I just shake my head everytime I see these kinds of compilations released. I’ve been playing these games for years, through emulation. These bundles advertise being able to use filters for ‘authenticity’ gameplay, online playability and such. Emulators can and have long done these things too.
But, there are people out there, who’ll wait for years on end for these compilations to be made and some shamelessly buy them. When you can cut all of that down by spending less than 2 minutes grabbing a ROM and grabbing an emulator before you’re well on your way to revisit your old favorites.
I agree, with one small caveat: Capcom actually made the Mega Man Battle Network games better through their collection - and while I’m sure those QoL features could have been implemented in ROMhacks (and I’m happy with emulation), I don’t begrudge anyone who has it. I’ve also bought the Mega Man & Zero collection carts for 3DS, because I wanted to play them specifically on that device.
Konami, shockingly, also did right by fans with the Yugioh Early Days collection, since they brought over a game that wasn’t translated (and the fan translation isn’t perfect) in Capsule Monsters, and I’m pretty sure there’s other improvements as well. Again I’m satisfied with emulation on those games, but I can’t bring myself to despise people who have bought the collection.
But that’s two or three examples against however many.
But I want to know how far back your outlook on this goes: Super Mario All-Stars (+ Super Mario World) is notable for bringing all 4 NES Mario games to SNES. It’s arguably a remaster collection. Should people have been as enthusiastic about it at the time? Or how about the first of these from Konami - Ninja Gaiden Trilogy?
Where does the line get drawn?
Knowing how to do things can save you lots of time, money, or both in many of different areas of life.
I can’t imagine you’ve min-maxed every area of your life, why shit on people who are happy to pay for someone to package things up for them?
Yeah don’t shit on the people buying this, shit on the companies over-charging for it.
If IP wasn’t bullshit and I still cared, I’d totally pay 5$ for a copy of a game like this.
It is and I don’t but in a civilized world where I were funding a designer’s retirement/heirs that would be neat. A version of capitalism that didn’t inevitable slip towards fascist totalitarianism and wasn’t made of orphan bones would be cool.
I do shit on people who continue to buy this because it’s telling the companies that it is an acceptable practice for them to do.
My biggest issue with these is they dont document the process or treat it like preservation at all. Did you know Primal Rage, an arcade game, is extremely difficult to emulate because of special security on the original arcade boards? They have a MAME emulator specifically for it and it still does not cut close to an original cabinent. All the console remakes similarly have issues because of the original including whatever these security components were (I thunk they were a chip on the boards).
Capcom and Konami were notorious for putting massive amount of black epoxy over important board components so you could not repair them or rip them in any way. But people found ways around that. Guess Atari wasn’t much different with their arcade games.
I know what community we’re in, but I do think that having content be available through legitimate channels is a good thing. Too much of gaming history cannot be accessed legitimately, and that’s something that genuinely sucks.
There’s an old saying that piracy is a service problem, and here they are trying to respond by offering a better service. Many of these compilations are actually pretty good in terms of extras offered, they go above and beyond just selling you a ROM.
Yeah, I actually agree. If game devs want to remaster old games, they have every right to do so. Ideally, these remasters would bring meaningful quality of life upgrades, while still allowing the fans to replay the game as they originally did.
One of my favorite old games is Final Fantasy X, and the remaster was actually really good. They botched the character face models, but added a lot of QoL improvements that you wouldn’t typically find in an emulator without jumping through a few hoops.
Things like 2x/4x speed which disables during cutscenes, so you’re not wasting time watching the same battle animations constantly. Auto-battle, for when you’re already completely overpowered for an area and don’t want to mash X to keep attacking. An across-the-board buff that makes grinding a breeze. The option to change the random encounter rate, to make them more frequent or non-existent. An option to choose between the classic or remastered music tracks. Etc…
Sure, lots of those things could be implemented in some way by an emulator. But having them baked right into the base game allows for things like the speed boost to automatically disable during cutscenes. Plus it opens the door for native mod support. Untitled Project X is a wonderful mod that is only possible because the game isn’t running inside of an emulator. Even my complaint about the character faces can be fixed via a simple texture swap mod.
All of this is to say that I’m happy to emulate things when needed. But since that FFX remaster launched, I haven’t felt the need to boot it up on an emulator. Because the remaster gives me anything I would want from an emulator, and then some.
These games go on sale for just a few bucks. It’s better than being lost forever.
Yeah, what is this $80 bullshit
It’s way better than not having the game at all on online storefronts. Digital content still can become lost media, by offering them through storefronts that risk is lessened by a lot.
These compilations are a lot more than just ROMs with an emulator, which is why I support them. Also quickly go on sale for quite a lot cheaper all the time.
Why are people buying stuff at the store, don’t they know you can just grab it and walk out ? Stupid sheeple
The re-releases sometimes come with improvements, such as the ability to save mid-game, or networked multiplayer, that would have been impossible with the original release, e.g. a standup arcade game.
…That you can do through emulation also.
I’m fine with people paying for the Just-Works™.
I’ve just ventured into DosBox stuff, starting with pre installed game folders (best case scenario). Just mount the .7z into dosbox and… Wait, unarchive it, make it a .zip and… Wait, just unzip it and remake the folder structure to match the .cfg, rezip and… Wait, unzip and re-write some of the setting in the .cfg, re-zip and… Wait, mouse support on a touch screen, why is the keyboard unresponsive?
Tinkering is fun, but I just wanted to play fallout 1. Romm just added dos support. I was elated. But all my games are .7z. and the 2 I tried (FO1 and a 1-0 soccer, it was first on the list) both didn’t fire up, fallout 1 required tinkering to fire up in a DosBox instance. A fun project, I wasn’t gaming though.
Oh, had no idea romm added support for dosbox, that’s awesome. Half tempted to dump the ExoDOS collection into it to stress test it.
I can’t vouch for it. But my understanding is that DOS is it’s own wild west of Case By Case Basis. My understanding is that if DosBox pure would be happy with the .zip you give it, Romm may or may not be. If DosBox won’t fire it up with no tinkering god help you.
I got fallout to run in a desktop instance, but it still didn’t run on Romm. Gpt suspects it’s the nested folder structure
/INTRPLAY/FALLOUT/[game stuff here including data folders]Gpt is wrong more than it’s right though.
I will never understand those of you who feel the need to virtue signal about your piracy.
All the spendies on this thread are making me sad. You know money buys food, right?
spendies
Imagine making downloading pirated software the basis for your political ideology.
You really are so morally superior to people because you (checks notes) pirate video games. Ok boss.
STFU spendy
Go make up someone else’s ideology
spendy
I just don’t understand, am I supposed to be offended by this or something? I’m not even like advocating for buying things, I’m just pointing out how ridiculous you sound.
I know the economy sucks and we’re all struggling. I’m in those shoes too. If you pirate games because you can’t afford them, that’s valid and I won’t look down on you for it.
But I think it’s wack as hell if you do look down on people who want to support official releases. It’s a good thing for content to be available officially. What is it that you even want them to do, not release anything? What are you upset about?
I don’t believe in the ethical usage of $USD if that helps and no, I don’t think they should “not release anything.” Is that how you like to argue? Make up something completely unreasonable, then argue with that?
So then what do you want?
Games that finished development longer than a decade or so ago should be FOSS, but IP holders shouldn’t have to preserve them themselves. Devs should be making new games unless they have a personal passion for preserving, which enough of them do. EA Games should be dissolved. Embracer should be dissolved. Activision/Blizzard dissolved. Ubisoft, too.
Piracy is a reasonable response to unreasonable laws and business practices.
Devs should [sic] be making new games unless they have a personal passion for preserving, which enough of them do.
I’m assuming you meant “shouldn’t”.
How about devs can do what the fuck they want to do? Why should you be the one to determine if someone is “passionate enough”?
Why did you assume I made a different argument than the one I wrote? Fuck off.
Ok, then please make the sentence I quoted make sense. I’ll wait.
Because
Devs should be making new games unless they have a personal passion for preserving, which enough of them do.
Doesn’t actually make sense.
I’m in favor of IP law reform, but you’re going after the wrong targets. Complaining about rereleases won’t get new legislation passed.
Oh I don’t worry about “getting legislation passed,” I just play for retroachievements. Because they’re old games. I ignore the law in my personal life because it is fake for my caste.
Money also helps game developers buy food. I’m very well fed already.
I still don’t buy a lot of games though. Just stuff I really like, especially from smaller studios. I will not be paying 40 dollarbucks to play ancient games.
Yeah I’m sure all 3 devs working on what is essentially a rom compilation are really struggling to make do at 80 bucks a pop.
Bro, these games do not cost $80 a pop, I truly have no idea why people keep saying this.
Read the comment lol, I said I wouldn’t be paying for this shit, just that you shouldn’t feel bad for supporting small devs. Some here seem to think paying for anything at all is immoral.
What I’m not understanding, are the boot-lickers who’re praising the publishers for making these ROMs available on the market. Like, pirates are the ones who have been doing the archiving and preserving while video game companies kicked the can down the street for the longest time. And only recently are these compilations released, are some people going like “WOW! THEY ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT PRESERVING! IT MAKES MY DICK HARD NOW!”
Like dude? These ROMs have been available for a long ass time and they weren’t because of these video game companies you’re happily throwing money down to.
the same reason hollywood keeps remaking and remaking and rebooting and remaking every movie from 1980 to 2000 and beyond. it doesn’t matter how fucking godawful the final product is, the nostalgia draw will guarantee funding
at least the video games are the actual video games from our childhood (i assume)
With that price you can literally get a CRT and a Wii, now mod the Wii and congrats, you can revisit most of the videogame history in the best way.
Where are you getting a CRT and Wii for that price?
Internet prices are inflated these days (especially eBay). You need to shop IRL second-hand stores, markets, garage sales etc. to get the good prices.
It’s partly the weight.
CRTs are heavy. Heavy things cost a lot to transport.
You see a similar thing with weights. Invariably cheaper to buy them offline at a fleamarket, because the seller doesn’t need to pay for shipping.
IRL for the CRT: look at facebook marketplace or similar, here’s a cool video about it: https://youtu.be/frL17gEO8SM For Wii you can use Vinted or similar.
