sdelfin

That's cool. I was not aware of footage of the game with the jet. I had heard that was the original concept. It seems strange they would have memory issues having a jet in the game, especially on a scaler board which would already have a lot of expensive bits. My suspicion is that the jet would require more animation frames to look good in motion and in perspective than they could fit, while the human character didn't need as many unique frames. Just a theory as nothing seems especially over the top with the jet.

Cool to hear the love for Tenchu. Though Cole seems mistaken about the timing of the release of the DualShock. Still, the game was likely in development too early to incorporate analog control. But the point stands that Tenchu can benefit from some form of updating, especially to the controls. The series feeling clunky and old fashioned has always been a common complaint for the Tenchu series, so it is a good candidate for improvement in a number of ways.

I've just recently been playing some of the Tenchu games I haven't played as much. I last played the first two a few years back and still enjoyed them. I should say, Tenchu was the game that finally convinced me to get a PS1 as I was a Saturn guy back in the day, but releases really dried up in 1998. Been playing through Wrath of Heaven(which is one way to translate "Tenchu" which means the full game title is redundant) over the last week or so and been having a good time. I plan to keep playing the different layouts as well as some of the other games in the series. Clunkiness aside, it's got a lot of what I look for in 3D action games, and is still easily my favorite stealth experience, as I could never get into more popular franchises of that sort.

@SpeedRunRocks Yeah, it was Charlie from Anthrax. You're not my friend who house sat for him, are you? Or his brother that I also became good friends with?

That's cool. I had previously heard he spent time in his final days playing video games, so I'm not surprised to hear more about his interest in gaming. In recent months, I got really into Strider and Strider 2(PS1). I always liked the original, but was never any good at it, but I have since rectified that. Save states make that a good bit easier now than it would have been back then when he spoke about it. The final boss is easy once you see how things work, but I got thrashed for a while figuring that out. But I can 1CC the game now, which is only something I bother with if I really like a game because it's supposed to be fun. Speaking of fun, I did get to see Motorhead live a handful of times.

Interesting bit of trivia, back in the day a friend of mine lived next door to someone in a well known metal band and would house sit for him when he was on tour, so I got to spend a bit of time in his house. It was cool to see that among an impressive music collection he had a Simpsons arcade cabinet.

I always enjoy these little glimpses into what was going on behind the scenes with stuff like this. It reminds me of the "Untold History" stuff with Capcom. Whole KOF 94 was rough compared to what came later, I loved the concept and the general character design SNK went with. I suppose they didn't know if the concept would be appealing for arcade players. And around 1994, SNK was still not yet the fighting-game powerhouse it would become as Samurai Shodown was still current with the second game yet to come later on in 1994 as I can tell. So I guess that's where the concerns came from. I loved the KOF concept when I discovered it, but that was with KOF 97. Glad it worked out as I really loved SNK's approach to fighting games and I think Capcom really left an opening for another Japanese competitor in 1994 with how many revisions there were to SF2 rather than a proper sequel.

@skaarj217 Perhaps I have little sense!!! Yeah, I'm aware of it and remember that the PS4 version reviewed very well. It's just that I never had much reason to get a PS4 and have no plans at the moment to get one. Meanwhile, while this is an article about emulation, and I plan to play it that way, I still do have my copy of the game and a PS2 slim as well. It's still good enough to play under those circumstances, for me. If I ever get a PS4, or if it comes to PC, I'd probably pick up the remaster.

I did not realize PCSX2 was started so long ago. I just recently decided to try it out after getting a used mini PC with a Ryzen APU. It sounds like I had good timing. I'm aware of performance enhancements fairly recently that really helped for the computer I bought. It's a very nice emulator. Not too tricky to set up, and it runs very well. I look forward to revisiting things like Shadow of the Colossus, the Katamari Damacy games, along with trying out stuff I meant to play or would have liked to play but missed, like Sly Cooper and the Tenchu games.

@Asaki I see now. Thank you for clarifying. This whole thing has been a lot more interesting than I thought it would be when I first clicked on it.

@KingMike yeah, I've seen US arcade games be changed to be more difficult many times. I've told people to always try other regions before trying the US versions. I haven't played Revenge of Death Adder in a while, so I don't remember if there were differences in the difficulty, but one regional difference I do recall is that the game has branching paths, but in the US version, the paths the player does not take are then tacked on at the end before the final stage. Not only does this make a single play through longer(too long, in my opinion), it also makes the branching paths mostly meaningless.

Didn't expect this, especially with so many announcements at once. The Streets of Rage teaser is interesting since the franchise was already resurrected a few years ago. I only just bought SOR4 a bit over a year ago. It's a curious change of direction. The visual style may not work for me with the plastic-looking 3D models, but I'll want to see more of it. Golden Axe is similar. Not loving the way it looks, but it could play well. Yeah, I'd prefer an old-fashioned beat-em-up, but I get it. Shinobi looks like it could be very good. The art style looks cool, like a light version of the style used in GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon.

@Sketcz From your earlier post, it sounded like you couldn't see the Zelda 2 cards on Internet Archive and couldn't see the backs at all. They are on there as sheets of nine cards(the last two are with the stickers). That's the only way I could help out here, unfortunately. I see the Flickr galleries are higher resolution. It's a shame the backs are not there, but they are readable on the Internet Archive gallery so you can at least see what's going on there.

I don't mean this as a knock in any way, but I recall reading something talking about how Japanese animation studios were very generous with animation cels in situations like this because they otherwise had to dispose of them in a specific way to meet regulations, and giving them away saved them the cost of doing that. It's kind of a funny notion, but it worked out well for those who received them who might value them. I believe it was Robert Woodhead who spoke about that.

Interesting to hear more about this story and why the console Akira games never were finished. Imagine prioritizing Wayne's World over that. And I wonder what cancelled TV shows they licensed. I've always wondered how to do a decent Akira game on the 16-bit systems. I love the film, but it doesn't necessarily translate to a good video game easily. You could definitely adapt parts of it into an arcade-style beat-em-up game. It seems like it would likely need to be a mixed-genre game, to incorporate things like the bike, but those were hard to do well back then. However, Vice: Project Doom was an example of one of those done well.

@Sketcz Perhaps you've already sorted this part out, but when I go to that tweet and click the image, it takes me directly to Internet Archive and I see what looks to be all 10 cards for set 1 and all 10 for set 2, including the backs.

Based on the track record of Pyron, it was a smarter bet to believe what he was saying. I'm glad he has come out to explain it. If I could understand Brazilian Portuguese(which I've been around a lot, but not enough to figure out anything but certain basic words) I'd watch the whole thing. But he does some demonstrations and has some visual aids that are helpful. Those big sprite objects like Earthquake and Juggernaut use roughly 25 hardware sprites. It also showed how many horizontal and vertical pixels the characters are. Late in the video, he shows Juggernaut attacking and his arm exceeds the horizontal sprite limit and you can see the sprite flicker, which is something I expected as I figured two Juggernauts would be right on that line limit of 20 sprites for 320-wide mode, or 16 is it's using 256. I think it would be difficult to scale up into a full game. Even if that is possible to some level, it would have been impossible back in the day when cart sizes were a huge factor. Great to see more about this.

@Hexapus Yeah, and that was basically my point, that there's always some subjectivity with such things. I often do point out that all three of the versions I talked about are very good overall. Using the PCE version as an example, for some people the lack of parallax is not a big deal, but others consider it to be a deal breaker. And as the Genesis version has been improved after the fact demonstrating that Capcom could have done more with the game on the hardware, the same goes for the SNES version, so whichever version someone prefers isn't really indicative of the hardware. The SNES certainly could have had voice samples like the PCE version and the music could have sounded more like the arcade if they wanted. And Super SF2 on the SNES is a great improvement in the ways that matter to me(with one odd quirk). Of course, these days, if I play SF2, it's going to be the arcade version the vast majority of the time.

Beyond that, I decided to check into this chain combo after your last post. Perhaps the terminology within the fighting game community is different and the normal combos seem like chain combos to us. The video is about that cancel of the second kick to trigger a punch, which seems to be the key for big follow ups(probably for distance reasons). I was able to do the cancel pretty easily in the Genesis version once I understood the timing. It was a bit tougher for the arcade version, but I did it there too. As expected, I could not do the cancel in the SNES version. I was, however, able to have the second kick hit(which is expected behavior) and follow up with a hadouken, though I don't know if it would be unblockable as a true chain.

The design translates well due to that circular dome of the first model of the system. I wonder how much overlap there is between Genesis fans or those with nostalgia with the type of person who would want an expensive(though not by luxury watch standards) watch. A Genesis theme for a watch seems more of a novelty as opposed to a status symbol than those into expensive watches would be about.

I've been aware of different efforts to translate this game into English for the various platforms. I'd check periodically. It was nice to learn earlier this year of the progress made here, so it was really great and unexpected news to see it today. I was legitimately surprised when I saw that it was complete.

@MoriyaMug thank you for your efforts in doing this. I have no doubt it was quite a lot of work to make this happen.

@Hexapus Capcom did outsource some of their games, and may have been doing so with the beta version of the game that is out there now, but as I understand it, Capcom developed SCE internally in the end. Sega may have insisted. I do want to say that the SNES port of the first edition of SF2 is probably the most important game of the 16-bit generation.

I've looked pretty thoroughly into the differences between the SNES, Genesis, and PCE versions of the game, and there are more differences than it seems, and each version had advantages and disadvantages. I disagree that the Genesis sound was laughably bad as you put it, but I also know your opinion is not unusual. The scratchy voice samples in the Genesis version just never bothered me, even back in 1993 when I rented it, but I'm just one guy. I have to point out that the voices on the SNES are incredibly muffled, so it's not really a huge improvement, at least to my ears. PCE version has the best voices by a mile. As for music, I find the SNES versions all over the place. Some is great, but some not so much. Ken's theme on SNES is really bad for me, and I've seen that view shared by others as well. I think the Genesis version has the most consistent music. The Genesis version also has extra elements in the backgrounds that the others lack. I say all that to show that there are good reasons to prefer any of those three versions, depending on what one prioritizes. And each of those three has their fans. Just to give a little idea of where I'm coming from, while I did rent the Genesis version first, I ended up picking up a SNES and ended up owning Turbo for it, yet I still prefer the Genesis version now.

I agree that Capcom really messed up the sound for Super Street Fighter 2 on Genesis. They probably should have stayed closer to how they composed it for SCE. The SNES version is the way to go there, and the music was much more consistently pleasant for me.

I imported my Dreamcast early, in February of 1999. It was a bit of an unexpected thing. I was already accustomed to importing games for my Saturn, so I just continued doing that. I always felt like it took too long for SoA to get the Dreamcast to market in North America, though I'm sure some of that was due to supply. SoA had almost nothing to sell for a year and a half. DC was a cool system in a lot of ways. The controller was a step down though. I didn't have as much time for the Dreamcast as I did for the Saturn due to other things going on. But I had a good time with it. I picked it up with Sonic Adventure. Other games that stood out for me included: Crazy Taxi, King of Fighters: Dream Match '99(Enhanced port of KOF98), Virtual On 2, Gundam 0079: Rise From the Ashes, among others.

@cakeashi Virtual On 2 plays great even without the sticks, though that sounds like a great experience. I picked that one up right when it came out in Japan after loving the first one on the Saturn. I still enjoy that one. One of my favorites for the system.

There are probably quite a few reasons it didn't succeed. I think, more than anything, it was simply the financial position Sega was in. They needed it to be a smash hit very quickly. If you go back to the Genesis in North America, and I know the market had changed in that 10 years, but it took almost two years for that to take off. Sega didn't have that kind of time with the Dreamcast, sadly. Literally.

@Coolmusic You must be mistaking Burning Rangers for something else as that has only ever been available on the Saturn.

This makes me wonder why is was not included for the SNES but retained for the Genesis. And I wonder about the PC Engine version. There are two versions of Street Fighter 2 on SNES based on CPS1 games. If both of them have that "fix", then that makes it odd that Hyper Fighting arcade wasn't fixed since it came out a bit after the first port. It also seems to be a weird thing for Sega to ensure was included by Capcom for their version. I suppose it's possible they consulted with high-level players. It's an odd situation.

One of my favorite things to point out and laugh about is how this needed to be a low-cost device so as not to be too close in price to current major consoles(which would make it extra pointless than it already was), and they went way overboard with the controller design having their own screens. And how were those things supposed to work, anyway? Just look at those things. If you ever needed a good example of feature creep, there you go.

Excellent feature. Nice to know more of the story behind this game. I can relate to those who sampled the early builds and didn't get it. I didn't get a chance to play Gunstar Heroes when it was current. A couple of decades later, I finally sat down with it. The first time I played it, I just didn't get it. Part of that is probably due to the technical stuff not being so novel in the 2010s. I forgot if I finally understood the game on my second attempt, or if I gave it a third try. But once I finally got it, that was it. I was definitely on the bandwagon at that point. I can see why it might have been overlooked at the time, especially for people whose job it was to sample games in batches. Many times, when I have sampled groups of games, it's easy for a good game to get lost in the shuffle.

I actually ended up playing the GBA sequel first. Even that one I didn't get to until years after I got it(such is life, sometimes). My first impression of it was that it was cool, but it just felt really unusual in its game mechanics and visual feedback. That same unusual feeling was there when I played the original. It made it just a bit tougher to jump into it compared to other games like a Metal Slug or something like that. But it was worth giving it another shot as it really is one of the best experiences on the Genesis. I thought it was chaotic in the best of ways.

Exact seemed to be one of the MVPs as developers on the X68000. Their games tend to be mentioned among the best games, especially original games, for the platform. I'm not familiar with that shooter, but Geograph Seal and Etoile Princess both looked very good from videos and things I have heard. I have tried Aquales and thought it was well made and played great. I'd like to play that one fully at some point.

Very interesting interview. I agree with his approach to game design at the time of the 2D to 3D transition. 3D was cool, but it was also limiting in other ways in those days when polygon throughput was limited and features were relatively primitive. Gameplay is always important, but it was especially important then when there were limits of the Saturn, PS1, and N64. It makes a lot of sense for the time to decide on the fundamentals of the game first, then deciding whether 2D or 3D suited it better. Of course, market trends got in the way, especially when it came time to localize games from Japan.

It's a bit surprising to hear his takes on Alien Soldier and Light Crusader, but I suppose when you have so many more ideas for a game and have to cut them, it's hard to see it a different way. I think both games are fantastic. Alien Soldier is very technically impressive. It was a bit tricky to learn, but it was worth it as I think its gameplay is also great. And while the interview doesn't specifically mention it, it does lead me to believe that I was correct in assuming at least one of the visual effects(the falling moth wing) is using a polygon. As for Light Crusader, I picked that one up used to play on a Nomad. I was aware of the game and heard it was good. I liked it then and replayed it several years ago and still enjoyed it. The music in the game is very good which always helps.

@KingMike The North American version had limited continues, but also a password system, which made it easy enough to continue. This hack just simplifies things.

Very interesting. Of course, the one advantage now is not having to worry about ROM size. Still, I'm surprised to see Juggernaut and Hulk look so good and big on the Genesis/Mega Drive. In a way, the Marvel sprites are a good fit for the limited color of the system, because the sprites are drawn to be simple and clean with minimal, but effective, shading. That helps lend the game a comic book or cartoon look, but also means the sprites don't need a ton of colors. With the characters as big as they are, I do wonder how close this would be to the overall and horizontal sprite limit. I also wonder if they'd run into palette issues with other characters. I'd like to see if they go further with this, just to see what's possible as it is already impressive.

I admire the dedication and attention to detail, and I appreciate how loose and casual game design was back in the day. No way that kind of research would get the green light for a game like that. I think it paid off for Out Run as I'm always amazed how convincing the car handling is in that one. I always liked this concept as an arcade game. I remember playing it when it was current in arcades and I was pretty satisfied I was able to park the thing on my first try for the bonus stage. I have been wanting to revisit the game on the Dreamcast.

One correction here. He may have actually driven route 66, but the New York to Florida trip would have been Interstate 95, which is famous/infamous as well. Route 66 goes nowhere near either NY or FL.

@Gs69 Yes. I remember the Hanshin Tigers edition of the Neo Geo Pocket. I kind of wanted one, but it didn't make a lot of sense when that money could go to more NGP games.

I still have never played Mario Kart 64, so I'm not sure what it was about Double Dash that some people didn't like, but I have heard some say they didn't like it as much. Some of that might be track design. When Double Dash was new, I was very into the Gamecube. I got to play a good bit of the game at a Best Buy on a demo unit and liked it enough that I had to get it and it was a great addition to my library.

@AceGrace Considering how that was a trend when it started, I suspect there are some guidelines or suggestions that Youtube provides to video creators on how to catch people's eyes for whatever reason. I recall another time when a whole bunch of people seemed to have a new style of title cards that all looked really similar in terms of font used and text placement.

Something I have pointed out many times on this topic is that the differences in the systems goes much deeper than the surface-level specs, though those are important too. But there are strengths and weaknesses that go beyond the spec sheets. Here, it's areas where the CPU is better in practical ways. To use the SNES as an example, it has some strange limitations below the surface(sprite sizes, VRAM issues, sound RAM) that would add to difficulties for developers. The way I've heard it is that the Genesis/Mega Drive is more flexible. Of course, it had its own limitations. Both systems had great games and solid libraries. But it is good to hear great developers of the time give their opinions. I've heard other developers say similar things. But I've also heard other developers who like the features and color palette flexibility on the SNES, to be fair.

@smoreon yeah. I dreaded revisiting Zelda 2 for a while due to memories of it being so punishing and clunky. When I did, I really enjoyed its core gameplay. The rough edges are there, though modern conveniences mitigate that quite a bit. So something like this that makes improvements is very cool.

I don't normally like grinding for experience in games, but I didn't mind it so much in Zelda 2. It was pretty amusing maxing out early and one-shotting some of the early bosses.

That main image is pretty ugly. I watched the video and commented on NintendoLife. It looks better in motion. Back to the main image, the black outlines on the werewolves and hockey guy against that background just make them look like flat paper cut outs. Backgrounds seem overly bright and clean for a horror game. Same for the character shading. It's very basic(especially the werewolves) but it's missing a focus on light and shadow that you'd expect from something with a horror theme. As I said, the game looks better in the video, and it is a work in progress, so we'll see how it goes.

Definitely a good idea for a book. At times, especially later on, I think Treasure sometimes went too far with odd game mechanics, but there's no doubt they did some great work, both technically and conceptually. Games like Gunstar Heroes(which I didn't quite like at first), Alien Soldier, and Light Crusader are some of my favorites of the 16-bit era.

On the mention of Sega working with various other studios, Gau Entertainment's Ranger X feels a lot like the sort of game Treasure would have made. It's action packed, chaotic, filled with detail, and maybe a little tough for some to get into due to unusual controls. It's one of my favorites on the Genesis/Mega Drive.

Crazy that it took so long for this game to be released outside of Japan. A lot of times, a game with such a reputation fails to live up to that(Castlevania 4 is one such game for me), but Rondo exceeded my expectations and is my favorite of the classic Castlevania. Bloodlines is another great one from those early games.

When I first watched the video, I thought it had that distinctive Saturn look to it, so I'm not surprised to see that it's real. And it is just a small portion of the game. It would be interesting to see how the Saturn would fare with a more complex area and enemies in place. Aside from that, I love the idea of Segata Sanshiro being the new Rickroll.

I just played through Super Mario Bros. 3 twice a week or so ago. I didn't even think about it being an anniversary, so that's just a happy accident. I still consider it among the best games ever and certainly a very important game.

In terms of release schedules, that was a very strange time. Games took much longer to see releases outside of Japan, but this one had strange circumstances. First was how the original Super Mario 2 was rejected by Nintendo of America(NoA) which led to the conversion of Yume Kojou: Doki Doki Panic to be Super Mario 2(USA). Super Mario 2 was released in the US right around the same time as Super Mario 3 came out in Japan, so they needed to wait to let people miss Mario for a bit, at least in theory. Add to that, there were issues with the supply of ROM chips at that time, something which affected, but was also affected by, the releases of Zelda 2 and Mario 2. So Nintendo was waiting out that situation as well so that there would be fewer supply issues for Mario 3. I remember how surprising it was when I learned that Mario 3 was actually released in late 1988. Very impressive game design, especially for that moment in time.

Despite not being from Europe, I did most of my gaming in the 8-bit era on a Sega Master System, and I enjoyed that thing. Most of my friends had Nintendo, so I got to play it a lot as well, and I recognized that some games had no equal on the SMS. While I wanted the Genesis, I ended up getting a NES pretty late, I think it was in 1990, though it may have been 1989. And the NES was a lot of fun as well. Partly because I got the system so late, I wasn't caught up in the hype for Mario 3 and I never had it. Of course, all my friends had it so I played it plenty. It's funny, I ended up borrowing it two separate times for extended periods because those friends had basically played it so thoroughly that they were sick of it(they had lots of fun up to that point). They basically insisted I borrow it. I may still have one of those copies. But it's a fantastic game. The first copy I ever owned properly, oddly enough, was the GBA version(I had previously accidentally purchased an illegitimate copy) and I didn't get that until 2013, so my history with the game is odd.

Kenseiden is a good candidate for a fan remake or follow up. As soon as I saw the twitter post up above, I saw how they've pulled assets and ideas from other games, and this isn't a knock against them since it's just a work in progress right now and they're likely still in very early stages. From the pics and videos, I noticed Revenge of Shinobi, Shinobi 3, Valis 3, and Super Empire Strikes Back. I'm sure there are other games in there too.

If I had to guess about games that had/have undiscovered hidden content, NBA Jam would definitely have been at the top of my list already.

I was just playing SMB3 right before I saw this article. I always assumed there was a trick to the slot-machine game, but I was never interested in it so I always just approached it as purely a game of chance. I don't even look at the screen when I do that game. As for the card game, I probably had heard about the shuffling before, but I could not recall that but did read about it a couple of days ago. Eight possible layouts is just a bit off from 57.9 billion(if that's correct....seems high). Great game, nonetheless.

This product is definitely not for me. The N64 is not among my favorite systems, to put it mildly. And while FPGA gaming is cool, I lost interest in the concept years before the Mister was a thing because software emulation is quite good and covers my needs well. I think some people get caught up in the idea of FPGA a bit.

But, the N64 is probably a good call as it is a system that is a bit more limited in its output and can benefit more from this treatment. Plus, they don't have to deal with optical drives for it, which could add complexity. I suspect they'll eventually go that route. It seems some of the N64 fans are excited about it. Hopefully it ends up living up to expectations and availability isn't an issue.

Would be funny if someone made a prequel game for Frasier set in a bar in Boston. It could be an arena-style beat-em-up game like Combatribes or something.

Funny to hear this using MARS as an acronym when we just heard about all the terrible XBox names, including MARZ. Coincidence? Yes, totally.

@UK_Kev Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, by the time the system was out, going with six face buttons made the most sense to me. Even with the SNES having six total buttons, I always hated using shoulder buttons for main functions in fighting games.

I got around to trying the 3DO version of Super Street Fighter 2 earlier this year and compared it directly to the arcade version. I was actually surprised by the changes for the port as it has noticeable concessions, and beyond just the background layer. I only mention that because of how often people say it is perfect aside from the backgrounds. With that said, it's still a very good port at the time and would have felt perfect for those that had it at the time. It was clearly a step up over the Genesis and SNES versions and would have been an impressive sight back in 1994 and 1995.

I always found it odd that they went with a three-button controller as the default for the 3DO. It was really a missed opportunity to not launch with a six-button pad as standard. Fighting games were already popular and they really could have marketed the system as the ideal way to play arcade fighters while also pushing other game experiences on the platform.

They're terrible because they're all forced acronyms. That's rarely a thing that works. The Microsoft Entertainment & Gaming Attendant(MEGA)? Attendant??? Meanwhile, Mega Drive worked just fine for Sega. So did Genesis. Saturn worked too, in Japan, but I don't think the name was the issue elsewhere. This list is a good example of what overthinking things looks like.

It looks interesting so far. The Metal Slug DNA is there, and some might think it's too much, but I like it. The 3D backgrounds look good so far and don't look as mismatched with the sprites as is the case sometimes. I did have a couple of concerns, however. One is that the lighting effects already look to be a bit too much. The other thing is something I talk about a lot, which is the screen shake. I find that really unpleasant and I will skip over games because of it. But many games make that optional, so hopefully that do that here.

@Gs69 @belmont I think there's pros and cons when it comes to the decision to go with regular batteries. People could still use their own rechargeables and it means people wouldn't have to deal with an internal degrading battery after a while. But I mainly wanted to point out that there's a version 2 of the G Pi case which has an internal lithium battery, though it's designed for the compute module 4 instead of the Zero.