@KingMike Yeah very famous illustrator, he also did quite a lot of illustration for Hudson Soft too. I'm not really sure on how Famitsu got away with it's name, as it was for a long time called Famicom Tsuushin, my guess is that at the time Sharp held the trademark from their microwave oven that was called the Famicon (sic) but with Nintendo and Sharp's warm relationship when the trademark was handed over to Nintendo, maybe it was already extant? Maybe Nintendo calculated going after ASCII would be unpopular and decided to let sleeping dogs lie?
Absolutely fascinating insight into what went on. Gosh it sounds like it was a bit of a s*** show at times, with the usual tales of パワーハラ (power harassment) from managers at times or grandstanding, and herculean efforts to get things over the line. I'm sure Richard feels a lot of pride in what he did, but at the time it must have been insane at times. お疲れ様でした。
@Sketcz That's what uma-musume means, Horse Girl. It's quite common Japanese to refer to someone's girl as musume, even though it's mostly taught to mean daughter. But yeah good luck scrubbing that history hehe
"X, meanwhile, took things a step further, refining the battle system so that multiple characters can use magical attacks at the same time."
That's a big quality of life improvement there and fixes the biggest flaw of the original game. I love this on the PlayStation (currently playing the Japanese release) and whilst the magic spells look great to start with, after the 1512th time of seeing them it really slows down the rhythm of the battles with constant stop start, which when performing Ougi and selecting special techniques for your party members lends some of the more defining battles with Dhaos a slightly, huh, so I cheesed my way through that. Finding the technical ring for Cless helps a little but not enough, so well done on the team for this update on the PSP, I'm sure the game will benefit massively from it.
@cawley1 Due to the way the Amiga draws screens, 16 colours is faster than 32 colours. The Amiga's bitter, which is the engine that pastes graphics around the screen in a simple sense, works with biplanes. The more colour you have on screen, the more data the blitter has to shift around and the slower it gets. If you're trying to hit 50/60Hz refresh this becomes important.
Having played the both ECS versions, there are speed issues evident with some slow down on an A600 with 2MB Chip RAM in both 16 and 32 colours. It is more evident in the 32 colour version as expected.
Both I am sure could be improved with some optimisations, especially if reduced to 16 colours. Even so, your average A500 you had back in 1990 isn't going to run this without an ECS Agnus and a 2MB Chip RAM upgrade.
This is not to take anything away from the hard work put into this, just things I notice.
As for what US Gold would have done, it would have been an unplayable mess whatever route they took.
@slider1983 it was indeed, but given the article has been updated, it seems that the date has been changed to fit with when the A1200 was released, seeing as this is an article about a "reproduction" A1200.
@Bod2019 Plenty of us would love to but getting a job isn't easy for anyone right now. Almost all employers want 100% fully formed (experienced) individuals, employers often don't want to train to realise potential, it makes the bar so high to clear for everyone. The stark difference between recruitment adverts you'd see in Edge magazine in the mid 90s versus what you see now is stark. And worse yet in the UK, the pay isn't massively better when you take into account 30 years have elapsed with inflation. Anyway I digress...
I suppose what I am saying maybe the younger generation in general find it tough to get into the industry due to these high bars of entry, and if the industry was willing to take on people who aren't fully experienced, give them a chance, maybe more representation may come naturally due to gaming being a more diverse interest these days. I remember in the mid-90s it was quite unusual for me to be into gaming in a big way. Even these days my parents question it!!
I don't include myself in that, at 42 I know I'm probably too old to even be given a second look these days, at least that's going on my experience trying to get work in the gaming industry anyway.
Igomeikan is indeed a rare game but like most of those Hector games, they aren't the most fun as this is mostly for Go players to study pro player moves and compare their own strategies. I enjoy a mahjong game but this is one step beyond for me!
The Game Center CX episode featuring this game is one of the best episodes of that awesome programme. I was really rooting for Arino-san in that double billing! Ka-chou on!
Yeah that thumb, not good. Not to mention the AI kanji, one of which suspiciously looks like 喪 (mo) which means mourning in Japanese. Are they in mourning for the death of arcades inadvertently?
@profo For his own channel, that's his decision, but generative AI has been trained on untold amounts of illegally accessed and used data to produce the results it does. If they continue this forward with "Commodore", they could be empowering and employing people who have not only have the creative skills but passion for the brand and the topic, potentially giving people a foothold in an industry hard to crack.
Cool interview! However, I'm not sure it's overly rare though, the other week I ran into a couple of copies, one which I left in a store in Tsushima, Aichi and another in Ueno, Mie that was just sat in its plastic case in the junk section. So far as I know, I'm not sure where the original source of this 25,000 copies is.
Comments 14
Re: Producer Behind This Classic Racing Series Reveals Why He Was "Amazed" At Mobile Hit 'Umamusume: Pretty Derby'
@KingMike Yeah very famous illustrator, he also did quite a lot of illustration for Hudson Soft too. I'm not really sure on how Famitsu got away with it's name, as it was for a long time called Famicom Tsuushin, my guess is that at the time Sharp held the trademark from their microwave oven that was called the Famicon (sic) but with Nintendo and Sharp's warm relationship when the trademark was handed over to Nintendo, maybe it was already extant? Maybe Nintendo calculated going after ASCII would be unpopular and decided to let sleeping dogs lie?
Re: Interview: "I Did My Best To Make It Work" - Legendary Localiser On Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, & The "Total Nightmare" Of Xenogears
Absolutely fascinating insight into what went on. Gosh it sounds like it was a bit of a s*** show at times, with the usual tales of パワーハラ (power harassment) from managers at times or grandstanding, and herculean efforts to get things over the line. I'm sure Richard feels a lot of pride in what he did, but at the time it must have been insane at times. お疲れ様でした。
Re: Producer Behind This Classic Racing Series Reveals Why He Was "Amazed" At Mobile Hit 'Umamusume: Pretty Derby'
@Sketcz That's what uma-musume means, Horse Girl. It's quite common Japanese to refer to someone's girl as musume, even though it's mostly taught to mean daughter. But yeah good luck scrubbing that history hehe
Re: The Definitive Version Of Tales Of Phantasia's PSP Remake Is Now Available In English
"X, meanwhile, took things a step further, refining the battle system so that multiple characters can use magical attacks at the same time."
That's a big quality of life improvement there and fixes the biggest flaw of the original game. I love this on the PlayStation (currently playing the Japanese release) and whilst the magic spells look great to start with, after the 1512th time of seeing them it really slows down the rhythm of the battles with constant stop start, which when performing Ougi and selecting special techniques for your party members lends some of the more defining battles with Dhaos a slightly, huh, so I cheesed my way through that. Finding the technical ring for Cless helps a little but not enough, so well done on the team for this update on the PSP, I'm sure the game will benefit massively from it.
Re: Sonic Comes To The Commodore Amiga (In Tech Demo Form, At Least)
@cawley1 Due to the way the Amiga draws screens, 16 colours is faster than 32 colours. The Amiga's bitter, which is the engine that pastes graphics around the screen in a simple sense, works with biplanes. The more colour you have on screen, the more data the blitter has to shift around and the slower it gets. If you're trying to hit 50/60Hz refresh this becomes important.
Having played the both ECS versions, there are speed issues evident with some slow down on an A600 with 2MB Chip RAM in both 16 and 32 colours. It is more evident in the 32 colour version as expected.
Both I am sure could be improved with some optimisations, especially if reduced to 16 colours. Even so, your average A500 you had back in 1990 isn't going to run this without an ECS Agnus and a 2MB Chip RAM upgrade.
This is not to take anything away from the hard work put into this, just things I notice.
As for what US Gold would have done, it would have been an unplayable mess whatever route they took.
Re: "With Tariffs Etc, It Takes Time" - The Creators Of THE A1200 Respond To Recent US "Pre-Order Woes"
@slider1983 it was indeed, but given the article has been updated, it seems that the date has been changed to fit with when the A1200 was released, seeing as this is an article about a "reproduction" A1200.
Re: "With Tariffs Etc, It Takes Time" - The Creators Of THE A1200 Respond To Recent US "Pre-Order Woes"
A "classic '80s computer" released in 1992. 🤷♀️
Re: Here's Why Controllers Have 'A, B, X & Y' Buttons, And Not 'A, B, C & D'
Early SFC prototype controllers did indeed use A B C D designations. Didn't survive later iterations.
Re: "It Shouldn't Be That Way" - Tetris Company CEO Laments Low Female Representation In The Games Industry
@Bod2019 Plenty of us would love to but getting a job isn't easy for anyone right now. Almost all employers want 100% fully formed (experienced) individuals, employers often don't want to train to realise potential, it makes the bar so high to clear for everyone. The stark difference between recruitment adverts you'd see in Edge magazine in the mid 90s versus what you see now is stark. And worse yet in the UK, the pay isn't massively better when you take into account 30 years have elapsed with inflation. Anyway I digress...
I suppose what I am saying maybe the younger generation in general find it tough to get into the industry due to these high bars of entry, and if the industry was willing to take on people who aren't fully experienced, give them a chance, maybe more representation may come naturally due to gaming being a more diverse interest these days. I remember in the mid-90s it was quite unusual for me to be into gaming in a big way. Even these days my parents question it!!
I don't include myself in that, at 42 I know I'm probably too old to even be given a second look these days, at least that's going on my experience trying to get work in the gaming industry anyway.
Re: "Rarest" Nintendo Famicom Game Found In US Retro Store For $12
Igomeikan is indeed a rare game but like most of those Hector games, they aren't the most fun as this is mostly for Go players to study pro player moves and compare their own strategies. I enjoy a mahjong game but this is one step beyond for me!
Re: Feature: "Like A Completely New Game" - The Untold Story Behind Prince Of Persia's Impressive SNES Port
The Game Center CX episode featuring this game is one of the best episodes of that awesome programme. I was really rooting for Arino-san in that double billing! Ka-chou on!
Re: "We Think We've Found The UK's Best Arcade"
Yeah that thumb, not good. Not to mention the AI kanji, one of which suspiciously looks like 喪 (mo) which means mourning in Japanese. Are they in mourning for the death of arcades inadvertently?
Re: Talking Point: A Curious Contradiction At The Core Of "New" Commodore Makes Me Uncomfortable
@profo For his own channel, that's his decision, but generative AI has been trained on untold amounts of illegally accessed and used data to produce the results it does. If they continue this forward with "Commodore", they could be empowering and employing people who have not only have the creative skills but passion for the brand and the topic, potentially giving people a foothold in an industry hard to crack.
Re: Random: This Rare Version Of Tetris Stumped The Tetris Company's Co-Founder
Cool interview! However, I'm not sure it's overly rare though, the other week I ran into a couple of copies, one which I left in a store in Tsushima, Aichi and another in Ueno, Mie that was just sat in its plastic case in the junk section. So far as I know, I'm not sure where the original source of this 25,000 copies is.