Steven Pendleton

I prefer handhelds as well, which is why I got the Steam Deck, but nobody said anything about piracy. Not sure how the French government rolls, but I'm sure you know about the Sony v. Bleem! thing and apparently it's possible to dump your Switch games somehow, but I don't know how and I am not interested in emulating the Switch anyway. I don't like or trust software emulation in general, but it does have some advantages over running things natively. It does on Steam Deck, which is a PC. It's easier to carry with you and will probably consume less electricity, which is apparently a concern for people that live in (maybe only some parts of?) Europe, where electricity bills seem to be quite expensive. That's it.

Steam Deck does. I think it may depend on the game, though, as I tried suspending Tales of Vesperia on the title screen and the intro started playing when I restarted, but then in Sonic Mania I tried it in game and the timer didn't change between when I put it in sleep mode and woke it up.

I'm pretty sure Switch games run better through emulation on most handheld PCs than they do on the Switch itself, which often struggles with its own exclusive games and results in many of them running at sub-native resolutions. Like I said before, just play on PC because it's better.

Final Match Tennis is supposed to be really good.

I have never understood the appeal of these games for whatever reason. My father used to play one of them (and probably still does), and I used to watch him play on occasion and I never saw anything that looked particularly intriguing. In high school one of my friends said something interesting: "GTA is good, but most people that play it are playing it for the wrong reasons", although I never inquired as to what any of those reasons, right or wrong, were.

I guess it's because of the mapper. I have no idea how the FC and NES work, so I don't what a mapper actually is or does (I'm assuming that it maps something, but you never know), but that seems to be the reason.

https://tcrf.net/Contra_(NES)#Japanese_Differences

I got the PC version somehow and it seems that the ROM is contained in the PC version's installation directory. I don't remember specifically backing for something that included the PC version, but apparently I did. If you have the PC version, you can try running that ROM on a ROM-loading cartridge to see what happens, but in that case it could just be weirdness caused by the ROM-loading cartridge. Might be worth trying.

So not only did those bastards make a limited edition version of their first game that has exclusive in-game stuff after the Kickstarter but they also filled the ROM with literal nothingness to inflate the ROM size just to have the biggest ROM size ever but in a meaningless fashion. Great. I am starting to dislike these guys. I kind of wonder how much money they would have saved themselves and the Kickstarter backers by having a smaller ROM size, but I also kind of don't even care anymore. Did you get it yet? I have not gotten around to testing it, as my life is basically just (barely) sleeping and working at this point.

It's here: https://retro-bit.com/eliminate-down/ Nice timing. Go buy it if you want it. I want it, so I will.

Given the almost complete lack of PS5 exclusives 3 years into its life, we might be waiting for that for a while. Astro's Playroom was really nice, though; yes, it is a tech demo to show off the features of the system, but it was good and fun, although quite short (probably because it's a tech demo). This sort of game, the type that uses the unique features of the console and can't be done on PC or any other console, is what I want from console games. It took me about 61 minutes to beat Astro's Playroom; if they made a sequel I'd buy it, although I'd like something longer and with more replay value.

NES Contra can't be the best because Famicom Contra is better, but neither of them are the best anyway because Slap Fight MD exists.

That's part of why I said to get the PS5. 4K support still depends on the game, though. The other reasons are that the PS4 is over a decade old now and will almost certainly stop being supported in terms of both customer support from Sony and software before the PS5 and that the PS5 can sometimes run PS4 games significantly better than the PS4 and PS4 Pro can, even if the game didn't get a special PS5 patch or something and the PS5 simply has enough power to take advantage of an unlocked framerate that the PS4 struggles with. The PS5 really is the best PS4, even if it doesn't have 100% compatibility.

Oh yeah, Death Stranding was cool. I know some people really hated it, but if it works for you it's really good. It's an acquired taste, so no promises that you won't completely hate it.

Battle Garegga

It gets even more awkward when you realize Nintendo's games run better through emulation on other systems than on Nintendo's own hardware. What even is the point of those other systems anymore? Just play everything on PC.

This is a reminder that Sonic Mania does what Nintendon't (Probably) Guaranteed to piss off some fanboys, which makes it even better.

Obligatory "Sonic Mania is the single greatest game released in the past 15 years and EVERYONE REALLY REALLY REALLY NEEDS TO PLAY IT, PREFERABLY RIGHT THE HELL NOW!" I played it last week, and I played it two days ago, and I played it yesterday, and I think I'm going to go play it right now even though I'm sick and really need to sleep because fuck that, Sonic Mania is officially better than being healthy or whatever.

Hishouzame is moderately more difficult than the overseas versions. As far as I know, the only difference between Flying Shark and Sky Shark is the logo on the title screen.

Here, let me help you with some stuff. You can use runahead to reduce input lag; in theory, you can have lower input lag with runahead on an emulator than you can on a real PCB on a CRT. Runahead can introduce glitching of various kinds, however, and I have heard that setting it incorrectly can do some really weird stuff. M2 uses an optional input latency reduction for their ShotTriggers program, and this is most likely runahead. With the input latency reduction enabled, sometimes you get stuff like a shot coming out and then disappearing if you press the shot button for a very short duration of frames, but it's mostly good and there is basically no advantage to turning it off at all. What is the native refresh rate of the game as it runs in normal gameplay on the PCB, what is it actually running at here, and what is the refresh rate of the monitor? NTSC standard refresh rate is approximately 59.94Hz, but many arcade games and home consoles released prior to somewhere around the Saturn run at refresh rates that differ from this. Sometimes companies use the original PCB refresh rates, and in this case using a 59.94Hz monitor that does not have freesynch/VRR/whatever can cause stuttering, and this is possibly what happened in this case. Sometimes they just match it to 59.94Hz to get a smooth presentation, but for older games where game logic is dictated by the framerate, this will cause the game to run faster or more slowly than intended; this is part of why R-Types on the PS1 is more difficult than the arcade versions, as the games quite literally run about 10% faster on PS1 than the original designers intended. Sometimes the user is given the choice of using either the original refresh rate or 59.94Hz; ACA Thunder Dragon 2 does this, for example, but I don't think it's too common.

That's weird. There shouldn't be any sort of bus conflict from just running a normal cartridge game, but it says 120 MEGA on the back of the box, so maybe it's not normal, although I have no idea how they did that megabit size. Bank switching shouldn't cause any problems like that, should it? Just like with last time, I don't really see anything that couldn't be done in a regular 40 megabit cartridge. Honestly, the audio quality seems quite poor, but maybe that's just because I'm playing on a stock Nomad. It's past 0300 here now, which means it's WAY past time for me to go to sleep, especially since I have work today, but I'll set up my primary normal Mega Drive with the Mega-CD and Super 32X when I get back from work (which is going to be in like 20 hours lol. Yeah, I don't have typical work hours) and test it to see what happens.

I was thinking about this game maybe two days ago or so, and just now it finally showed up. Haven't even opened the shipping box yet, but I'll play it for a bit on the Nomad and see how it is.

Is it normal for the ROM chip stickers to say Red Fox instead of Dead Fox?

Use rank normal and 5 ships. Yes, this game gives you 5 stock by default. I don't remember anything about this game from when I played it several years ago. It's one of the most rare and most expensive games on the Mega Drive, but I'm sure someone can find a way to play it. Hopefully I don't forget to put my score up this time.

Uh I forgot to submit my score. Oops. I played this game a lot, and I almost cleared it, but I never put my score up. Too late now... time for Eliminate Down.