Toaplan games coming to PC (Steam, GOG)

[Steven]

What the hell, this Batsugun is actually pretty okay! My ears are still ringing from the (incredible) Sonic Symphony, so I'm not going to put on my headphones and play it on my normal computer yet, but on the Steam Deck it seems mostly fine.

Fuck MAME and fuck Shitty Connection. Play it here instead.

[Some-Mist]

Yea, batsugun actually felt fine for me too. I got another high score in special mode, but I didn’t post it because it’s a tiny bit higher stage 9 run

[Steven]

In only 4 attempts playing the game on Steam Deck I beat my high score and then beat the new high score. Not bad. Are the lasers that Not-Joker-Jun gets when powered up supposed to be ear-piercing?

Yeah, FixEight. No idea about this game. It could be completely broken and I wouldn't know. Anyone have a FixEight PCB I can borrow so I don't have to go spend a ton of cash playing it at Taito Hey?

Pretty sure Tiger-Heli runs too fast, though. The music is also pitched higher than it's supposed to be, but I kind of like it this way lol

[FunktionJCB]

I was going through the options menus again today, and I see some sound filter options are available, which I believe weren't there originally.

Maybe one of those settings may "fix" the problems that have been reported?

---

Anyway, as someone with no experience of the actual arcade cabs for these titles, I'm having a great time with the latest batch, particularly Batsugun, Fexeight, and Vimana.
Batsugun feels a lot more fluid than the Saturn Tribute Boosted version also available on Steam.

[MJR]

I was going through the options menus again today, and I see some sound filter options are available, which I believe weren't there originally.

Maybe one of those settings may "fix" the problems that have been reported?

---

Anyway, as someone with no experience of the actual arcade cabs for these titles, I'm having a great time with the latest batch, particularly Batsugun, Fexeight, and Vimana.
Batsugun feels a lot more fluid than the Saturn Tribute Boosted version also available on Steam.

I've put them all on just in case. Sound has been fine, for the most part.

I never played Batsugun on anywhere else than Mame, but the Bitwave version is definitely more enjoyable. And the special version feels better than regular version, though I like the original's color palette better.

Oh! And I won Out Zone PCB board in auction for 411 euros May be winning Slap Fight too. I did some bidding war to honor the tragedy of turning 50 yesterday.

[Some-Mist]

I cranked down the out zone audio too right away because it was wrecking me, hasn’t been bad since I turned it down but I didn’t know about those additional options

[FunktionJCB]

I didn’t know about those additional options

I didn't either.

I'm not sure when they were added. I usually mess with the options at launch, and haven't been making any changes since, so I don't know how long they've been there.
Most games received new updates last week (and some a week prior), maybe they were added then?

[Steven]

Lol it seems you can't bomb in Batsugun if you play on keyboard.

Oh! And I won Out Zone PCB board in auction for 411 euros May be winning Slap Fight too. I did some bidding war to honor the tragedy of turning 50 yesterday.

Hell yeah~

Did you get a regular TP-018 Out Zone PCB or a TP-015 Zero Wing -> Out Zone conversion PCB?

Slap Fight is Slap Fight, except there is the green Taito connector PCB and the more rare blue JAMMA version. Which one is it? The buttons are backwards on the JAMMA version. Yuge-san said it's something to do with the hardware on the JAMMA version, but I don't know the specifics.

[MJR]

Lol it seems you can't bomb in Batsugun if you play on keyboard.

Oh! And I won Out Zone PCB board in auction for 411 euros May be winning Slap Fight too. I did some bidding war to honor the tragedy of turning 50 yesterday.

Hell yeah~

Did you get a regular TP-018 Out Zone PCB or a TP-015 Zero Wing -> Out Zone conversion PCB?

Slap Fight is Slap Fight, except there is the green Taito connector PCB and the more rare blue JAMMA version. Which one is it? The buttons are backwards on the JAMMA version. Yuge-san said it's something to do with the hardware on the JAMMA version, but I don't know the specifics.

I don't know which version it exactly is, which add bits to a suspense, but the board itself looks like a regular board - I don't see any slapped on-subrom-sections there, so I do not think it's a conversion. Doesn't look like a bootleg either, though I probably wouldn't care

Slap fight is the Pre-jamma version, which is not a problem because I have a friend who maintains and repairs PCB's for living and can solder me conversion pieces in no time, but I decided to drop out on the bidding war as I'm still on a bit limited budget.

[Sumez]

Judging by second hand sales, Out Zone is a really common PCB, maybe the most common Toaplan game outside of Snow Bros.? I've seen a lot of them for sale in Europe over the years, and the (official!) Zero Wing conversion comes up quite frequently as well. But I don't think I've ever seen a single bootleg PCB!

[MJR]

Judging by second hand sales, Out Zone is a really common PCB, maybe the most common Toaplan game outside of Snow Bros.? I've seen a lot of them for sale in Europe over the years, and the (official!) Zero Wing conversion comes up quite frequently as well. But I don't think I've ever seen a single bootleg PCB!

On ebay, at the moment, there are 2-4 of them on sale for 500-600€, and one single bootleg sold by turkish vendor for 350€. And then LOTS of 1600€ range by chinese sellers.... the one I bought was the only one I saw on open auction.

[Sumez]

Yeah, I'm not saying they are cheap (though they are definitely less bad than most other Toaplan shooters).
4 being simultaneously available on eBay alone is fairly common for an arcade game.

[MJR]

Yeah, I'm not saying they are cheap (though they are definitely less bad than most other Toaplan shooters).
4 being simultaneously available on eBay alone is fairly common for an arcade game.

Agree on that I REALLY wanted Out Zone, so I was prepared to shell out 500-600€.. so winning it on 411€ felt like lucky draw for me (I decided I didnt want to go for the bootleg). When I bought Truxton / Tatsujin and Hellfire years ago, it was still different market, got them both for around 100€ each. Raiden DX was my most expensive board back in the day, paid €120 for it.

[Sumez]

Yeah, I got my Tatsujin 15 years ago, and it was practically for free.
Out Zone is definitely a game everyone should own, so that was great purchase! €411 isn't too much for such a fun game.

[RobHimself]

By trying out the games before releasing them, or maybe having a QA process with testers.

The problem with that is how are the QA testers going to know if they are playing the exact ROM version they should be using? If there are slight changes in speed/music/etc. and if your QA testers aren't aware of differences then can you blame them?

Granted the issue lies with whoever was in charge of handing the PC ports to be aware of these kind of differences.

[Sumez]

The problem with that is how are the QA testers going to know if they are playing the exact ROM version they should be using? If there are slight changes in speed/music/etc. and if your QA testers aren't aware of differences then can you blame them?

Granted the issue lies with whoever was in charge of handing the PC ports to be aware of these kind of differences.

Working in software development myself, I feel quite confident saying that is exactly their job. But I feel like you should be able to reach that conclusion regardless.

[Steven]

I don't know which version it exactly is, which add bits to a suspense, but the board itself looks like a regular board - I don't see any slapped on-subrom-sections there, so I do not think it's a conversion. Doesn't look like a bootleg either, though I probably wouldn't care

Slap fight is the Pre-jamma version, which is not a problem because I have a friend who maintains and repairs PCB's for living and can solder me conversion pieces in no time, but I decided to drop out on the bidding war as I'm still on a bit limited budget.

Did you get the instruction cards and/or manual as well? If you ever come here when there is a Toaplan event, bring that Out Zone so you can have Uemura-san and Hayashi-san sign it. You'd be the envy of every Out Zoner who doesn't have a signed board!

Too bad you can't do Slap Fight. It's such a great game, and even now a huge part of me says it's the best one. Out Zone and Kyuukyoku Tiger and Hishouzame are also probably the best one. They're all the best one!

Judging by second hand sales, Out Zone is a really common PCB, maybe the most common Toaplan game outside of Snow Bros.? I've seen a lot of them for sale in Europe over the years, and the (official!) Zero Wing conversion comes up quite frequently as well. But I don't think I've ever seen a single bootleg PCB!

They made a huge amount of Hishouzame and Kyuukyoku Tiger PCBs, although there are more rare variants of those PCBs, which are easy enough to identify because they'll use an earlier version of the 68000. Tatsujin Ou is also super easy to find. It's the easiest one to find locally! Out Zone is also easy to find.

Overseas I'm not sure, but Snow Bros is super popular and they did convert some Zero Wings to Out Zone, so it would make sense if there are a lot of Out Zones overseas. Twin Cobra is also probably super easy to find.

As far as I know the most rare ones are, in no specific order and not counting the unreleased games:

Performan
Get Star (super rare)
Same! Same! Same! 1P
Same! Same! Same! 2P
Horror Story B (super rare)
Enma Daiou (don't even bother looking for it or its special cabinets)
Hellfire 1P (super rare)
Zero Wing 1P
the control panel for Ghox. The game itself isn't that hard to find, but good luck finding the control panel

Slap Fight is also a rare board, at least in Japan and especially the JAMMA version, but I'm not sure about overseas. Also not sure about Zero Wing 2P, especially because I'm not even sure if the 2P version even got released in Japan, but I always wonder how many Zero Wings they sacrificed to make Out Zones.

BTW here is a bootleg Out Zone https://www.ebay.com/itm/285440380287

It looks really big! I wonder if it's as big as Hishouzame. It looks to be of a similar size.

[Sumez]

I see Slap Fight quite frequently around here. But I wasn't even aware there is a jamma version. I don't think I have ever seen that.

[Steven]

JAMMA Slap Fight is kind of rare. You'll know it immediately if you see it because it's dark blue. Some people will probably prefer the Taito connector version because the button mapping is reversed on the JAMMA version, but I prefer the JAMMA version because its button mapping is the same as Slap Fight MD's default button mapping.

[BrianC]

Does Alcon use the same boards?

[Steven]

Unknown, but if I had to guess I'd say probably. Not sure if the ROMs are interchangeable.

[MJR]

I don't know which version it exactly is, which add bits to a suspense, but the board itself looks like a regular board - I don't see any slapped on-subrom-sections there, so I do not think it's a conversion. Doesn't look like a bootleg either, though I probably wouldn't care

Slap fight is the Pre-jamma version, which is not a problem because I have a friend who maintains and repairs PCB's for living and can solder me conversion pieces in no time, but I decided to drop out on the bidding war as I'm still on a bit limited budget.

Did you get the instruction cards and/or manual as well? If you ever come here when there is a Toaplan event, bring that Out Zone so you can have Uemura-san and Hayashi-san sign it. You'd be the envy of every Out Zoner who doesn't have a signed board!

Too bad you can't do Slap Fight. It's such a great game, and even now a huge part of me says it's the best one. Out Zone and Kyuukyoku Tiger and Hishouzame are also probably the best one. They're all the best one!

I haven't received the board yet, but usually it is extremely rare for me to get any instructions or manual, especially when they are not mentioned in the listing. I usually seek out manuals separately. Having an autograph would be neat, though I wonder how long it will take before I can afford trip to japan. The reason I splurged on this PCB was that it amazingly came on free auction just at the same time as my 50th bday, making a perfect birthday gift. I also promised my old friend to buy his old Vectrex + 2 games for 400€, so now my game budget is officially blown up for a long time

I agree that Slap Fight, Tiger and Out Zone are best Toaplan titles, though it was Truxton and Hellfire that first ignited my love in the 80's, first as arcade games and then as megadrive ports.

[Steven]

I haven't received the board yet, but usually it is extremely rare for me to get any instructions or manual, especially when they are not mentioned in the listing. I usually seek out manuals separately. Having an autograph would be neat, though I wonder how long it will take before I can afford trip to japan. The reason I splurged on this PCB was that it amazingly came on free auction just at the same time as my 50th bday, making a perfect birthday gift. I also promised my old friend to buy his old Vectrex + 2 games for 400€, so now my game budget is officially blown up for a long time

I agree that Slap Fight, Tiger and Out Zone are best Toaplan titles, though it was Truxton and Hellfire that first ignited my love in the 80's, first as arcade games and then as megadrive ports.

Out Zone is the only game that I have anything for besides the board itself. No way I'll ever find the official box, but I have the manual and both of the instruction cards, which came with the PCB. I got one of the instruction cards signed as well, but for some reason I decided not to get the other signed. Probably should get the other one signed as well when I get a chance, but Hayashi-san changed her signature between then and now, so that might be interesting.

Here is my Out Zone. If yours looks like this, it's not the conversion PCB. There is still a chance you may get the hard ROM, though. If you do, let's compare ROM stickers to see if they are any different.

Spoiler

[MJR]

Out Zone is the only game that I have anything for besides the board itself. No way I'll ever find the official box, but I have the manual and both of the instruction cards, which came with the PCB. I got one of the instruction cards signed as well, but for some reason I decided not to get the other signed. Probably should get the other one signed as well when I get a chance, but Hayashi-san changed her signature between then and now, so that might be interesting.

Here is my Out Zone. If yours looks like this, it's not the conversion PCB. There is still a chance you may get the hard ROM, though. If you do, let's compare ROM stickers to see if they are any different.

Spoiler

Thanks for letting me peek, and let's do that! Only pic I got so far is this, which is *close enough* but I need to receive it to see which version it is exactly

Spoiler

[Steven]

Out Zone is the only game that I have anything for besides the board itself. No way I'll ever find the official box, but I have the manual and both of the instruction cards, which came with the PCB. I got one of the instruction cards signed as well, but for some reason I decided not to get the other signed. Probably should get the other one signed as well when I get a chance, but Hayashi-san changed her signature between then and now, so that might be interesting.

Here is my Out Zone. If yours looks like this, it's not the conversion PCB. There is still a chance you may get the hard ROM, though. If you do, let's compare ROM stickers to see if they are any different.

Spoiler

Thanks for letting me peek, and let's do that! Only pic I got so far is this, which is *close enough* but I need to receive it to see which version it is exactly

Spoiler

Well, it's definitely Out Zone lol. It's also definitely not the conversion PCB. I don't know if you've seen a Zero Wing PCB, but it looks pretty different from the Out Zone PCB.

Not trying to show off or whatever, but if you compare them side-by-side like this you'll see how different they are

Spoiler

Yes, Uemura-san signed my Zero Wing upside down somehow...

My Zero Wing has a weird graphical glitch during the stage 1 boss where part of the boss doesn't display properly, but it's perfectly playable. I'd like to fix it eventually.

[MJR]

Out Zone is the only game that I have anything for besides the board itself. No way I'll ever find the official box, but I have the manual and both of the instruction cards, which came with the PCB. I got one of the instruction cards signed as well, but for some reason I decided not to get the other signed. Probably should get the other one signed as well when I get a chance, but Hayashi-san changed her signature between then and now, so that might be interesting.

Here is my Out Zone. If yours looks like this, it's not the conversion PCB. There is still a chance you may get the hard ROM, though. If you do, let's compare ROM stickers to see if they are any different.

Spoiler

Thanks for letting me peek, and let's do that! Only pic I got so far is this, which is *close enough* but I need to receive it to see which version it is exactly

Spoiler

Well, it's definitely Out Zone lol. It's also definitely not the conversion PCB. I don't know if you've seen a Zero Wing PCB, but it looks pretty different from the Out Zone PCB.

Not trying to show off or whatever, but if you compare them side-by-side like this you'll see how different they are

Spoiler

Yes, Uemura-san signed my Zero Wing upside down somehow...

My Zero Wing has a weird graphical glitch during the stage 1 boss where part of the boss doesn't display properly, but it's perfectly playable. I'd like to fix it eventually.

Arrived today after much delay (thanks to our post office's foolery), and in mint condition. Photo shows it's definitely TP-18 and official board. Plays beautifully, compared to Mame or Steam version.

Spoiler

Spoiler

[Steven]

Thanks for letting me peek, and let's do that! Only pic I got so far is this, which is *close enough* but I need to receive it to see which version it is exactly

Spoiler

Well, it's definitely Out Zone lol. It's also definitely not the conversion PCB. I don't know if you've seen a Zero Wing PCB, but it looks pretty different from the Out Zone PCB.

Not trying to show off or whatever, but if you compare them side-by-side like this you'll see how different they are

Spoiler

Yes, Uemura-san signed my Zero Wing upside down somehow...

My Zero Wing has a weird graphical glitch during the stage 1 boss where part of the boss doesn't display properly, but it's perfectly playable. I'd like to fix it eventually.

Arrived today after much delay (thanks to our post office's foolery), and in mint condition. Photo shows it's definitely TP-18 and official board. Plays beautifully, compared to Mame or Steam version.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Yep, it's definitely Out Zone lol. That is a pristine-ass board! Is it the hard ROM or the normal one? If it's the normal ROM, check to see if there is an energy pickup on stage 2 at this location:

Spoiler

Some of the earlier normal ROM versions don't have this item box. The Bitwave normal and common ROMs are both missing this item box.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Plays beautifully, compared to Mame

Which differences are you noticing, in particular?

[MJR]

Well, it's definitely Out Zone lol. It's also definitely not the conversion PCB. I don't know if you've seen a Zero Wing PCB, but it looks pretty different from the Out Zone PCB.

Not trying to show off or whatever, but if you compare them side-by-side like this you'll see how different they are

Spoiler

Yes, Uemura-san signed my Zero Wing upside down somehow...

My Zero Wing has a weird graphical glitch during the stage 1 boss where part of the boss doesn't display properly, but it's perfectly playable. I'd like to fix it eventually.

Arrived today after much delay (thanks to our post office's foolery), and in mint condition. Photo shows it's definitely TP-18 and official board. Plays beautifully, compared to Mame or Steam version.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Yep, it's definitely Out Zone lol. That is a pristine-ass board! Is it the hard ROM or the normal one? If it's the normal ROM, check to see if there is an energy pickup on stage 2 at this location:

Spoiler

Some of the earlier normal ROM versions don't have this item box. The Bitwave normal and common ROMs are both missing this item box.

It seems to be the normal ROM, as the energy container is definitely there this seems to be the US version licensed to romstar, with the "winners dont use drugs" screen on the beginning, which I dont remember seeing on Mame or Bitwave. And it also has the little guy emerging from the ship in the intro.

[MJR]

Plays beautifully, compared to Mame

Which differences are you noticing, in particular?

Oh, please ignore that comment - it's just that my arcade cab has much better feel and much better joystick
There are some slowdowns that I don't remember seeing on Mame or Bitwave version. Difficulty seems to be much better tuned than in Bitwave version which still seems to have difficulty all over the place compared to the Mame/PCB versions.