O Cartridge, Where Art Thou?

Sometimes I'm more shocked by the games that I don't own rather than the ones that I do. I own a few games that are difficult to find, but only because I found them cheap during my thrifting adventures. What I don't own, however, is a North American version of Super Mario Kart. I bought a Super Famicom version a few years ago, and since the menus are super easy to navigate, even for a dolt like myself who can't read Japanese, the cartridge was perfectly serviceable for my needs. I don't own a copy of Super Mario 64 either; I don't even own the DS remake. I don't own a copy of A Link to the Past, Super Metroid or even Kirby's Adventure. All ubiquitous games, I've just never found them in the wild.

To say I've never found them would be inaccurate, but what I consider to be in the wild is in a thrift store, flea market or at the outlet store. All these games are readily available at almost any media resale store around me, but I always held out hope I would find them for cheaper in the wild, where prices used to be less regulated by greed. I remember thrift stores having stacks of common games that I had tons of, for exceedingly cheap prices too, but most of the time they had already been picked through and the good games were gone. What was left were things I would pick up for trades or to fill out my collection.

Perhaps I'm frugal to a fault, but I feel I don't need something unless I'm comfortable with the price. As time moves on prices are shooting up, and that's really exacerbating things. I'm not looking to have a complete collection, or to own all the rare games on any given console. I just want to own the staples of each console, that way I can enjoy them like most people my age did when they were kids. As if it's a Friday night and I just rented this game, or came back from Toys R Us with a new game for getting good grades and I was going to use it to numb my mind for the weekend.

Sure, I can emulate all of the games in question, and I certainly have throughout the years. I still retain there is something to be said about genuinely having the cartridge, or in the case of the Playstation the disc, and playing it on the original hardware. I found a PSOne console a few weeks back that I have no clue where it came from. It's not on my spreadsheet of consoles, but it was hidden inside a bag of my stuff. I decided to spend the day fully testing it, and let me tell you being 41 never felt so much like 16 this entire year. It was an absolute blast! So again, I could easily replicate the gameplay with an emulator, but for me personally nothing beats the original hardware, software and controller. I just need to find the staple games of the consoles I love and live that reality.

My Adventures in Illusion of Gaia

Taking inspiration from having finished Breath of Fire, I decided it was time to finish this one off too. There are RPGs that hold your hand, and there are RPGs that don't care what kind of mess you get yourself into with no hope of rectifying the situation. Illusion of Gaia falls at the tail end of the former and leans over into the latter. You see, you don't earn stats the normal way by grinding and leveling up, you earn stats by clearing out rooms. The final enemy of each room gives you an upgrade of strength, health or defense. There is no magic really to speak of, rather you transform into stronger characters.

While Illusion of Gaia is kind of an entry level RPG to ease people into the genre, I felt I had a pretty good grasp on finishing the game. Everything was hunky-dory until I hit that final home stretch. An often overused trope is to force the player to defeat every single boss they've already defeated, just to pad out the game's play time due to developer laziness. While Illusion of Gaia was very generous with save points, which double as healing stations, in the last few parts of the game, I figured I was perfectly fine and this was going to be a piece of cake with ice cream and chocolate pudding on top. The sad reality was the game was luring me into a sense of false superiority and plotting my downfall with each step I took.

In any normal RPG you would carry a stock of healing items, or at the very least healing spells, again of which there are none in this game, to supplement any damage you take after a battle. With Illusion of Gaia I was lured into a false sense of security with as often as I could just pop into a save point, heal and save my progress. Herbs are available to take with you, but that is if you can be bothered to find them as they're hidden in chests, rather than sold by vendors. I felt there was really no need, instead I chose to keep my inventory open for the items I felt I would need along the journey, rather than needlessly hunt down herbs to heal what the save points would already do.

Illusion of Gaia also has a life system, which is kind of useful, but not really to me. Most enemies will drop an orb, each orb gives different points towards an extra life. You can have a maximum of 9 lives and 100 points from collecting those orbs earns an extra life. If you should die in battle one life is spent and you're allowed to restart from the entry of the room where you died. I've used a few lives along my journey, mostly due to my lack of patience. When it comes to bosses though, your life is spent, your health isn't completely replenished and you're forced to start the fight all over again. Meaning you're worse off than you would be just restarting from your previous save, no matter how far back the previous save was.

Some might say that Illusion of Gaia's traps are my fault, and I would say maybe you're right. However, when an item has been useless 90% of the time you've played a game, and you forget it's even a thing because it has been so useless, but when you finally need it the game doesn't allow you to leave the tower to go back and find it, well the item is still useless and this game is just a trap. I did beat this game, but it was a long, hard road. I don't hate this game, that hatred is reserved for Lagoon! Fuck that game! Illusion of Gaia was a nice, charming little introductory RPG that I did enjoy most of my time playing through. I'm glad I finally got through it. I might even play through it again, but just to unlock the final red jewel mansion.

"I want to burn you into my memory."

Autumnal Shift

Autumn is upon us and pedal building season 2024 has come to a close. Against all odds, and desires, this year I built one more circuit than I did in 2023, which I swear I did not plan on doing. I still have kits I put together that will now have to wait to be built in 2025. Beyond these kits I've only found a few things that have inspired me, but I swear it won't be 46 (or more) circuits in 2025! I don't plan on quitting, I just feel the need to move on to other projects for 2025.

As the days turn colder, the nights grow longer, the urge to play RPGs grows stronger. With having beaten a 20+ year old save on Breath of Fire I'm started to wonder what I should tackle next. There is an entry coming up that explains what RPG I beat after Breath of Fire, so I won't spoil that here. I own an SNES multicart that has both Actraisers, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Terranigma, Link to the Past and a few other RPGs on it I'd love to get stuck into. Although I have saves for both Chrono Trigger and Earthbound from at least 2017, and a more recent one for Dragon Quest 5 on my Wii. Maybe I should take care of those first. Who knows, we'll see!

I Finally Beat Breath of Fire (After 20 Years!)

 In late summer of 2001 I was gifted my first Super Nintendo console and some games. In either 2002 or 2003 I purchased a copy of Breath of Fire and went straight to work on getting to the game's end. After many hours had been invested something else took my interest and Breath of Fire was packed away. I truly can't remember what it was, but whatever it was took me away from Breath of Fire so long that I totally forgot where I was and what I had left to do. If you're a fan of old RPGs you'll know, unless it's your favorite RPG that you've played through a few times already, picking up where you left off in an old RPG is damn near impossible. Throughout the years I attempted to figure out where I was, but I kept drawing a blank, getting frustrated and just packing the game away again. Not this time!

I knew I was on a tower with two elevators, so I went to GameFAQs and searched the most suggested walkthrough to see if it could steer me in the right direction. Thankfully it did! Now I finally knew where I was, after twenty years! I was literally an hour or less away from completing the game for over twenty years and never stuck it out long enough to get to the end. What a shame. My tendency to grind levels helped out quite a bit here as I found it fairly easy to get through the bosses I had left. I needed to backtrack through and pick up some equipment and learn some dragon skills, but all in all it wasn't a big struggle, especially the end bosses. #Spoiler: Once I got the agni ability they were actually really easy. Just keep a pocket full of cures and you're golden.

Yes, it's a photo of my TV screen. What?

The main reason why I wanted to beat Breath of Fire was to finally close the book, and have experienced this game completely after all these years. The second is because my 68 in 1 SNES Multicart has both Breath of Fire and Breath of Fire 2, so I have access to a (semi legit) copy of Breath of Fire 2 to play on real hardware. No save state safety net for me! Although I will be using a walkthrough if I get stuck and frustrated. Just being honest. With all the fun I had finishing the game I really hate to just pack it away and only think of it who knows when. I do think of the cartridge now in much the same way as I do my Playstation memory cards; windows to a bygone era when I had a lot more fun in life. Back when I was playing Gran Turismo 1 and 2 on the PS3 I pulled out my PSOne and took a stroll down memory [card] lane to see what my old garages looked like. It was a good time! Now I leave you with a typo I found in Breath of Fire. Yes, it's also a photo of my TV screen.

Modern(ish) Retro Gaming: Playing PS1 on PS3

The original Playstation was one of my favorite gaming eras. When I was a teenager I bought a Playstation with my summer job money, only to quit that job, because I was a dumb teenager, to spend more time playing my Playstation. Remember kids, don't bite the hand that feeds you, nor quit the job that buys you video games! I spent countless hours playing games such as Driver, Grand Theft Auto, Auto Destruct, FF7, Breath of Fire III, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, the list goes on and on. Don't even get me started on demo discs, as they sometimes harbored a gem that turned out to be better than the finished product. Sure the graphics, by today's standards, are quite janky, but back then things looked amazing. I do miss the era of jagged polygons.

For the past few months I've had the urge to play Gran Turismo and Resident Evil again, but I didn't want to set up my original Playstation to do so. It's shouldn't be a mystery at this point that any PS3 can play PS1 games, so the quickest and easiest way was to just use my PS3. At first I was really annoyed by the dithering that ruined the field of view, but I found out that can be turned off. The issue then became the need to turn it off every single time I boot up a PS1 game on the PS3. The other problem is it doesn't seem to allow Gran Turismo to choose whether the control settings should be digital or analog, which I also need to change every time I boot that game. Except for some reason I need to change it for every single race too. Still, I'm actually having a ton of fun! Well, once I beat all the dreadfully shit license tests on Gran Turismo I was having a ton of fun.

With all of my PS1 games currently just sitting there, I think this newfound interest in using my PS3 to play them may give life to a lot of them that I've been wanting to play through. Crime Killers and Wild 9 are two that I've been wanting to play for a while, I've just put it off because I wasn't sure how well the PS3 would emulate the PS1. There are some RPGs I've wanted to get back into such as Eternal Eyes and Battle Hunters, or I might try out RPG Maker and create my own. Maybe even play some Hot Wheels Extreme Racing. It's not a perfect solution, but I think my PS1 consoles can take a rest and let the PS3 do the heavy lifting for a while.

Over 100 Builds and Still Going

If we could get in a time machine and go back in time, first I would like to stop somewhere in 2009 and tell myself to do things just a bit differently. After that we would reach our destination of 2020 and I would ask myself if I thought I would have built over 100 circuits. I believe the answer would be "No! Why? Do I? Really? Wow.", or something along those lines. Earlier this year I was just shy of 100 builds and I added a few small projects to boost (get it? because most of them were treble boosters) those numbers to bring me to 100 builds in total. The ideas kept coming though, and I've surpassed that to currently be on 121 builds in total.

If you're an avid reader you'll also know I swore I wasn't going to build 45 circuits like I did last year. I'm wrong. Admitting when you're wrong costs you nothing. I'm currently at 41 total builds for 2024, and I still have six kits to build, four partially put together kits that I need to order parts for, and an additional five planned circuits that also need me to order parts. If I accomplish building all of those that will bring 2024 to a total of fifty-six builds. When does this go from a hobby to a career? You tell me. I've had offers to support this going full-time, but I just don't want the stress of it becoming a business to ruin the fun of it being a hobby.

My ultimate goals are as follows: to build lots of pedals for myself and have a tool for nearly any eventuality that may arise while writing and recording my own music. I also want to build some one-off pedals for friends as a keepsake. I realize I'm not going to live forever, so I want all of my pedals to become a legacy. Will "Firebeard FX" ever become a brand? Doubtful, but at the very least it's a moniker to give my circuits a life after I'm gone. Something that ties them together, rather than just being some insane amount of random DIY pedals out there floating around. Maybe, just maybe tomorrow's guitar God will get ahold of one of my pedals, say in the year 2112. Maybe there will still be rig rundown videos online, during which they will explain how my pedal helped shape their whole outlook on playing and tone. It's a big dream, but not impossible.

I don't know if, or when this hobby will ever see an end, apart from my own eventual end. I honestly daydream of sitting at my workspace on a small balcony off the side of my little home somewhere in Mexico, building pedals to trade to the local music store. Maybe then I could finally afford the Gibson Les Paul of my dreams. Maybe then it would become a business. A lot of maybes become involved. One thing is for sure, we never know what the future holds. No plans to turn pro, no plans on giving up. We'll just have to see where this crazy ride ends up taking us.

My Review of Christmas Twister

I'm always looking for a good tornado movie or documentary. Ideally I want to find the documentary from about 20 years ago where they interviewed a gentlemen who said "They say tornadoes sound like trains, but I didn't hear a woowoo or nothin'!". I can't find that documentary anywhere. If you know what I'm talking about, let me know! Apart from the tons of really good tornado documentaries made by youtubers, I also like to watch tornado movies. Ranging from pretty decent to who let their 4 year old cousin try to create this CGI? Christmas Twister, or as they themselves allowed the title card to say Christams Twister, is firmly in the latter of that scale.

The genuine title card, as seen on Tubi

Let me start this off by saying I believe all of the actors and actresses did an adequate job. I believe they all did well, it's just they weren't given the best material to work with. This movie is super cheesy, but I don't blame any of the actors, or even the extras. They did what they could with what they were given. That being said, the beginning tells us that we're in Texas, and it's a few days before Christmas, or Christams, never trust a movie that can't even spell its own title right. We start at a small, out of the way gas station and diner, where a tornado unexpectedly decided to bother some folks just trying to go about their lives. The news of this tornado rouses a meteorologist who has to go to his office to track the storm. Once he's at work, at 4am, his sole colleague notices a hook echo on radar. This hook echo freely roams Texas without doing any harm, like an Armadillo searching for love, for about 5 hours before touching down again.

The poor CGI tornado touches down directly beside some poor guy who A) bought a Ford Ranger and therefore it stops working randomly, the one rare bit of reality this movie offers, and B) has absolutely no clue what the tornado is until it's right on top of him. I understand Texas is huge, and most Texans have never seen a tornado, but the way this movie portrays them as complete buffoons with no clue whatsoever what the giant sky penis dragging across the landscape is just blows my mind. Again, shit CGI. Another issue is the color filter used to try and hide the fact these scenes were all filmed on perfectly sunny days. It's horrible, and so is the CGI. Have I talked about how bad the CGI is?

Anyway, there is a lot of needless tension between the meteorologist and his wife, and they have kids and a dog. Why did I mention they had a dog? The dog subplot, of course! As this tornado is roaming Texas freely and touching down wherever it pleases, the family dog escapes the house, when it too is hit by the tornado, and the dog goes on a journey of its own. Why? Dogs = Cute to counter balance ugly CG tornado? I don't know. So the dog is out roaming the Texas landscape as the meteorologist is trying to collect his family to get them to safety. While he's racing around, in perfectly sunny skies, the singular supercell that keeps producing these poorly CG'd tornadoes is about 12 hours old now. That checks out with reality. Oh, but it gets better. MUCH better. Because the latest spawn is a.... a.... a.... *gasp* F6!!!!!!!!!!!! While editing this film they should have Alt F4'd if you ask me. This film, depending on where you find it, is either 2012 or 2016, take your pick, so to say F6 is stupid, they should have said EF6, but even that would have been stupid!

There have been very few cases where an F6/EF6 were debating, but ultimately considered inconceivable. Cue Wallace Shawn! Actually, if they had Wallace Shawn pop in just once to say that line when they said it was an F6, this movie would get at least a thumbs up from me, not the two middle fingers up I'm giving it now. This is just a brief overview of all the stupidity this movie offers. Again, I stand behind all the actors and actresses in this movie. I truly believe they did their best with what they were given, but never, and I mean NEVER trust film that can't spell its own title right! In the end the meteorologist and his family are reunited, having a barbecue in their back yard on Christmas. The parents have made up and are just about to get freaky right in front of their kids when the dog comes waltzing through the fence. Merry Christmas!

Once the happy ending starts to fade and the credits start rolling nothing further is discussed. No death toll, no damage path, no discussion on how one singular cell could live for over 12 hours. It was just we're alive, fuck everyone else. The End. I've watched some really horrible films, I've watched some really horrible tornado films, but nothing takes the cake like Christmas Twister does. Oh yeah, did I mention they used real footage of Joplin's EF5 damage as tornado damage for this movie? Good job, you sick bastards! Who thought that was a good idea? Couldn't you CG it like you did everything else?

Amp Building Like a Champ[ion]!

My guitar amp history is pretty abysmal. I started with a Peavey Bandit combo, which exploded one night while jamming. I heard a loud pop and the amp went dead. From there I went to a Crate GX-30M, which was my main amp for quite some time. Then I used, and still actually miss, a small red B.C. Rich combo amp that came in a pack with a Warlock I used to own. My first amp head was a used Crate G600XL, followed by my Line 6 Flextone HD. The Kalamazoo Model 1 was my first tube amp, and by far the oldest. I later bought my Fender Mustang Mini and used the hell out of it, until it died. Losing the Mustang Mini caused me to build Buddy, my Noisy Cricket. There are other amps that I'm forgetting or just not mentioning because they're more a novelty than a serious guitar amp, but you get the idea.

Almost all of my amps were solid state or modelling, which I'm ok with. Once I found my Kalamazoo Model 1, and restored her to working condition, I did start noticing how much I like tube amps. No, I'm not going to go on and on about how superior tubes are, but there does seem to be a difference in the feel. With my Kalamazoo Model 1, even though it's a just a small wattage combo from the late 60s, things feel different compared to my other amps. I can't explain it, I just know that whatever it is that I'm feeling is there with Kali and not with my other amps.

As I've been building pedals for the past five years I think it's time to take the leap and build something a bit more complicated. I've decided to build a pair of tube amps: the Ruby Tuby and a Fender 5F1 Champ clone. The Ruby Tuby is essentially the same as my Noisy Cricket, except it has a tube. While not a traditional tube amp, it does get in on a technicality. I wanted to build it to see if there was any hint of tube feel in the circuit. The build came together really quick, but I was extremely nervous I would ruin something when it came to testing. This requires 12v and my only 12v adapters are reverse polarity to the normal pedal PSU, so I had to wire the test box differently. Also my cheap and dirty wiring for the tube had me scared I would ruin my 12ax7s. Once it was all set it came to life. Oddly the ancient RCA 12ax7a I pulled from Kali is much louder than the modern JJ. Neither of them sound too pleasing, but it works. I'll go from here to make it sound better.

The 5F1 clone is going to be a bit more exciting, as I'm pretty sure the Kalamazoo Model 1 is really close to the 5F1 already. And since I love my Model 1, hopefully the 5F1 will give me a bit more of that, but with less concern about the amp's ever aging condition. I don't want to retire Kali, I just want something to take some of the work burden off of her. A nice little tweed amp cranked to the max, screaming with one of the overdrive pedals I built in front of it would be an amazing thing to me.

The 5F1 clone is going to take a bit of time as I thought I had the wire required for it, but it turns out I sorely underestimated what was required. Lesson learned! Another issue is the high voltage, that's going to take me a while to feel comfortable messing with. I also need both the power and output transformers. The more I think about it, the more I need for this build. All in due time, all in due time. In the meantime the Ruby Tuby is where I'll focus my time and see what I like and dislike about it. I know it needs a better tube, and I might experiment with which 12a_7 sounds best. I also think I might need to build an EQ of some sort for it. Maybe just a basic gyrator EQ with bass, mid and treble to give it a bit more tonal capability. For now it's functional and that's all I wanted from it.

Additional Information: While testing the Ruby Tuby I had a few issues that I didn't like. Using my guitar's volume seemed like it was a bias control, ala the Z'Vex SHO "Crackle Ok", which was not ok with me in this circumstance. Also the pickup selector switch made a loud pop while switching, which again was not ok. I like the glassy sparkle of the amp with no gain, and I like the crunch of the amp with the gain cranked all the way up, but the middle ground tones aren't really very useful to me. That was until I introduced the TS9 I repaired a while back. Not only did this pedal make the circuit sound amazing, (I'm assuming) the buffer also eliminates the crackle from the volume control and the popping of the selector switch. The EQing of the TS9 made this circuit much more interesting and useable. I'm thinking now instead of an EQ I'll build a[nother] TS9 circuit to make a channel two when put this amp in a head cabinet.

Every Cartridge Has a Journey

Most people take for granted how their game cartridges reached their final destination. About ten years ago I came across Olympic Gold: Barcelona '92 for the Sega Mega Drive. On the surface there isn't much to think about. It's a Sega Game, it's about the Olympics, therefore a sports game, and that's pretty much it. The point being I found this at a thrift store in the United States, where our Sega console, as you well know, was the Genesis. How did a PAL game come to rest in a thrift store in the US? I don't know, but I would love to find out.

I've been known to purchase Japanese games for the Famicom and Super Famicom, as well as import Famiclone style multicarts, but I still own those, as they are part of my collection. I assume if this came from a collection I would have found more games, and maybe even the Mega Drive console itself. None of which were present. There are a myriad of perfectly reasonable explanations as to why this cartridge was where it was when I found it. I'm mostly interested in its backstory.

Clearly someone purchased this game in, or around, 1992 with an interest in the Olympic games. They must have given it at least one play before deciding to never play it again. After that, perhaps the owner moved to the US and their belonging were cut down to a more manageable amount for whatever reason. I honestly don't know, and at this point it's really just me guessing. Although not much to anyone else, I think this cartridge is a unique piece in my collection. While everything else says Sega Genesis, this is the only one that says Mega Drive. At least currently.

Tube Screamer Terror: TS9 Repair

My brother, who was the inspiration for me learning to play guitar, often goes guitar hunting. Whether it's Guitard Center, or a pawn store in the middle of a swamp, my brother will check it out to see what kind of guitars and gear they have. He often texts me photos of cool stuff, and sometimes to ask me if I know what something is, or what it's worth. This particular day he sent me a photo of an Ibanez TS9 tube screamer, saying he was told it was broken. He didn't bother testing it before he handed it off to me to see what I could do with it. I wasn't completely sure what was, or could be wrong with it before I got my grubby little hands on it, but I soon found out.

Well there's your problem! If you search TS9 repair online, this seems to be quite a common issue with the TS9. The PCB only has this singular anchor point and is otherwise free floating. This wouldn't be an issue if the pedal was only powered by a battery. The problem being the power jack is a point of force, although not much, but over time repeated plugging and unplugging of a power source put a certain amount of strain on that singular point. Another possible reason could be if the pedal takes a hard bump on the front while it's plugged in. Clearly it doesn't take much for that small section to simply break.

The odd thing is I had no issues with this pedal. Was it broken? Technically yes, but it did function. A little bit of solder to bridge the points that were broken, and add a slight bit of strength back into it, and it was good to go. I also cleaned up the pedal a little bit, now it functions completely and looks nice. I already built myself both a TS808 and TS9 clone, so this one will be going back to my brother to do with as he sees fit, but not before I take the chance to A/B my TS9 clone circuit beside the genuine article. It's not every day that I have the chance to do that.

I did the A/B test of my TS9 clone circuit and the genuine article and I have to say they're pretty close. I think the "proud papa" syndrome of having built mine makes me like it more, but they're not much different. Mine seems a tiny bit louder and has a tiny bit more at the top end of the drive control. I have to say the tube screamer is just an iconic sound, and whether I built one myself or not, I'm glad I have at least one in my tone library.