Review: Hanzo VGA Box and Scanliner

The Hanzo is a VGA box with a built-in scanliner made for the Dreamcast. A device that greatly increases the picture quality from the system and something that every Dreamcast enthusiast should own. Seeing games like Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star Online, and even the recently-released Sturmwind in 480p truly is the way Dreamcast games were meant to be played.

For those not in-the-know know, the Dreamcast was capable of outputting a 480p VGA signal straight from the console without any modification. It did, however, require a separate device that plugged into the standard A/V port to allow this. At the time it was basically used to play the Dreamcast on a computer monitor, projector, or high-end CRT television. Fast-forward to today where everybody has high definition TVs with VGA support, it's no wonder the price of VGA boxes has skyrocketed in the past couple years.

The Hanzo does not fail at its promise and the picture looks amazingly clear, crisp, and colourful when compared to the standard Dreamcast A/V cables. The difference is almost unbelievable on a modern flat panel LCD. Yet another reason the Dreamcast was ahead of its time.

Screenshot compare of standard A/V (left) and Hanzo (right)

A large complaint that some people have with the VGA signal on LCDs is that 2D sprite-based games or games made in lower resolutions don't look authentic on modern TVs. Those types of games were usually made for arcades where CRTs were the norm and they had a very distinct look to them because of the presence of scanlines. Scanlines are basically gaps, or blank horizontal lines, produced on a CRT because of a combination of low native game resolution and interlacing on the monitor. The Hanzo attempts to remedy this complaint by allowing you to introduce visible scanlines to the picture, recreating the look of classic arcade games.

Screenshot compare of no scanline (left) and scanline (right)

I'm not a big fan of artificial scanlines; I prefer the bright, crisp look of the native picture but for those of you who absolutely love scanlines, the Hanzo does a great job. It even gives you the option of putting the scanlines on the odd lines or the even lines depending on your preference and the ability to change the size of the scanlines which I'm told looks better when the picture is upscaled.

The Hanzo itself feels to be of high build quality. All the plugs and switches seem to shield the sides enough so that I don't feel it's a big deal that the box is not fully enclosed. The plexiglass on the top and bottom looks pretty slick too with the logo laser-etched into it. From what I understand, beharius (creator of the Hanzo) hand builds these. It's nice to know someone actually spent the time to produce a quality product instead of mass-producing cheap crap.

This all sounds amazing right? Well there are some caveats to using a VGA box on the Dreamcast.  Mainly that not all games are compatible. Some early games were shipped with a flag on the disc that prevented them from booting into VGA. The Hanzo lets you get around this by setting one of the switches to 15KHz(480i) mode to bypass the check, then switching back to 31KHz(480p) to enjoy your game. Other games are completely incompatible with VGA.
For a complete compatibility list click here.

The slight compatibility issues aside (most of the incompatible games are crap anyways) I am enjoying playing my Dreamcast on my HDTV in beautiful 480p. Especially Sturmwind which I just received last week and am currently working on a review for. So stay tuned!

A big shout out to beharius for creating such a wondering product at a decent price. I believe he is working on an official website for the Hanzo so I will link to that as soon as it's up.

Thanks for reading.

Review: Street Fighter X Tekken Fightstick Pro

In this review I'll be looking at the Street Fight X Tekken Fightstick Pro (Xbox 360 version) arcade controller from Matcatz. I should say upfront that I'm not much of a fighting game fan nor am I particularly good at them. However, I am told that Madcatz arcade controllers are the gold standard for fighting games. Most of my playtesting was done playing SHMUPs.

This controller has several nice features that really add value. If you look at the top right of the controller, next to the Xbox button, you'll see 2 toggle switches. One of them locks or unlocks the turbo feature while the other lets you choose whether you want the joystick to act as the left or right analog or the dpad of the standard 360 controller. Which is handy if you're playing a game that only supports the analog stick for movement. Looking again at the top of the controller you will see the turbo button and 8 LEDs which correspond to the 8 face buttons, letting you know which buttons currently have turbo enabled. There is a fast and a slow turbo mode that you can individually apply to any of the face buttons.

Madcatz has used arcade quality Sanwa buttons on this controller so there's no need to worry about wearing things out within a year. These parts were originally designed for arcade cabinets after all. I'm not a fan of these buttons though. They feel spongy, like you're pushing them down until they stop. There's no breakaway like there is on say a standard 360 controller face button. That's personal preference I'm sure but even after using it for many, many hours it still feels strange.

The joystick on this controller is also a Sanwa so again, there is no need to worry about wearing it out too quickly. It is amazing and an absolute joy to use. The tension on it is perfect for my liking and I simply love the way it clicks from the switches inside. That is not to say it is perfect for shooting games right out of the box. Since this controller is marketed as a fightstick, Madcatz has put a square gate on the joystick. A square gate restricts the joystick movement as if it was inside of a square (instead of a circle like a standard analog stick) with the 4 corners at the diagonal positions. This is great for fighting games because it makes diagonal movement a lot easier but is quite annoying in shooting games. If you are so inclined it is possible to replace the square gate with an octagonal gate which I will probably end up doing sooner or later.

If you're wondering where the start and back buttons are they are placed on the backside of the controller. A nice way to make sure you never accidentally press them. Also hiding in the back is a small compartment that holds the cable. Being able to completely put away the cable is great because it's pretty long and would be a pain to deal with otherwise. The art on the top of the controller looks pretty cool as well, displaying several Street Fighter and Tekken characters.

So if you're a fighting game fan the Fightstick Pro is a great choice and has everything you would want in an arcade controller. But if you're a shooting game fan like me, or want something to play arcade games with you might want to find a controller without a square gate to save you the hassle of replacing it yourself.

Thanks for reading.