The Nintendo Thread of Existential Doom

[ArugulaZ]

A Switch with "more power, ho ho ho!" is good enough as far as I'm concerned. Isn't that pretty much what the PS5 and Xbox Series are; pumped up versions of the same hardware that was in the PS4 and Xbox One?

(I miss the diversity of game console design, as inconvenient as it was for the developers. Way back when, you knew you were playing a Master System game or an NES game... the hardware was so wildly different that you could see, hear, and feel the differences. With modern systems, that's no longer so much the case.)

 

[WildcatJF]

 

[Kazin]

Hm. Why play any of those when the NES and SNES versions are all available? If they released Super ario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 and included all the e-Reader content, that would make sense, but those... are just weird.

 

[Mogri]

They did that, in fact, in the last update.

 

[ShakeWell]

Hm. Why play any of those when the NES and SNES versions are all available? If they released Super ario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 and included all the e-Reader content, that would make sense, but those... are just weird.

As Mogri said, they have already done that, but the real reason to play these is for the amazing Toad voice samples. Obviously.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

Yeah, the other two entries are like wtf seriously? but Advance is probably my favorite version of SMB 2.

And we still need Wario Land 4 and also all the other Wario Lands. 3's a good one, but bro come on quit holding out.

 

[RT-55J]

good day for all three people who are nostalgic for these versions in particular

 

[Kazin]

They did that, in fact, in the last update.

Oh. Whoops! That's nice, at least. Those levels are cool and weird.

As Mogri said, they have already done that, but the real reason to play these is for the amazing Toad voice samples. Obviously.

I have the romhacks of all these games (well, Mario Advance 1&2 anyway) that remove all the voices entirely on my Everdrive GBA mini, which, for the first game in particular, really improves the experience lol

 

[Octopus Prime]

They’re just what you needed?

 

[Kazin]

They... they are, yes. lol

 

[Exposition Owl]

As Mogri said, they have already done that, but the real reason to play these is for the amazing Toad voice samples. Obviously.

I have this really vivid memory of hearing Chris Kohler imitate Toad’s “OH A CRYSTAL” on an episode of Retronauts from years and years ago, and I still laugh thinking about it.

 

[ghosttaster]

Is there anything wrong with the SMW port? This was the one I played to death as a kid

 

[Kazin]

@ghosttaster Not really, just a slightly squished viewing area, and some voices haphazardly slapped in (though far less than in the Mario 2 port). The colors are off, too, made a bit brighter to see things easier on a non-backlit screen. It's very playable, the SNES version is just slightly better imo.

@Exposition Owl The best part about that clip on Retronauts is Kohler is so close to the mic and so loud that the sound is distorted so bad it actually does sound like it's coming from a GBA lol

 

[muteKi]

While most of the nice features of SMA2SMW have been backported by modders to SNES SMW, nobody has done quite an elegant solution to introducing the new levels of SMA3SMW2YI to SNES SMW2YI, to my knowledge -- the only mod that does this replaces the 'extra' levels like poochy ain't stupid, etc. Meanwhile there's a color correction mod for this version so it looks almost identical to the SNES version.

The one thing then that SA3SMW2YI is missing is that it has worse sound, and you'd have to be using a pretty clever emulator to handle that, but it would at least be feasible if not currently something anyone does (we know how to rip most GBA music into MIDI with soundfonts, and can play that back without the issues of having to handle it in the same thread with GBA CPU interrupts causing a lot of the 'static' sound the system is known for with its sample playback -- the Castlevania GBA collection did something along these lines).

 

[SpoonyBard]

I have this really vivid memory of hearing Chris Kohler imitate Toad’s “OH A CRYSTAL” on an episode of Retronauts from years and years ago, and I still laugh thinking about it.

Oh good I'm not the only one.

 

[Patrick]

The one thing then that SA3SMW2YI is missing is that it has worse sound, and you'd have to be using a pretty clever emulator to handle that

I found mods for Final Fantasy IV-VI Advance that replace the music with the SNES Soundtrack. I have no idea what was involved in creating those, though.

 

[muteKi]

I mean even then you're still limited by the fact that the GBA CPU has a limited clock rate and is responsible for music mixing. It's going to be, for lack of a better term, static-y because that's what happens when your CPU gets interrupted in the process of playback unless it's significantly faster than your sample rate. It's the sound equivalent of frame stutter issues for graphics.

 

[RT-55J]

The GBA's sound hardware has a respectably-sized FIFO (hardware queue), so unlike the Genesis there's a fair amount of slack to the timing of the sound mixing. Also, I believe that full (44kHz) sample rate sound is essentially a solved problem in the modern home rew issue (though back in the day some games went as low as 8 or 11 kHz IIRC).

The inherent, intractable issues with the GBA's sound hardware are the 8-bit quantization of samples (compared to to the standard 16-bit), and cheap components on the analog side of things.

 

[Issun]

I have this really vivid memory of hearing Chris Kohler imitate Toad’s “OH A CRYSTAL” on an episode of Retronauts from years and years ago, and I still laugh thinking about it.

I remember that, too. That was a loooooong time ago.

 

[Sprite]

Do they have multiplayer? Competitive Mario Bros. is a treasure.

 

[ShakeWell]

I have this really vivid memory of hearing Chris Kohler imitate Toad’s “OH A CRYSTAL” on an episode of Retronauts from years and years ago, and I still laugh thinking about it.

Hard same.

 

[Vaeran]

And me. I even remember where I was when I heard it. Why is this stupid memory so vivid when I can barely remember my own phone number on a good day?

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Yeah, the other two entries are like wtf seriously? but Advance is probably my favorite version of SMB 2.

Big same, it's often underrated and overlooked. They went back and made it even more Mario-ish than the conversion from DDP to SMB2 was, and remixed things with enough new content that, while I'd still like a direct follow-up to 2, this at least satisfied me for a while.

Maybe I'll stream it, if we end up ever getting the expansion pass.

Do they have multiplayer? Competitive Mario Bros. is a treasure.

Yep! All four Mario Advance games have it, as well as Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, iirc.

 

[Tato]

SMA2-SMW has tracked Yoshi Coin collecting which is as good a reason as any to play through the thing again for the 400th time

 

[ShakeWell]

Let's pretend to be surprised Nintendo's getting litigious again about emulators.

 

[RT-55J]

Apparently dolphin has included the Wii's cryptographic keys in its source since 2011 and people have warned them of this exact scenario occurring multiple times.

not to go to bat for nintendo here (i'm not), but wow that's a pretty egregious oversight on the part of the dolphin team

 

[Becksworth]

I can't imagine Nintendo JUST found out about this. The Steam release I imagine was finally taking things too far, what the Steamdeck being in a similar market space as Nintendo.

 

[RT-55J]

According to this mastodon thread by a former dolphin member, Valve's legal team was the one to approach Nintendo:

Pierre Bourdon (@delroth@delroth.net)

You may have seen or heard the news about @dolphin@dolphin-emu.org / Valve / Nintendo from a few hours ago. If not, read e.g. https://www.pcgamer.com/nintendo-sends-valve-dmca-notice-to-block-steam-release-of-wii-emulator-dolphin/ from the amazing @wes@mastodon.content.town. Unfortunately...

mastodon.delroth.net

(The whole thread is worth reading imho)

 

[Becksworth]

Ah, well that seems a heck of lot simpler. Flat hierarchy or not, Valve is still a business looking to make money and cover its own ass legally. Also the encryption key not being entirely necessary for Dolphin functioning would explain why Nintendo didn't act sooner.

 

[Bongo]

The legal precedents here are pretty cut and dry and have been settled for a long time: distributing an emulator is A-OK, distributing an encryption key for bypassing copy protection is not allowed, and with the (spits) DMCA in particular carriers are obligated to participate in stopping the latter.