Official Evercade thread, or: cartridge porn in 2020

[Randorama]

Shameless plug-in: the Wolf Fang/Rohga Armor Force squib is now up. The new Evercade cartridge reprints a few Data East titles, including this one: the squib offers some reasons to re-visit this game, thus.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The new hardware is just too tiny to hold appeal for me, but the overall Evercade emulation performance has been excellent (as an Evercade VS owner).

The arcade offerings are a little barebones but you get several titles for £18 so it's hard to moan too much about a lack of regional variants or DIP switches. The console selections can be a mixed bag but that's generally a good thing - it's important retro gaming isn't just what the consensus says are the premier titles, but that there are obscurities to discover and also some absolute dreck that still holds memories for many (who hasn't had a mad aunt that's bought something awful that you've had to Stockholm Syndrome some love for). I think it's pretty hard to look at the Evercade lineup and not find several cartridges of interest.

All of the Evercade games are the Western versions so yes, sometimes this means the better version is absent (Kyukyoku Tiger vs. Twin Cobra). However if you have the M2 console ports already, you can just sit back and enjoy the extra titles that M2 haven't done yet. Using both Toaplan carts in the Evercade VS unlocks the Mega Drive port of Twin Hawk, which is nice - I think the new arcade tabletops will have two cartridge slots like the VS.

You gave me the idea for a potentially fun thread:

viewtopic.php?t=77150

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Caved in and bought a used Megaman Evercade Alpha on German Craigslist because I love mini arcade machines. Got it for 140 eurobucks. Also ordered
Indie Heroes 3 (since I want to play Donut Dodo on an arcade setup; played the Exa version in Japan and it was a lot of fun!)
Goodboy Galaxy
Toaplan Collection 3 (so I can finally sink my teeth into Batsugun)
Another thing I like about the Alpha is that it seems that you can replace the bat top with a Sanwa balltop since it uses standard threading size. I still have a blue Sanwa mesh ball top lying around, which fits the colour scheme of the Megaman Alpha perfectly.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Evercade Alpha arrived today - it's really a beast. Looks pretty good apart from the plastic screws they used to attach the sides of the cab. Marquees can be swapped very easily; the fact they included (very well done) repros of the Strider and Final Fight marquees is pretty awesome. Played through UN Squadron (what a dumb game) and Knights of the Round, the emulation looks very good to me, the scanlines are excellent. The menu is well done, it has enough but not an overwhelming number of options for the design of the menu. One thing I'm not a big fan of is the fact that the speaker seems to be on the backside of the cab and sounds rather muffled during play IMO. Also, resting your hands on the edges of the control panel becomes rather uncomfortable after a while.
Anyway, really looking forward to the other games, which should arrive tomorrow and the day after.

edit: the speakers are of course on the sides.
Played lots of Knights of the Round and a bit of Donut Dodo, turns out this game won't display scanlines. Wrote an email to Blaze's support, maybe they can fix it in the next update or something.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

For those that care: Evercade support replied, telling me that since Donut Dodo is a "native" game, it doesn't offer the same options as other, non-native games, which is why I can't remap the buttons or switch on scanlines. Seems arbitrary and easy to implement, but ok...

[AGermanArtist]

Great game that. If you have a Switch I'd recommend Cash Cow DX from the same dev.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

That reminds me, I need to get Cash Cow DX at the autumn Steam sale, cheers! (It's 6 instead of 8 bucks right moo)

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Great game that. If you have a Switch I'd recommend Cash Cow DX from the same dev.

Yep, it's fun. Made it to 1-5 after quite a bit of training, so haven't been able to beat the first loop as of yet. Just like Donut Dodo, it has lots of charm, lots of intricacies, and well thought out levels. Will definitely buy if it turns up on the Evercade.

All in all, Indie Heroes 3 for the Evercade is a good collection, but mainly due to Donut Dodo and a couple of rather polished games (Chew Chew Mimic, Bone Marrow, the latter of which looks good but I haven't played much of), the rest is largely forgettable filler IMO.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Xeno Crisis/ Tanglewood and Neo Geo Collection 1 arrived. Xeno Crisis displays scanlines and has a wealth of controller options (one shot button VS one button for each direction). Pity you still have to let go of your shot button to do a dodge roll, which honestly is a stupid oversight by the developers and makes the game play a lot shittier than necessary. Don't care about Tanglewood at all, but it might be a great game.

NG collection looks good. Has scanlines, emulation looks good (don't remember Metal Slug 1 having such brutal slowdown, though), and it has the adult versions with red blood. Unfortunately, you can't access dip switchs settings (yet?); no idea if Blaze are working on fixing this. (Unibios functionality would be awesome, but I can't imagine that happening for obvious reasons.)

[TransatlanticFoe]

It took long enough to get DIP switches in regular arcade games, but at least implementation of it in NeoGeo is restricted to emulating one single bit of hardware - so should be less dev and test effort.

I'm pretty sure the display options like scanlines are baked into the emulator, so "native" games can't and indeed won't have access to them. So it's on the developer to implement something in-game - which Full Void did. Xeno Crisis gets them because it's not a native Evercade title but rather the Mega Drive version emulated.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Makes sense. Still don't get why Studio Pixel didn't include them in Donut Dodo. I'll try emailing them, maybe they could find the time to do a patch or something.

Played some Magician Lord and Sengoku; my god, are these games pieces of shit. It feels like Magician Lord wasn't playtested at all.

[AGermanArtist]

Anyone that rates Magician Lord is a cunt and anything other than Sengoku 3 is trash.
I hate Evercade, they'll talk up any old shite.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I gave Magician Lord a go. Went up a ladder and triggered a bunch of enemies, accidentally went back down the ladder. Enemies just stood on the top of the ladder and wouldn't move, so died when I tried to climb it again. Respawned in the middle of a group of monsters, died again. WTF

[AGermanArtist]

I rest my case. This cunt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCMsmFfBvCI

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Finally had time to play all the games in the Data East 2 collection. Spoiler: it's pretty shitty.

Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory
Plays like an amateur game on one of those shitty early 80s British home computers, in other words: unplayable.

B-Wings
A top down shmup with inertia looks and plays shit.

Eh, I just noticed I'm not really in the mood to waste my time on writing reviews for dumb games, so here's my summary: most games are shit, some are ok for a bit (Crude Buster, Joe & Mac Return), but even those get boring real fast and don't have much to offer besides some nice graphics. No idea why Data East has such a good reputation, almost every game of theirs I have played feels at least half-baked.

[AGermanArtist]

Glad you've said that, I've always thought of Data East as c-tier dev/publisher with the exception of a few games of theirs I actually like - Captain Silver, Express Raider and Karnov, which to me are still b-tier games.

[Marc]

Yeah, I’ve always found DE stuff kind of janky. Tumble Pop and Nitro Ball aside, which are fantastic. Karnov is realty interesting in what it does for an arcade game, but most of their stuff either has controls that don’t feel quite right, collision oddities, or glitches. I think a lot of their rep is due to securing the Robocop licence and turning a half-decent game, but even then, take away the licence and it’s clearly not on the same level as a Sunset Riders, Rolling Thunder, Shinobi, Contra etc.

Oh, and I’m glad someone else thinks Magician Lord sucks. Thing is, even back in the day, when the Neo launched, I remember Mean Machines basically saying of the entire first wave of game ‘sure they look nice, but all of them play worse then their existing Mega Drive equivalents’.

[it290]

Chelnov MD is a god-tier game.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Remember those Turrican collections that took an age to get released on Switch/PS4 and were split between two full-priced compilations?

https://evercade.co.uk/cartridges/turrican-collection/

Coming to Evercade in February. £20 for the lot

[To Far Away Times]

Glad you've said that, I've always thought of Data East as c-tier dev/publisher with the exception of a few games of theirs I actually like - Captain Silver, Express Raider and Karnov, which to me are still b-tier games.

I've got a soft spot for The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy, but otherwise, Data East doesn't do much for me.

[AGermanArtist]

Glad you've said that, I've always thought of Data East as c-tier dev/publisher with the exception of a few games of theirs I actually like - Captain Silver, Express Raider and Karnov, which to me are still b-tier games.

I've got a soft spot for The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy, but otherwise, Data East doesn't do much for me.

I've heard a lot of positives about that game, so I tried it a long time ago in MAME since I'd never seen it in an arcade and just didn't see anything fun about it.

[BrianC]

Remember those Turrican collections that took an age to get released on Switch/PS4 and were split between two full-priced compilations?

https://evercade.co.uk/cartridges/turrican-collection/

Coming to Evercade in February. £20 for the lot

Still no Manfred Trenz games and too many versions of Mega Turrican (I like the game, but the Director's Cut only adds Mario and Sonic in carbonite and makes a hidden level unhidden).

[Turrican]

No idea why Data East has such a good reputation, almost every game of theirs I have played feels at least half-baked.

I got to disagree here. For a software house that had at least a couple of major breakthroughs in the early period, BurgerTime and Lock'n Chase, Data East seems to go through the decade with flying colours. Karate Champ (1984) cannot be understated. in 1988 both Robocop and Dragon Ninja are top of their game.

Capcom sure as hell has nothing the calibre of Burger Time in its early years. I guess what I'm trying to convey is that Data East could have easily gone in a fast decline as say Nichibutsu, and instead reinvented itself and was able to be significant even in a completely changed landscape. Even Namco doesn't have quite a "Dragon Ninja" in their late eighties impressive lineup.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

No idea why Data East has such a good reputation, almost every game of theirs I have played feels at least half-baked.

I got to disagree here. For a software house that had at least a couple of major breakthroughs in the early period, BurgerTime and Lock'n Chase, Data East seems to go through the decade with flying colours. Karate Champ (1984) cannot be understated. in 1988 both Robocop and Dragon Ninja are top of their game.

Capcom sure as hell has nothing the calibre of Burger Time in its early years. I guess what I'm trying to convey is that Data East could have easily gone in a fast decline as say Nichibutsu, and instead reinvented itself and was able to be significant even in a completely changed landscape. Even Namco doesn't have quite a "Dragon Ninja" in their late eighties impressive lineup.

Thanks for the recommendations; I've played both Robocop and Dragon Ninja before, but no more than a few coins and it was a long time ago.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Got the Demons of Asteborg/ Astebros cart and have been playing Asteborg for an hour or two. Really nice game, the player character handles well, and assuming it looks the same on the Mega Drive, it looks very impressive - I once counted 8 different paralax layers. Happy to play it on the Evercade since the bosses are Mega Man-hard and there's simply no way my old tired ass will try beating them without saving.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Neo Geo collection 4 announced, and it will include Blazing Star, among else. Now if only they put in an option to make the announcer shut up and maybe punch her in the face a couple of times...

[brettc]

I bought an Evercade VS-R (console) and EXP-R (handheld) recently because I like the idea of having physical carts and playing these games without much fuss. I don't enjoy monkeying around with emulators and more often than not run into weird issues with running shmups on Linux with Steam's Proton. So I was thinking/hoping Evercade's games would be a good solution to that. I have a PC Engine Mini and love that experience (although I seemingly fried the USB microchip and input no longer works).

Alongside the two devices, I bought the 4 Toaplan collections, the Irem collection (for R-Type really, I've never played it), and some non-shmup indie carts. I'd say overall I'm pretty happy with it and enjoying the experience. I've mostly been playing Batsugun Special Ver. and R-Type. I like that the handheld and console both support tate mode. I ordered the tate grip for the handheld and am waiting for that to arrive. I'm having inconsistent experience with third-party controllers working with the console. Some days my M30 works, other days it weirdly doesn't. Same with some other controllers. Just kind of bizarre that it's inconsistent. The pad that comes with the thing is shockingly good. The d-pad feels great and it's comfier than it looks. The handheld also looks like it'd be uncomfortable but I quite like it. One gripe with the handheld is there's no sleep functionality. You can't pause and lock it and come back to it like you can on Switch and Steam Deck and virtually every other modern handheld in existence. Seems like a strange oversight.

I'm excited to keep diving into the Toaplan games and other shmups on other collections. I'll report back with how I'm feeling about the devices after a few more weeks with them!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I bought an Evercade VS-R (console) and EXP-R (handheld) recently because I like the idea of having physical carts and playing these games without much fuss. I don't enjoy monkeying around with emulators and more often than not run into weird issues with running shmups on Linux with Steam's Proton. So I was thinking/hoping Evercade's games would be a good solution to that. I have a PC Engine Mini and love that experience (although I seemingly fried the USB microchip and input no longer works).

Alongside the two devices, I bought the 4 Toaplan collections, the Irem collection (for R-Type really, I've never played it), and some non-shmup indie carts. I'd say overall I'm pretty happy with it and enjoying the experience. I've mostly been playing Batsugun Special Ver. and R-Type. I like that the handheld and console both support tate mode. I ordered the tate grip for the handheld and am waiting for that to arrive. I'm having inconsistent experience with third-party controllers working with the console. Some days my M30 works, other days it weirdly doesn't. Same with some other controllers. Just kind of bizarre that it's inconsistent. The pad that comes with the thing is shockingly good. The d-pad feels great and it's comfier than it looks. The handheld also looks like it'd be uncomfortable but I quite like it. One gripe with the handheld is there's no sleep functionality. You can't pause and lock it and come back to it like you can on Switch and Steam Deck and virtually every other modern handheld in existence. Seems like a strange oversight.

I'm excited to keep diving into the Toaplan games and other shmups on other collections. I'll report back with how I'm feeling about the devices after a few more weeks with them!

What happened with your PC Engine Mini to have the USB microchip go out on you? I know that a 5v @ 2a USB PSU will power up the PCE Mini/Core Grafx Mini/TurboGrafx-16 Mini consoles without any fuss.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[brettc]

What happened with your PC Engine Mini to have the USB microchip go out on you? I know that a 5v @ 2a USB PSU will power up the PCE Mini/Core Grafx Mini/TurboGrafx-16 Mini consoles without any fuss.

It worked fine for me until I plugged in a Raspberry Pi power supply, which seemingly fried the USB microchip. It still powers on controllers, but their input doesn't work. I did some searching online and found lots of others who ran into this when using power supplies that don't match that 5v @ 2a exactly. I ordered a replacement chip online, but I don't have the tools needed to repair it. So I'll try to find someone who can help locally or order the tools myself. Feels a bit beyond my skill level though. I found some videos online of people repairing it this way though! Are you familiar with the issue at all?