Limited Run Games Thread - We only promise our NES games will work, not your console

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nightc1 said:
In my list, there are no pros for this specific release. I love point and click games including the LucasArts classics, but I have no use for one of the worst ports of this specific game as I'd never play (no plans to ever buy a sega cd) let alone display it (the long box is UGLY). The CE is overpriced for mostly paper products.

For those that want this... cool, glad you are happy with the release. If I were to replay it I'd probably just use scummvm and probably just do it on the SNES classic or PC.
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When they announced these LucasArts re-releases, I was pretty excited mainly for a nice premium version of the Monkey Island games. This sure isn't what I was expecting. For me, I would have been happy with a higher quality reissue of the original PC boxed release. Straight up throwing in the same stuff as the Star Wars releases, though, AND going with the Sega CD version? I don't know why I didn't see it coming. I really thought these releases were targeting nostalgia, yet they sacrifice most of what makes up said nostalgia. Some screenshots/artwork on the back of these cases wouldn't hurt, for sure.

"The Secret of Monkey Island" is one of my favorite games ever so it is tough to pass up anything Monkey Island related.... A PC version is coming out later in the year. I wonder if there is any chance their PC releases will follow a different design. The "Thimbleweed Park" CE design (which came from FanGamer, I believe) is more along the lines of what I was hoping for with these...

 
By the way, if anyone cares about the "Forgotten Anne" CE, I had asked on twitter about the dimensions/page count of the art book.  It's 5"x7" and 140 pages.   The art book is what really had me considering it.  I'm not really interested in the rest of the contents and am not looking for another large-ish box on the shelf (although, I have a feeling it is going to be smaller than it looks).   A little 5"x7" art book is a tough sell.   I think that is even smaller than the art books included with the NIS CEs.  Still debating it, but I will be surprised if I can convince myself to pull the trigger.  

 
Vinny said:
Those are the blind boxes that caused delays from the New Year I'm guessing? Well that's good, was wondering if anyone saw any updates on those.
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Did the Vita blind boxes ever come in? At this point it’s been nearly 2 months which is truly crazy for something they had on hand. I know I shouldn’t be surprised but still...
 
I would definitely be down for some Working Designs Sega CD re-releases.  Snatcher too, of course.  

Not interested in Monkey Island though.

 
Be warned with Blasphemous. I just lost 16.5 hours and a 97% complete save file due to a very well known lost upgrades glitch in the game. From my research, there is no way to fix it. It appears that this can be an issue on Switch and PC; I have no idea about PS4, but it stands to reason that it has the issue, too. There are some other really bad glitches that I didn't get, but this one alone ruined my save file and completely soured the game for me. Consider playing something else until the new PC patch makes its way to console, and then we have to hope that it fixed it. 

 
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Zaku77 said:
Be warned with Blasphemous. I just lost 16.5 hours and a 97% complete save file due to a very well known lost upgrades glitch in the game. From my research, there is no way to fix it. It appears that this can be an issue on Switch and PC; I have no idea about PS4, but it stands to reason that it has the issue, too. There are some other really bad glitches that I didn't get, but this one alone ruined my save file and completely soured the game for me. Consider playing something else until the new PC patch makes its way to console, and then we have to hope that it fixed it.
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Thanks fur the heads-up. I was excited to get my shipping notification for my ps4 copy, but now I'll wait and see if they put out a patch immediately.
 
Zaku77 said:
Be warned with Blasphemous. I just lost 16.5 hours and a 97% complete save file due to a very well known lost upgrades glitch in the game. From my research, there is no way to fix it. It appears that this can be an issue on Switch and PC; I have no idea about PS4, but it stands to reason that it has the issue, too. There are some other really bad glitches that I didn't get, but this one alone ruined my save file and completely soured the game for me. Consider playing something else until the new PC patch makes its way to console, and then we have to hope that it fixed it.
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Is this the kind of thing that might be preventable with frequent save-file uploads to the cloud? I was preparing to start this on PS4 with the intention of uploading to PS+ before or after each session, but if you're screwed no matter what in that situation, I might wait.

 
Vigilante said:
Is this the kind of thing that might be preventable with frequent save-file uploads to the cloud? I was preparing to start this on PS4 with the intention of uploading to PS+ before or after each session, but if you're screwed no matter what in that situation, I might wait.
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If you turned off auto back up and manually backed your save up after every time you played, then you'd only lose however much you played since the last backup. That's not a very fun way to play a game, but it is a work around.

 
The fact that the collectors editions of the Sega CD games don't include the long boxes is both perplexing and stupid. The long boxes are the best part of those games and those systems.

 
itzd4n said:
My guess is that it'll be $50 or $60 after LRG tax
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Dr_dreadful said:
Yikes. Guess I'll see check out the digital prices if it's true but I know some of those Japanese games are a lot for the digital also.

They looked cool though.
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The games appear to be $39.99 each digitally from what I looked up so I think $59.99 would be a minimum price. A couple things to keep in mind are that multi game bundles usually have some sort of discount when sold at retail and that LRG is technically not the publisher of the games (since they are part of the distribution line). That said, I'm going to guess $59.99 will be the price for the multi game cart.

 
I try to be open minded and "to each his own" on everything in life... but I'd love to take a profile and interview the top 10 people who are most excited for "nurse love addiction".
 
Nintendonly said:
Wouldn't Gaijinworks own the rights to those now?
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It's possible that they didn't "own" the rights to them in the first place. Working Designs was simply the U.S. licensee and publisher of those games. They helped to localize them, but they weren't the original developers. All of the games they brought over here were Japanese releases from Japanese developers. It's likely that the actual ownership is still in the hands of the original Japanese developers.

 
Richard Kain said:
It's possible that they didn't "own" the rights to them in the first place. Working Designs was simply the U.S. licensee and publisher of those games. They helped to localize them, but they weren't the original developers. All of the games they brought over here were Japanese releases from Japanese developers. It's likely that the actual ownership is still in the hands of the original Japanese developers.
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Although they do own the copyright rights to the English translation for at least Popful Mail according to the back of the game box.
 
Nintendonly said:
Although they do own the copyright rights to the English translation for at least Popful Mail according to the back of the game box.
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True. But what has been localized once can be localized again. You don't have to use the exact same translation, and the "art" of localization is considerably more refined these days. There are options. I'm certain a company like 8-4 Play would be quite happy to take a crack at some of those titles. Or perhaps they could simply convince GaijinWorks to join in on the fun. Given the lowered risk and effort that a company like GaijinWorks would need to put in, it might not be a difficult sell to have them participate. Might not be necessary to circumvent them at all.

And of course, Snatcher is entirely owned by Konami, so there is no conflict there. You would just need Konami themselves to sign off on it.

 
Three years ago, pitching a line of Sega-CD reprints would have been a hard sell. But now, things have changed. LRG has an entire stable of releases under their belt, and a huge amount of gathered metrics to back up any such pitch they made.

Any company is going to be leery of financial risk, especially for a project like this. No one wants to get stuck holding the bag if a physical product doesn't sell out, and you've got a bunch of excess stock lying around gathering dust. It's the ever-present danger of dappling in physical media. But LRG's business model helps to mitigate that risk, and they have the numbers and practical examples to back that up. They even have competitors now, who are successfully employing the same approach.

At that point, the question isn't whether or not it can turn a profit. It's simply if the initial investment is worth the potential brand growth and goodwill. No one is making bank off of these re-prints. Physical media is a low-margin business to begin with. Even with mitigated risk, no one is going to be expecting high profits. So the real appeal for most developers is brand growth, prestige, and community goodwill. Collectors showing off their physical copies on social media, or using them to do Let's-Plays on video streaming sites is good publicity. A physical release is a good opportunity to re-promote your title, possibly years after it already released. Gets it back in the spot-light, and gets people talking about it again. That can be worth the trouble of going through a company like LRG for a physical release.

 
denpanosekai said:
I'd go HARD on any Working Designs re-release. I'm well beyond requiring the original cases. I can leave that to the diehards.
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I got originals of a handful of semi-rare/expensive Sega CD games and I'd definitely buy some reprints, just to see how they compare. Popful Mail was a damn fun game too, deserves more love.

I'm honestly curious though, we see Repo releases of games for the NES/SNES- what's stopping LRG or some other company from taking a game and re-releasing it? I know most repos are fan made games or versions of existing games with fan customizations but I think some are flat-out just the Japanese version with English translations- like Secret of Mana 2 on the SNES.

 
If LRG talks to Konami for anything, it should be about the three digital-only PS4 compilations they recently released.

But Snatcher would be incredible nonetheless.

 
Vinny said:
what's stopping LRG or some other company from taking a game and re-releasing it?
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Legal impediments. Licensing. That's pretty much the only obstacle. And these days, it's barely an obstacle. Capcom themselves have been making "official" repro cartridges over the past few years, and selling them for frankly obscene prices.

Re-releases of classic disc games for the Sega CD, Saturn, Playstation, etc.. are just a matter of a few signed contracts. And it's not just a LRG thing. Any of the up-and-coming indie physical game publishers could do it. Most of those classic disc systems have little to no DRM built into their discs. Standard pressed CDs would work just fine. All you have to do is get the necessary permissions from the people who own the legal rights. You most likely also have to pay those people, everyone involved is going to want a cut. When money is changing hands, the people who own the rights are going to want their cut. But yeah, it's really just a matter of business negotiations.

 
62t said:
They won't be able to do that without assistance from Sony or Sega.
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(glances over at the rather large number of official PS4-released LRG titles on his shelf)

Yeah...that's not really a problem. Official assistance from companies like Sony and Sega is a thing that can be had. Especially for a mini-publisher who already has a working relationship with some of those companies. Saturn reprints would be the more daunting proposition, given the marginal interest in the system to begin with. But original PS1 games would be a relatively easy proposition.

Also, the "protection" for the PS1 that you mention was a measure taken to lock out burned discs. Pressed discs with the correct region mark in the correct location on the disc would work just fine. It is entirely possible to press new PS1 discs that conform to Sony's standards without any exotic changes to the production line. This would also insure that the discs in question were locked to a particular region, but that was always going to be the case with an official release for the PS1.

 
Richard Kain said:
(glances over at the rather large number of official PS4-released LRG titles on his shelf)

Yeah...that's not really a problem. Official assistance from companies like Sony and Sega is a thing that can be had. Especially for a mini-publisher who already has a working relationship with some of those companies. Saturn reprints would be the more daunting proposition, given the marginal interest in the system to begin with. But original PS1 games would be a relatively easy proposition.

Also, the "protection" for the PS1 that you mention was a measure taken to lock out burned discs. Pressed discs with the correct region mark in the correct location on the disc would work just fine. It is entirely possible to press new PS1 discs that conform to Sony's standards without any exotic changes to the production line. This would also insure that the discs in question were locked to a particular region, but that was always going to be the case with an official release for the PS1.
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The PS4 games LRG paid Sony for the license fees. Pressed disc were very common in Asia and they won't work on unmodded hardware. Only way for this to work is for LRG to go to Sony to reprint the PS1 games. Sony wont be allow LRG to print their own PS1 games. Not sure if Sony is still printing them in 2020.

Edit: more on PS1 disc. Only Sony can bypass copy protection.

https://consolecopyworld.com/psx/psx_cd_info.shtml

 
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62t said:
Edit: more on PS1 disc. Only Sony can bypass copy protection.
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Not true. And specifically, it states this in the very article you linked. That console copy article specifically states what is needed to bypass copy protection in CD burning. Both the copy protection schemes that it mentions don't apply to standard pressed discs. The bad blocks it mentions aren't possible with regular commercial CD burners. But they are quite easy for a standard pressed disc. The Country-Code Lockout (which I had already mentioned) is not possible with most CD burners, but is also no real issue with a pressed disc. The "copy-protection" for the PS1 is designed to prevent casual CD-burning. But it can easily be replicated for anyone mass-producing pressed discs.

If your only objective was producing discs that run on a PS1, you could do this fairly easily through a mass CD printing. (not a cheap approach, of course, you would want to make sure of your code first) You would not need Sony's approval or cooperation.

Of course, if you wanted to advertise your game as an official PS1 title, you would very much need Sony's approval and involvement. You can't get a Playstation logo anywhere near that thing without Sony's go-ahead. But the "copy-protection" of the original PS1 is not nearly as big of an impediment as you seem to think. Certainly not for a commercial distributor who already has experience with large-scale production.

 
Got my Blazing Chrome Collectors Edition today. Wasn’t really impressed with the mockup when the preorder went live but in person the doopy VHS aesthetics actually come together. Not bad at all.
 
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