JOTEGO posts
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Some improvements
Polishing work on the Run'n Gun core continued this week. The core looks now much better on MiSTer and SiDi128 but the Pocket version still needs a few more days of work.A while ago, one of our directors requested a core for Caliber 50, a game similar to Ikari Warriors. This title shares some logic with the JTKIWI core and will enable a bunch of related games (Arbalester, Down town, Meta Fox, Twin Eagle...). A new core for this system is coming up. It is already booting to an error screen af...
RUN & GUN / Surprise Attack
RUN & GUNRun & Gun is my favourite basketball game. I am thrilled to bring this to the FPGA realm!HistoryThis 5-on-5 basketball action game was released by Konami in 1993. When playing solo, you’ll be matched against the CPU. There are 16 teams in total — 8 in the East and 8 in the West — and you choose one to play as. The CPU will select another team from the same league as your opponent.Instead of the usual side-view of the court, the game is played from the perspective of pushing forwar...
JTS18: D.D.Crew/Hammer Away
D.D.CrewHistoryThis game is one of the titles for the Sega System 18, a side-scrolling fighting action game. There are four characters: the one in the leather jacket is a well-rounded fighter(might be a cop), the one in the black tank top has broad-shouldered and building muscled, with a no-nonsense attitude, the one is muscular with a boxer-like vibe but also skilled at kicking, and then there's a veteran with a martial arts style. The controls are simple: a joystick and two buttons — one...
JTS18: Clock Work Aquario/Where's Wally
Clock Work AquarioA new arcade game - yet from the past!? Clockwork Aquario was developed by Westone in 1991 on Sega’s System 18 hardware, and even went through multiple location tests in 1993. However, its release was cancelled, as the industry was then in the middle of the massive fighting-game boom. The protagonists are a boy, a girl, and a robot, brought to life with rich animation, warm pixel art, and impressively large sprites. One of the game’s unique highlights is its combat system: ...
Turtles in Time
HistoryReleased by Konami two years after the 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this sequel was praised for improving upon its predecessor in every aspect—graphics, gameplay, and music—while also being welcomed for staying faithful to the original TV animation. Unfortunately, it never received an official release in Japan. The following year it was ported to the SFC/SNES, and in the U.S., by September 1992, it became the best-selling SNES game. Most notably, it introduced the ability to thr...
Service Release
These past two weeks we stopped working on new developments to go back to reported issues in released cores. Although this kind of work may not feel as exciting, it is actually quite rewarding when one issue leads to a better understanding of the original hardware and to a more accurate implementation. That was the case with Lightning Fighters, where a sound issue was solved by implementing an obscure feature of Konami's PCM chip. Furrtek had identified it and documented it in detail. The ch...
Golfing Greats/OutRun back on Analogue Pocket
HistoryIn the late 1980s and early 1990s, the arcade market saw a surge of “realistic sports simulations,” with SEGA’s Dynamic Golf and Atari/Midway’s Golden Tee Golf enjoying great popularity. In 1991, Konami released Golfing Greats, powered by its uniquely developed PSAC2 graphics effects chip, which brought a virtual 3D golf experience to life. Thanks to this processing power, players could view vast golf courses from multiple perspectives, delivering speed, depth, and a sense of scal...
Surprise Attack
While we were working desperately to complete Golfing Greats or Run'n Gun cores for this week, another team member finished reviewing Konami's PCB for Surprise Attack. The PCB turned out to be a cost-saving version of Parodius Da! The Z80 and PCM sound chips had been removed, as well as their ROM chips, leaving only Yamaha's FM chip connected to the main CPU to generate music. The rest of the system was virtually identical. This was brought to my attention yesterday, so we set out to...
Audio Fixes
Development UpdateWork still keeps us busy towards the two next big cores: Run'n Gun and CPS3, with these stepping stonesAdd Golfing Greats to JTRIDERS, as it uses the same pseudo 3D chip as Run'n Gun but without a frame bufferFix frame buffer on OutRun for Analogue Pocket users3D chip plus working frame buffer leads to Run'n GunFrame buffer is a requisite for CPS3As we moved forward with Golfing Greats, including fixing a critical audio problem in MAME, we realised that compared to ...
Development Update
NeoGeo PocketThank you for sharing your views in the previous post comments. We decided to spend more time on the NeoGeo Pocket core as a result. The following games are now playable:Metal Slug (Monochrome version was broken before )Ogre Battle GaidenLast BladeKoF Battle de ParadiseThe bottom garbage line visible on the Analogue Pocket is fixed too. The core credits have been arranged to correctly fit in the NGP small screen size.Run'n GunThe upcoming core compatible with Konami's Run...
Ajax
This week's release updates the beta key. Please remember to copy the new one to your MiSTer/Pocket FPGA.HistoryThis game, released by Konami in 1987, features a unique mix of 2D vertical-scrolling and 3D-scrolling stages. In the 2D stages, players pilot the ultra-fast attack helicopter TOM TRIGER, while in the 3D stages, they control the jet fighter >, working to stop a nuclear superpower and an alien army from joining forces to create a space-based nation. The background behind the creatio...
Lighting Fighters
HistoryA vertical scrolling shooter game released by Konami in 1990, supporting two-player simultaneous play.Attack items differ between solo and two-player modes, and even the way you respawn changes depending on the mode. The hitbox in this game is quite large, and each stage features both a mid-boss and a final boss. Because of this, always make sure to collect the special weapons. (You can stock up to six at a time.) One important thing to note: special weapons are not used in the order you ...
Desert Breaker
Desert Breaker: HistoryThis game, released by SEGA two years after Capcom's Commando II (Mercs), shares a similar style—set on the battlefield, where the player must take down any enemy alone. You can choose from three characters, and up to three players can play simultaneously. Even when facing tanks or fighter jets, you charge in alone and keep firing non-stop—making the game highly challenging, but also incredibly satisfying. The game features a three-button setup: a shot button, a bo...
Laser Ghost
In 1990, after Ghostbusters II release in 1989, SEGA released their first light gun arcade shooter: Laser Ghost (if you are thinking of The House of the Dead, that would still take six more years to come alive!). This game takes heavy inspiration from Ghostbusters in the System 18 version, whereas the Master System version presents a different gameplay.After a lot of work on the graphics layers in order to support simulation of saved states, we have been able to fix the graphics of this game. As...
Metro Cross
HistoryThis side-scrolling action game released by Namco in 1985 is very very simple. It's a race against time as a man runs towards the goal while overcoming traps and obstacles set in a mysterious space. It is unclear whether this project required the use of a "trackball", or whether the designer of the game on which the main character was based was inspired by a certain Japanese TV program, but the main character just needs to reach the goal within the time limit for all 32 rounds...
The Return of Ishtar/Genpei
GENPEI TOMA DENHistoryThe motif of this Namco action game is based on a joruri work about the Genpei wars of the Kamakura period (1185-1333), but even if you don't know this background, there are plenty of elements to enjoy in this game.Firstly, there are three game modes: horizontal, flat and BIG. The impact of the BIG mode is enormous, and even though it is about 40 years old, it does not feel old-fashioned at all. The BIG mode shows several scroll layers moving at different rates, making ...
Pac-Land
The 45th anniversary of Pac-Man was yesterday. In order to join the cellebration we are bringing a new core compatible with the Pac-Land hardware: JTPACLAN.HistoryReleased by Namco in 1984. When this game was first planned, it was based on another project named "Lunlun Climber" and did not include any elements of the Pac-Man cartoon at first. During the development, Namco America signed a contract with Hanna-Barbera, which allowed them to use the characters, background music, settings, e...
Wonder Momo, Hopping Mappy
This JTFriday brings us two new titles to the JTTHUNDR core in beta and the promotion of JTFLSTORY (The Fairy Land Story, etc.) to public core.Wonder MomoHistoryWonder Momo, one of the Namco System 86 titles, was released exclusively in Japan in 1987. It's an action game that takes an intriguing twist as battles take place on a stage, presented as part of a theatre production. Momo is the heroine that can become Wonder Momo by hitting kick repeatedly or catching one of the small tornados. By...
Sky Kid Deluxe
Work on the JTTHUNDR core continues, apart from fixing the PCM sound pitch, we add support for Sky Kid Deluxe this week.HistorySky Kid was released in 1985 by NAMCO, and got an extended deluxe version in 1986. JTTHUNDR core is compatible with the deluxe version. The plot is to drop a bomb on to an enemy target but you first have to get it. As long as you do not carry the bomb, you can roll back as though it was a 1942-series game. Once you pick up the bomb, the roll button is used to release it ...
Rolling Thunder
HistoryIt is 1986, there are 26,573 game centres in Japan, the highest number in history. The Family Computer (NES) was launched three years ago and home video game consoles are becoming more popular, but the quality of games is overwhelmingly better in the arcades. Namco releases this action shooter game, in which the main character Albatross catches all eyes. His movements are very finely rendered, with his skinny, long limbs. He looks a lot like "Lupin the Third", from Monkey Punch...
Bronx (Cycle Shooting)
HistoryCycle Shooting is agun shooting game released by Taito in 1986. There are six stages in total, alternating between horizontal-scrolling and fixed-screen stages. In order to save the kidnapped girl, the player uses guns to finish off red-haired Mohawk guys who attack from motorbikes, cars and trailers.This was the second shooting game from TAITO, as it can be read on the game flyer.Technical DetailsThe original board for this game uses a microcontroller whose ROM has not been dumped. So it...
Sinden Light Guns, Dokaben 2
DOKABEN 2Sometimes, information for new game arises that makes them playable on existing cores. This week we bring Dokaben 2, running on the JTPANGcore.HistoryThere are many mangas about high school baseball in Japan, but one of the most famous is "Dokaben", written by Shinji Mizushima. The visual card game "Dokaben 2" was released by Capcom just five months after the first one in 1989. Players can choose their favourite team from the manga's star high school, MeikunHigh Scho...
STRATO FIGHTER/RAIGA
The final game on the JTGAIDEN core is a famous shooter: RAIGA. I have looked for other Tecmo games of around this time but they do not seem to operate on this hardware. So the core will support Ninja Gaiden, Wild Fang and Raiga.HistorySpace shooter game released by Tecmo in 1991. In AD 2135, under attack from an unknown enemy, the Earth's military launched the RAIGA mission and sent two MB-OGs into the enemy colony, entrusting them with our future. Whether an American president was flying t...
Wild Fang/Tecmo Knight
One more game for the JTGAIDEN core, which in the previous beta only covered Shadow Warriors(Ninja Gaiden). Wild Fangoperates on very similar hardware but adds a small microcontroller (MCU). This MCU serves as a kind of memory for the main program. This was presumably a copy-protection mechanism as the MCU firmware could not be dumped and replicated easily.The core is quite solid at the moment except for a 2-pixel wide column at the left part of the screen that can sometimes be out of sync with ...
Light Gun Action: NY Captor
Last minute compilation problems made this JTFRIDAYa Saturday, apologies about that. And here we are!NYCaptorThis might be the last game for the JTFLSTORYcore: NY Captor.A shooting game from Taito that precedes Operation Wolf. This game is not part of the MAME's driver for FairyLand Story, so I had not originally thought of it. But, while working on the PCB board for FairyLand, I noticed that some of the circuits only made sense if a light gun was connected to the system. The MAME driver did...
