Astro City Mini

[Tanooki]

Now that's quality in an arcade if that's the Neo choices they're making.  They're safe sure, but solid.

 

I am leaning even more towards both maybe trying to import this if necessary, but also looking to somehow wrangle the EURO version of their TG16 since it's the CORE GRAFX which I prefer and has the best game library on it combined with the pad that has turbo switches the Japanese white PCE lacks.  The US model is crap.

[Steven Pendleton]

I forgot that Sega was announcing the last few games for this thing today. Here is the list:

 

https://www.gematsu.com/2020/09/astro-city-mini-final-13-titles-announced

 

Yuck, Flicky...

 

Apparently they decided to put Space Harrier on here anyway. Thunder Force AC is also a good and interesting choice. I recently played it on a real Astro City cabinet here in town and somehow got the #1 score, so it's nice to see it here on the Mini. Arabian Fight is a game I've been wanting to try for a while, as well, so I am very glad that it is included.

 

And they also decided to finally reveal the arcade stick they were hinting at earlier. It's 12,800 yen, which makes it the same price as the system itself, but I imagine it's got decent components.

 

So I'm honestly kind of disappointed in some of these like Flicky, but overall I think it's a nice list.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Pixelboy]

I wondered why they didn't include Ninja Princess, but they did. They call it simply "Sega Ninja". 

 

EDIT: They really should bring this thing over to North-America. I'd say there's a definite customer base for it.

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by Pixelboy

[Steven Pendleton]

Look what I found today at the Tsutaya by my house

 

[Tanooki]

Wow, image is a little blurry but you really can see it seems to be a fairly nice screen with a decently setup cabinet there.  With that date though, you can forget importing it to your home until 2021 though.

[0078265317]

13 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Look what I found today at the Tsutaya by my house

 

Did you buy it and how much was it.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

13 hours ago, 0078265317 said:

 

Well, it's not on sale until the 17th of December and they haven't changed the price since it was announced...

 

I did preorder it after they announced it months ago, if that's what you meant.

[Steven Pendleton]

On 11/12/2020 at 6:50 AM, Tanooki said:

Wow, image is a little blurry but you really can see it seems to be a fairly nice screen with a decently setup cabinet there.  With that date though, you can forget importing it to your home until 2021 though.

lol I knew I forgot to get back to someone...

 

That's actually just a piece of paper with a screenshot of Vitrua Fighter placed over the screen, not the screen itself. I can say that it is a decent looking little thing, though. It's about as wide as maybe a Mega Sg or Super Nt, so there is more than enough room to use the built-in controls well. I will definitely let everyone know my thoughts on it when I get it!

[Tanooki]

On 11/13/2020 at 8:01 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

lol I knew I forgot to get back to someone...

 

That's actually just a piece of paper with a screenshot of Vitrua Fighter placed over the screen, not the screen itself. I can say that it is a decent looking little thing, though. It's about as wide as maybe a Mega Sg or Super Nt, so there is more than enough room to use the built-in controls well. I will definitely let everyone know my thoughts on it when I get it!

Hah.

 

Wow that's impressive, the picture doesn't give me the impression it's that huge.  I was thinking more like Neo Geo Mini sized but those buttons do look fairly well sized.  I do love some of the old 80s Sega arcade stuff quite a bit, so I kind of do hope this pops up over here, as I think importing could get ugly.  I don't much collect these things as I once did (mini arcades) but I do make exceptions, like I did with the NGM when I could get it cheap enough.  The MyArcade stuff isn't all that nice, the Namco big one is very poorly assembled so that was a mistake, but the Sega one looks more tough and with a far better game selection too.

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Hah.

 

Wow that's impressive, the picture doesn't give me the impression it's that huge.  I was thinking more like Neo Geo Mini sized but those buttons do look fairly well sized.  I do love some of the old 80s Sega arcade stuff quite a bit, so I kind of do hope this pops up over here, as I think importing could get ugly.  I don't much collect these things as I once did (mini arcades) but I do make exceptions, like I did with the NGM when I could get it cheap enough.  The MyArcade stuff isn't all that nice, the Namco big one is very poorly assembled so that was a mistake, but the Sega one looks more tough and with a far better game selection too.

Yeah, it has its dimensions on its website and so do the Analogue systems, and after checking it seems my guess was decent, I suppose. Astro City Mini = 130mm wide, 170mm tall, 170mm deep. Super Nt's page says 132.5mm length, 166.5mm wide, 41.4mm high, so the Astro City Mini is about as wide across the front as the Super Nt is from front to back. It would have to be a decent size, though, because you need some space to use the 6 buttons and the stick. From what I saw the other day it looks like there is a comfortable amount of space, but it was behind the glass and I couldn't touch it, so no promises!

[Steven Pendleton]

It shipped. Will arrive tomorrow since I apparently didn't choose the "get on release day" shipping option or something. Impressions then. I did not get the huge arcade stick for it and currently am planning not to.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Mine has also shipped and DHL states it is scheduled for Monday delivery! I only wanted it so I could play some Death Adder's Revenge but there are other really cool games on there as well. So I'm very glad I imported this over and will be sure to give some thoughts on it once I have it.

 

[Zoyous]

Mine is scheduled to arrive Monday, as well! I also sprang for the stand/seat, and the full-size arcade stick.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

49 minutes ago, Zoyous said:

Mine is scheduled to arrive Monday, as well! I also sprang for the stand/seat, and the full-size arcade stick.

I didn't get all of those items. Just the mini Astro cab. I'm curious to see how the video output from it is. Likely to be similar to the DL replicade would be my guess, but I'm still okay with that!

 

[Zoyous]

1 hour ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I didn't get all of those items. Just the mini Astro cab. I'm curious to see how the video output from it is. Likely to be similar to the DL replicade would be my guess, but I'm still okay with that!

 

All I've heard so far is that it outputs 720p. I think it will be interesting to try out Rad Mobile and Space Harrier, since I've had trouble setting up good control settings for those when using emulation.

 

Games I'm most excited about that I have already played:

• Shinobi
• Shadow Dancer
• Wonder Boy in Monster Land
• Alien Syndrome
• Virtua Fighter
• Flicky
• Quartet 2
• Thunder Force AC
• Rad Mobile
• Seishun Scandal/My Hero
• Space Harrier
• Ninja Princess

Games I'm most excited about that I've never played:

• Cotton
• E-SWAT
• Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair
• Alien Storm
• Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder
• Dark Edge
• Sonic Boom
• Scramble Spirits
• Arabian Fight

[J.Max]

Mine will be here Monday, along with a controller. I’m really excited! Cotton!

[Steven Pendleton]

Get!!

 

[Steven Pendleton]

Okay, I'll just double post since I will definitly run out of time to edit since there are only 2 minutes left as of writing this sentence.

 

The thing itself and the controller are made out of the same plastic as a real Astro City, which is nice. More on the controller later. The system itself is of a nice size and has 6 rubber feet to prevent it from sliding around and they work very well. The lights on the cabinet light up just like they do on the real Astro City, which is cool. The system's aesthetics feel very well done and it's definitely not a cheap product for sure.

 

The stick feels really tight, but it has microswitches and so do the 6 action buttons, and they feel very nice, especially the buttons. Excellent, Sega. Age hasn't slowed you down one bit. The buttons are wonderful and glorious and I love pushing them. The Coin and Start buttons do not have microswitches. Unfortunately, it just feels awkward to use the buttons and stick on the system for longer than a few minutes due to the small size of the system.

 

Press Coin and Start together to access the menu when in games. Just like the Mega Drive Mini/Genesis Mini and PC Engine mini, you can't change any settings without exiting the game. You are also given an incredibly huge amount of 2 save states per game!

 

In the box, you get a USB power cable without a plug thingy and an HDMI cable. Yay. The Switch dock will not give it enough power, but the Nt mini Noir does! It also comes with a little protective thingy on the screen that you are probably supposed to remove, but I consider it to be a screen protector, so it's staying attached for all of eternity.

 

The screen is actually quite nice and is so bright that I can't really photograph it that well...

 

Main menu... not that you can see anything due to the brightness

 

 

The sound level is okay when used without the HDMI output and can be adjusted in the menu. When you plug it in with HDMI, it's REALLY REALLY LOUD, so be careful.

 

Speaking of the options menu, it's very similar to the Mega Drive Mini/Genesis Mini/PC Engine mini, but the games are listed differently. The are all just in a list that you scroll through vertically.

 

If you don't understand Japanese, there are options for English, Chinese, and Chinese again.

 

Screen options are basically non-existant. You have a choice between square pixels and nothing, so I hope you like square pixels. It completely fills the screen vertically when used with the HDMI out. Unsure what the resolution is. There is no pixel shimmering or uneven pixel sizing that I have noticed, so good job, Sega! Unsure if it is using interpolation, as I have not checked super closely, but it honestly looks like there is no interpolation since it doesn't seem to need it anyway.

 

There is a scanline filter that looks nice on the system's screen and it's actually activated in that picture of the Cotton title screen above, even though you can't see them in the picture, but it looks super horrible on a connected display. Want to see? Here you go:

 

 

 

Now this may not look weird to you over the internet, but these huge scanlines look really weird on my monitor when actually playing the games. The arcade in Super Potato that I go to occasionally is filled with Sega Blast City and Aero City cabinets and there is another Sega cabinet in BEEP that I use occasionally since it's set to free play mode (I think that one is actually an Astro City, but I forget and I might be wrong), and this is definitely not what the scanlines look like on the real thing from what I remember. Like I said, though, they look rather nice on the system's screen, and are a pretty good approximation of the real thing there.

 

I am super insensitive to input lag and I also don't typically notice sound lag or input lag without searching for it (unless it's the Mega Drive Mini/Genesis Mini, which is borderline unplayable... except Sonic 2, which IS unplayable for me on that thing), so I didn't notice anything particularly bad in that regard.

 

So, the controller. No microswitches, of course. It's nice to hold, but I HATE the d-pad. It's a Sega style of d-pad (good!), but don't expect anything anywhere near as nice as the 6-button MD/Genesis controller or the Saturn controller. It feels like the pivot point is like the size of a pinhead, so it's VERY sensitive to the point of almost being wobbly, almost like an analog stick that only registers 8 directions. I can feel the directions... barely. The membrane is also quite loud for some reason and makes a squishy sound. A, B, C, D, E, and F buttons are functional. Nothing special. B and E have the little bumps on them, just like the MD/Genesis 6-button controllers do, but they are super tiny and the one on E is almost unnoticeable. Yeah... I mentioned before that I was planning on not buying the arcade stick for this thing. I am very quickly starting to change my mind.

 

Shinobi's picture of Marilyn Monroe was... altered... to Altered Beast in Sega Ages on the Switch, but it seems that they completely removed it here. Too bad, as I thought the Altered Beast dude was an excellent and funny choice. I wish they had done that again here instead of getting rid of it completely. The Spider-Man dudes are now recolored to green, as well. I forget what color they are on Switch Sega Ages, but this was expected.

 

The system does not save your high scores, it seems. Sadness.

 

There is a headphone jack on the back that I have not used yet as well as USB controller ports labelled 1P and 2P. MD Mini controller works. Retro-Bit 2.4GHz Saturn controller does not, even though it is designed to work on the MD Mini/Genesis Mini. PC Engine mini controller also does not work.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Doesn't it have a USB port on the back of it. I've been told that the controllers from the Gen/MD Mini apparently work on this so wondered if you could give that a try and see how it works out?

 

[Steven Pendleton]

19 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Doesn't it have a USB port on the back of it. I've been told that the controllers from the Gen/MD Mini apparently work on this so wondered if you could give that a try and see how it works out?

 

Let me try that. The Astro City Mini controller actually does not work on my MD Mini and nothing happens when I plug it into my PC, either, unlike the MD Mini controller.

 

MD Mini controller works. Retro-Bit 2.4GHz Saturn controller does not, even though it is designed to work on the MD Mini/Genesis Mini. PC Engine mini controller also does not work.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[+Black_Tiger]

Here is directly captured video:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks nice and better than I expected.

[Steven Pendleton]

So I tried Gain Ground, Scramble Spirits, and Sonic Boom. The aspect ratio of these games causes uneven pixel sizing and a lot of distracting pixel shimmering in Sonic Boom and Scramble Spirits. It's not too bad on Gain Ground since there is no scrolling, but Sonic Boom and Scramble Spirits look really bad. Everything else looks fine, though.

[Yakumo1975]

It's finally arrived.  Let's unbox it together and test it out on the TV and built in screen.

 

 

[Zoyous]

10 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

MD Mini controller works. Retro-Bit 2.4GHz Saturn controller does not, even though it is designed to work on the MD Mini/Genesis Mini.

That's excellent that the MD Mini controller works! Although I have the 3-button variant, so I wouldn't be able to use it with all games, but certainly most. Come to think of it, what games on the Astro City Mini actually use 6 buttons?

 

Virtua Fighter looks really good on this. Are the characters are rendering at a higher resolution than the original game?

Edited December 18, 2020 by Zoyous

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I also only have the 3 button variant for the MD Mini to use with it. Having said that, I will know tonight because DHL just sent me notice that it is now being delivered today?!

 

But yes I would imagine that pretty much only the fighting games are going to need the 6 buttons. Everything else will likely work fine with just the three.