I`d been eying this cartridge for a while, and I eventually decided to spend $40 on this to see if my suspicions about this package were true, and I am afraid that they are.
So first things first, if you look the name of this cartridge up and find a files file from Aly James and MrD, this cartridge is identical to that program. So the main target of this package is for people who don`t have a flash cartridge, like an Everdrive. And that`s fine, because not everyone has or can afford an Everdrive.
The tool itself isn`t too bad, it`s reasonably well-presented for what it is, but it is very reliant on understanding how the YM2612 chip works. My biggest gripe is that, as far as I can tell, trying to finely adjust the values of various parameters is extremely fickle. If you want to dial in an exact value, you have to be astonishingly precise with pressing and releasing the A or B button. It would be very nice to be able to select a parameter, then fine-tune it with the D-Pad, or at least be able to increase or decrease the parameter at different rates. It doesn`t support 6-button pads either, which would help. The back of the box mentions being able to export your information for use in other programs, which is a strange choice for a physical cartridge that cannot work on an replicator without something like a Retrode. Maybe it would work with the Retron systems, but I don`t have one and am in no rush to get one to test.
I must admit, I`m rather disappointed in the user manual though. Despite being packaged with this tool, the manual is pretty much exclusively for a DIFFERENT program, FMDrive. FMDrive, to the credit of Aly James, seems like a fantastic program, but it would be nice if this $40 cartridge came with an FMDrive license too. Or at the very least, if the manual actually pertained to the program on the cartridge. As it stands, the printed manual contains almost nothing of value to the users of this cartridge alone, and it is made even more confusing by the ad copy from Mega Cat themselves showing a picture of a page that isn`t in the physical manual. You can go to Mega Cat`s website and download an extended manual if you wish, which does feature some actually useful information (namely how various FM features on the YM2612 work, which would have been useful for the printed version).
So can I recommend this? In truth, not really. It`s not a very good package as a whole. I would have loved to see either an included FMDrive license, or perhaps some way to actually export information from real hardware, but I can kind of forgive that. I can barely forgive the extremely difficult parameter adjustment system, and wish it could take advantage of a 6-button pad to do it more precisely. What I can`t forgive is the worthless manual, and having the full manual only available as a download from Mega Cat Studios.
Just in case this isn`t clear, none of this is the fault of Stone Age Gamer, or Aly James and MrD for the software they wrote. I place the blame for this package squarely at the feet of Mega Cat Studios. I really think with a better manual, some additions to sweeten the pot, maybe even a higher price to include extra cartridge features (like the ability to export audio parameters to a PC, or even some form of interface to interact with the real YM2612 chip from a program like Ableton) would make this an indispensible tool for musicians who want to work with Mega Drive/Genesis audio. But as it currently stands, I cannot recommend it right now.
