M2 Discusses Most Highly Requested Ports, Why They Haven’t Released On Steam, And More

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In December last year, Denfaminicogamer hosted a Twitter poll asking fans what games they would like to see be brought over to modern gaming systems by M2. Recently, they sat down for an interview with M2 to see how feasible porting them would be, their thoughts on Steam and the Nintendo Switch, and more.

 

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Some of the most requested titles included ESP Ra.De., The Great Ragtime Show, Progear, 19XX –THE WAR AGAINST DESTINY, Truxton II, and The Outfoxies.

 

Here are the highlights of the interview:

  • M2 reveals that they will most likely be bringing over games that were released in the 90s, as most 80s games have already seen some sort of rerelease.

 

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  • M2 showed off the various arcade system boards that they keep at the office. Apparently they share them between employees, mainly because many of them would be scolded by family members if they kept them at home. M2 president Naoki Horii reveals that he buys American arcade cabinets, such as Marble Madness, from somebody who buys them and ships them by the container to auction off.

 

  • Horii reveals that actual porting work for several games that ranked in the poll such as Truxton II/Tatsujin Oh and Armed Police Batrider has been completed, as part of research and development on emulation. However, they haven’t received fine-tuning for any sort of planned release. This is because they usually test games on the same arcade system board together. Sometimes, the emulation ports are completed but have to be shelved for a long time, such as Dangun Feveron / Fever SOS which originally was meant to be released for Xbox 360, but never saw a release until the recent PS4/Xbox One release.

 

  • The Outfoxies is one title that Horii says they’d like to work on as soon as Bandai Namco gives them the go-ahead to do so, as the title has never seen any sort of rerelease. However, he’s unsure how it will fare against current-age rating systems like CERO.

 

  • M2 also says that they would be open to helping out with a rerelease of Irem’s Undercover Cops, if they ever plan on doing so.

 

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  • One of the bottlenecks for a rerelease of Armed Police Batrider by M2 is that it runs even slower than Battle Garegga, as the game came out afterwards. Overall, games from the latter half of the 90s are barely able to run with the PS4’s specs in M2 rereleases.

 

  • M2 has received lots of requests to rerelease the full ‘Yagawa Trilogy’, meaning games that Shinobu Yagawa worked on. The three games referred to are Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, and Battle Bakraid. Horii says that while this will be hard to do, it’s something he wants M2 to tackle someday.

 

  • All three Konami ReBirth series games developed by M2 ranked in on the poll, which pleases Horii and the rest. They acknowledge that now that Wii Points cannot be added anymore, it’s much harder to play the Wiiware titles, making them ‘nice titles’ to consider bringing to other platforms.

 

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  • Why don’t M2 bring their releases to Steam and PC? M2 planner Kazuki Kubota acknowledges that even on their trailers for the M2 Shot Triggers series of titles on Youtube, lots of people complain that the games aren’t being released on Steam. Horii states that the reason is because they have to account for various PC hardware environments. While their releases work decently on Windows 7, as soon as it hits Windows 10 slowdown occurs, and they haven’t found an acceptable solution yet. As soon as they find one, they’ll put more effort into PC releases.

 

  • M2 are currently testing out their M2 Shot Triggers releases on Nintendo Switch, but haven’t been able to solve the processing speed and slowdown issues yet in a manner they are satisfied with. However, Horii clarifies that the slowdown has nothing to do with the Joy-Con controllers, contrary to online reports that there is some input delay for them. One of the current releases M2 is working on for the Switch is Sega Ages Thunder Force IV, and until their releases are able to reach that quality, they do not want to release the games.

 

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  • On the topic of the Nintendo Switch, M2 thinks that the hardware is a great opportunity to try out games that were originally motion-controlled or used a joystick. Kubota cites Nintendo Labo as a great inspiration to try working with games that used a special interface. They jokingly stated that perhaps they should include a cardboard controller for those.

 

  • Finally, Horii ended the interview by saying that out of the games that ranked in the poll, M2 will probably try negotiating a rerelease of ESP Ra.De, The Great Ragtime Show, The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy, and Equites.

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Image of Alistair Wong
Alistair Wong
Very avid gamer with writing tendencies. Fan of Rockman and Pokémon and lots more!