Ghegs wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:37 pm
Got mine this morning, a day earlier than expected. Nice.
I'm gonna have to say that I wish I could mute the SEEEGAAA and "Astro City Mini...V!" announcements when booting up the system. They would be fine IF they came out of the proper output, ie. external when I have the HDMI cable plugged in, but they don't, they come out of the system's own speakers always. That's annoying as hell. I'm probably never going to use the system itself to play the games, it'll always be with HDMI out and a separate controller.
And speaking of which, I was surprised to discover that the Egret II Mini's control pad does not work with this. I assumed that it would, since the Astro City Mini's control pad works with the Egret II Mini just fine, the one extra button on the Egret II Mini notwithstanding. I'm gonna to have to consider buying another Astro City Mini pad just so I don't have to switch my one controller from the hori system to the tate system.
The menu system is dumb and the worst I've seen in a mini system yet. Listing the games only by their release year was a poor choice even in the first Astro City Mini, but with that you could see the names of ~12 games all at once, in plain English in a clear font, so it's easy to find the game you want. With Mini V you only see 5 games at a time, and they're often very stylized logos, so it's much more cumbersome, compounded by the fact that the system doesn't remember the last game you played (neither does the first Mini, to be fair). And there's no sorting options at all, again like with the first Mini.
The Egret II Mini could sort by title and release year, and had the possibility of marking games as favorites. The console Minis (checked SNES, Megadrive, and PCE Minis while writing this) each remember the last game played and have many sorting options, from title, to release year, to number of players, time spent, etc. The user experience of the Mini V certainly leaves something to be desired, even at the menu stage.
But finally, about the games. This is actually the first time I have access to a lot of these. I was very pleasantly surprised by V-V, that was more of a my kind of shmup. Dogyuun felt interesting too, though I have no idea what was going on. Out Zone I had a familiarity with, I had the PCB for a while, and it was one of the main reasons I purchased this device. Desert Breaker was one I was looking forward to trying out, but my initial impressions aren't very favorable (but climbing into the mech-thing and doing the THRUST ATTACK looks utterly hilarious). Why was my gameplay constantly interrupted by what looked like tutorial message boxes? Shame this one doesn't have an English version available, some of the games do.
All those games played just fine in my opinion. I even did some reaction-dodging in Same! so the lag can't too horrible there either. Based on the list of response times Rastan78 posted earlier, I tried to find the cut-off point where the games started to feel bad for me. For convenience, here's that list sorted by the response time:
[table]R=Title&ms
R=Moon Cresta&83.7
R=Terra Cresta&116.7
R=Raiden&116.7
R=Zaxxon&120.8
R=Cosmo Police Gallivan&121.2
R=Desert Breaker&121.3
R=Tatsujin&129.2
R=Out Zone&129.6
R=Batsugun&133.3
R=Wrestle War&133.7
R=Dogyuun&137.9
R=V-V&137.9
R=Same! Same! Same!&141.7
R=Shippu Mahou Daisakusen&142.1
R=Tatsujin Ou&146.3
R=Sonic Wings&150.4
R=Samurai Aces&150.4
R=Strikers 1945&150.8
R=Action Fighter&158.7
R=Battle Bakraid&158.8
R=Gunbird&162.9
R=Armed Police Batrider&167.1[/table]
I think for me the cut-off point is either Shippu Mahou or Tatsujn Ou, in those I can feel the lag if I really pay attention to it, but the games still feel playable. Bakraid and Batrider definitely felt iffy to me, though I thought Gunbird felt about the same as Sonic Wings or Strikers 1945, so I wouldn't treat those numbers as gospel.
To me Bakraid and Batrider were never the main attraction of the system, though I understand they were to many, but I'm content with the device. It's definitely not perfect, but I can't call it a dumpster fire either.
