| smbhax [sys=SAT; cat=Sports; reg=J] |
| | | I'm getting a Saturn for this game. ]+]
My SFC version (see entry 2029) is still on the way. But I think they're different courses anyway, so neat, TWO golf games set in hell.
It's funny because this came out in December 95 and T&E Soft's non-hell golf sim with similarly heavy use of FMV characters, Pebble Beach Golf Links: Stadler ni Chousen, came out February 95 but looks way worse, way more boring (well, it isn't in hell I guess), and the UI is WAY clunkier--like, it doesn't even show you an overhead map of the course until AFTER you've hit the ball! >_<
So I don't have to get that one. ; D |
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| | | | The US version, Valora Valley Golf, is $70 disc-only on eBay; J version I got, case and all, was $15. J version menus are Japanese (gotta figure out if there's a mode where you don't have to have a CPU player in there with you ; D; NintendoComplete was vs a CPU so I suppose probabaly not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWcwkUBxP-k ); FMVs and stuff are still English. |
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| | | AH yes the Stroke Play mode, unlike the other non-practice modes (and Practice is pick-a-hole) can do 1P: when you get to the "Select Number of Players" screen with an orange golfer icon ("Player") and an blue golfer icon ("Computer") below it, left-right on either changes the number of entries--so down one to the blue golfer, and left one to remove them. ( https://segaretro.org/images/5/59/Valoravalleygolf_sat_us_manual.pdf )
And you can click on them to assign named golfers you've created in the uh Member Data or whatever mode that is (which just consists of entering a name for them).
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From the Pebble Beach manual https://archive.org/details/Pebble_Beach_Golf_Links_1995_Sega_Sports_US/page/n5/mode/2up , if you toggle Caddy off in Options, the mini-map will show up. ; D |
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| | | | The Hyper Golf caddies are the same FMV actors from Pebble Beach. ^ _^ |
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| | | The Confirm and action button in these T&E games defaults to C, but you can reassign that in options--think I'd rather have it on A, like Saturn (I think) default (A still confirms in the T&E game menus, but not during gameplay!).
These T&E games have a "Widescreen" option, which in Mednafen just makes the player and ball look skinny ; D until you also set "ss.stretch full" (assuming your output device is ~16x9) and "ss.xscale 4" (assuming you left ss.yscale at the default 3) in the cfg--and then it's AWESOME! = D WOW! SATURN DOES THE BEST 2D HOTCHA HOTCHA!! ^ DDDDDD^ (Probably want to have "ss.videoip 0" also to disable bilinear filtering so it isn't super-blurry.)
You can get the mini-map in Pebble by sacrificing the caddy, who otherwise is prancing beside you all the time (they're not really there most of the time in Hyper I don't think) BUT until you swing the minimap just shows a stub for direction, not distance! Jeez.
T&E did another Saturn golf game between Pebble and Hyper: "Masters: Harukanaru Augusta 3," and two more in '97, following Pebble & Hyper's schedule of late Feb and mid Dec: "Waialae no Kiseki: Extra 36 Holes" and "Jun Classic C.C. & Rope Club."
Masters has the same problems as Pebble (one other problem Masters and likely Pebble although I didn't check have is you can't access Options during gameplay); might be SLIGHTLY better looking.
Waialae is again slightly better looking but the caddy-sacrificed minimap, while slightly bigger, still doesn't show shot distance (okay so these show you club max distance as a number during club selection but that's AFTER you picked shot direction, so if you then want to change your aim you have to back up in the shot procedure by hitting B 'p'), and now if you go over full power for the swing meter it goes straight to zero power so you totally fluff the shot completely, ARGH.
Jun doesn't even have a caddy (they appeared to share actors and probably a lot of footage between all these games) so the minimap is at least visible by default, but takes the rest of Waialae's problems and runs with them, adding at least three more: 1) defaults to Easy Shot option (no accuracy click), 2) the ground abruptly loses all textures while the ball is in flight, and 3) NO WIDESCREEN!
So it was all downhill after Hyper? = o Anyway looks like this is still the only Saturn game I need. ^ _^ |
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| | | Pebble Beach J version has widescreen.
Pebble Beach and Valora Valley Golf (Hyper localizations name) UC/EUR DO NOT HAVE THE WIDESCREEN OPTION! It was removed for the localizations!!! I suppose this is why googling in the case of Valora/Hyper shows nobody talking (in English, anyway) about a widescreen option, and NintendoComplete didn't do any videos with it.
HOLY MOLY. Nobody in the West seems to know about this. = oo Sega Retro includes Masters and Waialae in their https://segaretro.org/Category:Saturn_games_with_anamorphic_widescreen_support list, but doesn't say anything about it in the articles themselves, which are stubs--and doesn't have the other ones listed in it.
Widescreen for a few of the games comes up in this thread https://forums.sonicretro.org/threads/the-internet-lies-cheat-code-edition.41128/page-6#post-1036184 but just from spotting it in videos; nobody really tries it themselves. |
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| | | | (Note to self: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/extract-images pretty good for extracting images from .pdfs up to a certain size.) |
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| | | | I can't find a scan of the J manual online. I think the copy I ordered comes with it, so there's another golf game manual (along with Genesis WCLB, which only has a very grainy scan) I'll have to scan and put on archive. ; D |
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| | | Technically this is anamorphic 16:9 widescreen, ie compressed into 4:3 and then stretched by the display device or whatever.
I was looking forward to submitting widescreen screenshots to MobyGames, but they want them in original resolution and technically they're still 4:3 resolution. ; D But probably worth doing anyway, you could see they were compressed (golfer and big ball). |
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| | | In katakana:
ザ・ハイパーゴルフ デビルズコース
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPxe4eLQOOQ |
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| | | | Pebble Beach Golf Links was a launch title in the US! |
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| | | Oh I was mistaking hole 2 for hole 1 in the 16-bit versions 'p'--the 16 ("Wicked 18" in the West) and 32-bit versions ARE the same course.
The J 32-bit version has a gray sky in hole 1 while it's blue in the US! 'p'
They removed the caddy from always being next to you at the tee as they were in the other games, where you had to turn the caddy off to get the mini-map. I wonder if that and this being the only one where they show the club distance on the mini-map were to make up for the insanity of the course, vs the more sedate real-world-based courses in their other games. I guess that could explain it. I think I prefer insane course difficulty and better informational feedback over the alternative. ; ) |
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| | | Oh! It's not just the last two, it's all their Saturn games EXCEPT Hyper where the power meter doesn't bounce off the end, it resets from the start. Oof wow no I can't handle that, so I guess I DON'T have to pick up any of their other Saturn golf games. Sheesh.
I guess they wanted their "realistic" ones to be extra tough for pro players or whatnot, but yeah they really felt they had to pile on the accessibility, swing-wise, for Hyper, to make up for the insane course design--and anyway it wasn't "real" so who cares, have fun. But uh yeah I can't take the realness of the others no. |
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| | | To get rid of the vertical black bars in anamorphic widescreen at 1080p:
ss.stretch 0
ss.xscalefs 6.437
ss.yscalefs 4.828 |
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| | | | ^ Okay that setting might have caused a Mednafen semi-freeze/reset. ; D More testing needed. Might have to go back to letting Mednafen stick with its default little black top/bottom bars in the widescreen. ; ) |
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| | | | "T&E Soft Co., Ltd was founded in 1982, named after the founders, older brother Toshiro Yokoyama and his younger brother Eiji Yokoyama. The abbreviation was later changed to Tri & Exciting and then Technology & Entertainment." (Wikipedia) |
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| | | T&E Soft published the SFC version of Rise of the Robots (see entry 2052). ; D
On the PS2 they turned to cartoony golf games; their last was a Disney one. I wonder if the Mario Golf thing--via Camelot, then Clap Hanz--killed off the demand for golf "sim"-style games on console at the time. T&E Soft's PS2 style is a complete "Minna no Golf" (see entry 379) rip. |
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Tested more and Mednafen can't get past the game's 4th hole no matter what. Ymir can so I'll be using that to emulate the game next time. I reported the bug to Mednafen: https://forum.fobby.net/index.php?t=msg&goto=7136&#msg_7136
(I saw some graphical corruption on hole 3 with Ymir so I suppose I'll stick to Mednafen for other Saturn games unless they also run into problems.)
8:53 - Stroke Play, Hole 1
11:32 - Widescreen option and oh I got a Saturn and stuff
27:06 - about Hyper Shots & the swing meter
32:13 - Hyper Shot mega-flub into water hazard! ; D
36:37 - Cart Cam!
40:35 - "Operation instructions" & "Help menu"
42:52 - some other buttons
53:52 - Fire Hyper Shot!
1:07:04 - hang & blather
The first 4 of T&E Soft's 5 Saturn golf game releases in Japan have the widescreen option, including the first one, Pebble Beach Golf Links: Stadler ni Chousen ("Challenge Stadler"; Craig Stadler is the walrusy mustachioed pro golfer guy) and the third one--this one, The Hyper Golf: Devil's Course. Those are the two that made it to the US and Europe--with Hyper renamed to the bland-sounding "Valora Valley Golf"--but without their widescreen option.
I was wrong, there IS topspin/backspin: up or down on the d-pad after clicking for power, just like you'd expect from Mario Golf. Although the Hyper/Valora manuals
Valora manual text: https://archive.org/stream/redump_sega_saturn_202204/00%20Goodies/Manuals/Valora%20Valley%20Golf%20%28USA%29_djvu.txt
Valora manual scan: https://segaretro.org/File:Valoravalleygolf_sat_us_manual.pdf
add that you should aim for "the sweet spot" when getting out of a heavy lie, ie, don't swing low (backspin) or high (topspin) to get out of a bunker, heavy rough, etc. (The Japanese manual has a sweet diagram showing all the stuff (snow??) your ball can sit in; really gotta scan that manual for archive.org.)
The *I think* default-on "High definition" option is rendered thus in the Valora manual: "See Detail: The trees and gallery in the foreground are drawn with more detail. Please note, this option will slow the game."
In tournament modes the game puts pixelated throngs of spectators all around the course, I'd think that might slow it too then. ^ _^
Decided to stop being a scaredy cat and get T&E Soft's other Japanese golf games--not only on Saturn, but also on Super Famicom and PS1; some of them are different versions of the same title--TWO versions of Pebble Beach on SFC alone!--but they'll play significantly differently from each other. They're all pretty cheap on eBay.
Besides the SFC version of Devil's Course, which came West to the SNES as "Wicked 18," two of T&E Soft's other games made it from SFC to SNES: Waialae and their first SFC Pebble Beach. But I'm just going to stick to the Japanese versions of their stuff.
Actually I already have the first SFC one, Augusta, because I ordered it accidentally when I was trying to order the SFC version of this game, Devil's Course. ; D Was going to sell it--it's by far the most awkward of all of them, even their later SFC games--but I guess I'll keep it now as part of the collection.
So I had three (two SFC, one Saturn); the other T&E Soft games I ordered today were: 4 Saturn games, 3 PS1 games, 5 Super Famicom games.
... I mean, I didn't go FULL crazy and go after the three Mega Drive ones that as far as I can tell are just grainier versions of the SFC ones. (The PS1 ones really fly in 3D, looking forward to those. AND they allow the power meter to bounce back rather than reset like it does in the other Saturn (and SFC) games--but the bounce-back is a lot faster than in Hyper Golf.) Not to mention the MSX, PC98, and 3DO versions. ; D See my T&E Soft golf obsession is fully under control. Yep. ]_] |
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| | | | It looks like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oVv_5TepsI the 3DO version doesn't have Hyper Shots and doesn't show club distance on the minimap. 'p' |
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| | | | Oh! The button that pops up the side-view of the current shot terrain shows how the arc of the shot will land on top of a hill, like for hole 3. (Like this: https://youtu.be/Rhkafi2ukic?t=1488 ) |
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| | | Other T&E Soft golf games:
N64:
- Harukanaru Augusta Masters '98
- Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics (no J release)
Real lack of options, cramped UI (caddy AND mini-map), caddy doesn't do anything(?), bounce-back on power meter, more complicated click-through for swing set-up, no speech(option is on?), can't turn off rainbow aiming arc, extremely high winds, NO MUSIC! Just bird sounds. (ares)
PS2:
- Golf Paradise DX (there was a non-DX release as well just prior--mostly same screenshots on box)
Totally different set-up--through shoulder buttons etc. Very blurry graphics. No map. Creepy smoothed-out 20-something cartoon characters. Constantly talking 3D cartoon caddy. Can't turn off rainbow aim arc.
- Disney Golf Classics
EA published US version. Capcom published J version. Much sharper graphics. Donald, Mickey etc speak Japanese (non-English, anyway) in J version. No minimap but shows course map with aim after 1 click in /\ view. Multiple courses. Decent cartoon music. Very slow swing meter. Analogs move camera. Rainbow shot arc shows exactly where shot will go. Shows perfect shot position on meter for approach/putting. Soapy and smoothed-out. |
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| | | | Waialae is pronounced "why-uh-lie." |
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| | | T&E Soft's 1998 "Harukanaru Augusta for Windows" / "遙かなるオーガスタ for Windows" apparently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHgsjbnbaE / https://www.retrogameboards.com/t/anyone-for-golf/392/143 runs fine in modern Windows, it needs a serial number from the back of the case; not clear how running or installing from actual CD might go. Looks like it needs mouse input though. It came out 3 months after their last PS1 golf game. The last N64 golf game--which didn't have a J release--would come out a few weeks later--but unlike that one, the Windows one has music during play. But according to the guy who found it it is expensive and can be tricky to get running full-screen; he was using a controller with remapping, not clear if he used analog for the mouse.
Oh hey maybe I could do that with Links 386 Pro though. |
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| | | | Didn't see the (Japanese release only) Windows one on eBay even under completed items, so yeah probably expensive. ^ _^ |
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| | | The installer for the Windows game needs a serial number printed in a box in the center top half of the back of the manual.
It doesn't look like the installed game wants to run in Windows 11, not sure how those people behind the links above got it running. Win11 compatibility mode isn't doing it. Sooo wouldn't want to pay a lot for it if it does pop up on eBay 'cause I'm not sure I could run the darn thing anyway. |
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| | | Hm I wonder if it needs to have an actual CD in an actual drive; a PowerISO virtual drive didn't cut it for installing--whereas running the installer from PowerISO and choosing the "extract to temporary folder" option did--and didn't do anything to resolve being unable to run the installed game.
The owner of the thread and the commenter on the YT video is also in the "golf but weird" thread on selectbutton. 6 _^ They aren't taking PMs there though so oh well I'll live in mystery. It was their comment on YT that finally got it through my brain that oh I can just use DS4W for mouse games since he mentioned he'd mapped a controller for HAfW. |
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| | | Download added: 07_tee1_anamorph.png (59195 bytes)
"Tee 1, anamorphic option output (Mednafen screenshot, overscan cropped)"
The "overscan" (black borders) Mednafen's F9 screenshot (original game pixels; Shift+F9 screenshot's the user's actual output) includes increase the image size from Saturn's 320x224 base size; MobyGames asked me to crop them for the screenshot submissions showing the Japanese-version-exclusive anamorphic widescreen option that I sent them. |
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| | | | Mednafen can't advance past the end of the 4th hole in a play-through, but it can load hole 5 on its own in the game's Training mode. |
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| | | | Good article by guy who posts as matt at selectbutton (Google led me there when looking for T&E Soft info): https://blog.gingerbeardman.com/2024/11/09/new-3d-golf-simulation-video-game-series/ -- pointed out that the Genesis game (Pebble Beach Golf Links) doesn't dither the ground like the MD releases, so I'll get that one. |
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| | | | For Hyper Golf in widescreen setting in Mednafen I had somehow come up with dimensions of 1886x1080; in Ymir it's definitely looking correct at 16:9, not 16:10 (which in Ymir is 1730x1080 instead of 1728x1080 'p'). |
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| | | Oh that had to do with how Mednafen was handling the overscan area. Let's do 16x9 then:
ss.h_overscan 0
ss.correct_aspect 0
ss.stretch 0
ss.xscalefs 6
ss.yscalefs 4.828
(those are multiplying Saturn base res 320x224 to 1920x1080...although that would be 4.8214... or 223.695 pixels... But at 4.8214 scale there's a 1 pixel border at top, so I have to overscale slightly; I got it down to 4.8270834 but output is identical at 4.828). |
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| | | Some Saturn games use the the full border area enabled by Mednafen's ss.h_overscan, but most of the ones I have at least only use a few rows of it. For instance VF Remix and Sega Worldwide Soccer '98 show more background screen area--setting to 0 cuts that off, narrowing the visible playfield. Whereas in the T&E Soft golf games and Battle Monsters, the overscan adds just a few rows on either side--left a bit more than right--and then narrow black sidebars.
Oh but there are a FEW pixels rendered in there, so I don't want to turn off overscan in fact. Doh. So ignore that one turning it off. Leave
ss.h_overscan 1
and do
ss.correct_aspect 0
ss.stretch 0
ss.xscalefs 6.437
ss.yscalefs 4.828
So yeah probably don't ever turn overscan off. |
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| | | Nope had the wrong number in there for xscalefs; also, have to correct the windowed xscale (had 4). So:
ss.correct_aspect 0
ss.stretch 0
ss.xscalefs 6
ss.yscalefs 4.828
ss.xscale 3.737 |
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