1.0.8 – Wii Remotes over Bluetooth and Dolphin save import

Highlights

• Wii Remotes over Bluetooth: Remotes (with Nunchuk) paired directly with your PC now play alongside the Mayflash DolphinBar.
• Save folder and Dolphin import: choose where the game keeps its saves and copy your Dolphin save over.
• CPU vs CPU: new opt-in tweak, watch the CPU play both teams.
• On-screen FPS counter: new opt-in display option.
• Many gameplay, shadow and menu fixes.

Wii Remotes over Bluetooth

The Controls page lists paired Remotes with their battery levels.

• Windows: the Controls page connects a Remote when you press 1+2 or SYNC, and Remotes are no longer silently dropped.
• Linux: Remotes keep reporting after status requests, and the Controls page copies the udev commands when access is missing.
• Pointer calibration is gone: real Remotes point correctly without it.
• If a player's controller is not connected, the launcher says who plays instead, on the Controls page and next to Play: "Player 1's Wii Remote is not connected, so the game starts with keyboard & mouse as player 1." Your player assignments stay saved.
• The Players card no longer jumps while a Remote's Bluetooth connection is flaky.

Saves

Game → Save data lets you choose the folder for the game's saves. Import from Dolphin copies your Dolphin save over, byte for byte, after a backup of the current save. data.bin exports are not supported.

New options (off by default)

• CPU vs CPU (Gameplay page, #31): in Domination, press Done on Choose Sides without picking a side and the CPU plays both teams, as in the title screen's demo matches. Choose Sides in the pause menu can also hand a running match over to the CPU, and any controller can still pause. The Road to the Striker Cup, Striker Challenges, Strikers 101 and online matches keep the original rule.
• On-screen FPS counter (Display → Frame rate → On screen, #20): the frame rate in a small pill in a corner of the window, windowed and fullscreen. It is never part of the game's picture or screenshots.

Fixes

Gameplay

• No Mega Strikes turns off only the captains' Mega Strikes; Skillshots stay (the game's Classic Mode cheat removes both). Strikers 101 lessons keep their own rules, and Striker Challenges now follow the option. (#22)
• Goal nets no longer stay dented after a goal. (#19)
• Koopa shells, Birdo eggs, fireballs, hammers, Waluigi's wall and other powerups behave correctly when they hit something, and Birdo's super-shot egg no longer crashes the game when it ends.
• Linux and macOS: goalies pick up loose balls.
• End of the match: a sudden-death goal plays the right celebration, the final score and series wins are recorded, a shot still in play at the whistle no longer lets the match run on, and the clock shows 0.0 instead of negative tenths.
• Windows and macOS:
  • Sidekicks that a Strikers 101 lesson or Striker Challenge leaves out no longer appear. (#25)
  • Players vaporized by Crystal Canyon's sun flare stay gone until the next kickoff instead of coming back on fire. (#28)
  • Players hit by an Ice Shell or caught in Peach's photo stay frozen for the full time. (#29)

Graphics

• Thrown shells, bananas, Bob-ombs and hammers keep a complete, steady shadow. Before, it flickered, was cut off or vanished, most visibly on Windows. (#18)
• Electrocuted players flash with the game's black-and-cyan lightning instead of white debug letters. The original game lacks this texture too: the disc has it only in a debug bundle the game never reads. (#33)

Menus

• Fast menus: the black box behind popups appears at once, and the screens after a match (results, popups, stats) skip their transitions too. (#26)
• Fast menus: spotlights and lamp sparkles no longer vanish or flicker during menu transitions. (#34)
• Changing menu screens no longer freezes the game and its music for up to half a second. (#27)

Launcher

• Vulkan is shown as the Windows graphics API.
• The Developer tests card is gone from Advanced.

Faster

• Loading a match no longer causes a 100 ms hitch on Linux.
• Textures are set up faster.

For developers

Francesco Palazzo (@GoldenPalazzo) contributed a debug LAN multiplayer mode (#30). In a build with -DMSCHARGED_DIAGNOSTIC_FRONTEND_LAN=ON (Linux and macOS), Main Menu's Online item opens the game's original debug LAN lobby, and a launched match goes through the original network draft into Domination. The release packages don't include it. The goalie, powerup and time-up fixes above came with the same contribution.

Thanks to @einBirnenbaum, @GoldCobra and @Kliff300 for their reports.

Download

Pick the package for your system below (Windows, Linux or macOS Apple Silicon), extract it, start mscharged and select your own Mario Strikers Charged (USA) disc image (.iso or .rvz, game ID R4QE01). Game data is not included.