Rob's list of games with issues and a few without

[robj80]

**posts carried over from Retromania forum since it is shutting down. Since I use retrox for playing these games I figured I would continue this here ***

This forum does not get a lot of action and I wanted to post a list of roms that are not playable to me or have issues. If somebody finds this useful than great. More so it's for me to keep track of games that don't work and so I can remove them from my shield eventually. The list will be compiled slowly as I play through games. Feel free to let me know if you do not encounter the same issues as me or if you have an issue with a game. If I have the same game I will try it out and then add it to my list.

My setup is 2017 Nvidia shield with roms stored on a 2tb WD external HD using 3.0 usb connection. I run retrox app always updated. All roms from old retromania forum unless noted.

Game / System
issues

Army Men 2 / N64
pixelated opening screens but fine during gameplay. Some spots suffer from horrific slow down and delayed controls. Sound quits halfway through the first level and never comes back. Retrox app quits after the third level and you can not play any further than that.

Silent Scope / Dreamcast
the scope site is distorted. Game is not playable.

Army Men / Dreamcast
graphical glitches and low resolution. I say low res because it's very hard to see things in the distance. Maybe this is how the game actually was. Sometimes tanks and enemies seem to disappear and reappear. Lots of background popup, again may be how the game was. It is playable though.

Decap Attack / Genesis
Controller button do not function properly. I tried configuring the controller again and same issue. Jump button will jump and pause the game. Game is not playable.

LOCO ROCO / PSP
Game will not load. It kicks me into the ppsspp menu. Which is really odd since I've never seen any emulator menus before running my setup.

Sonic Adventure/Dreamcast
Game resets when using tails on stage 2 casinopolis. I can't go any further with the game.

Vay / Sega CD
Game starts up fine but you can not skip any cut scenes. The game often goes black. The music still plays but the screen will be black. Sometimes it comes back but after a minute or two. Sometimes it doesn't. Seems to happen when entering and exiting a cave or battle. At this point the game is unplayable.

Skies of Arcadia/ Dreamcast
Game plays well. Few graphical glitches especially on the menu. But about 2 hours into the game you need to hand over a passport to proceed. The game just resets. No way to move forward. I was enjoying this game so much. Hopefully a way to fix this.
After trying several times and giving up I went back a day later and attempted to get past the crash part again. This time instead of reading the text I mashed the "A" button to skip through it quickly. Some reason I was able to continue the game. I will update as I go.

Grandia II / Dreamcast
Game plays with graphical glitches popping up once in awhile. Alot of the time on the compass when walking around. I eventually gave up on this one on RETROX because I decided to finish other games first. I picked it back up with another emulator and beat the final boss. This game after beating the final boss you play as one character and run around and talk to the other members of your party. Well my rom (i think) must be no good because I can run around but I'm stuck in one section. The screen will not rotate or advance to the next section. So watched the credits and final text on youtube since not worth trying to fix for the last 30 seconds of the game.

[robj80]

reserved for more games with issues

[robj80]

Here is a list of games I have completed and any problems I ran into while playing.

Game / System
notes

Phantasy Star / Sega Master System
Seemed to be flawless. Joy to play beginning to end just as it was almost 20 years ago. Very hard without an online guide.

Sonic CD / Sega CD
Played flawless. I got the bad ending but still beat the game. Pretty easy game if not going for the good ending.

Super Mario Bros. / NES
Played flawless. I admit I needed to use the save state and some warps. But I beat it.

Altered Beast / Genesis
Flawless and the cheat codes worked. Beat the game but did give myself extra life.

Super Mario 64 / N64
Game played great. I did not notice any graphical or sound issues. It was completed with the minimum 70 stars.

Sonic Adventure / Dreamcast
Sound seems perfect. Very minor graphic issues at some points. Doesn't affect game. I did notice on character select you are not able to view how much of the game is complete. This is annoying and I have to keep track of which characters I have completed the game with on my own.
Completed E101 mission
Completed Big the Cat mission
Completed Sonic mission
Completed Amy mission

Alex Kidd in Miracle World / Sega Master System
Game was perfect beginning to end. No issues what so ever except for being very hard. I hated the controls on this years ago and still did today. Jumping and landing on a platform takes some getting use to.

Monster World IV (english translation) / Genesis
Played Flawless. There seems to be no glitches with music or audio. Controls worked very well. This game is a gem that I never even knew existed. I was impressed with the graphics and the gameplay. Very creative use of a second character. I do have to say the second to last level was so hard that it took alot of the fun of the game away. It was jumping on moving platforms over and over and over. This is followed by the last level which is mindless and extremely easy.

Zillion / Sega Master System
Half way through the game started to stutter, flicker and perform bad. Closing out and opening again resolved the issue. Finished the game using the invincible cheat. I remember beating this as a kid. Must have used the trick then too because it can be pretty difficult. Wish Sega made more Zillion games like the first.

Popful Mail / Sega CD
Zero issues other than not being able to skip the talking parts. This is a top 10 side scroller among all systems. Graphic, gameplay, sound, music all are top notch. I can't believe I never played this back in the day. If you liked MW IV then you should like this game.

Lunar Silver Star Complete / PSX
Game was long and played near perfect until I got to disc 2. That disc has a lot of cut scenes. Often when going to a cut scene the screen would turn black and nothing would happen. I would have to switch to disc 1 then back to disc 2 for the cut scene to begin and I can continue the game. Also I often found that sometimes I would save my game and right after the game would randomly shut off. Also sometimes the controller would just stop working, like after it sat idle watching a long cut scene. I was able to get into the menu to save the game. I would have to exit out and go back in for the controller to begin working again. None of these issues prevented me from finishing this awesome game. Though they were very annoying and scared me because I though I wouldn't be able to finish the game.

Phantasy Star II / Genesis (played on Google Pixel 2)
Having completed this gem I realized I never beat it as a child. I certainly would have remembered the ending which was a pretty big twist. Not often is your party ambushed by 100 humans that are ultimately trying to steal your planet from you. Also it never says who won the battle? Nice little cliffhanger there. This game was not flawless but 100% playable. There were only two issues. First when equipping items the game could glitch which jumbles up the letters of the items. When this happens you are stuck in the item menu and can't exit out. You MUST restore from a save point. I just saved right before equipping. Second is on NOAH (last dungeon) the music gives out and never comes back for rest of the game. This was unfortunate because PSII has some great music and sounds. I used the walkthrough to complete this game. Which you are supposed to use since Sega originally supplied this game with a color walkthrough book. It was much easier than I remembered as a child. Then again save states make most things easier.

Chrono Trigger / SNES (played on Google Pixel 2 mostly)
This is supposedly the best 16bit RPG of all time. It played great, no issues really. The save states seem delayed a bit for some reason but just an extra 2 seconds to save is no big deal. I only finished the one ending (there are multiple). I don't have much of a desire to try any other ones. The graphics are good though try too hard sometimes which makes it very hard to see where to walk. The map view sucks and lack of towns is annoying. The combat system is nice. The music is amazing! Though I really wish there was some sort of music change when defeating an enemy. Sometimes I don't even know I won. Phantasy star series did not have better music but I can say it used it better. The final boss fights I think was lacking a bit and there is an overwhelming amount of items in the game. I enjoyed this one and glad I played it. It would be top 10 rpg for me but not number 1. Controls on the phone and even with controller were not great. Hard to move on the map mode for sure. The phone controls were too hard for a couple parts so had to continue on the shield with controller.

Phantasy Star IV / Genesis (played on Google Pixel 2 mostly)
Wow is this game good. It played perfect. Zero issues that I am aware of. The graphics are not highly detailed but they pop. Everything is clear and crisp. The battle animations are top notch. The sound while you can tell the Genesis was behind in hardware from the SNES in sound I am amazed at what the sound on this game brings. It evokes emotion and is used damn near perfect. While Chrono trigger had better music/sound the way this game uses it makes me enjoy it better on this game than CT. The opening scene before the game even starts grabs you instantly and just makes you want to kick some Profound Darkness ass. The story here and how all previous Phantasy Star games tie in is just fantastic. *Spoiler* Again a main character dies! WTF Sega? Combo attacks are great and I wish they were needed more. I could go on for days on what is awesome but I have to list the bad. First it's too damn short. This game had me wanting more, while Chrono by the end I really just wanted it to end. Second is it is far too easy. Next the lack of in game descriptions for items and magic is super annoying and had me checking online often. The inventory system is a mess with no way or organize it and nowhere to tuck extra items (like baggage center in PSII). Caused me to drop some good stuff toward the end. I also do not like that you can only buy or sell one item at a time. I'm nitpicking on some of the bad stuff here really. Sorry for all the PS to CT comparison. I played them back to back and these two are supposedly the cream of the crop in 16bit RPG's. I'm a bit biased since I was a Sega kid but PSIV > CT.

Skies of Arcadia / Dreamcast (played on Shield TV via REDREAM)
As noted above in the issues sections this game didn't work with RETROX. I moved over to REDREAM to complete this. This game was fantastic and had so much going on. So much that it is overwhelming almost. Though it seems most of it you don't even have to do. Like all the discoveries and such. This game was pretty easy to beat but lengthy. I had the ability to speed up the game play and if I did not I think it would have take forever to beat. The fight intro with the camera swirling take forever, the ship battles (which is an awesome idea) could take up to an hour with speeding up. The good on this game is the music which was fantastic, the graphics are great (for time, still enjoyed today), the game play and controls also great. The bad would be the encounter rate, which is way too high, the lengthy battles, and sometimes just being lost. You almost always know where to go but sometimes it's just so damn hard to find it. Right now I would place this in my top 10 rpgs. I can go on and on about it really but nobody reads this anyway LOL. I wish there was an in game chart to show which weapon color did what damage to enemies. I had to keep reverting to the internet for the info.

[robj80]

Game / System
notes


Grandia II / Dreamcast (played on Shield TV via RETROX / REDREAM)
This game was great! Played great on retrox except few minor bugs. I switched over to another emulator but it was worse at first, missing much of the sound but he Dev fixed it quickly. I completed the game except last 30 seconds (see issues on first post). This game has great controls, it's fast, looks and sounds great, and the battle system is pretty awesome. Turned base but has timing elements to make it not so boring. Game is not perfect though. Another game with an overwhelming amount of items and things to upgrade. The magic is very strong and after halfway through the game you are just magic blasting everything and not even using your weapons anymore. There is always a save/ recovery point right around the corner so there really is no challenge here. The story plot is basic and is only outdone by the cheesiness of the script. The end of the game is just boss after boss then the final boss is super easy and not really anything special. Took me 35 hours to complete and character at around level 45. This game is no Skies of Arcadia but it is solid and should be played if you are a Dreamcast and RPG fan.

[fcatrin]

The Dreamcast emulator will be updated to the latest release, may be that can fix with some issues with those games

[robj80]

I will retry them once you update the emulator.