Keep us informed!
Thanks for the write up! I think I’m looking forward to the stick as much as the actual system.
Oof, I might now be regretting not ordering this along with my unit.
But I’m still really excited to try the controls on the actual Astro City Mini unit
4 Likes
This looks like the highest quality of all the mini consoles released since the NES mini. I wasn’t expecting microswitches for the built in joystick.
In this video we check out the actual Emulation quality of the Astro City Mini. 60fps in 1080p
3 Likes
Is VF running at 60 in gameplay? I think the original was 30, maybe they improved it for gameplay but left the replays 30? Resolution looks great!
Played Fantasy Zone, Thunder Force AC, Alien Storm and Space Harrier tonight in my first significant play time with the unit and wow, I’m impressed so far. The joystick and buttons are so responsive and the games look great, this is seriously a nice way to play these games. Scanlines on the unit look nice enough too but I can see how they probably won’t look very good in TV mode as pointed out in the video by @Yakumo
Anyways, I’m really happy with this purchase so far and this is by far the best official table top arcade unit I’ve ever seen. Will try to play more games tomorrow when I have more time and also looking forward to trying the gamepad + TV mode.
1 Like
No love for the greatest Sega game ever made?
Flicky!
1 Like
I’m really excited to get mine now, sounds like it’s going to be beyond a tabletop toy like the NEOGEO Mini and Game Gear Micros were.
Really can’t wait to get my hands on those built in controls, haha.
Does anyone know if you can do HDMI out and still use the built in controls?
1 Like
Thanks for looking into the scanlines in detail, pity about the HD output there.
I don’t understand why M2 are so variable with display options between games. Their best modern work seems to be with the ‘vintage’ filter on the Sega Ages Switch releases, but even that doesn’t come close to what they did with Mushihimesama Futari on Xbox 360.
I wonder if the hardware choices for micro consoles are holding them back somewhat, but even the PC Engine Mini had a more complex PCE GT filter.
M2 weren’t involved this time.
Care to elaborate?
Cheers, wonder what team they assembled for the software side of things.
Yep, 60fps and a higher resolution it would seem.
1 Like
Yes you can. The screen will be off when using HDMI but the controls are full active.
2 Likes
Board swap is done. Not willing to post a photo inside 
but it’s 98% reversible, though regrettably I had to cut away a bit of plastic around the USB hole.
Box porn:
Really love the decal:
Working great on Switch, wired + wireless, detected as a Pro Controller so button remapping works:
And my slightly crooked USB type B connector in place of the original hardwired usb cable:
The board defaults to PS4 mode and works well with the brook converters I mentioned previously in that mode, even in wireless. Can do proper PS3 mode too (so the home button works) wired/wireless. And on PC it’s xinput so it’s just easier for most modern games.
Have the button map bit off the typical style:
home start
■ ▲ L2
dpad x o R2
So biggest downside to this is that on Saturn the wingman converter will not have Z or C mapped on here.
Other downside is the board uses share/view/(it’s fucking select) + home to sync wireless on PC which isn’t possible cause I don’t have enough buttons. I’m not looking to cut a new hole and wired should be fine there indefinitely.
Overall I probably put more money into this than was sensible but I’m happy with the result!
4 Likes