Retro Gaming - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

Oh man, Vs would have been immense. I had that at uni, and even people who didn't like video games enjoyed that.

davyK

Not sure why switch hasnt got it as a bonus game or for subbers. A superb game. Wii U got a version of it in nintendoland. It was a freebie on gamecube.

Blue Swirl

I guess it's the same problem it's always had - you need a lot of hardware to do it properly. If you wanted to play it on Switch like the original, you'd need two Switches, a TV, and three controllers. That's a big ask for a lot of people, especially during the wallet-squeezing pandemic.

You could play it online, but that'd lack the same-room excitement. Playing with randoms would be awful: everyone would just want to be Pacman and quit out when it was their turn to be a ghost.

EvilRedEye

Interesting Twitter thread about the ray-tracing from the Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time PC ports being turned into a generic emulator feature: https://twitter.com/dariosamo/status/1532736513183731713?t=ZY9Z7VE_5_dlP5yAhMdD1g&s=19

hunk

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sega-announces-a-mega-drive-mini-2-including-mega-cd-games/

Megadrive mini 2?

Blue Swirl

hunk wrote:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sega-announces-a-mega-drive-mini-2-including-mega-cd-games/ Megadrive mini 2?

Looks like it. Has some Mega CD stuff on it, too.

davyK

Sonic CD is prob the pick of the bunch. Dont think that has been ported since the original?

retroking1981

Its available for 360/PS3 and it part of the upcoming Sonic Origins Collection I believe.

monkey

It’s on PC too.

Escape

The cute little Mega-CD II with its disc sold out in no time.

ToP's still the classic for me, though.

davyK

Didn't know that. It's the only game from that car crash of MD Frankensteining I have a vague interest in.

EvilRedEye

davyK wrote:

Didn't know that. It's the only game from that car crash of MD Frankensteining I have a vague interest in.

You're not interested in Snatcher?? It's a classic!

davyK

Nope. An adventure game. Not for me.

hunk

Shining Force cd is the pick of the bunch. They should've added 32x games as well. Space Harrier, afterburner, virtua fighter/racing would've been worthy additions.

Blue Swirl

EvilRedEye wrote:

You're not interested in Snatcher?? It's a classic!

davyK wrote:

Nope. An adventure game. Not for me.

The shmup thread is davyK's blog, c'mon now.

davyK

Heh.

I have a bias against 32X and MD-CD games as that era essentially sank Sega. They lost so much consumer confidence and bled so much money away they could never have recovered, playstation or not.

retroking1981

davyK wrote:

Didn't know that. It's the only game from that car crash of MD Frankensteining I have a vague interest in.

I think you'd like a few of the shoot 'em ups.

Silpheed, Robo Aleste and definitely Keio's Flying Squadron spring to mind.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

Heh. I have a bias against 32X and MD-CD games as that era essentially sank Sega. They lost so much consumer confidence and bled so much money away they could never have recovered, playstation or not.

Arguable, but yeah, the 32X especially was a questionable decision. Weird thing is, up until that point, add-ons had been mildly successful, like the PC-Engine CD-ROM2 and the Famicom Disk System. So Sega weren't being completely mad.

davyK

retroking1981 wrote:

Didn't know that. It's the only game from that car crash of MD Frankensteining I have a vague interest in.

I think you'd like a few of the shoot 'em ups. Silpheed, Robo Aleste and definitely Keio's Flying Squadron spring to mind.

Maybe I need to revise that then...

Blue Swirl wrote:

Heh. I have a bias against 32X and MD-CD games as that era essentially sank Sega. They lost so much consumer confidence and bled so much money away they could never have recovered, playstation or not.

Arguable, but yeah, the 32X especially was a questionable decision. Weird thing is, up until that point, add-ons had been mildly successful, like the PC-Engine CD-ROM2 and the Famicom Disk System. So Sega weren't being completely mad.

Heh. The Saga of Sega has many points of view and is complex. It does over simplify targeting one reason as I do wrt the MD addons.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

Heh. The Saga of Sega has many points of view and is complex. It does over simplify targeting one reason as I do wrt the MD addons.

Yeah, too nuanced for a sentence or two on a forum. But SEGA were a smidgen mental at the time.

hunk

davyK wrote:

Didn't know that. It's the only game from that car crash of MD Frankensteining I have a vague interest in.

I think you'd like a few of the shoot 'em ups. Silpheed, Robo Aleste and definitely Keio's Flying Squadron spring to mind.

Maybe I need to revise that then...

Heh. I have a bias against 32X and MD-CD games as that era essentially sank Sega. They lost so much consumer confidence and bled so much money away they could never have recovered, playstation or not.

Arguable, but yeah, the 32X especially was a questionable decision. Weird thing is, up until that point, add-ons had been mildly successful, like the PC-Engine CD-ROM2 and the Famicom Disk System. So Sega weren't being completely mad.

Heh. The Saga of Sega has many points of view and is complex. It does over simplify targeting one reason as I do wrt the MD addons.

Add ons were 'acceptable' as long as they weren't a transition to next gen.
They basically fucked up the move to next gen and the 32X really should not have been officially released in tandem with the Saturn. It should've never left the prototype phase but yeah, Sega of Japan and Sega of America not seeing eye to eye, not communicating and not coordinating with one another.

In hindsight, they arguably also should've downscaled and supported the Saturn for the whole of its generation and left the dc to cook that little bit longer. Consumer trust is a fickle thing and betraying gamers twice in a row was commercial suicide in hindsight. The Dreamcast was basically DoA.

davyK

Addons split the user base. It becomes a problem, particularly if developers jump onto its abilities. Nintendo gave away the 4MB RAM expansion with the games that required it. Capcom did the same with the Saturn's expansion cart.

Paying for 2 addons only to see them abandoned was a huge problem for Sega customers, especially with the price of the Saturn at launch with its rushed launch lineup. They should have ignored Playstation and had the courage of their convictions by sticking to their plans. Saturn did well in Japan - worth remembering that.

it's easy to say that in retrospect - in the end it probably wouldn't have made any difference - but th Christmas when VF2, Sega Rally and Virtua Cop all came out at the same time made Saturn a unique premium offering. They even got superb PAL ports and the early Saturns came with an RGB SCART cable. But even saying that, Sega were still about arcade games with little added value while Nintendo and Sony were all about home games. Even Dreamcast was still about arcade games at home.

Blue Swirl

I think we should do well to remember that the Mega CD was Sega Japan's idea, and the 32X was the US arm's baby. If they'd have been better organised on the communication front, maybe we'd have only seen one and not both.

Blue Swirl

I wonder what did more to sink add-ons; the 32X/Mega CD debacle, or the fact that Nintendo only released the 64DD in Japan (its least popular region), and years behind schedule? Say what you want about the Sega add-ons, at least they were on time.

retroking1981

hunk wrote:

In hindsight, they arguably also should've downscaled and supported the Saturn for the whole of its generation and left the dc to cook that little bit longer. Consumer trust is a fickle thing and betraying gamers twice in a row was commercial suicide in hindsight. The Dreamcast was basically DoA.

I think this gets overlooked, think of the Wii U situation. It was dire but Nintendo did well to see it through to the bitter end.

davyK

Blue Swirl wrote:

I think we should do well to remember that the Mega CD was Sega Japan's idea, and the 32X was the US arm's baby. If they'd have been better organised on the communication front, maybe we'd have only seen one and not both.

Absolutely key point.

davyK

Blue Swirl wrote:

I wonder what did more to sink add-ons; the 32X/Mega CD debacle, or the fact that Nintendo only released the 64DD in Japan (its least popular region), and years behind schedule? Say what you want about the Sega add-ons, at least they were on time.

Nintendo probably realised it was DoA before it even hit the domestic market. So they released it with whatever software they had at the time. If I remember correctly it was basically a zip drive and that wasn't going to be a game changer to attract back the likes of Square. I suspect the costs of on-cart backup dropped to make the drive irrelevant for their own games.

Doshin got a basic upgrade and was released on Gamecube.

I'd still like to see F-Zero X DD addon content released on Switch.

EvilRedEye

My 1995 Sega review compilation has reviews from Game Gear, Mega Drive, Mega CD, 32X AND Saturn, and also they hadn't entirely dropped support for Master System as I can see online a port of Sonic Spinball came out on it in 1995. That's a mental number of systems to support at the same time especially looking back from our modern world where it's become obvious platform holders can't even manage to juggle two.

davyK

I think Nintendo have gracefully collapsed their platforms down over the years. The Switch is the logical last step when you think about it.

Of course they could afford to do that given the sales their handhelds have had over the years.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

I'd still like to see F-Zero X DD addon content released on Switch.

Yeah, just out of curiosity I'd like to see what that was like.

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