OK... let's talk about the MSX!

[Wyrdwad]

Cool, that's exactly what I needed to know! Thanks!

I might play around with MSX-BASIC a little tonight, just to see what it can do.

-Tom

[Wyrdwad]

Ah, BEEP. The greatest BASIC command for any troll.

-Tom

[SkyeWelse]

Okay, so tonight I ordered a CR2032 3volt battery off of Amazon with solider legs. I paid around $5 and some change with free shipping. It'll probably get here in another week or so.

As this battery has two legs already soldered onto each side of the coin battery, the legs can just be bent and inserted into the existing holes on the PCB after removing the battery. I've marked below in red which points would need to be desoldered. It seems like a pretty easy repair, even if you aren't too great with a soldering iron. Most important thing is just making sure you have positive and negative polarity correct, but you can pretty much see that + is on the side the reads CR2032. I'll let you know how it goes once I get my battery replaced. : )



Edit: While you can normally save the game to SRAM using CTRL+Q, I also found out that you can save to Tape using CTRL+T if you have a recorder hooked up to your MSX and a blank tape. If you want to go old school that is. : ) To Restore a Save game at any point you can use CTRL+R.


-Thomas

[Wyrdwad]

I've never soldered or desoldered anything in my life, so the mere idea seems extremely frightening to me.

If it's as easy as you say, though, it might make for a good project to learn a little about it. I'll have to keep that in mind for the future -- and will be very curious to see how things go on your end!

I bought Xak and Xak II, BTW. So my game count (once I receive them) is now up to six. Not a bad start!

-Tom

[SkyeWelse]

Cool! Finally getting into the Xak series eh? It's definitely the nearest neighbor to the classic Ys games for sure. : ) I had a lot of fun playing them. I'm actually playing the English version all over again in small intervals.

I wonder what you might think of the Golvellius series on MSX btw. There are 3 games that each follow the same plot, (one is for Sega Master System) only each version has completely different maps and graphics. The best one that is usually referred to as Golvellius 2 or Neo Golvellius is the best looking out of all of them. And then Compile made a spinoff for one of their Disc Station Special releases called "Super Cooks" which basically has Kelesis, the green haired protagonist from the Gollvellius series undergoing training as a Chef as he explores the world dicing and slicing and peppering up all manner of food based enemies such as fruits, vegetables and deserts. I was lucky enough to find an original copy last time I visited Japan.

Cover Scan

-Thomas

[Wyrdwad]

I've been intrigued by the footage I've seen of Golvellius, though I've never had the opportunity to play it. Would definitely like to at some point, though -- too expensive to buy the MSX version, but maybe I'll give it a go once I get the megaflashrom!

-Tom

[leesmapman]

Ah, Golvellius. The MSX2 version is very good. I love the music for this. Bear in mind, this was one of the first games I played with the FM soundchip. The Xak games are good, but rather clunky. The music of those games are one of the best on the MSX system, it's amazing what they could churn out of that 8 bit machine.

If you need recommendations: Maze of Galious, Penguin Adventure, Gradius/Nemesis series (including Parodius and Salamander), Space Manbow (very expensive), SD Snatcher of course and with the new translation it's even better, Aleste 2, Psycho World, Feedback.

[Wyrdwad]

Had my eye on all of those except Psycho World and Feedback -- heard of the former but know nothing about it, and never even heard of the latter.

I have the PC remake of Maze of Galious, and PSN downloads of the Konami Antiques MSX Collections volume 2 and 3 (containing some classics like Antarctic Adventure, Knightmare, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Magical Tree, Nemesis 2, Athletic Land, Twinbee, etc.), but would still be down for playing these on original hardware if the opportunity to do so arises (i.e. when I get that megaflashrom!).

The games I'm most interested in checking out aside from those are Usas, Shalom, Space Manbow, the King's Valley games, Yuurei-kun/Mr. Ghost, the Xak games, Pippols, and some of the MSX homebrew titles like Caos Begins and Goones R Good Enough. There are a few others, too, that have caught my eye, and all of them together are what convinced me to finally bite the bullet and buy this thing.

I'll look into Psycho World and Feedback after work today!

-Tom

[SkyeWelse]

Pyscho World is very cool. I first played it for Game Gear way back in the day, but the MSX version is much better. There is a improved English-Translation/Harddrive version that was created for the MSX version that works really well and can be launched directly from the MFRSCC+.

I'll probably have many, many recommendations of MSX games to play, but for now I have to run.

-Thomas

[leesmapman]

Konami released old MSX games on discs for MSX as Game Collections (1 to 4 and Special). Discs contain altered ROMs using Konami's SCC+ chip, which is cool of course.

[SkyeWelse]

Hi Tom,

I changed the battery out today in my Xanadu MSX1 cart and so far it appears to be working just fine. I'll know if I was completely successful or not when I boot it up in about 24 hours and my Save game is still there.

I created a guide for how to replace the battery for you to check out if you wanted to try and do it yourself. It's not very difficult to do at all.

retro-type.com/skyewelse/xanadu/xanadu-msx-battery-replacement-guide/

leesmapman, Ah that's right I remember those. They are pretty rare Konami collections on disks with Easter Island Moai heads on the covers. That's cool that they featured some games re-released with SCC sound. Nice!

-Thomas

[Xalphenos]

Expertly done battery replacement SkyeWelse!

[Wyrdwad]

That guide is very helpful indeed, Skyewelse! I should hopefully be replacing the battery tomorrow, as my local game shop claims they CAN do it, and will even supply the battery, for a total of $8, which seems like a steal considering I don't own ANY of the necessary components to do it myself.

One note, though: I don't know if there were different "editions" of Xanadu for MSX1, but in my copy, it's actually Ctrl-Q to save, not Ctrl-S -- and it costs 200 gold, not 100.

-Tom

[SkyeWelse]

I think I meant to say Ctrl-Q actually... I'll edit that guide sometime. lol

I checked to see if the game save was still there after not having played it for 2 days and it still is, so changing the battery worked out. : )

-Thomas

[Wyrdwad]

Your guide also says the battery you need is a CR-2030, but your original post said CR-2032. Is... there a difference?

Just wanted to make sure, as I'm headed to the game shop in a few hours, and while I'm sure they'll be able to figure it out either way, it would be nice to go in there and be like, "Yeah, I need a replacement CR-2030!" Heheh.

-Tom

[SkyeWelse]

Updated! retro-type.com/skyewelse/xanadu/xanadu-msx-battery-replacement-guide/

Thanks for pointing out the discrepancies. Generally though, as long as it's a 3 volt battery and around the same size you'd probably be safe.... Probably.

-Thomas

[Wyrdwad]

Looks like that "probably" is "definitely," as the battery has been successfully replaced and is working like a charm!

Played far enough into the game to actually beat the Big Kraken, though I'm almost certain I'll need to restart, as I did a terrible job of conserving resources. But I'm going to keep at it for a bit and see how far my reckless ways will take me before I throw in the towel.

-Tom

[Wyrdwad]

Still at it, but I'm quickly running out of resources. I was actually forced to start selling off items in order to afford keys, which is never a good sign! I think my adventuring days are numbered.

Also received my copies of Xak and Xak II today, and can confirm that both games work perfectly on my system as-is (which means I've also confirmed that my disk drive works perfectly!).

Apparently, this model MSX has a built-in GUI to access the built-in word processing apps, complete with '80s-looking "MENU" graphic and (fairly decent) system music, which is kind of interesting. At first I thought my copy of Xak or my disk drive was busted, but nope -- I just had to load BASIC from the menu in order to get it to "see" the disk and run the game.

...And man, Xak II has some amazing music! I dislike how slow it is, though. It seems like they sacrificed processing speed in favor of not having screen tearing like Xak I has... but I'd rather have the screen tearing!

-Tom

[SkyeWelse]

Hehe, you do have to be careful in Xanadu. The first time I played it I messed things up pretty badly too. "What! Bottles of Potion that halve my available HP!" "Don't need these!" BLAM! with a spell... "Hey what is this Karma thing... how do get rid of it... Oh by drinking the bottles of poison..." Also you have to weigh in whether it is better for you to purchase a new latest and greatest weapon, or hang on to the one you got before for free that is two ranks behind it because your experience / strength with using that particular weapon is higher than the new one you wish to purchase. : )

Glad that Xak I & II worked for you. Yes, Xak II is a bit slow I'm afraid, but at least on a Turbo R it does support the R800 chip making it a much more enjoyable experience. I first played it on a regular MSX2. Btw if you like the music, check out the FM-Towns version. It's the best version of the music by far.

As for loading Basic from your built-in Gui versus loading directly from the disk, are you sure you can't just turn that off by flipping the switch next to your Renshsa slider?



If you look at the WX, it would be the switch/slider next to the Reset button.

-Thomas

[Wyrdwad]

Oh, is that what that does? Heh. Guess I'll try that today!

...Also, karma can be restored by drinking bottles of poison?! Holy crap. I had no idea!

Yeah, definitely going to need to be restarting at some point! Heheheh. But I'm still not quite out of commission yet, so I'm going to challenge myself and see how far I can go before I'm totally hopeless. I did learn one other thing for my next playthrough: put a few more points into charisma. Because damn are keys expensive if you don't, and cheap if you do!

-Tom