GrouchoGlasses wrote:In general, do my fellow retro gamers prefer individual reproduction carts for their copies of the must have imports or do you generally prefer flashcarts? Flashcarts seem to be a larger upfront purchase at anywhere up to $200, but will have a lower cost inthe long run. Individual repo carts look great on the shelf, but can average $25-$55 per game. Which is preferred?
I'd recommend a flash cart over "repro" carts any day. The Genesis flash carts aren't that expensive. Most (all?) Genesis flash carts will also allow you to play SMS games on your Genesis, so factor that into the cost and it's a no-brainer. Translations and hacks eventually get updated or outdated by superior versions from different authors. Updating your ROM on a flash cart is pie. You wouldn't be able to update the repro cart, you'd have to pay more money. But the nail in the coffin, in my opinion, is that to make a repro cart requires a "donor" cart. I'd rather not have to sacrifice one game to play another. Flash carts do not require donor carts to be made, not counting when you need to rob the cart shell form a game, but at least you're not destroying it.
PS: If you do decide to go with the flash cart, here's a little tip for selecting the correct version of the game ROM to use. Look for a version of the ROM called "Mega Man - The Wily Wars (E) [f2]". The "f" means that the ROM has been "fixed" in some way. In this case, the region code has been altered or removed so that the game can be booted on an NTSC-U Genesis (or perhaps makes it region free so it can be booted on any region console). If you acquire the ROM and it doesn't have any designations at the end of the game title like "(E)" or "[f2]", you can manual set the region in a Genesis emulator to USA and see if it'll boot the ROM.
Moreover, Wily Wars was one of a hand full of Genesis/MD games that used an EEPROM instead of the normal SRAM for saving. A patch exists that fixes the game to use SRAM instead, making it work with more emulators and flash carts (although I think the Everdrive flash carts support multiple types of game saves so you wouldn't even have to worry about this). If you buy a repro cart, dollars to donuts it uses the "f2" ROM with the SRAM hack.
