#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.

[yoonia]

— Dia’s tumblr wrapped 2024 

I know it’s super late for me to share this, but just as many would say, it’s better late than never. Thank you so much for the lovely people who tagged me to do this: @beomcoups, @shadowkoo, @kingofbodyrolls ♡

2024 started off smoothly…until it didn’t. The final quarter of the year has always been a hard time for me and it wasn’t that much different this year. As you can probably notice that I’ve been mostly absent ever since the end of October and I deeply apologise for that. I also regret not planning things properly and for not keeping up with my goals this year but that only means that I'll be dragging my WIP list towards the next year.

Thank you so much for everyone who has been there for me this year, and those of you who have stuck by me despite my inconsistencies. I really appreciate your presence on my blog, whether it’s through your likes and kudos, your reblogs, your comments and replies on my contents, and the kind words you sent me through my ask box. You guys have made it worthwhile for me to be here even after all these years, and I don’t think I can thank you enough for that. Here’s to mark the end of our wild journey through 2024 and enter the new year of 2025. 

OVERALL FIC STATS 2024

Number of fics posted: 4 (four) one-shots, 2 (two) ongoing series, 3 (three) ficlets

Number of fics revamped: 2 (two) completed fics, 2 (two) ongoing series

Number of words written: 448,057 words (dang, no wonder I felt so burned out lol)

Number of fics in progress: 32 (oh, boy…) 

FIRST FIC OF 2024

❥ A Christmas Fix 01 & 02 —  posted Jan 31st & Feb 1st | 1,926 & 1,226 notes

My thoughts: This was…quite a journey. It’s been a while since I wrote a rom-com story and I was pleased to have been given the chance to write this idea through a collab. The final outcome wasn’t too disappointing either, since I enjoyed writing it and reading it afterwards. I’m glad everyone loved this story as well.

MOST POPULAR FIC OF 2024

❥ The Stand-In (Revamped version) — posted Aug 13th | 4,267 notes

My thoughts: Okay, yeah…I cheated a little. But to be fair, this fic did get a lot of notes this year before and after the revamping process. I loved this story so much that I felt like it deserved a major makeover and I’m glad I managed to do it this year.

LONGEST FIC OF 2024

❥ The Bedroom Hymns — series, ongoing, last updated Sept 9th | 50k++ words | I’m too lazy to open each chapter to count the notes I’m so sorry lol

My thoughts: I know…I know, I need to update this one again. I had to take a break from this series because this fic literally became my main focus this year that a lot of my WIPs kept getting pushed back just so I could finish more of this. I had to stop at some point to finally set free my WIPs. I have to admit that I also lost my motivation to write this due to the lack of notes and responses that I got with each update no matter how much time I spent working on it (tacky, I know…but it is what it is). I still love and enjoy writing this, so more chapters are coming. I can see this fic becoming my main focus again in 2025 until I’m done with it.

LAST FIC OF 2024

❥ The Forsaken II: Tears of the Sea — posted Oct 24th | 712 notes

My thoughts: Holy hell…this fic. Who would’ve thought that I’d be revisiting siren!Taehyung this year after…3 years?? Thank you, whoever it was that sent this during my birthday event. I never expected to write a full fic for this to continue the original story and to answer a lot of your questions, but I’m glad I did! 

Honorable mention: 

❥ Our Imperfections — posted Oct 30th | 92 notes

My thoughts: This was the last thing I actually released before I dipped into the void but I couldn’t count this as a fic as this was considered a ficlet or, in a more common term, a drabble.

PERSONAL FAVOURITE FIC OF 2024

❥ Blooming Wallflowers — posted Sept 25th | 927 notes

My thoughts: I had one of those rare moments where I found myself enjoying the writing process of a story so much that things simply kept flowing until it became a full story. This one went twice the size planned (and commissioned) but I have no regrets. At all.

Honorable mention: 

❥ Maps (revamped version) — series, completed, posted Sept 6th, 7th, & 11th | 1,4k++ notes (again, I’m too lazy to open each chapter lol)

My thoughts: I initially planned to release something else for DPR Ian’s birthday this year. But then I started revamping the graphics for his old fics instead and decided to revamp the whole series while I had the chance. This one has always been my fave work that I wrote for Christian, so diving back into this to do a makeover and give it a major upgrade felt absolutely fulfilling. 

2024 SPECIAL EVENT

❥ 𝖙𝖜𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖊: yoonia’s 2024 birthday bash

My thoughts: Once again, I can’t thank you guys enough for joining this small event of mine. I promise that I’ll have another event in 2025 so please stay tuned! (see you in March!) 

Fave reads of 2024

I have to admit that I haven’t been doing a lot of fic reading this year. But I’m happy that I got to dive back into reading some fanfics during my birthday event and found some lovely gems that I truly enjoyed

The Taste of Sin by @shadowkoo

Vignette: Duty by @cybrsan

The Athlete by @beomcoups

A Lover's Redemption by @writtenwhalien

Dandelion by @shina913

The Wood by @sailoryooons

Minted by @kithtaehyung

Mr. & Mrs. Yoon by @monamipencil

On The Ropes by @raplinesmoon

Top Ten Tracks of 2024

Loved — B.I

People — Agust D

Make You Mine — Black Violet

Gemini — Cheyenne 

Close To Me — Mamie, Eloy, Trippy Bass

HUH?! — Agust D feat. J-hope

Love — Lana Del Rey 

Reasons — COTIS 

Watch Me Burn — Michelle Morrone 

Die First — Nessa Barrett  

GOALS FOR 2025

Write more. Tackle more WIPs each month. 

Finally finish my old abandoned WIPs (About Time, Blood Moon Rising and the Shifters Series, Chance Encounter) 

Finish writing and officially release my original stories/novel as a web-series

Try to do better with planning and scheduling and keeping up with them

Finish revamping Carousel and release the novel version on Ream

Read more. Both published books and released fics

Focus more on my personal health, mental and physical 

Start job hunting again

I know I’m late for this, so I’m passing this over to the writers who are tagged on the list above (if you haven’t done this yet) and also tagging a few who come across my mind right now (only if you want to!): @ressjeon @lo1k-diamonds @pars-ley @minisugakoobies @inkedtae

And also tagging randomly anyone who feels inspired to create their own tumblr wrapped! 

[eptodaytommorowforever]

Events In The History And Of The Life Of Elvis Presley Today On The 12th Of November In 1972

Elvis Presley Tour And Show Comes To San Bernardino CA.

A look back at Elvis Presley's 1972 outstanding concert at swing auditorium in San Bernardino CA

Sunday night, Nov. 12, 1972. The Santa Ana winds were howling, so typical of San Bernardino in November. And it was cold. But a sold-out crowd stood patiently to have an audience with The Legend . Elvis Presley was in the Swing Auditorium.

The Swing was the place east of L.A.'s Fabulous Forum to see virtually every top name act in the rock world, circa 1964 through 1981. Located on E Street, the auditorium was built in 1949 on the grounds of the National Orange Show and was named for Senator Ralph E. Swing, a San Bernardino legislator. What a glorious barn it was and what history played out on that stage. The Rolling Stones did their first American concert there in June 1964. The place rocked until a small plane crashed into it on Sept. 11, 1981 and the auditorium had to be demolished. One of the last shows played there featured Iron Maiden.

In between, rock royalty were regulars. Fleetwood Mac played more than five times. The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Black Sabbath, Ramones (as opening act), Chicago, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, the Grateful Dead (multiple times), Faces with Rod Stewart (also multiple times), Santana, the Kinks, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, the Beach Boys, and more. Look up how many of these acts are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Just about everybody but the Beatles made it to the Swing.

Prior to the modern rock era, Bob Hope was almost an annual fixture at the Swing during the National Orange Show Fair. Other notables who performed there in the '50s and '60s included Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis, and George Burns. But never had a King played there before that night.

Yet, it wasn't as if Elvis Presley had never been to the IE. He did own a house for several of the Priscilla years in Palm Springs and was known to do some boating in Big Bear Lake. Many scenes of the totally forgettable remake movie 'Kid Galahad' were shot in Idyllwild. And, some of the outdoor footage in 1964's 'Kissin' Cousins' was shot in the San Bernardino Mountains. Still, this was different.

Elvis Presley's nationwide tour began at Madison Square Garden in New York, a city he had never before performed live in. The four concerts there were sold out and got rave reviews. At 37, he was 'lean, tanned and greasily handsome, his coal-black hair glistening with an oily 1950s sheen', as the New York Times' Grace Lichtenstein put it. At a press conference before the Madison Square Garden appearance, he was asked about the secret of his longevity on the pop music scene. 'I take Vitamin E', he told reporters.

From New York, the tour moved west, passing through cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, Wichita and Tulsa before continuing on to Las Vegas. Elvis stayed there for most of October before continuing the tour, which took him to Texas, Arizona, and into California. He hit Oakland, then San Bernardino, where he performed two sold-out shows - one on Nov. 12 and another on Nov. 13. rom there, he headed to the Long Beach Arena for two shows, the last stop before catching a plane for Honolulu where the tour would wrap up. Originally, the Honolulu show was planned to be broadcast worldwide by satellite, but the broadcast date was changed to early 1973 so it wouldn't conflict with the release of MGM's musical documentary Elvis on Tour. No matter. The show (actually four of them) went on. And in Honolulu, as well as in other cities on the tour, fans of all ages crowded concert venues to get a live view of the King.

So it was in San Bernardino. The Swing could hold about 10,000 people with a concert take of around $60,000. On that cold November night, fans crammed into the sold-out auditorium. With reserved seating, there was none of the festival seating chaos that marked the Swing rock shows - kids pushing and shoving and fighting to get to the stage area. This crowd was real diferent. I was way too young at 21. For the usual Swing rock show, most of the concertgoers were my age or younger. The guys had long hair, wore boots, Levis and denim work shirts (think the cover of a Creedence album.) The girls went braless, wore tight jeans or peasant dresses. There were always more guys than girls.

For Elvis Presley though, these fans had jobs, mortgages, and kids. The women clearly outnumbered the guys. They wore bright yellow or orange dresses, lots of makeup. Hairspray was huge. And, there were more than a few suicide blondes with hot pants and go-go boots. (I would never have sat on anything in the Swing in hot pants.) Jean Naté was locked in mortal combat with Charlie in a fragrance war. My Sin perfume held its own. Smoke from the bathrooms came from real Marlboro men (and women.)

My seat was in the cheap section - off to the side and high up, close to the glued-on tinsel that was a prominent feature of the Swing. The place always had a peculiar smell. Close to show time, greedy Colonel Tom's minions were at the stage hawking T-shirts, photos, and other assorted gee-gaws. I wonder just how much of that cash Elvis Presley received.

Finally, the lights lowered. The band started playing the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then, there he was - The King. He was resplendent in a black and red concert suit.

Though his show was typical of his Vegas show that he performed at the International Hotel (later known as the Las Vegas Hilton and now called the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino), it didn't matter to his loyal subjects. He was live in San Berdoo! Old ladies screamed. It was hard to tell from my cheap seat, but I believe there were a few panties thrown at him.

His voice and physique were in A-plus form. He ripped through concert standards such as 'Polk Salad Annie', crooned to crowd favorite 'Can't Help Falling In Love', and did a couple of religious numbers with the gospel group J.D. Sumner and The Stamps.

No Elvis Presley show would be complete without the hits 'Hound Dog', 'All Shook Up', 'Jailhouse Rock', and 'American Trilogy'.

His band and entourage - the Sweet Inspirations, legendary guitar hero James Burton - provided a full sound that could not be duplicated by the typical four-man rock act. It was a show truly becoming of a King. The crowd responded as if seeing him for the first time. Bedlam broke out among the thousands of fans.

After about 90 minutes, despite fans calling for more, Elvis Presley left the auditorium for the San Bernardino Hilton, about $60,000 richer. I was a poor college kid. I went to Del Taco. What a Sunday night! rare candid photo's one captured of elvis presley leaving Oakland CA captured here by a female ep fan boarding is executive chartered jet heading to San Bernardino CA and performing here at this show wearing the white pinwheel jumpsuit and the white cape and the lions head belt captured by a fan audience member who was at this show concert.

[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.

[tronarchive]

Tron Deadly Discs

Greetings Programs!

Today we'll be taking a look at the first of 3 Mattel video games published the same year as the original Tron movie: Tron: Deadly Discs. Originally released for the Intellivision console, it was also made for the Atari 2600 (under Mattel's M Network label) and the Mattel Aquarius (although this was actually ported in 1983). Each version has different aspects that will be covered in a bullet list down below. 

The Intellivision version was programmed by Don Daglow and Steven Sents. I couldn't find much on Sents unfortunately. Daglow, however, programmed notable games like "Utopia" and "Dungeon" and even went on to found the now defunct studio Stormfront Studios Inc. They were responsible for games such as Neverwind Nights and several Tony La Russa baseball games. The Intellivision version came with the cartridge, an instruction manual, 2 overlays for the controller, and a nifty little flyer with deals for the movie.

As far as I can find, the Atari 2600 came with just a cartridge and an instruction manual. The Aquarius version came with the cartridge, instruction manual, 2 controller overlays, and a keyboard overlay. 

All three games follow the same premise: you play as Tron, locked in the game grid and forced to fight against endless waves of enemies. Intellivision Master managed to get 19 million points, which I believe is the current world record! The enemies will appear through doors around the edge of the arena and you can keep them "jammed" open by throwing your disc at them. You can use said doors to travel to the opposite side of the map if there's a corresponding door. Basic enemies will attack by throwing their own disc; they're not harmful if Tron touches the enemies themselves (an exception would be the Guards in Intellivision and Intellidiscs). You have the ability to recall your disc in mid-fight, but it'll be rendered harmless as it returns.   

During my research I stumbled upon Intellidiscs- a fan conversion of the Intellivision version for the Atari 8-bit/5200. It was published by Phaser Cat Games in May 2021 and programmed by Ryan Whitman, with sounds by Bobby Clark. At the initial release, you could actually purchase a physical cartridge that came in a custom box with an instruction manual and custom controller overlay. Wired-Up Retro has a great unboxing and playing of it. According to the site, this cartridge could be played on North America and NTSC TV sets. Don't worry, you can download the ROM for free from their site as well! This version also features battle mods, where you can battle up to 4 players. The enemies follow the same format as the Intellivision (shown below, just with different names). There are developer diaries if you wish to see some behind the scenes -> here.

What’re your thoughts? Were you able to play it during its glory days?

Here's link for a side by side comparison of gameplay for each version!

Want to try it out? Here you can download a ROM of the Intellivsion or Atari 2600 version, or try the Intellivision version out on archive.org!

Intellivision (review with gameplay)

Distinct enemies, each with own abilities: 

Warriors- light blue, 1 hitpoint 

Leaders- appear after 10,000 points, dark blue, special disks, 1hp, can increase other warriors' skills. Introduces brown (double damage) and white discs (lock-on)

Bulldogs- purple, move slower, 2 hitpoints, less accurate

Guards- orange, white paralyzing sticks to immediately end the game, 4hp, appear after 1 million points

Recognizers: will take out the usable doors in between waves after a certain amount of doors are jammed, 1 touch is instant death, will fire a stun attack to freeze Tron for duration of knocking out doors, can disable it by attacking the "eye" when it turns white causing it to leave at the bottom offscreen. Exclusive to this version. 

3 different speeds for the disc   

To play, you can use both of the controllers- one for disc direction, other to move Tron around. Otherwise the typical controller would be with one controller and the number pad would control the disc direction [insert pic of instruction manual] 

Start out with 3 hitpoints, 1 life, move slower if got hit, restart at each wave

Progression- 20,000: increase HP to 4, 100,000: increase HP to 5 

Warrior point value increases with your score 

Tron is red for some reason 

Features 16 directions (very fancy for the time)

Atari 2600 (review with gameplay)

No recognizers

Doors close after 1 use

Enemies only have difference in color and each color is assigned a specific point amount (for instance, the basic light green warrior is worth 10 points, while the gold warriors are worth 800 points) 

Everything controlled with joystick

Once a warrior is defeated, another will spawn in 10 seconds unless you defeat the last warrior of that wave

Have 5 hp, regained at the end of each wave. Only 1 life

Mattel Aquarius (gameplay)

Similar gameplay as the previous- tossing disc to derezz 3 enemy soldiers at a time in waves

No recognizers

Doors situated in specific spots that can be left open if you attack them, will close once you use them 

Tron can gain a shield- can use 10pts to gain it (from what I can tell based on gameplay)

Enemies worth 50pts, only one type (red colored) 

Atari 8-bit/5200 fan game

Published under the name "Intellidiscs" by Phaser Cat Games

A fan conversion of the Intellivision released in May 2021, for North America and NTSC TV sets according to their site. 

Can download the ROM for free and used to be able to buy the cartridge (came with instruction manual, custom overlay for controller, actual cartridge) -> here on their official website 

Complete with a 4 person battle mode 

Programming by Ryan Whitmer, Music/SFX by Bobby Clark

Game plays similar to original Intellivision version- recognizer (identifier in this one) takes out the doors, can go through door multiple times, different colored enemies with different abilities

Can block/crouch 

Difficulty ramp (enemies come faster) 

References under the cut!

- https://www.myabandonware.com/game/tron-deadly-discs-eah

https://archive.org/details/intv_TRON_Deadly_Discs_1981_Mattel

https://thecoverproject.net/ (covers for both games) 

https://www.mobygames.com/game/8889/tron-deadly-discs/screenshots/ (in-game screenshots)

https://intvfunhouse.com/games/disc.php (box manual, overlay, flyer)  

https://videogamevariations.com/AtariCompanies/MNetworkGames/TronDDManuals/trondd_manualA.htm M Network manual 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(video_game) Utopia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_(video_game) Dungeon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nowS8TypH94 side by side comparison of all games

https://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Mattel_Intellivision/Manual/formated/Tron-_Deadly_Discs_-_1982_-_Mattel_Electronics.pdf intellivision instruction manual 

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/320634-intellidiscs-now-available-for-the-5200/ forum with box art

https://www.deviantart.com/atariboy2600/art/Atari-5200-Intellidiscs-921972194 official art from the instruction manual 

[8bitsupervillain]

When the PS2 Mod of the 2009 Higurashi Cry Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 92

Matsuribayashi, as well as the rest of the series was ported over to various other consoles. The first seven chapters got ported to the PS2, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo Switch in addition to the PC originals. Matsuribayashi meanwhile was excluded from the PS2 release in favor of a different final chapter. Initially my intention was to give each of these console versions a try if only primarily to see what the difference might have been translation wise. Since these console ports never saw release outside of Japan they would invariably have to just be fan-translated, but alas I overestimated the lengths fan translators and the fandom would go to for the series. I don’t blame them, as you may have noticed Matsuribayashi is a beast and a half, I can only imagine how long the effort to translate the game would take. Looking at the release dates of the new translations on Steam and GOG there is roughly a year between releases, and that’s people whose job it is to translate all of this text. So I think it’s understandable that the fan who isn’t getting paid for their Herculean efforts might not want to bother, especially when there are at minimum two perfectly fine translations right there for you to enjoy on your computer. Because let’s be honest, you wouldn’t play the DS version of Higurashi on an actual DS, you’d emulate it.

One of the interesting things about the DS ports of Higurashi is how the game divvies up the actual gameplay. The characters and backgrounds are on the top (left) screen, and the dialogue is on the touch screen. Another fascinating thing it does is that it takes a page from the way the game Hotel Dusk handled its gameplay/dialogue by making you hold your DS sideways like a small book. You just tap on the screen to advance the plot, choose fragments in the Connecting Fragments, and so on. The other console versions I can only speculate on, as nowhere has the roms available, and a lack of translation made me feel like it was a moot point regardless.

To sate my curiosity I went and had a search around to see if anyone had made any sort of translation of the series back around 2004. Well before Matsuribayashi, sure, but you never know what a fan-translation of Onikakushi might yield. This too ended up cold, the earliest English translation of Higurashi I could find started with the MangaGamer efforts in 2009. That I could find anyway, perhaps there’s a fan-translation hiding out there somewhere that was made in 2005 or so.

One of the amusing things about the 2009 to 2010 MangaGamer translations, in addition to the fact you can’t get them officially any more, is the fact that most of ones that are available for the most part use the PS2 graphics.

Obviously I’m not going to do a complete playthrough of 2009 version of Matsuribayashi and post it here. As much as I’m sure you’d love to see another ninety parts. There will be posts about it sure, but it’s going to be some of the more important scenes as well as me mentioning minor translation differences between the versions.

I mentioned it way back towards the start of this chapter but I find it kind of interesting how each version of Matsuribayashi has its own variations on the names of the punishments the children at the orphanage get. You can sort of tell with the 2009 translation here this was meant to be a more literal translation of the source material, rather than something that tries to make it a more palatable read for Westerners.

Regardless the escape from the orphanage plays out similarly to the way it did earlier in the playthrough, only this time around the mysterious voice that communicates to Miyoko is missing. Thus making it seem even more like straightforward divine intervention led her to the phone booth.

I find that these scenes involving Takano talking about Irie behind his back are actually quite more venomous in tone than the way the later translations handle it. That’s actually something I couldn’t help but notice looking at the PS2 sprites in this version of the game compared to later variations, there’s a lot more angry or annoyed looks with the sprites. I don’t know why they redid them and removed them in the version that was used as the basis for the 07th-Mod, perhaps they somehow lost access to the PS2 versions of the games and just had to redo them.

Some small translation differences I noticed between the 2009 versions and the later 2015-2020 versions are somewhat minuscule. With the original translation they do the regular thing where the characters go Family name, Given name. Houjou Satoko, instead of Satoko Houjou for instance. But later translations flip them around, now this just comes down to personal preference, but I don’t particularly mind if they switch it to Satoko Houjou from Houjou Satoko. But having read and played thousands of Japanese games and so forth I’m kind of more used to the Last name First Name, naming scheme. It’s not the end of the world, and I don’t think it’s really worth making that much of a fuss over.

Also I mentioned I’m not doing another in-depth synopsis of the entire chapter again. But another difference between the 2009 and the current translations is they called it the Connecting Pieces section. They still refer to them as Fragments, but the name of the section was changed.

Another change was the name of the Mountain Dogs. In addition to being called the Mountain Hounds in the 2009 translation, later parts of the chapter gives the members of the Hounds names and not their bird-based callsigns. It doesn’t make much difference in the slightest, but it is in fact one.

There’s not much difference in the translation of this fragment. I don’t recall in the version I read the first time if she railed against the stupidity of the common man or not. I do know that she didn’t refer to him as Father Koizumi though, so that was an odd choice to go with originally.

The conversation with Nomura occurs more or less the same as it did in the 07th-Mod, there wasn’t any particularly noteworthy deviations in the translation. It’s slightly more stilted, the dialogue and text in the 2009 version of the game and I can see why they felt the need to give it another once over later on.

Something I find interesting about this variation of the conversation about Hanyu’s past is the fact that Rika says that she’s “still too young” compared to the later translations “she hasn’t had enough training.” It’s an interesting and deliberate change from the original translation.

Also you may or may not have noticed but they changed their spelling of Hanyu between versions, adding the extra U to her name in the newer translation. Something similar happens with Rena, they change it from Ryugu in the 2009 version to Ryuugu in the 2015+ translation. I don’t remember off hand if I had the presence of mind to screenshot them calling her Ryugu Rena in the PS2 version of the mod or not. Or if I caught any of the times Mion refers to herself as Uncle Mion instead of this old man.

There’s a part coming up when I talk about the anime adaptation of Matsuribayashi that throws some rather unnecessary confusion onto the matter about Hanyu and her people. Also the anime calls her Hanyuu. I’m trying to keep the spellings consistent with the version I’m presently talking about.

I don’t know why, but the "the" in front of Oyashiro-sama there just bugs me. This is from the scene where Akasaka, Ooishi, Kumagai, and the forensics scientist meet up, and Akasaka asks about the various deaths that occurred around Watanagashi.

I know it runs counter to the message of the chapter, but honestly just straight up killing Takano before Watanagashi would probably solve Rika’s problems.

I don’t think I screenshotted them in the PS2 version, but the 2009 version of Matsuribayashi lacks Ooishi’s distinctive laugh. It’s just a na ha ha ha, and not the nfu fu fu. I guess I should also point out that even though it’s a modded version of the 2009 original there is no voice acting with the PS2 sprites. I don’t know if that’s because there wasn’t any voice acting back then period, or if it was just they only ripped the sprites for the mod.

[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!

[symeraid-s]

2024 Retrospective: Movies and TV Shows

Movies

Arthur the King

It’s a dog movie based on a real story. It’s cute and was very entertaining to watch, but some of the dialogue was a little weird. The team has good synergy though and the dog does steal the show. As he should. Mark Wahlberg is pretty good in this movie and him talking about how much he wanted to adopt the dog from the handler is what got me interested in seeing it. If you want a good dog movie, this definitely is it.

Dune Part 2

I didn’t catch this movie in cinemas, but even so, I can tell that it’s a visual experience. The designs of the spacecrafts and everything else are still really cool and how they portray the different planets is incredibly striking. Austin Butler is amazing in this movie and personally, I’d say he deserves an Oscar nomination for it. I don’t think he’ll get one, but it would be cool. It should be nominated in all the technical categories though. And for the score, because holy shit! Objectively speaking, of everything I have watched, I think this is the best movie of the year.

The Zone of Interest

This movie released in Germany in January 2024, so for me it’s a movie from this year. Why did it release so late? I don’t know. It was a really good movie. It feels more like a documentary at parts, like it was filmed with a secret camera, glimpsing into the lives of the family, which is a really unique directing decision. It also leaves you on an ending that gets you thinking for a while. And also, no Jimmy Kimmel, we do not think this is a rom com, kindly fuck off.

The Wild Robot

Next to Dune, this was my most anticipated movie of the year and it really lived up to my expectations. The Animation is beautiful, and the story is touching. Sure, there were a few cheesy moments, but they feel earned and are scattered far between. The dry and dark humour was really unexpected, but very welcome to me. I’m also not ashamed to admit, that it made me cry multiple times throughout. The voice cast really is amazing. Lupita Nyong’o is really good as the robot and Pedro Pascal shines as Fink, but the biggest surprise for me was Kit Connor as Brightbill. He just seems to be capable of everything.

Deadpool & Wolverine

It’s just a fun conclusion to the trilogy and a nice send off to the Fox X-Verse, if that’s what it’s called. The tribute on the credits is really cool and a nice sentiment. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have great chemistry and do a great job in this movie. You can also really tell that this was a passion project for a lot of people. Like A Prayer is also an inspired song choice for the final fight and the conclusion. Also, I’m contractually obligated to mention that they definitely fucked in the Honda Odyssey.

Ultraman: Rising

Is this movie a good introduction to Ultraman? I’m not sure. But it definitely is a good movie. It’s fun, the fight scenes are exciting, and the animation looks striking. Sure, it might not have the most original story, but the way it tells it is really good, and the character growth of Kenji is really satisfying to watch. Kenji in general is just a really good character.

TV Shows

Arcane Season 2

The money really is on the screen, but the 250 million floating around is definitely too much. That may be both seasons including marketing costs, but not purely the Animation. The Animation is stunning and, in my opinion, better than the first season. But I don’t actually know if I prefer this season over season 1. It was an amazing finale, don’t get me wrong, but it does seem a little rushed. A lot of the side characters are very flat and don’t really get anything to do and I still don’t understand what the deal with the Black Rose was. That aside though, I really did like this as a finale and am looking forwards to the other shows.

The Umbrella Academy Season 4

I did enjoy this season up until episode 4. I liked Ben and Jennifers chemistry, the cult leader antagonists were fun and the fight scene in the town where they run over Santa Claus was cool. But then it all began to go downhill. Klaus’ subplot was really tasteless and unnecessary, and I might have thought it was fine, had it not come after he learnt to control his powers in Season 3 and ended with him helping himself. The constant fat jokes with Diego also are really stupid, especially when they later rip off his shirt to reveal that he still is ripped. Diego and Lilas relationship also feels really misrepresented, which leads into that stupid Five and Lila romance that nobody, including the actors liked. This finale was a whole fucking mess and the only reason I didn’t just drop it, was because I thought if it had a good enough ending the show could be redeemed a little. It doesn’t. Why does the fucking handler get to live happily ever after, but the main characters have to die? And also: what was the purpose of bringing Ben back, if you’re just going to kill him off again? It’s all just a big mess and it feels like the writers themselves gave up. So, I’m just going to consider Season 3 the finale.

Heartstopper Season 3

I think this might be the best season of the show so far. The way it handled its heavy subject matter was delicate and masterfully executed. Kit Connor and Joe Locke continue to be great actors. Tao still is my favourite character and the scene where he comforts Nick at the party is probably my favourite of the season. The only complaint I really have is that it ends in a weird place. Like, the finale needed 15 more minutes. Even so, I really enjoyed it.

Connection

I started this K-Drama because the premise sounded interesting and only then realised that it was starring Ji Sung, who might just be my favourite Korean actor. I loved him in the Devil Judge and Kill Me, Heal Me and he is just as good here. His ability to have great chemistry with everyone he comes across really needs to be studied. Back to the show though. It’s good. Some twists are predictable, but they are well executed so I’m willing to give it a pass. There is also a lot of attention to detail. One that I think is really cool is that the drug, the main character is forcefully addicted to, is stated to be an appetite-suppressant and we don’t actually see him each much from Episode 2 to the end of the show. I just thought that was a really cool detail. If you want a good crime drama, this really is the show for you.

Hazbin Hotel

I did enjoy watching this show, but I don’t think it was good. There were a lot of moments that felt weirdly stiff and there were too many songs, really. One per episode would have been more than enough, because most of them seem to be about nothing relating to the plot. Characters break out into song just because. The few songs I do like (Hell is Forever, Hell’s Greatest Dad and Stayed Gone), are really good, but some are borderline unlistenable (Out For Love). It does have a lot of great voice acting talent though and I do really like Alastor as a character. Whenever the show focuses on him, it becomes a lot better.

Helluva Boss Season 2

The animation for this show somehow is better than Hazbin Hotels and only one of these two is streaming on a major streaming service. Especially in the later episodes of the season, the animation was outstanding. For me, this season had some of the greatest highs and the lowest lows of the show so far. The finale pulled it all together though and also finally convinced me of Stolas and Blitzos relationship. The music this season was also outstanding. 2 Minutes Notice has become my anthem, and Just Look My Way is also gorgeous. Bryce Pinkham as Stolas is still really amazing and needs to do more voice acting. Alex Brightman as Fizzarolli is also really good.

[stareaterreads]

My Anticipated Titles of 2025!

One of my favorite things about New Years is taking a moment to see what are all the new books that are planned to be releasing in the new year. It feel likes every time, there are big releases. 2025 feels no different with some of my favorite authors coming in with some fantastic-sounding new books!

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (07/30)

From the absolute legend behind the Poppy War trilogy and Babel: An Arcane History, comes another dark academia fantasy about two graduate students who must journey into Hell. Every single word in each description and blurb gets better and better. While I have yet to read Poppy War, I did recently finish Babel and was left completely awestruck. The level of detail and nuance in Kuang’s writing is profound, pulling me to claw for more. This nearly takes the top of the list.

The Dallergut Dream-Making District by Miye Lee (05/28)

At the true top of my list is the return to the fantastical and dreamy world of the Dallergut Dream Department Store. The first novel’s unique style and departure from typical ‘cozy’ qualities had me hoping for a sequel, which I knew existed in Korea, though I honestly shouldn’t have been worried about whether it would get another English translation. If I’m being transparent here, if it didn’t, I would have simply continued my Korean studies and read it anyway. (I do hope to eventually read the original Korean texts someday, though. It’s a personal dream of mine). I cannot wait to explore a little more into other dreamers and dream-makers - and another week of good dreams to follow for me!

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming (02/18)

As much as I love monster romance, I did get tired of how dark and edgy it is often written, so when I discovered Kimberly Lemming’s Mead Mishaps series, it was like a love potion got spilled on me! To see she has another book coming out with a cover that had me literally ROFL’ing (does anyone actually use that acronym?) and trying very hard not to keyboard smash my ARC request. With dinosaurs, aliens, and rom-coms all in the mix - hell yeah! How could anyone not be excited about this?!

Love at Second Sight by F.T. Lukens (04/29)

No one who knows me IRL needs to be a reader to know I adore Lukens’ work and have listened to every audiobook, because Lukens’ writing paired with Free’s voice is a match made from the stars. With their latest release, Otherworldly and its gorgeous cover, fun & sweet writing, and queer joy, I knew I would be sitting tight, ready for the next. I am counting the days until Love at Second Sight releases and am so ready for the audiobook to tandem read it!

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst (07/15)

Of the cozy fantasies I read of 2024, I really fell in love with The Spellshop. I know some people felt it stuck so close to the “cozy formula”, but honestly, it does it best. Each of the background characters really make the whole atmosphere come together, the gentle friendship (potential romance) developing between the protag and the seahorse farmer was so wholesome, the sassy plant companion really added some pizzazz to the dialogue, and just everything worked so well to make a truly cozy book for me. I’m excited to see another book coming out in the same universe, and I’m also relieved to know it isn’t a sequel (since I didn’t really see how you could continue after the end of The Spellshop). I’m really looking forward to Durst’s cozy style blessing the world once again.

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle (08/12)

With my review of Camp Damascus, I am sure it is no surprise to see I look forward to more horror from the tingle king, Chuck Tingle. While I fully intend to continue forward and read every horror Tingler, I intend to read some of Dr. Tingle’s butt tinglers, as I hear they have a fantastic story and developed world. Additionally with the incoming Lucky Day, I am always glad to see more queer representation in fiction that doesn’t just use it as a diversity token. Plus, a global disaster and a supernaturally lucky casino? How is that gonna pair up - I gotta know!

Nevertheless, I am excited for what the future may hold, for both this blog and in the literary world. Let me know what book you’re looking forward to reading in 2025! I wish you a good year of reading, and I’ll see you on the other side. As always, I thank you for reading and supporting my little blog, and a reminder to you, dear reader, that in this brave and hopeful universe, you matter to me. Until next time, I’ll be reading!

If you’re interested in any of the above mentioned book, pre-order it from one of these links here! Bookshop.org - Barnes & Noble - Libro.fm [audiobook] or from your local bookstore, which you can find on IndieBound!

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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