General Category > General Discussion
Retron 5 (aka 4)
TyrannicalFascist:
GOT ONE! Last one the store had too.
Overall I'm happy with it, some cart slots have a tight grip, but I think that may improve over time. I sure like the clarity and the ability to do save states and fast forward, though the Retron controller is just....blech... The only times I could see myself using it are 1. When playing an RPG or 2. When the 8-way stick would benefit, like all those isometric GBA games. I've been using an SNES controller and I don't believe there's any lag in input, it feels just like my real SNES. And there's just something so right about playing SNES, NES, GB, GBC and GBA games with that controller.
I'll be trying all of my games over the next few days. I'm a little hesitant to try a handful that have childhood save games I don't want to lose, like Mario RPG, as there have been occasional reports of people losing save games when trying to copy them over. In most cases, the saves seem to still be on the cart as you can access them on the original system, but there are a few instances of actual save game wipes. I've colored the working but problematic saves below.
WORKS
NES
-Adventures in the Magic Kingdom - Recognized, worked fine
-Dr. Mario - Recognized, worked fine
-DuckTales - Recognized, worked fine
-The Legend of Zelda - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Super Mario Bros. - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Bros. 2 - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Bros. 3 - Recognized, worked fine
-Yoshi - Recognized, worked fine
-Yoshi's Cookie - Recognized, worked fine
SNES
-Batman Returns - Recognized, worked fine
-Donkey Kong Country - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Donkey Kong Country 2 - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Donkey Kong Country 3 - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-The Great Circus Mystery - Starring Mickey Mouse - Recognized, worked fine
-Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures - Recognized, worked fine
-The Magical Quest - Starring Mickey Mouse - Recognized, worked fine
-Mario's Time Machine - Recognized, worked fine
-Mario is Missing - Recognized, worked fine
-Mario Paint - Recognized, worked fine, mouse can be used to navigate menus as well
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - Recognized, worked fine
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie - Recognized, worked fine
-Pilotwings - Recognized, worked fine
-Star Fox - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario All-Stars - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Kart - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Super Mario World - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - Recognized, worked fine, retained save - one graphical glitch: on World 1-7 "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy", when touching a Fuzzy, the background freaks out way more than it should on the original system
-Super Star Wars - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Recognized, worked fine
-Yoshi's Cookie - Recognized, worked fine
GENESIS
-Aladdin - Recognized, worked fine
-Batman - Recognized, worked fine
-Earthworm Jim - Recognized, worked fine
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - Recognized, worked fine
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie - Recognized, worked fine
-Sonic the Hedgehog - Recognized, worked fine
-Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Recognized, worked fine
-Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Recognized, worked fine
-Sonic Spinball - Recognized, worked fine
-Sonic 3D Blast - Recognized, worked fine
-Sonic & Knuckles - Recognized, worked fine, can only lock-on to Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Sonic Classics
-Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog - Recognized, worked fine, came up as the "No Way? No Way! Blue Sphere game as expected.
-Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Unknown Cart, went to black screen
-Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Recognized, worked fine
-Street Fighter II' - Special Championship Edition - Recognized, worked fine
-ToeJam & Earl - Recognized, worked fine
GAME BOY
-Donkey Kong '94 - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Donkey Kong Land - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Donkey Kong Land 2 - Recognized, worked fine
-Donkey Kong Land III - Recognized, worked fine
-F-1 Race - Recognized, worked fine
-Game & Watch Gallery - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Kirby's Dream Land - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Kirby's Dream Land 2 - Recognized, worked fine, battery was dead when I got it
-Pokémon Red Version - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Pokémon Blue Version - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Pokémon Yellow Version - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Super Mario Land - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Land 2 - Recognized, worked fine, lost save!
-Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Wario Land II (GB version) - Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it
-Wave Race - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Yoshi (GB) - Recognized, worked fine
GAME BOY COLOR
-Donkey Kong Country - Recognized, worked fine
-Donald Duck - Goin' Quackers (GBC) - Recognized, worked fine
-Game & Watch Gallery 2 - Recognized, worked fine
-Game & Watch Gallery 3 - Recognized, worked fine
-The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX - Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it - when trying to copy save to Retron it says "This cartridge either has no save data, or accessing its save data is currently unsupported."
-The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages - Recognized, worked fine, retained saves
-Mickey's Speedway USA - Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it
-Pokémon Gold Version - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Pokémon Silver Version - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Pokémon Crystal Version - Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back
-Pokémon Trading Card Game - Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it
-Star Wars Episode I Racer - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Bros. Deluxe - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Wario Land 3 - Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it
GAME BOY ADVANCE
-Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge - Recognized, worked fine, lost save!
-Banjo-Pilot - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Crash Nitro Kart - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Disney's Magical Quest 2 - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Drill Dozer - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-F-Zero: Maximum Velocity - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Game & Watch Gallery 4 - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - Recognized, worked fine, lost save!
-Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Mario vs. Donkey Kong - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Mario Kart: Super Circuit - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Pac-Man Collection - Recognized, worked fine
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl - Recognized, worked fine
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Pokémon LeafGreen Version - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Pokémon Naranja Version (Bootleg) - Unknown cartridge, however worked fine
-Sonic Advance - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Sonic Advance 2 - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Sonic Advance 3 - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Sonic Battle - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Spyro: Season of Ice - Recognized, worked fine, may have lost save?
-Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones - Recognized, played fine but for some reason the flying drones in level 1 are red and white??
-Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - Recognized, worked fine
-Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon - Recognized, worked fine
-Star Wars: The New Droid Army - Recognized, worked fine
-Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force - Recognized, worked fine
-Super Mario Advance - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 - Recognized, loaded "Game Boy Player" screen, then got stuck on "Reading..." screen for a while, notification that save data is corrupted and didn't recognize save, however it is still present on my cartridge
-Wario Land 4 - Recognized, worked fine, save did not appear on Retron, upon reinserting into GBA it said File A was lost. Oddly, File B was fine.
-WarioWare, Inc. - Mega Microgame$! - Recognized, worked fine, retained save
-WarioWare: Twisted! - Recognized, but obviously you can't play it without tilt controls
GAME BOY ADVANCE VIDEO
-Pokemon Vol. 1 (A Hot Water Battle!, For Ho-Oh the Bells Toll!) - Recognized, worked fine
-Pokemon Vol. 3 (Pokémon, I Choose You!, Here Comes the Squirtle Squad!) - Recognized, worked fine
DIDN'T WORK
-Bootleg GB and GBA multicarts are hit and miss - comes up as unknown and in some I could access the selection menu but not the games within, others I could select a game, but when resetting, I couldn't
-Joshua (GB by Wisdom Tree) - didn't even acknowledge there was a cart inserted
-Sonic Adventure 7 (GB pirate) - Unknown cartridge, blank screen
-Reproduction Super Mario Bros. 2J for NES - didn't even acknowledge there was a cart inserted
-Reproduction Super Mario Bros. Special for NES - didn't even acknowledge there was a cart inserted
As JDavis stated, I've found that sometimes it says Unknown cart, and then it works after a little cleaning of the cartridge contacts. Also I've noticed some games take longer to load than others. I haven't noticed any pattern why. Even then the load times are very minimal, no more than 10 seconds tops so far.
SLOT GRIPS:
-Famicom - don't have any to test
-NES - has a serious death grip
-SNES - has a tiny grip
-Genesis - has somewhat of a tough grip
-GBA - perfect
TESTED CONTROLLERS:
-SNES
-SNES Mouse (can also be used to navigate menu)
JDavis:
I've noticed some games not importing the saves, but the saves are still on the cart when put in the original system. Still, better safe than sorry, I guess. I can confirm that Super Mario RPG works, and imported my saves safely. If you have any other games you're curious about, just ask, I may have tested them already.
I'm about halfway through my NES games (91 tested so far). One surprise I've come across, which confirms what they've said about the first firmware update beginning their support of homebrew games, is that Battle Kid now works! Battle Kid 2 still doesn't, though, and neither do my NWC or Mr. Gimmick repros from the same site. Other than those, I've only run across 8 NES games that didn't work on the first try, but once I've gone through the rest I'll give them a thorough cleaning and try them again. When I'm done I'll post my full list of games tested (it's big).
Oh, and obviously light gun games don't work. I mean, they run perfectly fine, but the Zapper won't work on an HDTV, and the Retron 5 doesn't even seem to recognize the input from it (no screen flash).
And I've noticed something else, which is kind of a minor gripe. Even with the overscan option turned on, which cuts off a little bit of the edges of the game screen to simulate how the frame on a CRT tv covers up some of the graphics, you can still see the garbled graphics along the edge of a lot of NES games. Especially ones that have it on the top/bottom from vertical scrolling (Bionic Commando is a big offender). I went and compared it to the amount that my CRT cuts off from the actual NES, and the Retron's overscan leaves about 8 more pixels at the top and bottom of the screen than my CRT does, BUT it cuts off more of the left/right than my TV does (most easily noticable in Castlevania, which runs its HUD all the way to the edge). I contacted Hyperkin about this, and suggested if possible having multiple levels of overscan available, as well as making Gameboy/Color/Advance games not affected by the overscan settings at all (because Gameboys don't have an overscan area and it tends to cut off important information on those games).
TyrannicalFascist:
That's a great suggestion. I've noticed the garbled edges on NES games as well.
That's a relief on Mario RPG. Here are the other games I'm concerned about:
GB-GBA
-Donkey Kong ('94 remake)
-Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga
-Mario Kart Super Circuit
-Sonic Advance 1-3
-Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
-Super Mario Advance 1-4
-Super Mario Land 2
-Wario Land 1-3
SNES
-Super Mario Kart
-Super Mario World
-Yoshi's Island
I'll have to check some of the ones that seemed to lose their saves on the original systems.
Also, has Hyperkin made the cheat database available yet?
Ozzy_98:
The problem when you mess with overscan, unless you're just chopping\hiding the pixels (What you should be doing), you're stretching the image. Stretching from 256 x 240 to 1080p is one thing, but stretching the raw image from 256x240 from 256x239 means you'll have to have one doubled pixel or use halftones on the whole thing. I was thinking it was FCEUltra that first started having nice overscan controls on all 4 sides.
JDavis:
--- Quote from: TyrannicalFascist on May 31, 2014, 09:28:56 PM ---That's a great suggestion. I've noticed the garbled edges on NES games as well.
That's a relief on Mario RPG. Here are the other games I'm concerned about:
GB-GBA
-Donkey Kong ('94 remake)
-Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga
-Mario Kart Super Circuit
-Sonic Advance 1-3
-Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
-Super Mario Advance 1-4
-Super Mario Land 2
-Wario Land 1-3
SNES
-Super Mario Kart
-Super Mario World
-Yoshi's Island
I'll have to check some of the ones that seemed to lose their saves on the original systems.
Also, has Hyperkin made the cheat database available yet?
--- End quote ---
I can confirm most of those as working. I don't have Super Circuit, Sonic Advance 2-3, Mario Advance 1-3, or Wario Land 2.
My Donkey Kong '94 and SML2 have bad batteries, so I can't confirm anything on them.
M&L:SSS, SMB:DX, Sonic Advance, SML3:Wario Land, Super Mario Kart, and Super Mario World import their saves no problem.
Wario Land 3 won't import its save data, but it didn't erase what's on the cart either. If I try to manually import the save to the Retron 5, it says "This cartridge either has no save data, or accessing its save data is currently unsupported"
Super Mario Advance 4 imports the save, but when you try to play it the first time you get a message from the game that the save data is corrupted, the end result being the same as if it didn't import it at all.
Yoshi's Island... I initially believed to be working fine, but on further review it's only semi-working. It imports the save file fine, but selecting some of the levels causes it to freeze on a black screen. Resetting the game either doesn't work (freezes, sometimes with glitched Nintendo Presents screen) or greets you with three empty save files. Import the save again to return to square one. :-\
--- Quote from: Ozzy_98 on May 31, 2014, 09:50:17 PM ---The problem when you mess with overscan, unless you're just chopping\hiding the pixels (What you should be doing), you're stretching the image. Stretching from 256 x 240 to 1080p is one thing, but stretching the raw image from 256x240 from 256x239 means you'll have to have one doubled pixel or use halftones on the whole thing. I was thinking it was FCEUltra that first started having nice overscan controls on all 4 sides.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, that's a separate thing. I didn't notice any weird stretching of the image initially, but the more I've played on the system, I can definitely see that with the default settings some pixels aren't as wide as others, because objects seem to waver a bit when scrolling horizontally. Using the "force original resolution" option fixed this... until I turned on overscan. Because the overscan option is cropping the edges off, and then the resulting smaller image is being stretched to the pre-cropped size. :( I'll add it to my list of suggestions for Hyperkin to fix.