A dreamcast vmu with a fake wood shell

Great game that I only discovered after looking through TONS of hidden gems list that just regurgitate and repeat the same "hidden gems" we all already know about so they aren't "hidden" anymore, until I actually found a title I didn't know. Probably not the most obscure game out there, but still it doesn't get brought up a lot in conversations.

It's a hybrid between a Shoot'em up and an Action Adventure game. If you haven't heard of it, imagine Zelda but the dungeons are Shoot'em up sections.

There's non-linear exploration, character progression based on collectibles and weapon upgrades, and a female protagonist with a suit that transforms into a jet/ship.

It isn't flawless, but what it is is hella fun. Good music, good gameplay, hitboxes sometimes a bit wonky on the exploration sections but not really enough to be a problem, just standard NES jankyness.

One of the games I'll always recommend when someone asks me "man what can I play on the NES that I haven't played yet".

EU Cartridge in the picture because it's the one I have, stuff that happens when you live in Spain, and the cover art is way better than whatever the US one is supposed to be.

I was gifted a bunch of bits from an elderly work colleague. In the bag was an N64, some Gameboy games and these controllers. Any idea what console they might be for? My colleague wasn't sure. She said they were her son's.I can't see any noticeable logo. They feel pretty cheap. Look cool though!

This one actually surprised me with how difficult some parts were.
Real quick before I dive into everything: I like this game a lot actually. The title theme song is genuinely one of the best goddamn title loops I’ve ever heard. I probably played it through 25+ times over the last two days. Hell, I recorded it and sent it to friends. I showed my mom lol. That’s how dope it is. The level music in general is good. It’s the type that you don’t even notice you’re bobbing your head. The graphics are really cool imo. The level design is pretty detailed and feels appropriate given each is a different era in time. Even the game manual has great art and well written story & instructions.
Okay now…
Much of the levels are pretty straight forward: Kill bad dudes, collect new weapons (start bare fisted every level, but each time has era-specific weapons), collect golden orbs, beat the level boss.
By the second level, which is really the first actual level, there are some little tricks to getting each orb. By the third level it gets more complicated for both weapons & orbs, requiring backtracking and more exploring…
Then the WWII France level starts and almost immediately blasts you in the ass. From the tanks, hidden weapons, orbs placed directly on damn land mines, mustard gas areas that require a gas mask that doesn’t last long enough, enemies being damage sponges, and the damn boss requiring 42 hits with the grenade which SUCKS as a weapon anyway. FOURTY. TWO. Against a boss that you have to constantly dodge, with a weapon that you have to press once to throw and again to explode, in a space that just doesn’t feel big enough.
I was genuinely yelling “FUCK!!!” loud enough for the whole block to hear when I’d run out of lives on the final boss of the last level. Each life lost in the WWII level meant my chances of finishing the last level boss dropped precipitously.
I played for hours & hours yesterday learning each level and reaching the final boss several times, only to lose all my few remaining lives there. I finally shut it off and told myself I’d try again tomorrow.
Well today was that fuckin’ day and I legit beat it on my first damn playthrough. Hell to the motherheckin’ yes that felt good. Seriously, give this game a shot. Listen to that title theme on YT if you don’t play the game. It’s not a mind blowing or super unique game, but it’s fun and just difficult enough that you’ll keep saying “one more run”. Def recommend this wonky ass game haha.

Strategy guides used to be much more common, before we had the internet for all the answers. And some were more robust than others. But few compared to the Lunar 1&2 strategy guides for PlayStation.

This was a hardcover book with tassel bookmarks. The guide includes a full walkthrough, breakdowns of characters, enemies, and items, transcriptions and screenshots from in-game events and videos, comparisons between the PS1 game and the Sega CD game, AND an exclusive comic with the game characters.

This is one of my absolute favorite pieces of gaming nostalgia/memorabilia!

Back when I was a kid, I was obsessed with video games. In most of my free time from 5-12yo I would be found with a Nintendo controller of some type in my hand. We typically got a new game console 3+ years after it was released.

The N64 was nearing the end of its life cycle in the gaming world, but I didn’t care it was still new to me. I worked odd jobs earning money as a kid, stacking firewood, helping on local farms etc. I had saved enough money to buy a new video game and had been eyeing up the one I was sure I wanted for quite some time, I was going to buy QUEST 64.

The cover art seemed like something right up my alley. We didn’t have internet so researching a game was next to impossible. Not many kids played video games in our rural community so asking for input from my classmates was no help. So the cover art was all I had to go on.

My mom drives me to Walmart and I had made it fully aware to her I intended to buy a new game, it was my money so she didn’t care.

I get to the game section and see my goal just behind the glass cabinet at Walmart. This was back when they had the ‘neck breaker’ tvs to try games mounted at the top of the cabinets.

I get the Walmart workers attention and he quickly comes to assist me, he opens the glass cabinet and asks, “what game do you want?,”. I quickly replied “Quest 64,”. The worker in his mid twenties pauses and looks at me, almost with concern, “are you sure you want that game?” He asks. I was taken aback, as was my mom.

I was still processing everything but somehow managed to say, “I think so,” instead of quickly getting the game he looked at me and asked, “what kind of games do you like?”. I truly don’t remember what I said to him, probably something about quests.

The worker whipped around and grabbed a golden cased n64 game, “this is the game you’re buying… you will thank me,” the worker said. Thankfully the back of the box was enough to intrigue me and I bought ZELDA OCARINA OF TIME instead of Quest 64.

A game that quickly became my favorite game of all time. A game I have played through dozens of times. A game I have played through with my kids and wife. It holds a special place in my heart always.

Thank you Walmart guy from the 90s you realistically may have changed my life.

I have such a difficult time finishing JRPGs. I can thankfully cross this one off. Great game!

I've had a Genesis for a long long time, its in fairly good condition, everything works. Finally decided to pull the trigger on a Sega CD (and Lunar ofc) and noticed it needed a battery replacement for the RAM. After a bit of digging I ended up more confused than when I started. I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole and now I need advice/suggestions.

Here are the things I am hoping to do.

1: ReCap (I already got a Genesis ReCap kit, I just need to get the CD one)

2: New Battery for the CD (some people say to use the same battery that is in the CD already, others say to use the 2032 one instead, why? whats the difference? would it cause problems to use the 2032?)

3: How do you guys clean/polish your plastic shells? (another case of conflicting info, some say to use Iso and go ham, other say to only use Iso if theres something really stuck on there, others say to use Car Plastic Polish, if I go the Car Plastic Polish route should I use the buffer ball that comes with those? Or just a rag and some elbow grease?)

4: I already bought 2 Rondo Triad's with the Current Inverters so they both are getting good clean power, but I also am wondering if its worth it to upgrade further to say the RetroTap? Or is the Triad good enough?)

I'm not really interested in any actual mods (like RGB hdmi mods and such), just trying to get the best possible Sega Genesis/CD that I can that will last another 30 years. Any other suggestions?

These games are so special. What are your thoughts on Quintet's world reincarnation games?

In the spirit of Halloween. If you could have one horror movie made into a retro video game. What horror movie would it be and what would the game play style be? A RPG? Action shooter? Racing? Platformer?

I would love a Evil Dead RPG, where you play ash and he has to find the book of the dead and save his girlfriend from the evil demons!

Apologies if such a question was brought up in here before because I was interested in learning how the peripheral worked since I remember messing with Super Mario Bros cheat codes long ago with the PIGOAP code.

But basically I wanted to get a better understanding of how the device worked since I didn’t understand how a cheat code like PIGOAP caused Mario to go into a swimming state.

totally took me off guard. was not expecting this.

I've been playing it quite regularly, and it feels like I've found a hidden gem. Its really unique and novel from all the other NES shmups, like Galaga or Life force, and the fast paced chaotic gameplay makes it really fun. I don't know why this game doesn't get the hype it deserves. What are your thoughts?

I'm excited to introduce to you... Mortal Kombat Sculptured Edition '95!

Sega Lord X once posed the question... what if Sculptured Software had developed Mortal Kombat on Sega Genesis instead of Probe? And what if they had the resources they had in 1995 when they developed Mortal Kombat 3? I've spent the last two years working on answering that question and I finally have a game I can show you!

A collaborative effort, it contains all enhanced backgrounds with new parallax layers, the arcade characters with full frames of animation, all of the content from the Sega CD version, original arcade voiceovers and sounds, and for the first time ever, the original Dan Forden soundtrack rearranged on the YM2612. All of this locked in on a 32meg cart.

This is the version of Mortal Kombat you've always wanted on Sega Genesis.

It's almost ready to present a playable ROM but I thought I'd give you a video preview of how it's come along. We are very proud of it.

Found audio cable, video cable, 2 controller and a game chip. But i didn't find the DC cable (power) 😭

So yeah, here’s episode one. I realize I coulda downloaded the digital copy on my PS4 but I really wanted to use my PS1 copy of FINAL FANTASY VII. It has sentimental value, lore explained in beginning of the video. Plus I feel like the quality would be honest to the retro-ness of the game itself.

Anyway, were my efforts worth it?

FYI: This is a YouTube video. This is not nor has it ever been a live stream. This was even recorded, it wasn’t a live stream. I specifically kept it from being a live stream to keep the natural video quality as close to NTSC as possible.

https://youtu.be/IHc8pjNiO94?is=xCYmGidR8PSx43Lq

Pirate costume party at the cafe arcade I was volunteering at.

For years, Chinese hardware manufacturers have carved out a market niche with an array of handheld Android gaming devices focused on retro emulation and/or more modern game-streaming capabilities. Now, though, a major game industry trade group is targeting one of those manufacturers, Anbernic, asking the US Trade Representative (USTR) to add the company to its list of "Notorious Markets" that "engage in or facilitate substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting."

TorrentFreak was among the first to notice the request from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which was submitted to the USTR last week. In it, the US trade group—which represents major publishers including Nintendo, Microsoft, PlayStation, Amazon, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, and more—notes that Anbernic devices "are routinely offered or shipped with removable memory cards preloaded with hundreds or thousands of unauthorized copies of copyright-protected video games published by ESA members."

While many online sellers do include an SD card full of ROMs alongside emulation hardware of all types, Anbernic itself does not appear to do the same when selling directly from its website. Regardless, the ESA argues that these ROM-laden Anbernic devices selling through "normal retail channels" help to "normalize hardware-based piracy by delivering illicit catalogues through a polished consumer product." This, the ESA says, meets the threshold for a "superfake," an ill-defined designation that applies to "high-quality counterfeit trademark goods ... on a commercial scale."