sdelfin

When this controversy originally started, I said that since the material was open source, the only thing breached was some silly etiquette. And I saw some of the comments that were more negative on the translation that was actually released(and if I recall it may have been revised), but at the end of the day, having something released is better than nothing. Considering how much time the project was taking from the original people, I am also among those who believe it was unlikely to ever come out. And then they insisted their translation was worth waiting for and they were totally going to do it. I would have believed it if I saw it, but believed we never would. They could release their script, if they truly don't want this to be a waste of time. But this conclusion is what I expected, and the way they've handled their public image has been less than stellar, to put it mildly.

I always got the impression, accurate or not, that the PC-FX was designed just a tad too early and potentially held back from release. It is possible that was not the case but NEC and Hudson just didn't think 3D was going to be ready for the home for a while still. Even Sega, a pioneer of 3D in video games, misjudged the timing of 3D for the home, perhaps because their arcade 3D was incredibly expensive making them blind to what was possible for home consoles in the mid 1990s. And this also reminds me of Sega's other poor timing with 3D, with the Dreamcast being impressive in 1998, but with a huge explosion of 3D hardware to follow shortly, leading to very quick ramping up of capabilities. In terms of being a direct upgrade to the PC Engine, it doesn't seem so bad. It's possible too that it might have been capable of higher resolution 2D in gameplay with the memory upgrades which were planned. And the high quality FMV wasn't a bad idea at the time for enhancing the presentation of the games and making development easier. That's another thing the Saturn didn't quite get right, while the N64 didn't have the media that lent itself to good FMV.

One of the things Nintendo did better than everyone else was developing brand loyalty. NEC and Hudson made some missteps with the likes of the Supergrafx. Not only is the library small, but game releases were spread out over a period approaching two years. That couldn't help them either.

Great piece. Very enjoyable to read.

@Reko yeah, my phrasing was poor. I meant it only got a Neo CD version as home conversions go. Obviously, it had that arcade MVS release. Nice to see that the game has seen re-release since I first commented.

I remember those rumors at the time and they were persistent enough that I assumed they were based on reality. Yes, Sega did themselves no favors with their hardware strategy prior to that undermining consumer confidence in them due to the add ons especially the 32X. The Saturn's install base was probably a factor as well and not worth it at that stage of its life. And it may not have been worthwhile based on what results the TRIP could even produce and the cost. It would be cool to get an idea on both of those. The RAM carts were viable in Japan, so it would be interesting if they had brought those west, especially the 4MB with X-Men vs. Street Fighter. I think there was a way to do that without too much confusion. It's a shame because that expandability was one of Saturn's best features and a weakness of the PS1. But again it comes down to install base and game sales. Fighting games sold well, but probably not THAT well going into 1998.

It's a tricky thing because I would assume they're abandoning the concept, if that's the case, because of low interest. But then that might stem from the price of the unit limiting the appeal. Different control options might appeal more to the retro crowd since modern control schemes are more standardized, and a unit like this is more than most retro types would want to pay. The concept was cool, though it leaves the six-button module oriented oddly, but I can't judge it without trying it. Personally, as much as I prefer the original layouts when possible, though not necessarily original controllers, I'm also highly adaptable, for example I can switch between Xbox and PS layouts no problem, so a module setup like this is not enticing enough for me.

A bit over a year ago I opted to get a Razer Edge, which was reviewed here earlier last year. The review was mixed, but fair, though the issues didn't put me off. The unit had a nice discount for black Friday which made it a good value. The fact that it's a mini tablet means I can change controllers that can accommodate phones and such. I already have 8bitdo's telescopic pad in addition to the Razer pad that came with it for different feel and to have a backup option. If someone made such a pad with six face buttons, then I'd be well covered.

PPSSPP is really good and improvements are always welcome. I did run into some audio issues on certain stages of Guilty Gear Judgement(which I do own, and it was one of the first PSP games I bought, actually). I'll have to update once it's rolled out and see if that game is fixed.

The dream will turn into a nightmare when the hand cramps kick in. That does not look comfortable for gaming sessions of any reasonable length for NES and SNES games. I know it's not meant to be practical, but I don't think such a mod is worth the time.

I've always heard Layzner was a well liked mecha show among those who have seen it. I read about a while back and hoped they'd bring it over here on blu ray which they eventually did. I waited patiently for that. I don't believe it got a proper release here due to technical issues the first time they tried to bring it over. It's still on my watch list, but it's probably something I'll get to later this year. I'm making my way through shows at a steady pace. Perhaps I'll move Layzner up the list of stuff to watch. Similarly, I've only played a tiny bit of Omega Boost, but I've heard good things about it over the years. Perhaps I'll move that up the game back log too. Seems like a good idea to coordinate it so that I play Omega Boost while I'm in the middle of Layzner. Anyway, that was cool to hear, but also his stuff about game design was very interesting. It all made a lot of sense, but it's not the kind of stuff you'd realize without someone telling you, I think.

This looks cool. I like when devs take a bigger concept, like MGS and make it fit within something more limited like the GBC and Ghost Babel. However, I have to be cautious because I don't like Metal Gear Solid as a franchise. Ghost Babel was more enjoyable for me, especially the VR missions, but it also did some of the things I don't like about MGS, like being more wordy than it needed to me. I also didn't love the stage design of the main missions. The base gameplay was really good though, especially considering the limits of the GBC. As this has a demo, I'll have to check it out and see what I think.

Always sad to hear news like this. Just from what was listed here, his work on the DS Castlevania games are what I know best and I enjoyed those games very much. 52 is too young, but that's the uncertainty of life.

This is interesting to see. In addition to the color capabilities of the system, another thing the SNES has going for it is the pixel resolution matches the original PS1 game as it was 256 pixels wide. Strange that the Saturn did not support that resolution which is why the graphics in the game look a bit off in spots like diagonal surfaces having some issues. If such a project was to go beyond a demo stage, the matching resolution would be helpful as assets throughout the game could be used without modification in terms of size and it would look correct.

When it seemed like everone I knew got the NES, I got a Master System, then got the NES later. I thought I would wait for the SNES, but opted for the Genesis instead and got the SNES later. I could have gone either way as far as being a Sega or Nintendo guy, but I always found myself coming back to Sega. I never had much interest in the N64, but I loved my Saturn and ended up importing a Dreamcast early. It's impressive how he was involved in designing all of the Sega systems I had and loved so much.

Of course, I had many good times with Nintendo too. The NES and SNES were great. Peak Nintendo for me was Gamecube and GBA at the same time.

With it being set in the year 2997, they won't have to worry about getting things wrong when that year comes around like with games and other media set in the near future. Stuff like that can be pretty funny sometimes. As for the game, the pixel art looks very nice. And in the little video clip, the animation looks great as well. Seeing that level of quality for the presentation definitely makes this worth keeping an eye on.

I have no problem with other visual styles. The overall art in the new Castlevania looked pretty good to me. I had other concerns with it. I do think pixel art tends to look more cohesive more often. The sprites usually look like they belong in their settings. That seems to be a bit more difficult with other 2D styles where characters and backgrounds can come across as disconnected, or just seem really flat. That's not in every case or even the majority, but it can be an issue with more modern non-pixel graphics.

@smoreon My understanding is that this is a further overclock over the prior Turbo core. The main CPU is also overclocked in those cores past the 94MHz. This new core overclocks the coprocessor even more than the 80MHz of the prior core and it's apparently 94MHz. That's where the confusion comes in.

I think there are a lot of factors in that shift. Japan was at the forefront during the 8-bit era through the PS2 era. Games were different then. I remember reading someone's thoughts on this topic. Back then, games were games. They were playthings designed for novelty and a high amount of entertainment value. As the technology improved, large 3D worlds were possible. This favored western developers who had already prioritized realism. As new kind of games emerged, or when 3D worlds increased in scope, some people gravitated towards those things, while others still preferred the more surreal stuff that Japan was so good at. One example of a great concept that came out of Japan in a time of changing tastes was Katamari Damacy. When I first saw that, my thought was that it was a genius concept. Western games seem to excel when the point is creating a large world with tons of stuff to do. Plus, over time, we've seen an influx of indie developer from all over the world. I think it's just an inevitable evolution of the industry. As there are more choices of different kinds, there's less of a concentration of the player base, even though some of these games with giant worlds do seem to have a wider appeal.

Of all the things one could do, they made Mandara a little bit harder? This is why we can't have nice things.....

Cool seeing a hack like this for Shinobi and the Master System in general. I don't think there are a ton of Master System hacks. The SMS port of Shinobi was also my introduction to the Shinobi series. I don't know when I learned about the arcade version being different. I enjoy both versions now. The changes to the SMS version work quite well and the game was one of my favorite games for the SMS. Back to the Mandara thing, I assume it's to maintain game balance if the firing rate is increased. Mandara used to be so irritating when I was a kid. I know in the arcade version that Mandara's statues will take more damage before destruction if you're playing well. The game has some variable difficulty going on.

I had Battletoads when it was new. The Turbo Tunnel was tough, but I memorized it and was able to reliably beat it. I beat it many times, so I agree with others who say it's not as hard as some say. But it is a big difficulty spike. However, later stages in the game really irritated me. There's the rat race, the snake level, and the hand bike part. The timing on some parts is just so obnoxious. I reached a point with that game where I said "never again" and never played the game ever since. That's not what you want a game to do.

A previous commenter said they don't like beat-em-ups much. I'm the opposite. I love beat-em-ups. Another thing I found irritating about Battletoads is that it had too much variety for me. From the platforming, to the different "bikes", the rat race, etc, I eventually just got annoyed that so much of the game wasn't a beat-em-up. As a result of it all, I was one and done with Battletoads. Never touched any game in the series after that.

This is probably a good call for now for a brand like this. I've never been sucked into Warhammer, but as an outsider, it looks like there's a lot of great art that goes along with it. A property like this seems to celebrate creativity and keeping that human touch seems like it would be important to the fans that they have. Embracing AI-generated visuals likely wouldn't be received well by the fan base that they have.

@Ristar24 The shoulder triggers on the DC controller are also much less durable than the Saturn 3D pad. I'm easy on my stuff, and I had one break on me. It's quite common. I've been inside both pads and the Saturn triggers are obviously better built.

@Deuteros Happy to recommend it and hear that you're interested. It's a long one, but I watched and enjoyed every minute, so I'll likely do the same for the ones you suggested. I will make a note shortly so I don't forget. I hope you enjoy the Sunsoft one as much as I did.

Sega's one of my favorites and was a big part of my life as I gravitated toward them more than Nintendo, so thanks, indeed, for "paving the way" as was said above. And 95 is a long life. I hope they were quality years. It was such a novel idea at its start at the right time and it took on a life of its own. I remember how surprised I was when I first learned of Sega's American roots.

@Deuteros Yeah, I think it's easy to forget the early connections such as Gulf + Western, though I've definitely heard that before. The Sega brand goes back a long way, but the company feels more like distinct incarnations.

I have not seen any of those documentaries, but I imagine they could be very good. I just watched the Digital Foundry retrospective on Sunsoft two days ago, and it was fantastic.

@gojiguy from what I've been seeing, people have reported getting shipping notifications and some people already seem to have received their units.

This is cool. I don't remember how I first heard of the game years ago, but I found it appealing and hoped that there would be a translation of the PC Engine version someday. I'll have to try it out soon.

@KingMike and to think I bought Gunstar Super Heroes at full price when it was new. I didn't look at the bargain bins much because the stores in my area never seemed to have good stuff most of the time. But I do remember my one great "clearance" find, also at Best Buy. Beyond Good & Evil was a game I was planning to pick up anyway, but it was competing with a bunch of other games that I got first. BG&E was marked down to $10 within a month of its release, and I didn't hesitate to get it when I saw that price.

The funny part about me getting Gunstar Super Heroes right away was that I had never actually played the original up to that point.

I get the urge to poke fun here because of just how many of these things have come out, and it seems some companies have a new model every few weeks. The idea of taking a shot at them crossed my mind as well. And other people did that. Sadly, while these emulation handhelds are not that important in the grand scheme of things, this is a good symbol of the current mess with PC hardware, and the RAM pricing spike. I'd rather live in a world of way too many emulation handhelds than the one where AI data centers buy up all the hardware they can while giving the manufacturers an excuse to price gouge and even shutter consumer brands reducing competition further.

@Guru_Larry I remember finding the whole Roguelike/Roguelite thing so confusing. After looking into it, the way I look at it is: Rogue is Rogue. All games that use the same rules and setup as Rogue, but are not Rogue, are Roguelikes. Games that use some of the characteristics of Rogue, but not all, are Roguelites. So a side-scrolling game has to be a Roguelite because Rogue is not a side-scrolling game. Is my view of this whole situation right? I have no idea!!!

When the term was fresh, I saw it as describing Castlevania games done in the Metroid style of exploration. From the time SotN came out, all the way through Order of Ecclesia on DS, all those Castlevania games were the most prominent examples of the genre and were considered to be among the best games on their respective platforms. That's why the term stuck, and morphed into a catch-all term for games of the style. Say what you want about Metroid doing it earlier, but Castlevania snatched ownership of the genre away from Metroid, arguably doing it better, but definitely being more popular for a long time.

Language is a funny thing, and imperfect. Metroidvania as a term became a thing organically. There are people who don't like the term, and that's fine. There are those who want to push alternatives. One of the reasons why is because to understand what Metroidvania communicates requires prior knowledge of the games to a degree. Every suggestion I've heard falls short and communicates almost nothing. For those who know what Metroidvania is, even in passing as most people do now, it communicates so much more than any generic term people suggest.

I liked Pit Fighter in the arcade and I enjoyed the Genesis port which my friend had. This is an interesting find. It's functional because it's basically the first game's engine with some new stages and characters. I bet a lot was meant to change. The clock is not implemented which breaks the grudge match mirrod fights. I found it funny how you fight the Executioner three times in a row. Definitely placeholder stuff in the game. Good to see it regardless.

I just played this one again a few weeks back. I was in a weird Game Boy mood. I'm sure it will turn out great and I look forward to it.

Looks interesting enough from the trailer. Definitely worth checking out the Steam demo for the game, which I'll have to do over the weekend.

Quartet and SDI were never big games for Sega. That's what's good about larger game collections. More popular games will sell the product, and games like that will be there for fans, and other people can discover them. As a two-game package deal, it's not a strong pair from a marketing standpoint.

I remember reading about this back in the day. I've always liked the idea of demakes, even if they don't always work out well. This was a fascinating concept at the very least, and I'm surprised they were able to get this much out of the GBC in this style.

The start date in December 1995 appears to be wrong. And I thought that was late. I'm seeing that it started in 1994, which makes more sense. This is a very cool discovery. I heard about the extended version of Garfield, and I would definitely be interested in playing that as I like that game.

The action sections control well. They're just a bit simple in terms of the gameplay mechanics. They probably would need more if they were to carry an entire game. Even if it was a bit of an accident, the fact that the game combined action and sim sections helped it to stand out and probably helped to make the game enduring. I didn't play the game in its time, and I didn't enjoy it at first, but I ended up having a great time. The two gameplay styls were combined very well.

I knew there was a difference. Someone pointed it out somewhere, in a comment or message board post. I happened to see it, so I knew about it for quite a while.

Yeah, the trailer is impressive. The art direction, pixel art, and animation(both the gameplay and the opening sequence) are quite good. My least favorite thing in the trailer is that the character portraits move. It looks a little odd and the character art is so strong to not need the motion. But that is a very small thing. I also liked that there was minimal screen shake in the trailer. Just a tiny amount toward the end as an accent which doesn't seem like an issue. This is definitely something to add to the list.

I get why he had the idea. When FPS games were fairly new, I wondered what else could be done in first-person. Of course, it turns out it's very difficult to do non-shooting action in first person. I don't think it would have turned out very well. Not that it matters all that much since Streets of Rage would go dormant for so long anyway.

I never liked that method and decided I would never use it. Just a personal choice. There were some people warning against its use back in the day. Luckily, I haven't been in a position to need it. My Dreamcast and SNES both still look new. But I decided that if they did yellow, and if I wanted to remedy that, then I would paint them. The SNES would look pretty snazzy in black with it's purple switches.

Quite often, I'd come across a great soundtrack on the Genesis and come to learn it was by Hitoshi Sakimoto. He was always one of my favorite composers of that era, once I learned who he was and how often his compositions landed well with me.

Always good when news of more translations comes out. I'm not familiar with this one, but Dimps tended to do good work, so that's a good start, and reviews seems pretty good.

@KingMike I guess that makes the game a timed exclusive, of sorts. I guess, by the time the Super Famicom was a thing, Capcom determined that Ghouls 'n Ghosts had been done enough(Mega Drive, SuperGrafx, X68000) and maybe was past the window they thought was right for a port, so they decided to make a new game instead. Funny how that works out. Surprising to think they didn't do a version for GBA or DS.

In a funny coincidence, I was looking up some GBA stuff a few days ago and learned about the added stuff for GBA Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for the first time this week, and tried it out last night, as I write this.

If this is the future of gaming, then I might get through my backlog after all.

@The_Nintendo_Pedant "in all fairness I can't keep these titles straight"

I misread it at first and thought the mistake was that it was listed as Ghouls 'n Ghosts, so I can relate that it's hard to keep it straight, or that it's easy to make such a mistake. Good thing for me I went back to double check what it said.

The mistake has been fixed now.

The article may have been updated, but there's still a blunder(for shame.....just kidding). This is the blunder: "it clearly has a Ghouls 'n Goblins sticker on it" and the sticker is not wrong.

There's a Ghouls 'n Ghosts
There's a Ghosts 'n Goblins
But there's no Ghouls 'n Goblins

(edit: and it has been fixed. And there was much rejoicing. Yay.)

@RupeeClock I think your theory may be correct. I dug out my original GBA to test. It looked fine. I didn't notice any issues with the background scrolling on that original screen. I think the characteristics of the screen made it so that 30fps didn't look unusual or wrong on those original models, at least to my eyes. At the time Super Circuit came out, that was the only model GBA. Such a thing would only have become an issue on later models, perhaps just the very late backlit models of the SP and the Micro line. I didn't get a chance to grab my DS to test the game on that, assuming it still works, to see how different it looks there, but it did look just fine on my GBA. As you said, it may have looked better on that screen. But since it was also an early game, perhaps they also wanted to save CPU cycles either to reduce battery draw or to give themselves more to work with for everything else, including audio. It could be a combination of all of those.

Yeah, these voxel mods specifically allow the game to keep its original look to the point where it doesn't look like the mod does much. But that's to the credit of such modders. What it does is make the 3D world more cohesive. As others have said, static items that only had one sprite that always faced the player will be the most obvious things. Everything is now in full 3D and will be visible from different perspectives. It's subtle, but it goes a long way to make it feel like a proper 3D environment.

The trailer doesn't give a good sense of what the mod does, but the youtube channel shows more gameplay, but also videos that show the previously-2D elements now in 3D which gives a better idea of what the mod does. It still retains the look of the original game, but in full 3D, even for insignificant things.

I was listening to the Game Sack review of this when I came here. I'm not sure who else got the system to review, though I just checked and see that My Life in Gaming has a review too, so you know that's going to be quite in depth. It sounds like the machine is overall pretty good with some issues of differing magnitude. From the GameSack review, I saw issues with the Everdrive, including an unexpected workaround, and issues with interlaced games. People who might be interested in this should probably check out a bunch of reviews to see what issues people are running into. With the first batch sold out, it's not like they don't have plenty of time for that before they might be able to buy the thing.

@Deuteros the previous reply by jygsaw sounds about right to me, but I thought it was worth adding a bit to it. In addition to just being less powerful, to be expected since it is a portable machine for which battery life would matter more than the PS1, it also doesn't have the dedicated 3D hardware of those home consoles. In some ways, the GBA is a good bit more powerful than the SNES on paper, but it also doesn't have dedicated audio processing, so the CPU has to handle that as well. Plus, the pixel resolution is lower. That also puts it behind the Neo Geo, but it's somewhere in between the two in terms of sprite capabilities. But the GBA has better graphical effects like scaling and rotation of sprites and backgrounds so it can seem more advanced at certain things. Neo Geo can shrink sprites which effectively means it has sprite scaling, but they have to start with big sprites which was not an issue for the Neo Geo since the carts were so big.

@Andee @Gerald Final Fight is not especially colorful to the point where it's not within the capability of the Genesis. Many games of that period, even arcade games, didn't put a crazy number of colors on screen. For example, Sega's System 16 ports and ports of Capcom's other early CPS1 games don't really have major color issues. The hard part is choosing good colors due to the palette limitations. But the important thing to remember, and this is my main point, is that since Final Fight CD already exists, that may have served as a starting point for experimentation and improvements. And other people already did color enhancements for it years ago as well, providing even better references. Final Fight CD looking somewhat drab simply came down to poor palette choices.