![BONUS 04. [FPGA 4K] Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - All Endings/Castles! @WhiteKhakis](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lw8i5DbXVR8/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded February 2023 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
No Commentary / 4k60 (x15 Integer Upscale) / Experienced Player
Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR45ZPut_wX53gpziSb7z1vEe
Wario's pretty good at making the most of a bad thing.
This is being played on an "AnaloguePocket" FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
----
Technical Notes:
------
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Watch in 4k if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! It's a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, it's a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 160 x 144 resolution, the native resolution of Game Boy, and then integer upscaled x15 times to 2400 x 2160 for a clean 4k display!
About the Analogue Pocket: It's a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in layman's terms (BY a layman): It's a "chip" dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another "chip". Basically, if you can reverse engineer a Game Boy exactly, you can pretty much program this "chip" to behave like a Game Boy exactly. Which is what this is.
I've turned off "Frame Blending" in the options because it overall softens the picture with the minimal benefit of making transparencies not flicker. I've also chosen not to use the really cool video mode which makes it look like a Game Boy Screen because that would mess up the lossless video I'm capturing. I can always add a filter later if I want to!
No Commentary / 4k60 (x15 Integer Upscale) / Experienced Player
Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR45ZPut_wX53gpziSb7z1vEe
Wario's pretty good at making the most of a bad thing.
This is being played on an "AnaloguePocket" FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
----
Technical Notes:
------
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Watch in 4k if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! It's a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, it's a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 160 x 144 resolution, the native resolution of Game Boy, and then integer upscaled x15 times to 2400 x 2160 for a clean 4k display!
About the Analogue Pocket: It's a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in layman's terms (BY a layman): It's a "chip" dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another "chip". Basically, if you can reverse engineer a Game Boy exactly, you can pretty much program this "chip" to behave like a Game Boy exactly. Which is what this is.
I've turned off "Frame Blending" in the options because it overall softens the picture with the minimal benefit of making transparencies not flicker. I've also chosen not to use the really cool video mode which makes it look like a Game Boy Screen because that would mess up the lossless video I'm capturing. I can always add a filter later if I want to!
![BONUS 04. [FPGA 4K] Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - All Endings/Castles!](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lw8i5DbXVR8/mqdefault.jpg "BONUS 04. [FPGA 4K] Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - All Endings/Castles!
No Commentary / 4k60 (x15 Integer Upscale) / Experienced Player
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR45ZPut_wX53gpziSb7z1vEe
Warios pretty good at making the most of a bad thing.
This is being played on an AnaloguePocket FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Watch in 4k if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! Its a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, its a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 160 x 144 resolution, the native resolution of Game Boy, and then integer upscaled x15 times to 2400 x 2160 for a clean 4k display!
About the Analogue Pocket: Its a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in laymans terms (BY a layman): Its a chip dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another chip. Basically, if you can reverse engineer a Game Boy exactly, you can pretty much program this chip to behave like a Game Boy exactly. Which is what this is.
Ive turned off Frame Blending in the options because it overall softens the picture with the minimal benefit of making transparencies not flicker. Ive also chosen not to use the really cool video mode which makes it look like a Game Boy Screen because that would mess up the lossless video Im capturing. I can always add a filter later if I want to!")
![02. [4K] Everspace: Encounters (PC) GYRO CONTROL - First Attempt!* - Sector 02](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NAB3AnO4s48/mqdefault.jpg "02. [4K] Everspace: Encounters (PC) GYRO CONTROL - First Attempt!* - Sector 02
No Commentary / 4k60 / Fairly New Player
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47QRIEp3uYFjDSbIKZSiAjM
*This is my first attempt after a clean reset of the game following a few practice runs calibrating gyro controls and the like. Its a pretty solid go, surprisingly! Better than some of my following runs.
You know what a space exploration/dogfighting game needs? It needs to be a rogue-like/lite! I would have never thought of something like this being a thing but here we are. And its beautiful. Looking, that is. I maxed out all the settings and this thing looks magnificent.
Also, Im using gyro controls to aim/steer (yaw and pitch). The game is kinda odd in that you normally would use your mouse to move the aiming reticule across the screen and the closer you get to the edges the more you turn, but instead I mapped that to gyro. Originally I was using the cockpit view but that didnt play so nicely with certain control elements so Ive taken us outside the ship. Its actually kinda cool out here and with the odd aiming system it works out.
As for how the game plays... youve got a limited time in each section to pick up as many resources as you can while fending off baddies before super dangerous reinforcements swoop in to clean you up! Resources in early runs arent as useful because you dont have the blueprints collected yet to build the neater things, but its still a good idea to get used to the process.
And the fights can get very heated very fast. One slip-up and youll be short on energy or health or swarmed to submission! Its not a very forgiving title in that respect. I mean, it IS a rogue-like. Your best bet is to try to incapacitate as many as possible before a real fight begins and to keep moving!
Good concept, pretty game, but~... way too grindy. After playing it for a bit I feel like itll take a bit too long to pick up the credits to upgrade a ship to an amount Ill enjoy let alone all the permanent upgrades you can pick up, too. And then the resource gathering in the game takes a while too, iunno. Its good, but needs some kind of tuning to keep the game moving at a brisker pace, I think. Id almost think that if you were allowed to just sense where everything is it wouldnt be too strong a benefit because of how you have to hurry yourself before reinforcements come in. Well, maybe things are better done in the sequel!")
![04b. [QHD] XCOM ABRIDGED! - Enemy Within (PC) - Base Management](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NXMV0S8jgA0/mqdefault.jpg "04b. [QHD] XCOM ABRIDGED! - Enemy Within (PC) - Base Management
No Commentary / Edited Dynamically* / Classic Difficulty / 1440p60
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR44G2wWcVD13Q891zTPTOjOk
*Wait times, overplanning, and dead time is edited out to make viewing much more interesting! I do try to include moments of forethought so it makes some sense and isnt just constant shooting.
Im discontinuing the Base Management Summary you may have seen in the last couple base videos. Not much happens here, anyway! The bit at the end is me trying to figure out where to reduce panic by doing a mission there and where Ill be sending my later satellite (to reduce panic).
First Base Video Description Follows:
After every mission comes a base segment where you use your oddly limited resources to build up your operations so you can take out those darn aliens! This first segment has a bunch of hand holding but you get a nice overview of the base. I try to edit down the waits on some parts but be warned I do read all the flavor texts and descriptions in these!
Once I have full control of the base my main objective (besides general upgrades) is to increase my satellite coverage of the world because it helps protect countries and grants me monetary bonuses. Its resource intensive though and also requires a large number of engineers per additional satellite for the necessary relay buildings. Also sending out a satellite at the end of the month is important because you can clear the panic of a region by doing so and not have them leave XCOM during the monthly report.
Perhaps Ill include summaries of upgrades and such that I make in future descriptions for people that truly want things abridged... otherwise I recommend skipping through the video if youre impatient.
First Video Description Follows
Quick breakdown for you: XCOM is a long running series that set a definitive style of turn based battles using ranged weapons, various powers, and other equipment to repel the aliens menacing Earth!
Whew.
Anyway, this is the reboot which brought nice graphics and other doodads. The Enemy Within expansion pack is being used on the base game XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It basically tightens up the mechanics and adds a couple new classes and the meld pickup to reward people for quickly moving through maps rather than biding their time.
Hopefully this abridged playthrough will be a refreshing way to view the series!")
![04. [FPGA 4K] Trampoline Terror! (Genesis) - Area 4](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NuKRZ_ryHv8/mqdefault.jpg "04. [FPGA 4K] Trampoline Terror! (Genesis) - Area 4
No Commentary / Practiced Run) / 4k60 (x9 Integer Upscale) / High Res Audio
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47IclgImr9bf4a3S2Lk73Q6
This is being played on an Analogue Mega Sg FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
You are the fearless gymnast known as the Trampoline Terror. You are not afraid of heights. You can run, jump and maneuver where ordinary men dare not go. The alien invaders only make you laugh. Ha!
- Manual Excerpt
So, if Im understanding the story, the Balos Empire has put a grid around the planet Ahas and you, the Trampoline Terror, are the only person who can destroy it because of conveniently placed explosive switches throughout it? Cool, cool.
The games a pretty straightforward maze-platform-puzzler of sorts, but if you hit switches in a row:
Yellow 1-4: More points
Blue 3: Invulnerability , 4: Early Level Completion
Red 3: Enemies Freeze, 4: All Enemies Destroyed
Green 3: Trampolines Repaired, 4: 1-Up
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Audio is high resolution compared to a Genesis system due to no processing constraints. Watch in 4k or 1440p if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! Its a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, its a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 320 x 224 resolution, the native square pixel resolution of most NTSC Genesis games, and then integer upscaled x9 times to 2880 x 2016 with black borders added along the outside for a clean 4k display!
This results in a pixel perfect output that is slightly wider than what you might have seen on your old CRT TV set! However, the pixels are sharp this way AND the art was designed in this pixel perfect resolution before being squashed to 4:3 back in the day. In short: Pixels are sharp AND circles are circles and squares are squares.
Some games were a 256 x 224 resolution, originally. These will be uploaded in 1440p to fill the screen as much as possible and maintain a pixel perfect integer upscale. The native resolution is far too thin for what the game looked like on a CRT OR for the art, so the width is integer scaled a step higher to result in a 4:3 aspect ratio (256 x 7 for 1792 and 224 x 6 for 1344 = 1792 x 1344). These will look a little thinner than the 320 x 224 games Im uploading, but the art will be crisp AND be how it looked in the old days!
Some games switch between 320 x 224 resolution and 256 x 224 resolution (Sonic 2 special stage, Lion King Stampede level, etc.). I will generally upload levels containing large sections in 256 x 224 resolution as 1440p to maintain perfect integer upscales and preferred ratios. 320 x 224 does not change ratio between 4k or 1440p. You will know when the genesis is using 256 x 224 cause the screen will shrink a little in these videos!
About the Mega SG... Its a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in laymans terms (BY a layman): Its a chip dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another chip. Basically, if you can reverse engineer a genesis exactly, you can pretty much program this chip to behave like a genesis exactly. Which is what this is.
Im playing in Zero Delay mode so the game is running marginally faster. 0.15%, to be exact. Thats less than 1/7th of a single percent. Ive also cropped out the colored border Genesis games tend to have.
The sound has been tweaked slightly per FirebrandXs recommendations, Ive enabled YM2612 High Quality Mode for uncompressed audio, and I have not engaged the ladder effect or lowpass filter. This will definitely sound different than a normal genesis because of the latter option. Its essentially listening closer to what the source sound would be like before the Genesis muffles it a bit.
I also want to mention dithering for just a moment here. In Genesis games youll often see lines of color alternating here and there, this is because on an old CRT tv the screen would be a bit blurry resulting in those colors bleeding together and becoming a mix of the two. This can also result in transparencies if used correctly. Unfortunately with a clean digital image this wont happen. The only way to enable these extra colors is to blur the digital image and this certainly would not be pixel perfect as is my goal. I like to think that we are now able to see how the artists tried to achieve their effect! You can always squint your eyes a bit if you want to try to replicate the blurriness!")
![02. [FPGA 4K] Dinosaurs for Hire (Genesis) - Level Two](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O6wHq57_Eu4/mqdefault.jpg "02. [FPGA 4K] Dinosaurs for Hire (Genesis) - Level Two
No Commentary / 4k60 (x9 Integer9 Upscale) / High Res Audio / Capable Player
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47cFeVP5ZPojNHCpuwcSEUX
Full Title: Tom Masons Dinosaurs for Hire
This is being played on an Analogue Mega Sg FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
Originally a comic book, this game is about 3 wisecracking dinosaurs that are actually aliens who LOOK like small dinosaurs running a mercenary gig while wielding ginormous firearms.
Its better not to worry about it.
This is contra-esque run and gun with some wonky platforming and design choices - but - overall is a fine brainless time once you know whats coming.
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Audio is high resolution compared to a Genesis system due to no processing constraints. Watch in 4k or 1440p if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! Its a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, its a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 320 x 224 resolution, the native square pixel resolution of most NTSC Genesis games, and then integer upscaled x9 times to 2880 x 2016 with black borders added along the outside for a clean 4k display!
This results in a pixel perfect output that is slightly wider than what you might have seen on your old CRT TV set! However, the pixels are sharp this way AND the art was designed in this pixel perfect resolution before being squashed to 4:3 back in the day. In short: Pixels are sharp AND circles are circles and squares are squares.
Some games were a 256 x 224 resolution, originally. These will be uploaded in 1440p to fill the screen as much as possible and maintain a pixel perfect integer upscale. The native resolution is far too thin for what the game looked like on a CRT OR for the art, so the width is integer scaled a step higher to result in a 4:3 aspect ratio (256 x 7 for 1792 and 224 x 6 for 1344 = 1792 x 1344). These will look a little thinner than the 320 x 224 games Im uploading, but the art will be crisp AND be how it looked in the old days!
Some games switch between 320 x 224 resolution and 256 x 224 resolution (Sonic 2 special stage, Lion King Stampede level, etc.). I will generally upload levels containing large sections in 256 x 224 resolution as 1440p to maintain perfect integer upscales and preferred ratios. 320 x 224 does not change ratio between 4k or 1440p. You will know when the genesis is using 256 x 224 cause the screen will shrink a little in these videos!
About the Mega SG... Its a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in laymans terms (BY a layman): Its a chip dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another chip. Basically, if you can reverse engineer a genesis exactly, you can pretty much program this chip to behave like a genesis exactly. Which is what this is.
Im playing in Zero Delay mode so the game is running marginally faster. 0.15%, to be exact. Thats less than 1/7th of a single percent. Ive also cropped out the colored border Genesis games tend to have.
The sound has been tweaked slightly per FirebrandXs recommendations, Ive enabled YM2612 High Quality Mode for uncompressed audio, and I have not engaged the ladder effect or lowpass filter. This will definitely sound different than a normal genesis because of the latter option. Its essentially listening closer to what the source sound would be like before the Genesis muffles it a bit.
I also want to mention dithering for just a moment here. In Genesis games youll often see lines of color alternating here and there, this is because on an old CRT tv the screen would be a bit blurry resulting in those colors bleeding together and becoming a mix of the two. This can also result in transparencies if used correctly. Unfortunately with a clean digital image this wont happen. The only way to enable these extra colors is to blur the digital image and this certainly would not be pixel perfect as is my goal. I like to think that we are now able to see how the artists tried to achieve their effect! You can always squint your eyes a bit if you want to try to replicate the blurriness!")
![08. [FPGA 4K] Trampoline Terror! (Genesis) - Final Area](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OKQfNYVoyvw/mqdefault.jpg "08. [FPGA 4K] Trampoline Terror! (Genesis) - Final Area
No Commentary / Practiced Run) / 4k60 (x9 Integer Upscale) / High Res Audio
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47IclgImr9bf4a3S2Lk73Q6
*I edited out the losses more subtly*
This is being played on an Analogue Mega Sg FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
You are the fearless gymnast known as the Trampoline Terror. You are not afraid of heights. You can run, jump and maneuver where ordinary men dare not go. The alien invaders only make you laugh. Ha!
- Manual Excerpt
So, if Im understanding the story, the Balos Empire has put a grid around the planet Ahas and you, the Trampoline Terror, are the only person who can destroy it because of conveniently placed explosive switches throughout it? Cool, cool.
The games a pretty straightforward maze-platform-puzzler of sorts, but if you hit switches in a row:
Yellow 1-4: More points
Blue 3: Invulnerability , 4: Early Level Completion
Red 3: Enemies Freeze, 4: All Enemies Destroyed
Green 3: Trampolines Repaired, 4: 1-Up
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Audio is high resolution compared to a Genesis system due to no processing constraints. Watch in 4k or 1440p if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! Its a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, its a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 320 x 224 resolution, the native square pixel resolution of most NTSC Genesis games, and then integer upscaled x9 times to 2880 x 2016 with black borders added along the outside for a clean 4k display!
This results in a pixel perfect output that is slightly wider than what you might have seen on your old CRT TV set! However, the pixels are sharp this way AND the art was designed in this pixel perfect resolution before being squashed to 4:3 back in the day. In short: Pixels are sharp AND circles are circles and squares are squares.
Some games were a 256 x 224 resolution, originally. These will be uploaded in 1440p to fill the screen as much as possible and maintain a pixel perfect integer upscale. The native resolution is far too thin for what the game looked like on a CRT OR for the art, so the width is integer scaled a step higher to result in a 4:3 aspect ratio (256 x 7 for 1792 and 224 x 6 for 1344 = 1792 x 1344). These will look a little thinner than the 320 x 224 games Im uploading, but the art will be crisp AND be how it looked in the old days!
Some games switch between 320 x 224 resolution and 256 x 224 resolution (Sonic 2 special stage, Lion King Stampede level, etc.). I will generally upload levels containing large sections in 256 x 224 resolution as 1440p to maintain perfect integer upscales and preferred ratios. 320 x 224 does not change ratio between 4k or 1440p. You will know when the genesis is using 256 x 224 cause the screen will shrink a little in these videos!
About the Mega SG... Its a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in laymans terms (BY a layman): Its a chip dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another chip. Basically, if you can reverse engineer a genesis exactly, you can pretty much program this chip to behave like a genesis exactly. Which is what this is.
Im playing in Zero Delay mode so the game is running marginally faster. 0.15%, to be exact. Thats less than 1/7th of a single percent. Ive also cropped out the colored border Genesis games tend to have.
The sound has been tweaked slightly per FirebrandXs recommendations, Ive enabled YM2612 High Quality Mode for uncompressed audio, and I have not engaged the ladder effect or lowpass filter. This will definitely sound different than a normal genesis because of the latter option. Its essentially listening closer to what the source sound would be like before the Genesis muffles it a bit.
I also want to mention dithering for just a moment here. In Genesis games youll often see lines of color alternating here and there, this is because on an old CRT tv the screen would be a bit blurry resulting in those colors bleeding together and becoming a mix of the two. This can also result in transparencies if used correctly. Unfortunately with a clean digital image this wont happen. The only way to enable these extra colors is to blur the digital image and this certainly would not be pixel perfect as is my goal. I like to think that we are now able to see how the artists tried to achieve their effect! You can always squint your eyes a bit if you want to try to replicate the blurriness!")
![02. [RGB QHD] Final Fight (SNES) - Subway Park - Cody Run](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OYKPu6L7jhE/mqdefault.jpg "02. [RGB QHD] Final Fight (SNES) - Subway Park - Cody Run
No Commentary / Practiced Run / 1440p60 (4:3 Integer Upscale) / Hard Mode
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47Hgk7pIVGILWf8Jaqhhxzt
The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
Ah, a nice stroll through the Subway Park! I figured itd be a subway THEN a park, but no. Just subway. No complaints, thats as cool a place as any to thrash some goons!
So, lets talk about Katana. The boss. Hes a major butt. At any given moment he might bum-rush you and do a ton of damage and if you approach him from the front hell slice you and dice you! The problem with this set up is that unless hes at the VERY top and youre at the VERY bottom his rush can easily reach you. And then it just becomes a game of chicken!
Hes also odd in that regular attacks DO NOT HURT HIM. Much. What I mean is your punch combo and jump kicks and the like. He needs to be grapple-attacked or thrown to deal any kind of hurt to him. Ill have an EXTRA video available here to demonstrate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IypcWehwVqw
Oh, and dont forget the moments of invulnerability after getting up from being hit! This boss is a major pain!
Almost forgot! The DESTROY THE CAR bonus stage is after this level! A Capcom classic.
First videos description follows:
Originally an arcade game, Final Fight got a port to the SNES and was pretty decently done all considered! A whole level is missing and you can only play it in 1 player mode but you still get to throw your fists and squeeze the life outta some street punks all the same! I can only figure that Nintendo wanted to show they can have cool arcade games on their console as well because thats were the Sega Genesis really shined!
Im gonna play as Cody because he reminds me a lot of my go-to-character in Streets of Rage, Axel, apparently not just in looks but moves as well! No flaming uppercut though. Just some weird spinning kick you can throw out if in trouble for a tiny sliver of life.
Speaking of life, the enemies on this game can hit HARD. The weaker ones will stunlock you so if you dont use the spinkick to break out youll take a ton of damage, and its not uncommon for some enemies to regularly take a 4th to HALF your life in a single strike. Some bosses will do even more than that.
Since getting hit hurts in such a big way, the name of the game this time around is crowd control. Learning your attacks reach and how to keep everyone on one side is what will win this. One move youll overuse and abuse is your basic attack combo. It outreaches most enemies and does a good amount of damage. You can also interrupt it after the second strike by holding a direction on the d-pad to toss the punk over your shoulder knocking down everyone in your way and granting momentary invulnerability.
Crowd control!
Once you get the rhythm down the game can be rather simplistic but any slip up can punish you very badly so your attention is maintained. Bosses can be super cheap and evil hitting stupid-hard, overriding your attacks, and having invulnerability after being hit but once learned arent the worst thi g in the world. Mess up and youll easily eat through a whole continue though! And these continues send you back to the start of a round, yaaay. (If you start in area with less than 5 lives it may be better sacrificing them to start over.)
Gonna also quickly mention the horrible slowdown this game can have. If there are too many enemies and items/containers on screen the game can struggle to keep pace AND eat your button inputs in the process. This is the worst thing ever. They try to mitigate this problem by limiting to 3 enemies on screen but even this isnt always enough.
Also many item containers have randomized contents meaning you might only heal 1/10 your hp instead of 3/4. Or maybe therell be nothing at all!
Another piece of info that comes to mind is your special panic button attack doesnt come out if you attempt it after another attack. It treats it as another attack. Indefinitely. You either need to wait a moment beforehand or get hit before the special will be a special and not an attack.
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct.
I went for a 4:3 output with pixel perfect sharpness via integer upscales. The video is compressed losslessly so no definition is lost.
256 x 224 - internal SNES resolution (8:7)
256* 7 = 1792 / 4 = 448
224* 6 = 1344 / 3 = 448
1792 x 1334 = 4:3
So you can fit the nearest neigbor upscales in a 1440p frame and suffer no interpolation and have it in 4:3!
***More details potentially pending.***")
![06. [FPGA 4K] Fatal Labyrinth (Genesis) - Levels 25-29](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OuMTdAOXvBc/mqdefault.jpg "06. [FPGA 4K] Fatal Labyrinth (Genesis) - Levels 25-29
No Commentary / 4k60 (x9 Integer9 Upscale) / High Res Audio / Capable Player
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47OU4Tbpv0lXhiKnHJ0JfTS
This is being played on an Analogue Mega Sg FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
Time for some hints and tips! (More general info in first video)
As long as you have any amount of food you will heal as time passes. Very handy! Without food you lose health as time passes.
You identify items by using them and some can curse you or worse so be prepared!
Elemental rings are weird. You dont wear them and use spells... you throw them at your enemy to activate a one time use elemental bomb. You can also throw bad potions at enemies.
Chaos is one of the best spells forcing creatures to dance around aimlessly. They will attack if adjacent, however. If you choose to use or throw an item you will not change directions if youre confused.
Thats all Ive got for now!
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Audio is high resolution compared to a Genesis system due to no processing constraints. Watch in 4k or 1440p if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! Its a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, its a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 320 x 224 resolution, the native square pixel resolution of most NTSC Genesis games, and then integer upscaled x9 times to 2880 x 2016 with black borders added along the outside for a clean 4k display!
This results in a pixel perfect output that is slightly wider than what you might have seen on your old CRT TV set! However, the pixels are sharp this way AND the art was designed in this pixel perfect resolution before being squashed to 4:3 back in the day. In short: Pixels are sharp AND circles are circles and squares are squares.
Some games were a 256 x 224 resolution, originally. These will be uploaded in 1440p to fill the screen as much as possible and maintain a pixel perfect integer upscale. The native resolution is far too thin for what the game looked like on a CRT OR for the art, so the width is integer scaled a step higher to result in a 4:3 aspect ratio (256 x 7 for 1792 and 224 x 6 for 1344 = 1792 x 1344). These will look a little thinner than the 320 x 224 games Im uploading, but the art will be crisp AND be how it looked in the old days!
Some games switch between 320 x 224 resolution and 256 x 224 resolution (Sonic 2 special stage, Lion King Stampede level, etc.). I will generally upload levels containing large sections in 256 x 224 resolution as 1440p to maintain perfect integer upscales and preferred ratios. 320 x 224 does not change ratio between 4k or 1440p. You will know when the genesis is using 256 x 224 cause the screen will shrink a little in these videos!
About the Mega SG... Its a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in laymans terms (BY a layman): Its a chip dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another chip. Basically, if you can reverse engineer a genesis exactly, you can pretty much program this chip to behave like a genesis exactly. Which is what this is.
Im playing in Zero Delay mode so the game is running marginally faster. 0.15%, to be exact. Thats less than 1/7th of a single percent. Ive also cropped out the colored border Genesis games tend to have.
The sound has been tweaked slightly per FirebrandXs recommendations, Ive enabled YM2612 High Quality Mode for uncompressed audio, and I have not engaged the ladder effect or lowpass filter. This will definitely sound different than a normal genesis because of the latter option. Its essentially listening closer to what the source sound would be like before the Genesis muffles it a bit.
I also want to mention dithering for just a moment here. In Genesis games youll often see lines of color alternating here and there, this is because on an old CRT tv the screen would be a bit blurry resulting in those colors bleeding together and becoming a mix of the two. This can also result in transparencies if used correctly. Unfortunately with a clean digital image this wont happen. The only way to enable these extra colors is to blur the digital image and this certainly would not be pixel perfect as is my goal. I like to think that we are now able to see how the artists tried to achieve their effect! You can always squint your eyes a bit if you want to try to replicate the blurriness!")
![05. [4K] The Swindle (PC) - One Thief Attempt - The Rest of the Game!](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pf8jdR9sis8/mqdefault.jpg "05. [4K] The Swindle (PC) - One Thief Attempt - The Rest of the Game!
No Commentary / 4k60 / Experienced Player
Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR44DWZlv4i_GGml2iM6kbVty
He could...go...all...the... way!*
So, the more missions you complete as any given heister the more of a multiplier you get to your cashola making upgrades a breeze. Even with these huge multipliers Ive still done a bunch of these places, right? I figure you can easily go 20+ if youre losing thieves.
*SPOILER BELOW
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Speaking of which, I lost a thief here.
***
(THERES AN EDIT SKIPPING TO THE FINAL WIN ATTEMPT AGAINST SCOTLAND YARD. I lost a few times due to tiredness and blaaahrg!ness. And stupidness. After the initial lost of Thief-Prime. Just to be clear!)
***
When you lose a miscreant you are issued another willing master-thief with all your procured upgrades to carry on the mission! The cool thing is how they are assigned different looks procedurally, too.
Anyway, final mission is a bit different considering theres no money to be made (excepting bugs placed in earlier areas) and you have to deactivate a bunch of security systems to make it safe to grab the Devils Basilisk. But even then its not safe because a couple flying policemen with gatling guns will bust through the walls to gun you down. I was fortunate to be close to my escape, and honestly, this particular layout was pretty... simple.
Ill be uploading an extra Bank and Heist mission so you can get a bit more content next video! Oh. And thats why I returned to the Bank even after having enough money to take on the final stage. I wanted to have a little more bank recorded AND to have more money if after casing Scotland Yard found the Devils Basilisk far too embedded. You have to pay money every time you die/leave Scotland Yard. Best laid plans and all that!")
![01. [FPGA 4K] The Castlevania Adventure - Stage 01](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QtZHqUTYwAE/mqdefault.jpg "01. [FPGA 4K] The Castlevania Adventure - Stage 01
No Commentary / 4k60 (x15 Integer Upscale) / Near-Expert
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR45aZ1TACwvzzUzOVKKTcbEy
***This game is FULL of bad scrolling and graphical artifacts. Maybe the amazing music will distract you from the rushed programming!***
This is being played on an AnaloguePocket FPGA game console allowing for clear output in sound and audio! The video provided to YouTube is 4:4:4 and lossless! Details below in Technical Notes!
As mentioned above, this game has issues but it was my first title on the system so I didnt mind! Except the ignored whip/jump inputs could be a bother. ...and the slow pacing. And the weird physics. And the ENTIRE MISSING PLATFORMS ON AUTOSCROLLING SEGMENTS.
I still loved it.
Technical Notes:
TL;DR: YouTube was provided a perfect video so pixels are sharp and shapes are correct. Watch in 4k if your computer can handle it.
This video has suffered no lossy compression before reaching YouTube! Its a lossless video file with no chroma subsampling (4:4:4). Essentially, its a perfect copy until YouTube works its magic which now makes it a 4:2:0 video with lossy compression, yes. However, the better the initial copy... the better!
The video was originally captured in a 160 x 144 resolution, the native resolution of Game Boy, and then integer upscaled x15 times to 2400 x 2160 for a clean 4k display!
About the Analogue Pocket: Its a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in laymans terms (BY a layman): Its a chip dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use only so many in whatever ways necessary to replicate another chip. Basically, if you can reverse engineer a Game Boy exactly, you can pretty much program this chip to behave like a Game Boy exactly. Which is what this is.
Ive turned off Frame Blending in the options because it overall softens the picture with the minimal benefit of making transparencies not flicker. Ive also chosen not to use the really cool video mode which makes it look like a Game Boy Screen because that would mess up the lossless video Im capturing. I can always add a filter later if I want to!")
