h3s

Best home version has to be CPS Changer. He could probably have got closer doing a new Mega CD version. There is also the X68000 version. (Think the X68000 version is Arcade perfect bar the music).
edit The resolution is lower on x680000 also but I suspect it also is on this.

@Blast16 Problem with that for me as I wouldn’t end up playing it then. (I have cotton reboot on cartridge but end up just playing the Arcade Archives version. Same thing applied to the Streetfighter games in that case I gave away the carts and rebought digital. It takes me ages to find anything- all my carts are just in a bag. Maybe I should get a cart holder like I used to use on 3ds but I am not sure whether I even want to be switching games all the time.)

I really like Ninja Commando I was a bit disappointed I couldn’t get it recently on the UK Switch eshop (Arcade Archives).

I think overclocking the emulator should be an option for Metal Slug 2 (In some ways I think it is more balanced than Metal Slug X).

@PopetheRev28 Just picked up battle axe. Thanks for the recommendation. (It’s good to have an indie dev that I know is going to be up to scratch on Switch. Finding indie games that I think work properly there has become quite an issue for me)

I love Final Vendetta don’t understand why so many reviewers seemed to hate it.

I don’t want Android on my emulation devices. (I guess it’s okay on a high end Snapdragon as RetroArch is on a m series iPad.) I don’t think building proper hardware support for RetroArch is too much to ask.

I think for £45 the emulsion should be perfect.

I wish there was an X68000 mini pc that was available at this sort of price or maybe a bit more. (The one available is just too expensive for me considering the amount of use it is likely to get)

Also mod’s use other people’s art. Even real artists take inspiration from other art. Newer Super Mario Bros Wii is amazing but relies on Nintendo IP.

Perplexity at least links to its sources properly. (Time Extension usually only links to itself which is really annoying.)

If the output wouldn’t be treated as copyright infringement looking at 2 pieces of art I think it should be fine.

I am not so bothered about how stuff looks due to generative AI. I am bothered about how the majority of 2D pixel art unity games don’t play properly at least on Switch. (Even when there are not frame rate drops it never seems to feel right. Graphics and sound I am less bothered about. If it is a case of without gen AI the game couldn’t exist I am okay with it.)

Does it just have the NES levels ? It says it uses the X68000 sprites (It is implied it is not a port of that version).

@mjparker77 I hope it is a good port for you then. (If it is the same board as viper phase one I dunno why they didn’t just let hamster have it given that work is already done.) Maybe I will give one of them another shot if I get the opportunity without messing around with other regions.

@mjparker77 The games are not good is what I thought I was saying. (No interest in a perfect version of a game that isn’t any good).

Raiden 2 and Raiden DX are great games these games are not.

These games are not even all that good. (They were part of the dotemu raiden collection). Wish we had Raiden 2 and Raiden DX (Be quite happy to pay £15 to Arcade Archives for either of those two). Mame has managed it now so it should be possible.

I don’t see why it should be more on later systems. It’s annoying me that so many of the Arcade Archives titles don’t respect the Switch setting to use the only present user account also be trivial to submit a new build. (I think that’s what is needed).

I wish there was a mini review of all the decent Arcade Archives games. (It’s difficult to find information about none shmup games from 1990+ I like other genres but other than Sunset Riders I haven’t found anything really great.)

I wish they started doing Naomi/Atomiswave games.

Is this for the PC version ? I guess it is (I think I do actually have it on Steam) don’t think I would ever pay for a mod though unless it was available officially as part of the original product.

I am surprised that they wouldn’t pay for a decent AI upscaler. A friend of mine has one think it was about £500 lifetime it worked really well for the few things of mine I have sent him. (Not sure whether it requires skill to use because he does have the ability to do it the old way but based on the results I was very happy with it).

@Atariboy I think the price is ok considering the price of the X68000Z don't know if there is a quality difference though. (e.g a new emulator vs just using an existing one).

I have never even noticed it (And I go to the piece hall at least once a month). Not often at weekends however. There is another bar/arcade in Halifax but that has also never been open when I have passed it. Called Retro Station. (Looks similar to Arcade Club in that it doesn’t have time limits.) doesn’t have a list of games sadly but there are some decent ones in the background of the website. (Looks much better in terms of the value for money and quantity of games.)

Has anyone been how does it compare to Arcade Club? Any decent IPA’s on draught ?

@AllieKitsune Or use AI. Human artists have a different mindset to programmers. (Hopefully AI should allow better user interfaces for open source software a traditional weak point).

Is there not a better file format than disc,juggler’s after all this time ?

Is this superior to SSF ? That is the only one I had much luck with. (Didn’t try medafan)

What is the difference between European and US AES games? I thought they would be the same. (I know the US MVS bios is different- the only losers use drugs thing etc but I didn’t think the roms were different.) Nobody in their right mind would have ever gone for a PAL Neo Geo. (You would have thought it would have been implemented the same way as the PAL Tg16 but I don’t think it was).

It is the better port but it is much harder than the MD version because of the checkpoints being the same as the coin op.

All these anti AI articles are getting boring. Using some extremely expensive photoshop plugins never required much skill either. I suppose Adobe’s AI is pretty good being in that it is trained on stock artwork.

At least perplexity lists its sources. (Be much better if people linked to the original source and didn’t try to pass off stuff from elsewhere as original work).

I still think Super Play was the best.

What does this company actually do ? Just licensing or does it develop its own games ? (I think the Tetris license is badly managed it certainly doesn’t stand for quality). The way it has been dealt with on mobile is even worse than when it was EA.

Looks like that company really doesn’t do anything of value whatsoever. (In fact it seems like much of their activity is actively against the goal of creating better video games. The license seems to go to the worst developers more often than not. I wouldn’t hold a company like this as a good thing to be involved with regardless of whether it was a man or a woman.) The world would be better off without nearly all versions of Tetris. (Then people actually trying to innovate would get more exposure).

Is the Apollo built as an asic ? (Would hope so for that price but I suspect it is running on an fpga).

@mariteaux Is the 2000’s not when they actually last had serious competition ? That seems to make a difference. Those Dreamcast sports games were apparently better received than the PS1 EA games. Konami was competitive in Soccer with 2 separate series.

@Guru_Larry Lizardcube seem pretty good from the ones I have tried.

There is only 2 consoles I bought day 1 Dreamcast (UK version) (and N64 US import so I don’t know whether I count that).

@KingMike I wanted them in the UK also (Or any good RPG at all that I could play on a PAL system in English).

So if Bandai distributed the NES in the UK why were the two available versions the NES edition and the Mattel edition?

I am glad I didn’t buy Gradius Origins. (I did buy Arcade Archives - Salamander and it hasn’t clicked. No problems with the emulator or Anything). Only Gradius title I have played for any length of time was the wiiware rebirth. (Tried Arcade Gradius 3 for about half an hour and never really got into the groove of it - this was at Arcade Club).

If it can get a RetroArch based custom rom working as well as say the myoo mini and the build quality is good I might get one.

I am more interested in the later Atari/Midway stuff. I wonder how big this iteration of Atari would need to be in order to get WB to license that stuff.

I didn’t realise there is actually a none retro properly maintained Arcade in the light in central Leeds. (I passed it and saw some sort of Godzilla VR game there but you could tell the difference between that and Arcade Club. (I doubt £15/£20 will last long there though). Didn’t actually properly look if it has the modern pc based Japanese systems or not. (Website makes it look a bit junk but that Godzilla game looks pretty good).

@manic23 Kind of difficult for me as my Series X or unmodded (But potentially modable) Switch are the only systems I have connected to a good sound setup. (Or a Raspberry pi 400) but there is no source code. There is this that I have just seen. https://github.com/phoboslab/wipeout-rewrite But what assets it needs looks to be a right pita. (I have an iMac i9 with a Radeon VII that should be powerful enough but it’s 5k resolution and I am not certain it will work well. Thanks anyway. (My intel w11 thinkpad I really doubt would be enjoyable at all to use with what you recommend.) Looks like they are all based on some leaked source code. (I would be really interested in someone else’s well chosen tracks linked to some of the effects like Tempest 4000 manages.)

I think I would be more interested in a rerelease of the game with a high frame rate and the new music replacing the old licensed tracks. (It’s not that I don’t like techno but just not this type.)

Some of these would be really pointless if there was no English translation for a full remaster or remake.

For me I decided to stick to Arcade Archives due to the great consistency of emulation quality but the price increase of more than double has made me far more picky. I think hamster might end up with the same problem that affected later VC services after the Wii. (Despite loving x58000 Cotton I have played the Arcade Archives version much more than 100% due to the hassle of finding and changing the cart). I would pay the Arcade Archives 2 price for more games than I would like to think about. (Definitely Metal Slug 6 / Raiden DX for example). I just don’t think it will stay financially viable like this which would be a shame (I hate the feeling of being ripped off more than the worry of missing out at this point).

The fact that it’s £4 (Not sure about on other currencies). Makes it maybe worth buying now as opposed to waiting for it to leave early access (Especially if you commonly use Steam). I have played it more than ufo50. (Despite buying ufo50 twice because I don’t have a pc connected to my tv).

I am not sure how well maintained gcc is for sh3. (The way it’s written in incredibly difficult to understand).. It is almost deliberately obfuscated. Its purpose is to support free software not help other compiler writers. If it’s got a good maintainer (Ideally from the company making the target). Any patches to make it easier to see what it’s doing with always be refused. Someone seems to be actively working on an llvm / clang port for sh3. (I could probably get a Dreamcast to spin a few polygons but nearly always use the vendor toolchain for most stuff). If the gcc has been patched to fix sh3 (But broken other targets in the process). But how useful it is depends on how it can be used on a proper project like the recent gta port.. I wish I still had my Dreamcast I think it’s one of about 3 consoles Inever bought day 1.

@cyxceven I think I will put the effort in give it a shot then thanks.

@Guru_Larry I didn’t have the stick think that only was available with a proper Japan import.

I don’t think that the amount of people with the skills to do anything worthwhile with this who lack Linux skills is as high as the article makes out. Plus good look getting anything fixed in gcc using something like this.

@KingMike There is no reason they couldn’t use the Neo Geo CD original if they wanted. (The Wii is a different situation and Neo Geo games are the worst in terms of storage as it is. I had both PAL and NTSC-U Wii’s but I never managed to get the NTSC-U one outputting through the official RGB Scart cable (For VC anyway). It’s a shame because Metal Slug looked perfect but playing at 50hz basically broke the game for me. (UK Arcades were 60hz). Settling for svideo was a real shame and component wasn’t an option on the crt I was using. (Which was much better than what I ever had as a kid and still 4:3 - I couldn’t find one with component that wasn’t widescreen). Also running in AES mode I think was an improvement. (The 5 credit system anyway I prefer difficulty 4 I.e MVS because that’s what I played on holiday. It doesn’t usually affect much more than how much damage bosses take I think in Metal Slug. (Not sure about the fighting games). I get no satisfaction from finishing a game with unlimited credits at all I would much prefer AES mode by default maybe a cheat code for MVS. (You probably know most of thi but I think playing tg16/pc engine over rgb scart on a 4:3 crt is beautiful and I don’t think I would have even given them a shot had they not all been 60hz)

I just prefer Rondo of Blood. I don’t like the 8 way whip it makes it much less enjoyable for me. I prefer either the nes or famicom version of 3 to it even though it is older.

There is a modern outrun port called Cannonball or something (Needs the Arcade ROM’s) has anyone here tried it ?

I have Ninja Gaiden on series x and it seems fine. (Days of getting disappointed by ports on Nintendo are long since passed).

@Damo None of these Arcade focused articles seem to address my two main priorities. (Which I think when they are located in parts of the country that require significant travel I think is quite important.

1. Whether the machines are in top quality condition. (Primarily the controls. The parts are still available brand new - if they want to put the effort in to make them match the machine so be it but that is a minor concern for me.)

2. Amount of imports/rarities that people are unlikely to have experienced back in the day. (G-Loc is a good example of something I never played until recently even though it’s not super rare I think places offering more unique offerings deserve more attention.

Also I think it’s a bit disingenuous that a reader thinks something and an article is generated about it without Time Extension staff verifying it for themselves.

(I have given up almost entirely on Nintendo Life because of how terribly they treat things I really am bothered about like framerate/slowdown. The reason I always loved the Arcades so much in the first place as if not perfect there was generally much more effort put in).

I think basing an article on the opinion of a single person is a bad idea as well. (Don’t see why the whole site staff can’t put the effort into even giving a 30 minute mini opinion like used to happen because people do disagree).

This site seems to be really anti AI but it is at least good at offering multiple perspectives. (Even in the styles of preferred reviewers) and working out which version/versions are the ones to avoid. (I don’t deny that there are things AI is doing that are personally making my working life harder than before but for some of the slop coming from real writers I am not sure how much is being lost)