it's SO easy NOT to pack things like crap yet 50% of the boards I get in are NOT packed well. Even when I ask them to take extra care and offer extra money via PayPal for better materials
@@VideoGameEsoterica I was physically repulsed by the way that was packed tho,I mean *damn*. Just throw into paper.. have these people never heard of bubble wrap?
Thanks so much for trying to get original hardware and explaining the challenges you faced with that. This could save diehard Star Wars fans some heartbreak.
Brave Firefighters was released in 1999, not 2000. It was part of Sega's "Real Life Career" series alongside Airline Pilots, Jambo Safari, and Emergency Call Ambulance. The local bowling alley had BFF and I remember the hoses being oh, so heavy to carry as an 11-year-old boy roaming the game room. It would be ace playing it in a House of the Dead 2 machine, though; I believe it uses the Sega Type 2 Gun I/O with IR sensors, and the same I/O board. The one Hikaru game I would love to own is NASCAR; the game is very similar to Daytona 2 in that it uses the same shifter and the graphics were really awesome for 2000. I know an arcade owner in SC who has had a NASCAR Twin cabinet that was dead and I was trying to see if he could part out the Hikaru from it if the board works. Shipping them is clearly not feasible which is verified from 0:50.
@@VideoGameEsoterica I'd guess 7 to 8, doc mack seems pretty cool though I never met him. It'd be free promotion for him so I don't see why not. He took John's Arcade YT for a tour through there a few years ago, you may have seen the video.
Brave Firefighters came out in 99 and it seems that the Hikaru was more of a stopgap board between Model 3 and NAOMI 2. It's a shame that some of the later games like Planet Harriers came out only a few months before the NAOMI 2. Had the NAOMI 2 been ready earlier or those games been developed a little later/longer we'd easily be able to collect and preserve carts rather than waiting for someone to offer an affordable reball setup.
I got a quote in Chicago for a reball of two chips. Granted it was NOT a game repair place obviously. They wanted $500 a chip. With no guarantee it would work. NOPE!
But yes the fact the ONLY way to play Planet Harriers is to find a working board locally then DELICATELY bring it home and baby it is super frustrating
Chuck E Cheese in Fresno, CA had the firefighter game. Definitely played this at my birthday party there lol. Miss this era of SEGA. On another note played that Star Wars racer in the deluxe cab at Santa Cruz beach Boardwalk about a year and a half ago, was happy to see it there and sit in the pod
I played both “Brave Firefighters” and “Star Wars Arcade Racer” as a kid whenever I went to my local Chuck E Cheese arcade. I spent the most time at these games and it’s just a little shot of nostalgia, rewatching these gaming experiences through an emulation.
Yep. They never tinned the pads on the processors, just put solder balls on the motherboard. So even a slight bump can cause the processors to break free from the PCB
👍I always passed by a Brave Firefighters cab that was in the entrance to a wal-mart, but I never did play it. On the other hand, the mall arcade had both Star Wars Racer Arcade-which looked really cool and had a nice sense of speed, but I just couldn't handled the controls on the cab plus I still feel the LucasArts home game was just better overall-and Planet Harriers. Planet Harriers was so much fun and deserved a home port to the XBox or something.
The fact Planet Harriers has never been ported to anything is just a giant bummer. Also I am surprised Brave Firefighters never got a Wii port. Perfect system for it
Fortunately, I have two working HIKARU PCBs. Now I have four games, BBF, AIR TRIX, PLANET HARRIERS and VOF. The next goal is to collect the remaining Star Wars Racer and NASCAR ARCADE. My youtube channel has these games testing and playthrough videos.
@@VideoGameEsoterica If you want to ship the hikaru for a long distance, you must remove the mainboard from the cage, and then put a thick hot melt glue around the chips to prevent them from falling.
@@VideoGameEsoterica In fact, the Sega Hikaru was one of my favorite out of the Sega boards along with the Sega Chihiro. I tried them out also via emulation, and tried out the system's first game Brave Firefighters. The first time I played through it, it froze and crash too, and then I found a simple trick or solution to partially fix the constant crashing and that's unchecking the "Disable Auto-Sort" in the game settings. I then tried that out with new better settings then the game now runs smoothly with little to no freezing. And fun fact: Planet Harriers was planned to be ported to the Dreamcast and even better, the GameCube, but sadly none of them came to fruition. In fact, every Hikaru game should be ported to the GameCube or maybe the Dreamcast.
@@VideoGameEsotericaAnd don't forget that Brave Firefighters has alternate branching routes a la House of the Dead. Once you get the correct route (like using water nozzle to spray the fire in the stairs and not hitting the man in the stairs) the game would continue normally and not crash. If you sprayed the man in the stairs which triggers a alternate route, the game crashes when you reach to Mayor Taylor's room.
@@VideoGameEsoterica Actually surprisingly well lol - I used WiiBalanceWalker and it was pretty intuitive to set up Top Skater works best, but Soul Surfer and Air Trix are pretty fun too though mapping a game's yaw and roll axis to a single wii fit board takes a little tweaking
Brave Firefighters It's a very fun game. I've never played it on a real hardware but I played the game via emulation on Demul. I know Hikaru emulation is not 100% accurate but, it's a great addition in the emulator which I think currently, the devs have no plans yet to update any emulation progress. One day I'll try to hook up my Wii remote to play brave firefighters instead of a mouse. BTW, awesome that you got your hands on the Hikaru board and it sucks that it came broken. Hopefully, you'll find a replacement
I’ve gotten my hands on three Hikaru boards now. All broken 😂 sadly I can’t get to the end of Brave Firefighters. It always freezes on me at random times. What version of Demul are you using?
Star Wars racer looks so much better than any of the console/PC ports... And there is no way to play it properly. I assume you are using Demul for this?
It is a shame that the only emulator for Hikaru hardware is DEmul as it hasn't been worked on for years. I'd love to see it added to Flycast, they've only just added Naomi 2 to it this year. MAME doesn't stand a chance at the moment and to be honest, with how fragile these boards are and how few games there are for them, I doubt we'll ever see Hikaru emulation improve, at least outside of MAME.
That's a crying shame how those Hikarus were shipped. Makes me angry! Maybe a TH-camr who is talented with board rework would want to take a crack at reattaching the BGA parts for their viewers?
I sent it back as a return because I was not taking the L money wise hoping to do something with it one day. I’ll only ever attempt to get a Hikaru local from now on
![[Live สด] การออกรางวัลสลากกินแบ่งรัฐบาล งวดวันที่ 16 ธันวาคม 2567](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dNTiBBthKgQ/mqdefault.jpg)
It would be soulcrushing to know how many pieces of arcade history were lost due to poor shipping.
it's SO easy NOT to pack things like crap yet 50% of the boards I get in are NOT packed well. Even when I ask them to take extra care and offer extra money via PayPal for better materials
@@VideoGameEsoterica I was physically repulsed by the way that was packed tho,I mean *damn*. Just throw into paper.. have these people never heard of bubble wrap?
It’s the worst pack job I have EVER seen. Like by far
You should see the guys who like buying old CRTs. So much quality irreplaceable electronics destroyed.
Bad packaging is the death blow to so many awesome old electronics
"It's House of the Dead if the zombies were fire." That's a front of box quote if I've ever heard one, hahaha!
😂 I need to try to get it to not freeze so I can do a full playthrough. The glitches are comedy gold
Thanks so much for trying to get original hardware and explaining the challenges you faced with that. This could save diehard Star Wars fans some heartbreak.
Yeah Hikaru is def a “buy local or don’t buy at all” piece of hardware sadly
Brave Firefighters was released in 1999, not 2000. It was part of Sega's "Real Life Career" series alongside Airline Pilots, Jambo Safari, and Emergency Call Ambulance. The local bowling alley had BFF and I remember the hoses being oh, so heavy to carry as an 11-year-old boy roaming the game room. It would be ace playing it in a House of the Dead 2 machine, though; I believe it uses the Sega Type 2 Gun I/O with IR sensors, and the same I/O board.
The one Hikaru game I would love to own is NASCAR; the game is very similar to Daytona 2 in that it uses the same shifter and the graphics were really awesome for 2000. I know an arcade owner in SC who has had a NASCAR Twin cabinet that was dead and I was trying to see if he could part out the Hikaru from it if the board works. Shipping them is clearly not feasible which is verified from 0:50.
Yes sadly Hikaru is still impossible to deal with if you don’t find it locally. Such a lost system sadly
Takashi Oda, the director of the House of the Dead series, also directed this game. So you're actually not far off with the HOTD comparison! 😆
Haha with the missing heads due to glitches it’s even more horror than it’s supposed to be
There was a Brave Firefighters at Galloping Ghost the last time I was there a couple years ago.
I need to go visit again. Wonder on a 1-10 scale how receptive they'd be to letting me capture a few games direct capture style for YT
@@VideoGameEsoterica I'd guess 7 to 8, doc mack seems pretty cool though I never met him. It'd be free promotion for him so I don't see why not. He took John's Arcade YT for a tour through there a few years ago, you may have seen the video.
Brave Firefighters came out in 99 and it seems that the Hikaru was more of a stopgap board between Model 3 and NAOMI 2. It's a shame that some of the later games like Planet Harriers came out only a few months before the NAOMI 2. Had the NAOMI 2 been ready earlier or those games been developed a little later/longer we'd easily be able to collect and preserve carts rather than waiting for someone to offer an affordable reball setup.
I got a quote in Chicago for a reball of two chips. Granted it was NOT a game repair place obviously. They wanted $500 a chip. With no guarantee it would work. NOPE!
But yes the fact the ONLY way to play Planet Harriers is to find a working board locally then DELICATELY bring it home and baby it is super frustrating
Chuck E Cheese in Fresno, CA had the firefighter game. Definitely played this at my birthday party there lol. Miss this era of SEGA.
On another note played that Star Wars racer in the deluxe cab at Santa Cruz beach Boardwalk about a year and a half ago, was happy to see it there and sit in the pod
I’ve never been to a Chuck E Cheese weirdly
I played both “Brave Firefighters” and “Star Wars Arcade Racer” as a kid whenever I went to my local Chuck E Cheese arcade.
I spent the most time at these games and it’s just a little shot of nostalgia, rewatching these gaming experiences through an emulation.
Hopefully one day the emulation gets a bit better too
Forgot to tin the solder pads...
Wow
Yep. They never tinned the pads on the processors, just put solder balls on the motherboard. So even a slight bump can cause the processors to break free from the PCB
👍I always passed by a Brave Firefighters cab that was in the entrance to a wal-mart, but I never did play it. On the other hand, the mall arcade had both Star Wars Racer Arcade-which looked really cool and had a nice sense of speed, but I just couldn't handled the controls on the cab plus I still feel the LucasArts home game was just better overall-and Planet Harriers. Planet Harriers was so much fun and deserved a home port to the XBox or something.
The fact Planet Harriers has never been ported to anything is just a giant bummer. Also I am surprised Brave Firefighters never got a Wii port. Perfect system for it
Fortunately, I have two working HIKARU PCBs. Now I have four games, BBF, AIR TRIX, PLANET HARRIERS and VOF. The next goal is to collect the remaining Star Wars Racer and NASCAR ARCADE. My youtube channel has these games testing and playthrough videos.
Lol don’t look at them the wrong way...chips are likely to run away
@@VideoGameEsoterica If you want to ship the hikaru for a long distance, you must remove the mainboard from the cage, and then put a thick hot melt glue around the chips to prevent them from falling.
I wouldn’t ever chance it again. I am 0 for 2 getting hikarus shipped
@@VideoGameEsoterica In fact, the Sega Hikaru was one of my favorite out of the Sega boards along with the Sega Chihiro. I tried them out also via emulation, and tried out the system's first game Brave Firefighters. The first time I played through it, it froze and crash too, and then I found a simple trick or solution to partially fix the constant crashing and that's unchecking the "Disable Auto-Sort" in the game settings. I then tried that out with new better settings then the game now runs smoothly with little to no freezing. And fun fact: Planet Harriers was planned to be ported to the Dreamcast and even better, the GameCube, but sadly none of them came to fruition. In fact, every Hikaru game should be ported to the GameCube or maybe the Dreamcast.
Interesting. I’ll have to try that fix because I’ve never seen the end of the game!
I like myself a good firefighting game. Shame it doesn’t emulate better for now. Great video!
Yeah unfortunately it randomly freezes. You can complete it but it’s down to straight luck if you can do it without it locking up
@@VideoGameEsotericaAnd don't forget that Brave Firefighters has alternate branching routes a la House of the Dead. Once you get the correct route (like using water nozzle to spray the fire in the stairs and not hitting the man in the stairs) the game would continue normally and not crash. If you sprayed the man in the stairs which triggers a alternate route, the game crashes when you reach to Mayor Taylor's room.
Interesting. Didn’t realize
I would emulate or buy a Hikaru board just for Star Wars Racer and Cyber Troopers Virtual On 4 alone.
I mean you can emulate them...albeit with some graphical glitches. Star Wars Racer Arcade can be completed start to finish
Time to up our solder skills to pro level.
Lol just solder small gauge wire to every pad! That would be insanely complex
About the "detached" gpu, if there's no missing traces you may try to get it at least reflowed ?
I checked. The cost was wild
I was looking at the cardboard box & paper and thinking, what the hell
Yeah it had no chance to survive
I'm about to buy a Wii Fit balance board and hook it up to Top Skater, might have to try Air Trix after if all goes well!
Haha lmk how it goes
@@VideoGameEsoterica Actually surprisingly well lol - I used WiiBalanceWalker and it was pretty intuitive to set up
Top Skater works best, but Soul Surfer and Air Trix are pretty fun too
though mapping a game's yaw and roll axis to a single wii fit board takes a little tweaking
Oh you went emulation? I was thinking you were wiring the board directly into the pcb.
Now I want to do this haha
Brave Firefighters It's a very fun game. I've never played it on a real hardware but I played the game via emulation on Demul. I know Hikaru emulation is not 100% accurate but, it's a great addition in the emulator which I think currently, the devs have no plans yet to update any emulation progress. One day I'll try to hook up my Wii remote to play brave firefighters instead of a mouse. BTW, awesome that you got your hands on the Hikaru board and it sucks that it came broken. Hopefully, you'll find a replacement
I’ve gotten my hands on three Hikaru boards now. All broken 😂 sadly I can’t get to the end of Brave Firefighters. It always freezes on me at random times. What version of Demul are you using?
hi, is there any emulator for those games?( i know demul partly do some(
Demul is all that works
Ive wanted to play star wars arcade racer for years 😿
I mean it works. You can play start to finish
I'm looking for the top right chip on the Hikaru board if anyone knows where one is or the part number of it??
Ooh not sure on that one. Got a photo?
@@VideoGameEsoterica I'll put a pic up later. Number under the chip on the board is 315 6086. It's the BGU chip in the corner that always falls off.
They all fall off lol. Like a bowl of chips
I know they do lol. But I've only lost one so far 😔
I’ve never received a board that didn’t have at least one chip popped in the box. My record was four
Star Wars racer looks so much better than any of the console/PC ports... And there is no way to play it properly.
I assume you are using Demul for this?
Yes Demul. Sadly I keep TRYING to get working Hikaru boards...and they always are broken. My white whale
It is a shame that the only emulator for Hikaru hardware is DEmul as it hasn't been worked on for years. I'd love to see it added to Flycast, they've only just added Naomi 2 to it this year.
MAME doesn't stand a chance at the moment and to be honest, with how fragile these boards are and how few games there are for them, I doubt we'll ever see Hikaru emulation improve, at least outside of MAME.
Yes there really is no movement on Hikaru it seems
😍
:)
Ohh god, now i see the hitachi Sh4 was most popular cpu on 128bits videogames era, yes!!!!, not IBM, Intel or Toshiba/Sony
Hitachi was everywhere
For whatever reason I am horrible at Brave Firefighters.
It’s a tricky game. Fighting the fire takes a lot of strategy vs “spray and pray”...which takes on a whole new meaning in a firefighting game lol
That's a crying shame how those Hikarus were shipped. Makes me angry! Maybe a TH-camr who is talented with board rework would want to take a crack at reattaching the BGA parts for their viewers?
I sent it back as a return because I was not taking the L money wise hoping to do something with it one day. I’ll only ever attempt to get a Hikaru local from now on
Air Trix is my favorite game on the skateboarding 🛹
It’s a classic for sure
@@VideoGameEsoterica Yep!