The Official Sega Naomi Thread!

[Cobra Strike Down]

Finally got my replacement Sega Naomi 2 in! Took long enough. I hope to share my journey with this hardware and figured I’d start a Naomi thread. 
 

Other Naomi and non Naomi unboxing as well. In the video I said I was missing the two gd rom games. Turns out they were in the drives! (Twist off to open. Couldn’t figure this out in the vid). Received Capcom Vs SNK 2 and Guilty Gear XX Slash. 
 

Hope the video helps with some education and entertainment! Plenty more to come!

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Cobra Strike Down

[Cobra Strike Down]

Unplugged the Net Dimm from Naomi 1. Upgraded the ram to max 512mb. Plugged into the Naomi 2. Works! Now I just have to get the PiForce plugged in to talk to it and I’ll have Naomi games for a lifetime! 
 

[Cobra Strike Down]

Maple2Naomi installed! Dreamcast controllers here we come!
 

[SlidellMan]

Wow, you hit the jackpot with those finds and adapter. By the way, what are your thoughts on Giga Wing and Mars Matrix?

[Cobra Strike Down]

30 minutes ago, SlidellMan said:

Wow, you hit the jackpot with those finds and adapter. By the way, what are your thoughts on Giga Wing and Mars Matrix?

Thanks!
 

Both very hard shooters, for sure, but I love them both. As far as I’m concerned it was a great era of gaming for arcades, and was a great and albeit sad send off as the draw for arcade games started to come to an end. 
 

Early 90s-early 2000s arcade was just the best. I’ve been getting into Neo Geo, CPS2 and Naomi/Atomiswave hardware as of late. Being able to have the real arcade versions of all these games in the home now and not just ports is something I never thought I’d have the ability to do. 
 

Once the PiForce is hooked up I’ll give both those games a go! I’ve only ever played the DC ports so I can’t wait to see the subtle differences!

Edited November 15, 2023 by Cobra Strike Down

[+Charlie Cat]

18 minutes ago, Cobra Strike Down said:

 

Looking good Daz. Glad to see your Sega Naomi2 running and doing some updates to make your unit even better. That does it!! I'm coming over to play all your games you have in your pad bro. 

 

Anthony..

[M-S]

Interesting, can the GD-Rom drive play Dreamcast games too?

Also, there's a Dreamcast subforum on Atariage too, it just seems to be kind of inactive.

[Cobra Strike Down]

1 hour ago, M-S said:

Interesting, can the GD-Rom drive play Dreamcast games too?

Also, there's a Dreamcast subforum on Atariage too, it just seems to be kind of inactive.

No doesn’t play DC games. Different hardware and library, though many games were ported to DC, albeit with some minor performance tweaks to get them to run. Namely lower texture quality and framerate. 

[M-S]

But Naomi is way more powerful than the Dreamcast, I believe it must be an anti-piracy measure. There was no reason for an arcade owner back in the day to want to load a console game anyways, so it makes sense.

[str0m]

There are simularities with the hardware. Same CPU and speed. Naomi had a more powerful PowerVR2 and twice the main and video memory. Atomiswave was much closer to the Dreamcast hence how in recent years those titles have been modded to work on the DC with almost no downgrading required

 

That DC joypad adapter is lovely!

[Cobra Strike Down]

10 hours ago, M-S said:

But Naomi is way more powerful than the Dreamcast, I believe it must be an anti-piracy measure. There was no reason for an arcade owner back in the day to want to load a console game anyways, so it makes sense.

They're not the same system, they wouldn't just play on each other, similarities in hardware or not, they're different systems. You need to program a game to work on a machine, they're not ported between the two unless a team specifically ported a Naomi game over to DC after lowering graphics and coding it to work.

 

10 hours ago, str0m said:

There are simularities with the hardware. Same CPU and speed. Naomi had a more powerful PowerVR2 and twice the main and video memory. Atomiswave was much closer to the Dreamcast hence how in recent years those titles have been modded to work on the DC with almost no downgrading required

 

That DC joypad adapter is lovely!

Yep, well said, even with their similarities, even between the Atomiswave and DC, there's a reason it took this many years for those games to be ported over by fans. It's not just drag and drop.

 

Yeah! I can't wait to see how this plays with them. There apparently is some setup prior to booting up a game, but haven't gotten that far yet. I'll keep ya posted!

[SlidellMan]

Porting a game is not as easy as looks, even in this day and age. To tell you the truth, some of those Atomiswave games would be great to have on the GameCube and Wii.

[Cobra Strike Down]

Unfortunately sega any other companies of that era rarely care about their history and don’t like porting their classics to more modern systems. Daytona USA is finally coming to consoles and it’s as an arcade game in a Like a Dragon title. The first Daytona still hasn’t been ported to ps4/ps5. There’s countless examples of games in even worse states of forgetfulness. Wish it wasn’t like this. How great would it be if we could play Indy 500 or Scud Racer online together, today?

[Cynicaster]

I started exploring Naomi and Atomiswave earlier this year when I upgraded my MAME cabinet PC to something with enough power to emulate those systems smoothly.

 

Very glad I did this as it's provided a ton of entertainment over the last several months.  I really dig some of the shoot-em-ups on Naomi, such as:

 

Ikaruga

Border Down

Under Defeat

Zero Gunner II

Triggerheart Exelica

Castle of Shikigami 2

Trizeal

Cannon Spike

... and others

 

Some other interesting games 

Cosmic Smash (weird pseudo-futuristic 3D pong type game - pretty fun once you figure it out)

Spiker's Battle (arena-style beat-em up)

Heavy Metal Geomatrix (one-on-one battle in 3D environment)

Virtua Tennis 

Power Stone (sort of like Heavy Metal but different theme)

 

Atomiswave is neat but there isn't a whole lot on there that I'm excited about.  A few I like are:

 

Dolphin Blue (run n gun)

Demolish Fist (beat 'em up - best name ever)

 

Not a big fan of one-on-one fighters so that makes big parts of these libraries kind of outside of my realm.  

 

 

 

  

[Cobra Strike Down]

3 hours ago, Cynicaster said:

I started exploring Naomi and Atomiswave earlier this year when I upgraded my MAME cabinet PC to something with enough power to emulate those systems smoothly.

 

Very glad I did this as it's provided a ton of entertainment over the last several months.  I really dig some of the shoot-em-ups on Naomi, such as:

 

Ikaruga

Border Down

Under Defeat

Zero Gunner II

Triggerheart Exelica

Castle of Shikigami 2

Trizeal

Cannon Spike

... and others

 

Some other interesting games 

Cosmic Smash (weird pseudo-futuristic 3D pong type game - pretty fun once you figure it out)

Spiker's Battle (arena-style beat-em up)

Heavy Metal Geomatrix (one-on-one battle in 3D environment)

Virtua Tennis 

Power Stone (sort of like Heavy Metal but different theme)

 

Atomiswave is neat but there isn't a whole lot on there that I'm excited about.  A few I like are:

 

Dolphin Blue (run n gun)

Demolish Fist (beat 'em up - best name ever)

 

Not a big fan of one-on-one fighters so that makes big parts of these libraries kind of outside of my realm.  

 

 

 

  

Yeah outside the couple mediocre kof games and rumble fish, I feel you mentioned the games worth mentioning on atomiswave. It always felt like a me-too arcade kit. Not really ever rivaling the Naomi or Triforce it was sharing hardware with.  

[SlidellMan]

By the way, Spawn: In the Demon's Hand was originally a Naomi arcade game. If you liked Heavy Metal Geomatrix, chances are you have known about it.

[Cobra Strike Down]

12 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

By the way, Spawn: In the Demon's Hand was originally a Naomi arcade game. If you liked Heavy Metal Geomatrix, chances are you have known about it.

Very cool to know! I know about the game, but I've never played it.

[SlidellMan]

I saw it at Galloping Ghost Arcade last year, but went for Operation Thunderbold, CarnEvil, and Dragon Gun instead.

Trivia: Two of DiC's voice actors--Tony Daniels and John Stocker--worked on both Spawn: IDH and Heavy Metal Geomatrix.

[Cobra Strike Down]

Posting this on each of the arcade machine dedicated threads:

 

PSA: Axunworks superguns seem to be selling out and I know his stock is rarely replenished. I needed another as my Naomi 2 will be out in a different area than my CPS2 and MVS and have watched on just the last couple days him go from having stock on all four models to now just one that doesn’t have JVS support. 
 

I wasn’t quite ready to buy, myself, but ended up pulling the trigger as I know he can go months before replenishing stock. So if you were on the fence hope this helps. 
 

If you aren’t sure of his quality it’s the best bar none. You uh…definitely pay for it haha, but you get what you pay for. Rgbs out, Saturn controller support, vertical screen rotation, various controller layout configurations etc, it makes arcade hardware play outside a cab much less of a headache. 
 

Anywho, hope that helps!