New arrivals - brave blade and super puzzle fighter II X

I got a couple more parcels in the post at the back end of last week. Firstly, a brave blade pcb arrived from the US. I'd been looking for one for a little while, I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it properly. It's really different from all the other games they developed and the game play will take a little getting used to. I've got all the raizing shooties on pcb now. In alphabetical order, the 9 games are:
1944
armed police batrider
battle bakraid
battle garrega
brave blade
great mahou daisakusen / dimahoo
mahou daisakusen / sorcer striker
shippu mahou daisakusen / kingdom grand prix
soukyugurentai / terra diver

Also in the post was a copy of the awesome CPS2 puzzle game, super puzzle fighter II X. This is a yellow cased rental version which is compatible with all region motherboards. I've seen another of these rental in the flesh before although they come up for sale reasonably often. Pretty cool stuff.

New arrivals: MVS, raizing, toaplan

I received a few new bits and bobs ove the last week or so. The breakers mini marquee means I have them for 101 of the 133 games that came with them. I also picked up a tiger heli pcb. It curently has no sound but two of the caps in the audio section were all but snapped off and dangling by one leg when I inspected it. I've bought replacements, hopefully once they've been soldered on it'll be fine. Finally, I had a dimahoo CPS2 B board arrive. It's a conversion but that doesn't bother me. I've really been looking forward to playing this!

New arrivals - 1944 and a little more MVS

A couple more carts arrived along with 3 minis. I already had JP minis for league bowling and puzzle bobble but picked up these english ones too.

Including this lot I have 106 / 148 games and minis for 80 / 133 games that had them.


I also had this rather nice phoenixed, original 1944 delivered. is was developed by Raizing on behalf of capcom. It was the Raizing connection that drew me to it. I've not had a chance to play it yet. I shall do this weekend. I'm also after the other Raizing CPS2 game, dimahoo but that's a little pricey. I may end up settling for a conversion.

ROM swapping - fire shark > same! same! same! and Battle Garegga Zakk ROMs

I said there'd be more on those ROMs I received the other day. The ones labelled ZAKK are for my Garegga pcb. The Zakk ROMs fix a number of niggly little issues witht he game such as the rank increasing with plays etc. I fancied that and also wanted some other ROMs anyway since I had an asian board and fancied a JP one with those extends etc. These and the others were burned by the exceptionally helpful Southtown Homebrew.

The chips you need to swap are the two in the centre.

Easily done. I also needed to change the region of my board.

To do so I just had to clip these two jumpers. Located int he bottom right on the board on the above pic.

Another super simple job. And that's it!


Nippon only, just like I like it.

The other 4 chips up there are to turn my fire shark into a same! same! same!. The JP region same game is substantially different. It's one player only (fire shark has 2p) it's zoomed in somewhat and the screen can scroll a little left and right (fire shark is slightly panned out and the screen only scrolls directly up, it has checkpoints (shame since they are mega annoying in any game) and it's substantially harder. There are a bunch of minor differences in enemy fire patterns and pick up colours and stuff too. Well worth doing.


The two sets of chips, including international postage, only set me back $37. And Southtown wouldn't accept payment til I'd confirmed they worked. Superb service, speedy and reasonably priced. I'll certainly use them if I need any mor ROMs burning.

New arrivals - MVS cart deluge, mini marquees and a pcb

Over the last few days I had a little flurry of parcels. Most of this stuff came from trades rather than outright purchases. First up, another raizing shooter. This time it's their first: mahou daisakusen. I've only had chance to play a couple of credits since I unpacked it but I like it a lot so far. I'll give it a proper workout over the weekend.

Then I had a couple of parcels of mini marquees. The first through a trade with a guy in Sweden:

And the second delivered from the US:
I was especially happy to get that blazing star mini since it completes my kit.


And finally I got this pile of carts. The majority of them have terrible condition or repro labels and two of them have horrible fake carts but they are all legit pcbs. At some point I'll grab a couple of legit shells and have some nice repro labels printed off for the carts that need them. I'd prefer to just get carts in nice shape but these were available as part of a trade and it was too good an opportunity to pass up really. If the price is good I'll take a sketchy label. Legit pcbs only though. If and when I find a nice original label car for a good price I can always upgrade my copy.

With all of this stuff I now have
92 / 148 carts
68 / 133 mini marquees

So this little lot cracked the half way mark for minis. It'll be a lot harder to track down the ones in the home stretch I'm sure.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope you all had a fine time over the holidays. I've had a nice restful couple of weeks. I've managed to have a bit of cab time. Eaten and drunk far too much too.

Father christmas brought me something very nice! Who knows how he always knows what will make me happy. Fingers crossed you all got something that made you equally happy.


This is a Taiwan license version of Battle Garegga rather than a Nippon ver. It makes no real difference though since I'll probably put some zakk ROMs in it. I absolutely love the soundtrack to this game!

New arrival - Shippu Mahou Daisakusen

I got a rather nice parcel in the post from Japan yesterday. It contatined this little chunk of raizing loveliness. The game is Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, called Kingdom Grandprix overseas. It's a shooter with a race element to it. You and your competitors race through the levels. You have to dodge bullets and shoot enemies as with other shooties but you can also nudge your fellow racers into danger. Sitting higher up the screen is more dangerous but allows you to travel faster. You can also hold down the A button which stops you from shooting but gives you a speed boost. It's a nice idea for a game.

I've not had all that many games yet. It's pretty looking and the sound is pretty good but I'm not sold on the gameplay yet. Will have to give it a little more time.

Innundated with awesomeness

Today I was deluged wih goodness. In no particular order, the postal folk gave to me:

Espgaluda 2 poster

ketsui poster


Ketsui and Armed Police Batrider pcbs

The majority of an ESPGaluda kit

ESPGaluda II kit
An original E2 Marquee holder

Blue's Journey MVS cart and a pile of buttons. With that cart I now own half of the MVS games.

That's an incredible selection of shooters. Three of the four pcbs were in my top 10 most wanted list. But they came at a price. In order to get hold of them (and not bankrupt myself) I let go of my aero table and a few aero related bits and pieces I had. It pained me to see it go but I certainly got some awesome bits and bobs in return. It all happened in a bit of a whirl. Me and the other end of the trade arranged a deal really quickly and within 18 hours of shaking electronic hands it was gone. Quick and sharp probably was best. No long, drawn out goodbyes.

The aero table was a really beautiful cab. I'll miss it. Especially after all the hours and effort I put into it. If I ever own another cocktail table it will be a Jaleco Table Pony. Unless the lady friend talks me into a ms pacman cocktail. If there's ever one for sale near here it may end up heading this way. She's fanatical!