Art o' Fighting

[Joe Redifer]

So today I bought me some Art o' Fighting for $5 complete at the local game store.  For those who don't know, this is a game that was once on the Neo Geo, and therefore it is a fighting game.  Anyway this game is pretty cool I suppose, but I did notice something weird about it.  And that's that it seems to REQUIRE the TurboTap to be plugged in to my highly coveted TurboGrafx-16 Video Entertainment SuperSystem to even work properly in one player mode.  If there is no TurboTap present, then the stage fails to load in story mode and the game freezes.  If I choose VS MODE, then I am controlling both characters with my single controller.  And yes, I am playing with the RARE L@@K NEC Avenue 6-button pad.

What da hizzell?

[nat]

Not sure. I have the game, have the TurboTap, and have the Avenue 6 pad. Thing is, I've ALWAYS had my 'Tap hooked up with the Avenue 6 pad when I play.

I'll give it a shot later without the 'Tap and get back to you.

[Necromancer]

Weird indeed - interesting find Joe.  First I tried it with my trusty wireless controller and had no problems; then realized that the IR receiver acts as a tap (duh - I must be drunk).  Tried out the Avenue Pad and had the same result - frozen loading screen.  Rather obvious bug to sneak past quality control.

[thewestexit]

I've never played this game with a tap and it always worked fine for me from what I remember.  I was probably playing it with a Fighting Commander PC 6 button pad, FWIW.

[Keranu]

I was probably playing it with a Fighting Commander PC 6 button pad, FWIW.

What in the name of all that is gracious does FWIW mean!?

[Necromancer]

FWIW = for what it's worth - IIRC.   

[Black Tiger]

How are you using the Arcade Card, with a mod or convertor?

I've played the game a few times on a Turbo Duo with Kisado and a Duo RX with a 2 button pad and no tap and it worked fine.

[termis]

Just quickly tried it with a PCE Duo /w 6 button pad and it seems to work "fine" both ways.

And I say "fine" in quotes because the loading seems to be pretty sketchy for me.  When the red bar is going down, it'll sometimes get stuck for a good 4-5 seconds, then the red bar fills up to the right again (as if it's trying to recover from a read error and starting all over again), then start to slowly go down again.  But sometimes it'll go right down to the end without getting stuck at all.  And it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm playing through the tap or not.  I dunno if other people have this issue or if it's just me.

I suppose I can try on a CoreGrafx II + SCDRom / SuperGrafx + SCDRom to see if it'd make a difference some other time.

Playing this game kinda cracks me up, with the whole Capcom's Dan character joke and all.

[Michael Helgeson]

The load issue is normal. Its a error read recovery thing going on. World heroes 2 did it also every now and then. If you have a heavly used drive it will do it even more,or fail to load period. Also,the game reuses data already loaded,so if you when a fight all it loads is the next rounds data and doesn't have to load your character data again untill you change characters.

[Necromancer]

How are you using the Arcade Card, with a mod or convertor?

I've played the game a few times on a Turbo Duo with Kisado and a Duo RX with a 2 button pad and no tap and it worked fine.

I used a Arcade Card Pro / Kisado / Turbo Duo / Avenue Pad 6 combo.  I only waited for about 30 seconds to maybe a minute to see if it would recover; normally (with a tap installed) loading proceeds as thumpin_termis described.

[nat]

And I say "fine" in quotes because the loading seems to be pretty sketchy for me.  When the red bar is going down, it'll sometimes get stuck for a good 4-5 seconds, then the red bar fills up to the right again (as if it's trying to recover from a read error and starting all over again), then start to slowly go down again.  But sometimes it'll go right down to the end without getting stuck at all.  And it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm playing through the tap or not.  I dunno if other people have this issue or if it's just me.

It's not just you. This game has the most unreliable loading process out of any CD games that I own.

Now I haven't yet had a chance to test it with the Ave 6 pad w/o 'Tap, but I would venture a guess it's just coincidence it happened to lock up for Joe during loading without the 'Tap installed. I've had the loading proceed fine 90% of the time when I play this game and the other 10% or so it just locks up and I have to reset. Just for kicks, I left it alone once for like 15 minutes and it never un-froze. I'm not sure why this game is more susceptible to "well-used" drives than any other, but it seems that it is. I also have World Heroes 2, FF2, FF Special, among other ACD titles and none of them have this problem.

[Michael Helgeson]

I forgot to mention it gives my friend with the Supergrafx Rau-30 briefcase combo complete hell. The game freezes up during loading the first match almost always and if hes lucky it will load and then freeze when loading the second one. he has tried 2 drives,one with very few hours of use,with no luck. The game disc is fine.It was my copy originally when I was using a briefcase combo and a Coregrafx and Super Cd-rom 2 system combo. It worked perfect for me on both set ups.

[Joe Redifer]

I tried several times without the Tap and it never made it into a round unless I picked VS, and then I would be controlling both characters.  I think I may try it with a 2-button pad without a Tap later.

I use a purple converter which I opened up and sliced a contact so that the Arcade Card would work.