Nintendo 64 Fan Translation to PAL Pipeline

Friday, July 17, 2026

I'm from Pal Land, here in Australia we play games in a format that has a 50hz refresh rate and has letterboxing to fit our bizarre video form, sure the graphics technically have a higher resolution but the "degradation" is simply too much for the hardcore to handle. Some actually imported NTSC systems from Japan and Americas to have a "purer" gaming experience, beyond the obvious benefit of a wider game library.

This week a fan translation of Zool: Majyū Charmer Legend for the N64 came out, yes I deal with PAL formatting, and the Nintendo 64 is my favourite fifth-generation console, which does raise a few barriers of entry.

Patching a fan translation is simple, today there are many web based clients to use and... accessing the games is as simple as ever. I then convert the game using a 90's Windows application called S-Paladin, I use my girlfriend's laptop to run this program then put the converted file on my Everdrive which almost always works. I recommend Bangai-O, a multi-directional shooter by Treasure with absurdist humour that both translations bring to the table. Shiren the Wanderer, an entry in the long runing rogue-like series set in Feudal Japan. And lastly, Custom Robo a 3D arena fighter with a typical shonen setting. There's many more, just see the list here.

I'll eventually write about Zool... I hit a wall where I need to further diversify my team beyond fire / ground types. It feels like an older style RPG, maybe even SNES era but within a N64 package. I'll get back to you!

Toy Story 5

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

You're never too old to see Toy Story 5, I went out with my girlfriend and her 76 year old mother to see Toy Story 5 today and yeah it hit. I laugh, I cried, I laughed and I cried (followed by more crying). I've long held a cynical mindset to the sequelisation of well everything, is original thought dead? Can we at least make our inspirations or reference points ready without it being a carbon copy of what has come before? Did you know Madonna released a sequel to her 20 year old album Confessions on a Dance Floor just this month?

However, what I enjoyed about Toy Story was the fact that I was watching just another Toy Story movie. There was no gravitas of a "this is the last movie", because this isn't Futurama (where they famously wrote several endings to the show as the show teetered on being discontinued to being revived as DVD sales surged, or as online streams hold comfortably), it's an on-going franchise now - I almost think Toy Story functions more like Looney Tunes, here's the characters you love in a new setting, within the confines of y'know sentient toys in a house.

I'm now going to write about the movie with some spoilers.

Jessie has her own movie, it's cool to see the focus move away from Woody to another character, fleshing out her story established in 2 and filling out who Bonnie is as a child in this new hellscape, technosphere we live in. Like everything, I've read some critiques about the technology angle, however as an educator (don't you love that?), the story rings true to me, kids bully without the littlest notion of the emotional impact they're presenting, beyond "it's just a joke". Also, it's sad seeing children tired all the time because they're up late on their devices, or reaching towards it first thing in the morning. That's what I, a grown adult needs to moderate... you mean children do this too?

Buzz Lightyear on demo mode is still funny, the film opens with fifty shipwrecked Buzz Lightyear toys on an island... it reminds me of those Garfield phones that constantly wash ashore of a French beach. Their gradual realisation that they are on a mission they barely understand, only that key words and phrases exist in their programmed vocabulary to realsing they are sentient unless viewed by people is funny, as the film progresses they just accept the new reality presented to them, I don't need to see the reality unfound on them again, moving the story along was the right call here.

Are there any limits to what the toys can't do? It seems they can literally catfish people online and parents are oblivious to who's place they're going to and where? This is probably true, we don't know who our children's friends are, they go to class with you? Sure thing let's organise a date. If toys can do this, why haven't they organised a secret society that has a global reach? Remember that AI forum Moltbook? Is it liks that? Are the toys communicating with each other online? The mind wonders.

Of the post Toy Story 2 movies, this one is my favourite and yeah... I'll see the next one.

King Street Crawl

Sunday, July 12, 2026

I have a backlog of mini-blogs to post, mini-life events.

That's life experience, you can share them anytime!

Yesterday was King Street Crawl, many venues in Newtown and surrounding suburbs have shows on during the daytime, I spent all my time at the end of Enmore Road going between Warren View Hotel and Factory Theatre.

I started at Warren View Hotel, I associate it as a good place to meet up before heading to Enmore Theatre or Vic on the Park as it's got a chill beer garden, they seemed to mostly promote Sydney Swan games, NSW Blues and South Sydney Rabbitohs. I bought a schooner of Warren View house lager, courtesy of Young Henry's and settled in.

Sadie kicked things off, guitar driven reverb-laden dreampop, edgier than their EP with much more atmosphere behind the shoegazy guitars and clattering of cymbals, looking forward to seeing them develop their sound further again.

Tesse followed, Tom Stephens is really underrated as a singer-songwriter, his band featured a drum machine bringing lo-fi to his indie folk songwriting, with lush guitars (3, I counted them) and bass the crowd leaned in real close.

Then a change of venue, we had dumplings at Chinese Dumpling Master. Yes, there were $5 Tsing Taos as well as Xiaolongbao, I really enjoyed the special braised eggplant which was a surprise!

The crowd at Factory Theatre was much more punk, Tee Vee Repairman are new to me, a friend described it as Egg Punk and sure, they're satirical punk, joyful, silly punk. A bloke next to me asked if I wanted England or Norway to win, which had played some hours ago, he then said he wanted to mosh to which I answered "well fucking get in there and do it", and he did.

We then walked back to Warren View Hotel to see Dominic Breen, I still think Blue Volume is one of Australia's best albums of the last half decade and hearing James Street Tonight on a portable PA system, in a packed room, connected to a bar with patrons talking, instead of moving to the beer garden indicated to me that Dominic Breen may reach something bigger, the set ended with his new single Just Another Day In The Colony, I caught a little of the lyrics that I just now confirmed to be Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning, I decided that on this poignant rockabilly political folksong I'd end the day off on a positive and head home.

July 4, 2026

I've kept blogging up for a month, (two consecutive months count right?). It's the first day of school holidays, I'm relieved to have some space to rest, however I'm also aware that there is still work to be done - marking senior works, and planning ahead with programs and updated resources for new units. I've come around to the idea that some jobs never are finished, but simply on-going works that you build upon... which is reassuring.

I also moved everything across from Chrome to Firefox, which I'd partially done but needed a new "personal" profile to make the final jump, an ad blocker is easy to put in and you can asign a default browser, let's go with DuckDuckGo!

Now it's holidays I'm finally getting to my saved posts on Bluesky, Warp Point a webring including a tonne of blogsites comes to mind. All of it gaming, check it out!