Astro Ninja Man DX [Famicom]

[jehu]

An unusual one for you Famicom fetishists, cartridge cuddlers, and VTG-OST have-to-havers.

Astro Ninja Man - a Famicom STG-lite featuring the musical talents of Manabu Namiki, Hiroto Saitoh, Nobuyuki Shioda, and a fellow simply named Bun - had an extremely limited cartridge release a year or two ago. It looks like Columbus Circle is doing a rerelease of the game, now titled Astro Ninja Man DX.

The STG elements are very limited, but I thought there might be some interest around here nevertheless. The tunes are bangin', the art is solid, and I'll be damned if this doesn't turn into the hottest commodity for all you prospectors and speculators. (Better to play your games, but I won't judge.)

Check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJPiAXhw11w
There's one or two places you can buy it online. I'll let you scout that out yourselves.

[Sumez]

Are Columbus Circle still making cartridges that'll fry your NES?

[jehu]

Are Columbus Circle still making cartridges that'll fry your NES?

Fry your Famicom, Sumez.

[Ghegs]

Didn't know a re-release was coming, that's cool. But yeah, being from Columbus Circle I don't want to touch it, though admittedly I don't know if they're still using the shitty boards in an effort to force people to buy the company's own Famiclones. Unless they've confirmed somewhere that they're no longer using those boards?

[jehu]

Unless they've confirmed somewhere that they're no longer using those boards?

I did a little searching with no success. Might help if I knew a little Japanese. I plugged a few public comments about the release into Yandex Translate, but all I saw were Japanese folks maliciously wondering aloud about why they're selling kusoge for $50 bucks a pop.

My uncle at Nintendo lent me a copy of the first variant and it's not that bad. I collect Fammy STGs, so I picked it up for myself while the opportunity's right there. Not an unconditional recommend, but it's a fun time for a little while.

[Udderdude]

Astro Ninja Man is pretty ambitious for a homebrew NES game.

I'm not sure about this whole "Cartridge frying your famiclone" business, anyone want to fill me in?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Not sure, this was the best I was able to locate. Apparently it's something about them being made with 3.3v flash carts? https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/20 ... s-for.html

also this: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/ ... o_consoles

[Ghegs]

Not sure, this was the best I was able to locate. Apparently it's something about them being made with 3.3v flash carts? https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/20 ... s-for.html

also this: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/ ... o_consoles

Yeah, that's it. What makes this especially bad, in Columbus Circle's case, is that they are also manufacturing Famiclones that are designed with these types of boards in mind. So they market their games as "not necessarily compatible with all Famicom/Famiclone models, but it works perfectly fine with these particular Famiclones that we also happen to be selling". Or at least that was the case some years ago, I'm not sure if that's still going on. They still seem to be in the Famiclone market at least, as Play-Asia has three of their Famiclone models in stock.

I can't imagine a western NES homebrew dev releasing a physical cart that might damage an original NES and can only safely be played on a specific NES-on-a-chip -system. If anything, it's a point of pride for them to make a game that runs on a stock NES without any issues. And I recall the dev of Famicom's excellent F-Theta posting something to the effect of "the cart will absolutely run on a normal Famicom without issues" which I interpreted as a slight stab at Columbus Circle.

[Sumez]

It's kind of a divisive subject, and the massive helpful article on db-electronics was eventually removed, which I'm assuming is due to a lot of people feeling it was fearmongering. A lot of people believe there aren't any consequences of it, but it's really hard to believe one thing or the other since any damage caused would be very gradual and not show right away.
But honestly, I don't want to take any chances. Every electronics expert I've talked to about it says basically "uh yeah, you definitely don't want to run 3.3v components in a 5v circuit".

Fry your Famicom, Sumez.

Not if I put it into my NES first >_>
My Famicoms don't have the RGB mod, so they never see any use.

I've really been wanting Astro Ninja Man, but the original release was super expensive and with no way to prepay taxes. This one at least seems like it's gonna be sold via Amazon.

[Nomax]

An arcade version of this game will be released on exA-Arcadia.

[BrianC]

Yeah, that's it. What makes this especially bad, in Columbus Circle's case, is that they are also manufacturing Famiclones that are designed with these types of boards in mind. So they market their games as "not necessarily compatible with all Famicom/Famiclone models, but it works perfectly fine with these particular Famiclones that we also happen to be selling". Or at least that was the case some years ago, I'm not sure if that's still going on. They still seem to be in the Famiclone market at least, as Play-Asia has three of their Famiclone models in stock.

A couple of their MD games advertise that that they won't work right on real hardware and may have sound issues on clone systems (or something along those lines).

[jehu]

I actually got this in the mail recently. I’ve been to busy with my vigorous theory-shitposting on the Sol Cresta thread to find time for it. Curious about impressions if anyone else picked it up. Or if there’s a dearth of impressions, I’ll drive that sucker off the lot and see if I can’t fry my ntmini. I didn’t buy it to stay snug in that plastic wrap, after all.

[Ed Oscuro]

"uh yeah, you definitely don't want to run 3.3v components in a 5v circuit".

Lmao. It's possible to fix this problem, but it'll probably cost something like half a buck per unit to do right with a component like the SN74LV1T34.

[Sumez]

Yes, that is what most modern PCBs created for old-school consoles do (it's probably cheaper than getting 5v compliant flash ICs). But there are some manufacturers who just don't care.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I got to play the Exa version of this recently, really fun stuff! It's not super complex mechanically, so I don't know how deep the scoring system goes, but the music and graphics are great, and the dodging feels pretty unique and fun. I'm not into too many "stuck at the bottom" type of shmups, but this modern take on one felt really fun.