Just how bad is this game?
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Nice episode!
I’ve played the Amiga version of Sword of Sodan a few times at a friend’s place. Even back then we knew the game was a bit of a clunker, but the graphics and gore kept us playing.
Great box art by Dorian Vallejo (Boris Vallejo’s son), though.
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The Genesis version is a travesty!
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Here we go with a full unboxing and indepth review of the Taito Egret II Mini recorded at 60fps
Time Code:
00:00 - Opening
00:34 - Unboxing
07:14 - The screen
12:54 - Close up look at the screen
14:49 - The options
17:52 - On the big screen
26:54 - Tate mode with filters
30:43 - The conclusion
33:00 - Just one more game
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Man the lack of a nice sharp scan line filter is such a bummer. I’m a simple man who has simple needs.
It’s such a shame because it really does look like they nailed the hardware and game selection. They got the hard parts perfect, but the easy part got flubbed.
There is nothing easy about doing scanlines when your scaling is at 3x vertical (240p X 3 = 720p) what do you do? Every third line black, looks uneven. Every second and third? Uneven and way too dark, second half and third full black? Solves the brightness kinda, but the lines are asymmetrical little light to dark bands. All these devices are severely limited because of the shitty socs they use that can’t do 1080p output properly, and LCDs that can’t do 4x or 5x scaling, giving enough pixels to actually do what we all want. There’s a reason the retrotink 5x does things so well. At 1440p it gives you 2x the pixels to work with for these effects.
Doesn’t 720p allow a 3x integer scale where every third line can be reduced in intensity to simulate blank scan lines? Isn’t that what the framemeister does? It generally looks even to my eyes.
I feel like that is a pretty standard way of handling it these days.
Edit: also, I’ve read reports that the Neo geo mini has a screen that renders the games at a 1:1 pixel ratio for proper 240p. I understand these games have slightly more varied resolutions, but I’d take a larger screen that renders borders to accommodate for the lower res games.
I know getting a custom made screen creates complications, but from what I see, this already does have a custom screen at 4:3. Plus a cheaper device, the Neo Geo mini, did it.
I don’t mind paying a premium price for a proper low res lcd screen. Heck, the full US package bundle costs 500 dollars. I know this is a niche small scale production at 3000 units but that means more should be done to get it correct. Those 3000 people are bound to be rather discerning.
I know I have high expectations but I’m only asking for stuff that has actually been done before. Not the impossible.
There should be some standards on how to re-release old games.
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Oh weird. MediaTek Helio P70 CPU, for $199 - $250? Geekbench 5, which I rely on as the best “ballpark” performance estimator, gives it a single core score of 296 which puts it around the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 … so this is 2016-2017 flagship Android performance level.
This week on Battle of the Ports
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Ohh, looking forward to watching this; this is one of those lovely oddballs!
@Yakumo, just wanted to say thanks for all the work you do. I discovered RetroCore in the pre-YouTube days; I remember slowwwwwly downloading and burning episodes like your Sega Saturn shooting specials onto DVD with iDVD just so I could watch them on my TV! 
(I bought my first Saturn on my first trip to Japan because of videos like that!)
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Wow, the Saturn shooting special. I really enjoyed making that show. It must have been 20 years ago when I made that.
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Ha ha, don’t remind me! I can feel my bones creak just thinking about it!
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A game that appeared on practically every bootleg Famiclone game cartridge. This is Circus Charlie from Konami on this week’s Battle of the Ports.
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I was surprised at how beautiful this place was. Plus, stick around until the end for some real life Ridge Racer.
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The game that was to be Gauntlet in 3D on this week’s Battle of the Ports.
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Nice video!
Never knew the game was originally meant to be a Gauntlet sequel. I wonder if it would’ve been more successful if it had been part of that series.
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I think so but I can imagine it hurting the Gauntlet name.
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This is a fantastic little device
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An SNK Classic and the worlds first game with singing on this week’s Battle of the Ports
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Yay, another win for the good old Commodore 64!
The box art for the 8-bit ports never fails to make me laugh.
It looks like Sylvester Stallone cosplaying as Chun-Li.
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