Supervision: handheld of the less fortunate

[+jgkspsx]

Well, Journey to the West is an impressive game, and the music isn't half bad. Too bad the enemies are all so incredibly cheap.

[+jgkspsx]

Knowing that you can throw your staff helps. I'll need to give it another try.

[DeathAdderSF]

On 2/12/2023 at 7:40 PM, jgkspsx said:

Journey to the West is an impressive game

 

I'll give it this: It looks pretty OK in still screenshots. Once things actually get moving, however... 😬

 

On 2/12/2023 at 7:40 PM, jgkspsx said:

and the music isn't half bad.

 

Journey to the West - Ingame 2

 

🤮

[roots.genoa]

On 2/13/2023 at 5:52 AM, jgkspsx said:

Knowing that you can throw your staff helps.

You should have asked Elon Musk! 😉

[DeathAdderSF]

More Supervision scans?! To quote Charlie Brown, “AAUGH!”

 

It's all the variations, damn it. If it weren't for all the different, seemingly endless versions of the packaging, instructions in a half-dozen languages, et Cetera, then I'd, very likely, have been done with all this stuff and nonsense by now. But, nope! No such luck. The Supervision will likely continue to haunt me – and waste countless amounts of my time – until my dying day. *sigh*

 

OK!! So, buoyed by that cheery introduction [!], let me tell you what was added to the ol' website today:

 

* New box scans:

 

- Small boxes for Fatal Craft, Jaguar Bomber, Tasac 2010, Witty Cat.

 

* New instructions scans:

 

- Fatal Craft, Witty Cat (Chinese)
- Jaguar Bomber (English, Italian)
- Pacific Battle (English, Italian)
- Tasac 2010 (English, Dutch, French, German)
- Tasac 2010 (Italian, Spanish)

 

* Improved insert scan:

 

- TV-Link (PAL-B) instruction sheet (Italian)

 

* New insert scan:

 

- TV-Link (PAL-B) warranty information (Watary Italia)

 

* New advertisement scan:

 

- Watary Italia ad featuring a Watara-branded watch & a goofy looking fish (with an overbite?)

 

And that's all. For now.

 

www.diskman.com/presents/supervision/scans.htm

Edited March 6, 2023 by DeathAdderSF
It never ends. The Supervision is an eternal curse.

[Tanooki]

Which I know you’ll call out for being torturing myself dumb luck had it a week or two back I was out on an odd day off and went to a shop owner Ive known for years.  Guess they found some lost old boxes of stuff, and within it, something they could never figure out or identify, priced out the bag of mystery games at $35 due to 6 games inside

 

Funny enough Supervision games.  I explained what they were, what the system was, had an image of it on my phone which surprised them a lot.  Due to my knowledge and largely I think since they knew I was IT with this stuff, price quickly tanked to $15.

 

I was happy, 5 of them were new, but hey how many copies of crystball do I need, seems like 3.  The others were I think looking at your site some of the better stuff at least.  Carrier (Boxxle), John Adventure (Dr Mario), Eagle Plan (Top Gun), Balloon Fight (same but not), and Final Conflict which like some bastard hybrid of jackal and battle city.  They’re surprisingly decent.

[DeathAdderSF]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

price quickly tanked to $15.

 

Still a ripoff. 😄

 

But "tanked" is an apt word for any conversation about the Poopervision.

 

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

John Adventure (Dr Mario)

surprisingly decent.

 

^ I can actually agree with you here. John Adventure is OK in my book, despite the stupid name.

 

In fact: I have a not-so-fond memory of playing it by candlelight one evening as a teen during a power outage in my neighborhood. That was waaaaay back during my, "If I play this junker long enough, I'll convince myself it's a good machine!" phase. Ahh, to be young and dumb again.

[Tanooki]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:17 PM, DeathAdderSF said:

 

Still a ripoff. 😄

 

But "tanked" is an apt word for any conversation about the Poopervision.

 

 

^ I can actually agree with you here. John Adventure is OK in my book, despite the stupid name.

 

In fact: I have a not-so-fond memory of playing it by candlelight one evening as a teen during a power outage in my neighborhood. That was waaaaay back during my, "If I play this junker long enough, I'll convince myself it's a good machine!" phase. Ahh, to be young and dumb again.

I get the humor, but still given price per game ($3) I could have done far far worse.  The patently obvious trio of NES ripoffs play well and are relatively fun, definite fun given the supervision library for sure.  We totally do agree, very very stupid name.  Maybe your site says something why they'd go that dumb of a route vs like some other sketchy asian engrish mess like Virus Bottle or whatever, but John Adventure?  I mean the word John has some odd definitions, maybe the adventure is to get the right two pieces of a pill to kill an STD, being a John after all.  

[DeathAdderSF]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

maybe the adventure is to get the right two pieces of a pill to kill an STD

 

To quote the instruction sheet: "Your aim is to... eliminate all the FLASHING BALLs." Why? It doesn't say.

But referring to the ending, I deduce your goal to be simple: Get rid of all the flashy competition, so your BALL can finally score.

 

 

Boi-oi-oi-oi-oing!

Edited March 9, 2023 by DeathAdderSF

[Tanooki]

Well I wasn't too far off the mark.  That's giving off some party hat pac-man rapey vibes of an old wolf vs hot red riding hood cartoon there with the eyes and dragging on the floor.  Now it makes sense, too much sense, power pellets.

[DeathAdderSF]

An ePay auction for an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly recently caught my eye, as the seller claimed it mentioned the Supervision. Consulting a scan of the issue, I quickly realized said seller was full of snot.

 

BUT!!

 

This made me wonder: Had EGM sullied their mag at some point, by including the Supervision amongst its pages? Wasting even more time, consulting scans of later issues, I soon found the answer: Yes. Yes, they had. Thankfully it was only a quick mention, nestled within the reader Q&A section. Hopefully, it didn't inspire any of their readers to actually buy the damned thing.

 

So anyway, I bought the mag just so I could make a higher quality scan of the (hopefully) innocuous announcement, which I've now added to the website.

 

www.diskman.com/presents/supervision/scans.htm

[+jgkspsx]

Is there a way to replace the display on OG or slim Supervisions? I got a slim with a case but the screen is… underwhelming.

 

[+jgkspsx]

Sounds like not. Anyway, this is a fun piece. https://www.leadedsolder.com/2021/03/30/watara-supervision-repair.html

[Tanooki]

Well I don't have from those images a good view of how the back side or front side of the LCD laid out would look like, but it's possible being like the DMG more than not, you could use a low heat setting moving over the ribbon and try and bring back missing lines.  Another option would be to reflow the joints on either side on it or where it hits the PCB.  If that's jacked, fiddly and a nightmare, but seen it done with far more complex virtual boy ribbon cables, one could run a wire to each individual side of where the jacked up ribbon was just replacing it with a tangle of insulated wires.

[DeathAdderSF]

A Supervision prototype cartridge appeared!! (Cue cricket orchestra.)

 

Oh. My. God. Which scintillating game could it possibly be? Happy Flappy? No. Devil Paradise?? Of course not, don't be ridiculous.

 

It's... *sigh* ...Sonny X'Press. Because of course it is. Yep. Sonny, that parasite-ridden scooter jockey, has found a way to capture the dim Supervision spotlight once again. Blech.

 

You'll have to excuse me for not going ape-solutely bananas over this out of the blue discovery, but after wasting TWENTY YEARS [!] on painstaking Supervision research (with an emphasis on pain), I was hoping for something far better to surface. Can't a Marpol Brother catch a break?!

 

But, whatever. At the end of the day, a lackluster prototype is better than no prototype at all. And just think: Next time, it could be Wonder Fish!

 

Anyway, the Sonny X'Press page has been updated, noting several differences between prototype and final version.

 

diskman.com/presents/supervision/sonny.htm

 

 

[+madman]

Hey, it's something at least! Nice site BTW!

[+jgkspsx]

Sonny X’press is one of the best original Supervision games. I like it a lot.

[Tanooki]

I have to admit I don't use the handheld much, but it's more a mix of lack of time and sadly(dumb) I forget it's in my desk in a nice snap case.  That said, when I have it out, there's a number of B quality games on there worth taking a few minutes with, some just suck, some are pretty nice.  I can't say it has much as far as A games, maybe A for it, but I'm not going to be that nice in this post.   I have the a2heaven cart, but given what I got off him buying his Supervision and a few I found in town strangely neough that was lost in a bag for like 15 years at a shop I semi-regular I have choices on how to properly suffer.  I do find though I get oddly compelled to play their twisted version of Balloon Fight which isn't really bad, quirky, but good.

[ImmyChan]

On 9/5/2023 at 2:47 PM, Tanooki said:

I have to admit I don't use the handheld much, but it's more a mix of lack of time and sadly(dumb) I forget it's in my desk in a nice snap case.  That said, when I have it out, there's a number of B quality games on there worth taking a few minutes with, some just suck, some are pretty nice.  I can't say it has much as far as A games, maybe A for it, but I'm not going to be that nice in this post.   I have the a2heaven cart, but given what I got off him buying his Supervision and a few I found in town strangely neough that was lost in a bag for like 15 years at a shop I semi-regular I have choices on how to properly suffer.  I do find though I get oddly compelled to play their twisted version of Balloon Fight which isn't really bad, quirky, but good.

Sorry to respond to such an old post but you've pretty much perfectly explained my thoughts on the Supervision (and Mega Duck for that matter); none of the games for the Supervision are god awful exactly but they're all pretty much B quality games, with the exceptions of Popo Team and especially Super Pang which I think are A tier for what they are. 

[Tanooki]

8 hours ago, ImmyChan said:

Sorry to respond to such an old post but you've pretty much perfectly explained my thoughts on the Supervision (and Mega Duck for that matter); none of the games for the Supervision are god awful exactly but they're all pretty much B quality games, with the exceptions of Popo Team and especially Super Pang which I think are A tier for what they are. 

It's fine...fair enough.  I still have it, not picked up more games for it though I don't think since that last post.  I did grab a few things I wanted at one rate because there are some decently solid B+ tier horizontal scrollers on it that are blatant ripoffs of stuff like Gradius, etc I wanted to try and wasn't thankfully disappointed.