Retro game stuff talk

obsidianspider

This week I was in Manhattan for work and picked up two games.

Billy Hatcher has been on my list for a long time and the fact that I bought it in person from a member of a game collector group that I'm in on Facebook makes it even cooler to have in my collection. The gameplay is really fun and the egg rolling part reminds me a lot of Katamari Damacy.

River City Girls was more of an impulse pickup since I'd heard it was good and I didn't see anything else I wanted at VideoGamesNewYork. I popped it into my Switch today and HOLY CRAP. This games is AWESOME! Check out the intro and first few minutes of gameplay. A rockin soundtrack, solid game mechanics and the "puberty" video playing in one of the classrooms had me cracking up (Scrub to around 7:13 in the video below). This game is a must have for the Switch. This was also available at Best Buy, but apparently is now sold out. If you can find it, get it.

obsidianspider

With the addition of a very nice looking Pocket Hello Kitty I believe I now have all of the variants of the "Made by Nintendo and looks like a Game Boy but is actually a pedometer/Tamagotchi" set. I'm not sure when I first discovered these things, but I think they're neat and the Pocket Sakura and Pocket Hello Kitty are a lot harder to find in decent shape for not crazy money than the Pokemon ones. The Color Pocket Pikachus only seem to come in a blister pack and sell for more than I'd want to spend, so for now I'll be happy to have them loose.

VictimRLSH

@obsidianspider I absolutely LOVED River City Ransom, I'd get drunk off my ass and dump about $20 into a bartop PC10 playing that game. This game looks like a fun spiritual successor, I'll pick it up if I can find it.

obsidianspider

One of the many things that caught on in Japan but not in the US is game soundtracks. I don't have a large collection of them, but I recently added four more. A Link Between Worlds, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario 3D World, and Okami. The discs will likely not get much use aside from the one time I rip them to MP3, but the artwork on them is fantastic. I'll be posting individual photos on my Instagram. Yes, they all have spine cards except Okami, which was a promotional disc in a cardboard sleeve.

VictimRLSH

I have the Epic Battle Fantasy 5 soundtrack CD coming, love me some game soundtracks. FF9 was also quite good.

The CD was limited run and not available anymore but you can buy download or listen to all 30 tracks free here
https://music.phyrnna.com/album/the-music-of-epic-battle-fantasy-v-composers-cut

FlyingTomahawk

had off today and I thought I'll try to mod my Famicom and Mega Drive. I want to have the best possible picture on my CRT TV. RGB/Scart is, unfortunately, not an option here since that is limited to Europe only. Japan used to have RGB21 which has a different pinout and TVs with RGB21 are super rare.

Let's start with the Famicom. The Famicom can only output composite and mono audio.
Composite is still better than RF. Got me all kinds of Resistors, Capacitors and Transistors. I used one of my yellow Famicoms since I wanna keep the best looking white one stock with RF only. The result is great. Very slight jail bars but barely noticeable.

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Next, the Mega Drive....
The Mega Drive can output RGB and I do have 2 RGB/Scart cables which I used with my RGB to HDMI converter box. Which upscales the image to 720p or 800x600 which is not native resolution and you don't get the scan lines.
The CRT TV has no HDMI nor Scart. So here we are limited to S-Video. The mod is straight forward and super easy. There was no need to wire up anything for audio since you can take that from the 3.5mm headphone jack on the front.
The result is stunning. The sharpness and color reproduction is great. Especially on a native CRT resolution with natural scan lines.

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That's it for today. Now it's time to enjoy the fruits of my work and play some games.

obsidianspider

Great job! Next step you'll be doing a retrobrite job on that modded Famicom!

FlyingTomahawk

Just a small update on the Famicom mod and jail bars situation. I was able to eliminate them and the image looks 99.5% clean. Just write it here in case someone is looking for that solution in the future.

It does involve some risky modification though.
You'll have to lift the leg of pin 21 on the PPU and remove the 2SA937 transistor, bent the base leg, connect that with a short wire to that pin 21 leg and solder the transistor back in its original position on the PCB.
Additional add two 1uf ceramic capacitors between pin 20 and 22 of the PPU and between pin 40 of the CPU and any ground point on the PCB.

That's it. Now i can finally enjoy retro gaming with a clean image. Also modified another Famicom with a different PCB board layout and there I did the same and that also cleaned up the image.

obsidianspider

@FlyingTomahawk Well done! Does that only affect the original Famicoms? I have an AV Famicom and never noticed jailbars, but I'm also not that discerning.

FlyingTomahawk

@obsidianspider
As far I know, only original Famicoms that have an AV mod.

obsidianspider

Today I added Tetris for WonderSwan Color to my collection. I got it for what I typically see a loose copy selling for. That said, it's the most expensive game I've bought in quite a while.

and I still stink at Tetris

Clyde

@obsidianspider said in Retro game stuff talk:

and I still stink at Tetris

😄

WeirdH

@obsidianspider said in Retro game stuff talk:

and I still stink at Tetris

Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?

FlyingTomahawk

Consoles from 1972 - 2018 Japanese TV commercials

FlyingTomahawk

Been busy, busy busy....

Now that I successfully modified the Famicom (AV mod) it was time to do something about its looks. I didn't wanna go the Retr0bright way since I cannot get my hands on the needed material I decided to simply paint it. Removed carefully the front and rear labels.
The color used is Suzuki 0RB olympus white

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Next, I redid the wiring and added an LED power ON indicator light.
Reapplied the labels and....I'm really satisfied how it turned out.

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I also was able to score a Famicom Disc System (2500 Yen). It was sold as Junk and the previous owner said that he didn't check if it works or not which usually means the belt is shot and needs to be replaced. Other then that it's in great condition, boxed with all the bags still there.
Also was able to buy Dracula 1, Dracula 2 and Metroid. All 3 for 1980 Yen

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As I suspected the belt was in bits and pieces but that is no surprise after 20+ years.
Replacement is on its way and that thing should be up and running in no time.

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FlyingTomahawk

Received the replacement belt(s) today...for free.
A little pre-story to that...
There is a Japanese guy that has a blog and there he shows you step by step with videos and pictures how to replace the belt and align the spindle. Those Mobilon rubber bands are sold in 100 gram packs so one package contains 460 rubber belts! That guy bought 3 packs since he repairs FDS often he says. I guess he does repair work? Anyways, he says he has over 1400 belts and anyone who contacts him gets 5 belts for free, shipped home! And not only that but he also includes washers and bolts to offset the motor pulley to prevent the belt from dropping out once replaced. All for free! How generous is that.

To be honest the belt install and spindle setup are bit of a pain in the rear. It took me a few tries until I got it working properly.
Once done I finally could check if my FDS games were working. And they sure did...

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ruckage

Hey @FlyingTomahawk , hope you're doing well.
Awesome work on the Famicom/FDS - looks as good as new.

FlyingTomahawk

@ruckage

RUCKAGE! Man how are you? It's been like ages since I last read you.
How is life treating you? Hope everything is alright.

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I'm happy with the result.

VictimRLSH

@obsidianspider said in Retro game stuff talk:

Today I added my very first Treasure game to my collection: Dynamite Headdy for Sega Genesis. It’s in very good shape and only mildly suffers from the common Genesis game problem of looking like someone soaked the label in vegetable oil. I don’t know why so many Genesis games do that.

Also: can anyone suggest a good gamebit screwdriver that works well with Genesis games? My orange handled one from Amazon “works” but it often slips from the screws on Genesis games and mars the finish. I’d like to minimize that in the future.

My custom PCBs also arrived today. They're my very first boards that I designed myself, so there's nothing fancy going on, but it looks like they'll fit the ribbon cable that I intended, so hopefully I'll be able to test with a Pi soon.

Did you get any extras of these done? Willing to sell?

ruckage

@FlyingTomahawk said in Retro game stuff talk:

@ruckage

RUCKAGE! Man how are you? It's been like ages since I last read you.
How is life treating you? Hope everything is alright.

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I'm happy with the result.

I'm doing well thank you, been pretty busy. Had a fun month long roadtrip just before Christmas travelling around France, Andorra, Spain and Portugal.
Hope you doing well too.

I must get on and finish my Famicom and PC Engine projects. The PC Engine Mini is coming out soon which will work out quite well for me because they're selling additional PC Engine USB controllers which will be ideal for my project (I've already pre-ordered one.)