I have such a difficult time finishing JRPGs. I can thankfully cross this one off. Great game!

These games are so special. What are your thoughts on Quintet's world reincarnation games?

totally took me off guard. was not expecting this.

Apologies if such a question was brought up in here before because I was interested in learning how the peripheral worked since I remember messing with Super Mario Bros cheat codes long ago with the PIGOAP code.

But basically I wanted to get a better understanding of how the device worked since I didn’t understand how a cheat code like PIGOAP caused Mario to go into a swimming state.

In the spirit of Halloween. If you could have one horror movie made into a retro video game. What horror movie would it be and what would the game play style be? A RPG? Action shooter? Racing? Platformer?

I would love a Evil Dead RPG, where you play ash and he has to find the book of the dead and save his girlfriend from the evil demons!

Pirate costume party at the cafe arcade I was volunteering at.

This is actually my first time ever playing this game. I remember seeing an old AVGN episode about it iirc and it always looked kinda fun to me so it’s been in my backlog for a few months now. For a simple repetitive game it actually has some decent depth & mechanics. The game manual absolutely helped, especially learning that holding down the A button allows you to quick-turn while swimming. The mini sub was a bit of a let down considering you have to go out of your way, probably do several dives just to get it, and then more on the way back to the next port, only for it to disappear after a single hit. Still, it was a cool being able to launch bombs and the regular shots while using it. Not much to say about the music other than it wasn’t bad. The famous Jaws theme on the title screen that would fade into & out of silence added a nice bit of suspense to the initial experience. The power up system did exactly what it should and it felt pretty tight for a LJN movie title. The ending screen, although very simple, I found gorgeous. Just a beautiful shot to end on. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t love Jaws or these early arcade/high score (but with an ending) style hybrid games. I definitely had fun and can see myself popping it in for a short gaming session again now that I know how to finish it.

For years, Chinese hardware manufacturers have carved out a market niche with an array of handheld Android gaming devices focused on retro emulation and/or more modern game-streaming capabilities. Now, though, a major game industry trade group is targeting one of those manufacturers, Anbernic, asking the US Trade Representative (USTR) to add the company to its list of "Notorious Markets" that "engage in or facilitate substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting."

TorrentFreak was among the first to notice the request from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which was submitted to the USTR last week. In it, the US trade group—which represents major publishers including Nintendo, Microsoft, PlayStation, Amazon, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, and more—notes that Anbernic devices "are routinely offered or shipped with removable memory cards preloaded with hundreds or thousands of unauthorized copies of copyright-protected video games published by ESA members."

While many online sellers do include an SD card full of ROMs alongside emulation hardware of all types, Anbernic itself does not appear to do the same when selling directly from its website. Regardless, the ESA argues that these ROM-laden Anbernic devices selling through "normal retail channels" help to "normalize hardware-based piracy by delivering illicit catalogues through a polished consumer product." This, the ESA says, meets the threshold for a "superfake," an ill-defined designation that applies to "high-quality counterfeit trademark goods ... on a commercial scale."

What PC games did you grow up playing? I'm interested in hearing what games people played when they were younger.

I collect PC games on CD, so I'm especially interested in older games. What games do you remember playing the most?

Number one. NAM-1975. Published by SNK for the Neo Geo and takes place in The Vietnam war hence the name "NAM".

Plot: Two special forces soldiers named "silver" and
"brown" going back to the war zone to save an ex-army scientist and his daughter.

Number two. Alligator Hunt. Developed by the Spanish company, Gaelco and takes place in a sci-fi space setting.

Plot: Two skateboarding kids with laser guns shoot down alligator-like aliens from invading Earth

Number three. Pirates. Developed by Another Spanish company Called NIX and takes place in the Golden Age of Piracy.

Plot: A male and a female pirate collecting three map pieces to locate a hidden treasure.

Number four. Wild Guns. Developed by Natsume for the SNES and takes place in a Steampunk-sci-fi wild western setting.

Plot: The female protagonist named "Annie" avenges her family's death and gets revenge on an Outlaw gang, with help from a local bounty hunter named "Clint".

Number five.Hard Times. A bootleg reskin hack of Blood Bros.
Developed by the Italian company Playmark, and takes place in The Prohibition Era.

Plot: Two Bounty hunters who are also whiskey smugglers. Waging a two-man wars against rivals, mobsters and thugs across city streets and rooftops.

History doesn't look back on FMV games too kindly...

I'll never forget the time I walked by Electronics Boutique at the mall, and saw Quarterback Attack playing on their demo unit. "A game that looked true to life! Amazing!" I thought. But 10-year-old me didn't know to ask "but how does it play?"

It wouldn't be until many years later that I finally got a chance to play some FMV games, and... yeah. They're a novelty that gets old fast, and in 2026 they're not really a novelty either.

Are there any FMV games that you truly enjoy? What's your favorite?

I'm trying to figure out whether something is wrong with my RetroTINK 4K Pro, whether there's a compatibility issue with my monitor, or whether I'm missing something major in the setup.

My monitor is a Dell 2007FPB, Mexico A03 IPS, with a native resolution of 1600x1200. The RetroTINK connects to its DVI input through HDMI to DVI, and the output was configured for 1600x1200. For comparison, I connected the same console directly to the Dell's S-video input.

The Dell's own processing looks substantially better. Not a small difference that I have to stare at to notice. The text is easier to read, colors look better, fine details are more recognizable, and the image is cleaner and fills more of the screen. The RetroTINK looks much softer, with dull colors and an almost painted appearance where details blend together. I've compared PS2 and N64 games, and the Dell consistently looks better to me.

This isn't just the Dell's sharpness setting. Increasing it from the stock 50 to 60 helps, but even at 50 it still looks much better than the RetroTINK.

I'm using a Blue Jeans S-video cable, which is the best S-video cable I've used. It looks excellent on my Sony CRT and gives me a good picture directly into the Dell. I also bought the enhanced S-video adapter for the RetroTINK's HD15 input. Enhanced mode helped a lot compared with the normal front S-video input, but it was still far behind the Dell's internal processing.

I've tried a lot of settings, loaded the built in default profile, and tried different firmware. I even had AI help configure files and profiles on the SD card, so I'm being upfront that those custom settings could have been wrong. However, loading the built in defaults didn't solve the poor picture either. I've also tried automatic gain calibration, auto phase, manual adjustments, different deinterlacing settings, and color adjustments.

Brightness has been another major problem. Calibration brought it up quite a bit, but the game image still looked dim and lifeless compared with what I expected. The RetroTINK menu itself looked much brighter than the game. Increasing gain further started washing out highlights instead of giving me a convincing picture.

Scanlines actually helped the appearance considerably, but they made the image so dark that I couldn't comfortably play. I tried the energy normalization setting too. The Dell is very bright when used with my desktop, so this isn't simply a monitor that can't produce a bright image.

I also couldn't feel a latency advantage with the RetroTINK set to its minimum lag buffer mode. That's just my impression while playing, not a measured latency test.

I know component would be a better source connection for the PS2, but I have a large setup built around S-video and want to keep using it. The same S-video source already looks good through the Dell and CRT. I'm trying to understand why adding the RetroTINK makes it look so much worse.

I haven't tested another display, including a standard 1920x1080 monitor. I really like this Dell's panel and its 4:3 format, and it's the display I want to use.

Does the RetroTINK work significantly better with certain displays? Could its output format, HDMI to DVI connection, or something involving EDID explain this? Does it automatically select anything based on the detected display? Or does this sound like an input problem or a defective unit?

There's also a separate issue now: after the latest firmware change using the rear blue button procedure, it powers up with a green LED but gives me a black screen on the Dell. The picture comparisons above were all made before that happened.

I'm attaching two photos of the unit and adapter. I haven't included picture comparisons because my phone's automatic processing makes both screen images look brighter and more similar than they actually look in person.

I bought this wanting it to work. I expected a clear improvement over the monitor's own processing, but so far the direct S-video connection wins by a very large margin. Has anyone run into something similar, especially with a 2007FPB?

Been wanting to play this for ages, but was always turned off by its confusing progression. Finally decided to start playing with a guide. While i absolutely love the visuals, the atmosphere the music, i still find it sad that would have totally dropped it without a guide, cause i dont really enjoy trying to figure how to progress. Hopefully my journey will be memorable enough so that i could replay later without a guide

I wanted to convert .SPC files to .VGM so I could use them in SidWizPlus to create oscilloscope visualizations. I came across a program called "SPC2VGM"designed for exactly this purpose, converting SPC files for emulation on a YMF278 core, but I just can't get it to work. I open vgm_cmp.exe and enter the command (the GitHub page gives an example: `spc2vgm song.spc --auto-playback -o converted/song.vgm`), but it doesn't work. Do I need to put the .SPC files in a specific folder? Am I typing the command incorrectly? Do I need to install extra software? Am I opening the wrong program?

I have 2 of these and use them for all my retro consoles (and occasionally my newer systems or PC, depending on the situation). Well, actually I only use one - I never got around to using the second one which is still in its original packaging. A couple recommendations though. Firstly, after the Kickstarter ends I recommend getting the Retro Scaler add on (renamed the "Pro Upgrade" I believe for this batch). It adds more inputs such as RF, Component and S-Video. Secondly, a Mister FPGA or Raspberry Pi Pod (I own both). Then you can have the convenience of installing the Mister or Pi directly inside the monitor. The carry bag is beautiful and well worth the $50 or whatever it was. Be warned, these monitors aren't cheap. I don't remember exactly how much I paid but I went all out and purchased all the add ons that were available at the time. Plus shipping from the UK where these are shipped from, to the USA was around $100. My total was close to a thousand dollars. I had purchased my second monitor from someone on the official Discord that had money issues and sold me his brand new unit for around half that (located in the United States).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/checkmateproducts/retro-styled-ips-display-internally-upgradeable-batch-2

By "legit" I mean, without using any tools outside of the game itself.

• No Game Genie
• No Save States
• No glitches or tricks way beyond way the game intends you be able to do. So if you've only beaten Super Mario Bros by earning 99 Lives via jumping on that stairs turtle, it doesn't count for this discussion!

and by "hardest," I mean:

• Games widely considered to be "hard," like Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden.
• Or, a game that you personally consider hard - or at least, hard to beat!

Let's hear it, impress us.

So I got myself a modded NES from oldskoolconsoles.com and the Delock 62783 SCART to HDMI converter which also doubles as a scaler so I can hook up the NES to my TV.

But I'm disappointed in the overal picture quality the converter is outputting, it just looks bad. I know NESRGB modkit provides a better quality image than vanilla NES composite and it does indeed look better than composite that but it doesn't look as good as I hoped.

I'm OK with upscaling to 720p at minimum, but I wasn't expecting it to look this bad. I'm not sure what the problem could be, maybe settings on the upscaler or the NESRGB mod, but both don't really provide many configuration options to improve picture quality.

Basically everything looks sort of blurry and there's a white outline or glow around every object in the game, both foreground sprites, background sprites and UI elements. See attached photo of the world 1 map of Super Mario Bros 3 taken up close. See the white outlines around everything? I wasn't expecting it to look this bad.

I hope my modded NES isn't faulty or something. If anything I would prefer that the Delock upscaler is simply a piece of crap (I have to admit, it was a pretty cheap unit) and I should replace it with an OSSC or a Retrotink.

Any advice?