The official Retro Core / Battle of the Ports thread

There have always been some people saying Axelay is all style and little substance. I don’t agree. It did stand out for its graphics and special effects but it plays well. Playing both it and Space Megaforce around the same time back in the day was awesome.

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It’s mechanically solid, well balanced, well designed, and creative with good variety. I mean, better than Gradius III, better than most of the R-Type sequels. It plays just as well as the likes of Zero Wing. Even if it didn’t look and sound as flash that would put it in the top rung of shooters back then.

And presentation is important, quite a few shooters (on PCE, Mega Drive and SNES) are fine but due to weak explosion effects (graphics and sounds) feel… hollow?

Until DoDonpachi really made something new and exciting of the genre you had to do a lot to stand out, and Axeley was one that did.

I love Axelay! One of the few games where i’ll let the full intro play out because it really sells the atmosphere. It’s not perfect; the way your ship drifts to centre at times is a bit more pronounced than it should; that and the perspective contributes to the hit detection feeling a little off in the vertical levels. It’s also one of those games that ends too soon if only because you want more!

The major complaint i hear is that people like either horizontal or vertical and would prefer all of one, but that’s almost inherent in a game that offers both that are quite distinct from each other.

I think it’s just one of those games that can polarize opinion quite a bit, so one camp think it’s overrated and the other thinks it’s unfairly shat on!

Axelay had/has amazing graphics for 1992. They’re still mind-blowing. And the sound design is incredible. But I’ve never been compelled to master it. It’s kind of a chore.

OK, why not? Let’s jump on the Halloween band wagon (admittedly a few days late) with a spooky Battle of the Ports. Here were are taking a look at 4 versions of the Japanese only cult classic, Clock Tower.

Today we are taking a look at the generic PSP looking clone that’s been around for a while. Are the more modern versions an improvement upon the original? Let’s take a look.

Welcome to the third part of this four part special on the Retro Core Channel where we are taking a look at every single commercially available SFC / SNES shooter released. Please see part 1 for the rules of what classifies as a shooter for this series.

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So, two weeks ago we took a look at Xenon. Now it’s time to take a look at Xenon II, a game that may be effected by rose tinted glasses than many others out there.

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There are so many Famicom clones on the market and let’s be honest, most are awful. This one however I actually like.

Welcome to the final part of this four part special on the Retro Core Channel where we are taking a look at every single commercially available SFC / SNES shooter released. Please see part 1 for the rules of what classifies as a shooter for this series. Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6X0Y…
Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Picg9…
Part 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA6pq…

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I finally caught up with Part 4. I noticed you said you had no way to show Star Fox 2 on actual hardware. If you have an SD2SNES it did get updated with SuperFX support (and SA-1 and a bunch of others) finally. You can rip the rom from the SNES mini and it works on the SD2SNES and on real SNES hardware.

Yep, that’s true but for me a SD2SNES isn’t worth buying since Star Fox 2 is the only game I’d need it for. Still, one day I’d like to buy a Star Fox 2 repro.

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There’s an error on this video where the C64 and ZX Spectrum ports are labelled as “Arcade”. Sorry.

Here’s one that you may have never heard of in the arcades but it still managed to get some home ports. Just a shame they’re all crap.

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The RG-350 promises many great points. True 60htz screen with v-sync. Glass screen, fast emulation and HDMI video out. Just how good is it? Let’s take a look. If you’d like to buy your own RG-350 you can pick one up at TomTop for 85.99 as of this video going live - https://www.tomtop.com/p-f1996b.html

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The RS-97 is back but this time they may have finally gotten it right.
We now get an all new IPS screen with a true 60Hz refresh rate and it has better performance.
The machine also comes jam packed with roms for every system featured including a few PlayStation games.


Zool was a game Amiga fans loved and even went as far as saying it was the Sonic The Hedgehog killer. Was it? I doubt it but let’s take a look. Please think about supporting the show by subscribing to the channel or becoming my patron. Thank you so much! http://www.patreon.com/retrocore Email at mes1975jp@gmail.com Facebook - Retro Core BotP Twitter - @RetroCoreYakumo -------------------------------------------------------------------- Times Line 00:23 - Amiga 02:34 - Amiga CD32 04:04 - Acorn Archenemies 05:15 - Atari ST 06:31 - MS DOS 07:56 - Mega Drive 09:55 - Super Famicom / SNES 11:16 - Master System 12:37 - Game Gear 13:54 - Game Boy 15:19 - All versions side by side
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How on earth can a battery bank be entertaining? Well, let’s watch on.

It’s the 300th show of Battle of the Ports!! That’s right, the show has now been going for 300 weeks or 5 years and 7 months. To celebrate this grand number we are going to take a look at one of the most iconic scifi adventure games to come out of Japan. this in Snatcher.

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This is a holy grail game for me. I always liked the look of it, especially the 2 earliest versions. Is there a translation patch for the MSX version out there?