The emulation thread...

[xorthen]

I'm currently using the Retron 5 for all my game cart emulation. It really makes up for the price gap if I were to buy an original HDMI converted NES. By about 400 dollars or so. It's just not worth it to buy an NES for that much when you can get a Retron for a fraction of the cost and get just about the same experience.

[Shou]

Been awhile since I have come back from my time travel expeditions with prototype and rare game updates.

Dive Bomber Squad 急降下爆撃隊 - completely dumped and released - will be in the next MAME release - this took a lot of work
Hangzo - to be dumped - it's classic sidescrolling action not a beat'em up
Variant Schwanzer - uses a custom 2D chip that doesn't exist in any Aleck64 or N64 game

Puzznic Location Test Version - completely different girls in this version - all Taito female characters



Splendor Blast II -seems to be an updated version of the obscure ADK game


Dice Dice Dice - irem puzzler that was shown in Gamest before being shelved



Final Gate - about totally unknown Success vertical oriented shooting puzzler on Seibu hardware



DT 7 - Toaplan's linkable racer for up to 4P across 4 cabs - the graphic work is amazing in parts





Destruction - located but owner doesn't share - plays like Getstar
Distopia - located but owner doesn't share
DoDonPachi Campaign - located
Force Five - to be dumped
Kenju - to be dumped
Pack'n Bang Bang - found another proto PCB of this but even though the chips look to be final, same build that is in MAME
R-Gear - located
Rabbit - JP original location test version not the Asian version in MAME dumped
STG Special & Daioh Special - located these
Vertexer - dumped

some interesting Success stuff beyond Final Gate including a Neo Geo proto

[zinger]

Oh my god, DT7 really looks amazing (and how cool about the link system), but all of the above screenshots really get me going. Great work. Too bad about Distopia though.

[emphatic]

Wow, DT7 looks amazing!

[Gaijin Punch]

Well done!

We need to liven up the forum... with all the drama going on at Shmups, I'm having a hard time finding a place to ramble on.

[sven666]

how complete is r-gear?

would love to upgrade my STG pcb aswell, actually like this game for some reason its just not very exciting as-is..

very cool finds, you must have worked relentlessly on this to come so far, i know big money doesnt do it for some of these or else we would have seen them long ago..

[Shou]

R-Gear only has 2 complete stages - there's data for other stuff though.

Yes, it is not just about the money but about who you know and who trusts you. Money definitely helps though. I am now getting offered protos but they aren't cheap - average one is about the price of a new Cave kit.

It's been a long few years on some of these.

[sven666]

haha man i wish i knew the hoops to get a ddp campaign board, would fit perfectly in my collection..

please post video of the games you obtain, id love to see more from them!
distopia in motion is very exciting!

[SuperPang]

I'd certainly be in the thick of a bidding war (and would be happy for Shou to dump it for the rest of you of course) but I have a feeling we'll never see it for sale.

[sven666]

im not holding my breath.. would be cool to know which one hes gotten tho, if its the one from the original saturn contest or one of the PCBs used during the first matsuri (which ive never heard were distributed afterwards?)

[Gaijin Punch]

At this point I'd way rather see Distopia than DDP Campaign Version. But fuck, why not wish for both? I do kind of like the mystique that surrounds this stuff. In the late 90's when I first moved to Japan, there seemed to be tons of untapped game knowledge... at least to the gaming world. Akihabara had all kinds of nooks with wacky shit in it. Now, I feel that most of that has been exhausted... which I guess is good, but that leaves little else discover. Are prototype PCBs the end of the line?

[zinger]

I so feel you on that GP! I also felt there was a sense of mystery to exploring Japanese games when I started importing games in the early 00's, and there were tons of games you basically couldn't find any information on, but which is now much more widely availiable. I think for me it's also very much related to my own journey as a gamer though; naturally, discovering all those danmaku STGs and other bad-ass Japanese action games -- basically all at once -- was pretty damn intense emotionally; how could we ever experience something like that again? There are still a few games I'm really looking forward to trying or playing more of, but I've already played the majority of the top-tier action games from the 16 and 32 bit era to death, so I don't expect being anywhere near as impressed as when say, Alien Soldier, Ray Force or Garegga felt new to me. I still derive a lot of enjoyment from finding out about unreleased games, and discovering stuff by reading interviews or meeting game people though, so it's not like I've lost my passion for Japanese games -- but things are very different from before indeed!

[Shou]

im not holding my breath.. would be cool to know which one hes gotten tho, if its the one from the original saturn contest or one of the PCBs used during the first matsuri (which ive never heard were distributed afterwards?)

It's from the contest.

[Shou]

At this point I'd way rather see Distopia than DDP Campaign Version. But fuck, why not wish for both? I do kind of like the mystique that surrounds this stuff. In the late 90's when I first moved to Japan, there seemed to be tons of untapped game knowledge... at least to the gaming world. Akihabara had all kinds of nooks with wacky shit in it. Now, I feel that most of that has been exhausted... which I guess is good, but that leaves little else discover. Are prototype PCBs the end of the line?

There's plenty more to discover in the unreleased side of things. There's also the Japanese PC world which is largely undiscovered country for most people.

[sven666]

yeah concidering how much the x68K community has dug up there must be just tons and tons of PC games out there that virtually no-one has seen..

[Shou]

Another megaton...Dream Factory's lost arcade fighter, Kenju, has been preserved.

Video here

[Shou]

Kenju and Force Five are both now up for play at Try Tower and Mikado.

[CTN]

What was the reaction to Kenju? And more importantly does it resemble the Tobal games in any way, or is it's gameplay more unique. With these closed off arenas it looks a bit like Segas Last Bronx.

[sven666]

any chance we'll see the stg special rom anytime soon?

dug thru some old PCBs recently and found it.. not a terrible game but certainly lacking that little extra spice..