Steven Pendleton

Holy crap, I just checked Sonic Pocket Adventure prices on ebay and they are insane! I paid 8000 yen for mine. 10000 yen is typical. ebay sellers are asking for double that! Please don't buy things from ebay people who are intentionally trying to rip you off.

Has anyone tried dumping Fire Emblem Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken on the Nt mini Noir? I didn't see the game's mapper in the system's list of mappers when I tried to dump the cart. Maybe it's there and I'm just stupid and didn't see it, but I might as well ask. Don't ask me what the mapper is since I have not tried dumping it since last year and I've forgotten what the mapper is since then!

Actually, I do consider the Saturn to basically be something of a home arcade system given how many perfect and near-perfect arcade ports it has. I need to get the arcade stick for it. I saw 2 of them on Sunday for about 4000 yen each, but I'd decided that I'd spent enough cash on Sonic Pocket Adventure, so I passed. Good thing I did because I had to pay DHL 9500 yen for customs fees for the Neo Geo carts later that night!

I'd probably do it if I had a way to capture footage, but I don't, so... The OSSC also doesn't like some capture devices, as well, which is a problem. I suppose I could just go OSSC -> Framemeister -> capture thing, as the Framemeister apparently doesn't care what you plug it into like the OSSC does. Oh, it seems that I forgot to mention that the NeoSD Pro also lets you use cheats. I have not tried that yet, but you can cheat with that cart if you want, but I'm not really sure how to do it, as it always says "no cheats detected" so I imagine I have to put some cheat files on the SD card in order to use cheats. NeoSD Pro also lets you both soft reset and hard reset from the in-game menu. Darksoft can't do any of that as far as I know.

Forgot to mention that I found a CIB SuperGrafx at BEEP 2 days ago. 55000 yen. The system itself is in excellent condition. BEEP tends to refurbish rare systems like that, often upgrading them in the process, which causes increased prices, but I didn't think to read the label to see if it was upgraded/refurbished or anything. At that price, I imagine it probably was refurbished, as that's a bit higher than typical CIB SuperGrafx prices. They decided to display it with the cardboard on the back of the styrofoam with the whole assembly wrapped in plastic. I didn't flip it over to look at the cardboard because of this, but I'm guessing that it's probably in good condition. As always, if anyone sees any French SuperGrafx stuff, let me know.

Okay, I think I have spent enough time with this cart now. So basically it's just plain better than the Darksoft cart in almost every single way and you should buy it now if you want it, especially since only SAG has them and I imagine they don't have very many of them. Darksoft advantages Better at writing games to the slots. Darksoft does it way faster and I don't seem to have found a way to write multiple games at once on the NeoSD Pro, but the Darksoft cart can write to all 3 of its slots at once instead of just one at a time. SD card can be removed without having to remove the cart from your Neo Geo. Pre-assembled ROM pack is extremely easy to find. NeoSD Pro advantages AES version is actually in stock (for now, anyway) and not potentially discontinued forever like the Darksoft AES cart is, it has more slots, the menu is better and more intuitive to use, the menu doesn't cut out every 3 seconds on the OSSC like the Darksoft cart does, no annoying graphical glitching in almost every single game, can play some Neo Geo CD games (which I have not tried yet), the soft DIPs ACTUALLY WORK PROPERLY ON THE AES, it can save your high scores to the SD card, you have a nice in-game menu that doesn't exist on the Darksoft cart, getting back to the menu is faster and easier, you can set the cart to become whatever game you want it to be even without the SD card inside it, it has a little 3.5mm jack so you can connect it to Riding Hero or League Bowling or whatever for multiplayer, which the Darksoft cart can't do at all, it can play game music, it has a little port that you can plug into for game development if you make Neo Geo games, and, most importantly, it looks cooler. Both the AES and MVS carts are in a clear-ish AES cart with blue PCBs. Yes, that's right, the MVS version is an AES cart with an MVS PCB inside. Overall I've had a much better experience with the NeoSD Pro because it actually works the way I'd expect it to work, unlike the Darksoft cart, which has a lot of non-functional "features" and graphical glitching. One thing to note is that I was not able to register my serial number on the AES cart, so I emailed Terraonion to have them take care of it for me. This happens with their stuff occasionally, from what I understand, mostly when you buy their stuff from SAG like I did this time. I was able to register the MVS cart and get the thing you need to convert games to the proper format from that, though. I'm not sure what I will do with my Darksoft cart right now, but while I really don't see a reason to keep it, I am not really planning on getting rid of it.

I'll just go ahead and double post just to make it a bit less messy. Get. Will review once I have spent some time with them. I have definitely noticed 3 things, though: Darksoft cart is WAY faster when you write games to slots, but the NeoSD Pro doesn't have the graphical glitching that the Darksoft cart has. NeoSD Pro's menu is also way better than Darksoft's is.

Great, thanks guys. So I was expecting the stick to be around as clicky as the CD controller. I didn't find one like that and there are not a whole lot of them available in Akiba right now, so I might have to wait for a while until I can find a nice one.

Yay, some stuff arrived a week early. Time to play some tasty arcade games on the best arcade system ever made.

Yay, times. Not much else to say, so here are my times. Genesis/MD Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (Genesis) (Sonic 1 ROM hack) - 50 Sonic 1 Attack of the Killer Rings (Sonic 1 ROM hack) - 58 Xeno Crisis - 9 Neo Geo AES/MVS Fatal Fury Special - 10 Garou: Mark of the Wolves - 47 League Bowling - 4 Metal Slug - 8 Neo Turf Masters - 12 Real Bout Fatal Fury - 32 Real Bout Fatal Fury Special - 20 Arcade Space Harrier - 4 Thunder Force AC - 3 Saturn Sonic the Hedgehog - 55 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 7 Sonic 3 & Knuckles - 18 What the hell did they do to the sound effects in the Saturn versions of these games? Sonic 3&K's sound effect for killing enemies and breaking monitors is especially weird! Anyway, Sonic turns 30 on Wednesday, so expect a lot of Sonic from me next week. You should play Sonic to celebrate as well, so do it!

Time for times again. Then I'll play Galactic Battlegrounds some more because I just realized that I just finished drinking a lot of caffeine and probably won't be able to sleep for a while. I should stop drinking caffeine at midnight. Switch R-Type Final 2 - 9 Sonic Mania - 6 I only played both of these to test my new Switch controller briefly. Yay, it works! I suppose that's more than what I can say about my Joy-Cons at this point, though. PS4 Flowers -Les quatre saisons- - 1005 So I'm kind of regretting instantly replaying this immediately after finishing it and I've been going rather slowly this time, but I'm almost halfway done. Now that I've finished the series once, I decided to read the artbook that I have since there aren't any spoilers that I have to avoid in there anymore and it answered all of the questions that were not answered in winter. Why are the answers to those things only written in an artbook that was released 2 years after the final game and is now rare, expensive, and out of print? I have no idea, but I'm glad I have it. It also confirmed that they're using a romanization system that I don't normally like or use, so Suou is officially romanized as Suoh, as much as I don't like it. I also noticed a few minor plot holes when looking through the floor plans in the artbook, but nothing significant. I forgot to mention it before, but I can't believe how much Suoh changes between spring and spring the next year. She's like a totally different person. It's halfway through summer again and I've just now realized that Chidori changes just as much as Suoh does, if not more. It's really weird to see how different they both were at the beginnings of their stories compared to who they eventually become. Spring = 580, summer = 425. Getting all of the endings will make this take a lot longer than only getting the true endings in four seasons mode. PC Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga - 74 I actually paused this game JUST to make this post. I somehow killed an enemy utility trawler with a Jedi Padawan. Yeah, I'm not sure how that works since the enemy utility trawler should have just trawled away to safety somewhere in the water where the Jedi can't walk, but instead it just sat there and let itself get lightsabered. Gamecube Super Mario Sunshine - 186 Yes, I do actually play Nintendo games sometimes! They added a few camera control options to the emulator on the Switch collection thingy, so it's actually playable now! Still not sure what to think of this game. I HATED it as a kid, but I think I'm starting to like it more as I play it more. We'll see. Hopefully I don't get bored with it and drop it again. Arcade Gimmick! EXACT☆MIX - 3 (estimate) I forgot about this! It was only released a few months ago, I think, so this is probably the newest arcade game in the tracker. I played it about 10 hours ago over at BEEP since they had it set up in there for free.

Is a sealed copy of Christmas Nights worth 1100 yen? I found one in town today. I'd feel bad about opening it, but I'm not sure if it's worth getting in any case.

Got some Sonic games today since Sonic's 30th anniversary is on Wednesday. Obviously, one of those is relevant to the Neo Geo thread... So I wasn't able to find a Neo Geo Pocket Color that I liked. Does the stick on the so-called "new" Neo Geo Pocket Color wear out or something? I was under the impression that it's supposed to be quite clicky. Neither of the 2 that I tested today were very clicky at all and one felt kind of loose and super not-clicky, so I didn't buy one (so I can't play Sonic Pocket Adventure yet). The staff dude at the store didn't know anything about the system at all, so he was not able to help.

Sonic's birthday is on Wednesday so I got some Sonic games that I have never played before today. I was planning on getting a Neo Geo Pocket Color, but I couldn't find one that I liked, so I can't play Sonic Pocket Adventure on Sonic's 30th birthday like I was planning. Sadness. Sonic Jam is one of the few times that Sonic 1, 2, and 3&K have been ported to another system. Most subsequent rereleases of the games are emulated (and sometimes very poorly like on the Dreamcast), not ported, so I am looking forward to playing the Saturn ports, which I have never played before. Sonic R is Sonic R. Is it so bad it's good or at least somewhat redeemable? I don't know and it probably isn't, but I'll find out soon.

So as I'm sure everyone here knows, Sonic was released on the 23rd of June, 1991, so Sonic will be turning 30 in only a few days. Yeah, there is a Genesis/MD section, but I'll go ahead and post this here since I imagine more people will see it but also because even in the 90s Sonic was also in arcades (where he made his debut in Rad Mobile before Sonic 1 was even released), on PC, on the Game Gear, on the Master System (but not the Mark III), on the game.com (we don't talk about that one), on the Saturn and the Dreamcast, had Tiger handhelds, at McDonald's, in the Macy's parade, had 2 separate TV shows running at the same time, had multiple different comic series in multiple countries at the same time, was in a popcorn machine, in your SpaghettiO knock-offs and Kraft macaroni and cheese, and was even on the Neo Geo! Pocket Color, anyway. I'm not that much older than Sonic, but I remember when he was EVERYWHERE in the USA to the point where it was impossible to avoid him. Unlike a certain fat red dude made by that one other company, Sonic honestly hasn't done too well since the early 2000s, but the times before then were great and I feel bad for the younger people who missed all of that. I'll be celebrating Sonic's 30th anniversary in my own way here in a few days with a Sonic game that I've never played before on a system that I've never played before (you'll see when I get it), but hopefully everyone else will take the time to remember how great the 90s were for Sonic.