> Let me just say that there's little reverse engineering involved here since that
> system is fully documented and we have both lots of documentation and a gnu
> toolchain for the vrender0 chip

Documentation or not it was still a lot of work and ElSemi did his usual excellent job, including the MAME port a few days later. Look on the bright side - when the next MAME comes out you can just port the cores and driver to FBA and be back on the cutting edge of crappy Final Fight clones ;-)