Hokuto no Ken Atomiswave, worth it?

[venchia3]

Hi all
searched around the forum and the internet in general, and since I'm pretty much looking for an Atomiswave board and Fist of the North Star/Hokuto no ken I would like to ask some infos concerning this title.
Some years ago I noticed a thread were many of the members suggest that buying an atomiswave is basically for hnk.

Let's consider that I played the PS2 port of the game, in 240p and 480p through a Diamondtron CRT VGA monitor, graphic wise will I have something more from the Atomiswave or the two games are basically the same? Some say that the PS2 port lacks in the sound department and have some stripped down animations, is it true?

I really loved this game on PS2 and would really much like to have the arcade at home, but at the same time I worry that the investment would leave me with a similar PS2 experience

What do you think?

Cheers and happy new year!

[Rossyra]

I am far from an expert, but I have owned HNK on the Atomiswave and I have it for the PS2. I must say I wasn't even aware it was possible to play it in 480p on the PS2.

I didn't notice any difference in basic graphics or gameplay tbh, besides the interlacing. If you're already playing it in 31k I doubt you will gain much. Atomiswave is basically a Dreamcast after all.

[Paulie]

I was going to basically post the same as rossyra, I still own both but my AW cart is a boot, so its not like I have a lot of money tied up in it.

[venchia3]

I am far from an expert, but I have owned HNK on the Atomiswave and I have it for the PS2. I must say I wasn't even aware it was possible to play it in 480p on the PS2.

eheheh yea, you can actually make it boot in 480p using the GS Mode Selector or the HDTV Exploder (both works just ok with PS2's HNK).
Only problem with the PS2 is that it always run in some sort of underscan, that means you have a black border on all sides of the display. I do think developers back in the day used it to save some ram, since we were all using crt tvs, hence those bars were kinda masked.

With a crt/lcd vga monitor that supports SoG you can actually just use a component to vga cable and obtain a vga 640x480 31khz image, only downside the mentioned underscan. With my crt vga monitor I can resize the image but I don't think it's super ideal since I'm basically stretching the image, am I right?

For all of these reasons I was wondering if the Atomiswave version with it's native (and full frame) vga output could give me better results

[Rossyra]

Well, you're facing maybe a couple of hundred spend. It will look better, but whether that's worth the upgrade is a decision for you to make.

[venchia3]

You wa shock

Indeed

And well, if - after all - it will look and sound better, I should "decide the destiny" and try to upgrade. Actually it won't be the only AW game I'm interested in, will eventually buy at some point: KoF XI, Battle Coliseum, Rumble Fish 2 and Knights of Valour...but yea, the main motivation of having the board is basically 80% fotns

I'm aware of the fact that the game won't change completely and that the PS2 game is a really good port (even more with the 480p trick)...I'm also really much curious to know if someone actually ever noticed a difference between background music, as reported elsewhere

[Milspex]

I believe the ps2 version had a bunch of bug fixes though

[d123456]

I would just get the AW version and check out the differences, if there are no differences, you could sell it later on.
I'm really curious about this. I really like HNK. I have the ps2 version playing in 31kHz as well. The sound is pretty bad on the ps2 version, I never thought that it might be better on AW since it is a rom cart, so there will never be CD quality sound, right?
Curous about the undescan and overscan too. Are they different on AW hardware?
The same graphical ps2 underscan and overscan issues also apply to the following PS2 games:
-all guilty gear games
-Sengoku Basara X

[venchia3]

I would just get the AW version and check out the differences, if there are no differences, you could sell it later on.

You are pretty much right on this, only problem with me is that I always try to find this kind of stuff in a pretty mint shape, spending a lot more than the average price of over used goods

I'm really curious about this. I really like HNK. I have the ps2 version playing in 31kHz as well. The sound is pretty bad on the ps2 version, I never thought that it might be better on AW since it is a rom cart, so there will never be CD quality sound, right?

Yea, not sure about this, honestly in my researches I could only find a topic over the internet speaking of the sound differences between the PS2 and the AW version of the game, with the AW version sounding quite much better than the PS2 counterpart. They said because the AW have more sound channels than the PS2, but don't quote me on that, I didn't double check on this

Curous about the undescan and overscan too. Are they different on AW hardware?
The same graphical ps2 underscan and overscan issues also apply to the following PS2 games:
-all guilty gear games
-Sengoku Basara X

Well, actually the underscan issue is something pretty much common with the PS2. In almost all of the games I've tried...I do think that with a native VGA output the AW could produce a better result on a monitor...but I would like to know myself from who have both the games eheheh

[SonGohanX]

PS2 HnK definitely had several bug fixes. I mean...most of the basketball combos are still intact though, and that's what counts, right?

[pir0]

Have it, its awesome.
Go ahead and buy it.

[venchia3]

Already done it lucky enough to find a brand new Atomiswave board...I just need a supergun now

[dipindods]

enjoy it its a awesome game and 1 hit kills on your friends are sooooo much fun hahaha