Mega Drive Mini, and now... Mega Drive Mini 2!

[Down by Law]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rieko_Kodama

 

What a body of work. Art director on Sonic 1 & 2, Altered Beast, Alex Kidd & Phantasy Star and Director of Phantasy Star IV , Producer of Skies of Arcadia ...

 

RIP

 

[Triple A]

Ah that's really sad.  Fantastic legacy.  I will raise a toast while playing the mini 2, arriving today.  There's a credit to her in the menu/frontend of the device, I read elsewhere - I think it's a fitting tribute and way to inform people of her passing - keep it pure, through a product, that she heavily influenced.

[Down by Law]

First review is out: I've only skimmed through it as i'm waiting to experience myself but I was extremely pleased at this feature

 

 

Basically you can switch between the Mega Drive I and Mega Drive II sound output, basically deeper bass vs higher treble and as someone who prefers the cleaner audio of the MD II, this is a fantastic addition.

 

Also noticed that you can play Thunderforce overclocked, Sonic CD has both soundtracks, and you can do the usual language swap to access the US and Japanese Roms, so uncensored Final Fight is here for example.

 

[the_debaser]

Mine arrived today, forgotten I’d ordered it. 

[MW_Jimmy]

2 hours ago, Down by Law said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rieko_Kodama

 

What a body of work. Art director on Sonic 1 & 2, Altered Beast, Alex Kidd & Phantasy Star and Director of Phantasy Star IV , Producer of Skies of Arcadia ...

 

RIP

 

 

An incredible silent influence on my interest in games - everything I enjoy in videogames can often be traced back to my first console and first three games I finished: Sonic 1, Alex Kidd, and Phantasy Star. I learnt about her involvement in all of these a while ago and I think Phantasy Star still doesn't get enough praise for its place within kick-starting JRPGs (same year as FF and DQ), technical achievements (Yuji Naka) and Kodoma for a story with yes, a strong female protagonist. Title screen art:

 

 

Incredibly sad news to hear today. A legendary creative.

[retroed]

It's arrived! Box is dinky.

 

[phillv85]

Mine has arrived and wow it really is a small box it’s come in.

[dizogg]

7 hours ago, the_debaser said:

Mine arrived today, forgotten I’d ordered it. 

You only ordered it last month, I’d probably get yourself checked out for early onset dementia.

[Phantoon]

I really like mine. Fantastic selection of interesting games. It's a really hardcore love letter to the console.

[Fry Crayola]

Not sure "hardcore love letter" is what they were aiming for.

[ontwofronts]

Mine has arrived, first impressions are great. Enjoying Sonic CD and Final Fight, Night Trap and Sewer Shark are showing their age and the resolution is shocking. They felt fairly groundbreaking 29 years ago, Night Trap especially

 

like the six button controller  

[DarhkFox]

I was surprised how small the box is! 

 

It's not a bad selection of games, seems to be more "mature" titles than the first Mini - which is fine i guess but i do miss a lot of the library. Shouldn't take long to get hacked though.

 

Night Trap is much better on the Switch (or whatever other consoles the updated version appears on). Well, i'm not sure much better is the correct word - perhaps less frustrating and you have better visuals.

[phillv85]

First impressions here are good as well. The controller isn't quite the same as an original in sponginess, but it's a good approximation. Changing the language to Japanese gives you the more playable version of SoR3 as well which is nice. 

[phillv85]

I've played Nightstriker before on PS1 where it doesn't exactly look pretty, but the Mega CD version might as well be a headache simulator, it's bloody awful to look at!

[Phantoon]

20 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

Not sure "hardcore love letter" is what they were aiming for.

I think it is. They're great games, but more stuff that serious Mega Drive fans would know about. They've made much fewer of these and are charging more.

 

Normal people want the Mega Drive Mini 1, those in the know want the 2.

[Yasawas]

Those in the know cancelled when they realised Snatcher wasn’t on it  I’ve never been able to emulate that moody fucker successfully. 

[Fry Crayola]

2 hours ago, Phantoon said:

I think it is. They're great games, but more stuff that serious Mega Drive fans would know about. They've made much fewer of these and are charging more.

 

Normal people want the Mega Drive Mini 1, those in the know want the 2.

 

The problem with my post is I really didn't convey the idea of a hardcore love letter.

 

Less "I love you, Mega Drive" and more "I want to stick my dick in your cartridge slot".

[Phantoon]

2 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

The problem with my post is I really didn't convey the idea of a hardcore love letter.

 

Less "I love you, Mega Drive" and more "I want to stick my dick in your cartridge slot".

Ok, I accept it's not that kind of love letter

 

Needs at least two Lunar games for that

[Keyboard Koala]

43 minutes ago, Yasawas said:

Those in the know cancelled when they realised Snatcher wasn’t on it  I’ve never been able to emulate that moody fucker successfully. 

 

Surely hacking the MD2 mini, and putting the Snatcher ROM on it will remedy that?

[Down by Law]

Love the software, the Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier 2 ports are excellent..shame the hardware isn't as lovingly recreated as the original mini was though. The lack of power LED , the wrong power switch, and the Sega logo being on a matt finish when that part should have been gloss like around the cartridge ring take away from it somewhat. Obviously they've just used the JP model to cut costs, but we didn't get them passed on to us consumers. No paper manual either this time either. The CRT filter is straight trash too, the same blurry and too dark combo of the original. Project Lunar allowed you to patch in a sharp CRT filter which was excellent, hopefully it'll come to this in time.  Still think it's worth the money though, the 6 button pad is absolutely excellent and the fast booting CD games and MD sound toggle really help to elevate it. Pity Zero Wing didn't make it, although not the most remembered Toaplan shooter on the system the music absolutely slaps, one of the best to grace the hardware imo. Stages 2, 3 and 8 are right up there with Thunderforce IV. 

[Yasawas]

3 hours ago, Keyboard Koala said:

 

Surely hacking the MD2 mini, and putting the Snatcher ROM on it will remedy that?

You’d think, but there’s a common issue with it freezing at multiple spots in a number of emulators. 

[Keyboard Koala]

Ah, bollocks. Here's hoping the emulator used in the MD mini 2 doesn't have that problem then.

[Escape]

On 27/10/2022 at 10:03, Down by Law said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rieko_Kodama

 

What a body of work. Art director on Sonic 1 & 2, Altered Beast, Alex Kidd & Phantasy Star and Director of Phantasy Star IV , Producer of Skies of Arcadia ...

 

RIP

 

 

Its visuals did so much to redeem its clunky gameplay, and for that I've always defended it against dissers!

 

My mum bought me a Japanese Mega Drive out of the blue one Christmas — I'd never heard of 'em, and that's the game it came with.

[Calashnikov]

8 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Those in the know cancelled when they realised Snatcher wasn’t on it  I’ve never been able to emulate that moody fucker successfully. 

I played the full thing emulated in a fucking web browser once.

[Keyboard Koala]

10 hours ago, Yasawas said:

You’d think, but there’s a common issue with it freezing at multiple spots in a number of emulators. 

 

 

@Down by Law seemed to have pulled it off on his MD mini though:

 

 

[Keyboard Koala]

Concerning the higher price for this: as @Down by Law pointed out earlier the internal memory of the mini went from 512Mb to 8Gb apparently which would explain the price increase I reckon.

[dave7g]

8 gig would easily house many full libraries. Interesting.

 

I have this, it's pretty good. Love the SF2 with the six button pad.

[Keyboard Koala]

I don't get why people aren't more enthusiastic about it. It's a cracking line-up out of the box, and compared to all other minis the best one yet imo.

[dave7g]

7 minutes ago, Keyboard Koala said:

I don't get why people aren't more enthusiastic about it. It's a cracking line-up out of the box, and compared to all other minis the best one yet imo.

I haven't had much time with it yet. I think it's down to the fact that they only made 10% ofunits compared to the first mini. Not as many proud owners. I can't believe people aren't losing their shit over the Capcom Arcade Stadiums. I love those damn things so much.

 

[drmick]

41 minutes ago, Keyboard Koala said:

Concerning the higher price for this: as @Down by Law pointed out earlier the internal memory of the mini went from 512Mb to 8Gb apparently which would explain the price increase I reckon.

 

Is there a reason for such a sizeable increase?