@NeoGee Awesome. Thank you for the detailed description.
I’m considering doing the same, by tossing a Nintendo Switch into my Taito Egret cab with a tri-sync monitor.👍🏻

@NeoGee How did you connect the HDMI-out of the Switch to the video-in of your CRT?
And how on earth did you get the control panel of your cab to work as a Switch controller?😮

Hamster usually does a fantastic job with its Arcade Archives and I’ve bought several dozens of them.
However, they did drop the ball by introducing some major input lag to Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Those are completely unplayable to me. Here’s my wishlist for upcoming games:
Alien Syndrome - SEGA
Shadow Dancer - SEGA
Blasteroids - Atari Games
Xybots - Atari Games
Satan of Saturn - SNK
Psycho-Nics Oscar - Data East
Chelnov Atomic Runner - Data East
Dragon Ninja - Data East
Midnight Resistance - Data East
Robocop - Data East
Toki Juju Densetsu - Data East / TAD
Karnov - Data East
Sly Spy Secret Agent - Data East
Snow Bros - Toaplan
Legend of Hero Tonma - Irem
Mr. Heli Battle Chopper - Irem
Pang - Mitchell
Quartet 2 - SEGA
E-SWAT - SEGA

I’m an arcade nutter who bought north of 70 Arcade-Archives games, so Hamster got a boatload of cash from yours truly.
I don’t mind Ninty chasing after the subscription model.
It just means they won’t be seeing any of my dosh for classic console games, as I’m playing these on SteamDeck instead.

I agree with Zuljaras and The_Pixel_King: Add an offline mode or gtfo, Microsoft.

@SilvercatMoonpaw Ok. Valve has cranked up the prices on Steam four to tenfold since 2020. The same is about to happen in console gaming. Which is why affording hardware will be the least of your worries.

@Gaymer90 You are of course correct, but that doesn’t make the impending digital monopoly and consequent price hike any less lamentable.

@SilvercatMoonpaw A small annoyance like swapping cards is the lesser evil, compared to paying through the nose, when the market is a digital monopoly. You’ll soon find out. Which is ironic, because you were talking about being able to afford games =P

@Burning_Spear “The law should be that once you buy the game its license can't be revoked”.
Sure, but here’s a quick reminder that laws are not tailored to our best interest, but for the corpos. The fat cats who own the corpos also happen to own our lawmakers.
Which is also why California is merely dishing out a warning label, making it clear we don’t own jack.

If we lap this up, Capcom can maximize profit by:

1) Not having to pay Nintendo for manufacturing thousands of proprietary Switch cartridges.
2) Saving shipping costs from Japan to Europe.
3) Shutting down reselling by only including a one time code.

It’s entirely up to us now, whether we want to let the decision makers at Capcom Europe get away with this scam or not.

Yes, but getting it for the SteamDeck instead.

It’s not AI that’s coming for us, but those who are in control of it.
There’s more than enough wealth for us all to live with dignity, but the powers that be are insatiably greedy and morally prefer to buy a brand new yacht, by making us redundant 🤷🏻‍♂️

@shgamer How are video games not art, when they're in fact an amalgamation of writing, painting, designing and making music?
Staying on topic though, I dislike cutscenes and tutorials. I'm already invested when I start a game, so I want control from the get go. If I weren't, I'd be watching a movie, listening to music or reading a book instead.

The demo got me addicted and I love the new hybrid combat system.
As @Aiwen correctly mentioned, the reviewer misunderstood the purpose of the action combat.

You’re supposed to smack the tougher enemies only till their stun gauge is full, so turn-based combat can then be initiated with the advantage of them being stunned.

Enemies will force you into turn-based mode at some point, if you keep hacking and slashing away for too long. It’s also convenient to just dispose of weaker enemies with Ys-style action combat.

@russell-marlow
Imagine practicing for a 1cc run of Contra and being forced to watch the same unskippable cutscene during level 1 about 30 times.
Just might get a tad annoying and turn into a waste of time.
This is a classic arcade game that’s meant to be replayed over and over, not The Last of Us.

@russell-marlow We’re obviously playing an arcade game in “Arcade” mode already, but even that has a cutscene in the middle (!) of level 1, completely breaking the gameplay and flow. Not sure what they were smoking when designing this at WayForward.

I was gonna pick up the physical PS5-version tomorrow, but looking at these patch notes now, that disc only contains incomplete code, basically turning it into a mere dongle.
Not getting anywhere near the Switch port, after experiencing the input lag of the demo.

@Debo626 Exactly. I wonder which part of invading a peaceful neighbour seemed “artificial” to smithyo.

@Psycho-Werekitsune Wow, I truly admire your resilience and willingness to put up with such input lag
Try pressing down on your D-pad and then tell me there wasn’t enough time to make coffee before that animation finished. And I’m only slightly exaggerating here
Also, play the PC and Switch versions back to back. They’re like night and day.

@Zulzar LOL, spot on! Love ya for that comment 👍🏻

@Truegamer79
“Well it is a demo duh. Don’t judge until you’ve played the final product.”

But that’s the whole point of making a demo; to demonstrate what to expect from the final product O_o

I just played the Switch and Steam Deck versions of the demo back to back.
While there are some minor stutters on the Steam Deck, the game is still awesome. I like the level design and don’t find the art direction too offensive, even if pixel art would’ve been preferable ofc.
Meanwhile, the Switch version is just downright unplayable, due to its awful frame rate. Gonna grab Contra for PC then 👍🏻

That’s awful, but par for the course coming from WB.
BTW: Can we also have a quick report about SEGA dumping a gobsmacking 10 Gbyte patch for the physical version of Sonic Frontiers please. I’m done buying games if publishers keep up this practice.

@Dom_31 Why, farming out the project to some dodgy code-shop in India ofc

Fancy business elite schools don’t teach CEOs to treat creative talent well. Main reason why Konami went from untouchable to a sad, greedy shadow of its former glory.

It‘s mindboggling that I‘m enjoying Wave Race 64 so much, despite its abysmal 20 FPS. Does not compute imo

It‘s admirable that Frogwares is even developing videogames in a warzone. They probably have to distract themselves from that hell somehow :/
I’m emotionally drained and devastated to be reminded on a daily basis, how one profoundly evil autocrat is capable of inflicting this much pain and suffering on millions. Freedom and peace to Ukraine.

Meh, seems Bamco can get away with sub-par framerates, cause the Switch is such an appealing system with users who don't really mind.

Having played PS1-Klonoa on MiSTer FPGA with activated 16:9 hack on a PVM, rock-solid 60 FPS and zero input lag over the weekend, I feel like we're often too forgiving when it comes to remasters and remakes.

But then again, I'm a tad more hardcore than the average Switch user ;P

@ivory_soul I totally agree with you that it's only about the games. Great gameplay often requires 60fps though and I'll only make exceptions for a chosen few Ninty games, that run at 30fps. I already happen to have a PC and a PS5, on which most games offer you to choose between framerate and graphics fidelity.

No biggie, I will simply continue to buy multiplatform games on 60fps-capable systems, until Nintendo makes it a priority for a future Switch console.

I'd throw money at them for Alien Syndrome, Daytona USA, SEGA Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Shining Force III, Phantasy Star IV, Scud Race, and Panzer Dragoon Saga, to only name a few.

I totally get that artists crave creative freedom and therefore want to try out new ideas all the time.

However, if Tanabe values innovation above all else, he should ask to be assigned to new Nintendo IPs.
He kept disappointing Paper Mario fans with innovations we didn't want for 15 years now, which comes across as a tad selfish.

After giving Super Paper Mario and Sticker Star a chance, I've ignored every other outing in the series.

What a shrewd assessment by team green's very own university-approved Captain Obvious. Give that man a pay raise!

Who knew Ninty was special? Oh, only everyone alive in the last 30+ years, you say?

I've been on the fence about picking it up, but decided against it. Art direction is amazing and the writing is quite amusing, but I can't get over the absolutely horrid combat system.
If I wanted to play a puzzle game under time pressure, I'd pick up Tetris, Columns, Puyo Puyo, Puzzle Bobble and whatnot.

I guess Ninty might bring back exploring the Mushroom kingdom on a traditional RPG-fare, xp, equipment and items with the next installment in the series, but I can always just go back to the N64- and GC-version if they don't.

I've also discovered a gamebreaking bug for the new Paper Mario game. It's called "Bug Fables"
glares at Intelligent Systems

Phantasy Star 5, developed by Atlus with UnrealEngine5 and announced at SEGA's 60th anniversary?
Why yes please, tyvm

So Dr Netta Weinstein can barely tell symptoms from root causes and gets paid for it to boot, huh?

I'm not sure what went wrong with the Vs. Super Mario Bros port, but it has insufferable input lag, making it downright unplayable.
It's been over a year now and Hamster still can't be arsed to fix that, so I'm ignoring all other Vs. games they release.

Thankfully enough, Rygar, Psycho Soldier and Bomb Jack all turned out perfectly fine.

Fair enough, but I'm waiting for TAITO's evergreens, i.e. Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, New Zealand Story, Rastan Saga and Bonze Adventure.
I'd love for Hamster to also license the best TAITO/Toaplan shooters, such as Flying Shark, Twin Cobra and Truxton

@TrevorMcD The Probotector story goes something like this:
In 1990, Germany threw a temper tantrum about those oh so gory and brutally defined pixels. They felt the need to „probotect“ (geddit?) their youth from such harmful visuals.
Since Konami‘s European HQ was located in Frankfurt, Germany at the time, they requested a toned down version of Contra from their Japanese parent company, to avoid it getting banned by the German authorities.
Therefore, Europeans ended up shooting robots instead of people on a squished PAL screen with fat black borders and in 50 fps, instead of the original‘s 60. The game was still awesome though.

I‘m extremely disappointed about them ignoring Contra 4 and ReBirth.
Switch is the perfect platform to port Contra 4 to, since it can be played in Tate-mode, to mimick the dual screens of the DS without an annoying bezel in between.
Oh well, just goes to show Konami‘s half assed attitude these days.

Oh SEGA...
Since the suits at SEGA are too daft to figure it all out, it seems I‘ll have to smack them with a decent business plan, so here goes ;D

• Grab a hold of either WayForward or Inti Creates and have them develop Super Shinobi III. Ask Yuzo Koshiro to sort out the music ofc.
• Let Rieko Kodama and the boiz make Phantasy Star V, set in a new universe, then bring a new PSOnline to the west and gloat while suckers drop Fortnite/Apex Legends to get addicted af to PSO.
• After Virtua Racing, dish out Switch ports of Daytona USA, SEGA Rally and Virtua Fighter 2, courtesy of the legend that is M2.
• Smack your Atlus division and order them to get on with that Switch port of Persona 5 pronto, ffs.
• Cooperate with Ninty and have their Camelot and Intelligent Systems teams develop Shining Force IV. Sell dat shizz via Nintendo distribution in the west, y‘know, like you’ve seen your pals at Squeenix do with DQ.
• Quit discounting your games 2 months after release, lest you teach people to just wait it out. Grow a spine and adopt Nintendo‘s price policy for your AAA stuff.

I guess I could go on for AGES (TM) but you prolly get my drift.

I just want to confirm that the D3T-developed Sega Mega Drive Classics have atrocious input lag.
A full second of delay after button presses render every action game on this collection useless.
So give this one a miss, unless you just want it for the turn-based stuff, like Phantasy Star and Shining Force.

@Velocirapstar „poorly emulated ROM hack“...
Google „M2“ lest you write more dross like that.

I don‘t get why everyone is raving on about the Genesis collection. How can you guys enjoy your games with 1 second input lag? O_o
You won‘t catch M2 trying to pull such crap.

@retro_player_22 The thing is, M2 are retro gods and their software quality towers over any other studios‘ feeble attempts.
Also, the Genesis collection has some crippling input lag (feels like more than 1 second!), so basically every action game on it is disqualified. M2 >>>> D3t Publisher

I was interested in purchasing some SNES classics on 3DS, but Nintendo Switzerland is seriously asking me to pay € 14.00 for Earthbound and € 12.00 for Super Mario World.

Ever since the Swiss branch opened, eShop prices doubled in this country, so I haven't bought anything fom their online store in 3 years.

Nice try with the region locking, Nintendo, but no cookie from me.

Hopefully they'll develop something that's more faithful to the Commodore 64 original. The character swap mechanic in Twisted Dreams was irritating. I wish they'd just stick to pure and simple platforming fun, with ace controls and level design.

@sdelfin Go grab New Adventure Island and Dragon's Trap asap, if you have a PC-Engine. Two timeless classics for that system. Also, play with an arcade stick and on a CRT for a lag-free experience.

I like the way Super Mario Bros controls, but Great Giana Sisters on Commodore64 always felt tighter and more responsive.
The Wonderboy arcade version is still amazing today, but only if you use Calamity's GroovyMAME and a CRT TV