Gpx2 Or Xgp, Which Will You Buy?

[Goity]

Chui's going to do stuff for the gpx2 too, so expect fenix!

 

[C B Felterbush]

The best game on the NGPC is Evolution: The World of Sacred Device.
That is my opinion. I think as far as controls, I don’t care. Not really I like
the d-pad and I like the stick on the GP32 and the NGPC, so as long a
the quality is good I don’t mind which it is.

If however the stick is like the one on the N64 I will kill the person in charge of design. That stick really ruined the N64 for me. :angry:

 

[DaveC]

Makes me feel like I'm doing Hadoken out of my ass playing fighting games with GP32's stick. It just doesn't feel right.

​

Lol well put. I'm not a fan of the stick either. Too fragile and unresponsive for my liking. If I still played on my GP32 I'd maybe try the stick fix but to be honest when you buy a brand new handheld system should you really need to bodge it to get it to function properly? Gamepark are so lucky to have a thriving community behind them. They have done nothing to deserve it.

EDIT

I am an end user and will wait and see.

​

You must be unlucky. I have owned a few GP32s and a few friends have them and the sticks have been perfect on all of them. They all had dodgy shoulder buttons but I just bent out that little metal piece and they work fine too.

 

[Rockin'-B]

For now, I'll keep my GP32, because the amount of homebrew games & emus is unique. The benefit og the GPX2 over the old GP32 is much too small to convince me now. Looking forward to what commercial content will be offered.


The swivle screen of the XGP and it's TV out and screen size are great for watching movies. The fact that it can run Quake3 is really impressive.


I bought my GP32 much earlier than most of you, at a time when homebrew was just coming up. So I bought the GP32 because people said "it's much better than GBA, better screen, faster....". Okay, fine. But aufter buying I got quickly disappointed by the lack of commercial titles.

Hopefully the game line-up of the XGP & GPX2 won't disappoint us, again!

 

[Prophet]

Hopefully the game line-up of the XGP & GPX2 won't disappoint us, again!

​

LOL! :lol:

Oh, I think I can safely say YES - the lineup of commercial titles for GPX2 and XGP will be a huge disppointment. That is, if you're looking for a real game library by real commercial game companies. A few good Korean titles, maybe a couple of occasional surprises from some relatively obscure soft houses in Europe, and some ports of open source games. Beyond that - nothing much.

So don't get a GPX2 if you're hoping for a big impressive commercial game library. Or an XGP. Ain't gonna happen. Get a DS or PSP for that sort of thing. GPX2 will probably have a ton of good emus and homebrew though. That's the reason to a GPX2.

XGP, I have no idea what reason to get one for yet. It's not ideal for commercial games (the Capcoms, Squares and Namcos of the world won't spit on it) nor is it an ideal design for 2D emulation. And GP wants it to NOT have emus. So, XGP is currently a mystery system in terms of its goals.

 

[x68000]

No, nothing like that.

I know it visually resembles the analog sticks on console gamepads, but that's where the similarity ends. It's a digital thumbstick, with 4 microswitches. One for each cardinal direction - up, down, left, right. But of course you can also do diagonals (i.e. up+left), so it's called "8way" digital input. You can ONLY communicate 8 directions. It's basically a miniature version of an arcade joystick. Very precise, and very comfortable.

Analog sticks, by definition, can communicate a full 360 degrees of direction. Great for 3D. But for 2D, not very precise. Definitely not the best choice for emulation of 2D game systems.

The best digital thumbstick ever was on the system that pioneered the idea - the NeoGeo Pocket. A really great system in its time, with some of the best portable games ever made. If someone could make a full speed emu of NGPC on GPX2 I'd be very happy.

​

I know the neo pocket has a cult following, and i bought a japanese import camoflage blue b&w one when they were launched, but i never really understood what was so great about them? I already had a PCE GT and a nomad and both had superior graphics, sound and many many great games. It seemed a backwards step with the only benefit being the small size and cute design.

I know there was a few nice games, but i think i must be missing the point. What was the big deal?? It wasn't what you would expect from the same people who brought the amazing neo geo nearly a decade earlier!

 

[Magus 86]

I'm just an end user(would love to develop... don't know any programming language, and my school fucked me over when i tried to take a C++ class), and I'm going for the GPX2 at this point. From what we know, the GPX2 fits the niche I need a new system to fill much better than the XGP. The fact that GPH specifically mentions emulators means that unless they're really stupid, there WILL be emulators made for it, and freelance developers won't have to be relied upon for them. I'm looking for better Genesis(reesy said he'd do a GPX2 version of DrMD if i remember correctly) and SNES(they're making SNES, as it's one of the emulated systems they mentioned on the website) emulation. Everything else is an extra feature. I find it hard to believe that nobody will make an NES emulator, so it's pretty much guaranteed. And a lot of people want GBA emulation too, so I'm sure someone will eventually make one that runs at decent speed with the GPX2 since it has extra power. GBA doesn't really matter to me at all though. I have yet to find a single game worth playing on it(and that's no exagerration or attempt to piss anybody off, it's the absolute truth for me. I really gave the GBA a chance, and it let me down. I've tried a bunch of their remakes, and they changed something stupid in each one. They're really shitty versions of the originals. They would have been better off making a completely new gameboy system that could accurately have the great old games they tried to reproduce correctly on it... and if the current GBA can do that, then nintendo's stupid for not doing it right). But anyway, I also want more than 128 mb for storage. SD cards allow that. And the 2 extra face buttons make SNES emulation perfect as far as the controls are concerned... GPX2 will be able to do everything the GP32 does now, some things better than the GP32, and it will also be able to do more... XGP looks/sounds/seems like some stupid PSP wannabe that will crash and burn. I have no reason to buy it unless some really good commercial games come out for it, and I doubt that will happen.

 

[Alpha2]

I think the reason people like the NGPC is because it's such a small, simple but capable color portable system, the graphics are no better than needed for any game made for it, it runs quickly and has things like calender and alarm functions.

Basically it's just cute and plays decent games.

 

[Prophet]

I know the neo pocket has a cult following, and i bought a japanese import camoflage blue b&w one when they were launched, but i never really understood what was so great about them? I already had a PCE GT and a nomad and both had superior graphics, sound and many many great games. It seemed a backwards step with the only benefit being the small size and cute design.

I know there was a few nice games, but i think i must be missing the point. What was the big deal?? It wasn't what you would expect from the same people who brought the amazing neo geo nearly a decade earlier!

Yep, I also had those systems. TurboExpress, Lynx, Nomad... Still have them around here someplace in fact. So I understand what you're saying.

But the reason people like myself have such respect for NGPC is twofold:

1) Design.

NGPC came along BEFORE GBA, and as such represented the most well balanced design yet for a handheld when it released. Specifically, it was very compact, truly pocketable (unlike our Nomad, Lynx & TE/GT), and very comfortable & ergonomic. IIRC it even won an award for ergonomic design. It got incredible battery life, and it had the most accurate & responsive controls ever made IMO for a handheld. Once you mastered the digital thumbstick, it was hard to go back to Nintendo's crosspads of pain. (And I hate Sony's dpads even more.)

2) Games.

OK, I know the graphics & sound were barely better than GBC (but they were better). This is really a case of game design beating out flashiness. First of all, compared to most systems, NGPC had very few bad games (if any could even be considerd bad - maybe just a few mediocre ones). Most were good, and some were really great. Match of the Millenium (great fighting plus minigames galore), Last Blade, Samurai Shodown 2 and a few others are among THE best fighting games ever created for a handheld. Similarly, other genres sport some remarkable games as well, like the Metal Slugs (action), Faselei (strategy), Card Fighters Clash (cards/RPG) etc. In fact SNK invented Warioware - but most people don't know that. Well, OK not actually THE Warioware - but if you ever played Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun (I have the import cart - not sure it runs properly yet in any emulator) you'd understand where much of Warioware's inspiration probably came from. It was a very unique game full of personality and composed of dozens of short arcadish minigames - sound familiar?

(Read this Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun review for more info.)

And what really impressed was the depth of the NGPC games. They weren't just slapped together, but carefully crafted by people who placed gameplay above all else. Remember - the NeoGeo AES/MVS is remembered for great graphics and sound, because at release it was the most advanced system ever made. But it lived on long after that not due to audio-visuals, but because behind the glitz of many NeoGeo games was a ton of depth that might not be apparent at first glance. SNK were very good game designers. A lot of talent there. Not just a bunch of good 2D artists. SNK rocked, and so did the NGPC. They just couldn't compete with Nintendo's GBA, and a mostly ignorant public that considered handhelds to be synonymous with Gameboy, and ONLY Gameboy.

So the NGPC became a cult favorite for all the things it did right, despite the unsophisticated graphics & sound hardware. And the thing that was perhaps most unique about the NGPC was the digital thumbstick. Those who love it, swear by it (as I do) so whenever I see another system using thattype of control (so far ONLY GamePark) I'm very happy.

I just hope to see a full speed NGPC emulator on GPX2.

 

[triksR4rabits]

I just hope to see a full speed NGPC emulator on GPX2.

​

funny- I'm waiting for one on the gp32

ngpc was my favorite handheld ever. The games I owned (metal slug, cardfighters, and motm) were all fantastic. I hope rlyeh's fday release of fngpc will be as polished as all his other emu's

 

[x68000]

at prophet:

i have to say that was the most well informed answer i've seen on the forum in ages! i'm looking forward to a competent emu for the neo pocket so i can give it another chance.

my neo pocket was the monochrome version and the only games i had were neo cup '98 and FF r-1. both launch titles, so i'm sure i wasnt getting the best impression of what it could do.

i hope that the xgp2 can emulate the amiga reasonably well and then i'd personally pay someone to develop a x68000 emulator if it was feasible. If people could see what it is capable of, i'm sure there would be a lot x68k addicts like me!

 

[Magus 86]

You know, I never even heard of a Neo-Geo Pocket until maybe a year or 2 ago. I probably wouldn't have been very interested in it anyway though at the time when it came out. For one thing, i got my gameboy long before GBC... before GB Pocket, even. And the only other handheld i ever got was a sega gamegear like 5 years later... I was dissapointed with both, but even moreso with the gamegear because more of the stuff on the gameboy that i played was closer to its NES counterpart than the Gamegear games that I played were to their Genesis counterparts. Most likely, had I actually heard of the Neo-Geo Pocket at the time it was out, I wouldn't have been interested in it anyway becuase it was unfamiliar to me, and I probably wouldn't want it unless I heard good stuff about it. Plus, I had no money, so it wasn't my choice anyway cuz I was a young kid with no job... but I doubt I would have tried to convince my parents to buy it for me without knowing how good it was firsthand. But since nobody I knew had one, I never even heard of it. I'd like to try it though. If a Neo-Geo Pocket emulator comes out for the GPX2, I'll try it out then. Hopefully it won't dissapoint me. I'm extremely picky with the games I like... and hellishly critical, especially when one game that came out after another one is really similar but not as good to the point where it seems like a shitty ripoff attempt.

By the way... can anybody out there suggest some good GBA games becuase I know that I haven't tried them all or anywhere near all of them... but I still want to try some good games. there has to be at least 5 games that I'd like, right? I mean look at how many there are... I couldn't find advance wars, which i heard was good. I tried golden sun, but I got stuck after like a minute. There were these damn boulders blocking everything and nobody to talk to to advance the story. Anyone who suggests any super mario advance is getting stabbed in the eyes. They're all crappy attempted remakes. Don't tell me to play warioware either because i've tried it, and that game blows. The Street Fighter 2 Turbo remake was actually pretty good. Zelda 4 Swords blows... they changed stuff in the Link to the Past part of it for absolutely no reason, and if I wanted to play A Link to the Past, I'd play it on my GP32, SNES, or PC. Other than the stuff I mentioned that I know I don't like, please suggest some games for me to try out. I REALLY REALLY want to give GBA a chance. I've been extremely dissapointed so far, but if there's a game on it that I'd like, I wanna know about it. Oh yeah... No Mario Kart either... or any other racing game for that matter.

 

[C B Felterbush]

Well as I don't know what kind of games you like. I will go with what are in my opinion some of the best on the GBA. First off is Fire Emblem 7 & 8 then Advance Wars 1 & 2, FF Tactics Advance is good as is Golden Sun 1&2. Sword of Mana is a good play, though not a copy it is very similar to Seiken Densetsu 3 and Sword of Mana for the Snes.

I have herd good things about the Final Fantasy compilation, but like you if I want to play it I would just as soon play the original.

In all reality there is no reason to even have a GBA any more. I would say if you had the $$ invest in a DS or wait till the XGP and GPx2 come out. See which one gets the attention, and the devs that you're interested in and chase that horse. Because frankly there is no reason to have a GBA when the only games that are on it are watered down versions of Snes titles or Turbo Graphix re-hash. <_<



gp32_console gp32_console gp32_console gp32_console gp32_console

 

[Magus 86]

hehe, well of course I'm not gonna buy a GBA. I've hated Nintendo ever since they came out with their N64... but I still feel that I should at least give their stuff a chance... not by buying it myself, but by trying it thru either emulation or borrowing from a friend... or just trying it at a friend's house. So far the only thing that hasn't dissapointed me to the point of wanting to bomb Nintendo is Ocarina of Time.


Oh, and I'm already planning on getting a GPX2 for sure

 

[Alpha2]

In golden sun you might be in one of those places where you have to use your powers to telekinetically push a rock or something. atleast it sounds that way to me, most deadends seem to be conquered that way.

While I've hated Nintendo for a lot of rht ecrap they pulled in the 16 and 32bit eras I've always had no problem with their portable stuff. It's like the two divisions were completly run by differently thinking people.

As for good GBA games I think FFtactics Advance is good for a strategy game, the Metroid games are easily classic, Mario and Luigi Superstar saga is a suprisingly good RPG and of course the Advance wars games.

 

[DaveC]

I wonder who the two devs are that plan on getting and only coding for the XGP? I wonder why they like that one better?

 

[C B Felterbush]

Two devs?? I wonder what they will try to do.

Unlike Dave I see a lot of possibilities with the XGP. Not in the emulation ring but with the porting of certain games. I also think the possibility of a Playstation, Saturn or N64
emulator is a bigger possibility on the XGP than the Gpx2. Though I think those possibilities are VERY slim, and maybe never full speed.

If the Processor speed doesn't get a boost by release I will not care about the XGP anyway.

Well regardless I will be happy with the GPx2.

 

[Prophet]

All the "big" emu devs have already mentioned interest in GPX2. So these 2 are probably homebrew game devs interested in doing 3D.

Someone has to like XGP afterall. Even ugly girls get kissed. Eventually.

 

[Squidge]

I'm into doing 3D myself, but I prefer to do it on the PSP at the moment simply because I already have a PSP. I don't see any point buying a lower spec machine to doing the same work.

Must admit though, it may be good for people who can't find a 1.5 PSP.

 

[Huxley]

They just couldn't compete with Nintendo's GBA, and a mostly ignorant public that considered handhelds to be synonymous with Gameboy, and ONLY Gameboy.

Good summary of the NGPC for the unitiated Prophet (it is, after all, THE console that really got me into handheld gaming), but I'm not too sure you're aware of this little inaccuracy. The NGPC didn't fail because the GBC/GBA killed it, but rather because Azure (their one-time owners) pulled the plug prematurely, restricting sales to the Japanese markets only. Of course SNK could never hope to outsell Nintendo, but they were holding their own before they got a$$f*cked by Azure (who, incidently, were responsible for most of those awful fruit machine smiulations - by far the worst games on the NGPC), especially in Europe where the console was actively marketed. The cheif reason for this was timing - SNK released the NGPC at a point when interest in the Gamboy was fading and before Nintendo released the GBA. The NGPC, with decent support from the big chains like Game, offered a good stop-gap solution for those gamers who weren't infatuated with Pokemon. In truth I doubt SNK would have gone on to secure a sizeable chunk of the market in any territory, but I guess we'll never know - Azure bankrupted SNK before they got the chance to do it themselves.

Anyway, way OT here again