Seeing as too many days have gone by since my last post, I suppose a filler is required before I address the points mentioned for the future (programming, vineyards).
Something interesting happened a few days ago, which put in motion a chain of events with roots back in both last year as well as seven and five and two years ago. Hard to know from which point to start. It is completely unimportant, too, but what the hell.
Seven years ago, that was 1996, I was invited to a party in a buffet. Parties in buffets were the big trend by those years, my generation being the first to taste it. I myself never gave one - who would be there, in the middle of Summer, middle of vacation? Still, I was present in a few. Something I particularly liked in them was the many arcade machines, all set to free-play (no coins!), and with no one older than me to play (and beat me and finish the game).
Specifically, I remember one machine. In fact, so "touched" I was by that one machine that I remember the room where it was. It was against a pillar, which had a wall on the other end. To the left of this wall was a pool of plastic balls, surrounded by a net; to the right, a door leading to the kitchen, and a small window from where you could ask for things. In front of that arcade, in the back of a possible player, was another one. I remember this second one had a nasty goblin of sorts - a green guy with a huge claw - and another guy who carried a staff and whose scenario was a very colorful Japanese theatre. Someday I hope to find out which game that was. But back to the first arcade.
What first caught my attention in it was the fact you did not choose one character, as in the Street Fighter machines I was used to seeing - you chose a preselected team of three characters. I remembered recognizing Terry and Andy Bogard from some Nintendo game I often read about in videogame magazines (my collection was unparalled). There was also a team composed solely of women. Someone came up as I looked at the running demo and started it. The fight was against the female team. On that moment an image got in my mind and never again came out: one girl with very revealing red clothes fighting with fans. For some twist of destiny the party was over before I could take a closer look at the machine, let alone play it. All I remembered from that arcade in years to come was the girl with fans, the groups of three, and the Bogard brothers.
Years went by and I came across Princess Maker 2 by hand of a friend whose nickname in my ICQ contact list I changed to "Puppy". Eight floppies, each containing one piece of the game, from PM2.arj to PM2.a07. Somewhere in them, his daughters, one of which became a General. He was good, I never got a General without cheating. But I did try. I put my little princess in Combat and Fencing schools, and in October, month of the Harvest festival, they always wanted to compete in the fighting event. One of the competitors is a girl with red and white clothes that resembles Chun-Li's, and who fights with fans. Her name is Tao Lianfan. The reference was immediate, of course, but I knew it was at the very best a character based on another, and that would lead me no closer to finding out which game was in that arcade closet at that party.
At some point in the next couple of years I came across (and have no idea where or how) "Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo" for PC. That was the first PC version I had ever seen of a Street Fighter game. It was a very good game, albeit a bit slow in my 586 with its 32 Mb of RAM. None the less, it has been sitting in seven floppies, from SSF2T.arj to .a06, in a case meant only for games - it is the very first game in it. That game was a bit success. My sister and I would play a lot in "hot seat" mode - I came up with very intriguing keyboard setups to allow that. Friends would come over to play it. I was very good with Chun-Li and Vega.
One day, Puppy called me. "I'm bored, you got any games that I might like?" I had the usual selection of mainly original games by that time, all in their boxes. LucasArts adventure games were out, he knew no English and hated games with no action. I refused to have Doom and clones here, even though he really liked Wolfenstein 3D. He did not like Alone in the Dark much. "I got this Street Fighter game, maybe you will like it." I went over there, installed it, made it run with sound. A bit slow, but it was good. He chose Ryu, I chose Chun-Li. He beat me. He chose Zangief, I chose Vega: same thing. He chose Dhalsim, I got Cammy: no deal. He took Ken, I went all out with Bison: beat again. I always sucked at games not bearing the LucasArts logo.
On to last year. My sister asked me to install SSF2T on her computer. I kept postponing it because I knew it would be hell to set up a Plug'n'Play soundcard on pure DOS. In a deal with Puppy, I offered a CD with all the fighting games he could think of; among them there was SSF2T. I downloaded and tried the other games first, then Ragnarok came and Asgaard fried. I put that aside.
January, this year. I was talking to Alck on ICQ, not sure about what. I mentioned that arcade from years ago, "where you choose groups of three (one was all female) and there was this girl with fans". "Oh, that is one of the many King of Fighters incarnations. That girl is obviously Mai Shiranui."
Cursed be me. I knew of King of Fighters, but I knew it for its endless sequels, not the gameplay or the characters. "That is from King of Fighters?" "Yup. And Mai is probably in the wet dreams of all boys who ever played it. Shouldn't be hard to find her, just look for 'mai hentai' in Google. ;)" I chose not to follow the suggestion - Google is not the best place to look for hentai anyway. (AHEM!)
Last weekend before school. I nearly wasted all my vacation, so I wanted to do something useful with the last two days of it. I again looked into Puppy's selection of games. Some worked, some were very good, some were very bad, some did not work at all. It was going very well and I could probably have it done in a few more days. Class would not be a problem unless it brought me something very serious in the very first week. Unlikely.
Few days ago. In fact, last week. After class. Two friends came to me with a very important question that was plaguing them that day (so you can see how much we pay attention to our very important classes). "Who is the girl who taps her butt as a taunt, and from which fighting game is she?" "Heck!", I thought, "I clearly remember something like that! But I have no idea who she is, unless you are talking about Marle in Chrono Trigger." Yes, Marle does it, too, but I knew it was not her. We reached the conclusion none of us knew it, but that really intrigued me: I was very sure I had seen that before. So, that evening, I asked Alck, the guru of all old games. "Any idea who it might be?" He thought for a moment, failed to answer. "I thought it could be someone from Samurai Shodown, because I remember it so clearly and that is a game I played a lot. But I cannot possibly imagine Charlotte in her armor or the girl with the hawk doing anything like that." He nearly jumped on my neck for that one. "Samurai Shodown would never sink that low!" Indeed. And I was very sure it was not in Street Fighter, either - I know Chun-Li and Cammy's movements better than my own. "Maybe it is from some KoF game, but I actually never played any KoF game", I confessed. "Maybe it is, but I don't remember", he replied. Either way, it was too late; I went to bed.
The next afternoon I came across Alck again. "Hey, maybe it was Yuri in some early SNES KoF game." I had no idea there even were KoF games in the SNES. "Maybe as a guest in a Fatal Fury game", he completed. Information recorded, I did not have the time then, so I saved it for the evening.
Evening came, I met Rods online (he was one of the two who came up with the question, mind you). I mentioned Yuri and the SNES games. I said I was going to find out who that girl was, no matter the cost. My curiosity got to him. I made a huge confusion of Fatal Fury, Final Fight, and Pit Fighter; he downloaded some of them and found them horrible. I got one Final Fight and it clearly was not there. So I got one Fatal Fury, and there were the stupid Bogard brothers. The subtitle to the game was "The King of Fighters". No Yuri, but I guessed I was on the right track. Rods went about his other less frustrating business (such as the Orange Game), I remained looking for more SNES Fatal Fury games, or information on where Yuri could be. Sadly, all I got was references to Neo Geo arcades and cartridges, and more Bogard brothers. "Now I am mad." Rods went to bed. I read a review for King of Fighters '98, saying it had nearly all characters from all past versions. I had not seen a King of Fighters game, at least that I remembered, since that day in the buffet party. It had to be an old one, but going through them all was going to be a hassle. I looked for the 40 Mb ROM for KoF98. While it downloaded, Alck came around. "Whoa, you're obsessed." "Yes, I am. I will not rest until I know who that girl who taps her butt is." "You pervert!" Oh gods. "It is a matter of honor now! What do you take me for anyway?" "Well, you are downloading 40 megs just to see a girl tap on her butt?" Gods again. I changed the subject a bit. "But are you sure it is Yuri? I think it may be Mai herself." "Mai? No, surely isn't Mai. I know Mai very well, hehe." "And then I am the pervert?"
Download done. But how to run a Neo Geo game? I remember doing it in NeoRage years before, but that was long gone. A good site mentioned MAME as a possibility. I did not like it. I rushed to Zophar's Domain. Their list of Neo Geo emulators is a bit outdated, but I got the info I wanted. Kawaks it was. Downloaded it. No deal. Got the Neo Geo bios from the first site. Still, no deal. Read the FAQ. "Aaahhh, they must remain zipped and with a specific file name." It worked.
"The King of Fighters!", said the cute voice. "How to play" came up on my screen. I love arcades. F3 to insert coin, that made me laugh. Player 1, Start. Single, Player Vs Computer. No group, thanks. Lots, lots of characters. Yuri! Match started. I won! But I did not see her tapping her butt. It got me worried. Okay, Mai. Somewhere along the fight it occurred to me I should press Start to see what happened. She taunted the opponent. I finished that battled and rushed back to Yuri. New match. Pressed Start. "Kochi kochi!", she said. Then she tapped her butt. Yuri it was. The world was a better place.
Morning. I told everyone in school the good news. Afternoon, I told Alck he was right. He was happy. But I was not fully satisfied: I remembered a girl doing it before the battle started. I had to know in which specific game that happened. So the downloading of the entire King of Fighter series began. As I waited for the big ROMs to download, I went on playing KoF98 for lack of anything better to do. It amazed me to no limit that SNK could create a system as great as the Neo Geo with such beautiful graphics and wonderful animation back in the day of Genesis and Super NES. Finally I understood why all the videogame magazines said it was so regrettable that the Neo Geo never made it in the home market. Now I wish I had one.
Along the playing, I thought, "Maybe my sister will like this". And continued, "But before trying to run something as heavy as this on her little Olympus, I should just install SSF2T there again, as she asked me a dozen times." That was last night. After dinner, I got the seven floppies and knocked on her door. First floppy failed. Second copied. Third failed. I said it was hopeless and went to my bedroom. She went to bed. I tried it on Asgaard. First floppy okay, second okay, third tried... failed. "No, that will not be." I tried again. The drive hit some problem, the noise changed. Then it stopped. I looked at the screen expecting an error message; instead I saw the copied file. The other floppies went without a single problem. I had the game on Asgaard. But I could not play or even test it, for it requires pure DOS to run (and Asgaard runs WinXP). I returned to KoF.
This morning. My sister was out. I went to her room, copied the game there through the LAN. Reboot in DOS. It worked. No sound. I spent the next many hours figuring out how to make a P'n'P card work in DOS without using its original drivers or any other support program (because I found floppies and CDs with drivers for all piece of hardware I ever had, except that sound card). Eventually I came across a homepage that said "to run this specific game in DOS, you may need this little program by Creative". For some absurd reason, he made the program available for download. I downloaded it, copied it to Olympus. Reboot, run program, start SSF2T. It worked perfectly. I made my sister happy.
While looking for the solution to that problem, I realized Kawaks could very well run arcade ROMs, and Street Fighter would fall in that basket. Off I went to download Street Fighter 2 original, Champion Edition, a whole lot of variants and hacks. And while I was at it, I also got X-Men Vs Street Fighter and Darkstalkers. Everything, along with KoF94-97, was copied to Olympus. I hope my sister likes something from the batch. Making a CPS2 game work on Olympus (MMX 233) was no easy task. Then it dawned me - but only after the sound problem was solved. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo is also an arcade game. And there it was, waiting to be downloaded... And it runs so well, so flawlessly in Kawaks. My sister prefers the DOS version, but I do not have the choice. I am happy, no less. Now I have more fighting games than I can deal with throughout the year. And I need to deal with all those Playstation games, too. A curse on school, indeed.
Either way, this trip along the history of Capcom and SNK brought me the bright idea of replacing all the non-functional games in Puppy's list, as well as all the old games that would make me go to his house to configure, with ROMs. That will probably make him very happy, too.
"And they were all blissfully, blissfully happy, for ever and ever and ever."
Whew.
"Damn I'm good."
(I said that today when I made the sound card work. Someone recognized it. I was very impressed.)
Gods, this was a tremendously titanically gigantic post.
Posted by Etienne at March 3, 2003 05:40 AM