Astebros

[charlie_jumper]

A new Genesis Game is coming:

 

Video

 

Infos: kickstarter.com/projects/neofid-studios/astebros

 

Demo:

drive.google.com/file/d/1_xHq2…XycDrPwnfKUtyhCCyXoz/view

Edited March 30, 2022 by charlie_jumper

[Tanooki]

That looks fairly unique for the Genesis format, that could be a fun one to pick up.

[Steven Pendleton]

I wonder if they're going to make a MASSIVE ROM SIZE again for no reason other than just because they can. I ended up never actually playing Demons of Asteborg. Maybe I should do that.

[Steven Pendleton]

I was thinking about this game maybe two days ago or so, and just now it finally showed up. Haven't even opened the shipping box yet, but I'll play it for a bit on the Nomad and see how it is.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

14 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I was thinking about this game maybe two days ago or so, and just now it finally showed up. Haven't even opened the shipping box yet, but I'll play it for a bit on the Nomad and see how it is.

Still waiting on my physical copy of the game. I have the ROM they sent me but it won't work if I have the 32x or SegaCD attached? So I'm hoping that isn't a requirement of the actual cartridge as well?

 

It is possible that the ROM is giving me issues because I have an older EverDrive X7 and I'm not sure if it supports the game saving method that the game uses. But I'm not likely to replace that flash cart anytime soon given how much they initially cost.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

30 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Still waiting on my physical copy of the game. I have the ROM they sent me but it won't work if I have the 32x or SegaCD attached? So I'm hoping that isn't a requirement of the actual cartridge as well?

That's weird. There shouldn't be any sort of bus conflict from just running a normal cartridge game, but it says 120 MEGA on the back of the box, so maybe it's not normal, although I have no idea how they did that megabit size. Bank switching shouldn't cause any problems like that, should it?

 

Just like with last time, I don't really see anything that couldn't be done in a regular 40 megabit cartridge. Honestly, the audio quality seems quite poor, but maybe that's just because I'm playing on a stock Nomad.

 

It's past 0300 here now, which means it's WAY past time for me to go to sleep, especially since I have work today, but I'll set up my primary normal Mega Drive with the Mega-CD and Super 32X when I get back from work (which is going to be in like 20 hours lol. Yeah, I don't have typical work hours) and test it to see what happens.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Steven Pendleton

[masteries]

On 11/13/2023 at 7:20 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

Just like with last time, I don't really see anything that couldn't be done in a regular 40 megabit cartridge. Honestly, the audio quality seems quite poor, but maybe that's just because I'm playing on a stock Nomad.

 

 

Reviewing the 16 MB .bin file of Demons of Asteborg, there is a very large section with only easy recognisable patterns such ABCDEF... abcdef.... 1f2f3f... and these sort of things,

and a lot of large empty parts (parts of 128 to 256 KB).

 

Probably the game would fit into 64 Mbits in a properly structured ROM.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by masteries

[+-^CrossBow^-]

On 11/12/2023 at 9:23 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

I was thinking about this game maybe two days ago or so, and just now it finally showed up. Haven't even opened the shipping box yet, but I'll play it for a bit on the Nomad and see how it is.

Well this morning I received an email from NeoFid asking me to choose my cover for my physical copy. So... I guess mine is now in the process of getting shipped out to me soon.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

On 11/16/2023 at 8:20 PM, masteries said:

 

Reviewing the 16 MB .bin file of Demons of Asteborg, there is a very large section with only easy recognisable patterns such ABCDEF... abcdef.... 1f2f3f... and these sort of things,

and a lot of large empty parts (parts of 128 to 256 KB).

 

Probably the game would fit into 64 Mbits in a properly structured ROM.

 

So not only did those bastards make a limited edition version of their first game that has exclusive in-game stuff after the Kickstarter but they also filled the ROM with literal nothingness to inflate the ROM size just to have the biggest ROM size ever but in a meaningless fashion. Great. I am starting to dislike these guys. I kind of wonder how much money they would have saved themselves and the Kickstarter backers by having a smaller ROM size, but I also kind of don't even care anymore.

On 11/17/2023 at 11:41 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Well this morning I received an email from NeoFid asking me to choose my cover for my physical copy. So... I guess mine is now in the process of getting shipped out to me soon.

 

Did you get it yet? I have not gotten around to testing it, as my life is basically just (barely) sleeping and working at this point.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

23 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

So not only did those bastards make a limited edition version of their first game that has exclusive in-game stuff after the Kickstarter but they also filled the ROM with literal nothingness to inflate the ROM size just to have the biggest ROM size ever but in a meaningless fashion. Great. I am starting to dislike these guys. I kind of wonder how much money they would have saved themselves and the Kickstarter backers by having a smaller ROM size, but I also kind of don't even care anymore.

Did you get it yet? I have not gotten around to testing it, as my life is basically just (barely) sleeping and working at this point.

Nope I have not although I did fill out the form to choose the cover for my physical version of the game.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Nope I have not although I did fill out the form to choose the cover for my physical version of the game.

 

I got the PC version somehow and it seems that the ROM is contained in the PC version's installation directory. I don't remember specifically backing for something that included the PC version, but apparently I did.

 

If you have the PC version, you can try running that ROM on a ROM-loading cartridge to see what happens, but in that case it could just be weirdness caused by the ROM-loading cartridge. Might be worth trying.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

13 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I got the PC version somehow and it seems that the ROM is contained in the PC version's installation directory. I don't remember specifically backing for something that included the PC version, but apparently I did.

 

If you have the PC version, you can try running that ROM on a ROM-loading cartridge to see what happens, but in that case it could just be weirdness caused by the ROM-loading cartridge. Might be worth trying.

They sent me the rom version to play on a flash cart months ago. But the ROM refuses to work while I have the SegaCD and 32x attached and the 32x is how I get the RGB output. It always irritates me when these homebrews won't work when you have one of the other add-ons attached. I guess there is some issue with bus contention or something, but then my copy of Paprium doesn't mind the add-ons being attached and in fact will use the SegaCDs processor to control the AI side kick character when playing that game.

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Got my physical cartridge in yesterday yeah! However, I ordered the JPN style cover art and it even says that on my shipping label, but it arrived with the Genesis label art instead....sigh. I'm not going to complain because it took long enough to get my physical copy as it is.

 

That said, it does work just fine on my full setup with the 32x and SegaCD attached. So I'm not sure why the ROM version is picky about this, but it doesn't really matter as the ROM of the game doesn't seem to want to work on my EverDrive X7 anyway. Similar to Demons of Asterborg, it uses some odd SRAM for saving and that isn't able to be emulated in the flash cart hence...the ROM fails to load up and play anyway. 

 

The game itself is fun to play, but it is quite difficult or at least I find it quite difficult. Because of the procedural nature of the levels, you find that are replaying them multiple times so that you can get the items needed to get better weapons crafted in order to become more powerful. As an example it took me well over an hour of playing just the first pantry/warehouse level with the pigmen before I was finally able to build up enough to take down the boss in that level. So, it does essentially require a bit of grinding so you can replay the levels which, again they change each time you visit them. So that you can build your characters up.

 

Music is okay, but I've only heard a few tracks since I'm only able to visit the first 2 areas of the game right now but what is there is pretty cool. Not sure if I think it is better than the music used on Demons of Asteborg but again, I've only heard a few tracks so far. 

 

Graphically the game looks great although I do think some of the cutscene stuff shown in the Intro seems a bit out of place when compared to the pixel art of the game play. Either way, I'm looking forward to playing some more of it!