Mega Drive Mini 2

[Kirk_Johnston]

8 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

That's why you play on Saturn instead. Either that or increase the Blast Processing^TM of your Mega Drive and/or Genesis by overclocking the CPU, which supposedly gets rid of all of the slowdown if you clock it high enough. Don't ask me about how to do that, though, as I have no idea how to do it and I'm too lazy to find out.

From what I recall, the overclocking is for proper tinkerers only.

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

From what I recall, the overclocking is for proper tinkerers only.

And that in turn gives yet another reason to play it on Saturn unless you care about playing for score, in which case the Switch version is the only version to even consider, as I believe you can get unlimited score on stage 1 in the other versions.

 

Well, look at that; I just checked and the MD Mini 2 uses the Sega Ages Thunder Force IV ROM, so no unlimited score on stage 1.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Steven Pendleton

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

That's why you play on Saturn instead. Either that or increase the Blast Processing^TM of your Mega Drive and/or Genesis by overclocking the CPU, which supposedly gets rid of all of the slowdown if you clock it high enough. Don't ask me about how to do that, though, as I have no idea how to do it and I'm too lazy to find out.

...or you accept that slowdowns make the bosses look even more powerful! 😎

[Steven Pendleton]

3 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

...or you accept that slowdowns make the bosses look even more powerful! 😎

lol that is certainly a way of looking at it!

 

There are people that will say the slowdown was intentional, and on occasion, devs like CAVE do intentionally add slowdown to make it easier to play, but in this case, I think it's likely that this game's slowdown wasn't intentional, as if it was intentional, Tecno Soft/Techno Soft/TechnoSoft probably would have kept it for the Saturn version, but the Saturn version never once slows down. Maybe it is, but I don't know. Saturn Thunder Force IV with no slowdown is really cool and my favourite way to play the game. Too bad the sound effects on Saturn are... well, some of them are pretty terrible, sadly. I still think it's worth it just because it uses CDDA, so the sound channels don't cut out when you shoot, and since you're pretty much always shooting unless you're charging the Thunder Sword...

[Bloodreign]

Watched Sega Lord X and Game Sack reviews on this thing, neither blasted it as bad, but both had their fair share of complaints about this thing. For me I am just not pleased that both Lunar games and Popful Mail got the axe, Magical Taruruto I can live with as I bought a copy of it last year for my Genesis. Yeah I have Lunar 2 on my PS1, and have yet to look locally again for the first game, but it would've been nice if both Sega CD titles had been put in, instead of stuff like Sewer Shark or Night Trap, it also would've been nice to have Popful Mail. PM I could dream of it having the original VA, Megumi Hayashibara (of Ranma and Slayers fame), but I know deep down inside, Sega would not shell out the bucks to have that done.

[Tanooki]

I have that game too, Game Freak (pokemon) did a wonderful job on that Japanse mega drive game, I imported it. It's the only JP MD game I have givne how the market is so toxic these days on JP originals.  Lunar and Popful missing are a HUGE turn off to me, but the other CD games I did care about (FF, Silpheed, etc) are there, and the cart variety is solid.

 

I'm not sure I buy into what the sack says about Lunar either, it's one of those knowns that there's bad blood and bitter resentment between the owner and Sega.  I really doubt Sega offered him up a pittance so small it's insulting.  Why?  Explain this for $6.99 (and Vay for 99 cents.)  https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lunar-silver-star-story-touch/id492598036?l=fi

 

Something tells me between the apple fees and the iOS developers cut I doubt the Lunar owner is getting a larger cut here than Sega offered up.  I call bullshit on it.

[Bloodreign]

No edit button, wanted to add something I forgot to add, the word subtitles in order to having the Japanese VA's voice instead of the English voice actress.

 

I tend to like Game Arts games, besides the two Lunar games, I really love Alisia Dragoon. I don't know, I never much cared for the FMV stuff on the SCD, the laser disc games for it are hit and miss, Dragon's Lair is mostly intact, but the video is grainy, while stuff like Time Gal, everything is literally no longer animated video, but moving sprites instead made to look like FMV, and also incredibly grainy, and the US version translated Reiko's voice, and it just seems lifeless and devoid of emotion unlike the Japanese original. I'd take Popful Mail and the Lunar games anyday over stuff like Corpse Killer, Sewer Shark, Make My Video, and the like. I mean it's nice to see Night Striker make the cut, but you'll go blind trying to play that version due to how pixelated it is, but it does have some nice extra on it with Zuntata, I believe some kind of black and white video (might be this game, or Ninja Warriors that has that extra).

[Frozone212]

I'd get it if only for the chance to play japanese Genesis games and Sega CD.

[Zap1982]

Well, since I had the Game Gear Micro set and the MD2, ai just had to fill the gap in the set! 🤑🤑

[Steven Pendleton]

I tested the Cyber Stick on the MiSTer, but the Genesis/Mega Drive core does not seem to support analog controls at this time. Too bad, but that's how it is. You can use it as a digital controller if you really wanted to...

 

but trust me, you don't want to.