Other users can participate as well of course.

http://www.indiegogo.com/HBFS30

The reason I despise all self-adjusting difficulty systems is quite obvious in my eyes, but maybe it's convenient to explain it all -- they overcomplicate the mechanics in already difficult-enough games. They force you to play unnaturally so you can control the rank, and make you find out and learn the triggers for ranking-up. For non superplay fans who only play under the 1 credit rule, this is not only unnecessary, it's too demanding and therefore annoying. And we just don't need different patterns and layouts depending on our performance -- learning one of them is already a hard task enough.

Konami was especially arrogant with this feature and most likely the model for the rest, which just couldn't tolerate their arcade games becoming "too easy" either.

At least we had Treasure.

I'm a longtime reader of Insomnia.ac and have of course encountered Recap's expert reviews and comments there. I'm also familiar with some of Recap's essays, such as "A Matter of Visual Precision". I hope that Kierkegaard's and Recap's respective communities overlap and I can find help here.

The reason I'm writing is that Insomnia.ac seems to be out of action permanently. As I'm sure you all know it was hacked this summer. I was hoping that Kierkegaard would recover his site or inform longtime readers of a new, more secure site. As this has not happened so far, I would like to inquire if anyone here knows of a new website or blog of his. I was a (small and only financial) contributor to his site and would certainly be willing to help with the financing of a new site, if that's what is needed.

I apologize for this somewhat off-topic post and hope that you can help me.

Best wishes

Hal

I'll try to read the whole charade tomorrow if I feel like it but let's just notify for now that

Recap never ever joined that chat nor talked with those kids anywhere

A case of impersonation, that is.

The level design is amazing, literally every single new piece of each stage throws something completely new at you, and the actual scene progression and visuals are top notch and constantly keep things interesting. The amount of variety is practically the same as Strider, but Tora he no Michi goes a lot longer than 10 minutes.

Also the 'training' stages along with stuff such as the conversations with the mid bosses and bosses gives the game a feeling of being an 'action rpg', which I think helps it even more so in being as interesting and fun as it is.

The fact this came before most of the other well known Capcom platformers is crazy, and yet people don't seem to talk about this one all that much, which is strange.

I see you have a review of it Recap, so what do you think? The visuals might not be anywhere near the technical level of Willow, but the art design is still amazing and all the other elements of the games design, most importantly the stage layout and progression, are just incredible.

http://filthypants.blogspot.com/2011/05 … dated.html

I was making fun of the word, of course. If we're talking about visuals, I think it's silly stating there ever was a style proper of the European countries as the term implies (something which you only could expect from Americans, by the way; how come there isn't an Ameristyle?) but it's sure nevertheless the style of Turrican and friends is different to the Japanese one(s), since you can clearly say that those couldn't have been made in Japan. And yeah, even if it tried to be as Japanese as possible (mostly mechanics-wise, though), which it indeed did.

The major thing which separates Japanese and non-Japanese visuals in bitmap games is polishment and coherence in the end, if you ask me. Japanese were (are) better and more educated artists and also put more effort, hence you don't find mistaken proportions and colors, dumb motifs and lazy decisions in Japanese pieces like you do in Western games. That's why you won't find anybody saying that Nieborg efforts are 'eurostyle', and only some little things (usually the worst ones) unveil them as non-Japanese visuals.

This boss:

...while, as I said, somewhat impressive and not entirely bad (I agree it's by far the best they've shown), lacks the beauty and refinement of samples like these:

They all less than ten-years-old.

http://computeremuzone.com/

The site tons of information, box scans, advertisement scans and even downloads for each game. Spanish game history is thankfully extremely well preserved from this site. If only similar sites would appear for the history of Korean and Taiwanese PC games... well the Korean game history article on HG101 is pretty good anyway.

Anyway, Spain seemed to have a thriving game development scene from the late 80's to early 90's, when the CPC, C64, Amiga, Atari ST, and IBM PC were all competing with each other. As a result, almost every game was ported to a large amount of the available platforms. Thankfully the computeremuzone site even has comparison screenshots for all versions of stuff!

Initially the main attraction of the Spanish games is without doubt the incredible cover arts. In my opinion the Spanish artists produced even more alluring cover artworks than the Japanese stuff at the time. The fact that a huge amount of box covers were done by the incredible Alfonso Azpiri is a big reason for this, and it seems like all the other Spanish artists were influenced by him and tried to deliver similar quality.

Unfortunately the games themselves aren't always as awesome. The computers that had the games that came on tapes like the Spectrum and CPC and such meant huge limitations on the content, and you'd be lucky to have more than a single boss in a game. IBM PC versions were often upgraded though, and there are enough interesting or good games to make the stuff worth checking out.

Here are some of the cooler games I have found, and also an insane orgy of awesome art:

La Abadía del Crimen (Opera Soft/Mister Chip, 1987)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=166&sec=pc

The most famous Spanish masterpiece. An isometric adventure game where you play the role of a monk who must solve the mystery of some murders, but you also have to attend to his normal duties in the abbey otherwise risk expulsion. Very unique and brilliant concepts.

Titanic (Topo Soft/Kixx, 1988)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=282&sec=pc

This game was lucky enough to have a VGA PC version which looks superb.

Viaje al Centro de la Tierra (Opera Soft, 1989)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=55&sec=pc

Based off Journey to the Center of the Earth. Extremely cool action game.

El Capitán Trueno (Dinamic, 1989)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=665&sec=pc

Based off a Spanish comic. This game is unique in that it had the usual CPC and Spectrum releases but then had a completely remade PC DOS version that features absolutely gigantic sprites and stunning animation. Strangely though it was only in the 4 colour CGA mode, but despite this its still far beyond the other versions. Very cool game, you switch between 3 characters to progress through, and there are constantly new (and huge) enemies introduced and interesting stuff you come across.

Mithos (Opera Soft/Comix, 1989)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=664&sec=pc

Simple action game that can be completed in under 10 minutes, but doing so will take much more than that due to the difficulty. Not that great, but interesting.

R.A.M (Topo Soft, 1990)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=579&sec=pc

Almost like a Spanish version of Gunforce, with an emphasis on taking out masses of enemies (the game starts with you taking control of a mounted machine gun and shooting through the oncoming army of dudes). You can also control vehicles and stuff. Perhaps not as great as this description makes it sound, but still cool.

Sirwood (Opera Soft, 1990)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=386&sec=pc

Mediocre action game. Has some cool boss encounters but that's about it.

Lorna (Topo Soft, 1990)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=125&sec=pc

Based off the Alfonso Azpiri comic. Great graphics, but very sluggish action. I am yet to get past the absurdly difficult hoverbike section after the first stage, but I will probably come back to it eventually.

La Espada Sagrada (Topo Soft, 1990)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=447&sec=pc

Cool action adventure game somewhat reminiscent of Metroid, in which items must be found and used in a large world to progress further.

Senda Salvaje (Zigurat/Gamesoft, 1990)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id … ec=amstrad

I think the hilariously over the top cover art can sum up what happens in this game. Rather decent, though the controls for handling the depth movement in the game are pretty stupid. Coolest part is of course just the theme of traversing all kinds of crazy obstacles like swaps filled with piranhas while controlling such an awesome macho dude armed only with a knife.

Narco Police (Dinamic/Iron Byte, 1990)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=33&sec=pc

This is a pretty cool game, kinda like Cabal and such but without a crosshair. Shooting shit is pretty damn satisfying.

Desperado 2 (Topo Soft/Gamart, 1991)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=396&sec=pc

I'm yet to play this as well, but just look at the cover art!

Black Crown (Topo Soft, 1991)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id=244&sec=pc

The graphics and animation in this are just amazing, but unfortunately its some kind of board game rather than action. Regardless, it's still incredibly interesting, I'll be putting more time into it soon.

The Prayer of the Warrior (Zigurat/Restos Soft, 1992)

Superb action adventure game exclusive to the Spectrum that expertly uses the incredibly limited graphics of the hardware to create a wonderfully atmospheric fantasy world. The design of the levels never drags on or becomes boring, and there are constantly interesting new things introduced to see and discover.

La Noche de Walpurgis (New Dream, 1992)

http://computeremuzone.com/ficha.php?id … ;sec=amiga

No box cover for this one because its an independent game, but one that is incredibly large in scale and high budget, coming on 5 disks (massive for an Amiga game) and featuring production values beyond many commercial Amiga games. The game is broken up into 4 phases, each one completely unique. The first phase is a scrolling action section that initially doesn't seem that great apart from the visuals, with your character traveling on a raft and shooting enemies, but it quickly becomes completely insane and has all kinds of crazy and exciting stuff happen which I don't want to spoil here, and that's just phase 1. Phase 2 is a point and click adventure section, phase 3 is another scrolling action section but more similar to a beat em up, and phase 4 is a gorgeous isometric section. I still need to put more time into the game, but this could very well be a more obscure masterpiece of Spain.

Cyberlaw (B@lance, 1997)

Very solid belt scroll action game with unique visuals that feature standard 2d sprites on rendered backgrounds.

This is an interesting aspect of Japanese games I've always found. Unlike in the West where most new releases are generally the same price, in Japan its seemingly just free reign on whatever the fuck a company wants to charge on something. Having a look at all the databases of older stuff recently, its interesting just comparing various stuff.

Famicom games in the earlier years were generally all in the 4000-5000 yen range, then there were the FDS games which were all about 3000, then in the late 80's and early 90's cartridge games were suddenly upwards of 5000 or 6000 yen, with some getting in the 9000 range.

Of course Koei are their own beast altogether, with their strategy games on any console or computer going for about 12,000 yen give or take. How they got away with this I have no idea.

For Megadrive, it seems mostly first party Sega stuff was about 5000, then third party games anywhere from 5000 to about 9000.

Super Famicom prices I was surprised by, because about every game, even the Nintendo ones, were around 8000-9000 yen, with quite a few games breaking the 10,000 mark too, with some stuff reaching the Koei prices (Ys 5 was 12,800). Also for some fucked up reason, Bomberman 4 was 7777 yen, and there was some shogi game by Seta that was 14,800!!

Japanese releases of Western games on the SFC (not necessarily the MD) also are all usually more expensive than the average releases, with stuff like Indiana Jones, Super Star Wars, Judge Dredd, True Lies, Star Gate and Warlock all being about 11000 yen. What the fuck is the reason for this?

Of course I am interested in action stuff mainly, so I quickly looked over SFC and MD action games to see what the most expensive was. I only did this quickly so there is probably stuff I missed, but the most expensive (Japanese!) developed action game for SFC I saw was Majyuuou for 10,800 yen, and Contra The Hard Corps on MD for 9000 yen.

So, back in the old cartridge era, what exactly were the factors that went into pricing for a game in Japan? Of course there is meg size for a cart which if higher is more expensive to manufacture, but when comparing most of the games it seemingly didn't even matter for the pricing, with plenty of higher-meg cart games being released cheaper than other lower meg games. Apart from Koei who must have just though of themselves as developing hardcore strategy games mainly for adults and therefore charging more, did the pricing for other companies just depend on perhaps the hype a game had or niche it was marketed to? Maybe if a game was expected to sell less copies they just jacked the price up and made it a more niche game for the people they know are going to buy it? (which is guess is pretty much Koei's case anyway, but even with their stupid prices they surely they achieved more mainstream success than most other companies)

For modern stuff, the current Japanese PC game market (now mostly porn of course) is full of games all around the 10,000 yen mark (PC releases have always been the most expensive in Japan, no idea why). I don't really know about Japanese pricing on modern console stuff like 360 and ps3 though.

First thing to note is that many of them were released through Mediakite's Yuu-Yuu budget series. This is a label for rereleases of products from other companies, but it seems many of these were originally launched this way. Mediakite also had a series for MD ports. Didn't last for too long, but at least they picked Gunstar Heroes.

There are a lot of these arcade ports for other Asian markets and indeed Cyberfront's SNK titles were based on Taiwanese versions by other companies, if I recall.

It'll be interesting to know with the time which ones of these use emulation, or even MAME, and their accuracy. I'm still to decide if they'll get a place in Postback 2.0, though.

English-language posts / questions regarding this emulator patch by Calamity go here, please.

OK, so, the thing you must remember when considering buying a tri-sync monitor: a broadcast/video wall/graphist monitor don't need video amplification to connect any home device that run at 15 kHz (because the signal is 1 volt for the consoles and the monitor input).
If you plan to connect a few arcade PCBs, it's very easy to add potentiometers (~ 220 ohms) to reduce the voltage amplitude.

If you choose to buy an arcade monitor, you have almost the same sort of picture tube, but you will need to buy a video amplifier (around 100 € for RGB stuffs), or you will need to modify a MGCD (a chinese PS2 to JAMMA adaptator with embedded amplifier, for about 50€).

Other way, if you are lucky, you can find one of those rare TVs that have a VGA input (15-31 kHz, no 24 kHz support of course). For now, I only saw Grundig ones. Other brands (Thomson, Philips...) did some TVs with VGA input, but they were "100 hz" (meaning every 15 Khz signals are modified to be "double interlaced", and when you have the possibility to skip this treatment, you get your 240p source transformed to a standard 480i, which is pretty bad).

Personnaly, I would buy an arcade monitor if I can find a 29" picture tube with a 0.68 pitch, instead of the larger 0.79 common one, which is really fine for 15/24 kHz but a little bit too large to display precise dots beyond 500 pixels per line. When you tend to match the number of pixels with the number of phosphore triads, you loose picture quality, and begin to see moire errors. For every CRT, you need to work bellow the limit of the tube. The pitch is one of those limits.

You can find smaller pitch for large tubes (like some Mistubishi "Megaview" monitor, some early HD CRT with 4/3 format), but in many case, they don't go bellow 31 Khz, and when they take 15 kHz signal, it's upscaled to 31 kHz. Because when you want to increase resolution in CRT technology, you need to have a electron gun which must have thinner cathodes to display a smaller spot... meaning it's no more capable to display a huge 15 khz spot.

For now, 0.68 is the lowest pitch I found for big screens that handle 15 kHz properly.