Should I feel bad for not going by the 1cc at all cost rule?

[Stevens]

A quick search confirms it is not the official layout:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sunset+ ... JduxnxaS4M

[Rastan78]

Probably a conversion done by a particularly ambitious arcade operator. I can assure you that this kind of thing was very common. The conversion kits probably just came with unmarked panel decals that left the exact layout up to the one doing the job. With the shoot and jump labels floating on another sheet of decals. And the official layout would not have been much better if you were stuck on the 4P side.

US cabs and controls in general were pretty funky compared to their Japanese counterparts.



This cab actually looks like it's for the Japan market. Again due to the funky button placement, this may have been up to the operator?

[BIL]

Yeah, the 4P Sunset I played was at Busch Gardens FLA, on a frickin' massive screen with speakers to match... looking back, I always assumed it was a custom unit. Good times.

[Rastan78]

Best cab conversion I ever came across in the wild had a Japan Astro City panel with Sanwa parts bolted right to the plexi on a US style cab. Smart!

[Rastan78]

BIL, you ever come across Konami's GI Joe? It was a third person rail shooter for up to 4 players. Picture the reticle aiming of Cabal combined with Space Harrier's sprite scaling.

It brought an insane amount of carnage to the table for a 1992 game. I imagine it was never ported in the day as it would've melted the Genesis or SNES from across the room. And I assume it won't be done by Hamster or M2 any time soon due to the inherent licensing issues combined with its relative obscurity. Although M2 seems to love sprite scaling based games like Space Harrier and Out Run as they have ported each about 200 times. Their hard on for Space Harrier may only be surpassed by their raw unbridled sexual obsession with Fantasy Zone (for some reason). BTW their recent Fantasy Zone port for the Switch is extremely well done. Pretty much on par with a Shottriggers release but only 7.99. All 12 people that bought it agree.

Can't say how well GI Joe holds up as I haven't actually played it since the 90s. I do remember it blowing some minds in the day though. In the early 90s Konami had a real knack for taking random American licenses that you would assume could only lend themselves to producing 100% pure untainted shite, bringing them to Japan and making very nice games out of them. Some of them were super random. Even back then people barely knew WTF Cowboys of Moo Mesa or Bucky O'Hare were. Im surprised they didn't make an epic 4P Barbie beat em up.

I'd imagine this all came about after Konami execs were getting high all day with an endless pile of TMNT money. Then their stash started to run low. Only a desperate man or a greedy one would try to milk the teet of the Cowboys of Moo Mesa.

[BIL]

Sadly never encountered it BITD (nor the broadly similar DEVASTATORS, an eminent pick for ACA), though I've been very impressed with what guys on here have shown of it! Calice Cup played it a while back IIRC, looked superb. Can only imagine what I'd have thought back then. Just the KID-developed NES games were blowing my tiny mind

I wonder about the licensing... I was certain Sunsoft's gorgeous licensed Famicom soundtracks were lost to time, but City Connection's superlative Sunsoft Anthology album is loaded with Batman and Gremlins music.

It's a silly dream, not grounded in any business sense, but as a fan I'd like to see these disparate outfits - M2, Hamster, City Connection (I know their STG ports aren't nearly as well-regarded, but they know how to handle the publishing side!) - form some kinda alliance for the advancement of excellence in archival practices. No Digital Eclipses or DotEmus allowed.

Actually, pretty sure I saw Rutubo Games repped on M2's site - Rutubo being responsible for the beautiful 32X/Saturn AGES Space Harrier, AfterBurner II and (SS only) OutRun, released while M2 were making their own name with an X68000 Gauntlet fan conversion so good, Tengen bought it off 'em and put it on MD. Founding members of Rutubo went onto start Gotch, who seem to have caused a sea change at Hamster this gen. Even that degree of acknowledgement is encouraging to me.

[Rastan78]

Out of curiosity I checked out the staff for "Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa." The game is more or less Sunset Riders 2 with a goofy license tacked on.

The run and gun pedigree of the staff is no joke. It includes:

Satoru Okamoto, programmer on Contra 1987 arcade

Programmer Takashi Takeda, went on to Contra Hard Corps, Castlevania Bloodlines etc.

Sounds and music by Michiru Yamane. Her soundtracks for Konami are too many to list, but she is probably most known for CV Symphony of the Night

So yeah its no surprise this obscure licensed game turned out to be a decent run n gun when they had key staff from Contra 1 and Contra Hard Corps working on it.

[Stevens]

BIL, you ever come across Konami's GI Joe? It was a third person rail shooter for up to 4 players. Picture the reticle aiming of Cabal combined with Space Harrier's sprite scaling.

GI Joe was really good. Pretty much Cabal/Wild Guns except with running into the screen. Devastators came first if I recall and was like a poor beta.

[BIL]

Out of curiosity I checked out the staff for "Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa." The game is more or less Sunset Riders 2 with a goofy license tacked on.

Along similar lines, I've come to regard Sunset Riders as The Other Contra III. Directed by Super Contra's Hideyuki Tsujimoto, and much more line with the prior two arcade games' unbridled run/gun than Nobuya Nakazato's more setpiece/miniboss-driven Contra Spirits. To be sure, I consider Spirits an indispensible game in its own right - chop the extend/bomb rates and it's ready to go straight into a cabinet. (intriguingly, the SFC ROM actually has the stock Konami operator's notice baked in, making me wonder if some kind of tie-in launch was in the cards...)

Crazy how much talent was packed into that company, circa 1985 to 1995. Sunset also features Hidenori Maezawa on sound programming, he being responsible for that unmistakably rich sound in Umechan Team's FC Salamander, Contra, Super Contra and Gradius II.

[Rastan78]

I had written Hamster off before. Didn't they almost go bankrupt after making the mistake of using MAME for their ports or something to that effect? Seems like they have really stepped it up on their newer ports. Getting the Seibu licensing is a huge deal for me. I hope they work their way through the Raiden/Fighters series as well as start giving us more games from the late 80s and early 90s rather than more from the early and mid 80s.

They've now got better screen scaling, better options for autofire, they patch games after release and so on. M2 are still the kings, but if they are not careful Hamster is going to catch up. Especially when you factor in the pace of releases and the variety.

Not a huge fan of Digital Eclipse, although they did seem to improve a bit from their old stuff. They seem to focus on bonus galleries and historic info tacked on vs port accuracy and important extra features. Don't get me started on their Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. Leaderboards, matchmaking, netcode, lobby system, all are jacked up to the max. They missed the mark. The older port of Third Strike for 360 was a much better way to play. This was done by Iron Galaxy and was very full featured.

M2 nails this. It's the extra features that really elevate a game above playing on MAME and make for a definitive edition. Darius Cozmic for example you've got the rank counter, boss timers, leaderboards full of Japanese pros, major ease of use for replay saving/ uploading, save state practice. Also it feels like there is much more legitimacy to playing for score. I don't see their leaderboards getting hacked. If there is some way to cheat on them, I don't know what it is, and it would likely be very difficult. Your replay is automatically uploaded for all to see if you get a high score, and if you change default settings, continue etc you're booted to a different leaderboard called All Mix where anything goes. They even have a delay to unpausing the games now which eliminates the potential for using some kind of hack like a pad with turbo on pause to play in slo mo. When M2 finally comes out with brutal games that have caused much controversy in the past like Same 3 and Tatsujin Ou, post a clear and replay on the console version and you will get your props as deserved with no controversy.

At the end of the day any replay or high score generated on MAME will always be somewhat suspect and is more a matter of trusting the players reputation than anything. Personally, I think its kind of depressing/demotivating to be chasing a score at the top of a leaderboard that was more than likely played at half speed or spliced using save states.

[Rastan78]

Out of curiosity I checked out the staff for "Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa." The game is more or less Sunset Riders 2 with a goofy license tacked on.

Along similar lines, I've come to regard Sunset Riders as The Other Contra III. Directed by Super Contra's Hideyuki Tsujimoto, and much more line with the prior two arcade games' unbridled run/gun than Nobuya Nakazato's more setpiece/miniboss-driven Contra Spirits. To be sure, I consider Spirits an indispensible game in its own right - chop the extend/bomb rates and it's ready to go straight into a cabinet. (intriguingly, the SFC ROM actually has the stock Konami operator's notice baked in, making me wonder if some kind of tie-in launch was in the cards...)

Crazy how much talent was packed into that company, circa 1985 to 1995. Sunset also features Hidenori Maezawa on sound programming, he being responsible for that unmistakably rich sound in Umechan Team's FC Salamander, Contra, Super Contra and Gradius II.

That's interesting. I like that they also worked in some Rolling Thunder influence with the upper and lower platform action and dipping in and out of doors. (Rolling Thunder 1 and 2 incidentally having great ports on Switch by Gotch in the Namco collection) Although they didn't crib off Rolling Thunder nearly as hard as Sega did when they created Shinobi. (Which incidentally has a great port on Switch by M2)

[BIL]

Hell yeah, most definitely Rolling Thunder in there, too. That tier-switching superjump is at the heart of several lethal boss battles, you can tell they really knew how to leverage it.

I love our current setup of a boutique dev who release landmark ports of the biggest-name arcade stuff (M2), and a no-frills but equally committed unit who cater to smaller but no less deserving titles (Hamster). With M2 mooting less-extravagant but more prolific Toaplan and DECO stuff, and Hamster's catalogue only gaining stature, I think the next gen at least could be really good for arcade fans who want this stuff on console.

Digital Eclipse... my problem with them is, they're not serious archivists. I gave SNK40th a go, because I really wanted to play Search And Rescue. While I had a great time with it, and Bermuda Triangle, and Genshitou, and Battle Field, I was appalled by the bugs. I'm talking roach in your salad scenario. The controls randomly jam up, every hour or so. You have to waggle them frantically, to "unstick." Thus carefully-designed arcade games become slot machines - you'd better hope that wall of flak isn't accompanied by a stick spasm, or your run's going in the toilet. -_-

I messaged the devs, and was told that unfortunately, the collection is now too old (~2yrs) to patch. I was saddened to hear, as in most regards - framerate, input latency, pixel scaling - it runs fine.

I noticed one of their top guys knocking ArcSys's Kunio collection for a lack of Rewind feature, more or less claiming that these days, "Ain't nobody got time for that shit" (meaning: learning to play). So yeah, I don't regard them as serious people, just nostalgia merchants who I'll turn to as a last resort while hoping better devs pick up their slack.

[Rastan78]

M2 has arcade superplayers testing out their ports and they feel beholden to making every aspect of the game work for them. I saw that they were saying they felt it was important to nail the arcade speed on Darius Gaiden as they had a tester who could just feel when the boss' 4 minute time out was approaching when milking them. Probably GMC IMO who is a master of scoring every single route and is credited on the game.

Also saw that they left Garegga PCB and PS4 version running side by side on the attract mode for 2 hours IIRC to verify that they were still synced.

Meanwhile Digital Eclipse is probably thinking more about pleasing Western reviewers and Metacritic score where ports are praised more for features like rewind and developer commentary.

I will play the crap out of a game if I really like it in spite of the port not being all that great, like I did with Digital Eclipse 3S. But I really appreciate when devs put in that kind of passion. They worry about all the little details so the player doesn't have to.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

BIL, you ever come across Konami's GI Joe?

Did somebody ask for a BODY MASSAGE?!

Out of curiosity I checked out the staff for "Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa." The game is more or less Sunset Riders 2 with a goofy license tacked on.

Mechanically it's quite a bit more forgiving. Unlike Sunset Riders' slide, Moo Mesa has a dash mechanic that can be instantly cancelled by pressing back during the dash, putting you into a fully invulnerable rolling jump animation. You can essentially dodge your way through enemy attacks repeatedly, making it an unusual example of a Konami game that's surprisingly forgiving to play! The final boss is no joke though.

[Stevens]

BIL, you ever come across Konami's GI Joe?

Did somebody ask for a BODY MASSAGE?!

Last one there's a penis pump.

Get the fuck off my ice you little wankas.

I totally haxord your mom's ass last night.

Oh Fensler you game us gold.