Egret II mini

[Yakumo]

Congratulations on getting all the cards. They look cool. It does suck that they give nothing with the main unit though.

[gunrock]

[MENTION=88]buster_broon[/MENTION]: that's a great haul, but $456? No wonder you're skint!

[QualityChimp]

@buster_broon: that's a great haul, but $456? No wonder you're skint!

He also can't afford shoes either, based on those pictures...

[importaku]

Finally time to try attempt a 2nd time to get my mini to me it's arrived back at tenso, seems tenso now has dhl added to the list of shipping options so here goes nothing. I may get it before the year is out lol

[buster_broon]

totally agree, seems weird they package the holder but not the cards unless there is somewhere to redeem them

[importaku]

While reading through the official site post release i found a interesting page, they held a contest for people to tell them what additional games people wanted adding in the form of a questionnaire. Seems they fully intend to add further collections of games onto it via the SD card slot.

https://taito.co.jp/mob/topics/15116

Translated...

We will conduct a questionnaire on the game titles you want to add to the desktop game center "Egret II Mini" scheduled to be released on March 2, 2022 (Wednesday).


"Egret II Mini" is equipped with a dedicated SD card slot, and games can be added using the dedicated SD card. The results of the questionnaire will be used as reference materials when considering recorded titles for dedicated SD cards in the future. In addition, 20 people will be given an Amazon gift certificate (5,000 yen) by lottery from those who participated in the questionnaire.

Still holding out enough people shouted the original rainbow islands at them but i'd love to have akkanvader on that thing.

[importaku]

My superset finally turned up need to do some proper glamour shots at the weekend to make [MENTION=10111]QualityChimp[/MENTION] crack and buy one but till then just a few quick pics. The outer container box is pretty nice & a different colour to the other set with the trackball controller. All neatly fits inside but the dickhead DHL driver dumped my box down hard as he delivered it so he not only busted the corner of the outer box but hard enough that it also got this one and the main unit insides corner too.



The book that comes with the set is fantastic it's a game gudebook on how to beat all 50 games plus a pretty extensive interview section at the back. Load of pics in it on how to beat each game.




at some point i may drag my scanner out and scan the instruction cards so people who didn't get them can print them out and at least have something to put in the top panel. Probably won't be until i'm off work in a few weeks time for a holiday.

[Atticus]

Oh wow! That is indeed a super set. Amazing.

[importaku]

Played a few hours pretty happy with it, just a huge shame rainbow islands isn't on it as much as extra is neat to play it's not the same and rainbow islands is not just my favourite taito game it's my absolute favourite arcade game full stop. But what there is on this thing is a lot of fun. The paddle controller is really nice the spinner has gears on it so there's momentum and you can free spin it as much as you like still takes a while to get used to as im dieing all over the place in arkanoid. Cameltry is probably the best showcase for how accurate it is you can spin that maze like a fiend. In between playing on the built in screen i decided to hook it upto my vertical monitor for a bit too.



The trackball is lovely too it spins with momentum so you can really go at it, the metallic spinner is sadly plastic but you can't have it all

[QualityChimp]

Mate, I'm outside waiting to come and have a go.
Maybe you can't hear me knocking because I have my soft museum curator's gloves on?

This is all great stuff. It's really nice when companies take the time to produce something nice, rather than a lazy cash grab.

[fuse]

Definitely a little remorseful at not going the distance for the magazine, looks like it's got some nice art in it. Also more fool me for not cancelling and replacing my order when they sorted out the inflated shipping charge - based on previous examples I thought it'd be straightforward enough getting the cash back from Amazon, but now looking like it'll be more hassle than it's worth.

[importaku]

It’s a really nice guidebook they have put a lot of effort into it. They also list some of the cheats for the games in it too, I like how each game at the beginning of the page they have put the instruction card art so if you ever lost the originals you could scan this book and print them out.

Ended up paying less than my first attempt at shipping. Tenso refunded my original ems shipping cost seeing as the service is suspended and when I switched to using dhl it was £44 cheaper for some odd reason. Bonus for it getting no customs hit either but that could be down to the fact I declared it at £11 lolol screw uk government getting any extra from me.

[QualityChimp]

I will pay you £22, DOUBLING how much you paid!

Nice to see you have it at last. Let us know if something surprising takes up most of your time on it.

[importaku]

I will pay you £22, DOUBLING how much you paid!

Nice to see you have it at last. Let us know if something surprising takes up most of your time on it.

While i have played a lot of arkanoid returns the 2 main ones which have been getting a lot of playtime are bubble symphony & newzealand story, kind of surprised i still know where the hidden warps are. Made my way quite far in the save states are handy to have as some of these are pretty long to do in one sitting.

One interesting thing i discovered the bundle of instruction cards are not actually made of card but thin plastic, i was thinking of trying to light them up on the top of the cab and i tried shining my flashlight from my phone through them to see how it would behave and it turned translucent. Think i can get hold of a white EL panel and cut it to size and place it on the back of the holder and backlight them as when they are placed in normally they look pretty dark, a backlight would make them look great. A project for another time though as i'll have to get it from china as i refuse to pay £20+ for a panel when it only costs £5 from china for the exact same thing i'm not paying that markup just because it's already in the uk. One thing i have bought though is a plastic trading card box for the cards as they are going to get dinged up been just wrapped in plastic so a storage box to keep them safe is a good idea as the only way i could get more is if i bought the bundle again errr yeah not happening lol.

[paulus]

I too am desperate to play the superior and original Rainbow Islands on my egret. According to this YouTube video :

https://youtu.be/6_uDY7r62hw

.... one of the authors of the Project Luna hack (MD Mini) has already added other roms and even has Retroarch running on it 👍