Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The obligatory April Fool's Gag.

Or at least I... THINK It's an April Fool's gag...



NicoNiocDouga seems to be down - but that matters not since I think this video's been lost anyway.

If by some ungodly miracle someone actually is running Windows on a SFC+Satellaview combo, be sure to give me a holler.

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belated note.

If you guys upgraded before to BSNES .041 and are wondering why the Satellaview ROM loading isn't working, Get .042.

That should fix your problem.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Artcles from elsewhere!

If you guys see my links portion start to grow soon, it's because I've been looking around again.

Lately it seems like the international attention on the Satellaview has been growing - in a particularly sweet finding, The English Wikipedia article on the Satellaview has developed from being poo to actually being a very good starting base for research.

And now I finally have a grasp on how well the Satellaview did. It has SLIGHTLY more fans than the PC-FX! Whoopeee!... Wait, that means I need to do some PC-FX work if I still plan to be niche! Don't worry, Rising Stuff, the Battle Heat guide will be done soon!

Also of note is this recent article. I've never seen this guy's blog before, but he seems pretty excited, so I'm gonna be sure to check it out more. :D

This article also seems interesting - although I will note that on Kameb's Satellaview History Museum, the schedule seems to actually go from Noon to 2AM. Can anyone here clear this up? I also don't know much on whether the Satellaview could upload, and... arg, BS F-Zero still confuses me.

GiantBomb pulled up a Satellaview article, it seems.

Oh, and who's been putting this up on MarioWiki?... Oh, wait, that's me. Durrr. :D

Right, more to come down the line.

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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Satellaview dojin projects?

The Satellaview seems to still have a cult following in Japan even today. Fan demand for a remake of BS Fire Emblem: Akanea Senki Hen was enough for Intsys to actually have a comment about it - an awesome change from the usual Nintendo practice of pretending they don't know what we're talking about. (Unfortunately serensforest is down. I can't find the link. D: )

But while Intsys is considering such an action, fans are already taking it. Ah, it's always grand to see fans go above and beyond!

First let me start with something I found a while ago - this file right here.
What is it? Seems like a retelling of BS Fire Emblem, done in SRPG Maker 95. There's apparently also a patch for this, while I have been unable to locate. (This only works properly if your Windows is set to run in Japanese OS mode.)
I've played a bit of it, and was kinda irked at how unlike the actual game this is, but I was still shocked, as this was the first of it's kind I noted.

Then a recent NicoNicoDouga upload threw me for a loop.



【再現】ファイアーエムブレム アカネイア戦記1【映像】

I've been trying to look for things besides BSFE stuff as well.
For example, here's a BS Zelda-themed Zelda Classic mod.

Any others? I'd like to know. O:

(EDIT: I've been trying to look up something called "PROJECT GAM" which I've been led to assume is related to BS Tantei Club.
Any info on this would be appreciated.)

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

On the proper naming of certain game titles.

The reason for the lack of updates is due to slow developments.
The reason for -this- update is also due to slow developments. This is a small little rant about the naming conventions of key Satellaview titles - how a few of these have confusing titles, and a few had been mis-named for a while due to to the emulation scene not having quite fact-checked.

On "Kodai no Sekiban", "Kodai no Ishiiban", and "Inishie no Sekiban"

The proper title of this specific BS Zelda is apparently a ridiculously confusing play on words that is difficult to properly romanize because how you -read- the title is not the same as how you pronounce it. Here's a few quotes from the BS Zelda forums to help with this.

"Going back to something a bit earlier, I've looked into matters with the Inishie no Sekiban vs Kodai no Sekiban issue. From what I gather, "Kodai" and "Inishie" are synonyms meaning "ancient."

Apparently just as Ishi (石) and Ban (盤) together counterintuitively make Sekiban (石盤), Ko (古) alone can be counterintuitively pronounced "Inishie". This is why the recent PS3 RPG, "白騎士物語 -古の鼓動-", translates to "Shirokishi Monogatari -Inishie no Kodō-" or "White Knight Story -Ancient Heartbeat-" instead of "Shirokishi Monogatari -Ko no Kodō-".

So even thought "古の鼓動" literally breaks down to:
古 - Ko
の - No
鼓 - Tsudumi
動 - Dou
when taken together it becomes Inishie (古) no (の) Kodō (鼓動).

What this means is that "Inishie no Sekiban" (BSゼルダの伝説 古の石盤) seems to have been an alternate name for "Kodai no Sekiban" (BSゼルダの伝説 古代の石盤). The only difference being the character Dai (代). Under this theory I ran a Google search on "BSゼルダの伝説 古の石盤" and lo and behold, the Berriblue blog and one other site both refer to it by this name. It's not a perfect explanation, but I for one feel comfortable letting it go at that."

I myself go by the theory that the game should be romanized based on how it's pronounced, because while Japan can be confusing with it's writing, it's pronunciation doesn't change that much.

(BTW, "BS Zelda REMIX" doesn't really exist as a Satellaview broadcast - it was a misnaming for the MAP 1 Dai-3-wa ROM which has since taken on a life of it's own.)

On "BS Tantei Club".

The proper title for the game is BS 探偵倶楽部 雪に消えた過去 (BS Tantei Kurabu Yuki ni Kieta Kako)

Some ROM download sites refer to it as "BS Tantei Club Saihousou" or something like that. I do not know where this name came from. Any help figuring that out would be helpful.

On the "BS" Prefix.

Although ROM sites will put the "BS" prefix in front of every game title, whether or not they were on the actual game title is much less consistent.
For example, "BS F-Zero Grand Prix", and "BS Super Mario USA" both have the "BS" prefix - note how they're both special soundlink versions of a standard release... but there's no "BS" in "Tamori's Picross", "All Japan Super Bombliss Cup 95", or "Kodomo Chousadan Mighty Pockets", or most "plain" SFC rereleases.
This can be a bit of confusion in and of itself.

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Articles on the New Satellablog

Check out the latest Pico Palace articles, too!