PC Engine on par technically with SNES / Genesis ?

[grahf]

You know they might have worked terrible, but the Genesis pads did look f'in awesome. As for the SNES pads, i also think they are the best console pad ever produced (besides with fighting games, which should be played with a stick anyhow).  A very close second to best pad ever, would be the Gamecube Wavebird. Those are BADASS pads, period. The PCE/TG16 pads may look really basic, but you never notice them while playing- Which is a good thing. My only gripe is the d-pad on them is a tiny stiff.

I know this isnt on topic, but i dont have much to add that already hasnt been said..

[Joe Redifer]

In the past we've discussed this

And now we'll discuss it again!  

Back when the Genesis first came out, I was pretty happy with the included controller.  I was constantly saying how much more awesome it was than the NES or TurboGrafx at school since it had a whole extra button.  But since the Sega 6-button pad came out for the Genesis, that's all I can use.  Going back and holding one of the original controllers is now completely uncomfortable and unacceptable!  Ug!  The SNES has a good controller and I don't really have any gripes with it other than I prefer two rows of three buttons over a diamond configuration.  Also I could never quite grasp why the buttons were labeled in a backwards manner.  I just figured Nintendo was retarded or illiterate or something.  The original TurboGrafx controller is quite adequate, but once I got the NEC Avenue 6-button controller, I find the original controller a bit too small and/or cumbersome.

PS - I HATE the Playstation controller, especially the d-pad.  Hate.  With much passion.

[CrackTiger]

I'm not even going to try to comment on the original topic of this thread, since there're already way too many personal opinions being put forward which won't be swayed and a lot of stuff thats definately bogus.

All I'll say is no system will ever reach it's potential limit and the common denominator for any performance is the programmer. Potential 'power' doesn't mean anything if someone doesn't know how to work with it.

And its all about art anyway. You can render the most visually amazing graphics without taxing a system or grind it a halt with an ugly mess depending on your skills.

According to the "common knowledge" thats out there, like most of the crap printed in classic game mags(I'm not going to list any of the hilarious samples I've come accross lately reading old mags), everything Chris Covell (an 'amateur' programmer with no proffessional tools/official dev kit) has done on the PC Engine is not only "impossible", but several times over so and therefore doesn't really exist(he's fooled us all!).

The bottom line is, the Genesis can display very colorful looking graphics, the SNES can push a ton of sprites with no flicker or slowdown and the PC Engine can move any number of independant scrolling bg's and parallax.

And they all sound cool.

In the grand scheme of things, when you look at Odyssey up through XBox 360, the 16-bitters are all pretty much identical.

But if the Sega CD could do a really good job of Dracula X, then why did the Lords of Thunder port not come out as good as the Duo version?

This is just a myth, The Sega CD version is an awesome port, which loses very little considering it's a port of a top quality PCE CD title.

The main difference is the loss of color(more dramatic than most people think if you run them both on emulator) on a technical level, but the result is still a beutiful game.

Its got 95% of the original scrolling bg's and adds in some new ones. Show both versions to any non-gamer and they'll think they're looking at the same game.

The music and sfx may be a little 'less-good' overall, but are still great.

If a quality port of Drac X was made for Mega CD, it'd probably wind up around the same deal, losing a little and adding a little.

Off-Topic: I have heard a HELL of alot of "This system flopped" or "That failed" but truly in my humble opinion, very few consoles in history failed. Systems like the CDi, The Virtual Boy, and the 32X are indeed failures. Even the PCFX should be considered a failure.

Don't forget the SuperGrafx! ...unless you coun't the entire PC Engine catalog as part of it's library.  

For a PCE to Mega CD port success story, look at Popful Mail, Cosmic Fantasy, and Snatcher.

Popful Mail is actually a completely original game on Sega-CD. Some other PCE CD to Mega-CD success stories though: Space Adventure Cobra, Lords Of Thunder and Burai. And of course there are all the cross format success stories (CD-cart, Cart <-> Hu, Cart - CD).

Oh, almost forgot...someone had mentioned the SNES' "scaling without scaling" thing that was used a lot in SMB...that effect is called a mosaic pattern. It was a popular, albeit cheesy, effect used in the 90s as a transition. Of course, the SNES was limited even in this effect...it could only affect the background layer, it couldn't affect sprites. However, here's an interesting tidbit for ya...Final Fantasy VI used the mosaic pattern effect for various parts of the game, such as when Tina (Terra) was trying to escape the guards in the beginning and fell down the hole. On the SNES version, you see the background go mosaic, but her sprite remains static. On the Playstation port of the game, the whole screen goes mosaic.

New Adventure Island does a simple version of that effect at the beginning of each level and it's also only the background. I don't hate it(the SNES effect), but it did get overused.

I remember noticing in later SNES games how it would cycle transparencies, since in theory, it can only do one layer. Like when you use a special move/spell in Chrono Trigger and all the shadows and other effects on screen would dissappear right before the spell and then quickly fade back in right after.

[OldRover]

I dig games like Dark Wizard, which is totally underappreciated, IMO (I think it scares folks, but it is an amazing game... just don't expect to ever "master" it ).

Meet Mr Dark Wizard himself...ME! I even own the darkwizard.org domain which was originally a complete information site on the game. I have to put it up again someday...

Anyways...this thread's kinda funny, but it seems that almost everyone is ignoring the real technical details of the three systems and focusing on the software that was produced for them and trying to compare them that way...furthermore, each of the three has their strengths and weaknesses, so you cannot go on a single issue, because if you do, each system can beat any of the others at any given time! (Well, the Genesis can't really beat the other two on ANY issue, really...but I'll assume it can just to be fair and to make my point). Each of the systems have technical limitations that are mostly incomparable, or that simply cancel each other out. The color one is the easiest to look at...two 9-bit palettes versus a 15-bit palette...one of the 9-bit palettes is generally limited to only 6 bits of its spectrum without hardware tricks (Genesis), while one is free to run its whole 9-bit spectrum effortlessly (PCE). But wait! What about that 15-bit palette (SNES)? Oh, hang on...it's limited to only 8 bits of its spectrum. What looks like an advantage is cancelled by a technical limitation. And that's just one issue...if you look deeply at the capabilities of each machine, you'll find more and more of these oddities.

So to answer the question of whether the PCE could hold its own against the other two on a technical level...of course it could. Despite being the oldest of the three, it was developed by a group of smart people who knew their stuff and weren't happy settling for stock technology...they understood the concept of the console life cycle and built a machine that would last for a long time, unlike their competitors who simply wanted to cash in on the reinvigorated video game market as cheaply as possible.

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot...someone had mentioned the SNES' "scaling without scaling" thing that was used a lot in SMB...that effect is called a mosaic pattern. It was a popular, albeit cheesy, effect used in the 90s as a transition. Of course, the SNES was limited even in this effect...it could only affect the background layer, it couldn't affect sprites. However, here's an interesting tidbit for ya...Final Fantasy VI used the mosaic pattern effect for various parts of the game, such as when Tina (Terra) was trying to escape the guards in the beginning and fell down the hole. On the SNES version, you see the background go mosaic, but her sprite remains static. On the Playstation port of the game, the whole screen goes mosaic.

[Seldane]

Whoever said Popful Mail om Mega-CD was a PCE->MCD port is wrong. Popful Mail on Mega-CD is a remake entirely developed by Sega themselves. Sega - the master developers.

The PCE version is a port of the original PC-8801 version.

[CrackTiger]

Whoever said Popful Mail om Mega-CD was a PCE->MCD port is wrong. Popful Mail on Mega-CD is a remake entirely developed by Sega themselves. Sega - the master developers.

The PCE version is a port of the original PC-8801 version.

Kinda like Ys IV PCE. Hudson - the other master developer.  

[Seldane]

Whoever said Popful Mail om Mega-CD was a PCE->MCD port is wrong. Popful Mail on Mega-CD is a remake entirely developed by Sega themselves. Sega - the master developers.

The PCE version is a port of the original PC-8801 version.

Kinda like Ys IV PCE. Hudson - the other master developer.  

Yeah, definitely!

[Joe Redifer]

Well, the Genesis can't really beat the other two on ANY issue, really.

Bias often?  

[OldRover]

Bias often?  

I knew someone would come back with that. It has nothing to do with bias, I have programmed all three consoles so I have knowledge above and beyond most and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Genesis has no single advantage over the other two, for any advantage it may have over one is overpowered by the other (example: Genesis has a faster CPU than the SNES but a slower CPU than the PCE...Genesis has more background planes than the PCE but fewer than the SNES, etc etc etc...it has no single technical advantage, and this is due mainly due to Sega's move to use cheap stock components). So call it bias if you like, but it's not true.

[Odonadon]

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Genesis has no single advantage over the other two

I'm going to have to dispute this - the Genesis is the coolest looking console (probably of all time)

OD

[takashirose]

Ahem, the TurboDuo is.

[grahf]

The original PC Engine is the best looking console ever, 2nd place is a toss up between the Genesis and the Super Famicom.

[Seldane]

The tiny PS2 is the awesomest console ever. Perfection!

[takashirose]

The tiny ps2 seems that I could just snap it in half without any effort.

[OldRover]

I'm going to have to dispute this - the Genesis is the coolest looking console (probably of all time)

Perhaps, but the case design lends very little to its technical ability...actually, even that's questionable...the poor old Genny tended to smash if dropped from even short heights, while the other two consoles were a lot more sturdy (my old TG16 really took a beating and still worked).

[Odonadon]

I'm going to have to dispute this - the Genesis is the coolest looking console (probably of all time)

Perhaps, but the case design lends very little to its technical ability...actually, even that's questionable...the poor old Genny tended to smash if dropped from even short heights, while the other two consoles were a lot more sturdy (my old TG16 really took a beating and still worked).

Well that I won't dispute.  I didn't say it was a technical advantage  

Grahf, I don't know how you can compare the Super Famicom with the Mega Drive for looks!?  The Famicoms have always been on the ugly side.

OD

[GUTS]

I don't know what you consider a short height, but the first model Genesis was just as sturdily built as the other 2 systems.  The second one was much cheaper though.

[Joe Redifer]

...the poor old Genny tended to smash if dropped from even short heights, while the other two consoles were a lot more sturdy (my old TG16 really took a beating and still worked).

Back in the day I often used to bang my fist against my Genesis 1 (launch unit) when I got angry at a game because it wouldn't let me win or was being unfair.  I have zero tolerance when things do not go my way, especially again and again and again.  Obviously violence is the only answer.  My Genesis has nary a scratch to this day!  I had to replace my TurboGrafx CD player, though (for free under warranty).  I have since learned not to beat up the systems, but instead innocent people nearby.  Much more gratifying, but I have to be careful that my parole officer doesn't catch me.  

[Seldane]

People actually managed to destroy their Mega Drives? I'm amazed! That thing is like ... invincible! The Duo-R, on the other hand... wow. That has to be the cheapest thing ever!

[takashirose]

I tend to not hit my video game systems because it costs me money to get the systems.  I think the Super NES should be named the most durable because it has the thickest plastic around.  The plastic is around ten times thicker than the NES' plastic.

[grahf]

All cd based systems are going to be more fragile than cartridge based ones, for the most part. Anything with tiny moving parts is going to wear and break easily. Try dropping a duo and a ps2 from 2 feet. See which one survives.

[takashirose]

but if you drop both, none will survive.

[Seldane]

Someone tripped on the cables for my Gamecube so it smashed into the floor . Nothing happened to it.

[_Paul]

I swear you could beat beat an army of men to death with a Sega Master System, then use it as a battering ram and snowboard down a mountain on it and it would still work. SMS is built like a brick.

[takashirose]

I'm not one of those guys who likes to test a system's durability unless I have ten of them.  I am a gamer who has standards of system condition, which makes me as a collector, I guess.  Most of my games are played by me and not sealed.  I have a handful of sealed copies of games that I play.  Some happened by accident like birthday presents, while others because I ordered them before buying a system that came bundled with it.

[handygrafx]

peonpiate:  this is a tough subject to say definitively.


all three consoles have various strengths and weaknesses.


the PC-Engine was out first (1987)  the SNES came out 3 years later in Japan.

certainly the PC-Engine's  on-screen simultaneous color capabilities are far superior to that of the Genesis, released in 1988 in Japan (as the MegaDrive) which must have been very embarrasing for SEGA since overall, the MD-Genesis is more powerful than the PC-Engine (CPU, Sprites, Audio). how Sega could end up with a mere fraction of the on-screen colors compared to the PC-Engine ( 64 vs hundreds) is beyond me.

only with the arrival of the 32X upgrade in 1994, a 32-bit machine, did Sega have the ability to paint more colors on the screen in hardware (without resorting to tricks like HAM), than NEC-Hudson's consoles.

IMO, the MegaDrive / Genesis should've had the same color capability as its big arcade brother, the System16 board;  which could do something like 1500~2048 colors on-screen out of 32,768 possible.  Also,  Sega should've not cut out the scaling chip that was originally supposedly supposed to be in the MD-Genesis.  We had to wait until 1991-1992 when the SegaCD added full hardware scaling & rotation.

in the end, there is no clear complete winner in hardware, even when adding in the souped up PC-Engine, the SuperGrafx.

the only hardware that's clearly superior to all of them is the NEO-GEO, minus a couple of effects that NEO-GEO did not have that SNES did, which could be made up in software thanks to NEO-GEO's fast CPU.

I wish NEC-Hudson had released a real 16-bit PC-Engine 2 that competed with the NEO-GEO technically, but at an affordable price.

[Seldane]

Games like Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine.

[CrackTiger]

Games like Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine.

Although I can see how some people might pick out particular titles that they feel would be hard to pull off on a different system, why do you think Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine?

It seems to me to be a very un-Megadrivey game that if anything, would be easier for the PC Engine. I never played too far into it, but is there like a cool side-scrolling section later on with like 20 layers of parallax or something?

[Joe Redifer]

the only hardware that's clearly superior to all of them is the NEO-GEO, minus a couple of effects that NEO-GEO did not have that SNES did, which could be made up in software thanks to NEO-GEO's fast CPU.

I am a big Neo Geo fan and I love my AES and its pricey games.  But it is kind of interesting to compare the machine to the SNES and even the Sega CD.  Obviously the Neo kills the SNES with its speed.  And even though the Neo Geo had twice as many colors to choose from than the SNES and could put 16 times as many onscreen simultaneously (4,096 vs 256), Neo Geo games didn't often look a great deal more colorful than SNES games.  I don't think I've ever seen any Neo Geo game with over 512 simulataneous colors in any part.  On a side note, Space Harrier's option screen for the 32X has 4,221 simultaneous colors.  Also I've never seen the Neo Geo do anything like Mode 7 (scaling with actual perspectives).  Nor have I seen it do rotation.  Compared to the Sega CD's scaling and rotation capabilities, the Neo Geo has never done anything even remotely approaching the quality of the scaling and rotation in Batman Returns (driving sequences) and Soul Star.

In my opinion, the Neo Geo is what the stand-alone Mega Drive should have been in the first place.

[Seldane]

I've never seen a PCE game that makes me go "wow", I think they all look either like early Mega Drive games or late NES games. I'm talking about graphics here. Show me one awesome-looking PCE game right here and now:

[takashirose]

Now when you say PC-Engine, do you mean without any cd-rom and upgrade cards?

[TurboXray]

My friend was borrowing a DUO unit from another friend who went to boot camp (he was older than us). I swear that Duo went flying and crash into the floor more than ten times, still works to this day. The Duo card was short and his dog would come running out of nowhere and not the unit from about 3 feet off the ground. I was amazed to say the least and I also hated that dog to this day.

[Seldane]

Now when you say PC-Engine, do you mean without any cd-rom and upgrade cards?

Yes, but I'd like to see the prettiest CD games and games using various accessories too.

[Nemo]

Games like Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine.

In what regard? And Gotzendiener is the closest thing I've seen to LC (not that it really matters since I don't like LC to begin with   ).

I've never seen a PCE game that makes me go "wow", I think they all look either like early Mega Drive games or late NES games. I'm talking about graphics here. Show me one awesome-looking PCE game right here and now:

Sapphire, though that the soundtrack are the only things that it has going for it.

[takashirose]

Well you could say that Lords of Thunder and gate of Thunder are one of the pretiest Super Cd-Rom games and don't forget Dracula X.  Strider using the Arcade is very pretty.  SuperGrafx's Daimakaimura.  A lot of the Hu card ports of genesis games look better than on the genesis.  But do you really care?

[Seldane]

A lot of the Hu card ports of genesis games look better than on the genesis.

Perhaps, but they never looked good in the first place.  

Yep I care. Interesting to see the most graphically impressive games on various systems. But I don't think Dracula X looks that nice. Not as nice as Castlevania The New Generation on MD.

[takashirose]

You're telling me that Castlevania on the Genesis/MD looks better than Dracula X on the PC-Engine Super CD-Rom2?  I doubt it.  Especially the amounts of colour.  Though I do like and have the MD Castlevania, which I like.

[GUTS]

I'd agree with Seldane, Castlevania Bloodlines looks much better than Dracula X.  Drac X was a nice looking game, but Bloodlines just has way more stuff going on.  Same with Contra, the Genesis Contra absolutely smokes the SNES Contra in every way.  Konami really knew what they were doing on the few Genesis games they made, their graphics were always pretty phenominal.

[Joe Redifer]

But I don't think Dracula X looks that nice. Not as nice as Castlevania The New Generation on MD.

I am a huge Genesis fan.  In fact some moron on this forum said that I "hate everything except Genesis" after reading my article comparing Devil's Crush and Dragon's Fury over on Sega-16.  When Dracula X was first released for the PC Engine in Japan, I bought it right away and played through it to 100%.  I loved it.  After that is when Castlevania Bloodlines came out for the Genesis.  It looked so bad in comparison to what I was used to with Dracula X (I refuse to call it "Rhondo" because that just sounds super-mega retarded).  Bloodlines has better visual effects than Dracula X with the psuedo-rotation, reflections and whatnot, but the actual design and artwork was so much better in Dracula X.  I don't attribute that to the PCE's power or abilities, but the designers of said games.  Don't get me wrong, I freakin' love Bloodlines and it is better from a technical standpoint, but not an aesthetic one in my opinion.  Kind of like SNES sound.  Technically it is better than the Genesis, but to me most SNES games sound extremely muffled with next to no high-end or treble.  I prefer Genesis sound aesthetically.

[esteban]

I don't attribute that to the PCE's power or abilities, but the designers of said games.  Don't get me wrong, I freakin' love Bloodlines and it is better from a technical standpoint, but not an aesthetic one in my opinion.  Kind of like SNES sound.  Technically it is better than the Genesis, but to me most SNES games sound extremely muffled with next to no high-end or treble.  I prefer Genesis sound aesthetically.

Indeed, but I'd say SNES suffers from lack of bass, if anything.

To follow-up on a minor point: As I've said in the past, the SNES often sounds "too perfect" and "too polished" for me... I guess I like my chip tunes a little more "raw". Perhaps we should dig up the old thread if we want to discuss music, but I prefer most NES / Famicom tunes over SNES tunes. The limitations of the older hardware was a "virtue" as far as my tastes are concerned. Don't get me wrong, I actually love SNES soundtracks in-and-of-themselves, but they can't compete with the tunes pumped out by the aforementioned consoles, IMO.

On nice-looking games: I always thought "Legendary Axe II" had some of the nicest, most polished graphics in the PCE library. I don't think this game would make Seldane go "wow!", but I thought I'd mention it. Even if you think the character designs are goofy, do you think the graphics are impressive? It's OK to laugh at me

[Seldane]

Yeah, Legendary Axe II looks pretty nice. Definitely one of the nicest-looking PCE games I've seen, but it's not really "impressive."

[takashirose]

It depends what is "impressive."  For me when I booted up "Gate of Thunder" for the very first time, I thought, "WOW!"  They don't make this anymore.  they should have remade Lords of thunder as a Sega 32X CD game.  Now that would have been impressive.  It would have blown the original away.

[torgo]

Not really. The 32X's color palette "technically" was better than the Duo, but in reality the TG16 still blew it away graphically. I believe only one or 2 games ever used both processors, and most never used the Genesis hardware except for sound channels. The Lords of Thunder for the Sega CD didn't compare at all, and a 32X version wouldn't have been much better.

[takashirose]

If people knew how to use the 32X, it would have been good.  They did an arcade perfect Space Harrier on the 32X, but that game was already old by then.  I love the hard rock music on the Cd games for the TurboGrafx/Duo.  Regardless of graphics it's the music that always blows me away.  When I find a tune in a game that is memorable like in gate of Thunder, that means it's that good.  I love music.  You could have the best graphics, but if the music's bad, then all the fun is sucked out.  Imagine if gate of Thunder was techno.  Not the same.

[Joe Redifer]

I believe only one or 2 [32X] games ever used both processors, and most never used the Genesis hardware except for sound channels.

Are you kidding?  I think most 32X games used the 68000 as the main CPU and barely used the 32X at all.  This is because Sega sent out incomplete development kits for the 32X games, which didn't allow most companies to take much advantage of the unit.

[OldRover]

I was extremely impressed by the graphics in LA2 the first time I popped it into my TG. To that point, it had the best graphics of any game I'd played on any console. Granted, no game on the PCE will blow you away graphically these days...no game for ANY 16-bit console will.

[Seldane]

no game for ANY 16-bit console will.

For me it does. A nice-looking 16-bit game is much more impressive than a nice-looking PS2 game in my opinion. Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3 will never stop amazing me.

[takashirose]

A game like gate of Thunder could still blow me away.  I just have to look at it at a different perspective.

[TurboXray]

When I first played GOT, I was very impressed. My friend at the time who had a Sega CD immediately went out and bought a DUO after playing it. To this day he's a Duo fan. His favorite cartridge system is the Genesis, but his favorite CD system is the Duo - for 16bit era. I might catch some flak for this comment, but to me - the Sega Saturn was the next generation Duo/PCE-SCD. It has that Duo spirit.

 Back to Duo. GOT is pretty impressive in comparison to other titles on the system, but did not push the system to its limits. The load times are short, the graphics are great, the action is non-stop, each enemy/sprite has a good amount of frames, nice use of parallax scrolls, etc. BUT, Lords of Thunder is technically superior to GOT.

 For MegaDrive, I think the most impressive game for me was Gaiares - might be my fav shooter of all time. Gunstar heroes and ThunderForce4 are in the top list. Exranza had some impressive parts, but not overall. I wasn't impressed with Revenge of Shinobi - I perfer Ninja Spirit over it even though they are completely different games.

[Digi.k]

I'm actually pretty sure I read something about that years ago about pc engine owners selecting the saturn as their next gaming system..

I kinda think thats reflected on the software companies that went to produce/publish games on it.

Plus just like the pc engine the Saturn was also home to a lot of anime games.