The system was practically made for a Metroid. The dual D-Pads would be great for it, the depth, extensive use of red and black… Yeah, it is a go-to game. Not sure about Mars specifically. It would be like setting Zelds in Germany or something.

I think the VB controller is great, so if it’s cool, I would like to order one as well! 😀

UHATEIT wrote:

retronintendonerd wrote:

UHATEIT wrote:
why would you want to play the VB on your PC? Just play your VB on your VB!

To me I see it as not everyone can afford some of the games or has a Flash Boy to play them. This is also makes it easier for people to use emulation to capture clear footage of games without needing a bunch of equipment.

I kid I kid, and I get it. For me it just takes away the experience of the amazing 3D graphics that the lasers trick us into 🙂 but I get it for the purposes of development and testing on a computer!

Well, the VB doesn’t have any lasers, but there are VB emulators that are compatible with current VR headsets. They work… okay. Honestly, it isn’t the best for a bunch of technical reasons involving pixel ratios. But it is the best many people can do.

The best reason, though, is for developers to test their games.

I am on that same wavelength. In the event that we ever produced that many games, it would rub me the wrong way to cannibalize hundreds or thousands of retail games. Plus, that jacks the price up. Good luck on this.

That is not how I understood what he said. 😛 Sounds like he is talking about getting new carts made. Either 3D printed, or maybe by talking to certain people. When I worked at GameStop, I had to learn to recognize official versus bootleg carts. Some were obvious, but a few were not. Of course, these carts will be used to improve the Virtual Boy library instead of for piracy or con jobs.

Well, that was how I took it.

Awe, too bad! Thanks for correcting me. 🙂

Really? The VSU is a rip-off of the PC Engine soundchip…? Well, that’s music to my ears! My favorite composer is Yuzo Koshiro, and he cut his teeth on PC-88 synth. He continued to use that soundchip for years after it lost relevance. In fact, he grew so attached to it that he still uses it when he is allowed to today. Even for his modern games, he tries to get permission to make alternate PC-88 versions of the soundtrack.

Yuzo Koshiro’s the legend who made the soundtracks for Streets of Rage, ActRaiser, Shinobi, Ys I & II, at least some of the Oasis games, 7th Dragon, Wangan Midnight, and of course the series I came to know him through, Etrian Odyssey.

Although the EO series is for the DS, some of his Original Soundtracks include PC-88 FM synth versions of the soundtrack. These are four examples:

EO III opening, “That’s the Beginning of Adventure”:

One of my faves, “Those That Slay and Fall”

“Black and Red,” so… it seems appropriate:

But I like “Dyed in Scarlet” better:

Below are the full playlists:

If the PC Engine soundchip can do this, and the Virtual Boy is similar to the PC Engine soundchip… then yeah… imagine music like this from a Virtual Boy game! 😀

It sounds great! Can that actually play on a VB, or were you trying to get as close as possible? The amount of talent in the community is really amazing. A lot of game communities don’t have chip tune composers.

I’d really look forward to hearing more proper VB chiptunes! I wanna hear what the VB was really capable of!

If you want to learn pixel art, just keep in mind the limitations of the medium. Obviously only 3 shades of red, plus black. But you should also make sure to use really low resolutions. Small multiples of 8×8 pixels. Even ALttP on the SNES uses a 16×16 sprite for Link, AFAIK. Exactly the same as Zelda 1 on the NES. It uses colors to make it look more detailed, but VB cannot do that. Also need to keep readability in mind for VB art; you will probably want to make sure to use a very defined outline unless you can be positive of the background color at all times. It is contrast that makes things visible. Luckily, the VB actually has an excellent resolution, so you can make slightly bigger sprites.

You are awesome, Mellott. …So will there be no more link cables through you? I never got a PM in response to my wanting one.

So the images are blurry, but the backing they are pasted onto are not, and they are perfectly rectangular? It is like he lazily tried to make it look like a scan. And how common were image drop-shadows back then?

Hah, that’s awesome. 🙂

[Knightcrawler]

I tried the VirtualBoy when it came out at Kaybee Toys. Played Mario Clash and Mario Tennis. And… I hated it. 🙁 Maybe I didn’t adjust it to my eyes? Maybe it was because the controller confused me? I dunno.

I started becoming interested in the VirtualBoy after seeing BenHeck’s mod video, and just being amazed at the technology inside the thing. It’s hard to imagine a vibrating mirror synchronized with an LED strip at such an incredibly high frequency (50Hz x 384 lines per second, right? Insanity!). And on top of that, I haven’t heard of that mechanism breaking down frequently, so it’s a really impressive feat. The controller is really cool! The system’s specs are like… are these charts for real? The VirtualBoy is in some ways better than the GBA that was released 6 years later. That can’t be right! It has a higher resolution per eye than most SNES games played at? Whaaat? To top it off, it has the charm of being the last truly retro system… at least in my eyes. That means chiptunes and pixel art are right at home here.

Maybe the VB was a bad idea to begin with, but I feel like – at least on paper – it has too many strengths to just write off the way everyone did. Even the monochrome display has its silver lining. The industry was caught up in a 3D graphics/realism hype train that it just couldn’t support yet, and the VirtualBoy was the least suited to that challenge. Despite that, Nintendo tried to dress up the VB as if it could take that on. The system needed to be treated totally differently. There’s definitely potential there, so it’s a shame that none of the VirtualBoy games really appeal to me.

So I’ve been looking for a unit around me in the last few weeks, but haven’t found any. Not sure what I’m gonna do when I get one… I’d definitely tempted to work on a game. It’d be tremendously fun to work on a game for the VirtualBoy, and use its limitations for opportunities for creativity rather than just ignoring them. Well… it’s a fun fantasy, at least. 😛

I have an affinity for underappreciated things, and things don’t get much less appreciated than the VirtualBoy.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Knightcrawler.

I had typed out a long reply on my phone, but there was a forum error and it was deleted. Long story short, Astro, Smurfing and even releasing small batches are probably measures to protect himself.

I’ll put down for this one. So this link cable will connect two VBs, right? I wonder what Nintendo had in mind for games with more than four players (like Bomberman or a Tetris with a versus mode).