It's been a minute or two since my last report from the shores of MiSTerland so it's time to bring you some of the latest updates heard on the winds of retro game replication and preservation. This time I'll be looking at the final beta release of Jose Tejada's highly anticipated CPS2 MiSTer FPGA core and his plans for the near future. Come take a look at what's new in old gaming.
The CPS2 arcade core nears closer to public release
The MiSTer FPGA project has taken one more step towards arcade replication nirvana with the CPS2 core now in final beta from notable electronics engineer, Jose 'jotego' Tejada. This isn't nearly the first time I've discussed jotego's work in a MiSTerland update, and it'll likely be long from the last given his prolific output. Just recently, Jose has decided that his CPS2 beta core has overcome the majority of hurdles preventing a public release with this final beta. There are still a couple bugs present in the beta core, but he's confident that a version suitable for the general MiSTer FPGA user base will be ready in the coming weeks.
Available with this final beta release are a quartet of remaining CPS2 titles, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting Anniversary Edition, Armored Warriors, Giga Wing, and Mars Matrix. SF2 Hyper Fighting Anniversary Edition is perhaps the shining gem of the new games supported with its definitive collection of SF2 styles, characters, stages, and music. Armored Warriors is an interesting beat-em-up that served as direct inspiration for one-on-one fighter Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness by lending the same "Variant Armor" mech designs. Giga Wing and Mars Matrix are both vertical shoot-em-up games that take place in the YOKO or horizontal orientation. Personally, I prefer my vertical shooters in TATE or vertical mode for the increased play field and reaction time, but I will reserve judgement on these titles until I can give them a proper play through.
With the majority of CPS2 work out of the way, jotego has resumed work on Sega System 16 games and released a public core for an early Konami arcade game, Labyrinth Runner/Trick Trap. This is a fairly obscure TATE MODE adventure that I had never played and really enjoyed. Being a public release, one just needs to run the update_all script on their MiSTer FPGA to check it out themselves and I highly recommend doing so. I look forward to being able to experience these earlier arcade gems that were just a bit before my time.
