#some of these roms actually have differences from their original releases

[cardboardluigi64]

So over the course of about a week, I had extracted the game roms from the various Virtual Console games I had bought on the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U over the years when their online stores were still up. (Well actually, my brother had bought Final Fantasy 1, Circle of the Moon, Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid, but whatever. We shared the consoles.)

Now I can do whatever I want with these roms, whether that's using them in an emulator, or putting them on a flashcart or some other rom loader to play them on authentic hardware.

Some of these were easier to get than others. For the Wii U Virtual Console games, I used the Dumpling homebrew application to dump all of the games, and from there, it varied depending on the game. For N64 and DS games, I just had to find the files and rename their extensions. For NES, SNES, and GBA games, I used a program called wiiuvcextractor that converted the proprietary formats they used to more common formats used in emulators (.nes, .sfc, .gba). It was pretty easy to use. And then for the Wii games, I used a program called nfs2iso2nfs to stitch the files together to make an ISO. It was easy enough to use once I knew what I was doing by reading a guide a bit more carefully.

The 3DS Virtual Console games were a bit more complicated to do. I had to go through GodMode9's file explorer to go through the files for each VC game to export the roms. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color games were easy enough to deal with (just had to rename the extensions). The one Game Gear game I had bought, Sonic Triple Trouble, I had to decompress with an application called mdfTools. I don't remember whether or not I just dragged and dropped it or used a command prompt, but it wasn't hard either way. And then there's the one NES game I had on 3DS, The Mysterious Murasame Castle. It was a Famicom Disk System game, and hoo boy, was it quite a doozy. First of all, I had to use a hex editor to copy and paste the actual game data without the filler data to a new file labeled .qd, and then I had to download Python specifically so that I could use a specific Python script so that the .qd file could be converted to a regular ol' .fds file.

It was quite a hassle, and technically, it would probably be the hardest one to do, given that some very basic hex editing shenanigans had to be done, but somehow, I found extracting the roms from the Wii Virtual Console games to be far more infuriating.

After some trial and error trying to extract files from the .wad files I had extracted from my Wii (with mixed results), I had found out about a Python program called vcromclaim, which streamlined the whole process, but I had to provide a NAND dump to use it. So after some more trial and error trying to find a program that could create a proper NAND dump, it took even more fiddling to get it to work because I have a monkey brain, but eventually I was able to get it to work... except I wasn't able to extract the one Neo Geo game I had, The King of Fighters '98, because it used a specific kind of compression. According to the readme on github, I would've needed some Python thing called PyCryptodome installed. I don't know what it did, but if I wanted to get every Virtual Console game I owned, I would need to install it. This took several attempts, but I had to reinstall Python outright because it turns out I didn't install it right the first time, but eventually, I got it to download, and got King of Fighters '98 properly extracted, too. And as an added bonus, I got all of their respective digital manuals as html files, so that's pretty neat.

So I know what you might be wondering after reading all of this, because I've come across the same comment trying to look up guides and tools for this whole process.

"Why go through all of this hassle just for a couple of game roms? Wouldn't it just be easier and faster to just go to [INSERT ROM HOSTING SITE HERE] and download the same games?"

To which I say:

Anybody can go onto the internet and download game roms. I should know. I've done it plenty of times myself. But it was never about the games. It was about wondering if it was possible and seeing if I could do it myself. Life's a journey, not a destination.

[nomiqbomi]

Updated designs for Fophid and Lepignito commissioned by my friend @plus-sizedscribe! Plus a new middle form, Impodster, and 4 distinct formes that Lepignito can take, based on the environment it evolves in.

More info under the tab!

Fophid are timid creatures with many predators. Their carapace has evolved to blend in perfectly with an arboreal environment. When provoked, it wields the branch-like appendage on its abdomen like a lance. It has no venom, it's quite sharp!

Impodster attaches itself firmly to tree limbs, disguising itself as a small branch. Once it has done this, it is impossible to detach until it evolves. (It would be much easier to take the entire branch with it!) It does not budge, even after being discovered. Individuals who have camouflaged themselves poorly can often be found with leaves full of holes, made by bird Pokemon that attempted to carry them away.

When Impodster evolves into Lepignito, it takes on a perfect likeness of its immediate environment. Four unique patternings, based the biomes it occurs in naturally, have been officially recorded; however, it is believed that new patterns could be created by evolving the pokemon in a unique environment.

Even when their immediate environment does not match the markings on their wings, they somehow still manage to obscure themselves from view. Many theories have been pose as to how they are able to do this, but none have been proven, as this behavior is quite difficult to observe.

It prefers to sit motionlessly and evade detection, but when provoked, it uses its stealth to confound opponents and catch them unawares. Once the opponent has become disoriented, it flies off into the shadows, never to be seen again.

---

The line is based on the Peppered Moth, which are a famous example of natural selection that has actually been observed and recorded in real-time. The moth originally evolved to camouflage against lightly-colored trees, but a melanic mutation became more genetically favorable during the industrial revolution, when the trees became blackened with soot. After environmental standards were introduced, the white variant became common again. Today both variations can be found, and they are often mistaken for different species!

Plussized-Scribe helped conceptually with the variations/typing, with his own rom-hack in mind. I may add more variations for my own fan project.

I had originally designed Fophid to camouflage with the forest floor, but during my redesign I found out that the peppered caterpillar camouflages itself as a tree branch. I thought that was neat, to I went with that angle instead.

I also added a middle form to make it a better counterpart for the Pareyeva line who use the opposite form of self defense!

Edit: @plus-sizedscribe wrote some really great Pokedex entries for his hack that he allowed me to share here as well:

"Unlike Sewaddle, the leafy bits Fophid sport are not fashion statements, but specialized organs for camouflage. In autumn, their bodies release chemicals to redden the organs and match the foliage.

The base of the headcrest pulls double duty as a third mandible. Thus, Fophid can chew better while also maintaining camouflage, as the shaking of the crest resembles a leaf trembling in the breeze."

"Having secured themselves on a sturdy tree trunk, Impodster steadfastly await evolution. Very little can dislodge these Pokémon, which are nearly helpless if they happen to end up on the ground.

Impodster with poor camouflage are often found with leaves full of holes. These are made by naïve bird Pokémon attempting to carry them away, only to realize they picked almost the worst prey they could."

"Some people claim to have fallen for a person who always wore a long coat, only for their lover to turn out to be a Lepignito. The veracity of these bizarre anecdotes is suspect, to say the least.

Lepignito live in trees whose bark match their wing patterns. They boast different patterns to blend in with the available types of trees in the regions they inhabit. At least 25 different varieties are known."

[techav]

Revisiting Wrap030 Disk Access

I have more ideas for projects than time or budget to work on them. Already this year I've gone completely through the design process for two new large homebrew projects that are currently too large for my project budget, plus a few small ones I never got around to ordering. So rather than spend more than I should taking on a new project, I decided to revisit an existing one.

It's been over a year since I last worked on the original Wrap030 project — my old stack-of-boards MC68030 system. Its current configuration includes the main board with CPU, ROM, RAM, UART, & glue logic; a hand-wired breakout board to add a second UART; a custom video output board; and a mezzanine board with FPU and provision for an IDE disk that is not yet working. It has been functional in this configuration since last February.

My goal for this project from the beginning was to build something capable of running a proper operating system, like Unix System V or Linux. To do that though, I'm going to need to get disk access working.

I had started on disk access, but didn't quite have it functional when I turned my focus to integrating all of boards into the single Wrap030-ATX motherboard. I had added IDE cycles to the CPLD on the mezzanine board, and had added a few rough drafts of disk functions to my ROM. I set the project aside when I realized my function for checking dish presence was reporting a disk was present when there wasn't one.

I have worked with IDE before — my original 68000 project had an IDE port on it. I had gotten that project to the point where I could read a sector of data from the disk, but never could wrap my head around how to actually navigate even a simple file system like FAT16. It was this code that I had adapted for Wrap030, so when it didn't work, I assumed it was a problem with my logic.

Turns out I had just inadvertently clobbered a register in the disk check function. The logic worked just fine. I was able to write a couple quick BASIC programs to read a sector of data and even run code from the boot sector.

My assembly function for reading data from disk however was still not working.

I tried rewriting it.

I tried rewriting it in C instead of assembly.

I tried again, and again, and again. I added delays and loops and print statements and everything I could think of. I scoured datasheets, read though all the different release versions of the ATA specification, ported code from other projects, looked at every example of reading from an IDE disk I could find.

No matter what I did, I always got the same result.

This did not make any sense. Reading from an IDE disk involves setting up the sector address, the number of sectors to transfer, sending a read command, and then reading the IDE data port 256 times per sector. Each time the data port is read, the disk will give another 16-bit word of data. But for some reason, all I was getting was the first word of data returned 256 times.

There is nothing in the specification to explain this.

I knew there was nothing wrong with my logic, because I could read the data just fine with my BASIC program or by manually poking the right addresses using the monitor. Maybe there was some edge case affecting timing when running in assembly, but even adding delay loops and print statements didn't have any effect.

I reached out for help. I got great feedback on my read functions and my timing and how IDE and CompactFlash cards worked, but still could not solve this problem.

But then @ZephyrZ80 noticed something —

I had shared my code and was explaining that I had added some extra NOP instructions to enforce minimum time between IDE access cycles in PIO-0 mode. At 25MHz with cache enabled, the 68030 can complete an instruction in as little as 80ns, so a few NOPs would ensure enough time elapsed between cycles.

With cache enabled.

… cache enabled.

… cache.

The 68030 has 256 bytes of data cache. My disk read function is running in a tight loop that only really hits a few addresses; not nearly enough to invalidate and flush the entire 256 bytes of cache. The CPU does have a cache inhibit signal to use with peripherals that return new data on subsequent access to the same address, but it turns out I was only asserting it when accessing the UART on the main board.

It's a simple enough hypothesis to test. When I initially added support in my ROM for enabling cache at startup, I included user functions for enabling and disabling cache.

… It was cache all along.

Now I need to add some way to inhibit cache while accessing the IDE port, and then I can move on to trying to use the disk for loading programs.

[everlasting-rainfall]

Hey! How are you doing? Hope you have a beautiful and wonderful day bc you deserve the best!!!!!! Love you!!!!

Sorry for rambling but...

Omg your animal crossing au make me go brrrrrrr (even though I never played the game). Just imagine the more introvert ones trying to keep readers island isolated! Like poor reader just thinking they are messing up the game and losing people and friends but in reality is the yandere one threatening everyone to keep reader to themselves. Getting more and more agressive with their s/o for closing the game.

Oh god, good food good food. (Sorry to bother you)

Oh! That’s so kind of you to say!! Thank you so very much for saying something like that and I hope that you have a beautiful and wonderful day as well! Don’t worry, you aren’t bothering me at all!

Also I’m so glad that you like my animal crossing au as it is something that I personally enjoy and it has a bit of an origin story as I originally came up with it around the same time that the newest Animal Crossing Game was released

If I remember then it actually started off as a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Story but I never posted it and I no longer have it, I never thought I would be writing for it again as I always thought I would just keep it sitting and thinking about it a bunch instead of writing about it

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

Sentient Game Characters, Threats, Isolation, Death, Kidnapping

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

I always have envisioned the game as kind of like a rom hack with a shit ton of effort out into it where no one has any clue who made it like it sure as hell wasn’t the developers, that’s for certain

Like I like to think that the start of them game gives you an option that will decide if you get Marine or Pirate Villagers, you can still get other factions but that also depends on what you choose during the start

Let’s say that you went with Marines, you can also get villagers relating to the World Government and Impel Down like things like that with the NPC’s who run the stores and businesses being different too

On the other hand, if you pick pirates then you’ll get villagers relating to things like Revolutionary Army and things like that

You’ll always get two starting villagers too that you can randomize or select from a list, some people like Benn and Shanks will get along well and are good to go with plus they’ll make it so that the other members of the Red Haired Pirates are more likely to move in

If a character has a relationship as well like Yassop and Banchina, if one shows up first then the other will soon appear and there’s also a chance of Banchina even winding up pregnant with Usopp after a certain amount of time has passed

Certain villagers can even live together if they get along well enough and it’ll free up a spot in your town for a new villager to move in, the same thing will happen if your character winds up in a relationship as the character will move in with you and free up a spot for someone new to move in

As you can tell based on the fact that they’re Yandere’s, breaking up isn’t an option and instead you have some normal options alongside some more romantic ones then there’s the one where you spend some alone time with your partner or partners

As I did state before, there is the immersive interactions option which is basically like a switch to make it so that your villagers will become sentient and eventually drag you to their world inside of the console

But if you don’t turn it on then you’ll probably be fine unless one of your villagers decides to go against their coding and turn it on so they can finally have you

Immersive interactions is also what causes your characters to react when you have visitors as I can imagine the game can connect to people who have the actual game like let’s say you invite a friend over to your town and the villagers just cannot stand them which is mostly because your attention is on them instead of your villagers

Your villagers will try any strategy to get you to stop focusing on them and if your friend wanders off with their character to go explore, they’ll be approached and sufficiently threatened to the point where they no longer want to hang out with you in real life due to fear of your in game villagers

One by one as well, if you keep inviting people to your game then you’ll keep losing them and if one decides to stay then that person is going to disappear without a single trace as to where they went because guess who got dragged inside of the console and killed for not staying away?

Try to turn the game off and put it down as much as you want as well, you’ll come back eventually and when you do they’ll be waiting for you and asking you to never leave again

Getting more and more insistent that you stay each time that you shut the game off and leave until eventually there’s no escape for you, they’ll drag you inside and leave the console with the game on the floor

Your save file is archived and locked away within the game files so the next person who plays will think no one else has played it and fall victim to the same fate as you did with their save file getting archived and locked away as well making it so there really is no escape

I hope this response was pleasing for you and I hope that you enjoyed it!

[samthecookielord]

Sam where do I play the Layton games they look so sillay and fun

the entire HD mobile ports of all 3 original trilogy games are available to purchase on android and ios.

If you really want, the spinoff Layton Brothers Mystery Room is available for free/cheap on mobile but it is very different from regular gameplay and does not feature the actual professor layton ever lol (but i love it <3)

alternatively, if you'd like to play the original ds titles on your pc or something heres what i did:

step 1: get your very real ds. for 2ds titles here's desmume and here's melonds you can pick whichever one you want.

i personally use desmume more but melonds is the more frequently updated one.

for 3ds titles here's citra (no longer receives updates but you can still download the latest version)

step 2: laytong roms. i got curious village, diabolical/pandora's box, lost future, and spectre's call/last specter (all 2ds titles) from this site. miracle mask, azran legacy, and the Ace Attorney crossover (3ds titles) are available on this site (as well as 2ds titles but i didnt notice until just now lol). just search layton and pick the region version you want.

EU and NA versions are both english but may differ slightly in dialogue wording, specific puzzles, and also they have different VAs for Luke. and sometimes they will give NPCs different names for some reason.

Here is a full list of games so you know what to look for.

I feel the best ones to start with are either Curious Village or Spectre's Call/Last Specter depending on what you prefer

Curious Village is the first in release order so you can gradually get more used to the gameplay & artstyle and see more qol functions and improvements as the games go on. (to avoid a jarring quality drop when you finish up the prequel trilogy and move onto curious vilage lol)

but if you'd rather experience the story in chronological timeline order, then Specter's cool to start with 👍they also got descole thats awesome.

or you can do a secret other thing and play lost future first for some reason if you wanna meet my favourite character

step 3: have fun yay!

[luigiblood]

The oddities of Nintendo Switch Online retro service

I've talked about a lot of things about this service, on Twitter, on Tumblr, but also a lot on Discord, but I have been thinking about a post where I could put all the accumulated information that I've gotten over the years through datamining and leaks.

Here's a post about all the little things that you may not know about the retro service of Nintendo Switch Online.

Identifiers and Stats

One of the most obvious parts of datamining these apps is that each game have a unique identifier rather than just being a game name.

On NES Switch Online, they use identifiers identical to the NES Mini ROMs, which are usually like CLV-P-H***J or CLV-P-N***E for Japanese and English, usually. On SNES, they use now an identifier like this S-****_j or S-****_e and other consoles follow suit.

The thing about these identifiers is that they have an order, they all usually follow each other. But in all the apps, there are always gaps, and those gaps can tell a huge story.

Currently as of February 2nd 2023, there are 66 Famicom games, 63 NES games, 53 Super Famicom games, and 55 Super Nintendo games on the service on all regions. If you start counting the gaps, it seems that internally, they have 185 NES titles and 174 SNES titles MINIMUM. This is a pretty huge difference.

Thanks to a leaked build of NES Switch Online from last year, we can figure out some of those missing titles, involving mostly Capcom and Konami, which are unlikely to release on the service as most of them were rereleased through collections before, though it hasn't necessarily stopped them.

That said, if you remember, we had done a similar research with Nintendo 64 and Genesis titles at launch, which the press have definitely talked about, where we found out there were potentially 38 N64 titles and 52 Genesis titles running internally at minimum, but Nintendo has actually done us dataminers a bit of a response: All IDs on N64 and Genesis are now randomized since the first updates, which means we cannot do this kind of research anymore.

That said the updates to NES and SNES apps have not done this change, they probably decided it wasn't worth it. But all that to say that Nintendo is definitely taking notice of our datamining (and won't be the last time) and won't necessarily hesitate to throw us for a loop.

The secrets of NES Switch Online 2.0.0 update

Now I'm definitely going way back in December 2018, 4 months after the debut of the full Nintendo Switch Online service after a year delay (do you actually remember that?).

In January 2019, people started to take notice of SNES game descriptions within the language files, hinting SNES Switch Online coming in the near future, and the potential games coming.

To this day, all the games except two released on the service: We're missing The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and Contra III: The Alien Wars.

The other thing that was noticed is what's called an enumeration of emulator types:

EMULATOR_TYPE_CANOE = 0 EMULATOR_TYPE_KACHIKACHI = 1 EMULATOR_TYPE_HIYOKO = 2 EMULATOR_TYPE_COUNT = 3

Canoe is the name of the SNES emulator since SNES Mini, Kachikachi is the name of the NES emulator since NES Mini, Hiyoko was, at the time, unknown, but turned out to be the Game Boy (Color) emulator, and Count is most likely a counter, to say there are 3 different emulator types, it's a programming standard.

What most people ignored at the time is that the app also included a function called getEmulatorTypeFromCode, which would return the Emulator Type based on the identifiers I talked about earlier.

Once I took notice of this and checking other code making use of it, I figured out something huge, and after talking to an actual reliable insider who also confirmed it (don't get used to this), my conclusion: They had originally developed a multi-emulator app, which would have included all games from NES, SNES and GB in one single app.

Now you may wonder why this didn't pan out, I don't have the exact reason but I can have some educated guesses: Aside from the accidental reveal of SNES emulator on Switch which I think is not that huge, I think the seperation of systems is probably because of the developers wanting to compatimentalize the development instead of having to test a huge app every time they wanted to update it to avoid potential huge regressions.

I think it's not necessarily a bad reason, as a developer I also take importance of the ease of development VS user experience, and I do think this decision is not really a bad thing overall, making a multi emulator can be extremely hard and you could deal with problems because of decisions taken extremely early on.

The secrets of SNES Switch Online

The SNES emulator derived from the Wii U Virtual Console by NERD has a bunch of secrets that you may not know about... such as the currently unused SNES Mouse emulation.

Once you start checking around the code about how to enable the SNES Mouse emulation, you find out two things:

It can be enabled using metadata within the custom ROM format.

It was able to be force enabled using specific internal emulator Game IDs.

The most interesting part of the Game IDs is that only 3 Game IDs specifically forced the SNES Mouse to be emulated: 0x11A0, 0x11A2 and 0x11A3. If we just keep ourselves to SNES titles that could only work with the SNES Mouse... we could think of only two, actually. Most of the SNES games that supports the mouse can also just work with the controller.

We can only think of Mario Paint and Mario & Wario as SNES titles that only works with SNES Mouse, but also both are first titles, so in terms of rights, there's no issues here.

The problem is like, what's the third title? And that's where we can have a lot of ideas here.

The thing about those emulator Game IDs is that they don't correspond to the Switch Online IDs, they correspond to IDs that have been populated since the Wii, but especially Wii U Virtual Console, but we don't exactly know when NERD took over the emulator from Intelligent Systems. It is currently impossible to tell for sure.

So we can only think of the following:

The third title is actually the PAL version of Mario Paint, when they used to seperate game versions in different IDs.

The third title is Sound Fantasy, the unreleased but confirmed to be completed third SNES Mouse first party game.

Or it is a game that Nintendo decided it was better to play with a mouse rather than the controller, but I don't think it's likely.

Unfortunately I don't know for certain.

One other thing about the SNES Switch Online service, you may have noticed that some of the games currently on the service can actually be played up to 4 players at the same time... at least outside of it since the emulator locks you up to 2 players maximum.

If you thought that they did not emulate the Multitap, you'd be wrong. In fact, the games in question all contain metadata saying up to 4 players, unlike what the menus might tell you, and they all technically emulate the SNES Multitap, but the user interface can only allow you 2 players, so it's sorta funny that the second player is technically plugged to the multitap from an emulation standpoint.

Funny.

The secrets of N64 Switch Online

This part has some plot twists to it, but in fact I should rather say the secrets of the N64 Wii U Virtual Console emulator, as most of these things were brought over from this.

Unlike what most people might tell you, NERD has not much to do with the N64 emulation, it was developed by iQue. If you wonder what's my evidence, the debug menu between the NES/GB VC emulator for 3DS (which is confirmed done by iQue because the source code of it leaked in 2020), and the N64 VC emulator for Wii U are pretty much the same.

I may as well mention the biggest secret of all which had a plot twist later: The N64 emulator used to have unfinished 64DD emulation code in it, since Wii U.

I do insist on unfinished because it was nowhere near enough to boot a single 64DD game, but they for some reason included a Sim City 64 configuration file on Wii U at one point, probably for initial testing.

When the emulator was ported to Switch with improvements such as Vulkan graphics rendering on Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Nintendo 64 Switch Online app, a bunch of the 64DD emulation code stayed as is, in the same unfinished state.

However something funny happened in between, the emulator had code to recognize the fanmade 64DD cartridge ports, and those are definitely fanmade, and they must have looked at other emulation code for it, and most likely, code that I even wrote myself as I did add support for these in emulators before. Note that at that point, the code to boot those games were not seemingly present, or maybe I missed it.

So I would like to assume iQue had still wanted to make 64DD games working, but wanted to test on easier to emulate versions of the games. That said, I did mention this on Twitter... and then they removed every single line of code involving 64DD in the 1.2.0 update build in January 2022. It was probably not literally removed, just not compiled as it is still a good skeleton code for it. I am definitely convinced that I'm being looked at.

When it comes to other stuff in the emulator... well did you know that the Controller Pak, the memory cartridge that you put inside the controller's slot to save in a bunch of games, is actually fully emulated since Wii U?

It is very annoying that they had something like this working, but couldn't figure out to swap between both that and the Rumble Pak for games that could make use of both.

If you wonder about the Transfer Pak, the Wii U has a bit of it, but it's just turning the hardware ON and OFF, and this code has stayed as is on Switch. I know Emily Rogers has mentioned there were experiments and I believe her, but unfortunately, the code must be in a seperate branch and not put in place in N64 Switch Online builds.

If you tell me "oh they didn't plan Pokémon transfers for Pokémon Stadium," please look at the japanese Direct about it and you'll find a widely different sentence that does not actually rule out support for this, stating that "Pokémons cannot be transferred from the Game Boy." I dunno about you, but that's a statement that makes it vague because they could just mean the actual real Game Boy.

Now I'm not really dumb, as Nintendo has showed that Switch Online is mostly low budget and does the bare minimum, but there are things that shows a bit more attention to things...

When it comes to new things that weren't in the emulator on Wii U, they actually emulated the Real Time Clock chip from Animal Crossing's N64 original version. This code actually isn't in Super Mario 3D All-Stars, this must be a fairly new addition, and since there's only one game using it, it is fair to assume Animal Crossing is actually in a working state in the emulator.

When Mario Golf was added to the service, the Lua script dedicated for it is... a bit odd. It includes code for asynchronous netplay, where each player would take control of the game in turns in an attempt to optimize the netplay and reduce lag. This code is fully unused, there's not even the functions that it uses in the emulator yet.

This could also be additional evidence towards my theory that the NSO apps would see a refresh including user experience to some extent, but this stuff was added since April 2022, so whatever they are doing, it's certainly in private and has been in the works for almost a year now.

This post... is a bit long already, and there are still a bunch of other little secrets to uncover, but I think I covered the most technical ones so far, I hope this post is mostly clear about these secrets. Feel free to give me feedback.

[spinningbuster98]

Castlevania Symphony of the Night Part 1: Die Monster!.....in Japanese!!

We’re here folks

We’re finally here

And I’m playing the Japanese version! Why? Well let’s just say that there’s some content that was originally exclusive to the original japanese release which was cut from the international one. Said content was restored in the PSP version....but I decided against playing that. It’s a playable version, but it’s minor yet noticeable graphical downgrades compared to the original just bug me the wrong way

You can already spot a difference in the intro: the actual narrated text is english even in the Jpn version, and no it’s not due to me playing a translated rom, even untranslated it’s in english, just with a japanese voice over

What intrigues me is how the text itself was still largely rewritten in the international versions, yet even the japanese one calls Dracula’s Castle “Castlevania”, which I had always thought was just a quirk of the english localization and not something that was ever truly recognized by the japanese side of things, at least not until the mid 2000s when even the japanese versions started using that name as the series’ title for a time

However, while I can’t understand japanese, I can’t hear the narrator actually pronouncing the name “Castlevania” anywhere, so I’m going to guess that he’s reading from a different script?

Anyway there’s going to be...LOTS to talk about with this game, though luckily we’ll have plenty of parts to do so :)

Just to start off with something that everybody knows by now: this might just be the most beautiful sprite based game of its generation, probably of the whole decade of the 90s

Yeah sure there are a couple of weird imperfections here and there, namely Richter’s sprite still being from RoD instead of reflecting his redesign, except for one cutscene where he IS given an updated sprite (I guess that’s one point in favor of the Saturn version). This is pretty much the game that started the tradition of reusing old enemy sprites, especially guys from Rondo and a couple from Castlevania IV

But honestly? This stuff is barely even a blip on the radar here. Every sprite, every background is so detailed, so well animated, oozing with so much charm! Every enemy has their own unique death animation, there are a billion different animations for the various spells and secret moves, I could list stuff all night!

Alucard’s sprite and animations have entered into the realm of videogame legends now, which is funny because when you think about it his animations are just way too smooth compared to everything else he kinda sticks out, not to mention that the actual running animation looks silly with the way he moves his arms (not that the Belmonts in the previous games weren’t guilty of a similar running animation quirk with their ultra-manly walk cycles), but it’s just so mesmerizing to look at! He truly feels weightless, like some sort of wraith drifting through the night, with that cape, that hair, the after images etc

The funny part is that the game does implement a bunch of more typical PS1 3D effects, which you’d think would clash hard with the sprites and age the game badly but they actually end up giving it even MORE charm, because they’re usually relegated to 3D backgrounds, but the actual renders not only look pretty damn good usually, they actually help make some environments look more memorable and larger than life! The cathedral, the moving clouds, the houses in Olrox’s Quarters. The Magic Tomes that attack you in the Library technically clash so hard with the rest of the place, but the renders themsleves are nice and I fucking love watching them explode into a burst of flames as their letters just spill out from the pages!

I even love the SOUND EFFECTS in this game! I’m pretty sure that most of them are just stock effects, especially the ones for the transformations and whenever you use a potion....but I dunno they’re goofy in a good, charming way to me

And we haven’t even talked about the music! Oh God! I’ll save THAT for the next part!

[arcticdementor]

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” has a well-deserved bad reputation. It’s a song about, as our Britt Hayes put it, “a woman being held hostage by some guy who may or may not have drugged her adult beverage.” But it didn’t simply spring, fully formed, out of our culture’s collective disrespect for women. Before “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” became a rapey Christmas classic, then was overcorrected into a Nice Guy anthem, it was the musical centerpiece of an equally terrible hit summer movie: Neptune’s Daughter. Premiering 75 years ago—bringing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to a moviegoing public who, until then, had no song to put on when pressuring their date into sex—Neptune’s Daughter clearly had no idea that its single notable contribution to pop cultural history would become a holiday staple. Again, this was a June release. It’s not set during Christmas, in the winter, or even in a locale that actually ever gets cold. Neptune’s Daughter is a truly idiotic entry into MGM’s series of “aquamusicals,” starring Esther Williams. Yes, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” won an Oscar for Best Original Song for being in a movie that was mostly a vehicle for swimwear and racism.

…

In Neptune’s Daughter, Williams (playing a swimwear entrepreneur) and Montalbán (playing a “South American polo player”) get caught in a rom-com of mistaken identity (and cultural appropriation). But that only lasts for an hour before the movie gets bored with itself, adding in a mob subplot (also of mistaken identity and cultural appropriation) to kill time during its final 30 minutes. The key incident of the film is when Montalbán’s identity is stolen by a virgin masseur (played like a spasmodic toddler by dough-faced comedian Red Skelton), which leads to all the horrible accent work you might expect as he parades around pretending to be a Latin lover.

…

The script eventually called for a little romance to lubricate its humming race-joke engine, which meant finally putting the musical into “aquamusical.” That’s where Guys And Dolls songwriter Frank Loesser came in. But “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” wasn’t supposed to be in Neptune’s Daughter. According to Williams in that NYT piece, the filmmakers had a completely different Loesser song, “I’d Love to Get You (On a Slow Boat to China),” ready to go, but the Hays Code’s censors balked at its use of the word “get,” which they thought was too clearly a euphemism for “fuck.”

…

Neptune’s Daughter is as hacky as anything MGM was putting out around then, and a fitting follow-up to the previous year’s Williams x Montalbán production. In On An Island With You, Williams’ character is literally kidnapped to a remote island by her love interest. This (and, y’know, all that xenophobia on display) paints a fitting picture of how the studio—and the powerful censors OKing everything—thought the world should work. But their time was running out. In just a few years, America would be flooded with movies from all over the world, movies that treated audiences like adults who live in the real world. Studio pictures would change in turn, their conservatism now often hiding out in the subtext of our blockbusters. But some of the cultural ephemera that kept it front-and-center, like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” continues to live on, increasingly anachronistic to our modern eyes and ears. It’s strange and uncomfortable, and it makes sense that it’s still the target of popular backlash, but as soon as you place the song back into its original context, you realize that it’s a miracle that a worse version hasn’t been haunting our holidays.

[bro3256]

Reproductions are just Counterfeits with a different name

Since the dawn of time, video games have been copied illegally and sold on the second hand market without the endorsement of license holders. However it was pretty easy to tell the difference between a legit copy of a game and a bootleg. You couldn't fool anyone that this was a legit copy of Super Mario Bros. 3, right?

They were often sold for cheap, or in some cases were able to be rented. However as console gaming moved from cartridges to discs these bootleg cartridges slowly started to fade away in western markets. They didn't completely disappear but the prominence of them dwindled up until the 2000s. Then slowly but surely, we started to see cartridges pop up that look like the real deal but are actually counterfeit.

These are often called "Reproductions" or "Repros" for short. Despite the new name, the purpose of these cartridges still serve the exact same purpose as those bootleg cartridges from decades ago. Except this time these repros were made to look real to the point where it can fool people who don't know any better. Sure the hardcore collector can easily tell which is real or counterfeit, but everyone else?

But wait! There are also cases of "reproductions" being made of games that technically don't exist. Here we have a copy of Kid Dracula on NES which... hang on a minute! This was a Famicom game that never left Japan which never saw an NES release. This also seems to contain an English fan translation which I doubt the manufacturer of this cartridge got permission to use that for this cartridge. So wait why even call this a reproduction to begin with? This isn't mimicking anything that exists, it's no different to any other counterfeit cartridge.

There's also folks who consider modern cartridges such as this to be "reproductions". This is not trying to replicate anything that exists. It's a bootleg multicart, it's also not a "fake" game. The games on this cartridge are very real but the cartridge itself is worth next to nothing due to it being counterfeit.

There's also a huge issue with "reproductions" being sold for an absurd markup. Even if its not trying to replicate an existing game, why would you spend around $40 for what is essentially an unlicensed cartridge that realistically is worth dirt. If your argument is because this allows you to play these games on original hardware then invest in a flash cartridge or anything that lets you run rom files on original hardware which negates ever considering purchasing any of this.

I'm not a huge fan of calling all these newly manufactured cartridges reproductions when there are many which clearly do not fall under the actual definition of a reproduction. For something to be labeled as a reproduction it must replicate the original such as this EarthBound cartridge.

It's clearly based on the real thing and without further inspection looks close enough to the authentic cartridge. Compare that to other cartridges such as this seemingly innocent North American cartridge of Animal Crossing. The thing is that this never left Japan at least on the N64. So would you call this a reproduction?

Going by the actual definition it does not qualify due to it not replicating the original cartridge but instead mocking up what an American copy would look like. Since its distinct from the original cartridge I find it hard to call it a reproduction when it isn't even reproducing anything outside of the core game within (with a stolen fan translation might I add). If you were to give it a label it's simply a counterfeit or unlicensed cartridge despite the fake ESRB and Nintendo seal on the cartridge.

If I had to guess as to the reason why everything of this nature is labeled as reproductions is probably just to cover up the fact that these are by nature unauthorized copies of games which in return technically falls under copyright infringement. So its likely that this term is widespread to cover up that fact. That's not to say I'm completely against cartridges like this in general. I like collecting the odd bootleg cartridge every so often, but these newer cartridges don't appeal to me. I'll just stick to either buying original copies or play these games on flash cartridges.

[lorz-ix]

River City Girls Zero (2022) / Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka (1994)

I was really excited to try this game, since we're still sorely missing localizations for most SNES Kunio games, and this is the one that originally inspired the first River City Girls. After that game released, and thanks to the wonderful collection of all the NES Kunio entries translated to english for modern system, I kinda got very into the franchise, you see.

Turns out this was a massive disappointment. It's a very bland, very linear beat' em up that completely fails to live up to the expectations set during the previous console generation, only providing higher quality visuals and sound, and a slightly more intrincate story that takes itself too seriously for how unimpressive it is.

The new localization is fine, with a couple new opening and ending songs, a new animated opening sequence, and the option to choose between a 1994 faithful translation and one that tries to link this game more closely to the characterization of the River City Girls storyline. That's if you're playing in english of course, I noticed every other language only gets one translation. Tough luck.

I felt this localization job was completely unnecessary. As a game, you're essentially forking over 10-15 bucks for a SNES rom with little replayability and extras that add next to nothing to the experience. I would rather pay full price for a collection of all the SNES games with less bells and whistles, if they did it for the dozen NES titles they should have less of an issue doing it with the 5 or so SNES ones. Instead, they chose to give us one single very mediocre game, and I find it hard to have any hope that they'll release the others in the future.

River City Girls 2 (2022)

Even after the previous letdown, I was still very hopeful and excited for a full sequel, and I think it mostly lived up to those expectations. I want to play more of it, play through the story with different characters and do more of the side quests, which is a sign that I had a good time.

There's tons more dialogue for each of the playable characters, which is a treat. There's always some funny moments to laugh at, and I find the cast to be quite charming. Their movesets have also been improved and expanded, so there's more to do and experiment with during fights. You can get pretty creative and do some demanding combos if you're really willing to explore what everyone can do. The combat is a clear step up and probably the easiest thing to praise.

The story is also quite nice, pretty much what I'd expect from a sequel, fun the whole way through, but it's also where I began to have issues. I think some secondary characters that could easily be considered series staples, and who showed up in the first game, should have made an appearance here, but I guess that's my personal take and it can be forgiven. My biggest issue was how Ken was used, with his resemblance to Kunio having actually zero significance to the story, and him being apparently much older than the main cast? I believe he could have made for a more interesting and engaging baddie if he was also a teenager and a similar plotline to the one in Zero had been used.

And, oh man, don't get me started on how they fumbled the dragon twin(k)s. They're usually a top threat in any game they're in, and they got fantastic redesigns here, but they were barely used and I didn't even get to fight them. That should be some sort of crime. Genuinely the most underutilized members of the villain cast. What the hell happened here.

I guess I didn't notice this sort of stuff back when I wasn't a fan and these characters were all new to me, huh. Maybe this is all just fanboy rantings. Maybe it's not a big deal. But I seriously think the dragon twins are cool and they should be used more.

Other than that, my roomie (who I played through the entire game with) and I felt that the frequent fetch quests and backtracking required to advance the story got fairly annoying, but perhaps we wouldn't mind it if we were playing at our own pace and took our sweet time. I think playing with more patience would greatly improve the experience. All in all, I believe it was a very fun game, great fun with a friend, adorable characters, just not perfect you know. I'm only a bit passionate about some of that stuff.

[klonoadreams]

Since Hilbert thinks his twin was a stillborn, does that ever affect him growing up? Like it's a touchy subject and what ifs

Even after Sawyer, they don't have a way to definitely prove that they're related, but imagine it's one of those "$25 blood test kits! See your ancestry!" they did as a joke to fill in a sleepover and BAM

Pokemon center has a Hilbert in the corner, going through all stages of grief at once, Cheren's trying to ignore the situation by talking awkwardly to his pokemon, Bianca was asleep, so she wakes up and why is Hilbert crying?

hvjrkhjbkb SO LIKE, there's an added layer to all of this on Touya/Hilbert's end, because despite everything, he always FELT like someone should be there. and it's a bit of a touchy subject because he never found out through his parents, but through a third party source that was being too damn intrusive for their own good.

Which is never a good thing, when you bring up the fact that he is SUPPOSED to be a twin, but what the actual FUCK. Now he KNOWS about it and has to deal with the, "who should be here with me?"

And it BOTHERS him. Especially whenever he comes across other twins. And he's like, on playdates with Cheren and Bianca, but he's still just "what if they were here?" and it just REFUSES to leave his mind. And sometimes, he just thinks, "Why me?"

This is brought to you by what I ended up doing to the BW player characters regarding their family ties, with Alder being their Dad (which will forever stay a constant because lmaooo).

Often, for his safety, the identity of his dad is kept a secret (if you know, you know), but that doesn't stop some people from calling him a bastard child, even THOUGH HIS DAD IS FINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. He's just kinda aimless, given the fact that one of the two children he had was a stillborn, and then one of his Pokemon died to an illness?????

LIKE CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT THAT DOES TO A PERSON??? So he just often wanders aimlessly, usually visiting during holidays, birthdays, or whenever he's in the area (surprisingly, a lot more often than you'd think, since his feet usually take him home when he's not at the League). He's a good dad otherwise....

...

Oh right - Benga. So here's the thing.... Let me go on a weird, long-ass tangent that is AAAALL related to this. I swear, it's relevant, it's just gonna be massive, so I'mma put a read more

fun fact: I had the "Alder is the Player Character's Dad" thing in my fanfic done BEFORE BW2 was released (meaning there was a gap of time after BW released both in Japan, and later, outside of Japan), and if you know how things were before X and Y, this means we HAD to wait after BW2 released in Japan before we got translations, so patches existed for roms (that is how I VERY much played Black and White first, by the way, it was the first Pokemon game I followed since its release in Japan) to hold us through until the official English localization released.

Originally, I had this elaborate situation because I legitimately thought Benga was Alder's son (before I later found out that, nope, grandson - again, translation to localization situation, it wasn't as convenient as it is now), where Benga was just from a previous fling that his Mama kept from Alder, until oops, "hey, I know I was kinda a dick before for ghosting you all of these years, but I'm dying...can you take him in?"

Now, I'm just looking at that, going, "you know what, Mama can fucking get it, being a Trainer who went on her own journey." She knows what she wants, and if landing the Unovan Champion as a husband is a feasible goal for her, then of course she'd go after it.

I like to think Mama was built different and had her own elaborate journey, where she spent at least ten years on her journey, just traveling around, dealing with whatever news she heard coming from overseas regions about criminal organizations, just absentmindedly collecting badges like "I should do that while I'm here" and then forgetting about everything else, like she's in an open world environment (like it's Scarlet and Violet, where I just went around, getting distracted by everything or in the case of my friends, going around catching everything on sight and also getting into areas they LIKELY shouldn't be in).

Truly an example of "We shouldn't have let ten year olds go on their own in this dangerous region" because by the time Touya/Hilbert is able to go on his journey, he's 14 - because that's the actual age limit (if you wish to go alone on a journey), added in to lower the trainer mortality rate (and region-wide concerns). Because LISTEN, there be Hydreigon in the wild and other mons that are capable of being hostile.

Anyways Mama was like 20 before she even caught wind of the Champion. Dude's only had the title for maybe a few years now - hard to say, since she was lowkey off the grid, because she was too busy catching Pokemon to help out her father and older sister with the Pokedex. Just field research to add more consistent variables to their data.

Like again, she was super casual on the Gym Badge side of being a Trainer - she just did her own thing before realizing, "I should try the League." and got the rest of her badges at the side. I mean it helps that she FINALLY ran into Alder. The stars fucking aligned, because Mama went "AWOOGA" and just her luck, Alder was single.

Anyways it took her like six years to get that ring on her finger, because Alder really was, "dude, there are better men out there - WHY ME" But nah, Mama picked him and wouldn't stop challenging him. She never really beat him in an official League battle, but she still did kick his ass every so often. Which, in the Pokemon World, is like a good way to appear attractive to others. :V

Where Benga comes into play, it's called Alder was a reckless older teenager that got into flings, like all teenagers tend to do. And being Pokemon Trainers adds another layer of recklessness. So you got two seventeen year olds just doing stuff like having one night flings that don't go anywhere...

Except oops, there's a baby, but whatever, orphanage time. Buh bye - there's no child support to collect from some rando one night stand, so PEACE. And then she left for an overseas region, never to be heard from again.

Seventeen years later, history repeats itself - only this time, the Baby Mama doesn't exactly make it through the birth like her bio mama, so now Alder is just being called up to collect his grandson - because SURPRISE, you're not only a father, but also, a GRANDFATHER. And by this point, the Champion Title makes it difficult to just keep this kid in an orphanage, so uhhh...take him. "You're like the closest living relative we can track down"

Anyways you know how Alder said there are better men? Yeah, he's like 34, with a grandchild to raise. And thankfully, he's pretty good at what he does - but STILL...A GRANDFATHER - why the hell does this lady want to go after him, when he has a grandson???

Anyways two years later, after one wedding and pair of rings, Benga is excited at the concept of being an older brother of sorts (really, he is an older nephew - AGAIN, it's complicated). And while things go south for one of the twins, he still does have Touya/Hilbert and they're raised together, even if Benga is a bit more feral due to Alder's influence.

All this mess, just to say that there's a lot going on with Touya/Hilbert - him thinking he was the surviving twin is just the proverbial cherry on top, given how much of a soap opera his life has become.

Really, him finding out about Sawyer is gonna blow his mind, but also make him all the more protective, after all the bullshit he's gone through. Genuinely just sobbing his eyes out, having a near melt down, maybe also even punching out Team Plasma too (physically with his fists) because WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIS SISTER. JUST LOOK AT HER.

She absolutely MELTED when she received a hug. The way she got emotional over a BIRTHDAY surprise. THE TRAUMA.

What's more, in that likely scenario, he can't just SAY that to her, like...without preparation. And while it was mostly a joke, because "lmao, we look alike, let's see if we're related in some way" before the truth is revealed.

And now Touya/Hilbert has this massive truth bomb to ease Sawyer into. LIKE

Being Touya/Hilbert is suffering.

[thechariotrider]

An Introduction to Emulation

There are a lot of really cool old games, but actually playing them can seem quite difficult. Fortunately, there are tools available that make old games much more accessible. The most powerful, by far, is emulation. If you have ever wanted to learn how to play classic video games that aren't available on modern platforms, this post is for you.

TLDR: Emulation recreates old hardware (like game consoles) using software, allowing games to be played on modern systems. It's an incredibly cool technology that, while it has some minor downsides, is overall an important tool for preserving game history and enabling new game experiences.

What is the issue?

Game companies don't always make their older titles easily playable on modern hardware. There are so many important, influential, and fun video games released on older hardware that can't be bought on any modern platform. In fact, game companies sometimes go out of their way to remove their titles from modern storefronts. After Bandai Namco released Dark Souls Remastered in 2018, the original version of Dark Souls was removed from Steam, presumably to encourage people to buy the newer, shinier, more expensive release. Game history is important, and it's incredibly rewarding to engage with. Unfortunately, if you limit yourself to what is only available through official channels like Nintendo Switch Online, Steam, GoG, Xbox, Playstation 5, you will miss out on a lot of cool games.

Games are often designed to operate on very specific hardware. Games made for the N64 can't run on a Sony Playstation, and vice versa. Even on PC, a platform which is generally much more customizable, games can be made obsolete through software updates and new operating system releases. Software's dependency on hardware makes it harder to access as technology progresses. Because of this dependency on specific hardware, it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to keep games "up to date", and often companies decide it isn't worth the effort. I can still read books from the 1500s because fundamentally, they are just words and those are easy to bring to modern formats. Film too is relatively easy to keep functional. As long as you have a device that can run mp4 files, you have a lot of options with regards to how you watch a movie (even if those files have to come from an unofficial source). This isn't to imply that lost media and preservation challenges don't exist for books or movies, but the fact that I can easily access books that are several decades old, but many influential console games released even in the past few decades aren't playable on natively modern hardware says a lot. Fortunately, we have a solution. Emulation

What is emulation?

Emulation is software that performs the same function as hardware. Put simply, it lets games designed for one platform run on another. For instance, Dolphin is an emulator designed to play GameCube and Wii games. Dolphin runs on Windows 10 and 11, and allows you to play GameCube and Wii games on PCs. Emulators can be designed to recreate pretty much any piece of hardware. There are emulators recreating handheld devices like the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Java phones, and Playstation Portable. Other emulators are designed to run old PC games designed for Dos, the Amiga, or Commodore 64. There are even emulators designed for modern systems like the Switch. It should also be noted that emulators aren't exclusively used on PC. There are emulators designed to run games on Android phones or modern consoles. Every emulator is different, coming with its own set of features, requirements, and drawbacks.

It should be noted that most emulators also require ROMs or ISOs. ROMs and ISOs are the file type most commonly used to store game files. If emulators are a virtual recreation of hardware, ROMS and ISOs are virtual recreations of the software that would be inserted into the actual hardware.

What all can I do with emulation?

Emulation is a powerful tool that could be used for a variety of things. Most obviously, emulation is excellent for playing older games. While they certainly can do that, they can also do so much more. For instance:

Emulators make it much easier to play old games on the go: I can't carry a SNES with me everywhere I go. It's big, requires a bunch of cables, and I probably won't even have a TV to play it on. However, I can always bring my laptop with me. I have a SNES emulator installed on my laptop that lets me play SNES games anywhere. If I have a few moments in between classes I can boot up Front Mission, Tetris Attack, or any other SNES game I want. As if that wasn't enough, I also have NES, GBA, and DS emulators on my laptop, taking up very little hard drive space. Convenient!

Emulators let you customize your control schemes: Most emulators give you a lot of choice in how your controls are set up. For my laptop emulators, I simply use my keyboard because I don't want to carry a controller around with me. But, if I wanted to, I could plug in my Switch Pro Controller, or any other controller to play these games. This feature alone has some non-obvious advantages, such as...

Greater accessibility in control schemes: For people with physical disabilities, who might be unable to comfortably use a SNES controller, emulators allow them to relatively easily substitute the original controller for one they find more comfortable to use. This makes the emulated versions of classic games far more accessible than they would be on original hardware. As with all disability infrastructure, adding considerations for disabled people helps everyone, and a great example of that is...

Customizable controls are great for challenge runs: All sorts of interesting challenge runs become possible with emulated controllers. Have you ever wanted to play Link's Awakening with a Dance Dance Revolution pad? Well, set up an emulator and map its controls to the dance pad and you are good to go! You can't do that on an original Game Boy!

Save States let you bypass unfair nonsense: Old games sometimes have a reputation for having a lot of cheap deaths, and some definitely live up to that expectation. Some emulators come with save state features that essentially take a snapshot of the current game state that can be returned to at any point. If an upcoming platforming section has a lot of precarious jumps with impossible to dodge enemies, you can make a save state to go back to that challenge instantly, instead of having to replay the whole level again. Very nifty! Also, some emulators have rewinds, which serve a similar purpose.

Fast forwarding saves time: Some emulators let you increase the game speed, allowing you to bypass slow sections of a game. My friend Harry who runs the Video Games Are Bad YouTube channel recently released a video talking about how the speedup feature on his Seam Deck GBA emulator that made the experience of playing classic GBA Yu Gi Oh games much more enjoyable because he could skip the opponent's long turns. For JRPGs, games with cutscenes, or many other games, this is a great convenience feature

Emulators bypass region locking: Many classic console games were only playable in consoles from the right region. Japanese Playstation games could only be played on Japanese Playstations. While it's certainly possible to bypass this restriction on original hardware, it requires you to modify the console's internals in a very technical and easy to mess up process. Emulators bypass this entirely, making it easy to play games from other regions and see all of the differences between versions of the game.

Romhacking and Translation patches: Beyond playing games in their original form, emulators make it possible to play romhacks, mods, and other alterations. Translation patches allow players who don't speak a certain language to play games that didn't receive official translations. Famously, Mother 3 was never localized for a North American release, and to this day hasn't seen an official English translation. Fortunately, the game's very passionate fans translated the entire game to English, allowing tons of Mother fans to finally play the third, and best, entry in the series. Romhacks are similar, but instead of being used for translation purposes, entire game mechanics are altered. With romhacking, designers can create fan campaigns, edit game balance, create jokes, and many other things. Romhacking is a world of possibility that lets games be experienced in new ways that would be difficult to experience on original hardware.

Speedrunning: While the rules surrounding emulators obviously vary from game to game, some speedrunning scenes (especially those for handheld games) use emulators for their runs. Without emulators, some games would be much harder to speedrun, and would have smaller scenes as a result.

And more!

What are some Downsides of Emulation?

Clearly, emulators have a ton of advantages, even if you have the original hardware. However, for as great as they are, and they are pretty great, there are some downsides worth considering when using emulators.

System requirements: Emulators function by recreating hardware through software. Doing this takes a certain amount of the host machine's CPU power. For older systems this usually isn't a problem, but the more recent and complex an emulated machine is, the better your machine needs to be to smoothly run the emulator. Naturally, it's a lot easier to emulate a Playstation 5 than a Playstation 1. If your computer isn't powerful enough, there might be some emulators it can't run. I personally haven't run into this myself, but its something to keep in mind.

Finding ROMS and ISOs can be tricky: While emulators themselves can usually be downloaded easily, ROMs and ISOs are a different story. When searching for ROMs, some people come across sketchy looking websites that are filled with ads and give the impression they could give you a virus, and some of these sites very well might. This isn't to say that there aren't ways of safely obtaining ROMs and ISOs. In the past, there was EmuParadise, a quite extensive ROM library that was safe, however following a legal threat from Nintendo the site had to remove the ability to download ROMs. MyAbandonware is a pretty safe site and is my go to for PC emulation, but doesn't have much in the way of console gaming. The Internet Archive also is pretty safe, but might not have everything. In the future I want to make a post detailing ways of safely obtaining ROMs and ISOs as that is a nuanced issue, but for now know that there are safe downloads online. ROMs and ISOs NEVER come in the form of EXEs, so never run an EXE downloaded from online. Beyond that, it never hurts to do a quick google search about the site in question to find other people's experiences with the site in terms of safety.

Emulators aren't always 100% accurate: Because emulators are recreating hardware with software, it isn't always perfect. Some games don't run exactly as they would on original hardware. Textures might not appear properly, in game mechanics might be a bit wonky, and there might be some visual issues. For older systems, these kinds of problems have been largely ironed out and these emulation issues are extremely rare, but they pop up from time to time when emulating more modern systems. In my years of emulator experience, I have only encountered serious emulation errors once. Fortunately, most emulators are in continuous, open source development so visual issues often eventually get fixed. Even if the game does have some problems, a flawed, visually imperfect game is better than nothing at all.

Isn't emulation illegal?

Some people might be hesitant to get into emulation because they feel it is illegal, or that it's essentially piracy. This technically isn't the case. In 2000, Sony sued Connectix, who had recently released the Virtual Game Station, a commercial emulator for the Macintosh. The Virtual Game Station was designed to only play legal games. Players had to insert the Playstation game they wanted to play into their computer in order for the emulator to work, meaning the emulator didn't inherently enable piracy. Regardless, Sony sued Connectix, arguing the emulator infringed on their copyright and stole Sony's Playstation code. However, the court ultimately sided with Connectix. While their software did recreate the function of the Playstation, it did so with its own code which had been reverse engineered from Sony's hardware, meaning that Connectix didn't violate Sony's copyright. Sony v. Connectix established the legal precedent that emulation was entirely legal, and this has born fruit for modern game companies. Many PC games released on Steam and GoG run off DosBox, an emulator that runs Dos games. These releases come from the current rights holders and are entirely legal, even though the games use emulators. For more evidence of legal emulation, look no further than the Wii Virtual Console or Nintendo Switch Online service, both of which are commercial emulators.

While emulation is legal, the sharing of ROMs and files without permission from the copyright holders is illegal. As such, downloading ROMs from the internet is technically illegal. However, there is certainly a case to be made that, while it isn't always legal, it can be ethical to emulate classic games. If I wanted to legally play a GameCube game, I would have to go online and buy a used copy online. Depending on the popularity and rarity of the game in question, used game discs can cost anywhere from dozens to hundreds of dollars. Buying used games and the hardware to run them can be extraordinarily expensive and would put many games out of the financial reach of many individuals. It's also important to note that none of the money spent going to buy these used games is actually going to the developers who made the game.

In general, I'm actually not a huge fan of piracy, especially for indie games. My rule of thumb is that if a game can be purchased on modern hardware, I won't use emulation to play the game. I only use emulation to play games that are out of print and impossible to buy legally in a way that supports the developers. Unfortunately, there are tons of games that I can only realistically experience through emulation, and in that case I feel no guilt for doing so. I can't deny the developers a sale if they aren't selling the game. Further discussion of the ethics and legality are interesting, but might be best approached in a post of their own.

Conclusion

Emulation is an incredibly cool technology and one of the most powerful tools in the fight to preserve gaming and its history. Emulators can be complex, and in the future I hope to write further blog posts detailing the intricacies of emulation in more detail, laying out emulators I recommend and discussing other emulation and game preservation topics.

If you have any questions about emulation, game preservation, or any related subject, feel free to ask.

Have a good day.

[zaptap]

i absolutely think we're due for unova remakes very soon, likely as the next game, but idk if they'll announce them before sv dlc is out of the way. seems like more of a pokemon day "this is what we're throwing out there this year" thing

seen people clinging to the idea that they do remakes every other gen but, so far, ALL first-time remakes (i.e. not lgpe) have happened 2 hardware generations after the originals

gb (rgby) to gba (frlg)

gbc (gsc) to ds (hgss)

gba (rse) to 3ds (oras)

ds (dpp and bwbw2) to switch (bdsp.... and _b_w?)

the ds was just when they started cramming 2 pokemon gens into one hardware gen so now that we're getting into ds remakes they'll probably happen every pokemon gen now

and if they continue having ilca or whoever churn out unambitious remakes then maybe game freak will keep putting legends games out around the same time.

arceus felt to me like it had pieces of what we've come to expect from pokemon remakes--the new stuff--so i think of it as being in a remake-adjacent category i'm calling a "reimagining." meanwhile bdsp avoided having much new stuff and instead provided an overly faithful recreation of the original games with graphical upgrades and gameplay modernizations and little else

are they going to do another ilca remake paired with a legends game? maybe. since legends was kind of an experiment, and succeeded, maybe they could try to work some elements into the actual remake this time. also after how glitchy bdsp was (more specifically, all the weird stuff they had to do with home compatibility to stop those Evil Cheaters) maybe they won't trust ilca with that again. or maybe they'll give them another chance, since game freak started out with a glitch-filled game too and maybe they've learned? idk

and what about bw2? so far they've been able to put things into the remakes to reflect things from the third versions (though bdsp really could've had a lot more from platinum) but how do you do an entire extra story with different protagonists and a 2 year time skip? they can't get away with just giving us bw2 outfits. $60 absolutely should cover both bw and bw2 in one, but i kind of doubt they'll do it. dlc maybe i guess? though that was a popular theory for platinum in bdsp that went nowhere, so who knows

alternatively i suppose they could release a bw remake as a single game and bw2 as another (remember how bdsp was found to be the same rom, just with a marker that determined the version? it would kind of make sense to do) but also that's kind of insane because you've never been expected to buy both games before, but in this scenario you'd have to to get the full experience. evil. too evil for tpci i think, but i suppose they could always get worse. i guess in that sense having a dual release of b+b2/w+w2 seems a bit more likely, dlc or not? if they don't almost entirely ignore bw2, that is

either way, i'm expecting unova soon. one week before black friday 2024 if tpci keeps insisting on their blatantly money-hungry release schedule they've been sticking pretty closely to for almost a decade now. would prefer they take more time, but i don't expect them to

........wait. i forgot. it actually might be johto's turn next. hgss is older than gen v, after all. whether that's going to be something with pokemon go elements mixed in again (isn't that game kind of on a decline now? idk) or something different, they might do something

so i guess 2024 johto, 2025 unova? wow idk. who give a shit tbh. point is both are probably somewhere on the horizon (though, unova is more certain i'd say since lgpe is just one game so we have no idea what kind of pattern those second-round remakes might take. maybe it was just a one-off)

anyway i've been wanting to replay gen v more and more for the past couple years but i haven't been able to make time for it yet. odds are i won't until at least when the remakes are coming. i replayed platinum shortly before bdsp released (actually started a couple months before it was announced...) and that was a mistake. bdsp was ok (though bad by pokemon standards) but it felt like playing the same game back to back except worse (very different from when i played ruby before oras, and yellow before lgpe). don't want to do that again so i guess i'll wait at this point

[badgraph1csghost]

How to Use a Computer, Part 5-B: Really How to Install Games from Disc Media

Last time, I explained about Microsoft refusing to recognise Safedisc and SecuROM games. I accidentally made it sound like ALL game software that was ever released on discs wouldn't work anymore. That was my error. SecuROM was already an antique by the time Microsoft got round to ending support for it, so there's actually quite a lot of games on disc that weren't affected by that. Let's quit talking about arcane technical issues and get down to the practical stuff, shall we?

There really isn't much to say about running games from disc. Like all software, it needs to install onto your computer first; the only difference is that the game uses a disc, either CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, to install the software, rather than an internet-based download service.

To begin, open your optical drive (OD) and put Disc 1 of the software you wish to install into the drive. If there is only one disc, that'll save you the step of changing out discs. Close the OD and wait for Windows to ask you what you want to do with the disc. Select "Run". It might say "Run Setup.exe", "Run AutoPlay.exe", or something else germane to running the installer contained on the disc. Whatever the "Run" option is, select it.

The Installer prompt will ask you to choose a file directory to install the software into. It will already have a selection made, so you won't have to worry about it. Really, there's no need to install software to a location other than the one given by the installer, unless you have a special hard drive or disk partition specifically for games. You probably don't so just let the installer put it where it wants to.

Let's look at the directory for second, though; because you'll probably use that to install mods. Let's take The Sims Complete Collection (EA, 2005) as an example. The directory the installer will put the game in is this...

C:/Program Files (x86)/Maxis/The Sims Complete Collection

This means the game will install on your main hard drive (drive C), into the root program files directory for 32-bit software (x86 and derivative CPUs were 32-bit processors, hence Program Files x86). In the 32-bit program files directory, it will use the folder for Maxis games (the game's original developer) and create a subfolder specifically for The Sims Complete Collection. It does this in order to prevent conflicts with any other games that might be in the Maxis folder, either now or in the future; say, if you were to install SimCity 4. Every file that TSCC's install discs put onto your computer will end up in this file directory only, with the exception of a desktop shortcut and a shortcut in your Start menu.

Some games, especially newer ones (2009-present) will also create user data folders in your Documents or User folders, apart from installing the game to C:/Program Files. In this case, mods will typically go in this user data folder instead of the root directory.

Getting back to the disc. When the installer prompts you for the next disc in the series, re-open your OD, remove the first disc and insert the second one; then shut the OD and click "OK" on the prompt. Repeat this process for disc 3, disc 4, and onwards. Once all the discs have been used, the installer will request Disc 1 again, at which point the install finalises and you can run the game.

It should be noted that REALLY OLD software-- basically, anything designed for Windows 98 or below-- will not run on modern computers. At all. But, if you're really, REALLY interested in playing something like SimHealth or Jane's Combat Simulator, you might try running those on a virtual machine with Windows 98. That's a little complicated to go into right now, but if you're interested in that, look into Virtual Box, a freeware VM from Oracle. If the game you want to play is from MS-DOS-- like Wolfenstein 3D or Jazz Jackrabbit-- Dosbox has you covered.

That's all we have for disc-based software. Next time, we'll talk about how to make your PC better through custom hardware.

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Mega CD - Sengoku Densho

Title: Sengoku Densho / 戦国伝承

Developer: SNK / Dragnet / Kan's

Publisher: Sammy

Release date: 28 December 1993

Catalogue No.: T-24034

Genre: 2D Side-Scroller Brawler Action

There was a good reason why some gamers in the early 1990s were shelling out big bucks for the Neo Geo AES system, which was just about the same as the Neo Geo MVS machine, from hardware specs to controllers. Most gamers wanted to bring home the lovely Neo Geo titles, but they were expensive, with the system costing around $600 and the games costing around $300 each. So, they went the cheaper route by buying watered-down versions of their favorites on the Mega Drive. While most Mega Drive ports of SNK classics were just about the same in terms of gameplay, they were missing so many things that made the Neo Geo the arcade powerhouse it was. A Japanese release only for the Mega CD, SNK’s Sengoku Densho shows that even with CD-ROM technology, you can’t always get arcade-perfect gameplay. Sammy tried to do a good port of Sengoku Densho on the Mega CD, but the hardware just wasn’t able to provide 100% fun like the original arcade machine, even with SNK's help.

The gameplay, like just about all beat-em-ups of the era, is easy to get into but has an interesting gimmick. You have the standard attack button and jump, but the third button is the “change” button. By defeating a mini-boss you’ll receive a “fighting spirit.” The fighting spirit can be three things: wolf, samurai, or ninja. Each spirit has its strengths and weaknesses, and it’s wise to use them when you can use their strengths the best. Defeating regular enemies yields different colored weapon orbs floating in the sky. Picking them up allows you to use different weapons, from two-handed swords to fireball attacks. These weapons also have a time limit, so they’ll disappear after a certain amount of time too. If you’re in spirit form, the orbs can give different weapons, depending on the color and which spirit you’re using. This gives the game tons of different weapons you can use depending on the situation.

The visuals are pretty mediocre, I have to say. Apparently, this port was programmed by Dragnet, and judging by their work with Caliber.50 and Wardner no Mori Special, they had a knack for releasing Mega Drive games with hideous use of color not helped at all by the fact the Mega CD is still dependent on the Mega Drive for all the visuals. Being on CD, the music is basically an up-sampled recording of the tunes found from the Neo Geo original, though I found the sampled speech to be a teeny bit scratchy. Overall, if you look at it from a budget-minded gamer back in the 90s who didn't mind importing, the Mega CD version of Sengoku Densho is actually a pretty faithful even if scaled-back conversion of the supernatural Neo Geo classic. Even now, you can't go wrong playing it.

[luigiblood]

GoldenEye 007 & The Future of Nintendo Switch Online

I wanna talk a little bit about the rerelease of GoldenEye 007, the little context and also something I noticed during my research.

GoldenEye 007 has finally got rereleased on January 27th 2023 on both the Nintendo Switch Online service, Xbox Game Pass and as a digital Rare Replay update.

See more after the break.

Emulation quality

Both the Switch and Xbox versions are confirmed emulated and not based at all from the leaked XBLA version, which I'm probably certain will never see a release ever, possibly due to the rights holders which are... very messy if I rely on the copyright info: FIVE. Nintendo, Rare Studio (Microsoft), Danjaq LLC, MGM and Sony Music Publishing.

Welcome to rights hell.

The emulation of it is... kinda complicated because it is mostly fine, like it is playable for certain, if you play it I think it is sort of reasonable. Both versions have 16:9 support (which by the way, was part of the original version on N64) and are 30 FPS with some framerate dips.

The Xbox version has tons of hacks to just change the controls, copyright info, and upscaling (up to 4K!) which honestly, is the imperfect part, with the slight but very visible texture warping and seams, which while Code Mystics claims it is technically accurate to the N64, and I do actually believe them about that, I don't know if we can really talk about accuracy the moment you just upscale the graphics way beyond what the original console could do.

Personally this problem would definitely bother me a lot, but from what I can see the Xbox version is still emulating fine.

The Switch Online version has not many hacks, they do exist, but not really a lot, the graphics emulation is slightly worse than Xbox with mostly too much fog than intended, repeated textures that shouldn't repeat as much, but it makes up for not having the texture warping issue in the slightest, only having less visible seams at times, as it is also upscaled in HD.

Just to talk about the specifics of the Switch version as I datamined it: The base ROM is different, and was modified to remove the face textures for Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. This is actually kinda the first time they hacked a base ROM like this before, especially only for parts that are fully unused, they really wanted to make sure it's not there.

I also noticed tons of texture replacements that seem to be related to explosions, maybe muzzle flashes as well.

The major thing that people will talk about are the controls, which by result of the Nintendo Switch Online service being more about playing the original games as is, which I do respect personally, in fact let me say this: the default control scheme is dated but it's fine to play, but there's one thing that I really dislike: The stick sensitivity is way too high. I think this makes it almost unplayable in certain aspects, because current sticks are definitely not like the N64 sticks which I think are way more precise due to their inner workings and form factor, it does not adapt 1:1 to newer sticks.

So when you just wanna use the aiming mode in Goldeneye, it's way harder to aim properly than on an N64 controller. It's doable, but it's harder.

The online, exclusive to Switch due to the N64 emulator already supporting it, I couldn't try it but after seeing footage it is very sad that it still can't handle online with players from two different regions when on PC it is not as much of a problem.

If you ask me which version is emulated better, I'd say Xbox at first glance, but both versions are totally playable, good enough but imperfect. Code Mystics' work for their N64 emulator is I think respectable, and iQue's work on the N64 emulator for Switch is also much better than we originally anticipated with the trailers and other official footage.

And yes I mentioned iQue and not NERD because their official involvement with Nintendo 64 NSO seems to be purely on the UI integration, possibly a bit more, but the major developer is iQue.

A lot of the disappointment I noticed are on the fact that 360 XBLA port is not used in any way, and it is certainly a bummer when that version showed promise.

N64 Switch Online Issues

But I also do hear a lot of complaints about the controls, but I think it's more of a quality of life debate, I think it's playable except for the stick sensitivity on Switch. But everyone does point out the need for a way to remap controls. Instead we just use the Switch OS controller remap feature in an attempt to fit our needs, which, personally, is only a bandaid and is not a real fix.

Personally one of the most annoying thing is the fact that B and A are horizontal instead of vertical just like the original N64 controller.

WHY IS THIS NOT A FEATURE YET?

I also hate how the ZL is always Z, and the L button is always L, when most games' L button equivalent is Z since we put our left hand on the stick part.

iQue and NERD really needs to implement control remapping, PER GAME, or possibly ways to register presets per game or something, it getting urgent.

...what's the deal Japan? (Theory)

Now, if you're in Japan, you might have noticed GoldenEye 007 hasn't rereleased on Switch there yet...

Nintendo's website says that the game would be released in other regions on the 27th, as planned, but the game would be out in Japan only later in 2023, while mentioning the game's rating: CERO: Z.

This is kind of important, because this is the highest rating. Japan have strict laws about this, and you can't let kids access this game easily.

Aside from the very weird rating, this means a lot, this means Nintendo has to do something about Parental Controls about this game, there's two ways they could deal with this:

Either they just make a 18+ N64 NSO app with the game, rated 18+ instead of Teen or 16+ like in other regions.

Or they do add some parental controls check inside the app, preventing access in a dynamic way per account.

The thing is, I've seen how the application manages the game library user interface: it's very flexible in what it can show/hide, just see how it manages European games or the case of region locking, applied in Korea to hide Magical Drop2 (SNES) and F-Zero X (N64).

For me, this seems like the kind of thing that could have been implemented easily in a few months? Though I'm speaking as someone who hasn't been in a big company managing these things in some way.

The funniest part is still how the apps can access the Parental Controls OS service the entire time.

So my theory is the following: I expect a sort of refresh of the NSO retro apps in the near future, downgrading the NSO retro app age rating to a minimum, instead putting every single age rating info for each game individually, trusting the parental controls to provide information to the app to hide games that shouldn't be played by the user.

I can see the possible logic of implementing this fully for every possible age rating from Nintendo, because while you're at it, you could just as well manage it for the entire library of games, which, currently, is almost 200 different titles in total.

And this, I can see this taking time to do, because you'd need info from every single rating boards in every region, which all games have been assumed 16+/Teen just because the app is that way. I can see some logistics required and could potentially take months to make sure everything is all right.

Now I don't know if they could see this as an opportunity to refresh the UI in a way, possibly even adding new features (like custom controls, please), and maybe this is the reason why Game Boy Color NSO hasn't launched yet, I could see this as a reason to just have feature parity everywhere as a saner base.

I don't know if I'm being reasonable on my theory, but I feel like it'd make sense? We'll see how it goes, really.