Tendo City

Anyone else pick up this little gem of a game (no pun intended)? If not, its understandable, it's a rather elusive game to find right now. So far, I'm enjoying it very much, the juxtaposition of puzzle and RPG genres creates a unique experience, unusual but quite enjoyable. I'd highly recommend checking it out.

Yes, yes I did, and it's amazing.

I picked up the PSP version on purpose. I've seen both side by side, and while I really don't understand why BOTH seem to have load time issues mid-battle (they could have delayed it a week to squash that issue), the other thing to note is the PSP version looks and sounds a lot better.

The DS version has touch screen controls, but since this is a turn based puzzle system like Bejeweled where you aren't really in a rush to do things, a d-pad does the job just fine for me. I certainly wouldn't have picked PSP if we were talking Meteos.

Hey presto! Remember those load time issues? Well I can't say anything for the DS version (seriously, when you are using a cartridge, you do whatever you need to to get rid of load times, no excuse there), I fixed load time issues on the PSP version. Basically, I made use of a feature my PSP's hacked firmware has had for a long while now but I never really took advantage of. I downloaded a little file manager app and while I was messing around with it, I noticed it had a "UMD ripper" feature, which made Sony's idea of copyright protection via propriatary format an embarresment. Basically, it just copies the disk to a .iso format USING SONY'S HARDWARE. Harsh :D. While I'm sure that plenty of people have been using this for illicit pirating and so on (seriously, buy the games people), it has a great use as I've found.

Basically I ripped the game directly off the UMD (and was I ever surprised to find that even with the enhanced music, it's still just a 140 or so MB game total, so I had plenty of space). After storing it in a special "ISO" folder that's been sitting empty on my memory card (created by the firmware hacking program I used to get my special hack on) I found the entire game sitting right inside my memory card "games" option. A disk needs to be in there, but it doesn't need to actually be the original disk, allowing me to bring along a number of PSP games when I go out without dragging along some case, so long as one of them is a UMD in the PSP. Anyway, point is, loading from the memory card is so much faster than the UMD that the load times have vanished almost entirely (exceptions being the initial startup of the game), so I now have a seamless battle experience.

Anyway, for anyone that hasn't updated their firmware yet who might want to start fast-loading their PSP games, or just having a bunch with them on a single card, a new Lumines exploit now lets you downgrade all the way from 3.50 and then you can update to the latest hacked firmware of your choice and join in the fun-venture.

Anyway, here's the links you'll want for all the tools you'll need.

http://www.noobz.eu/joomla/ - Downgrader
http://m-33.narod.ru/ - Firmware hack for upgrading again to super special mode.
http://www.geocities.jp/mediumgauge/ - The file management homebrew app with the UMD "ripper" feature (the page is in Japanese, just click download, and don't worry, the app has an english language mode you can select from the start, though the controls are a bit tough to learn)
http://pspupdates.qj.net/index.php?pg=49&aid=83908 - Here's a link to an app for you to convert those PS1 games of your's to PSP executables if you should want to. If it says files are missing, look at the "popstation" folder you can find in one of those Dark Alex custom firmwares at the link above, just pick the newest version that actually has a popstation folder for the latest version of those files.
http://www.imgburn.com/ - This is the best free app I found for ripping those PS1 games so you can convert them.
http://www.realtech-vr.com/nogravity/psp/ - I found this amazing little freeware homebrew game some time ago. Still just a demo but pretty nice looking, and fun too.

I guess I added a few more tools there. Anyway, for the like 3 of you that have PSPs, maybe these will be of interest to you.

Oh, here's something I found interesting. That "Dark Alex" guy apparently found a new special bit of code in the latest Sony firmware for running UMD games off a memory stick. That's probably for some future download store option (which I say is good news, but I do like to save memory card space so I'll probably still just get the UMD versions and convert them with this program when I feel like taking one of them with me). The thing is, the guy plans on making use of that code instead of his own ISO loader solution, which I suppose means I won't even need a UMD in the drive, though really I'm not sure why (except for load times) I'd even bother sticking a game on my memory card unless I was also wanting to carry around a UMD. Still, it'll be a nice feature to have.

Incidentally, I found another lovely and obvious in retrospect advantage to UMD ripping. Namely, not only does this extend the life of the UMD drive as it isn't being used as often, it also uses far less battery life powering those motors and that laser. So I get faster load times AND improved battery life in one fell swoop. I gotta say the homebrew scene just gets better and better.

ALSO incidentally:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uP0N7O5qRE0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uP0N7O5qRE0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

That link up there for that custom firmware thing? Don't bother. The downloads is gone, and the fellow that made them is not doing it any more. Apparently not enough time and fear of Sony's legal eagles are what did it. (Odd I know, since every last aspect of what he's done is perfectly legal.) My guess is he was afraid he'd just get caught in lawsuit after lawsuit from Sony and wouldn't be able to pay for a defense. Isn't it illegal to be put in double jeopardy? What ever happened to that? Bleam! died for the same reasons from what I understand. I mean, if your case is thrown out, shouldn't you be protected from being sued over that case AGAIN?

Anyway, what's funny is it hasn't been but a few hours and already the conspiracy theories start. Magical thinking at it's finest. "He's been hired by Sony! Think about it, hire the best firmware cracker to find all the holes in their firmware." Or, "He's secretly hiding in the underground and this is a front so he can continue his work under another name.". My favorite part of a conspiracy theory is the whole "It makes perfect sense" thing they tend to tag in there. Ignoring the really crazy ones that DON'T make perfect sense, yes I have to agree, it makes sense IF THE PREMISES IT IS BUILT ON ARE TRUE. They always fail to provide evidence for those vital premises, which in this case is, for example, that he was paid off by Sony.

Most likely, it's exactly that straight forward as what is on the guy's site now. I'll also entertain the idea that maybe his site was hacked, but again, I'll need evidence of that, and if nothing is revealed in about a week's time, I'm pretty sure the possibility of a hack goes out the window. It's one of those cases where absence of evidence is evidence of absence (those cases where if something was true you would EXPECT evidence to be everywhere, so it's lack of existance is sufficient evidence it is not so, and in this case that would be that if this was a site hack, in a week you would certainly expect the owner of the site to have cleared everything up).

Edit: Okay a new group just took over the great work, and I updated the link above to reflect that. Custom Firmware 3.51 is a-go!

I got the PC version a few days ago... finally got around to play the demo I'd had on my computer for like six months, thought it was good, looked around, found this, thought that I couldn't resist it priced at $10, and got it. Definitely a good game... the PC version has way better graphics than the handheld ones, of course (PSP? Bigger screen on the PC, more room...)

Supposedly the Wii version is both $30 (more than any other version) and has pretty bad motion controls... PC is clearly best.

Bigger screen? I suppose... For my part I prefer the portability option. Puzzle games and portability just work perfectly for me.

For half off ($10), I don't think anyone can argue that it's a good deal... and I mostly play my handheld games at home anyway. Actually, I've never really gotten into handheld puzzle games... in all the games I own, the only handheld puzzle game I've got is Yoshi for the original Game Boy, and I don't think I've played that regularly since like 1996. :)

... yes, I never even had Game Boy Tetris. My most played puzzle game has got to be Puzzle Fighter (Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo), which is the best puzzle game ever... of which I have the PC version.