Steven Pendleton

I don't know anything about movies since I don't watch movies, I don't know anything about TV since I don't watch TV unless it's pre-DS9 Star Trek (I will get to DS9 soon, though!), and I don't know anything about music that isn't BUMP OF CHICKEN or in video games since I otherwise don't listen to it, but I can say that after playing so many old games that I'd never even heard of until 2~3 years ago that yes, games really were better as a collective whole 25~30 years ago than they are now.

Well, I was supposed to be playing this game this month but I ended up playing Kyuukyoku Tiger instead. At least I finally beat that damn game. What an ass-kicker that game is, but it's so damn cool that you can't stay away from it no matter how many times it crushes your soul. That's almost unquestionably the hardest game I've ever beaten in my life, but the Mega Drive version is somehow EVEN HARDER than the already brutal arcade version! That's the December game, so be ready for it~ We'll start Zero Wing tomorrow once it's 0000 GMT. Like before, not super picky about if you get your final score in for Slap Fight MD after that, but please do try to make it in on time. I'll make the chart this time, I promise! Zero Wing has some stuff going on behind the scenes that you'll need to use (or abuse, if you feel like taking a huge risk!) in order to get a good score, but be ready to sit there for a while if you are going for the clear, which will take almost an hour!

Tested the PC Toaplan games some more, but they are in a terrible place right now and I really don't want to play them while they are totally broken. PC Kyuukyoku Tiger/Twin Cobra - 24 Out Zone - 2 Spy Bros. (Pipi & Bibi's DX) - 26 Tatsujin/Truxton - 2 Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition - 727 Zero Wing - 2 PS4 Kyuukyoku Tiger - 458 This is actually the past 2 months or so of play time, all accumulated here now because I was too lazy to do it before. I finally beat the game about 12 hours ago!

So I go to Mikado relatively regularly, and since near the end of 2021, every Wednesday without fail there is a Tokimeki Memorial Taisen Pazurudama tournament there. I finally played it, but... Arcade Hishouzame - 92 Out Zone - 66 Slap Fight - 6 Vimana - 34 Saturn Tokimeki Memorial Taisen Pazurudama - 335 "Let's make one of those VS. mode puzzle games. We have all of those cute girls from our game Tokimeki Memorial, and everyone loves that game and the aforementioned cute girls, so let's have said cute girls as the playable characters and make the game REALLY REALLY REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT in single player!" - Konami, apparently. This is easily one of the hardest games I've ever played, somehow. This is about as difficult as Tatsujin Ou, so if you hate yourself or just enjoy pain, you should play both this game and Tatsujin Ou, but unlike Tatsujin Ou, this game is actually very well designed and not a completely broken piece of garbage! I still like Tatsujin Ou even though it's a horrible game, though. G/MD Daisenpuu - 34

Don't get a Mega-CD or Sega CD. They are unreliable and annoying. The only positive thing that they really do is look cool, at least in the case of the original Mega-CD (and the RG-M1 Wondermega, but you're not going to see many of those and you won't want one once you see the price and the fact that they don't have RGB video). Use one of those ODE cartridges instead. I dump my own Mega-CD games and put them on there.

Zero Wing on the 1st! Zero Wing is a big step up in difficulty from Slap Fight MD, especially once you get to stage 7, which is the hardest stage in the game, even over the 8th and final stage. The game is also quite long; a single loop is around 40 minutes if you no miss. I am unsure if the game has any regional differences. It probably does since every other game Toaplan themselves developed for MD does aside from maybe Daisenpuu, but at this point I'm just going to go with "state which version you played and we'll treat everything equally". Interestingly, both Daisenpuu and Zero Wing were never released in NA, just Japan and PAL places. I picked up a very nice copy of Daisenpuu the other day, and I beat it the first time I played it. It's too straightforward and traditional to be interesting for most people, I think, but it's a nice game.

There is the Retrode2 as well, but it's always out of stock and relatively expensive at $80+ USD.

It would be nice to have a cart dumper for MD since I don't have the ability to dump that system's games right now. As for the UI and emulation, it was really good when I used it when their CEO dude brought a demo unit to Super Potato 4 or 5 years ago. I only remember playing After Burner Complete on it, but I watched a few other people try it and it worked really well in general.

I do not recommend arguing with the mods, Kirk. From what I have seen you generally have to work pretty hard to get the banhammer, but they will give it to you for sure if you cause enough trouble. I'll let you test that yourself, though.

M30 2.4g also has a relatively fast (~20Hz) and convenient turbo. It's the only not-complete-garbage 8BitDo controller that I have used aside from that one that came with the Nt mini Noir, which is okay but nothing special.

FM works way better with Toaplan arcade PCBs than the RT5X does. I believe FM also handles interlaced video slightly better than the RT5X.

There is absolutely no reason to ever use their PC emulator thing when you can just go use some other free emulator instead. Besides, I thought the whole point was to have an all-purpose emulator box that you put your cart/disc into, so not being able to put carts into your PC kind of completely renders this pointless. As for emulating directly off of a game disc, well, you probably shouldn't do that. Better to dump it and use the image instead, and that's what the Polymega itself does from what I remember. I forgot this thing existed for a few years, so I definitely haven't thought about it since then.

Yes, the old MVS cabs are apparently pretty terrible compared to other companies' cabinets; SNK's priority was to make everything as cheap as possible, and it apparently shows in the build quality of their cabinets. I don't know about the MVSX. That thing is apparently pretty good, but it's way too expensive to justify when you can buy a bunch of Neo Geo games on Arcade Archives. Way too many fighting games on it, too.

I got that Tokimemo puzzle game today. Paid 600 yen for it, went back to my house, and got completely demolished by it because it's one of the hardest games I've played in my life. If you want a puzzle game that will relentlessly and mercilessly beat the shit out of you and make you feel ashamed for even trying, this is the one to get. Really good game, though, and now I know why Mikado has multiplayer tournaments for this game basically every month or so, but I don't think I'd ever go near this thing in single player in the arcade. Play the game in multiplayer a lot because it's going to be awesome that way, but the AI will eat you alive and then laugh at you.

Definitive list of cool things about the Jaguar it got turned into dental equipment it looks like a toilet when you put the CD thing in it you can sell it and its CD toilet for way more cash than they are worth

*has flashbacks from to trying to do Garbh Dagda* What's wrong with Dread now? I did a 0% run on hard mode, where pretty much most things kill you in one hit for most of the game on like my second time playing the game like 2 days after it released. That game is easy.

Theoretically you could do it. Can't wait to plug my Neo Turf Masters MVS cart into the Pocket!

Practice using as many continues as you want, but if you're playing for score you can't use continues. Pretty sure the game sets your score to 0 if you use a continue anyway. BTW did you fix your account yet? Yeah, real hardware always makes everything easier for some reason. I've tried playing on software emulators and stuff but it always feels super wrong for whatever odd reason. Exceptions exist, of course; M2 ShotTriggers emulation is on par with real hardware in most cases, and exceeds real hardware in some cases. They aren't perfect, like the weird stuttering music in Hishouzame on Switch, but they (mostly) fixed that relatively soon after launch.

lol consoles. PC Master Race forever!

I heard those MVS cabinets are pretty poorly designed in general. I don't know because I've never seen one in an arcade since everyone uses Sega and Taito cabinets since those are way better. What I can tell you is that the Astro and New Astro are actually pretty easy to work on/with; they are much easier than I thought it would be, aside from rotating the monitor, which is quite heavy and you have to partially disassemble the cabinet to do it. Other than that, they are very easy to work with. You have your contrast, brightness, color gain, and size and position for both axes right there inside the control panel. I took the locks out of the control panel so I don't need the key to open it, so I can swap PCBs and reconfigure colors and positioning for each game effortlessly, and that big 29 inch monitor is beautiful. I wish I knew how to connect my PC, Mega Drive, Saturn, Dreamcast, or PS4 to the thing. If I could get my PS4 in there I'd just go buy a ton of games on Arcade Archives, which has better and more accurate emulation than MAME, and leave it in there as a dedicated PS4 ACA cabinet.

I forgot something again. Switch Metroid Prime Remastered - 545

My obsession with Toaplan allows me to quickly make massive lists of problems with all of these games. Here is the list of things that are broken that I have found on each game There might be other problems as well, but I have not found them myself. I sent all of these and a few other suggestions to the developers and they seem pretty open to feedback, so hopefully this all gets fixed.

Never

Very light week everywhere this time. Toaplan is finally on PC with a bunch of new stuff! Unfortunately, pretty much everything is broken and/or glitchy, so best to hold off on playing them for now. Dariusburst AC EX is finally back after a very long absence, although I still didn't play it much. PC GRAND CROSS Re:NOVATION - 33 KAMUI - 75 Kyuukyoku Tiger/Twin Cobra - 68 Out Zone - 49 Tatsujin/Truxton - 53 Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition - 337 Zero Wing - 62 Arcade Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX - 10

Went to the arcade again. I don't remember if Tatsujin Ou was entirely on PCB, but everything else is, although Out Zone is on my PCB, not the arcade's. Arcade Darius Old Ver. - 5 Elevator Action Returns - 10 Kyuukyoku Tiger - 60 Out Zone - 124 Raiden DX - 10 RayForce - 10 Tatsujin Ou - 80 Thunder Dragon 2 - 10 G/MD Zero Wing - 24