Nice.

In Deathworm101 Yamaha YM2413 Listen You!

Hey Sam, my awesomeness friend, just came to say hey, hope you're all good. We should talk again soon, haven't in a week or so. Still lovin' your videos. Cya later.

Technical Error. Sorry about that man

(continued) I would definitely encourage you to get one for your SMS II... I think that it would most certainly be worth it. And, yeah, R-Type is one HELL of a sick side-scrolling shmup... it's my personal favorite of all time. And the SMS version definitely pushed the capabilities of the SMS hardware. With the kinds of games that it boasted, sometimes I wonder why it never managed to trump the NES in terms of popularity.

Warm regards,
BigLupeRakimDee

(continued) The Master System also used a Z80 and an optional YM2413, and had onscreen color display capabilities that could probably emulate what the Mitchell hardware was capable of reasonably well. Yet NONE of those aforementioned games were EVER ported to the Master System. Pang and Super Pang were ported to numerous consoles, but not the SMS, even though the SMS had hardware that could allow for a very accurate replication of the arcade experience. I knew about the After Burner and R-Type ports prior to first speaking to you, but I didn't know about the Rampage port until you told me about it. Those prices you brought up for the FM expansion boards definitely seem pretty reasonable, considering what remarkable power they bestow upon the consoles they are implemented into.

I know that most of the FM-capable SMS games are arcade ports. The first one I remember seeing was the SMS port of Double Dragon. YouTube user macromi did a playthrough with the YM2413 enabled that unfortunately went down when he closed his account. Though its gameplay was not as good as the NES version, it was slightly closer in terms of graphics and sound to its arcade counterpart than the NES conversion (especially with the YM2413 activated). What I meant by my statement about how the SMS didn't have a lot of ports of arcade games that used the YM2413 was as literal as literal can get. You know how, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mitchell released a good number of arcade games (Block Block, Capcom Baseball, Dokaben, Pang, Poker Ladies, Super Pang, etc.) which were distributed by Capcom? Well, the arcade boards for those games used a YM2413 and an OKI6295. The processor was a Z80.

I've got to say... that is REALLY quite remarkable how that gentleman has managed to make FM expansion boards that work with non-Japanese Sega Master Systems... even more incredible is how they also work with the Genesis AND the Game Gear. I don't even want to IMAGINE how much money a SMS/MD/GG equipped with one of those boards would fetch on eBay. *_*

It's probably an impossible dream, but my greatest wish would be for an FM expansion board that enables Master System owners to be able to play all games with FM synthesis (even games that don't have FM code).

Sometimes I wonder why a lot of arcade games that used the YM2413 (especially Mitchell titles) were never ported to the SMS... if not arcade-perfect graphics, then nearly arcade-perfect sound DEFINITELY could have been possible.

Well, that's definitely weird... I guess that the developers (or distributors, as the case sometimes tends to be) were either too lazy or forgot to eliminate the FM code from those North American/European releases you brought up. But, then again, I should seriously be grateful that things like region adapters exist, because they allow non-Japanese who are fortunate enough to own Japanese SMSes to be able to enjoy YM2413 music in some games, and therefore negate whatever complaints I might have.

I guess a big factor of my appreciation for older game systems/FM synthesis lies in the fact that they're a lot more fun, rudimentary, and hard to get tired of than today's game systems and their multidimensional audio. Another reason for my love of FM synthesis is that all of the sound is generated by the chips themselves... wavetable synthesis chips do not generate their own sound and rely instead on samples. :-(

I've always wanted to purchase a Japanese SMS... to this day, I'll never understand why North American consumers didn't get to enjoy YM2413 FM synthesis as those in Japan did. It always seems like Japanese gamers got to enjoy all of these awesome perks with their systems, and everyone else got short-changed. :-P Oh, well.

I always enjoyed the FM synthesis sound on Yamaha's old synth chips... it always sounded a lot more rich, expressive, emotional, and full than the wavetable sampling that became a staple of later sound cards. :-( One of these days, it would definitely be nice to obtain a computer with an OPL-3 sound card, just to have that classic sound. Emulation is nice, but it's no substitution for the real thing.

It's just such a shame that most nowadays don't really like that old-school sound, though... back in the days, it took a lot of hard work and determination to produce music that sounded remarkable on what is, by today's standards, decidedly ancient hardware.