If this game is going to get a physical cart release with one control scheme, then keeping the default control scheme created by the developers at Bullet Proof Software makes the most sense. The BPS-default control scheme appeals to the largest variety of players, and this is strong evidence of the fact that the original developers at Bullet Proof Software put a lot of time and effort into coming up with the best all-around control scheme and already had it finalized by the time they made the version of NikoChan Battle (aka Faceball) that we got our hands on. Here are my explanations to support this:

1. What if you want to move and turn your Faceball character with the left control pad (exactly like what was already established in Faceball 2000 for the Game Boy and the Super Nintendo)? The BPS-default control scheme in NikoChan Battle lets you do that.
2. What if, instead of controlling the game as you would on both the Game Boy and Super Nintendo, you want to move and turn your character with the right control pad? The BPS-default control scheme lets you do that, too.

(Note: With these two things already in place, all gamers should already feel comfortable with the standard controls that already existed in Faceball 2000 for the Game Boy and Super Nintendo, and I should probably also add the Game Gear version, since both possible dominant hands have already been accommodated. Now, I must touch on the newer controls that were intended by the BPS developers to set the Virtual Boy version apart from its precursors.)

3. In NikoChan Battle, you will need to move quickly, since each maze has a very small time limit. Since the aforementioned two control mechanisms are already locked in as what should appeal to all gamers, what would make the most sense to press to make your character move forward at twice the speed? If pressing up on one d-pad already makes you move forward, then it makes the most sense that up on both pads should make you move forward faster, since you are putting double the effort into that direction, and this, of course, also applies to moving backwards at twice the speed, with the pressing of down on both d-pads at the same time.
4. Now, since you already need to use both pads to get your character running at a faster speed, what would make the most sense to press to turn your character to the right quickly? Picture it as you have two strings attached to the sides of yourself (since you are looking out of the eyes of your character in the game already), one string on your left side and one string on your right. How would you “pull your own strings” to get yourself to turn to the right quickly. Would you not pull the left one forward (up) and the right one backward (down)? Nothing else would logically make sense. This is precisely how you get your own character to turn to the right quickly in NikoChan Battle using the BPS-default control scheme, and the vice versa applies to getting your character to turn to the left quickly.

(Note: I imagine that everyone already agrees with me on the above points, since no control schemes have been suggested yet to alter these control mechanisms found in VB Faceball.)

5. Now, with all of that already in place as the one and only control scheme that makes the most sense and that appeals to the largest variety of gamers, since it doesn’t matter whether you are dominant with your right or left hand while using the control scheme, what makes the most sense to press to strafe to the left or right, since the game also allows strafing? You already must get used to using both pads at the same time to get your player moving quickly, so just as pushing both pads in the same direction makes the most logical sense to get your player moving faster in the forward and backward direction, so also does pushing both pads in the same direction make the most sense to get your player moving in either of the sideways directions.

Now, there is an important note that must be made: No matter how the current BPS-default control scheme gets reassigned, the player will never be able to move forward or backward while strafing, and also the player will never be able to turn while strafing at the same time. The developers at BPS obviously did not want this to be a possibility, so the game would have to be super-hacked and drastically altered if the player is ever to be able to turn and strafe at the same time or move forward or backward and strafe at the same time. The reason why I say this is to point out that there is no advantage to pressing up or down on one d-pad and trying to strafe with the other. It won’t work. Either way, if you want to strafe, you will have to come to a complete stop and choose your direction that you want to strafe. So the current BPS-default control scheme does not create any disadvantage in that area, and any new control scheme will not create any advantage in that area (unless the controls get drastically altered from how the developers at BPS wanted their NikoChan Battle game to be controlled.)

That is my support for keeping the BPS-default control scheme as the dominant one, which appeals to the largest amount of players while, at the same time, allowing the player to perform all of the necessary moves in the game in the most logical way. Not only that, but this game is still going to have “Faceball” in the title, and the original developers at BPS will still deserve a lot of credit for the making of this game, so keeping their well-thought-out control scheme would also be highly respectful to them. Also, keeping the original developers in mind, they did not want any more than one control scheme to exist for Faceball 2000 for the Game Boy and Super Nintendo, which is why there are no options to change the control scheme in either of those 100% finished games. It stands to reason, then, that they did not want the one control scheme to be changed for NikoChan Battle, and that there would not have been an option to change the control scheme in NikoChan Battle for the Virtual Boy, had it been 100% finished by them.

As a suggestion, perhaps if other control schemes would like to be added to the game by certain players, then IPS patches could be made for each control scheme, and then the player could simply apply the IPS patch of choice and play the game on the Virtual Boy with his or her control style using the FlashBoy Plus, much like what is currently done if one wants to use DogP’s alternate control style that he made for Mario Clash.

I found another tribute to the Virtual Boy within a game for the iPad called “Pix’n Love Rush.”

“As you fill bonus meters, the art style of the action changes. The pixels suddenly take on the appearances of the classic Game Boy, Virtual Boy, dedicated Pong machine, and more.”

Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/12/28/pixn-love-rush-dx-ipad-review

!! o_O !!

http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g124998713

Yes, the auction is for all 40 together, not just one.

GEZ wrote:

I can’t tell, is it sold already?

Yes. That complete in box copy as well as the lose copy that mawa linked to have both been purchased already.

decayedmatter wrote:

… as long as this screwdriver set I ordered works in opening up the unit I am definitely getting it repaired and keeping it.

You should be able to rest easy, knowing that the security screwdriver bit set you ordered will be able to open up your Virtual Boy just fine. I just got done making some measurements, and I determined that the distance from the end of the handle to the end of the steel shaft must be longer than 6.9 centimeters (due to the thickness of the non-removable handle) to reach the whole way down to the deepest screw in the Virtual Boy head unit, and according to the description for the security screwdriver bit set that you ordered, this distance is 7 centimeters. Thus, you’ll have just under 0.1 cm distance to spare. 🙂

I’m going to go ahead and use this opportunity to throw in my support for the English version of SD Gundam Dimension War to be next on the list, which I know also Eric suggested not too long ago. I think the box should be made in the same style as all of the North American version boxes, so that it cannot be confused with the commercially released Japanese box (plus, if the game ever truly was commercially released in English, it no doubt would have conformed to the format to which all the North American releases conformed). Also, I already have an entire English instruction booklet made for the game, which can be freely used for this project, and I can clean it up and/or tweak it here and there if necessary, which won’t take me too much time. The format would have to be released in the same format as the Japanese manual, though, so the longest side being the vertical one. Moreover, I am confident that many non-Japanese speakers here and on other sites will never want to acquire the extremely expensive commercially released version and would rather have the version that they can actually read while playing.

(The only things not translated into English in this game are the credits. I’m guessing that thunderstruck – with his newly acquired, advanced ROM-hacking skills – could easily take the English credits that already appear on this site under the Game Credits tab for SD Gundam and replace the Japanese text in the current English-patched ROM… just sayin’ 😉

I know from experience that these kinds of steel bits are able to reach and remove all original screws from a Virtual Boy head unit:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Virtual-Boy-N64-SNES-Extra-Long-Tempered-Steel-Bit-/280719703930?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415c32bf7a

I can also make a good estimated guess that you won’t be able to remove and replace all screws from your Virtual Boy more than about 5 times before the bit gets so worn down that it won’t grab the screws any more, no matter how careful you are with using the bit.

If you don’t play the system that much, getting one of these steel bits and using the simple oven method to get your unit working well for several months or more is probably the best option to take while keeping all costs down.

Here is a summary of all of the Famitsu Magazine’s game reviewers’ ratings for Virtual Boy games reviewed in the year 1995, sorted by highest to lowest average rating out of a possible perfect 10; in the case of a tie between two games in average rating, the game with the higher top 3 rating-average was placed higher in the list (the only dilemma occurred with Jack Bros. and Panic Bomber, which had a perfect tie with each other no matter how you look at it):

1. Virtual Boy Wario Land, Issue Number 364, page 32. Scores: 5/8/7/7. Average Score: 6.75
2. Golf, Issue Number 349, page 33. Scores: 8/7/7/4. Average Score: 6.50
3. Red Alarm, Issue Number 347, page 30. Scores: 8/5/7/6. Average Score: 6.50
4. Mario’s Tennis, Issue Number 347, page 29. Scores: 7/6/6/7. Average Score: 6.50
5. Galactic Pinball, Issue Number 347, page 29. Scores: 6/4/6/8. Average Score: 6.00
6. Mansion of Insmouse, Issue Number 357, page 31. Scores: 6/7/6/5. Average Score: 6.00
7. Mario Clash, Issue Number 356, page 29. Scores: 6/6/6/6. Average Score: 6.00
8. Teleroboxer, Issue Number 347, page 29. Scores: 6/6/6/5. Average Score: 5.75
9. Virtual Bowling, Issue Number 367, page 34. Scores: 6/5/6/5. Average Score: 5.50
10. Vertical Force, Issue Number 349, page 33. Scores: 6/3/6/6. Average Score: 5.25
11. V-Tetris, Issue Number 350, page 32. Scores: 7/5/5/4. Average Score: 5.25
12. Space Squash, Issue Number 355, page 38. Scores: 4/6/6/4. Average Score: 5.00
13. Jack Bros., Issue Number 355, page 38. Scores: 5/4/6/5. Average Score: 5.00
14. Panic Bomber, Issue Number 347, page 30. Scores: 6/5/5/4. Average Score: 5.00
15. Virtual Fishing, Issue Number 356, page 30. Scores: 6/5/5/3. Average Score: 4.75
16. Virtual League Baseball, Issue Number 349, page 33. Scores: 5/5/5/4. Average Score: 4.75
17. Virtual Lab, Issue Number 365, page 31. Scores: 5/3/4/4. Average Score: 4.00
18. Space Invaders Virtual Collection, Issue Number 364, page 33. Scores: 4/4/4/3. Average Score: 3.75

It’s very likely that a 4-person review was also made for SD Gundam Dimension War, the last of the 19 Virtual Boy titles released in Japan, and that this review appears in the first issue of Famitsu Magazine for the year 1996, but I am not able to verify this to be true as of this date.

Famitsu 367

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Famitsu 366

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Famitsu 365

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Famitsu 364

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Famitsu 363

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Famitsu 361

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Famitsu 357

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Famitsu 356

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foil_lone_wolf wrote:
Ben, great score. I’m super jealous, but thanks for sharing.

It’s exciting to see so much new stuff.

Well, if you are only interested in collecting certain of the issues containing Virtual Boy coverage, this thread should definitely help in letting you know which specific issues to look for. I do plan to slowly go through all of them again and make sure that I didn’t miss any pages with Virtual Boy info on them. If I find any, I’ll add them later. Otherwise, today’s batch should be the remainder of the pages in all Famitsu Magazines for the year 1995 containing Virtual Boy stuff on them.

Here are the Virtual Boy pages for Famitsu 355

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I uploaded two videos that Greg made of his demo on YouTube.

The regular version played on Mednafen can be viewed here:

The 3D version played on Mednafen can be viewed here:

The range of depth is pretty small. Things might look like they pop out or push back no more than about a centimeter’s distance from the page’s surface, but it is still pretty neat.

Check this post to see high resolution pictures of what the glasses look like:

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=22993#forumpost22993

The lenses on the 3D glasses actually have no color to them at all.