Times are a-changin', plus controller weirdness

Starting today, I'm switching the focus of this blog from just the Retro Duo to retro gaming in general. The main reason for this is that getting the Retro Duo really rekindled my love of old 8 and 16-bit era games, and yesterday I got a hold of a cheap used Sega Mega Drive. (That's a Sega Genesis, for those of you of the North American persuasion.) So, I'm going to start writing a bit about that system too, and any others I might pick up in the future. So, for starters, here's a weird object that came with my new black beauty:



Looks quite straightforward, doesn't it? Has all the buttons you'd expect from a six button MD controller, as well as slow motion (on the back) and turbo and autofire for all buttons. But there's something strange about it...

Have you noticed it yet? The D-pad is rotated 45 degrees to the right. And no, it's not just cosmetic, to press up you actually have to press up and right. It's really a damn shame, because the other buttons on the controller are really good and responsive. I guess the rationale was to make it a bit more ergonomic, but since every other video game controller since the NES have had controllers where straight up meant up, this is really hard to play with. I'm gonna give it a try though, I guess you can get used to it.

Famicom Yarou! Vol. 2, 7-in-1, Famicom

Here's an interesting multicart. For starters, it's got a pretty unusual shape.

Here's how the cart looks from the front:


And here's the back.


And the menu screen:


It's not animated in any way, but there is music, in this case Battle Hymn of the Republic. But it's the games that are the weirdest.

You can't really guess from the names, but each game on this cart is a pirated version of another game, but with both graphics and music replaced. Let's go through the list:

1. Frog Prince 106
Super Mario Bros. Yes, the main character is a frog. He drinks magic potions to turn into a human boy with a baseball cap. Pretty weird.


2. Bounce Ball 200
Pinball. Not much to say here, the weirdest thing is that on the bonus screen, Mario holding the paddle is replaced by a safe on wheels.


3. Spar 301
Urban Champion. The characters seems to have been replaced with Orcs or Goblins.


4. Cobra of Sky 402
Raid on Bungeling Bay. Redone with a Sci-Fi theme.


5. Rescue Kuck 503
Donkey Kong Jr. Weirdest name on this cart?


6. Bounce 604
Mappy.


7. Surface Fire 705
Centipede.


Overall, a few good games with weird makeovers.

Super 8-in-1, NES

Time to take a closer look at one of my pirate multicarts. I really like these things, as they're odd, weird and a great opportunity to play some games you've never seen before.

This one looks like this:



And here's the menu screen:


It's a bit more fancy of a menu screen than I've seen before. It's animated and sparkly, and has music.

Let's go through the games:

1. Super Contra
Or Super C, or Probotector 2. Good shooter.

2. Ninja Gaiden 2
The sequel to the game known as Shadow Warrior in europe.

3. Robocop
Yup, walking slowly and shooting at everything that moves, that's ol' Robo alright.

4. Double Dragon 2
No surprise here either.

5. Heavy Barrel
Here's where things get a bit interesting, I've never heard of this game before. It's an overhead shooter, in the Commando or Ikari Warriors style. Most games on this cart are japanese, but this one has all english text in game.

6. Fancy Bros. 2
Behind this "fancy" name hides good ol' Super Mario Bros. 2.

7. Super Mario. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3. No surprise.

8. Dead Fox
Another game I haven't heard of before. It plays exactly like Rolling Thunder, but with different graphics. Could be some sort of sequel to Rolling Thunder, I guess.

So, overall, a really good multicart. Some great action classics, both if you're alone or if you have a friend to play along with.

And here comes another one...

Now I've found the first game I've seen that won't work on the RetroDuo at all. It's Kirby's Fun Pak, the european version of Kirby Super Star. This game just flat out refuses to run, and gives no signal to the TV at all. I've read that this is because it uses an SA-1 chip, which has stricter region protection. I've also read that you can remedy this by soldering a specific pin on the SA-1 chip to ground, but that's not something I'm prepared to try out just yet. So for now, it's marked up as not working at all.

A milestone has been reached!

Today, I've come across the first game that have compatibility issues that actually affect gameplay. It's Starwing, the european version of Star Fox. The problem with this game is that a certain spot on the screen, a vertical bar slightly right of the center, is distorted and shows a completely different area of the screen than it should. This makes it very hard to play the game correctly, as it's pretty hard to see enemies and obstacles to the right of your Arwing.

I've installed a 50/60 hz switch on my Retro Duo, and with this switch set to 50 hz mode, the game looks as it should... except it's in black and white. Switching back to 60 hz makes the vertical bar come back. So, this is the first game I can put down on my compatibility list as playable, but with serious issues.

Big compatibility update

I had some friends over today, and they brought some games with them, resulting in over 35 new games added to my compatibility list. Go check it out!

European roadblocks

So, what are the mayor caveats you should have in mind when considering buying a Retro Duo to use in Europe? Well, there's two major things to consider.

1. Power
If you order a Retro Duo from the US, it will come with an American power supply. In many parts of Europe (if not most parts) the thing will simply not fit into a regular wall plug. There are a few things you can do to circumvent this.

Easiest and cheapest would be to buy an appropriate travel power adapter, like this one from DealExtreme. With this, you simply plug the original power supply into the adapter, plug the adapter in the wall and play. But, and this is a big but, I've read accounts from people who have tried this, and they claimed that this procedure fried their console. Since European current is 230V and American current is 110v, the power supply is getting a higher current than it should, which could be disastrous. True, it does say on the label that the power supply is compatible with 230v, but better safe than sorry, I say.

The next alternative is to get a universal power adapter. You know, one of these:

You have to be really careful though, as you must get one that perfectly matches the kind of power the RD wants (5V DC) or risk damaging the console. I have one of these, but the one I have only outputs 4.5V or 6V, so it's a no go. (It does have a 9V setting though, making it perfect for the original NES and SNES!)

The last option, and the one I'm using, is to get a 230V to 110V stepdown transformer, like this one. These devices converts the power from 230V to 110V, making it completely safe for any device that runs on 110V.

2. Video format
The Retro Duo is a pure NTSC machine, and so you must have a TV that can display an NTSC signal in order to use it. Most modern European flatscreen TVs can handle NTSC signals, but many older TVs only support the hybrid PAL60 video format, if even that. This problem is much harder to get around, there are devices that can convert between video formats, but that will lose you some image quality. So, in summation, you want to play the Retro Duo in Europe, make sure your TV is NTSC compatible.