Dreamcast-Talk.com

Just wanted to give a shout out to retro game labs who have some awesome “reproduction” games.
Although my DC collection had no burned games, when I came across this site I couldn’t resist! Although im in the uk I HATE the pal game cases therefore my collection consists of us and jap games (apart from pal only releases)
As we all know there were many complete games that never saw the light of day commercially but are available to download which is where they come in.
When I saw propeller arena and space channel 5 pt2 (with the English translation) I thought why not!

They took a couple of weeks to arrive but I have to say they are amazing! virtually indistinguishable between an actual officially released game apart from there own branding where the barcode should be (and a spelling mistake one of the manuals).

I wasn’t sure if anyone had mentioned this place before or knew about them but thought I would give it a mention! Check them out!

http://www.retrogamelab.com

Its hard for me to pay money for a repro of something that never existed such as an unreleased game. This gets into the whole simulation vs simulacra thing. *scratches head*

OGDCFAN99 wrote:Its hard for me to pay money for a repro of something that never existed such as an unreleased game. This gets into the whole simulation vs simulacra thing. *scratches head*

I don't agree, if it isn't too expensive, it is worth it, for the simple reason that not everyone has the means (or technical skill), to make a cover/box/booklet/printed cd/etc...if you're happy with a blank burned cd (which you can do at your own house) then it is perfectly acceptable that there are folks out there who want something that resembles an original product...you can't expect the people who invest their time & money in all that shit, to give it away for free. I recently bought the fan translations of Shining Force 3 scenarios 2 & 3, Dragon Force 2 and Policenauts for my Saturn, and Ys 4 for my PC Engine for a few euros. If you see the quality and hard work they put into that stuff, to make it look as close as possible to an original released product, and knowing that I simply can't do it at home, it is totally worth it imo.

Definitely not questioning the quality of workmanship or if they should be compensated for their hard work..because they should. I'm thinking more philosophical. Simulacra is a simulation of something that doesn't exist and therefore is more of a symbolism. Such as a statue of a God or a tattoo that depicts something abstract but with a deeper meaning behind it. Not everybody is into symbolisms. To each his own.

A simulation would be a repro of a game that actually had a commercial release but might be too rare and expensive to be easily attainable. Or maybe its translated into English. In that case I would be totally interested, like the Segagaga English translation..been wanting to play that for a while now.

I've completed my North American DC collection minus Giga Wing 1 & 2 because I just cant get myself to pay the inflated prices for these 2 titles and have actually been considering getting repros

I must add , that the only repro’s I own, are of games that can’t officially be bought, like fan translations or unreleased stuff, I’ll never buy a repro of something coz the original is too expensive, if that is the case (and it often is, being into saturn & pc engine), I just save up for it...

Its just hard.. I can't get over paying $150-$250 USD for Giga Wing 2 and its been bugging me for years that my set is technically incomplete. First world problems lol

OGDCFAN99 wrote:Its just hard.. I can't get over paying $150-$250 USD for Giga Wing 2 and its been bugging me for years that my set is technically incomplete. First world problems lol

I have a lot of “those” problems

I have a few games that I still want tat are in the 500-1000 range maybe someday I’ll cough up

A few differing opinions which is always good

I would just like to clarify I would only be in the market for repro games that were never released or fan translations (Segagaga is a big want of mine also)If there is an official release I will always go for that even if it is expensive as some of you have mentioned (I’m looking at you cannon spike, panzer dragoon saga, burning rangers).
Plus having them in my collection as near as dammit close to what I would have got from Sega,if they had released them in relation to packaging, Manual etc instead of just burned cdrs makes my ocd that little less annoying lol!

I've used RGL for a few DC games in the past, such as Half-Life & Quake 1, and the US over dub of Shenmue II. I like the quality, Id say its a solid 9/10. Sure they are printed CDs (I think they are printed directly on the back of them, not a label, I'd have to check), but I like having the proper case, cover art, and even printed manuals inside especially for games that wern't released such as HL and Quake. They look proper when next to the other games in the rack.

It took a few extra weeks for my disks to arrive, but he was always communicative both on email and Facebook, so I never felt shady about it. It's a really small operation (one man?) so I respect his time and cash flow to allow for the delay in shipping. End of the day the product was good quality, and fairly priced so I would recommend them 100%

Are they paying the people that bothered to do the translations?