Tag: flashcarts

#oneaday Day 277: Pretending to have a Mega CD

My Mega Everdrive Pro arrived today. For the unfamiliar, this is a flashcart for the Sega Mega Drive that supports Mega Drive, Master System, and perhaps most intriguingly, Mega CD games. More on that in a moment.

I haven't spent much time with it as yet, as I was working, then I had to make dinner, then eat dinner, then I needed a poo and now here I am, responsibly writing this post before I go off and do something "fun". (Not that this isn't fun, but this is a self-imposed obligation, whereas what I intend to do next is pure recreation.) I loaded up an SD card with everything I wanted to put on it earlier, fired it up briefly and checked it was working, and all seemed in order (aside from a bit of rolling interference on my screen that the Internet tells me is the fault of a crappy aftermarket power supply for the Mega Drive, so I'm replacing that soon). But aside from that, it's up there waiting for me right now.

Obviously a big part of the appeal here is easy access to both Mega Drive and Master System games (for the unfamiliar, the Mega Drive actually contains most of the necessary guts to run Master System games pretty much natively) but one thing I'm particularly intrigued to explore is Mega CD compatibility. Or, more accurately, Mega CD hardware emulation. The Mega Everdrive Pro features some FPGA shenanigans that I don't really understand the workings of, and the upshot of it is that you can make it convince your Mega Drive that you have a Mega CD connected, even if you have nothing of the sort plugged in. (You cannot do the same with the 32X; you still need a real 32X if you want to go down that road.)

I've always been curious about the Mega CD, because it's one of a few consoles from the era that I had absolutely no contact with whatsoever. I had friends with Mega Drives and my brother often brought one home when he came to visit but I didn't know anyone with a Mega CD. I remember reading articles about the games on Mega CD in the magazine my brother was working on at the time (Mega Drive Advanced Gaming, if you were curious) and thinking they sounded really cool, but I have never gotten around to exploring that library at all… yet, anyway.

Of course, retrospectively we all know that the Mega CD wasn't a particularly successful add-on, and there aren't a ton of Mega CD games that are particularly worth playing. But there are a few, and I'm excited to try them. (I'm excited to try some of the "bad" ones too, just to understand the platform a bit better!)

With the addition of this to my collection, I now have Super NES, Mega Drive/Master System (outside of the few incompatible games) and N64 all hooked up and ready to play pretty much anything I would care to throw at them. Just the thing for when I'm in the mood for something short and sweet, like I talked about the other day. And like I'm feeling right now.

So I think I can't put it off any longer. It's time to go get Blast Processed. With Compact Disk power!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 264: Flashcarts: a retro essential?

I can't remember if I mentioned it on here before, but even if I did, I'm going to mention it again anyway: I recently ordered an FXPak Pro for my Super NES, to add to my collection alongside the Everdrive 64 X7 I got a while back for my Nintendo 64, and long-term I intend to also get Everdrives for the Mega Drive, Master System, NES and possibly Game Boy Advance.

For the unfamiliar, an Everdrive is a cartridge for a retro gaming system that allows you to pop in an SD card full of game ROMs, then play them on original hardware. The FXPak Pro is a similar device, but it's distinguished from Everdrives primarily due to its origin, but also because it is capable of emulating the custom chips that many SNES cartridges had in them, such as the famous Super FX chip that powered Starwing.

Most of these devices also have additional benefits such as being able to back up save data and even make use of emulator-style save states in some circumstances — one model of the Mega Drive one can even full-on emulate a Mega CD without having to have an actual Mega CD attached — but their main appeal element is the ability to play any games you want on original hardware without having to use original cartridges. Of course, this generally involves piracy, but at this point, none of the original makers of games on old games consoles are making any money from you buying an original cartridge anyway, which means the often exorbitant prices they go for are pretty much pure profit for the individuals or organisations involved.

A while back, I was all about building a curated collection of games for vintage systems, and there's part of me that would still like to do that. But I have had a few considerations arise over the last couple of years: the first being the available space I have, which is rapidly running out (although I've reclaimed some by banishing some items to the loft and rearranging some of the other shelves) and the second being that I had a run of bad luck with buying second-hand cartridges.

To give specifics, I attempted to buy the game Desert Strike for SNES, a game I never actually owned back in the day, but always enjoyed any time I borrowed it from a friend or played it at their house. I paid £8 for a copy from CEX, and was a little put out to discover when it arrived that it didn't work. Well, it sort of worked; the Electronic Arts logo on startup was garbled, in-game graphics occasionally corrupted and it would just randomly reboot sometimes. This problem persisted even after several sessions with the contact cleaner and cotton buds. The cart was just fucked.

No matter, I thought, it's only £8, I'll buy another copy and return this one if I can be arsed — though I knew from experience that if I attempted to return it to CEX, they'd almost certainly test it, find it didn't appear to work, then refuse me a refund, despite them selling it to me in a faulty state in the first place. So I bought another copy. And the same thing happened.

Couple that with several experiences I've had where I bought games where the save batteries had failed, and, y'know, I just can't be bothered with all the faffing around with aging, failing media when there's a better option just sitting there. Playing on original hardware definitely has its own distinct appeal from playing on emulation or even official rereleases on modern systems, so going the Everdrive or FX Pak Pro route just makes a lot of sense when my priority is not "investing" in a collection, but instead just enjoying the games.

I will add to the above that, if a game I'm particularly fond of or always wanted to play should suddenly become available commercially, I will happily pay up money for it, and have done on numerous occasions, even if I'd already played and beaten the game via "unofficial" means. It's the right thing to do. But there are myriad games out there that are never getting a rerelease for all manner of stupid reasons, and that doesn't mean no-one should be able to play them any more.

So, long-term, I'm intending that all my retro systems will be equipped with Everdrives or equivalents so they can be used and enjoyed without having to roll the dice on whether aged media is still in working order. And once that's all sorted out, I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with some classic games — both ones I loved back in the day, and hopefully some new discoveries, too.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.