robotwo

I say give it a try, it's a really neat little system to work with. SMS Power has a few tutorials and starter resources as well as a pretty active developer forum where you can discuss specifics.

The original Z80 will still live on in our hearts and in our systems, it's really impressive that production of it lasted as long as it did. That being said it seems like the eZ80 will still remain in production, so they won't stop making TI-84s anytime soon.

The GG and SMS are definitely similar chipsets as the differences pretty much only boils down to some minor VDP changes such as having a 12-bit vs 6-bit RGB palette and a smaller viewport. The GameBoy chipset on the other hand differs pretty significantly, looking only at the CPU parts it lacks a significant amount of the Z80 opcodes, adds a bunch of new ones and memory maps all of its I/O instead. I'd say knowing some Z80 will definitely give you a solid starting point for tackling GameBoy development though. What game are you trying to port to the SMS btw?

Great pick there, I absolutely love The Megas' remixes. Like you mentioned they've done an exceptional job writing thematic lyrics for each song, some favourites being Snake Man tempting mega man to change sides and Quick Man being a western fast draw. My all time favourite though is probably their Level Select remix: Fun fact: the entire chorus for this one was even quoted in the Mega Man comics.

Oh definitely, the lead dev even stated that he specifically wants to do a good 8-bit Transformers game since the Famicom game sucked. Good catch, according to the lead dev Bonk's Adventure was one of the inspirations.

So I pre-ordered a boxed copy of Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland. I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the franchise, but I just couldn't pass this one up, it looks like a solid NES platformer. The devs also seem keen on making more games based on shows that didn't get much games at the time, such as Transformers, M.A.S.K, etc. and I'm all for that.

Always nice to see some love for the Master System! Amazing endeavour Haroldo, I'm not too familiar with Pocket Platformer but it's great to see yet another alternative to get games running on the platform.

Great to hear. The SMS and GG VDP really is notoriously picky with timing and I've seen it come back to bite a few people who's failed to verify it on hardware, But it sounds like you've got that covered.

That's really neat! Have you gotten a chance to try it out on hardware yet or only emulators so far?

Sub-Terrania still stands as one of my favourite multidirectional shooters. Having to struggle against the forces of gravity and buoyancy, latch on to rails, manage fuel, etc. definitely made it a bit of a unconventional shooter, but I still found a lot of enjoyment in it. Part of it may have been Jesper Kyd's soundtrack as I just love the industrial vibes he brought to the Mega Drive.

Not as much about any game in particular but more of an interesting little tidbit; The programmer behind Super Star Soldier, GG Aleste 3 and Blade Buster has a Youtube channel where he posts hobby conversions of various STGs for alternative platforms. For example Sega Master System conversions of MUSHA, Super Aleste, Recca and Super Star Soldier:

Some great picks there! I will always love seeing some Crisis Force representation, great game, visually impressive, good tunes and even has a simultaneous 2 player mode. I'm genuinely surprised I've never come across Uchuu Keibitai SDF though. As someone who has looked into the Famicom library at multiple occasions I really would've guessed that a solid looking STG from a big name like HAL Laboratory would pop up more often. Definitely going to have to give that one a go.

Einhänder - I feel like this game needs no introduction, but it still needs to be mentioned. This is easily one of the best PS1 games in my book and my favourite Square game ever. An absolutely outstanding STG with seamless levels, intricate and varied bosses and a pretty damn amazing techno soundtrack pumping throughout. The game is a horizontal scrolling shooter with 3D graphics and it uses that to great effect to give us some great camera angles during the boss fights. If I were to pinpoint one issue I have with the game I'd say it's the fact that on some levels the enemy bullets can be a bit tricky to spot against the busy background.

That's very fair, I'll chalk it up to not being the biggest fan of the sometimes muffled sound of the SNES and the lack of bass in that particular track. The Castlevania IV soundtrack is pretty amazing in general though so it's definitely a hard sell to make a rearrangement on competing hardware. If we're talking about more modern remixes though then I've definitely been on a bit of a Stone McKnuckle streak as of late, his rendition of the final fight from Wild Guns really stuck with me.

Oh wow, that's an absolutely amazing find! And open source too! I just had to look through this guy's other games and golly what a goldmine. It looks like he has made over 400 games so far, many of which are just as visually simplistic and mechanically fascinating. There's definitely some prime candidates for porting to older platforms in there.