sdelfin

Very nice piece. Cool to see the creator and designer of the Strider arcade game come up in this too. While I always liked Strider, I decided to do a deep dive into that game a couple of years ago to master it, which I succeeded in doing, and I enjoy it so much more now. Their friendship may go back to when Osman, the spiritual sequel to Strider, was made as Mitchell handled that game, or perhaps their friendship led to Osman being made. I'd love to master Osman too, but it's so much harder for me, though I do still enjoy it. Anyway, on top of that, this piece also filled in some gaps as to what Mitchell Corporation was exactly and what their relationship to Capcom was. It was obvious there was some connection as, at the very least, they had a shared arcade board, and a few Mitchell games were on the CPS1 & 2.

Mr. Ozaki sounds like he was a very interesting fellow. Sad to hear of his passing.

@NicolausCamp You can add me to the list. I never thought the PS1 original was the best design aesthetically. The PSOne, however, I alwaya thought was a great looking machine. And the white always looked better to me than the grey of the original. I've always considered it one of the best console redesigns ever done, at least aesthetically, though I think it also worked very well. In fact, I think Sony was very good as redesigns and the PS2 slim is another one of my favorites.

One thing I like about this SuperStation One is that they modelled the housing on the PSOne. Back when the Raspberry Pi was still somewhat new and people were making retro cases for them, PSOne and PS2 slim were things I was hoping to see. I even considered such a project, myself.

@KingMike Yeah, most of the criticism is fair, but not everything bothers people the same way, so I get why it's not all that well liked by some. And sometimes even very popular games don't hit for some. Yeah, the sword reach is short, but it didn't bother me. I enjoyed fighting the darknuts, though there is a bit of an exploit for them. As for Thunderbird, I used a guide for much of my time with the game so I avoided stuff like that. Contrast that with Castlevania 2 which just wasn't fun for me even with a guide, though it has its fans as well. I didn't expect to like Zelda 2 as much as I did upon revisiting it due to its reputation, but it surprised me.

Great piece, John. I was probably previously aware of the book, but had forgotten about it if that was the case. Metal Slug is the kind of game property for which I'd likely want such a deep dive. I also was either unaware or forgot that Ollie Barder has contributed a few pieces here recently. I should have known that the Omega Boost piece came from him due to all the mentions of the Layzner anime. When I got back into anime about a decade ago, my main interest was old super-robot shows and Ollie became one of my top sources for learning about the topic and I've been periodically checking in on his writing every year since then.

I didn't realize until I did some reading on Irem that it was founded by the same man who founded Capcom. Capcom, Irem, and SNK seemed to be the Osaka faction of the gaming industry of the time. I know from articles on later fighting games that while there was a strong rivalry between Capcom and SNK, especially among the executives, there was a lot of respect and friendship among the people doing the work of game development since that Osaka game-development community was so small and many of them would move from one company to another.

I love seeing the art provided with the article. Speaking of art, I last watched Dominion Tank Police a few years ago and that reminded me of how much the Metal Slug tank looks like the tank from Dominion. I wonder what Kujo was protecting with that first answer. Perhaps there was a legal concern and he was being careful. It would be hard to believe Dominion wasn't an influence unless both of them pulled from another influence. Good to hear he did acknowledge it as "likely" and influence.

I can understand changing it from a tank-only game. First, people tend to relate more to human characters, even in 2D. If the original concept played like the tank sections in Metal Slug, it would feel sluggish and it would be hard to avoid damage. That's the beauty of Metal Slug. In the tank, you can take damage and fire in all directions, but you can't turn around, the shooting is tricky and slow to aim, and it's hard to avoid damage. Outside the tank, the characters are faster and more dynamic since they can jump high, but can't absorb damage. That dynamic is very good for an arcade game. I also liked reading Meeher's thoughts on game design and I have observed some of the same things. I've observed in beat-em-ups that the start-stop stage progression is a big reason those work so well because certain areas can be planned better. It works well in Shock Troopers and Metal Slug too and is a design element I really appreciate.

Since Metal Slug came out relatively late as far as 2D run-and-gun games go, the success of the franchise, which probably built up with each game, would have been realized right as SNK was facing its financial issues. If there was one question I'd want to know from any of the devs of those early games is about the slowdown in the first two and how they cleaned that up for X and 3.

Back then, we'd see attempts by developers to try a different concept for a sequel. So in that sense, seeing Zelda 3 as the true sequel to the first because it's an extension of the original concept makes sense. Once a game is a hit, people tend to want that formula mostly to remain intact. Zelda 2 has a reputation for being very difficult, a bit cryptic, and maybe a bit clunky. About a decade ago, I decided to revisit Zelda 2 to give it a fair shot with a different perspective from when the game was new. And to be clear, I revisited Castlevania 2 as well and couldn't get into it. For Zelda 2, I ended up liking it a lot, much to my surprise. As a kid, I remember being impressed with the swordplay that being a side-scrolling game allowed, especially against the Darknuts. Also, I'm often not a fan of farming experience, but I liked it in Zelda 2. Levelling up extensively early and then being able to one-shot the early bosses was quite amusing. It's a weird Zelda game, but it's a great NES game.

Cyberbots is not a game I would have expected to get the "limited edition" treatment. I would guess that it probably did somewhat well in Japanese arcades then. I wasn't aware of Cyberbots even though I was following the import scene at the time, but it was easy to miss some stuff here and there, and this was not one of Capcom's well known games here.

@FeRDNYC That's basically correct. I don't know if you have seen that there are a series of articles On Polygon on the development of a number of Capcom fighting games from the original Street Fighter to X-Men: Children of the Atom. They're all a good read if you haven't seen them and, of course, the X-Men one is relevant to this, though they don't touch on this particular detail of Juggernaut. But there was a lot of back and forth between Marvel and Capcom over which characters they could use, which ones made sense, etc. They even had to make sure certain characters like Spider-Man were cleared due to contracts for games made by other companies. Marvel Super Heroes had more back and forth than X-Men which makes sense because they were choosing characters from the broader universe. But they took it one game at a time and the end result and general reception were good that they kept going. When Capcom pitched the crossover between Marvel characters and Street Fighter characters, Marvel was much more open because of how the prior games had gone. And let's not forget there were also the two SNES beat-em-up games that probably also factored in as well.

@AnonUser That's even cooler that you did it without RunAhead. People have convinced themselves that beating Tyson was literally impossible in emulation, so I love to hear of people actually doing it. And people like to overstate the issue of lag in emulation. People forget that there is a certain amount of lag on original systems. In my experience testing emulators, most systems that I can test have one or two frames of lag. Interestingly, I tested Simpsons arcade and it had zero frames of lag without RunAhead. And, of course, with RunAhead, it can be zero in every case making emulation the best method for those seeking the lowest latency for supported systems. It's crazy some of the things I've seen people say. I've seen people convinced Super Mario World was literally unplayable in emulation due to lag(one frame??). And even here, a few people made accounts to tell me how wrong I was despite them knowing nothing about how emulation and RunAhead work. They literally made up nonsense on the spot when I pointed out the holes in their arguments. Someone told me I'd be shocked at how much lag I actually had if I did a camera test when I already knew for a fact the response was next frame. And someone told me doing frame testing doesn't work because processing one frame at a time is too easy on the CPU. But that's how emulation works, one frame at a time even at full speed. It also was only about one percent CPU usage at full speed anyway, so that argument fell apart. People think they know better than the actual emulation developers. It's very amusing.

I agree. Based on how you describe it, that's totally legit. I practiced in a similar way when I beat Ninja Gaiden. Eventually, I got to a point where I did legit runs from beginning to end only using save states to save time with regard to continuing on the final stage.

I did some lag testing with Punch Out last year. I forget exactly how many frames of lag I counted, but since NES emulation in my experience is typically and consistently one frame , it seems that Punch Out has a certain amount of lag built into the game. That means you can reduce it beyond original hardware, which would be cheating as you said. But you'd be able to do that without seeing any visual anomalies you'd typically see when reducing below original hardware.

I also picked up an extra Ultimate 2C Wired because of how good it is and the value of it, and it's still in the box. I think I even had a coupon for it. It really is a fantastic pad. That D-pad is a joy to use.

@GravyThief The first time I tried playing Actraiser, I was baffled by the sim part. I read a guide for the game to get an idea of how it all worked when I decided to revisit it. I ended up really enjoying it once I understood it, so I'd recommend doing something like that since it sounds like it has some appeal to you.

@EarthboundBenjy As I recall, there is at least a little bit of variability to the sim parts. I played the game several years ago and I recall there were certain things you could do that resulted in a higher population. It may be fairly basic though. The side scrolling parts on their own are also quite straightforward and basic. The real magic of that game, in terms of gameplay, is combining the two and making it all work. I ended up really enjoying the sim aspect much more than I expected to.

Yeah, Actraiser 2 is brutal. It's a gorgeous game to look at. It's among the best looking SNES games, in my opinion. The player character moves too slow for a lot of the enemies, especially boss fights. I got the impression you really need to know the boss patterns very well and make moves way before the bosses do anything. There was one boss fight where it just felt like the character was way too slow and any mistake was basically certain doom. I've been meaning to check out hacks for the game.

@Razieluigi I would guess that it comes down to a couple of things. There is probably a significant cost advantage. Also, since this seems based on a widely used FPGA core, it's probably considered mature and extensively tested already. I suspect they're doing even more testing as well, especially if there is some modification to the existing core, but they probably have good reason to be confident that it won't need updates. But I did have the same thought as you. There's no functional downside to using FPGA. That's why I think cost explains that, especially since the development had already been done mostly, so the ASIC is probably much lower cost.

I've never played Elden Ring, so this seems like a great starting point....

A few years back, I played one of the Game & Watch collections extensively and unlocked the Zelda game which was quite good for an LCD game. It was quite fun. This will probably be worth it in case I am in the position where I would have to unlock it again.

Directing a movie based on a video game, or at least titled after one, and then taking a shot at the people who play said game certainly is a choice.

@AnonUser Always cool to hear about people beating Tyson in an emulator. I know it's been done, but the old myth that it's impossible due to lag still persists, and people forget that RunAhead is a thing now. But I saw that you mentioned the 8bitdo Ultimate 2C Wired. I have a couple of those. They are fantastic and an amazing value. Of all the first-party controllers back in the day, the Saturn D-pad is my favorite. It feels the best in terms of inputs, and I prefer the Sega-style D-pads. With that said, the most important thing about a D-pad is how it feels and works overall. 8bitdo has nailed that one some of their controllers. In terms of function, the D-pad on their Pro+ was as good as the very best D-pads I had previously used. The D-pad function of the original Ultimate C Wired wasn't bad, but was a step down. When I got my first Ultimate 2C Wired, I immediately noticed the D-pad was upgraded. They made it feel and function as well as the Pro+. I consider both to be just as good as the Saturn pads. The fact that they are Nintendo-style cross pads doesn't hold them back because that's the least important thing when it comes to D-pads.

I've never loved the Neo Geo stick, especially the button layout. Maybe there's a way where the button positions feel better, but I tend to use arcade sticks on my lap, so that would create a poor arm position with the Neo Geo stick. But as good as sticks are, they are tougher to use. It's harder to lean back and relax while playing with an arcade stick. Having the option to use a gamepad is a very good thing. The versatility is huge and could make the whole thing more enjoyable overall. SNES controllers are common. It also reminds me of Capcom's CPS Changer, which was their attempt at selling high-end gaming hardware to consumers in Japan. It was similar to Neo Geo in that they were real arcade games, but it was different in that the system was nothing but an adapter. The games were giant arcade boards instead of carts. And Capcom decided to use SNES controller ports for it which allowed people to use their own controllers on it, and they were abundant, but also allowed Capcom to push their Super Famicom arcade stick as an official solution. It's not a bad solution for this. Playstaion 1 and 2 pads are also abundant, so such an adapter would also make sense. Even though the PS1 pad is not in the same league as the Saturn pad, I was surprised how much I liked it for fighting games. I learned to play The Last Blade on a PS1 D-pad.

I pre-ordered the original Neo Geo Pocket with King of Fighters R-1. It was a lot of fun and was a cool experience having this system so early on when so many people didn't even know about it. I put together a nice library for myself between the original and color systems. The quick upgrade to color was frustrating, but necessary, and I just loved the platform and hardware. I ended up doing a website for the system with a friend of mine. It was a fun time, despite the short lifespan of the system.

I don't remember when SNK first announced the Neo Geo Pocket and when that was relative to the announcement of GBC. I remember being under the impression that Nintendo announced at a later time. I assume Nintendo did a lot of R&D, and probably on many things we never saw. It's how the DS was ready to go so suddenly after the PSP was unveiled. So I assume Nintendo had the GBC ready to go for whenever they felt it necessary. I also wonder if Nintendo may have known about the Wonderswan well ahead of its unveiling.

I like the idea of USB-C options for old systems and other devices. I've seen some things which appear to be good products in that space. I don't have a 32X, but the sight of a Sega Genesis, Sega CD, and 32X running off of a single GaN charger was a sight to see and I can understand the appeal. I wouldn't just buy any cable or adapter that wasn't vetted. It's always been the same way when it comes to electrical power. You have to know the basics about power, especially voltage and polarity(especially for the old systems since many are center negative). I've seen people who know nothing about voltage and I've had to help them out. But it's the same as it always was. You need to understand the specs of everything involved, and you need to have a sense for which items appear to be properly designed.

@Dr_Fresh I generally agree with your comment. I think it is a bit harder to exclude SNK from coverage because of its history and franchises from back in the day. I suppose the counter to that could be that you can cover the games, but not new products. It gets messy quickly. The disclaimer idea crossed my mind as well and seems reasonable. But people will complain about that as well. modretro has no history, so it is easier to just choose not to cover them. Whether that is right or wrong is up for debate. But I have seen so many people misrepresent, whether due to being unaware or intentionally, why TE ceased their coverage of modretro. palmer having his other company alone was not the issue. The issue was using modretro to help do PR for palmer and his drone company with a dual branded Game Boy clone. The site drew a clear line in the sand there. Again, that part is debatable, but it's striking how many people leave out that important detail when they leave their comments. Some of those people also like to leave out all context when they make the tired argument of, You boycott this, but don't boycott that. And the arguments get absurdly granular. Again, they leave out all context that makes such situations different. Of course, the counter to that is that such an argument is essentially in favor of having no standards at all. Once again, good post and it largely echoes my view of this as well.

Sengoku 3 was already mentioned. That's a great one. One of the Last Blade games would be good as they're among the best fighting games on the system. Then, in the same vein as Windjammers, one that I'd suggest but has licensing issues is Neo Drift Out. That one did get a modern re-release a few years ago, so I guess it's not impossible. It's a great game.

@PXAbstracftion The original article on the announcement of it mentions the memory card included with the Ultimate Bundle. And the graphic also lists the card.

@murty I'm glad to hear that other people really liked 2008 Prince of Persia as well. I saw that it had mixed reviews with the negative ones often claiming that the game plays itself, which I think is silly. But as a result, I didn't know what to expect from it. At the price I paid, I was happy to give it a shot, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I was worried about the combat mechanics going in, and they were decent. I thought it might feel too much like a QTE slog, which I don't like. Also, I really liked the story and thought the characters were very well written and voiced.

I bought the GOG version. I'm not sure if the same applies to Steam, but I ran into one issue setting it up. I had to edit a file to get the game to output 1080p. I found the info in a reddit post which I believe is titled "Prince of Persia (2008) launcher issues." in which there's an explanation of how to change the resolution as the values are in hexadecimal. I mention this in case this info is helpful to you in the future.

@SlangWon There's at least one view of the back, of one of the white ones, in the trailer toward the end. I assume it's a render, but the back shows what look to be power in, HDMI out, and a DIN connector for A/V out like the original system. So it's possible that it can output RGB just like the original, and that would be a strange detail to get wrong since they are trying to cater to everyone here, including those who prefer to use CRTs. Of course, the only way to be sure is to ask them directly, but the possibility does exist based on what the render shows.

I would have been very interested in this a while back, if only because of the aura of the Neo Geo. I don't need this approach anymore because I'm happy with the setup I have. And I should say I've bought plenty of officially licensed Neo Geo emulation releases. I did buy a Neo Geo X back in the day. As poorly executed as it was, I still think of it fondly because it was a big part of me getting back into gaming after a while. I discovered Mutation Nation on that, and I managed to beat King of the Monsters on it despite the limit on credits. And then I scratched the collecting itch for a while by buying a few Neo Geo arcade boards and a handful of carts. Plus, I'm trying to buy fewer things and save money, so this is even easier for me to pass on. Hopefully it's great quality for those who are interested and I hope everyone who does buy gets a lot of enjoyment.

Hopefully they get the details right like shaders and filters, BIOS options so games can be played in MVS mode, etc.(all that stuff is mentioned, but we'll see if they get those details right) Game selection is interesting. Surprised KOF 98 is not in the mix, but the series is represented. Metal Slug and Neo Turf Masters make a lot of sense, and legit carts are absurdly expensive, so those are good picks in multiple ways. I'm surprised Over Top was chosen. It's not a bad game, but it's light on content due to its arcade origin. It was fun finding the shortcuts in that game. I'm also surprised to see Shock Troopers, which is a great game, but never got a home AES release. It's cool that they're making an AES version for this release.

I just played the Prince of Persia 3D trilogy just about a year ago. I hadn't played the first two since they came out on Gamecube. The third game I never got around to playing then despite buying it. I also played the 2008 unrelated Prince of Persia game for the first time. The first game remains my favorite of them by far. I bought it because it got rave reviews as the Prince of Persia name meant almost nothing to me back then. And I agreed with those reviews. If a modern remake/remaster was done well, that would have been cool to see. Though it is good to see the games available through stores like GOG.

As for the 2008 game, I tried it because it was very inexpensive, as all of them are when they are on sale, and I was pleasantly surprised. I had a great time with it. It's easily my second favorite game of the four I played.

It may not be for everyone, but it's a cool project anyway. Maybe there is someone out there with nostalgia for this game. Obviously, Game Boy changed everything, but these LCD games were pretty popular right before that. They were limited, but I have fond memories of some of them. I remember really liking Konami's first Turtles LCD game. I saw that I could play the Tiger Gauntlet game online a couple of years ago. I had that one as a kid. I thought it was pretty good for what it was and had fun. I also managed to beat it which I couldn't do back in the day. I remember playing some other decent LCD games on a website that had a bunch recreated.

Of course, Nintendo was the best at LCD games. Their Game & Watch collections are proof of that. Oddly, Super Mario Bros. LCD was never included in any of those as I recall. That one looked pretty good in videos. I do remember liking the LCD Donkey Kong Jr. and The Legend of Zelda which is one of the last ones they ever did and was dual screen.

@Porco "not that i would want a square display"

The 1:1 makes more sense the more I see and hear about them. And I've heard people say they like them a lot. As you point out, there will be black bars, but the ratio would still be very good for 4:3 content. It would also be pretty good for the 3:2 GBA. To me, the standout feature is that vertical games would be the same size as horizontal games, just rotated to 3:4. I remember not too long ago there was a portable that had a vertical 3:4 screen, and I left a comment saying a 1:1 screen would be better. The vertical games could be the exact same height as the 3:4 screen, while gaining a lot more versatility. 1:1 seems to have a lot of upsides.

This is not the first time for a situation like this. The article mentioned the Saturn core being similar, and a different developer said some of his own arcade cores needed workarounds to function. There has been this assumption among some that FPGA is inherently accurate, but we can see that is not quite the case. Accuracy has just been a high priority, as it should be, for various cores that were well within the capabilities of the DE10-nano. And perhaps there will be cores for the tougher systems that achieve the desired accuracy on a future FPGA platform. It's interesting to hear about the challenges of development. I wouldn't have expected the 3DO to create such an issue, but it involves a detail that people like me who are not developers wouldn't come across otherwise. In the end, having a working core with some workarounds sounds like a good result. If everything appears to function as it should when playing the games, then the level of accuracy is high enough where it matters. It's better to have working cores like 3DO and Saturn than not have them.

@naoki-horii Thank you for the additional detail. I think Tengen was right in that situation. So much had changed in terms of game design and the preferences of players in the years since the original Gauntlet arcade game. I think they were right that the game just would not sell without more features. Implementing the extra features resulted in a great game, in my opinion. I last played Gauntlet IV two years ago almost exactly and I enjoyed it more than I ever had before. The "Quest Mode" is my favorite way to play Gauntlet now. And the music in the game is some of my favorite in any video game, especially of the systems at the time. The end result of all that work was an excellent game.

@slider1983 It's a good story behind that game. I heard about it a couple of years back. It started off as a hobby project before M2 was a proper company. It was a recreation of the original arcade game for the X68000, then shifted to the Mega Drive/Genesis to make it a viable product. They made it just by observing the arcade game since they didn't have access to anything else. They submitted it to Tengen and the US branch told them they needed extra features like the quest mode in order to release it. They didn't expect M2 would follow up, but a few months later they submitted the updated version with nearly all the suggestions included. Very cool way for M2 to get their start.

It goes to show what a big difference 4bpp color, 16-color sprites, made at the time. It's why some Master System games look especially nice with games like The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck being one example. The Master System had other limitations so we'd see the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 and the Genesis/Mega Drive take things further as the tech improved. But that jump in colors for sprites was a big deal, and jumps beyond that to 5 and 6bpp were far less impactful.

I have a Razer Edge handheld, so I like the modular concept as it's a small tablet and a telescoping controller. This is an interesting variation on the concept, though it seems less versatile. I imagine you could use the screen of this thing with one of those expanding phone/tablet gamepads, though. In the headline it says that it's a "tabletop TATE" device. It sounds like playing vertically would require the screen to be detached, and no pictures show the screen orientation vertical while attached. I forget which handheld it was, but I think it was vertically oriented, and I said then that I think a square 1:1 screen would be better, and for those that do want TATE as an option would be better served by such a device. I believe that might also apply here. Yes, both vertical and horizontal games wouldn't use the whole screen, but that seems like the best compromise as 1:1 would be simpler in that there would be no need for rotation, and both types of games would fill up a reasonable amount of a square screen. I've heard good things about that aspect ratio for handhelds.

Seeing Double Dragon in the arcade as a very small child was a major moment for me as a gamer. It was one of my first arcade obsessions and shaped my tastes to the point where beat-em-up games have been my favorite since then, which remains true for me to this day. And the port to the Master System was one of my absolute favorite games for the system. Without realizing the connection, I was also drawn to WWF Superstars and WWF Wrestlefest as I was a wrestling fan in those days. I played WWF Superstars quite a bit back then. Mr. Kishimoto's work had quote an effect on me, for which I am grateful.

It's funny to me how we've gone from The Wizard, a movie about video games with a heavy dose of marketing, to movies based on board games and unexpected video games like Battleship and Rampage.

@Sketcz I can't respond on what Ebert was specifically referring to with regard to the Wizard. I will say I always liked Ebert and found him interesting. I stumbled onto his TV show with Gene Siskel by chance one night and liked it enough to keep checking it out. I disagreed with Ebert on things. I thought he got some stuff very wrong. If I'm not mistaken, he thought Blade Runner was shallow when it first came out, but had softened and gave it praise for either the director's cut or final cut. He evolved a lot as a critic and I found him to have a more open mind later on. He surprised me a number of times in liking some things I didn't expect, so I give him credit for that. And his show helped me learn a bit about movies in general, and it was fun to get a little bit of an idea about the specific films that were in theaters at the time. I was exposed to a lot of things I never would have been, otherwise. And I will also add tat Ebert's love of film was very obvious to me on this show, and I think that was a reason I watched for as long as I did. Again, he definitely got things wrong and could seem pompous at times, especially earlier on, but he also softened over the years and tried to highlight some surprising movies that, sometimes, other critics didn't like. So perhaps a nuanced first-hand account can help you understand why some did respect him.

This is quite impressive. I've always enjoyed seeing devs push hardware to do things it was either not intended to do or to go beyond what people expected. The end result wasn't always a fun game, but I appreciated seeing what was possible. Of course, sometimes the games were fun too. I really came to appreciate such things around when the Game Boy Color came out. The GBA was a good system to see devs use in creative ways. Junk Runner is fascinating to me in the same way. In terms of the achievement, it reminds me of the GTA 3 port to Dreamcast in the sense it's doing something many might have thought impossible.

I wanted to add that projects like Portal 64 might not be "needed", they can serve as a learning experience for a developer that can lead to something like this. I'm a believer in "because you can" is a good enough reason to unofficially port games — I love those NES-to-SNES ports — but there is other value to such projects in that developers can learn from them if they choose to make original games, something we just don't know at the time such ports are in progress. Anyway, very cool to see the N64 pushed in this way.

This is a good idea, especially since those old power bricks are so chunky. Eliminating those is quite helpful. I've seen methods of running old consoles via USB-C that offers the same benefit, including running a full Sega tower of power via one USB charger. That method and this one both have the same concern, which is having to be aware of polarity as there's no simple way around that. I know center positive is pretty much what everything has used for a long time. I don't quite know how uncommon center negative is in general, but, as the list shows, it's not uncommon for old game consoles to use that and that might be the only time I ever see center negative. I wonder if other things commonly used that and if that was maybe a regional thing.

Just for the sake of making things even more tricky, because why not, I see the Game Gear is both center negative and center positive, which is based on the region. I had no idea and never would have guessed. That seems to strange. The important thing is to always check the polarity to be sure.

First of all, very cool. Interesting that he has a target of 64 megabits. It's a decent amount of space for the SNES, but it will require some effort to use the space efficiently, but that was what developers dealt with at the time at lower capacities. We already see other fighting games on the 16-bit systems, so it's not hard to believe the SNES could do a respectable version of KOF. And game development is probably a bit easier now in some ways. For example, no worries about cart size and profitability.

So there are issues that come to mind. First is resolution. SNES has a typical resolution of 256x224 which is lower than Neo Geo, so a port would need some adjustment. That is normal and common. Street Fighter 2 was scaled down from a higher resolution. Then there are the sprite and pixel limits, particularly the horizontal limits. That's a normal limitation of the systems at the time. But it's not hard to come up against the limit with big sprites(made of smaller sprites). But other games do that just fine and the SNES seems well suited to fighting games. KOF is not a tag-team game, so it''s basically a one-on-one fighter in terms of its gameplay. The team element adds different complications, but the fights are one on one. I imagine dealing with the sound is another difficulty, but that would come later and depends on how everything else fits in the 64 megs.

KOF on the GBA turned out pretty well, especially the second one. The sprites looked good with some animation loss and it has the resolution limitation. As for the SNES, there are a number of fighting games from Capcom, SNK, and others. Natsume did two that I am aware of, the Power Rangers fighting game and their Gundam Wing fighting game, both of which are very impressive. And they used SlowROM. The Gundam game in particular looks really nice and always struck me as looking like it could pass as an early PS1 or Saturn fighter.

@h3s My recollection of KOF games at the time is that they didn't use the zooming effects of other SNK fighters. I'm not seeing the effect in a video either. If it was a factor, however, I think the best approach might just be to leave it out like the ports of Samurai Shodown did. As I recall, the Genesis version was zoomed in while the SNES version was zoomed out. Since a port of KOF would need some major adjustments due to the resolution, taking the zoom out might not be a bad idea in a hypothetical situation. But, as I said, I think KOF is different in that it didn't use that effect.

I know that the passage of time and hindsight factor in here, but it's interesting to see what might have been possible with a different approach. I had remembered seeing the Sonic fan game Sonic Robo Blast 2. It was a faux 3D game in the same way Doom was because it used the Doom engine. There's a 32X demo of it. It's pretty well done considering the limitations of not using polygons. The point is that it shows that both the Saturn and 32X could pull off a 3D Sonic in this style. Something like that could have turned heads, especially if they had it ready early enough. And then games like Croc and Tomb Raider, along with the aforementioned Penguin game, show that 3D was also viable in some way. I would also say that a 2D Sonic in a style that was clearly beyond the Genesis and SNES might not have been a huge system seller at the time, but it would have simply been good for the image of the system, not unlike how Symphony of the Night reflected well on the PS1's library a bit later. But it was a different time then. 3D was new and players were interested in that, but I also think execs took it too far at times, especially on the Sony side.

I played Kiaidan about a decade ago and figured I'd see it mentioned here. It was a good time and I liked the concept. I forget if I found out about Geppy because of Kiaidan, or if I discovered Kiaidan after learning about Geppy. The confusion stems from some indie games also using a '70s anime robot aesthetic. I do love anime robots, so I've always been curious about Geppy. I'm just finishing up watching Combattler V this week to show where I'm coming from. It's great that a game like this can get a second chance, along with getting a translation. I'll have to check it out. This type of game, a 2D shooter combined with extensive animated story sequences sounds like the same vision NEC and Hudson had for the PC-FX. From a game development standpoint, it doesn't sound very efficient in terms of making a profitable game, but it's super cool hearing the attention to detail that went into it. Also, nice to hear a bit about the process and how they consulted with the right holder of Getter Robo and how they were open to parody stuff while being protective of their IP. This was a great read.

@Martin_H I've heard anecdotes like that before. It's weird because, while dark, the screen never gave me any problems. It was very easy for me to see. I wonder if there was some amount of variation with the screens(like for the 3DS), or maybe the difference came down to eyes or lighting. It's just odd to have such wildly different experiences with that. Again, I'll admit it's dark, but it never seemed that dark to me. Perhaps that's why the reviews didn't mention it either.

@PowerPandaMods I alluded to that in my comment when I said I gravitated back to older style 2D games in that time, but you've stated that so well and concisely. Many GBA games felt like the 2D games from the past, but there were plenty of new ideas as well, which the platform itself enabled.

I have so many great memories of the GBA. It was what I was looking for in gaming at an important time in my life. With the Dreamcast failing to be the smash hit Sega needed, and after SNK's troubles, I was in a bit of a gaming depression. I also started to notice that, largely, I preferred the simpler 2D games of prior generations compared to where gaming was going. I also liked Nintendo the most during the Gamecube/GBA era. They were not on top of the world and seemed to be more consumer oriented as a result. I was a bit disappointed when Nintendo revealed the DS so soon into the GBA's life, but I understand that the PSP forced them to respond in some way.

When the GBA came out here, it seemed all the retailers only offered bundles. That's probably one of the reasons I waited a few weeks after launch, but I eventually relented after hearing all the praise for Tony Hawk, which I initially had no intent to buy. The bundle forced some accessories on me as well. The carrying case ended up being nice. The worm light came in super handy in 2012 when I was without electricity for three days. I played Pokemon(for the first time) to pass the time. So the bundle ended up being really good. Strangely enough, my first GBA arrived with a defective headphone jack.

I love the form factor of the original GBA. The screen didn't seem that dark to me at the time, but my only frame of reference was the Neo Geo Pocket. I had no problem playing Castlevania Circle of the Moon on it. Of course, now I can see how dark it is. But it wasn't as much of a struggle for me as it seems it was for others.

@Hairlesswookiee I imported it too, shortly after it came out. I don't know if it is true, I have come across speculation that Sega was looking to bring the 4MB RAM cart to the other territories, but the issue there would come down to how to distribute the cart and perhaps who should bear more of the cost, Sega or Capcom. More than anything, I think the timing of it all was the issue. X-Men vs. Street Fighter and the RAM cart came out late in 1997. Bernie Stolar had already infamously announced that the Saturn was not Sega's future, hastening its demise. In my opinion, he did that intentionally thinking the next system, eventually the Dreamcast, would be ready to go sooner than it was. But the RAM cart made even less sense after he did that.

It would have been interesting if things were a bit different and they did release the cart. It was one way where the Saturn was significantly superior to the PS1. Sega could have made the case for the Saturn being the real arcade-at-home system and try to also position it as a better second system for enthusiasts. The potential numbers probably weren't there. 2D fighters still sold well, but probably not well enough for that, but it's interesting to think about that time.

Sometimes "because you can" is not a good reason to do something. But sometimes it is. This is a situation where it is a great reason.

I understand the knee-jerk reaction to say "this is pointless" when taking just a quick glance at these projects. For example, a lot of people don't realize that those NES-to-SNES ports have added features or changes. Metroid gets a map. DuckTales gets accurate colors for characters(Scrooge gets his blue coat). They also include multiple soundtracks when available, and can fix flicker and slowdown. They can then be used as a foundation for future hacks, including graphical upgrades. I liked the ports in the first place, but ended up liking them way more after seeing them in action. For those who think they're pointless, just skip them and move along.

Of course, there is a point to them, even if its mostly on the developer side. There is much to learn from doing these projects, which can lead to original games later. Besides, the complaints of them being "pointless" often assumes the people who do these things would do something else otherwise, but that's not a given. Anyway, I appreciate these things.

Nobody needed Final Fight for the Mega Drive. But it's really cool to see. It's also my favorite version of the game because it looks and feels better than the Sega CD version, and is better balanced than the arcade version, in my opinion.

I never played this one, but I've had the experience where a "bad" game was way better than I was led to believe, or a bad game can be enjoyable when played in a specific way. And back in those days, we often did have to extract some kind of enjoyment out of a game that had issues because Steam backlogs hadn't been invented yet. I don't remember being familiar with this Macross game when it came out. I may have considered it since I loved anime and robots. I took a chance on the Gundam game for Dreamcast, Rise From The Ashes, which I imported from Japan, and ended up really liking it.

@fromwithin @Dinis the statement that it was ahead of its time struck me as a joke. The idea is that dithering has made a comeback because of quirks in graphics rendering, not unlike the Saturn for which dithering was a workaround for the system's own quirks. It's not so much praise for the Saturn as much as it is a mild dig against modern GPUs.

@metaphysician Yes, he did make a statement about that and it was covered here on this site. Here it is:

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/09/creator-of-ps1-emulator-duckstation-threatens-to-shut-the-whole-thing-down-following-license-change

One thing I will point out, and I mentioned it in a comment there, is that, despite his insistence that he knows how the licenses work, previous drama around this emulator clearly exposed that he didn't know how the GPL license worked. That's why he makes that assertion at the very beginning, because people pointed out he was wrong. I don't know enough to say he was wrong in his other claims, but I can't take his word for it.

I'm going to be up front and say that I don't particularly like this developer, but I do give him credit for developing what is apparently a very good PS1 emulator with great features. I know there's a lot of toxicity in this segment of the gaming community, so I'm not disputing that he gets hostile or entitled messages, but he also has stoked that in the past. Still, it's not cool. He's just so vague here. Android users don't want updates? What does that even mean? Mobile users tend to want more updates in my observation. That explanation is just so strange to me and communicates almost nothing. Clear communication has never been his strong suit. Volatility, however, is something he excels at. It's his choice to make, and that's fine. Good thing PS1 is well covered overall.

@tonyhoro Duckstation was open source not too long ago. He changed it. It has been forked and earlier versions under GPL can still be forked. The only issue here is the standalone Android version, though the current one should still be functional for a while. Someone could make a standalone fork for Android.

What jumps out at me as a potential issue of ergonomics is how close the bottom button is to the second stick. It looks like it could be an issue. Perhaps it wouldn't be in practice, but that's what came to mind. Of course, when you're adapting an existing controller to a dual-stick design, you're going to have more limitations on placement than if it were designed with that in mind from the start.

@Saki-Endo Yeah, that's one of those things that's just a feeling I get about it. I've never seen any hard evidence on that one, but also PC-FX information has always been limited in the past. There are also the rumors that Namco had a home console design around 1990 and that NEC was interested in it. There's enough reporting on it to conclude it existed, but not much beyond that. If the part about NEC being interested in it was true, that would have caused problems with Hudson. All that may have had some influence on the PC-FX as well. It's amazing how much changed in the industry in that transition from the early 1990s to the end of the decade, both it terms of the business side and the tech side of things.

@KingMike While I agree that something is not always better than nothing, it also is often the case. It looks to me that this is one of those situations where that old adage does apply, based on how the version that actually exists has been received. That this version has now been declared "a terrible waste of time" is their choice, and they're free to make it. It doesn't have to be a waste. But if their revised translation is so much better, then there's still good reason to continue, yet they don't.