Mad Stalker coming on cart by Columbus Circle (?)

[Zebbe]

https://twitter.com/operahouseinfo/s...48718295019520

Recently, the prototype for Mad Stalker, a mech game which was released for the X68000 computer and ported to the Mega Drive (but never released), was found. According to the above post (cred to PlutieDev (Sik) for re-tweeting), it seems like Columbus Circle (Gleylancer, Ultracore and that rhythm game) will announce something about it next week.

More info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_St...ll_Metal_Forth

[CrossBow]

Isn't there a Neo-Geo port of this game? Or am I thinking of something else?

[Genesis Knight]

Cool. I wonder how complete it is, and how limited the quantities will be. Gleyancer was ludicrously limited.

[Barone]

Oh, boy, even during the pandemic the Mega Drive remains on fire!

If it's a properly tested/bug fixed version, it can be a great addition to the library.

[Gryson]

Looks like they're keeping the presumably incorrect English subtitle "Full Metal Forth". The PlayStation version corrected this to "Full Metal Force". Both 'forth' and 'force' are written the same in Japanese (フォース) so whoever did the title likely chose the wrong option in the dictionary.

But, then again, what would a retro Japanese game be without a weird English title?

[Sik]

Isn't there a Neo-Geo port of this game? Or am I thinking of something else?

No Neo Geo port as far as I know, though there is a PS1 port.

The Mega Drive port was scheduled to be released back then but they couldn't get the game to fit below 1MB, and ROM prices had just spiked so anything larger than that was going to be too expensive to be acceptable for them. I need to check again but they mentioned this in one of their tweets.

Nowadays 4MB worth of Flash is cheap :​P (in fact smaller sizes are more expensive due to being less common)

Cool. I wonder how complete it is, and how limited the quantities will be. Gleyancer was ludicrously limited.

I recall they tweeting about how they had issues with the music and were busy fixing it, so yeah they actually worked on fixing up all the bugs and such. So my guess is "complete enough".

Also Gleylancer had a second run from what I remember, but I guess that one was mostly overlooked (・～・) Who the heck could predict that 2500 cartridges would not be enough?

Looks like they're keeping the presumably incorrect English subtitle "Full Metal Forth". The PlayStation version corrected this to "Full Metal Force". Both 'forth' and 'force' are written the same in Japanese (フォース) so whoever did the title likely chose the wrong option in the dictionary.

But, then again, what would a retro Japanese game be without a weird English title?

Mad Stalker is a weird name in itself if you think about it (what, are you stalking people? 0_0)

[Gryson]

Not as bad as Lady Stalker!

[Barone]

(what, are you stalking people? 0_0)

You're very funny, Sik. Lol.

[SBlaise84]

No Neo Geo port as far as I know, though there is a PS1 port.

Are you talking about modern ports? Otherwise Mad Stalker is also on PCE CD

[CrossBow]

Are you talking about modern ports? Otherwise Mad Stalker is also on PCE CD

That is where I've heard of it before! So the game has a port on the PC-Engine. I knew I had heard of the name before and I thought it was considered to be a good game as well? Now I have to look it up again LOL!

[Mad Moham]

There better be a rom release or there will be yet another game that I pirate. I have zero interest in buying carts anymore.

[Kamahl]

Mad Stalker is a pretty cool game. There's 2 "main versions" so to say, the X68000 original and the slightly worse FM Towns version (lacks parallax scrolling and runs at a lower resolution). The Arcade card PCE-CD version is based on the FM Towns versions and actually loads the entire game into the Arcade card right at the start and never loads anything again . Talk about overkill...

[Zebbe]

Japan has a charming way to express their English. Not only do they spell words incorrectly, they have quite fun uses of them too (Donkey Kong, Mista Satan, Lunatic Gunstar, Gynoug - what does that even mean?).

Hopefully there is something good and unique about the MD port compared to the PC Engine version - a nice FM soundtrack, H40 res, parallax scrolling or anything.

And yeah, because of the quality of Columbus Circle's hardware, I hope someone dumps the game so my cart copy can collect dust while I play the ROM on my Everdrive.

[Kamahl]

Something like this you mean?



It would surprise me a lot if it wasn't based on this version.

[turboxray]

Mad Stalker is a pretty cool game. There's 2 "main versions" so to say, the X68000 original and the slightly worse FM Towns version (lacks parallax scrolling and runs at a lower resolution). The Arcade card PCE-CD version is based on the FM Towns versions and actually loads the entire game into the Arcade card right at the start and never loads anything again . Talk about overkill...

It's a low-res 256x256 X68k game, so vertical clipping isn't going to hurt it much.

Japan has a charming way to express their English. Not only do they spell words incorrectly, they have quite fun uses of them too (Donkey Kong, Mista Satan, Lunatic Gunstar, Gynoug - what does that even mean?).

Hopefully there is something good and unique about the MD port compared to the PC Engine version - a nice FM soundtrack, H40 res, parallax scrolling or anything.

And yeah, because of the quality of Columbus Circle's hardware, I hope someone dumps the game so my cart copy can collect dust while I play the ROM on my Everdrive.

It's native 256px wide on the x68k, but even if they redraw stuff.. it's gonna need a lot more than res and parallax haha.


The game's OK. At first glance is looks pretty exciting, and it definitely had potential, but it's ends up being repetitive and uninspiring after a while. Sound track is nice though, and visuals at first sight.. are pleasant. The moves and such as nice too, but nothing feels balanced or rewarding as you continue to play (plow) through it. This game is basically a Genocide 2 clone.. but not as good.