New Forum, New NGPC Flash Cart

If you guys are looking for a place to chat about Cardfighters Clash 2, you should check out this new Neo Geo Pocket forum. When you go there, under Neo Geo Pocket Translations, you'll find discussion of the Cardfighters Clash 2 project.

In addition, the forum is open to pretty much anything NGPC related. If you're looking to interact with other NGPC guys, check it out.

One thing being discussed there is this Flashmasta/Linkmasta that's been in production. The picture shown here is taken from the most recent post at the Neo Geo Pocket flash cart website.

If you're looking to play Card Fighters Clash 2 in English on the actual hardware, you'll want the Flashmasta and Linkmasta.

Neo Pocket USB Linkmasta and Other Developments

There have been some developments in the Neo Geo Pocket community lately. These aren't directly related to Card Fighters' Clash 2, but you can make a connection as to how they may go together.


First of all, as you may see from the video, there is a new USB Linker in the works. This will allow people that have the old Bung carts to use them on their modern computers (without needing a parallel port). It can also interface with official game carts to do things like backup and restore savegame data. If you're interested in this, there's a discussion about it over at the Neo-Geo.com forum.

There is also a related project to create a new Neo Geo Pocket flash cart. You can find a bit more about that on Gerry's Neo Geo Pocket project page.

Finally, if you want to follow some of this progress, check out the developments like Neo Geo Pocket Flash Cart and Neo Geo Pocket USB Linker at Neo Geo Pocket Developments.

Back In The Game: Card Fighters Project

Some of you guys might remember the Card Fighters Project (or simply cardfighterproject.com), but it may be new to others. Basically, Tehcno created a way for everyone to play Card Fighters' Clash (1, 2, and DS) in real life. He painstakingly created graphics for each and every card in the series in a way that you can print them to have your own physical set of cards. It was a great resource, but unfortunately his hosting expired and the domain almost went with it.

Well, after a bit of a hiatus, http://www.cardfighterproject.com/ is back in the game. I think it's a great resource, and I'm glad to have it online again. What are you waiting for? Go buy some color printer cartridges and call your friends for a night of classic NGP gaming without the need for an actual NGP.

It's Been a While, Again!

I came by and decided to modernize the look of the site a bit. I hope you like it. I'm not sure it's better, but it's different/new. I added a few things. For example, you can now "Follow" this blog via the widget on the right. As I write this, I have ZERO followers. Maybe you'll be the first.

I've got some other NGPC related projects ramping up that I'm excited about. I may start posting about that and some other news soon. For now I really don't have much else to say, but I'll leave you with this...

While I was checking things out, I came across this video (among others). I thought you guys might like it. But, beware. SPOILER ALERT! The video is of YouTuber "YuRickYu" fighting the final battle of the game, and the ending storyline and in-game credits follow. If you don't want to know what happens, don't watch it.

K2_VIDEO Unit Exposed

My new best friend, NeoTurfMasta, over at NeoGeoFanClub.com recently released some pictures of the insides of his K2_VIDEO unit. This machine was used to allow Neo Geo Pocket developers (and perhaps reviewers) to play NGPC games on a TV or video capture device. Here's a direct link to his post about the SNK K2_VIDEO NGP to TV adapter.

What's more is that Turfmasta has been using this hardware to create some nice video captures of Neo Geo Pocket Color games. This is excellent, because it gives you an idea of how the stuff runs on actual hardware without having a video taken by a camera of someone playing a NGPC (like I would do). To me, though, it's much more than that. It excites me to know that hardware like this has made its way into the hands of regular (non-SNK) people. I really appreciate that Turfmasta has gone out of his way to share his collection through the pictures and videos that he's providing. I wish more collectors would follow his lead and show us some other cool NGPC development or prototype hardware/software.

I'm working with Turfmasta a bit to try to get the BIOS of the K2_VIDEO unit dumped. I don't really know if it will ultimately produce anything amazing, but I fell that it's important to share this sort of thing. If we can get it into the capable hands of people like Judge and Flubba, perhaps they can find some hidden gems in there. Otherwise, I still feel that it's important to archive such things for historical and nostalgia purposes.


Oh, did you want this post to be CFC2English related? Okay. There's a video clip Turfmasta made by video capturing CFC2English running on his K2_VIDEO unit. Thanks again to the NeoGeoFanClub guys: Turfmasta, NeoBomberman, and rarehero.

GP2X Wiz Emulation

The GP2X Wiz has arrived. You can check out my GP2X Wiz review over at Play-Asia-Rulez if you like. Basically, it's a smaller, lighter, cooler, and faster GP2X.


As you can see, I have been working on bringing the NGPC emulator to the Wiz. The video shows the Neo Geo Pocket Color emulator running on the GP2X Wiz. Of course, I had to play some SNK Vs. Capcom CFC2 on it. I still need to tweak some things (like stretching the screen size), but it really does work well. Check out the Wiz if you're looking for a new toy to run all kinds of emulators and homebrew games.

In other NGPC news Thor released a great new homebrew game called Gears Of Fate. I highly recommend that you try it, and, if you have a way to try it on the actual NGPC, do it. It's an amazing bit of technical achievement. If you can't run it on hardware, try NeoPop or check out this video of Gears Of Fate on the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Nice Interview

This is just a brief note. There hasn't been anything noteworthy going on with the CFC2 translation lately, and I haven't been working on any other interesting projects. Real life is where it's at for the time being, I guess.

I did want to mention an article that I just read, though. It's an interview with Clyde Mandelin, AKA Tomato, who did the fan translation of Mother 3 (GBA). In it, he describes some of what goes into a translation, which is just like what I went through with this CFC2 translation. Give it a read. If you're here, I'd assume you'd find it interesting.

Gamasutra interview with, Mother 3 translator, Clyde Mandelin

Here's an excerpt.

"There are basically two major parts of a ROM translation, whether it's for the SNES or any other system: the hacking part and the translating part," he explains. "First, the hacker has to locate the game's font and produce what's called a table. Using this, the hacker can then start to locate the text data."

"Once it's been found and figured out, the hacker can then dump the Japanese text to a file. The translator then takes this file and translates it. The translator usually just types the translated text using something like Notepad, but for really big projects, the hacker might create a custom program to make it easier on the translator."

Have I Become A Real Blogger? Does Play-Asia Actually Rule?

Yeah, yeah, I know. This isn't really CFC2/NGPC related news. I'm not sure it's even news, but I thought that there's a chance that some of you might care.



Well, there it is. Apparently, Play-Asia Rulez. It's not so much a statement as it is a link to a new blog that posts about cool games/products (that in general happen to be available for purchase at Play-Asia). You might find tips/tricks, reviews, discussions, etc.

The reason that I'm posting about this here (and the reason that it is at all relevant to this blog) is that I am one of the contributors at http://play-asia-rulez.blogspot.com/. In fact, I have the distinction of being the author of the first post on the blog which is an article about the game "Delta Warp" for the NGPC. If you care, you can find that Delta Warp article here.

So, let me know (either as a comment to this post or one of my Play Asia Rulez posts) what you think about it. If you have any suggestions for future articles, let me know. I'm sure that there will be a Cardfighters post there sometime in the future.

Emulation News

This isn't strictly CFC2English-specific, but there is some news about new developments in NGPC emulation that I thought I should mention.

First of all, a guy called FluBBa has been working on a new NGPC emulator that runs on the GBA. That's right, Neo Geo Pocket on the GameBoy Advance. My hope is that he will use the same emulation engine and build a version for the Nintendo DS. Based on what I know about the design of his emulator, I think it has a good chance to run near full speed on the DS. FluBBa's site (with downloads of his emulators) can be found at http://www.ndsretro.com/.

During development of his emulator, FluBBa noticed that certain games check a (previously thought to be unused) bit in the input status byte. Basically, there's a byte (8 bits) in the NGPC that contains the status of all the inputs. On a normal NGPC, there are 7 inputs (up, down, left, right, A, B, and Option). That leaves one bit unused. It seems that it's not totally unused after all. This bit seems to be the "D" button for debugging. Perhaps it is included as an input on the development hardware.

I made a quick hack to RACE! so that I could test this find. I tested it with several games, but I only found 3 that seemed to respond when I hit the "D" button. These games are Card Fighters' Clash, Card Fighters' Clash 2, and Dokodemo Mahjong. So, this news does relate to CFC2English. At the right, you should see a screenshot of CFC2English running the debug menu (which pops up when the "D" button is pressed). http://www.insertcredit.com/ also has a post about this find which has a link to download screenshots of all 3 games' debug features.

Speaking of RACE!, there is a new version of RACE! for the PSP. A guy named Akop (AKA Uberjack) has continued the RACE! project. He is known for porting emulators to the PSP. Here is his blog post about the release. Here is the link to download RACE! PSP. This new version has a nicer menu system among other user interface improvements. I don't plan to compete with Uberjack for RACE! updates. My current feeling is that Uberjack's version of RACE! is the official PSP version. If things (like the "D" button) need to be added to RACE!, they should show up in his version. At this time, I don't plan to release new versions of RACE! on my own.

It's Been a While

Well, it's been a while since the release. I haven't heard much for complaints, which I assume is good. In my experience, if people are quiet that means there's nothing wrong. It could also mean that nobody cares, but in either case I don't have much else to do on the project.

I just got word that a guy called "drunkenmaster226" put up a YouTube video of CFC2 English. Thank you for that. It's nice because it shows the "old school style intro" and gives people a nice glimpse of what the game is like. It was obviously taken using an emulator because you can hear the audio slowing down in places, but it's still a nice introduction to the game. You can watch it here, or over at YouTube.



I'm not sure what else to discuss at this point. The interest seems to have fallen off quite a bit. Though, that's what I expected. I think most people that cared have already downloaded it. If you're enthusiastic about this release, though, maybe you ought to go spread the word around to other sites/forums/etc. where there might be other people that would enjoy it. There are probably a lot of people that played CFC on the NGPC that haven't even looked around for new NGPC news since they stopped playing their. They might not know about CFC2 English, and they might like to know that it's playable on the PSP and Nintendo DS. If they don't care, that's fine, but I assume there are people out there that would care if they knew to care.

As always, I enjoy the comments, so if you've got anything to say, leave a message.