Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Tanks - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

So I've been reading through Console Wars (and its a really fucking good book all you fucks should stop being neckbeards and crack a novel every once in a while eh?) and I happened across an interesting portion during Sonic 2's early development. Apparently it was Al Nilsen who was tapped by SoA to convince Naka and the Sonic Team that the name Miles Prower wouldn't sell. The section features what is supposedly Al's original origin story for Tails' character which seems to be strikingly similar to Sonic 2's US story featured in the game manual.

"Still, this wasn't an ego contest between SOA and SOJ; rather, it was about doing what was best for Sega and the fictional Sonic universe. Sega of America decided upon the name Tails, and Schroeder took this to the developers, who were unwilling to budge. Toyoda tried to mend fences, perhaps even find a compromise, but there was no progress to be made. With common sense and politics failing them, Nilsen and Schroeder resorted to Kalinske's favorite asset of all: story. After they finished crafting a compelling backstory, Nilsen drove out to Palo Alto so he could share the tale.

Toyoda joined him at the Sega Technical Institute, where it was clear that the Sonic Team was less than thrilled to see them. In their minds, this was another case of the Americans imposing their will purely for its own sake. Nilsen knew they felt that way, and he was aware that there was little he could do to prove to them that this wasn't the case. All he had was his short story, which he hoped would be enough. He cleared his throat, ignored the glares, and began reading from "The Renaming of Miles Monotail."



When Nilsen finished, he folded the paper and slid it in to his pocket. The members of Sonic Team, who'd been planning on hating every word out of Nilsen's mouth, found themselves entranced by the story. One developer was even moved to tears.

After allowing a moment to let it sink in, Naka walked up to Nilsen and said, "You may call him Tails." Although moved, several of Sonic team's other members remained unconvinced. Sensing that the momentary camaraderie was about to fizzle away, Toyoda blurted out a compromise: "How about his real name is Miles Prower, but Sonic calls him by the nickname Tails?" This suggestion managed to do the trick: the fox would go by Tails, but Sonic Team would take solace that in the fact that in a fictional filing cabinet somewhere, there was a birth certificate with the name Miles Prower." (Pgs. 245-247)

There's a whole lot more in this book that's revealing of Sega and Sonic and I can't post all of it so I highly suggest you guys give Console Wars a read, but I figured this stands out as something quite important to the community as its an origin story we haven't yet actually seen.

So, I've got a Dell laptop that suffered a hard drive failure about a year ago. In the process of me replacing the HDD, I ended up doing "something" to it and it will no longer turn on. Now I'm not completely tech savvy but I've performed various laptop surgeries before and I have to blame Dell for this one because it was one pain in the ass to navigate. Somewhere along the lines of getting to that HDD (which required removing everything from the screen to the board) something went wrong. I've since stripped the RAM from it and used it on my new laptop.

ANYWAY, the point is, anyone know a good laptop service that's on the up-and-up that could take a look at this for me? I'm pretty sure its the result of something minor I did during the opening, so I think someone skilled enough should be able to revive it.

Here it is.

No idea what to do with it, but I saw it wasn't documented on Sega Retro so I figured it needed some looking at.

Also I found it here with a shitton of other arcade dumps (Chihiro, Na-omi 1 & 2, and Triforce). Apologies if rule breaking or something, but I figure if I found that there, you guys might have a interesting time sifting through the rest.

Blue Skies, Green Hills

I just grabbed it myself so I can't pass judgement just yet, but I will say, skipping around, I'm hearing a lot of wubs and a lot of dubs. Expect dubstep and people who think they can rap. Whether these are good things or not have yet to be determined, I guess.

So I've been messing around with GBAmusRiper, (no that's not a typo), a semi-annoying tool with some very neat functions. (You kinda have to go out of your way to get it to work, but once you get the hang of it, its a breeze.) It does what most Sappy tools do, rips the midi and high quality samples that get butt-raped by the GBA's audio handler. The main difference with this one, however, is that it automatically compiles the samples into a soundfont and adjusts the midis to correspond with its appropriate, in-game, sample. As a result, you end up with a nearly identical song with a sound quality that is unimaginably superior to the original.

Here's a few dare to compare for you.

Now obviously with Sappy -> Midi conversions there's going to be a few quirks. Samples can be off just a bit from their originals possibly because they may not have been intended to be heard in such good quality. Pitch bending gets screwed a bit on the conversion, but that can be fixed with right knowledge of midis and a good ear, or so I've been told. I would have to venture to guess though that at least 95% of the songs I've converted end up working near perfectly.

Here are a few sets to get you going (Update: 9/24) FIXED THE SPACING ISSUES!!!:

Sonic Advance
Sonic Advance 2
Sonic Advance 3
Sonic Battle
Mother 3
Mother 1 & 2
Zelda Minish Cap (EU)
Zelda Minish Cap (US)
Zelda ALttP/Four Swords
Fire Emblem US
Fire Emblem Sacred Stones
Fire Emblem Fuuin no Tsurugi
Wario Land 4
Mega Man & Bass
Super Mario Advance (SMB2)
Yoshi's Tilt and Tumble
Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure (JP)
Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland
Kirby's Amazing Mirror
Advance Wars
Advance Wars 2
Game&Watch Gallery 4

Thunder PX's Stuff:
Megaman Zero (FIXED)
Mega Man Zero 2 -- This one seems to be okay however (keep in mind the SFX come first in both games for some reason)
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Dragon Ball: Advance Adventure
Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors
Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon
Fullmetal Alchemist
F-Zero Maximum Velocity
Gyakuten Saiban 1
Gyakuten Saiban 2 -- Like I mentioned before, this has a lot of GS1 tracks left over. GS2 tracks are after the sound effects
Gyakuten Saiban 3 -- Same deal here
Mega Man & Bass
Mega Man Battle Network

How to play them? Well if you don't have Foobar2000, get it. Then grab and install kode 54's MIDI Component. Once that's set, be sure to go to Preferences->Playback->Input->Midi Synthesizer Host and set it to BASSMIDI. Go to BASSMIDI's menu and select the appropriate soundfont for you're midis and you're all set to listen. Be sure to switch the soundfont over when you want to listen to a new set of midis.

Also for shits here's an .logg of Hot Crater Act 1.

Special thanks to BMF for showing me GBAmusRiper. :D