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The Amiga 500 mini announced

nkarafo

Member
Super Frog was a wannabe Sonic the Hedgehog but nowhere near as good...(even graphically speaking..) Defender of the Crown was a glorified tech demo, and Body Blows was nowhere near as good as Streetfighter 2, let alone Fatal Fury, (I remember a review back when Body Blows was released that the character when controlling them it felt like they were "weightless" ) it was good from a presentation point of view but that's about it...

I don't particularly like most of these games myself but they are iconic Amiga games. Defender of the Crown was the game that showed of it's capabilities earlier on, with Shadow of the Beast doing the same thing a bit later.

Superfrog for the Amiga may not be as good as Sonic but it's still one of the best platformers for the Amiga. The standards were different.

Again, i don't think the quality of the games is the most important thing here but whether or not these games are iconic for the system. Pretty sure all the other minis had some mediocre games in the lists just for that.


..You can add the rest (y)
You can play other games from USB, including WHDLoad games.
Well, if adding our own games is the solution then there are a lot of cheaper emulation devices that can do the job.

Which is why i believe the only thing that's worth about these minis is the cool looking replica shells.
 

Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
I don't particularly like most of these games myself but they are iconic Amiga games. Defender of the Crown was the game that showed of it's capabilities earlier on, with Shadow of the Beast doing the same thing a bit later.

Superfrog for the Amiga may not be as good as Sonic but it's still one of the best platformers for the Amiga. The standards were different.

Again, i don't think the quality of the games is the most important thing here but whether or not these games are iconic for the system. Pretty sure all the other minis had some mediocre games in the lists just for that.




Well, if adding our own games is the solution then there are a lot of cheaper emulation devices that can do the job.

Which is why i believe the only thing that's worth about these minis is the cool looking replica shells.
Not necessarily, the Amiga is an absolute pain in the arse to emulate on some devices. Having it all working in mini form is a god send for me..

I've spent a lot more on worse items in the past.
 

Castef

Banned
Am I correct in thinking Zool 2 had no sound effects just music? Going by that video...
At the options screen you can select between music and Sfx. Too bad raising the ram amount does not allow you to have both, as it happens in other games.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
At the options screen you can select between music and Sfx. Too bad raising the ram amount does not allow you to have both, as it happens in other games.
Even with all that technology back then you couldn't get the best of both worlds....crazy..
 

Nickolaidas

Member
Well, people like Chris Huelsbeck actually managed to sweeze wonderful audio (music + SFX) out of the barebone Amiga 500.
I think that Chris Huelsbeck was the best thing to grace the Amiga era in terms of music.

While many praise his Turrican 1-3 soundtracks (which are indeed excellent, especially Turrican 3's), I consider his work on Jim Power and Apidya II equally excellent, if not more.
 

8BiTw0LF

Banned
Not necessarily, the Amiga is an absolute pain in the arse to emulate on some devices. Having it all working in mini form is a god send for me..

I've spent a lot more on worse items in the past.
Do we know anything about how the emulation on the mini will be?
 

01011001

Banned
I think that Chris Huelsbeck was the best thing to grace the Amiga era in terms of music.

While many praise his Turrican 1-3 soundtracks (which are indeed excellent, especially Turrican 3's), I consider his work on Jim Power and Apidya II equally excellent, if not more.

Hülsbeck did some crazy shit with those sound chips. but his best work imo was not even on the Amiga, but instead on the Mega Drive in Mega Turrican.
 

nkarafo

Member
Now wait a second, i thought this was supposed to be an Amiga 500 mini? If so, what's Alien Breed 3D doing in the game list? Isn't that an Amiga 1200 game at minimum?
 

ZoolNL

Member
I don't particularly like most of these games myself but they are iconic Amiga games. Defender of the Crown was the game that showed of it's capabilities earlier on, with Shadow of the Beast doing the same thing a bit later.

Superfrog for the Amiga may not be as good as Sonic but it's still one of the best platformers for the Amiga. The standards were different.

Again, i don't think the quality of the games is the most important thing here but whether or not these games are iconic for the system. Pretty sure all the other minis had some mediocre games in the lists just for that.




Well, if adding our own games is the solution then there are a lot of cheaper emulation devices that can do the job.

Which is why i believe the only thing that's worth about these minis is the cool looking replica shells.
The look is a big one, but a mouse and replica controller helps also
 

01011001

Banned
Mega Turrican is, essentially, Turrican 3 on the Amiga. It uses the exact same soundtrack and it sounds much better on the Amiga.

that's where I disagree, I like the Mega Turrican sound way better... and Mega Turrican in general is superior to Turrican 3, which was bogged down by some of the hardware limitations of the Amiga.

also, it was way more of an accomplishment imo to have a game sound as good as it did on the MegaDeive as compared to the Amiga.
 
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Fredrik

Member
It’s more like a mini Amiga Cd32 haha
Duck Dynasty Laugh GIF by DefyTV

Pretty much 🙁 No joystick, no Amiga 500. And the nostalgia won’t be the same. Are we going to jump in Turrican by pressing up on a D-pad? Or will it be mapped to buttons like console games? Won’t be the same thing. And no functional keyboard either, it’ll either be a messy overlay keyboard you control with a D-pad or it’ll be incredibly limited in use with no keyboard games working properly.
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Now wait a second, i thought this was supposed to be an Amiga 500 mini? If so, what's Alien Breed 3D doing in the game list? Isn't that an Amiga 1200 game at minimum?
It can run A500, A1200 and CD32 titles.

No doubt someone will hack it so it can run SNES and MD too :)
 

01011001

Banned
Duck Dynasty Laugh GIF by DefyTV

Pretty much 🙁 No joystick, no Amiga 500. And the nostalgia won’t be the same. Are we going to jump in Turrican by pressing up on a D-pad? Or will it be mapped to buttons like console games? Won’t be the same thing. And no functional keyboard either, it’ll either be a messy overlay keyboard you control with a D-pad or it’ll be incredibly limited in use with no keyboard games working properly.

Turrican 3 had 2 button support and I think 1 and 2 even supported more than 2 buttons

so even on an actual Amiga you can bind jump to a button if you had a good joystick
 
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nkarafo

Member
that's where I disagree, I like the Mega Turrican sound way better... and Mega Turrican in general is superior to Turrican 3, which was bogged down by some of the hardware limitations of the Amiga.

also, it was way more of an accomplishment imo to have a game sound as good as it did on the MegaDeive as compared to the Amiga.

I agree that Mega Turrican sounds amazing for the Genesis sound hardware. I also agree, it's a better game than the Amiga version. But the soundtrack sounds more powerful in the Amiga version IMO.

There's also Super Turrican on SNES, which is a Turrican 3/Mega Turrican port. It has some levels and music missing but i think it sounds better than both.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
I agree that Mega Turrican sounds amazing for the Genesis sound hardware. I also agree, it's a better game than the Amiga version. But the soundtrack sounds more powerful in the Amiga version IMO.

There's also Super Turrican on SNES, which is a Turrican 3/Mega Turrican port. It has some levels and music missing but i think it sounds better than both.
I have Super Turrican, or had it on the SNES Mini, not sure if it is still there, controls take a bit of getting used to as now the main character is a bit of a Bionic Commando... with his grappling hook
 

nkarafo

Member
I have Super Turrican, or had it on the SNES Mini, not sure if it is still there, controls take a bit of getting used to as now the main character is a bit of a Bionic Commando... with his grappling hook
Pretty sure the first Super Turrican on SNES doesn't have the grappling hook mechanic.
 
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Agent X

Member
It should have at least 100 games IMO.

Retro Games (the manufacturer of this system) has to pay other publishers to license their games. Each additional game they bundle raises the cost of the system. If they were to include 100 games, then this system could end up costing $200 or more.

They chose to license just enough games to give the customer a good "starter library", while allowing the ability for a seasoned Amiga enthusiast to easily add his own personal favorites later (no arcane hacking necessary). This is the correct approach, compared to most other similar products where you are stuck with only the built-in games unless you have the knowledge and skill to hack the product.

Now wait a second, i thought this was supposed to be an Amiga 500 mini? If so, what's Alien Breed 3D doing in the game list? Isn't that an Amiga 1200 game at minimum?

It just looks like an Amiga 500. It can play AGA games.

And it's also called an Amiga 500 mini.

Nvm, i guess i'm thinking too much about it.

According to the product page on Retro Games' Web site, TheA500 Mini emulates both the Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200.

Retro Games did something similar with TheC64 (full-size) and TheVIC20. Each of these machines can emulate both the C64 and VIC-20 computers, and they include games designed for both computers.

TheC64 Mini emulates the C64 only.
 

Fredrik

Member
Turrican 3 had 2 button support and I think 1 and 2 even supported more than 2 buttons

so even on an actual Amiga you can bind jump to a button if you had a good joystick
I had a good joystick but if I used such a joystick I used the second button for the bomb and roll and the other for fire. Jump is up on all Amiga games I’ve played, and now it’s on a button I guess. Just feels wrong. And it bums me out since I can even use a Tac 2 on Raspberry Pi.
 

nush

Member
that's where I disagree, I like the Mega Turrican sound way better... and Mega Turrican in general is superior to Turrican 3,

I had a 50/60Htz Switch on my megadrive, boot the game in 50 to get past the protection then switch up to 60 and the soundtrack is amazing. Shoutout to Megadrive Chaos Engine having the same soundtrack speedboost.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Well we are getting best of both world then in the Amiga Mini, though you never really saw anything on the A1200 to suggest it was a 32 bit power-house. and then the CD32 came along, with questionable build quality built for the WRONG reasons....and then that was it.....a story of what could and SHOULD have been never realised...
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Indeed the CD32 was released to try and prevent bankruptcy but it was released in a mixed up rush and pissed the softcos off hence why there weren’t really that many specific CD32 titles.

The AGA chipset was never really used to its capabilities either on the A1200.
 

Futaleufu

Member
Well we are getting best of both world then in the Amiga Mini, though you never really saw anything on the A1200 to suggest it was a 32 bit power-house. and then the CD32 came along, with questionable build quality built for the WRONG reasons....and then that was it.....a story of what could and SHOULD have been never realised...
The closest thing to 32 bit games were FPSs like Alien Breed 3D but they ran like crap so instead it made the system look weak.
The game is in the Amiga mini, I hope they chose to emulate something faster when playing this game.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
The closest thing to 32 bit games were FPSs like Alien Breed 3D but they ran like crap so instead it made the system look weak.
The game is in the Amiga mini, I hope they chose to emulate something faster when playing this game.
The game looks rubbish compared to its contemporary - Rise of the Triads, (anyone remember that) they needed that big ass hud window in Alien Breed 3d as they knew making the screen any bigger would hit performance issues...I would like to see someone actually running a version of Doom on the most capable Amiga system there was... in 1993...even if the A1200 couldn't do it
 

Futaleufu

Member
The game looks rubbish compared to its contemporary - Rise of the Triads, (anyone remember that) they needed that big ass hud window in Alien Breed 3d as they knew making the screen any bigger would hit performance issues...I would like to see someone actually running a version of Doom on the most capable Amiga system there was... in 1993...even if the A1200 couldn't do it
In a 68060 powered Amiga Doom runs similar to a low spec 486 IBM PC (SX/DX-33)

 

RAIDEN1

Member
In a 68060 powered Amiga Doom runs similar to a low spec 486 IBM PC (SX/DX-33)


So it could pull it off, but was never done, I wonder why? Even if it was an A4000 exclusive.. Even Wolfenstein never made it over either! When Doom was all the rage in 1993/94 and the 16 bit system had a version....hell even the Atari Jaguar did which didn't exactly fare better than the CD32...
 
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Havoc2049

Member
So it could pull it off, but was never done, I wonder why? Even if it was an A4000 exclusive.. Even Wolfenstein never made it over either! When Doom was all the rage in 1993/94 and the 16 bit system had a version....hell even the Atari Jaguar did which didn't exactly fare better than the CD32...
The Jaguar is more powerful than the CD32. The CD32 was a consolized Amiga 1200. Plus, Doom came out in December 1993 and Commodore declared bankruptcy a few months later in early 1994. Atari survived until early 1996 and Doom for the Jaguar was developed by id and published by Atari in November 1994.

The Amiga mini will be able to play Wolfenstein 3D!
 

RAIDEN1

Member
The Jaguar is more powerful than the CD32. The CD32 was a consolized Amiga 1200. Plus, Doom came out in December 1993 and Commodore declared bankruptcy a few months later in early 1994. Atari survived until early 1996 and Doom for the Jaguar was developed by id and published by Atari in November 1994.

The Amiga mini will be able to play Wolfenstein 3D!

Yeah I know the Jag was more powerful, what I meant was the game wasn't exactly exclusive to platforms that had a somewhat firm standing in the gaming world...ie like the Jag....you didn't exactly see a bee-line of publishers wanting any of the Jag pie (for reason well documented yes..) but it is good to know how things panned out which explains why Doom never came out on any of the Amiga machines..
 

Bullet Club

Member



In this exclusive preview let’s boot up (& tear down) TheA500 Mini retro console prototype, see what it can do, if it's good or bad, & how this tiny incarnation of the Commodore Amiga 500 works! Not quite a review.




Hey all, welcome along to another video about the upcoming console The A500 Mini. Today We'll be having a look at the 25 games included with the console and checking out how magazines from th days they were released scored and reviewed them. It's attempt to see if they games included on the console were considered classics of their time. Join me as I find out just how well they scored, and if there are any rotten eggs!
 
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