Cannon Spike control issues?

[Alextended]

I dunno if this is an issue to report but if playing Cannon Spike (the Dreamcast version, I dunno about Naomi) the controls seem to not be working quite right for me. I can play the game itself fine, if I'm not missing anything, but on the title screen where you're supposed to be able to set the game's difficulty no inputs are doing anything related for me. Also A+B+X+Y+Start don't have the restart behaviour most (all?) Dreamcast games do. I'm playing on RetroArch if that matters (everything always updated to latest). Nothing works to exit the game during pause either. I even tried choosing different devices like control pad or arcade stick, deleting remaps or whatever else, no go.
https://i.ibb.co/bRyTXq4y/retroarch-2025-04-20-04-07-19-922.png
https://i.ibb.co/k2kQbZqZ/retroarch-2025-04-20-04-08-42-435.png

[flyinghead]

I can't reproduce the issue.
The game difficulty level can be selected with DPad left and right.
On the pause menu, pressing both left and right triggers exits to the main menu.
Tested using retroarch 1.19.
There's probably something wrong in your settings/remaps.

[Alextended]

Thanks. I have no clue what the problem could be then. I just checked and there are no active remap files for Flycast or the specific game (going to the control quick settings it says remap file N/A). I'm using a Dual Shock 4 on port 1 and a Retro-bit Sega Saturn USB gamepad (in Xbox xinput mode, it's recognised as a 360 pad by RA) on port 2 (for Flycast, for stuff like FBN and Saturn cores I do the opposite with the Saturn pad on port 1 instead, but also change it for specific games like put the Saturn pad in port 1 for Flycast Capcom vs. SNK 2 or the Dual Shock 4 for Saturn and FBN games that use analogue or twin stick controls). Neither works for those functions for this game but is fine in all the others. With all these core/game remap settings I do I thought I'm well versed in configuring it but maybe I'm missing something. I'm on RetroArch 1.20, I guess when they release a new version I'll redo it from scratch (though I'm fairly certain I did that when updating to 1.20).

[Alextended]

Okay, with RetroArch 1.21 out I did what I said and reset it completely from scratch keeping no settings.

Initially Cannon Spike worked fine just as you said.

Now it doesn't again with the same issue I described above so it only makes sense I changed something relevant.

However, the only change I can think is at all relevant is that in the retroarch main input settings (not per core or anything else, changed it without a game/core active at the time) I went down to the lightgun controls in the list and set up/down/left/right keyboard arrow keys as the gun dpad and added some of the gun button controls for it as well. I did not remove or change the keys from the other entries, I merely added them to the gun controls. Mainly so that Dreamcast lightgun games can have dpad input for the menus etc. really.

I play lightgun games with a dolphinbar + wii remote + nunchuck and set up the dpad as the keyboard arrow keys etc., for that to work. But this isn't relevant at this time. This is perhaps some kind of conflict that then makes the dpad not work right in Cannon Spike even though lightgun controls obviously shouldn't affect a game that is played with a regular controller instead but somehow it does?

Also pressing L+R in that pause screen also doesn't work, I see some kind of screen flash for a moment when I press both buttons together and there's no other effect. Maybe somehow it thinks it's a lightgun game and that flash I see is screen flashes for lightguns?

The d-pad and trigger buttons function just fine in other Dreamcast games and I've changed nothing else with remappings so, I'm clueless.

Sorry if I'm being stupid and there's another thing I've fucked up somehow.

[flyinghead]

I have no idea what's going on and I don't know why it would happen specifically to this game. It really has nothing special regarding controls. Make sure to select "Controller" as the type of controller for user 1 in Quick Menu > Controls.

[Alextended]

It's not that (obviously, I mention I do a lot with these configs, per game/per core/per whatever for different things, just in this case I had not yet done so to test whatever setting breaks the game for me so it wouldn't be something so simple). Also just deleting the lightgun inputs I mentioned I added/reverting to default in that menu doesn't revert the behaviour to fixed. I really have no clue what could be causing it. Oh well, it's just this game and is still playable so whatever I guess, if I ever pinpoint the exact cause and how to fix/break it I'll let you know...