von Ozbourne Posted February 4 Report Share Posted February 4 (edited) With one big project out of the way, it was time to finish another one. So we're going to frame this one as a retro review. With the "wild" success of Hockey Stars, [the hockey version of the critically acclaimed Baseball Stars on the NES] SNK decided to release a follow up two years later. This one however drew more influence from Baseball Stars 2 and Professional for the NEO-GEO AES and MVS systems respectively, as opposed to the Baseball Stars 2 port for the NES. [which was actually just a re-skin based on the original Baseball Stars engine with some features stripped out] But enough of the history lesson, this review is about... Based in a different engine from the original, this game has all of the favourite teams from the past games, plus four additional custom teams for 34 in total. The pregame amble features this old guy. For context, he was also the commissioner in Baseball Stars 2. I guess he got fired or decided that he wanted to be involved in a more exciting sport. While the entire roster no longer has individual player photos, the starting lineup still has wonderful images. [with character art adapted from the same game, and with cameos from other SNK titles] Starting a game you have a menu screen that looks like an old familiar jumbotron with a lot of statistics and options in addition to accessing line and goalie changes. Full roster stats and ratings are available for picking your best line[s] as line changes can be turned on or off in the pre-game options. The branding should be noticeable by now, and it carries over to all the stats screens as well. The Playoff mode supports single game and best-of-7 play. The Championship trophy seems to have been removed from its tall base since the previous incarnation. Wonder if there was a scaling issue in the new engine. While the pregame announcer gives individual names to the home team's arena, like the baseball games, the art assets are not individualized for each team. Judging by the amount of detail in each teams' logo, I doubt it would translate well to the smaller scale anyway. SNK did take the opportunity to add more branding in case you weren't sure who developed the game you were playing. Winning playoff mode treats you to your victory on the front page of the national sports page with a close up of the large gold "loving cup" style trophy. While the reduction in player profiles is a bit of a let down in this new entry, SNK figured they would make up for it with added features like Signing, Trading, Releasing players and even a Create-a-Player options. And to top it off, a full season mode. Much like a college style season, games are played almost exclusively on weekends, with some back-to-back home-and-home series to add to the drama. Seasons are a 32-game affair, which is nice and quick especially since you can play every single game if you want, allowing you and your friends to pick their favourite team and face off in the same season for the Championship. If 32 is still too long a season for you, the season can be ended after any day, and with each team playing on the same days, games played in the standings will be equal for all teams on any day. At the end of the season, regardless of how your team fairs, you will be treated to an awards ceremony where the best players are awarded a gold medal of excellence. Nice touches like that make the game feel like a real season and not something completely player-centric. To cap it off, the game offers Practice and Shoot-out modes to test your skill. There also seems to be some Easter eggs in there for fans of SNK games as well as some general pop-culture of the '80s and early '90s. In the interest of full disclosure, there are some instability issues with this game, likely due to the added teams and players and it being considered to be rushed out in prototype state in order to meet publisher obligations. This, as well as the Genesis losing ground on the new SNES at the time, would appear to have affected sales at the time, leaving the game a bit of a rare gem for collectors. A solid 7/10 Hockey Stars 2 [v1.2].bin Leaving the old version here. Pre some minor graphical fixes and puck collision set for slightly more difficult scoring. Hockey Stars 2.bin And now I have to do this version too. Hockey Stars 2 [v1.3] Wide Screen.bin Edited March 18 by von Ozbourne 4 2 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 I really like the idea that a newspaper would put out a personalized headline for all of the players on the team. As usual, amazing work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 (edited) 13 minutes ago, seamor said: I really like the idea that a newspaper would put out a personalized headline for all of the players on the team. As usual, amazing work! Hey thanks man. Just a heads up since you were the only one to download it so far. I forgot I was going to adjust the puck collision data before uploading. I've changed it from a 05 to my customary 02, so the puck will bounce closer to the wall graphic and make the nets just a bit smaller. I've fixed that and re-uploaded. Edited February 5 by von Ozbourme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sedge Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Wow, that looks fantastic! Love the title screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 2 hours ago, DeterminedApathy said: Wow, that looks fantastic! Love the title screen. Thanks eh. At risk of sounding un-modest, I was kind of proud of myself for figuring out the pseudo-animation on that in lieu of a proper parallax from the more powerful NEO-GEO system. Ah screw it. I like it too much to not highlight the trick on a screen that, hell, even I only pay attention to enough to wait for the cue to hit Start, 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drezz Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Holy smokes, man. This is such an amazing retrofit. I was blown away by the first, but this one is even more detailed. Great job! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabs3121 Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 This looks so amazing. Excellent work done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabs3121 Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 (edited) Amazing game Edited February 5 by Tabs3121 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elfor Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Wait what SNK hockey? It got me fooled good job! Does it include any other hacks such as weight bug fix? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 On 2/5/2023 at 1:13 PM, elfor said: Does it include any other hacks such as weight bug fix? This was based on '95. As far as I know, that engine doesn't have the weight issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
segathon Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 @von Ozbourmethis is AMAZING. I have spent almost as much time playing Baseball Stars on the NES than NHL 95 on the gens. It's like it was custom-made for me. THANK YOU! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sedge Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 Having had the time to actually look at this a little more closely, I just want to say that the portraits turned out really nicely. I particularly like some of the choices on the celebrity cameo teams. Also, I couldn't help noticing that the Canada Bisons and Creative Brains seem to break format and have first names that aren't quite the team initials. Was that because otherwise they'd both be CB? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 15 minutes ago, DeterminedApathy said: Also, I couldn't help noticing that the Canada Bisons and Creative Brains seem to break format and have first names that aren't quite the team initials. Was that because otherwise they'd both be CB? This one had been so long in the works that I forgot that I changed both. But yes, the main reason for the initials was because during the end-of-season-mode awards ceremony, the ambiguity of single names became a problem. Didn't want to break tradition and invent last names, and rather than worry about which combination of C&B was attributed to which C.B., I figured might as well find an alternative for both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UltraMagnus Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 On 2/5/2023 at 12:00 AM, von Ozbourme said: Thanks eh. At risk of sounding un-modest, I was kind of proud of myself for figuring out the pseudo-animation on that in lieu of a proper parallax from the more powerful NEO-GEO system. Ah screw it. I like it too much to not highlight the trick on a screen that, hell, even I only pay attention to enough to wait for the cue to hit Start, Very noticeable and a great touch. Your a pure genius!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halifax Posted February 11 Report Share Posted February 11 Thanks for making this rom. The detail is amazing! I love the arrow and dot showing who the pass is going to when they are off screen. the menu screens are awesome. It's so well done. I will say that in comparison to nhl95 this game is insanely hard to score. The first game i played as the bisons finished as a 0-0 tie after 5 minute periods and 10 mintue over time. Almost every one timer I tried, hit the post. The second game I used taipei and I managed to win 1-0 with 10 seconds left. Keep being awesome bud! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted February 11 Author Report Share Posted February 11 3 hours ago, halifax said: I will say that in comparison to nhl95 this game is insanely hard to score. The first game i played as the bisons finished as a 0-0 tie after 5 minute periods and 10 mintue over time. Almost every one timer I tried, hit the post. The second game I used taipei and I managed to win 1-0 with 10 seconds left. Thanks for the heads up. Admittedly I didn't really play test the last minute change in puck collision that that much, but instead was going on my assumptions of NHL'94. I did tone it down a bit and won with the Bisons 5-2, using 10 minute periods, with their pair coming late in the third. [Although I had to rely on a couple breakaways to get the score that high as I too had a problem with my one-timers, in that they were being blocked half the time] You have given me another reason to put out another update though, as I just now realized that I made an error in the player select screen. Only recently figured out how to use 4-player mode in Gens and only now configured it to be on. Long story short, all four player numbers should have looked like number 3 does here. Posted 1.2 in the OP. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted March 18 Author Report Share Posted March 18 So now that there is an updated widescreen patch that works on the expanded '95 game, I guess this needs to be a thing now. Only drawback now is that score kind of floating at the 1/3 mark, but maybe there will be a 1.3 patch eventually. Hockey Stars 2 [v1.3] Wide Screen.bin Updated the original post too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jlsegafan2001 Posted March 21 Report Share Posted March 21 On 2/4/2023 at 3:37 PM, von Ozbourne said: With one big project out of the way, it was time to finish another one. So we're going to frame this one as a retro review. With the "wild" success of Hockey Stars, [the hockey version of the critically acclaimed Baseball Stars on the NES] SNK decided to release a follow up two years later. This one however drew more influence from Baseball Stars 2 and Professional for the NEO-GEO AES and MVS systems respectively, as opposed to the Baseball Stars 2 port for the NES. [which was actually just a re-skin based on the original Baseball Stars engine with some features stripped out] But enough of the history lesson, this review is about... Based in a different engine from the original, this game has all of the favourite teams from the past games, plus four additional custom teams for 34 in total. The pregame amble features this old guy. For context, he was also the commissioner in Baseball Stars 2. I guess he got fired or decided that he wanted to be involved in a more exciting sport. While the entire roster no longer has individual player photos, the starting lineup still has wonderful images. [with character art adapted from the same game, and with cameos from other SNK titles] Starting a game you have a menu screen that looks like an old familiar jumbotron with a lot of statistics and options in addition to accessing line and goalie changes. Full roster stats and ratings are available for picking your best line[s] as line changes can be turned on or off in the pre-game options. The branding should be noticeable by now, and it carries over to all the stats screens as well. The Playoff mode supports single game and best-of-7 play. The Championship trophy seems to have been removed from its tall base since the previous incarnation. Wonder if there was a scaling issue in the new engine. While the pregame announcer gives individual names to the home team's arena, like the baseball games, the art assets are not individualized for each team. Judging by the amount of detail in each teams' logo, I doubt it would translate well to the smaller scale anyway. SNK did take the opportunity to add more branding in case you weren't sure who developed the game you were playing. Winning playoff mode treats you to your victory on the front page of the national sports page with a close up of the large gold "loving cup" style trophy. While the reduction in player profiles is a bit of a let down in this new entry, SNK figured they would make up for it with added features like Signing, Trading, Releasing players and even a Create-a-Player options. And to top it off, a full season mode. Much like a college style season, games are played almost exclusively on weekends, with some back-to-back home-and-home series to add to the drama. Seasons are a 32-game affair, which is nice and quick especially since you can play every single game if you want, allowing you and your friends to pick their favourite team and face off in the same season for the Championship. If 32 is still too long a season for you, the season can be ended after any day, and with each team playing on the same days, games played in the standings will be equal for all teams on any day. At the end of the season, regardless of how your team fairs, you will be treated to an awards ceremony where the best players are awarded a gold medal of excellence. Nice touches like that make the game feel like a real season and not something completely player-centric. To cap it off, the game offers Practice and Shoot-out modes to test your skill. There also seems to be some Easter eggs in there for fans of SNK games as well as some general pop-culture of the '80s and early '90s. In the interest of full disclosure, there are some instability issues with this game, likely due to the added teams and players and it being considered to be rushed out in prototype state in order to meet publisher obligations. This, as well as the Genesis losing ground on the new SNES at the time, would appear to have affected sales at the time, leaving the game a bit of a rare gem for collectors. A solid 7/10 Hockey Stars 2 [v1.2].bin 2 MB · 68 downloads Leaving the old version here. Pre some minor graphical fixes and puck collision set for slightly more difficult scoring. Hockey Stars 2.bin 2 MB · 78 downloads And now I have to do this version too. Hockey Stars 2 [v1.3] Wide Screen.bin 2 MB · 16 downloads You fooled me for a second, ngl 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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