How Is Your SNES Gaming Going?

[Hobie-wan]

Shadowrun is a bit of a bad example, as it wasn't so much a game ported between different systems as two different games with the same name on two different systems. Like how there's Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog on PS3/360.

Yeah, Pirates of Dark Water is like that too. Two completely different games. But there are comparisons of ports of the same game there. Granted a lot are Gen vs TG/PCE, but there are a few to read for SNES.

[Ziggy]

So I've been playing Treasure Hunter G. Partly just because I got a SNES PowerPak and wanted to use it a little.

I made a repro of this game for some one some years back, and while testing it I became interested in the game. I put it on my mental to-play list. Well, I decided to finally give it a shot. It seemed like it would be easy going and not too long.

The gameplay is great. It's a tactical RPG, and the battle system is simple but good. That's what I liked about it.

Some other areas of the game are a little too simple, though. I hate the way buying items, weapons and armor works, I hate the way equipping items work. I pretty much hate the way the entire items system/menu in this game works. When you're buying items, you don't get to see if it's a boost for any characters. It'll just let you know what characters can equip the item. So, your current sword might be "atk +2" and you see a sword for sale that's "atk +5" and figure it's an upgrade. When you pick up random items through exploration, you have to trial and error if it's an upgrade to what you have or not. It just feels clunky.

Items, such as potions, antidotes, etc, are also annoying to handle. Each character can only hold X amount of items. To transfer them, you have to "hand" the item from one character to another. In battle, this makes sense. You have to be in a tile next to the person to hand it to them. But you have to do it in the menus (outside of battles) as well!

Weapons, armor, items that you equip as well as items like potions, antidotes etc are all located in the same "item" section in the menu. That's also where you equip items. It makes seeing what you have equip and comparing to see if a new buy is an upgrade or not a pain in the ass. What's more, selling your old items isn't easy. You think you'd be able to sell to item and weapon shops? Nope. There's a random dude that you'll find in a town or a cave that you can sell to.

So the battle system is fun, but the item system is not. It just seems archaic, like how RPGs were on the NES (you know, when they weren't fun).

Outside of that, the rest of the game seems good so far. The graphics are nice. The music is good. Nothing really to complain about save for the item system.

I'm only ~5 hours in so far, but this is my preliminary assessment of the game.

[RCBH928]

How is the powerpak ?

[Ziggy]

It's alright.

I really wanted an Sd2snes, but the SNES PowerPak was offered to me (used) at a good price, so I jumped on it since I never have the extra dough for the Sd2snes. If you're shopping new, considering the prices, I'd say either get a Super Everdrive (about $80 USD) or an Sd2snes (about $190 USD). I wont go into much detail, I'm currently working on a write up about flash carts for retro systems.

The SNES PowerPak has two major cons, as I see it. One, the menus are just god awful. They're just very basic and often times hard to read. And two, the SNES PowerPak doesn't automatically create SRAM files, nor does it automatically back up SRAM. You have to manual put SRAM files on the memory card (one for each ROM that you need SRAM for). If you want the an SRAM to be automatically loaded with a ROM, you have to manual name it the same name as the ROM file. When you're done playing your game, before you shut off the console, you have to hold reset for 5 seconds to save the SRAM to the memory card. If you don't, your SRAM wont be backed up.

What's really nice though is some one created custom firmware for the SNES PowerPak. He completely overhauled the menus and not only made them MUCH better looking, but also added some features. He's currently working on having the cart auto create SRAM files, but that hasn't been accomplished yet. Whether or not he can get the cart to auto create SRAM files, what I'd really like to see done is auto backup of SRAM (so you don't have to hold reset).

Both the SNES Everdrive and the Sd2snes take care of SRAM automatically, and the stock menus look much better than the PowerPak. One thing the SNES PowerPak has over the SNES Everdrive though is the maximum ROM size. While the largest (officially released) SNES ROM is only 48Mbits, there's a hack of Star Ocean that decompresses the graphics (and makes it playable with out the need for the S-DD1 chip) and bumps the ROM size up to 96Mb. The SNES Everdrive has a max ROM size of 56Mb, which is large enough for the biggest official SNES games, but not Star Ocean. Both the SNES PowerPak and Sd2snes support ROMs up to 96Mb, so that Star Ocean hack is playable. But for the cost of a new SNES PowerPak ($145) you're better off spending a little more on the Sd2snes for a LOT more features.

But again, I'm working on a write up about flash carts.

[BoneSnapDeez]

After emulating it for the longest time, I finally purchased Xak: The Art of Visual Stage for the Super Famicom.

If you like Ys and wish there were more Ys-y games out there, then you need to check out this series. Unfortunately none of the games were localized so it may be tough for those who don't speak Japanese. But thankfully there isn't a whole lot of text. There's also a great "book I & II" type compilation on the PC Engine CD.... just like Ys.

[Ziggy]

Unfortunately none of the games were localized so it may be tough for those who don't speak Japanese.

I think there's a fan translation patch for the SFC version.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Is there? I've only played it in Japanese.

I see patches for parts 2 and 3 on ROMhacking.net. That's good news!

There was an (unofficial) English release of the MSX version of the first game. You can still find disk images floating around the internet.

[Ziggy]

Nevermind. I only Googled it fast and saw one on superfamicom.org (which I've never heard of until now). I just reread it and saw the description...

"This patch was emailed to me with little info. As far as I can tell, only the in game menu is translated. Currently, the patch is based on a bad ROM dump, a Chinese title hack, but it does work."

[RCBH928]

why is star ocean larger than N64 games?! I never knew SNES games could be so big , wasn't it super expensive to store so much data back then on chips?

[MyNameIsVince]

It's alright.

I really wanted an Sd2snes, but the SNES PowerPak was offered to me (used) at a good price, so I jumped on it since I never have the extra dough for the Sd2snes. If you're shopping new, considering the prices, I'd say either get a Super Everdrive (about $80 USD) or an Sd2snes (about $190 USD). I wont go into much detail, I'm currently working on a write up about flash carts for retro systems.

The SNES PowerPak has two major cons, as I see it. One, the menus are just god awful. They're just very basic and often times hard to read. And two, the SNES PowerPak doesn't automatically create SRAM files, nor does it automatically back up SRAM. You have to manual put SRAM files on the memory card (one for each ROM that you need SRAM for). If you want the an SRAM to be automatically loaded with a ROM, you have to manual name it the same name as the ROM file. When you're done playing your game, before you shut off the console, you have to hold reset for 5 seconds to save the SRAM to the memory card. If you don't, your SRAM wont be backed up.

What's really nice though is some one created custom firmware for the SNES PowerPak. He completely overhauled the menus and not only made them MUCH better looking, but also added some features. He's currently working on having the cart auto create SRAM files, but that hasn't been accomplished yet. Whether or not he can get the cart to auto create SRAM files, what I'd really like to see done is auto backup of SRAM (so you don't have to hold reset).

Both the SNES Everdrive and the Sd2snes take care of SRAM automatically, and the stock menus look much better than the PowerPak. One thing the SNES PowerPak has over the SNES Everdrive though is the maximum ROM size. While the largest (officially released) SNES ROM is only 48Mbits, there's a hack of Star Ocean that decompresses the graphics (and makes it playable with out the need for the S-DD1 chip) and bumps the ROM size up to 96Mb. The SNES Everdrive has a max ROM size of 56Mb, which is large enough for the biggest official SNES games, but not Star Ocean. Both the SNES PowerPak and Sd2snes support ROMs up to 96Mb, so that Star Ocean hack is playable. But for the cost of a new SNES PowerPak ($145) you're better off spending a little more on the Sd2snes for a LOT more features.

But again, I'm working on a write up about flash carts.

The number one reason I'm interested in the Powerpak, honestly, is that red cartridge shell. It looks so cool. Hell, all of those shells at Retrozone are cool. I just wish the guy behind it did more SNES stuff though. Shame there's little of it there now.