We bring one more core by Andrea Bogazzi reviewed by the rest of the team. This is Taito's X system. Hardware-wise it shares a lot with the existing JTKIWI core (The New Zealand Story, Arkanoid 2) but it is also the first JT core sporting a Yamaha YM2610. That is the same chip as in the NeoGeo but despite the NeoGeo being very popular, the chip did not see much use on other arcade platforms.

We have used schematics and the game PCB, plus it is built on top of JTKIWI and JT10 for sound, so I am quite happy with this new implementation of Taito-X system.

Five titles were released on the TAITO-X system. Superman was developed in-house by Taito, Twin Hawk was created by Toaplan, and the remaining three were handled by East Technology.

Superman

Despite the BGM being just one continuous track, Superman's sprite being way too large, making his hitbox huge, and his goofy mid-air kick animation, this title was always appealing in the arcades. It's a side-scrolling action shooter that you just can't help poking fun at while playing.

Twin Hawk

Although Twin Hawk itself is a fighter jet, no aerial enemies appear at all, and the enemies are exclusively ground tanks of various sizes. That gives the game a different feeling because ground enemies follow roads (easier to predict) but can also go backwards.

In addition to the shot button, there is a helper button; pressing it summons six support craft (helpers) from the bottom of the screen that form a formation and unleash a continuous barrage of shots.

Gigandes

Developed by East Technology, this game is a side-scrolling shooter where you can switch between as many as 11 diverse weapon types to suit the situation. I always thought that Gradius had too many weapons, so imagine this one!

When the player loses a life, they respawn on the spot without losing any of their equipment—not like R-Type—however, upon clearing a stage, their weapons revert back to the default single-direction normal shot.

Balloon Brothers

Simply put, it is upside-down Tetris where blocks are replaced by balloons. There are three balloon colors, and rotating the pieces cycles their color from green to red to blue. Clearing lines while also matching the colors adds unique twists unlike standard Tetris, such as clearing matching-colored blocks or triggering other colors to vanish. But since you can't see the NEXT balloon, it demands split-second decision-making!

Last Striker

This game is an indoor 4-on-4 soccer game featuring anime-styled boys vs girls. Unlike serious soccer games, it has no intricate rules and a match duration of under a minute. The cute graphics makes it a good choice to play with kids.

Other Updates

• Fixed title transparency in Raiga Strato Fighter

• Fixed letters missing in Gradius III

• Fixed Screen Rotation broken in SiDi128

• Fixed Background Layer offset Makoto vs Ken Game crashing glitch in SF III 3rd Strike

• Fixed Circular Analog Stick odd inputs in cps3

• Made more robust OutRun's PCM in preparation for Space Harrier code

• Fixed missing first pixel in roadf

• Fixed playfield bottom incorrect and other graphics problem in rungun

• Use MCU for protection in 1943. Following the introduction of a new MCU module for intel's i8751, I have taken the time to remove the emulation of the protection logic in 1943 and replace it with the real MCU circuit. I am sorry to say that I do not expect any change in the gameplay at all. This is simply a change in the core to use all the original circuitry instead of hacking around the protection system. The ROM dump for 1943's MCU was not available at the time I made the core

That's all for today. We still have a few things in the backlog to keep us busy for a few weeks. But, I need to ask soon about what cores or features we should work on after that.