Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster

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I miss playing Streets of Rage and Captain Commando just don't know a site to get the emulator and roms.

There's a lot of old arcade gems that are hard to get roms of. I'm always itching to play Raiden, TMNT turtles in time, Simpsons, MVC2, X-Men and Ghost n Goblins. Sure there's ports for some but X-Men and MVC2 have been taken off online stores for the longest time and that really grinds my gears. Plus the arcade versions always feel a bit smoother and difficult? I know i have more trouble with Arcade Ghost n Goblins than with the console/handheld ports.
 
I miss playing Streets of Rage and Captain Commando just don't know a site to get the emulator and roms.

There's a lot of old arcade gems that are hard to get roms of. I'm always itching to play Raiden, TMNT turtles in time, Simpsons, MVC2, X-Men and Ghost n Goblins. Sure there's ports for some but X-Men and MVC2 have been taken off online stores for the longest time and that really grinds my gears. Plus the arcade versions always feel a bit smoother and difficult? I know i have more trouble with Arcade Ghost n Goblins than with the console/handheld ports.

I use Romhustler or CoolRom.
 
Higan was developed by a literal lolcow who throws fits over SNES roms using the file extension .SMC (Super Magicom, a SNES -> floppy disk copier from back in the day) over .SFC (Super Famicom, the Japanese name of the SNES) to the point where he attempted to source and rip every single SNES cartridge worldwide to his exacting standards. And of course, disaster struck, which you can read about in his thread.

Preservation efforts are very noble, but Higan is kind of a bitch since it won't just run any old ROM you throw at it. Snes9X will. And the amount of games that do fancy SNES crap is pretty tiny and random as hell; Byuu wrote a blog post about a Speedy Gonzales game that had a unique issue:

As an example, Speedy Gonzales for the SNES was an infamous bug. For around 15 years, no emulator could figure out how to run this game. It would deadlock in the middle of stage 6-2 for seemingly no reason.

I spent approximately eighty hours of a two-week period reverse engineering the game, and trying to understand what was happening. It was actually pretty easy to get the game playable: there were several ways of getting around the problem area of code. But only one way was the right way. Implement any of the other ways would mean my emulator had two bugs instead of one. Potentially an incorrect fix would end up breaking a different game in the future.

And so the challenge was ruling out every other possibility through devising a comprehensive and exhausting set of tests, so that I could be sure I had it right.

I eventually reached this conclusion: the game was reading from an unmapped memory address, waiting for a bit to be set that never would be. But by sheer chance, after thousands of scanlines, an Hblank DMA transfer would fetch a value with said bit set, and if the cycles aligned just right, this value would remain on the bus, and the loop condition would terminate.

After this was discovered, I was able to provide the answer to other SNES emulator developers, who could then implement this behavior within a few seconds.

This is no different than all of the bugfixes I gleaned by reading through the old Snes9X changelogs and forum posts about problematic games.

I miss playing Streets of Rage and Captain Commando just don't know a site to get the emulator and roms.

There's a lot of old arcade gems that are hard to get roms of. I'm always itching to play Raiden, TMNT turtles in time, Simpsons, MVC2, X-Men and Ghost n Goblins. Sure there's ports for some but X-Men and MVC2 have been taken off online stores for the longest time and that really grinds my gears. Plus the arcade versions always feel a bit smoother and difficult? I know i have more trouble with Arcade Ghost n Goblins than with the console/handheld ports.
All of MAME is on archive.org, but dealing with MAME can be a bitch and a half, and I hope you've got plenty of hard drive space.

I've become interested in trying out classic SNES era JRPGs recently such as Lufia and the fortress of doom. Unfortunately I'm also kind of a sperg about localization stuff so the knowledge that back in the SNES era translators often took more liberties is off-putting to me.

Some SNES RPGs had complete retranslations for their GBA ports, so you could play those versions. Chrono Trigger's really good as-is. Secret of Evermore was made by Americans, so it isn't even translated.

Legends of Localization did an entire playthrough where they compared the translations of the SNES, GBA, and a SNES fan retranslation to the Japanese version, explaining the ins-and-outs of various translation decisions each team made. It's really interesting, and makes it so clear the fan translation was just a flat-out rewrite of the English script by some kids who took a Japanese class in high school and suddenly thought they'd be able to retranslate an entire RPG. They even left some of the original English script's mistranslations intact. Meanwhile, the GBA translation is practically perfect, and even leaves in some of the fun references.
 
Maybe this goes here, maybe not, its retro gaming adjacent: I absolutely cannot figure out how to get my Wii U to run homebrew on the Wii channel. I'm trying the Smashstack method, and I can't get it to work. I'm thinking it may be down to putting the files in the wrong directory on the SD card? Anyone have experience on this one?
 
Maybe this goes here, maybe not, its retro gaming adjacent: I absolutely cannot figure out how to get my Wii U to run homebrew on the Wii channel. I'm trying the Smashstack method, and I can't get it to work. I'm thinking it may be down to putting the files in the wrong directory on the SD card? Anyone have experience on this one?
I've hacked a couple of Wiis and my Wii U, but not the virtual Wii built into my Wii U. And IIRC the method to do that was somewhat different than a real Wii, but I'm not sure exactly how. So if you're running a hack that's not explicitly designed for your Wii U, that's probably why it's not working.

edit: Wait. So you're running specifically this version, right? http://wiiubrew.org/wiki/Smash_Stack

And you're 100% sure your SD card does not exceed 2gb? Most Wii games won't even recognize anything above 2gb due to SDHC and SDXC internally being completely different formats. You have to have a plain old SD card. Sub-2GB MicroSDs work too.
 
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Since the past is always better, here's Extended Play's episode on the gamecube launch:

 
Since the past is always better, here's Extended Play's episode on the gamecube launch:

Oh man the Gamecube was many people's first taste of Nintendo's incompetence. People were fucking hyped for the N64 and the energy was kept going for the system for years due to Rare.

But when Nintendo sold Rare and launched the gamecube, people were not happy. There's a reason why it rotted on shelves for years and was put under heavy discount, and even then it didn't move. Outside of smash, metroid, and thousand year door very few titles garnered attention like their n64 counterparts did. It also sold significantly less than the n64. Nintendo pulling an artstyle switcharoo with Zelda didn't help things either(especially since Windwaker was the weakest console zelda at the time and the later sequels on the DS were pretty bad).

No joke, Gamestop was getting rid of gamecube games for pennies because they couldn't move them, of course this is why I have a huge Gamecube collection. Literally nothing was held back from discount. Outside of Gatchaforce I have all the noteworthy titles.
 
We should have a thread for corparate bootlickers who hate emulators because its "moraly wrong"
them sperging every time a new emulator or whatever comes out is so funny
 
We should have a thread for corparate bootlickers who hate emulators because its "moraly wrong"
them sperging every time a new emulator or whatever comes out is so funny
The fact that people call those that download 30 year old games for free 'thieves' is the most hilarious thing ever.

Imagine if Capcom put out a press release saying they have to shut down the company because not enough people are buying Mega Man 5 anymore. Like holy fuck.
 
If they release good retro compilations in physical form I always buy them.

I ordered both those Psikyo Shooting Stars collections for The Switch. I also got the Dragon Quest Trilogy import because no way in hell is square going to release any physical form of the Dragon Quest trilogy in the west after 11 bombed on the switch.
 
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Oh man the Gamecube was many people's first taste of Nintendo's incompetence. People were fucking hyped for the N64 and the energy was kept going for the system for years due to Rare.

But when Nintendo sold Rare and launched the gamecube, people were not happy. There's a reason why it rotted on shelves for years and was put under heavy discount, and even then it didn't move. Outside of smash, metroid, and thousand year door very few titles garnered attention like their n64 counterparts did. It also sold significantly less than the n64. Nintendo pulling an artstyle switcharoo with Zelda didn't help things either(especially since Windwaker was the weakest console zelda at the time and the later sequels on the DS were pretty bad).

No joke, Gamestop was getting rid of gamecube games for pennies because they couldn't move them, of course this is why I have a huge Gamecube collection. Literally nothing was held back from discount. Outside of Gatchaforce I have all the noteworthy titles.

Eh, hot take: I think N64 was their first big mistake by almost exclusively targeting kids. There were some adult games but you could count the good ones on one hand. Nintendo didn't fuck up as bad as the Saturn because Sega was in another league of incompetence but I would argue that the direction they went with for the N64 has had repercussions to this day. Nintendo consoles are still regarded as kiddie consoles and the N64 was the start of that.
 
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Eh, hot take: I think N64 was their first big mistake by almost exclusively targeting kids. There were some adult games but you could count the good ones on one hand. Nintendo didn't fuck up as bad as the Saturn because Sega was in another league of incompetence but I would argue that the direction they went with for the N64 has had repercussions to this day. Nintendo consoles are still regarded as kiddie consoles and the N64 was the start of that.
The early promo materials for the N64 seemed to be aiming more for teens than kids. Mario 64 impressed a wide variety of people as well as mario kart. They also had Turok and Shadows of the Empire within the launch window as well.

What really locked Nintendo into the family friendy stigma was Nintendo of Japan itself. They neutered Nintendo of America and that's part of the reason why they're still crippled. Sony's western division is allowed to call the shots and make big decisions for their territories and it works. They can also make games that can appeal to westerners and Nintendo used to have studios that did exactly that. But after the n64 it never recovered.
 
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The fact that people call those that download 30 year old games for free 'thieves' is the most hilarious thing ever.

Imagine if Capcom put out a press release saying they have to shut down the company because not enough people are buying Mega Man 5 anymore. Like holy fuck.
Never mind that hobbyists dabbling in emulation do a better job of preservation than the actual companies who made the games.

Cant remember which company but remember reading that one got caught using a publicly available rom for one of their collections when someone looked through the files. Think it was Nintendo?

And Sony using an open source PS1 emulator for the PS classic.
 
I also use:

the-eye.eu
vimm.net (Vimm's Lair)
cdromance.com

Not had any issues with them. Vimm and CDRomance are good for more recent stuff (PS2, Gamecube, Wii).
Archive.org has entire sets of roms if your just want all the games for a system, except entire ISO sets those are still seperated, but they do have ISOs you just gotta look

The fact that people call those that download 30 year old games for free 'thieves' is the most hilarious thing ever.

Imagine if Capcom put out a press release saying they have to shut down the company because not enough people are buying Mega Man 5 anymore. Like holy fuck.
If wasn't for discovering Roms and Emulators back in the late 90's I probably wouldn't be much of a Retro Gamer today
 
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I have a version of DOS LOTR: Vol 1, yeah I know it's a crappy game, but it's a nostalgic love. Anyway, I keep crashing while meeting the bard before leaving the Shire. Any ideas? Fresh download, maybe?
 
If they release good retro compilations in physical form I always buy them.

I ordered both those Psikyo Shooting Stars collections for The Switch. I also got the Dragon Quest Trilogy import because no way in hell is square going to release any physical form of the Dragon Quest trilogy in the west after 11 bombed on the switch.

I didn’t know that the DQ trilogy switch port was a thing until literally reading this post. I did some research hoping beyond hope that it was more than a lazy repackaging of the mobile ports from the past decade and was disappointed, but not surprised, to find out I was wrong,

I’ve been waiting for a well-considered update to DQIII in particular since literally my teens and SE has proven time and time again that they are not interested in going even an inch beyond the barest essentials necessary for a lazy port. This is despite numerous chances to do so in the 19 years since the Game Boy Color version which set the bar for system ports well before any of the modern trends towards the same.

Hell, I remember hearing hazy internet rumors of a GBA version, and I was so desperate for it to be true that I scoured every GameStop in town before finally asking a perplexed employee about it, only to have him say there was likely no such thing.

I love DQ3. More specifically, I love the GBC remake/port Dragon Warrior III and I’m consistently amazed at how tightly it’s designed and how well it delivers an emotional, impeccably paced, organic RPG experience. There’s so much to say about it, and I’m sad that for every moment after the 2001 release, its story has been one of squandered potential.

Japan has consistently gotten the best ports of it; 1996 saw a Super Famicon version that added lush backgrounds, animations, a treasure hunting mini game and a board game side quest inserted at multiple points in the world progression. The US never saw this version, although an unofficial English patch does exist. The only versions released in the West before the Switch trilogy a were a 2014 iOS/Android port and the aforementioned GBC version. The Game Boy version lacks the visual fidelity (although its visuals are great for what they are) and keeps all of the side content and then some, including yet another dungeon on top of the post-game content already added in the SNES edition. The mobile port was a massive step backwards in many respects, ditching content such as the board-game and enemy animations while committing the unforgivable sin of a using a modernized HD user interface overlayed onto the SNES sprites with little care for the art direction as a whole. I believe most of the post-game content is intact, but I wasn’t eager to put money down and play through 30+ hours of now infamous janky mobile RPG presentation to get there.

The sad thing wasn’t the nit picks, it was the lack of care. It’s the series that built the multimillion dollar juggernauts of the company and its IP, and they can’t pay a small team of programmers and artists for the few months of extra work it would take to incorporate animated art assets that already fucking exist and include an option for classic text and UI. And that’s before adding any reasonably achievable polish on top of that which would have paid dividends in preserving the game’s legacy, even in the hands of a bargain basement art director. Then they have the audacity to parade it in front of me for fifty fucking dollars on switch, and about the same price if you shell out for each of the three games in the trilogy on mobile.

A true faithful, definitive edition of the game has been laughably within reach for nearly 20 years; it really highlights the corporate cynicism of Square Enix in rushing out barebones versions designed solely to get sales based on branding and nostalgia. They’re presenting the Switch trilogy as a definitive version of the DQ3 despite the fact it looks considerably worse than a game from 1996 and is literally missing content that has existed since around that time. I know that Dragon Quest, while popular in the West, has never had the same voracious appeal here as it has in Japan, but at this point the only conclusion I can come to is that some asshole in a Square Enix board room hates me in particular, and has deemed me unworthy of partaking of the best version of the game.

Thats my big DQ3 spergout, thanks for reading.

In the spirit of the thread, I recommend either the GBC edition or the SNES edition with the English patch. The official localization has a professional polish while the fan translation feels more moody and atmospheric. It’s a great game with surprising emotional punch that strikes an excellent balance between on-screen presentation and encouraging your imagination. The mechanics are simple but incredibly tight, and while light on story, it’s heavy on themes and surprisingly mature for a game that in its original form could fit on a 512KB cartridge.
 
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