General Retro Discussion

[Dcubed]

18 minutes ago, Ike said:

How do you do that, last time I check it seemed like a right faff?

I tempted to get one because of the Mega Sg, not sure if I should bite now, but I'm waiting for the Pocket. They only have the black colour version in stock at the minute, not sure if they are going to restock the others.

It IS a bit of a faff.  I didn't have to do many though; since most of the others were already amongst the other collections and such, so it was just a few like Pulseman, Phantasy Star 1 and Earthworm Jim 2 which I didn't have elsewhere.

Apparantly they are gonna be restocking the other Super NT colours if you don't want the black one, but it's just a matter of waiting for them to come in again.

Quote

Krikzz is doing his own versionn of the Mega SD if you're willing to wait.

Yeah, I saw.  I'm sure it will be more or less the same price as Terra Onion's Mega SD though; it's still gonna need the same high power FPGA to simulate all of the SEGA CD's chips (it's basically a console in its own right).  So it's hard to justify the price really (plus the few games I actually want, like Lunar 1 & 2, cost an arm and a leg on their own on eBay as it stands!).

Maybe some day, but that day is not today...

... I think the next one on my shopping list is the Everdrive 64 (I've already ordered the Everdrive GB and GBA, which are on their way).  Really keen on trying out some of the various hacks like Goldeneye X and the OoT, Paper Mario & SM64 randomisers!  

Have already extracted all of my existing GBA and GB games in anticipation for the incoming GB/GBA Everdrives.  Really looking forward to trying out Super Mario Land 2 DX and the Metroid 2 Colourisation hack on real hardware! 

 

Looking forward to seeing the Analogue Pocket; but right now? I can't really see myself getting one since I already have an IPS modded GBA and the GBPlayer/GCN HDMI/Gameboy Interface setup (As well as most of the big name GBA games on the Wii U VC too).  But we'll see.  If they can come out with something like Wireless Link Cable multiplayer? I'll be all over that bad boy! But right now, I've yet to be convinced (plus the screen aspect ratio is wrong for GBA; so I'm not convinced that it'll be the ideal way to play GBA games yet).

Edited February 8, 2020 by Dcubed

[Happenstance]

Bad news guys. @Goafer and I went to the retro gaming market today but no Shining Force III.

[Hero-of-Time]

7 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Bad news guys. @Goafer and I went to the retro gaming market today but no Shining Force III.

But what about Shining Forks III? Any copies of that kicking around?

In all seriousness, did you guys pick anything up?

[Happenstance]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

But what about Shining Forks III? Any copies of that kicking around?

In all seriousness, did you guys pick anything up?

Nah unfortunately not this time. I didn’t have the money to spare for anything expensive and found no cheap deals. I was tempted by a big boxed copy of Red Alert on PC but it would have just gone in a cupboard somewhere.

The Birmingham one is coming up in a few months so I’ll probably put some money aside for it and finally get Batman & Robin.

[Goafer]

37 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

But what about Shining Forks III? Any copies of that kicking around?

In all seriousness, did you guys pick anything up?

I was pretty much set on Shining Force 3, which sadly no one had a copy of.

I was tempted by 3 Dirty Dwarves, but enough about what happened in the car park.

I had Christmas money put aside for SF3, so I'm going to deposit that into my bank account and just order a copy online. I much prefer buying my games in person, but online will have to do in this case.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Goafer

[Dcubed]

https://www.siliconera.com/m2-announces-new-arcade-shoot-em-up-ikusaba-sega-classics-arcade-line-at-jaepo-2020/

Well this is interesting (and frustrating!), looks like M2 are going to be re-releasing a bunch of SEGA classics back into the arcade!

[Hero-of-Time]

18 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

https://www.siliconera.com/m2-announces-new-arcade-shoot-em-up-ikusaba-sega-classics-arcade-line-at-jaepo-2020/

Well this is interesting (and frustrating!), looks like M2 are going to be re-releasing a bunch of SEGA classics back into the arcade!

I swear these guys are spreading themselves too thin. It's becoming very annoying that they keep working on various projects but have yet to finish the Ages line. 

[Ike]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I swear these guys are spreading themselves too thin. It's becoming very annoying that they keep working on various projects but have yet to finish the Ages line. 

I don't think we're ever going to get Saturn or Dreamcast games.

[Happenstance]

42 minutes ago, Ike said:

I don't think we're ever going to get Saturn or Dreamcast games.

That's the stuff I'd love to see. While the Mega Drive was my era, we get a lot of it from various places so I would like to be able to play some of the less accessible games from those two consoles.

[Hero-of-Time]

I watched a cracking gaming documentary the other evening. It is called Not For Resale, is made by a member over on Era and was released just this week. It's about how retail/physical games are being killed off by the rise of digital goods, how it effects retro games stores and how it's effecting how we play and own games. It has interviews from people who work in the industry, as well as those who own retro games stores in the US. 

There's a point very early in the film where a guy trades in his entire Saturn collection....I could have cried at what he was trading in.  The issue of ownership is a good talking point in the film, as is the lack of trade in value when it comes to digital goods. I was also happy to see that the lack of curation in the digital space was a talking point, showing the bad side of the ease of publishing.

A point that doesn't get brought up, much to my disappointment, is the fact that we do still having physical games being made BUT they are pretty worthless in the long run due to the nature of the industry. Back in the day you bought a game and it was complete but now, with things like patches, constant updates and DLC, these games are going to be useless or at least not the same product when the servers go offline for you to be able to update the game. It's honestly why i'm asking myself more and more these days whether or not it's even worth having modern games as a physical release when they are essentially just a key that unlocks the product.

It's available over here on Amazon streaming services for £6 to rent or £10 to buy. Fantastic watch and well recommended, especially for those who like buying retro games.

[Hero-of-Time]

I picked up a few DS games off of eBay over the weekend, all of which arrived today.

I had a hankering for some games that don't require updates, are constantly getting updated and are actually a finished and working product without the need for patches. That being the case, I decided to looking at the DS and some of the games that I may have missed in its ever extensive library.  I'm REALLY looking forward to finally playing Kirby: Mass Attack (definitely playing this one first) and Golden Sun is another game i've been wanting to pick up for a while. I used to have Inazuma Eleven but I got rid of it ages go without giving it a fair shake. Again, i'm quite looking forward to playing this again, building my team and getting to grips with the game once more. 

[Happenstance]

I should check if I still own Inazuma Eleven. I had these big plans to buy and play all of them but never got past an hour in of the first game.

[Ike]

I really want to play Mass Attack as well.

[Glen-i]

20 hours ago, Ike said:

I really want to play Mass Attack as well.

That game has one of the best minigames in Kirby history.

Kirby Quest is fun, and a horrible tease of how good a Kirby RPG would work.

[S.C.G]

On 07/02/2020 at 6:24 PM, Ike said:

 

Mega SG adapters are available if anyone is waiting for them.

How is the Super NT @Dcubed?

Message for whoever picked up the Mega SG cartridge adapter set...

Do NOT use the Game Gear adapter several of the units Analogue sent out are defective and may damage your Mega SG.

Read about it here... https://support.analogue.co/hc/en-us/articles/360039868671-Mega-Sg-Game-Gear-Adapter-v1-0-PLEASE-READ

You need to update the system firmware in order to use any of the adapters in the first place but being that the adapters only started arriving a few days ago and that I've only just found out about this myself online via an Analogue group, I'm making sure I share this info here in case @Dcubed @Ike @Happenstance or anyone else with a Mega SG has ordered the cart adapters and might be thinking of trying them out soon.

Mine arrived the other day and I only got as far as partially unsealing them but I was tempted to test out some Game Gear games soon, I'll be waiting now though.

Analogue are sending out replacement Game Gear adapters only, the other adapters are NOT affected, they advise getting rid of the old adapters (I'll probably just put a red sticker on mine as I don't like the idea of throwing something like that away, the shell at least might be useful) and they are hoping to have new adapters shipped out to everyone very soon.

[Dcubed]

Damn that really sucks to hear... And after all that waiting too...

 

Good on them for acknowledging it quickly and in just sending out replacement adapters to everyone, no questions asked.  If only other companies could've been so forthcoming with acknowledging and recifying fatal design flaws...

 

BTW.  Something amazing to share with you all!

 

 

Looks like MLIG are starting a new documentary series surrounding all of the various people involved in new retro products! This first episode includes interviews with Brian Parker from RetroUSB, Matt Lisi from Insurrection Industries (The GCN Carby) and Jason Rauch from Game-Tech (GBA Consoliser)  

Edited February 15, 2020 by Dcubed

[S.C.G]

8 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Damn that really sucks to hear... And after all that waiting too...

Good on them for acknowledging it quickly and in just sending out replacement adapters to everyone, no questions asked.  If only other companies could've been so forthcoming with acknowledging and recifying fatal design flaws...

BTW.  Something amazing to share with you all!

Looks like MLIG are starting a new documentary series surrounding all of the various people involved in new retro products! This first episode includes interviews with Brian Parker from RetroUSB, Matt Lisi from Insurrection Industries (The GCN Carby) and Jason Rauch from Game-Tech (GBA Consoliser)  

Yep, it's good to hear that Analogue are on it, I just hope no ones Mega SG has been damaged in the meantime from any of these adapters.

I started watching that My Life In Gaming video last night, fascinating stuff, though I only saw the first few minutes of it as it was late, so I stopped watching and intend to give it the attention it surely deserves later on today at some point as it's really interesting to hear about all these people who are keeping a lot of the retro scene going with these new products.

@Dcubed I just finished watching it now, really fantastic video and very much well worth watching, I knew it probably would be as it's by My Life In Gaming but this video series in particular seems like it's on another plain entirely as it really goes into a lot of detail plus you get to hear from a lot of people who've put a lot of time, energy, research and enthusiasm into The World of Vintage Gaming which is really just very nice to see, especially right now in 2020. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by S.C.G

[Happenstance]

Thinking about grabbing one of these myself for a project to work on. 

[S.C.G]

Continuing the GBA theme...

I just watched a great video about The History of 3D Graphics on the Gameboy Advance by minime who has covered these kinds of titles in the past in smaller subsets such as FPS or Driving games in 3D on the GBA but this one is really quite an in-depth history when it comes to 3D games on Nintendo's portable system.

Back when the system was on the market, I can remember seeing a lot of these titles for the first time and being suitably impressed by them, so it was nice to see footage from some of these titles again as I don't actually own that many 3D titles for the system, bar the ones by Shin'en which I intend to play properly one day, namely the Iridion titles and Star X.

It's just really interesting to see what could be done with the hardware, especially with some of those racing games.

[Dcubed]

So my Everdrive 64 just arrived... and I forgot just how much like buttered arse the original N64 hardware looks like on a modern display 

 

So I’ve gone and bought an RGB modded N64 (found a seller that was selling modded NTSC consoles for a shockingly reasonable £69.99 - That is very cheap for a pre-modded unit!), along with an N64 RGB Scart cable and a Retrotink 2X Scart upscaler.
 

Let’s hope that it helps the ol’ N64 to look a bit more palatable on a modern display! Because I'm looking forward to trying out the Super Mario 64 and OoT Randomisers and I’d like it to not be completely eyesearing while playing!  

On 19/02/2020 at 7:31 AM, Happenstance said:

Thinking about grabbing one of these myself for a project to work on. 

I have one of these and can’t recommend it enough! The quality is just stunning!

Edited February 25, 2020 by Dcubed

[nekunando]

On 25/02/2020 at 7:19 AM, Dcubed said:

..and I forgot just how much like buttered arse the original N64 hardware looks like..

You say it like it's a bad thing..

 

[S.C.G]

@Hero-of-Time Happy Console Gamer is back.

Good to see him back on YouTube after the rough time he's been having since late last year.

[Sméagol]

I stumbled upon this one (while doing Mario Maker research).

The youtuber is pretty dry and funny, and all the ports are interesting to watch. The Sega CD anime cutscenes are hilarious, and at the end is a side-by-side-by-side-by-side etc of a playthrough of level 1 of all the ports he covered.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Sméagol

[Ike]

On 01/03/2020 at 5:02 PM, S.C.G said:

Happy Console Gamer is back.

Good to see him back on YouTube after the rough time he's been having since late last year.

Dude looked really thin in last video, glad he's looking better now.

On 01/03/2020 at 8:06 PM, Sméagol said:

I stumbled upon this one (while doing Mario Maker research).

The youtuber is pretty dry and funny, and all the ports are interesting to watch. The Sega CD anime cutscenes are hilarious, and at the end is a side-by-side-by-side-by-side etc of a playthrough of level 1 of all the ports he covered.

He also talks too fast.  I guess it was just me who couldn't figure out how to play the game then...

On 19/02/2020 at 7:31 AM, Happenstance said:

Thinking about grabbing one of these myself for a project to work on. 

I hate how you have to cut the shell to fit the screens. I couldn't do it to my launch unit. It's why I'm interested in the Analogue Pocket.

[Hero-of-Time]

On 3/1/2020 at 5:02 PM, S.C.G said:

@Hero-of-Time Happy Console Gamer is back.

Good to see him back on YouTube after the rough time he's been having since late last year.

I've actually stopped watching him. I was getting a little tired of his non-reviews, top 10 videos and pick up videos. I get the feeling, like most YouTubers, that he's started playing the algorithm game and is pandering to what will get him views rather than having anything meaningful to say. Still, it's great to see that he is feeling well again. By all accounts he was pretty rough at the end of last year.