0.161 [Anonymous, Luca Elia]
< Japan >
WIP:
- 0.161: Anonymous and Luca Elia added 'Minna Ganbare! Dash Hero' (Sigma 2000).
- 8th April 2015: Luca Elia - An anonyMous (sic) contributor has kindly submitted dumps for 5 (!) games at once, all running on Sigma hardware. They are medal games for kids that, albeit offering very little in terms of gameplay (most amount to a brief and intense button mashing), do provide some form of entertainment thanks to their bright and large graphics featuring amusing cartoony characters in typical Japanese style. In the past I covered several other games from this platform, including many by Sammy (one two three four five and six). The earlier game is Minna Atsumare! Dodge Hero (1997), where you try to hit with a volleyball one of your class mates, possibly the bearer of the highest number, which translates in an equal amount of medals hopping out of the cab. The next new game is Itazura Daisuki! Sushimaru Kun (1997). You pick one of the three improbable customers, and bet on tricking him/her with some hot sushi (!?). On to Burning Sanrinsya - Burning Tricycle (1997). You bet for medals on the winner of a wacky tricycle race involving cute animals. The following game, Transformer Beast Wars II (1998), is based on the popular Hasbro franchise. You have three buttons (punch, kick and guard) to fight you opponent, in a fashion more akin to Rock-Paper-Scissors than a real beat'em up. Finally Minna Ganbare! Dash Hero (2000) is, as you can guess, an exercise in button bashing to win a sprint race (as gambling games go, though, the actual pay-out rate is fixed by the operator). Having this many games in sigmab98 driver is nice, since it helps improving the quality of the emulation. New games with different code bases can make use of previously unused features of the hardware or exploit the emulated ones in an unprecedented way, which then requires a more faithful emulation. For instance, I found a video (original) of a few of these games being played on the actual cabs (which, by the way, are part of their appeal) and, despite the low resolution, it indeed highlights an unemulated sprites rotation effect in PEPSI Man (when falling). Thanks to anonyMous and Yasu.
