason.
Maybe it's someone higher up at SEGA?
Re: Hallelujah! The Dubious Quest To Find Monkey Ball's Lost "Adult" Levels Is Complete
@Matroska
Right, but it's come to light that the international all ages releases, did in fact ship with the data in some form.
The law isn't concerned with whether or not that data is conventionally accessible, cases like the Tiger Woods EA golf game that included South Park videos on the disc, or the unfinished "Hot Coffee" content in the PS2 version of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, still caused legal headaches.
Re: Hallelujah! The Dubious Quest To Find Monkey Ball's Lost "Adult" Levels Is Complete
Huh, so this saucy material is present on every physical copy of this ESRB E / PEGI 3 rated game?
The PS Vita may be old news, but that's the sort of thing that's gotten game publishers in trouble before!
Re: 'Last Crown Warriors' Is An Upcoming "Action-Tactics" Game For The Game Boy Color, Inspired By Zelda & The Mana Series
I supported the Kickstarter for this one, progress has been a little slow but promising, and I'm looking forward to playing it.
The physical on the other hand, I'm not confident that their original supplier, First Press Games, will deliver on that. That company has been largely radio silent in the past year on fulfilling pre-orders, and are still accepting pre-orders for Good Boy Galaxy, a title that they lost the rights to publish with ongoing legal disputes from the developers.
Re: This Promising New Action-Platfomer Is Built From The Ashes Of A "Massive" Unreleased ROM Hack For An SNES Classic
Seeing gameplay of Acrolyte in action, I have to wonder if this is made by the talent behind the cancelled fan-made Metroid Prime 2D. I'm seeing a ton of similarities in the graphical style, movement, gameplay, and engine.
Re: Holy Magic Century, Batman! The Infamous Quest 64 Is Being Recompiled For PC
Holy Magic Century, or Quest 64, (or Eltale Monsters in Japan) had the unenviable task of delivering a "next generation JRPG" for the Nintendo 64 in 1998, which ultimately were in short supply especially outside of Japan.
Fans of JRPGs from the SNES, were left with later 1998 games like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time or Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, which were often miscategorised as RPGs at the time.
Since all the big names in JRPGs had jumped ship to the Playstation with its CD-ROM capabilities, it was left to Imagineer, better known for the Medabots (Medarot) series, to produce what might be the single JRPG available internationally on the Nintendo 64, unless you count Paper Mario which is very much its own brand of Mario RPG.
The expectations were impossible to live up to, for what would've been an easily forgotten title were it a SNES game, where JRPGs were prolific.
Re: A Decompilation Project Is Currently In The Works For Jet Set Radio Future
The decompilation process itself has made some very big strides over time.
Systems previously not considered for decompilation efforts have now become commonplace, with many more GameCube and Wii titles being reverse engineered.
News of any reverse engineering projects is always exciting, even if it's for games I'm not likely to ever play myself.
Re: One Of The Year's Most Adorable Game Boy Color Games Is Getting A Physical Release
I was a Kickstarter backer and just recently did my playthrough of this, it was a sweet time with wonderful music, stage design, and gameplay, but held back by some of the jank that comes with GB Studio like bad frame pacing on the more ambitious levels, and occasional graphical bugs like sprites displaying the wrong tiles.
Despite that, it's a title I'd recommend checking out, and I placed an order for a proper cartridge when I got word of its availability.