smoreon

@X68000 Yeah, I can't see Sega's games being very fun with the default layout, though it should be possible to wrangle the controls (as well as those of most other systems/games) into a playable state with remapping.

On the subject of 6-button controllers, why is a handheld console the one that's combining a 6-button layout with analogue sticks, and not a full-size PC/console controller? Last I saw, we had to choose either a 6-button retro controller, or something weird and niche like the N64 controller, or Xbox's "Duke".

@87th Bit of a tangent, but yeah, it's crazy to look back at that time and all of the changes that happened in gaming, and then to realize how short of a time span it was.
Majora's Mask launched at the same time as the PS2, and was pushing the limits of last-gen gaming in some ways, despite immediately being so outdated that Nintendo was bundling it up in a collection just 3 years later!
It's also interesting that games like Pokemon and Animal Crossing both made use of real-time clocks to deliver a realistic sense of time and persistence, while MM was doing similar things on its (very accelerated) time system.

More on topic, hidden content like this is fascinating, and so is The Cutting Room Floor. Prepare to lose hours if you explore it!

@KitsuneNight "And they cant gank the games out from under you."
That part is essential. Fully-on-disc physical and DRM-free digital is ideal, though most of the Sega retro releases have generally been fine as well. (Their delisted games still work, and you can even pull the ROMs from the Genesis/Mega Drive collection and use them elsewhere.)

NSO subscriptions and Denuvo-protected releases just don't cut it, nor do game cards with half of the content missing.

EDIT: Though in the highly unlikely case that I purchased, say, a Saturn game, and Sega tried to pull it from my library, I'd feel perfectly justified in just downloading the ISO elsewhere, which isn't difficult at all. I'm willing to pay for these games legitimately, but not-so-legit fallbacks are plentiful!

@RoboJ1M Zombie Revenge and Power Stone?
This just reminded me that Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is going to finally bring Power Stone 1 and 2 to modern platforms!

But yeah, I don't really care to buy more mini computers. I just want the games. It has been a treat to discover the likes of Nights, Ikaruga, Guardian Heroes, Daytona, and Panzer Dragoon on PC/Xbox. And I hope to eventually see more classics that I missed- both must-haves and oddities: Maybe try out Burning Rangers and Popful Mail for the first time. See why people keep raving about Dragon Force, Skies of Arcadia, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Experience a truly good Alex Kidd (as the Genesis one was just okay.) Actually own Chaotix for real. The list goes on!

@Wartogh ...and the PlayStation Classic apparently didn't even have quite enough muscle to run all of its games flawlessly!

I'd be fine with- or prefer, even- skipping the hardware and just releasing the games (or a collection of them) on PC.
Like you said, an emulation box powerful enough to run these would be expensive. And for me, it doesn't really add any value. I'm willing to pay for the games, but dropping an extra $100-200 to have them on a separate device has little appeal!

At first, I was afraid (but maybe also hoping) that this actually launched the balls. Would've been a lot less safe, but a lot more authentic!

@jamess Does that mean we're going to be back to 8 bits before long?

@Andee There are ways to bypass that arbitrary CPU check, if you want to get a few more years out of that computer.

Microsoft has made some frustrating moves lately (what else is new?), and I get why it's making people want to ditch them. (I've largely switched to Linux myself, though I can't completely leave Windows, thanks to its unmatched gaming compatibility.) Personally, I could never switch to a Mac, considering it's literally double the price of an equivalent PC. But I don't know your use case, so do whatever works for you!

@Sketcz While I find it hard to fault them for dropping Win7 support (as even Win10 approaches obsolescence now!), the problem is twofold: you need a stupid launcher to play your games, and there's no way to reject updates to the launcher... or the games, for that matter! I suppose these come with the territory of mainstream game distribution, but it's still kind of lame, considering that the vast majority of games on Steam would run fine on a half-decent PC from 10 years ago, if the launcher would get out of the way.

As far as stores with mandatory launchers go, Steam provides a good user experience, and is about as pro-consumer as I could expect... but I wish more people would consider GOG, as that's ultimately where it's at, if you really care about owning games and replaying them a few decades down the road. I get the convenience of having everything in one place, but relying 100% on Steam might not be the best practice. Plus, having no (mandatory) launcher means that GOG games can be integrated into other launchers like Steam without issue.

@-wc- I just figured that, with their commitment to preservation, they'd want to keep their games accessible indefinitely, the same way they do for delisted PC games. The problem, however, is that everything has to go through Nintendo's store... plus, come to think of it, Nintendo is opposed to GOG's philosophies by nature.

PS: You could disguise your computer as a game console with some game library front-ends... or did you already try that?

@Sketcz Just two, actually, and even those were just variations of the same course, with the easy mode moving a barrier to block off the hardest section of the track. The whole game was around 2 or 3 MB (excluding the loading screen and CD music tracks), which put it squarely in SNES ROM territory. It must've been a sight to see in 1994-95, though!

I only played it after experiencing the N64, so the presentation didn't especially impress me, but I found that the gameplay was surprisingly compelling and encouraged a lot of replays.

Also, it has actual reverse races instead of just the utterly useless mirror mode that other games rely on, so that gets it some bonus points.

@-wc- How would that look, if GOG collaborated with Nintendo on Switch 2- something along the lines of GOG becoming one of the platform's major publishers and porting a bunch of their games over (with the guarantee that their servers would still allow for re-downloads, long after the console is discontinued)?

@RetroGames You mean shadows cast by the characters? The only shadows I can see on the characters here are baked into the textures.

Though yeah, the overall point stands, as there were Saturn/PS1/N64/SNES(!) games with reasonably accurate real-time shadows casting on the ground, as well as GameCube/PS2/Xbox games that had self-shadowing (where characters' heads, arms, etc., could cast shadows across their torsos and legs). Yet there are much newer games that struggle to implement either of these.

@KitsuneNight I wouldn't say the GameCube was a failure, either. Not a huge success, sales-wise, but it did okay. Just not as well as Nintendo hoped- or it arguably deserved.

And its library had some real quality, too!

As far as accessibility and reputation in the present day, I don't see how that would make a system any more or less of a success... it's not even like Nintendo kept pressing more GameCube games for back compat during the Wii era, the way some companies did for other platforms (e.g., PS1 games like Metal Gear Solid being sold for PS2). But yes, I think it has seen a resurgence in popularity. Lots of people now see it as an underappreciated gem.

@gb_nes_gamer I'd like to buy some of the previous minis, but they were... well, delisted. Sold out. Whereas I can still buy and download decades-old games on GOG and Steam, thanks to the unlimited "print run" of digital. Pros and cons to both, of course!

Plus, there's nothing preventing them from releasing, let's say, a physical Xbox/PlayStation disc containing 10 Saturn classics.

@gb_nes_gamer I'm with you on wanting more Saturn games to be re-released, for sure! Not personally all that excited about having a dedicated emulation box to play them on, though, when they could just be released as software, either in a compilation or individually.

It's great that Guardian Heroes, NiGHTS into Dreams*, Panzer Dragoon, and Radiant Silvergun are already available on modern platforms (mostly Xbox), but let's get some PD Zwei and Saga over here as well! Maybe Burning Rangers, Dragon Force, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Shining Force 3?

*Note that Nights is being delisted in exactly 2 weeks!

@RetroGames Wii U has to be second- I always see the GameCube also described as a flop, due to its paltry 21 million sales (rounded down from 21.8, because who cares about math?) compared to the Xbox's impressive and respectable 24 million.

@RupeeClock Thanks for that! The 70 and 120 were obvious enough, but I was trying to remember what was so significant about collecting 16 stars in particular.

For anyone wondering: yes, it has music on the title screen.
No, it doesn't have that legendary theme from the SNES version.

@Arcticpandapopz Yeah, LRG has plenty of issues, but to their credit, they're also the ones stepping up and making these releases happen.

You'd think there's a lot of opportunity for other companies to do the same kinds of projects, just without the drama and quality issues, but maybe it's a difficult or risky business to get into.

@slider1983 It was a cost issue, no doubt. 4 MB carts were already expensive, and Super FX carts were also expensive, so putting the two together wouldn't have been feasible. Even without the Super FX, games were always skimping on ROM space if the devs/pubs thought they could pull it off!

@Raven9000 Oops, I had heard of Kronos before, but forgot. Looking it up now, however, it is a fork of Yaba Sanshiro.
And apparently there's a Beetle Saturn which is different from the Mednafen Saturn core? Beetle PSX is quite good, so this also might be worth checking out.

@slider1983 Sorry, I don't know what came of that.
I've said what I know (which isn't much.)
Guess we need that comparison article!

@slider1983 Yeah, I've been a bit out of the loop on this for a while, so it would be good to know where things stand.

• Mednafen seems to have very high compatibility and accuracy, based on my limited experience, but it's light on enhancements (no HD rendering).
• About a decade ago, I was using SSF, as it was also very accurate (and I don't think Mednafen existed yet), but it had noticeable input lag.
• Yabause (which I'm assuming is what Yaba Sanshiro is based on) was better in both of those areas (crisp HD graphics!), but as of a decade ago, had a lot of graphical issues. But I imagine that Yaba-something or other could very well be the best now!

PS: I don't mean to make emulation out to be this daunting mess that takes a PhD to understand (as it's often very simple!), but there are a lot of variables when it comes to getting the best experience with certain consoles. Like what's the best NES emulator these days? I don't even know. And is GlideN64 still the best N64 graphics plugin- and did it resolve the input lag issues on Mario 64?
A lot of the info you'll find on emulators either doesn't dig deep enough or is severely out-of-date.

@Damo The headline is also off, and should be something like: "Sonic The Hedgehog 2 For Master System And Game Gear Is Getting An Impressive Fan-Made Remake".

"if the manufacturer can stop you from modifying "your" car then it isn't really "your" car: it's really their car by definition and you're only renting."

I see they've discovered how the video game industry works!
(also phones, and movies, and tractors, and...)

@slider1983 The Xbox One version of KI 2013 used to include the two arcade games, so that was all three main entries in one place. (No Game Boy port, sorry!)
But you can't buy that edition of the game now, as it was updated to stay in line with the PC version or something.

Ah, yes, because Naruto invented the name Sasuke.
I hope no old media from the past also try to copy the name Hanzo from Overwatch.

I didn't realize Mega64 was still around! I remember a bunch of their videos being hilarious, back in the day.

PS: "What are ya buuyyyyin?"

This part is just ridiculous: "there simply aren't enough safeguards in place to ensure that users wouldn't illegally back up and distribute games they had borrowed from a library."

All of these games have already been backed up and illegally distributed! If people are going to an online library, then they're specifically choosing to play their games legitimately, as those same games are already out there for the taking.

Just like with the whole movie/game/TV DRM issue, these companies think that more people being able to back up their stuff somehow means that more people are going to steal things.

Too bad there isn't an easy way to do the opposite: transferring saves from the VMU to a PC, allowing for easy backups and the ability to continue playing on an emulator.

Though I guess this disc builder could be helpful for unlocking everything in Sonic Shuffle, if nothing else. That one is a grind!

@AlienX Funny how that works- in your case, it would seem to disprove the idea that the appeal is all just from nostalgia!

I had a similar experience with Star Fox Adventures. Gorgeous game, but it feels so, so shallow now (whereas I apparently didn't really notice this as a teenager). It just hit me on my latest playthrough that almost every item/power is just a key in disguise: instead of using the blue key on the blue door, you have to use the pole vault move on the pole vault tile.

Sonic Adventure (DX), though- I don't play it nearly as often as I used to, but I still love the feel of the controls, the ridiculously flexible and powerful move set, the rockin' soundtrack, and the sheer ambition that went into this game!

@Fighting_Game_Loser This is a good point.
Re-releases of older games are sometimes implied to be specifically for those who want to revisit them, and people will often dismiss older games as only being highly regarded because of nostalgia ("Goldeneye has aged terribly", "Sonic was never good", etc.). But these games have plenty of value in themselves.

This is obviously highly subjective, but there are plenty of games that I discovered late, but still saw the appeal in (as well as some that I didn't!), and even now, I still enjoy picking up and experiencing old games that I missed out on the first time around!

I'm not sure that I believe in bad nostalgia, per se, so much as misuse of nostalgia, i.e., pandering: when modern sequels, reboots, or tributes are too heavy-handed in their callbacks to the classics, rather than developing their own identity.

I also take issue with the idea that only the best media deserve to be preserved and/or re-released. Maybe you don't care about Croc or whatever, but for others, it's "literally [their] childhood!!!!1".
Or in my case: I'm fond of 3D platformers, I've already played the classics many times over, and I can handle a bit of jank. So I couldn't care less about seeing Mario 64 or Banjo pop up on NSO, but a remaster of Croc does appeal to me!

@GravyThief I think so. Barry, at least, was voiced by Barry Gjerde, who went on to act in a bunch more games. Definitely check out Deadstorm Pirates, if you haven't already- it's a lightgun shooter on PS3 (and still pretty common in arcades) with a light-hearted tone and goofy dialogue. And Gjerde's character accompanies you throughout, offering advice and lore.

@KitsuneNight After playing on emulators like Duckstation, I can't go back to the original hardware- at least not for lengthy playthroughs.
The graphics are so much cleaner*, loading times are basically a non-issue, and a good handful of games can be boosted to 60fps with few or no issues.

*Some people consider this a drawback, but it is optional! While I agree that PS1 doesn't benefit from HD as much as GameCube does, I still think the increased clarity is a benefit overall. The close-up objects are always going to look bad, regardless, but the distant details really pop in HD, instead of disappearing into a mess of pixel soup.

@Mgalens Yeah, a whole bunch of those old PS1/Saturn fighters ran at 60fps and 480i, and usually had nice-looking character models as well (as long as the camera didn't get too close!), making them age way better than most games from back then.

@bobby_steurer Nah, challenge him to the 1v1 mode in Double Dragon on NES!

@IceClimbersMain @REAVERZINE Come on, you guys have never heard of a power cable?

Speaking of British studios not completely understanding how much we all love certain platformer franchises, Rare seems to have been in the same boat for the past 20 years!

I know 3D platformers aren't the huge, mainstream, top sellers like they were in the late '90s, but there are so many players who feel nostalgic about the classics, or who just appreciate the styles of gameplay that these games feature. The recent wave of 3D platformers should make this clear!

Personally, I never got to play Croc (no nostalgia here!), but I've always been interested in it, so a remaster/remake definitely appeals to me.

@LadyCharlie A tool set (hammer, drill bits, etc.) can start to rust before long in an environment like that... I'd hate to see what would happen to game cartridges!

Looks impressive, great to see it's finally finished!

@NatiaAdamo Yeah, and I recall reading that the tinted water effect was missing because it relied on some specific hardware feature of mid-'90s graphics cards.
I don't think most of us realized we were playing the PC version at the time, though! Same goes for Sonic R in the same collection.

@IceClimbersMain I wonder if having this as a common "hub" for IP sales could make it easier to track down the owners of a particular property in the future.

Quite skeptical about this service, though, especially if it's presented as shown here: you can buy "all rights" to Dragon's Lair, except it's actually just the rights to specific ports? That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. They really need to be up front about this stuff, and not leave it in the fine print, or we'll have more situations like that old anecdote about Microsoft thinking they owned Donkey Kong- or worse!

@mariteaux Yeah, I can't see the effect at all from that video. Someone should put up some proper HD footage on YouTube or something.

I'm hoping that this D64 port opens the floodgates and gets more devs really pushing the Dreamcast's graphical capabilities. There's been plenty of homebrew already, but most of what I've seen is on the simpler side, in contrast to the limit-pushers we've been seeing on older consoles.
I want to see what a AAA Dreamcast title from 2006 could've looked like, loaded up with normal maps and stencil shadows!

@GhaleonUnlimited Doom 64 is a worthy third Doom, I'd say- like an actual Doom 3, as opposed to the drastic departure we got with Doom 3 in 2004. Even before its resurgence, I think it was well regarded as a cult classic or ""hidden gem"" for quite a while... by the few who had actually played it.

It came out the same year as Goldeneye and Quake II, unfortunately. Releasing a simple, sprite-based FPS was maybe not the best thing for visibility, especially when it could be easily misinterpreted as a port of the 1993 original.

@MetaJ92 Shenmue I&II also has it, and you'd only need to keep a 10 GB installation!

Also, just want to say that I'm really impressed that these emulations were included in these games. That's a whole lot of effort, effectively given away for free (though it is making me even more interested in the series)!
The selection is also a surprisingly deep cut, especially coming from a company known for mostly releasing the same handful of 16-bit titles all the time.
What's next, Sunsoft bringing back Gimmick and Ufouria? (The state of gaming in 2024 isn't perfect, but it does have its upsides!)

@city952 You don't find it cool to see programmers and artists debunking those decades-old "x can't y" statements, just to see if they can?

Naturally, getting transparency on the Genesis was going to be a target, as scaling and rotation were before.
And on the other hand, we have stuff like the SNES running Sonic the Hedgehog at full speed, or playing a whole variety of Genesis music.

I get that some fanboys are overzealous, and maybe... let's say not exactly impartial. But then posts like yours are just throwing fuel on the fire.

Did portions of this doc get adapted into Shadowgate 64?
I've only played a bit, but its protagonist is also named Del, and it starts with his escape from a jail cell.

@Sketcz Yeah, it can be a real hassle to get certain patches to work, even with some cartridge ROMs.
Though I can see why, legally, it's safer to offer just the patches. And, of course, it's a lot cheaper than hosting full CD and DVD rips for people to download.

But I've noticed a certain paranoia and zeal, even, in some circles, where even a hint or reference to anything tangential to piracy is handled harshly. By that point, it's not a legal issue, but... a moral one? Or a misplaced sense of loyalty? I'm not even sure.