Just played Lords Of Thunder for the Sega CD ...

[SignOfZeta]

Games like Vectorman or Earthworm Jim or Aladdin I don't see happening as well on the PCE.

Why's that?  Those games are very well animated with lots of frames, but there are PCE games that can equal 'em (e.g. - Dracula X and Sapphire).

I think this is more of a matter of those sorts of games, the high end AAA American developed platformers, coming about after nearly all development of platformers on PCE came to an end. Most PCE platformers are pretty low end, designed to compete with the Famicom-era.

Comparing the animation in Dracula X to Earthworm jim is pretty ridiculous. Richtor is small and walks like he has a broom handle shoved up his ass. I do see your point, there is plenty of power in the SCD system to make an Aladdin or EJ, but Drac X isn't a good comparison. The hold back wasn't technical, it just that the people making those sorts of games were either in the US or they were working on Super Famicom so the PCE got left out of the great graphical leap forward with EJ, Aladdin, that kind of thing.

I've about fucking had it with that Buster Wolf, btw.

[CrackTiger]

I mean, realistically, there is no real reason LoT should be better on the lowly PCE than it is on the MD. The PCE is a much slower machine and the CDROM2 doesn't add anywhere near as much power to the PCE as the MCD does to the MD...but you do kind of need color.

There's much more regular tech talk on sega-16, where experts break down the abilities/performance of consoles down the base mechanics of what happens for each frame. The consensus is that the PC Engine is fastest at animating or updating, followed by the Genesis and then trailed by the SNES, which apparently has such slow cpu speeds because of other bottlenecks like slow memory. The Sega-CD does have a fast cpu speed, but how the new hardware and Genesis interact is convoluted, with different was to do different things and again, some crucial bottlenecks keeping it from being insanely powerful all-round.

Lords of Thunder was tailor-made for the PCE hardware. You can't just replace every section of animated tiles with a scrolling tile layer, it doesn't all fit together that way. Many Sega fans try to criticize Lords of Thunder as being a poor port, but even though it lost a tiny bit of artwork, the developer actually did make use of the additional tile layer(s) and added new parallax. It turned out infinitely better than Final Fight did for color, yet that port is celebrated.

I've heard it proposed that maybe too much collision can be hard for the Genesis and is the reason for noticeable slowdown in games like Thunder Force IV (which Genesis fans don't tend to be as critical of). Something like Air Zonk only calculates bullets and enemies and the background doesn't come into play. Star Parodia juggles screens full of animated bubbles, comprised of multiple sprites, which ricochet off of each other and the walls of the background, while still interacting with the player sprite and bullets. If you let the bubbles build up, you'll eventually see slowdown. The bubble section in LoT seems to do pretty much the same thing and the Sega-CD version spits out more crystals, creating a hell of a lot of collision to calculate (23:30 onward). So it's not surprising that the game slows down there. The Sega-CD cpu is only 1.5 times the speed of the Genesis cpu, which already slows down in TFIV in areas with background collision, especially when a lot of bullets are onscreen (8:10 onward).

Maybe my guess is completely off, but that is where the slowdown occurs. I'm no expert, but I do know that the most basic tech specs don't tell the whole story and games built from the ground up for Sega-CD like Keio and Bari-Arm also feature slowdown, and in situations that don't appear to be doing as much as Lords of Thunder. The Sega-CD's biggest strength is doing amazing 3D graphics, the kind that the PCE could never do. Is it so hard to believe that the PCE is capable of running 2D games that are difficult for competing consoles to handle as-is?

The Mega-drive itself is quite powerful machine.  It's based off arcade hardware.  With tricks it could make a lot more colors than 64 on display.  That said it cannot display colors like the PCE.  The Mega Drive has a LOT of power in terms of animation.  It does things very smooth and with control to match.  The Mega CD has the same processor just clocked faster and obviously the "Mode 7" effect but the standard MD could and can still do a lot.

The Mega Drive isn't based off of arcade hardware any more than the Master System. Especially if you consider the Neo Geo to be strictly console hardware. They just use cpus that were extremely popular/common at the time.

The MD is very powerful for the time, but the PC Engine is even better in terms of animation.

I don't get the fighting street reference however I know it's a launch cd title here in the states and not particularly good game. 

Fighting Street is an un-moderated section of the forum for saying things that might be frowned upon elsewhere.

There are certain things the PCE does well and certain things the MD does well.  Shooters the PCE just wins from what I can see.  Even with parallax the system gets it done to an extent.  Games like Vectorman or Earthworm Jim or Aladdin I don't see happening as well on the PCE.  Every system has it's strength and weaknesses and I love that, not like today they are all the same.

The PCE wouldn't do the multi-directional parallax the same way, as that is its biggest weakness. The animation in EWJ and Aladdin plays to its strengths though.

I think this is more of a matter of those sorts of games, the high end AAA American developed platformers, coming about after nearly all development of platformers on PCE came to an end. Most PCE platformers are pretty low end, designed to compete with the Famicom-era.

Comparing the animation in Dracula X to Earthworm jim is pretty ridiculous. Richtor is small and walks like he has a broom handle shoved up his ass. I do see your point, there is plenty of power in the SCD system to make an Aladdin or EJ, but Drac X isn't a good comparison. The hold back wasn't technical, it just that the people making those sorts of games were either in the US or they were working on Super Famicom so the PCE got left out of the great graphical leap forward with EJ, Aladdin, that kind of thing.

I guess that you somehow missed the massive PCE, SNES and Genesis, screen comparison thread. Dracula X has characters with comparable levels of animation to characters in EWJ and Aladdin and way more animation overall than either EWJ or Aladdin. Those games were original and chose to heavily animate the main character. Dracula X is designed around the Castlevania franchise. Richter walks like a Castlevania hero. The crazy detailed sprites with tons of animation in Dracula X is what compares more directly to the sprites with tons of animation in EWJ and Aladdin. Sapphire however, likely has individual bosses with as many pixels of and/or frames of animation as either of those two games do entirely.





A single attack animation from a single boss in Sapphire-

[Tatsujin]

Comparing the animation in Dracula X to Earthworm jim is pretty ridiculous. Richtor is small and walks like he has a broom handle shoved up his ass.

I think he was more refering to this kind of animation stuff in drac x, which is by any means just crazy. even for todays standards.





Death Rondo


                 Death SCIV                                                                    Death Bloodlines
                           






Rondo

Dracula xx                                                                                    Bloodlines
       







Rondo

Dracula xx








Rondo

Bloodlines                                                         SCIV







Rondo

SCIV







Rondo

SCIV








Rondo

Bloodlines








Rondo

SCIV                                                  Bloodlines
                       







Rondo                                     Dracxx     
   
SCIV                                         Bloodlines
 









Rondo                                      Dracxx, forgot to add the 2 bones.
 
SCIV










Rondo                                                     Dracxx
 









Rondo

Dracxx











Rondo

SCIV




  Rondo                                            dracxx
 


SCIV                                              Bloodlines

                                             
                              Rondo
                             


second set, swing/swing while walking up stairs/swing while walking down stairs/swing while ducking/ jumping.

Bloodlines                                                    SCIV

Rondo
 

[Tatsujin]

ah rolf, blacky just beat me to it

[esteban]

STATUS: COMPARE Lords of Thunder SEGA-CD vs. PCE. Nothing fancy, mind you. Just download and compare tracks side-by-side. Manually.

I AM WELL AWARE: My comment is going to be quickly buried by the new developments in this thread. Ha!

[CrackTiger]

STATUS: COMPARE Lords of Thunder SEGA-CD vs. PCE. Nothing fancy, mind you. Just download and compare tracks side-by-side. Manually.

I AM WELL AWARE: My comment is going to be quickly buried by the new developments in this thread. Ha!

The performance in the Sega version feels like the band is struggling to pull it off, even at the overall inferior level that they do. The main solos have been replaced by poor substitutes that don't compliment the music. The levels that the music was mastered at make the Turbo/PCE version sound like Rust in Peace and the Sega version sound like The World Needs a Hero. Just a goofy sounding poor cover overall. But if you're a fan of modern pop music where everything is LOUD, or the type who doesn't actually listen to the compositions or performance of game music, -only caring about instruments having the most "modern" sound (see youtube comments of Genesis/SNES music comparisons), then I'd expect that the Sega-CD meets your needs.

I have a unique Sega/Turbo LoT music comparison near completed, but literally have no free time for like a week.

[PunkCryborg]

lords of thunder for sega cd is cool f you dont have a pce but if you can play the real deal why bother

[SamIAm]

Comparing Dracula X's sprite animation frames with the SNES Castlevanias and Bloodlines is a good way to show some of what's so cool about Dracula X, but it's misleading as a representation of the overall quality of the visuals in those games and the best animation on the three systems. Dracula X's sprites are almost exclusively what Konami focused on to give Dracula X its graphical punch. In the SNES and Genesis Castlevanias, their emphasis is much more on other kinds of details and effects. The sprites are modest more-or-less by choice.

Games like Donkey Kong Country and Aladdin, for starters, are much better.

[NecroPhile]

Comparing Dracula X's sprite animation frames with the SNES Castlevanias and Bloodlines is a good way to show some of what's so cool about Dracula X, but it's misleading as a representation of the overall quality of the visuals in those games and the best animation on the three systems.

The point was to show that the PCE is capable of heavily animated sprites (even within the restrictions of a SuperCD), comparable to Aladdin or Earthworm Jim.  Nobody is saying that the Genesis and SNES aren't capable of similar feats.

[SamIAm]

The point was to show that the PCE is capable of heavily animated sprites (even within the restrictions of a SuperCD), comparable to Aladdin or Earthworm Jim.  Nobody is saying that the Genesis and SNES aren't capable of similar feats.

Fair enough. But if that's the case, why not compare them to Aladdin or Earthworm Jim directly? Why side by side with the other Castlevanias?

I guess it could be that that's just how the links were copy/pasted in a group.

[Tatsujin]

Dracula X's sprites are almost exclusively what Konami focused on to give Dracula X its graphical punch. 

And the rest of the game looks like meatgrinder sauce? I think that drac x shows some of the nicest back ground presentation in the whole 16-bit game era. so many details, so much variations, so much graphical content overall. no other akumajou game came just close to that. not before the 32-bit era was ringed in.

[CrackTiger]

The point was to show that the PCE is capable of heavily animated sprites (even within the restrictions of a SuperCD), comparable to Aladdin or Earthworm Jim.  Nobody is saying that the Genesis and SNES aren't capable of similar feats.

Fair enough. But if that's the case, why not compare them to Aladdin or Earthworm Jim directly? Why side by side with the other Castlevanias?

I guess it could be that that's just how the links were copy/pasted in a group.

Yeah, that's all copy and pasted from the screen comparison thread, where the Castlevania animation was being compared.

[SignOfZeta]

I think this is more of a matter of those sorts of games, the high end AAA American developed platformers, coming about after nearly all development of platformers on PCE came to an end. Most PCE platformers are pretty low end, designed to compete with the Famicom-era.

Comparing the animation in Dracula X to Earthworm jim is pretty ridiculous. Richtor is small and walks like he has a broom handle shoved up his ass. I do see your point, there is plenty of power in the SCD system to make an Aladdin or EJ, but Drac X isn't a good comparison. The hold back wasn't technical, it just that the people making those sorts of games were either in the US or they were working on Super Famicom so the PCE got left out of the great graphical leap forward with EJ, Aladdin, that kind of thing.

I guess that you somehow missed the massive PCE, SNES and Genesis, screen comparison thread. Dracula X has characters with comparable levels of animation to characters in EWJ and Aladdin and way more animation overall than either EWJ or Aladdin.

Your hyper sensitivity to anything you consider critical of the PCE is getting the best of you again. I've certainly seen that wall you just posted there before. Its very cool. Its pointless though because in no way am I doubting the PCE here on a technical level.

Drac X has a lot of frames, but frames don't make good animation, they only allow for potential. Richter's sprite is...its fucking terrible. There is no other way to put it. Nobody walks like that unless they are wearing roller skates and a back brace. His head stays at the same level all the time and he looks, frankly, like he has severe constipation. Its fucking terrible. He has frames, sure, but Mario's sprite from Donkey Kong is a better piece of work with...whatever that is, a four color sprite with three frames of animation. Frame count does not automatically make for good animation. Compare GI Joe to Zeta Gundam and you'll find Zeta to be a better looking show with fewer frames and a fraction of the budget.

Regardless, this is totally beside the point, the reason why there are no games like Aladdin on the PCE is because nobody made them. Shiny didn't make Turbo Grafx games, by this point neither did Capcom (save for a shitty port of Strider, a game from 1989). Earthworm Jim came out in 1994 and was a very good looking game for that year. There were only two or three platformers released in 1994 for the PCE, a year when most of the flashier action games were ports. Nobody was developing cutting edge platformers for PCE at that time. If they were we certainly would have seen some Aladdin/Earthworm Jim quality stuff.

[EvilEvoIX]

Comparing the animation in Dracula X to Earthworm jim is pretty ridiculous. Richtor is small and walks like he has a broom handle shoved up his ass.

I think he was more refering to this kind of animation stuff in drac x, which is by any means just crazy. even for todays standards.





Death Rondo


                 Death SCIV                                                                    Death Bloodlines
                           






Rondo

Dracula xx                                                                                    Bloodlines
     







Rondo

Dracula xx








Rondo

Bloodlines                                                         SCIV







Rondo

SCIV







Rondo

SCIV








Rondo

Bloodlines








Rondo

SCIV                                                  Bloodlines
                     







Rondo                                     Dracxx      
 
SCIV                                         Bloodlines
 









Rondo                                      Dracxx, forgot to add the 2 bones.
 
SCIV










Rondo                                                     Dracxx
 









Rondo

Dracxx











Rondo

SCIV




  Rondo                                            dracxx
 


SCIV                                              Bloodlines

                                            
                              Rondo
                              


second set, swing/swing while walking up stairs/swing while walking down stairs/swing while ducking/ jumping.

Bloodlines                                                    SCIV

Rondo
 

Obviously you are comparing a CD 788 Megs to a 15-20 meg cart.  We all know it can load more frames of animation with a larger CD however in terms of say Earthworm Jim or vector man, you really see the TG16 pulling that off?  I doubt it I really do.  I have spent hours running through my collection on my puter and the closest thing I can see is Magical Chase in terms of Cart.  I am not even that impressed with SSFII, slow and small sprites for some reason.  The shooters really floor me however.  The PCE lacked support I'll give it that but it did what it did well, massive color, it owned the 16Bit genre unless you include the Neo Geo which most of us do not.  That said I like Dracula X but it's not runnign crazy animation or a lot of stuff going on like again Vector man or Alien Soldier.  Gunstar Heroes being another.  The Mega Drive coudla really had a color increase though Bloodlines and Dynamite Headdy had a bunch a tricks to get past 64 limit.

[EvilEvoIX]

Comparing Dracula X's sprite animation frames with the SNES Castlevanias and Bloodlines is a good way to show some of what's so cool about Dracula X, but it's misleading as a representation of the overall quality of the visuals in those games and the best animation on the three systems. Dracula X's sprites are almost exclusively what Konami focused on to give Dracula X its graphical punch. In the SNES and Genesis Castlevanias, their emphasis is much more on other kinds of details and effects. The sprites are modest more-or-less by choice.

Games like Donkey Kong Country and Aladdin, for starters, are much better.

This is my point exactly, I just don't see the PCE doing games like Vector Man or Aladdin, not as smooth it just can't.  Colors hell yeah but not the smooth animation and speed of Vector man I just ran through that game again I don't see it.

[bob]

Obviously...I...

...have not checked my PMs about obnoxious signatures.

[NecroPhile]

Regardless, this is totally beside the point, the reason why there are no games like Aladdin on the PCE is because nobody made them.

And that was never the question; it's pretty clear that Evo is talking about technical abilities and not about existing game libraries.

[CrackTiger]

Do not debate with EvilEvoIX. 60+ pages were wasted on sega-16 with people trying to reason with him (Genesis fans valiantly defending the PCE). No matter how specific an example you give him, it won't change his mind that even though he "has all the games", he is convinced that the PC Engine is just an NES that can do more color and not part of the same generation as Genesis and SNES. He also doesn't count the CD games as being PCE or part of any generation, because the CD-ROM upgrades and reflashes the bios of the PC Engine hardware and CD games could not be done on HuCards.

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

[EvilEvoIX]

Do not debate with EvilEvoIX. 60+ pages were wasted on sega-16 with people trying to reason with him (Genesis fans valiantly defending the PCE). No matter how specific an example you give him, it won't change his mind that even though he "has all the games", he is convinced that the PC Engine is just an NES that can do more color and not part of the same generation as Genesis and SNES. He also doesn't count the CD games as being PCE or part of any generation, because the CD-ROM upgrades and reflashes the bios of the PC Engine hardware and CD games could not be done on HuCards.

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

I've played Street Fighter 2, on the PCE.  I don't think it's as good as the md or snes.  How can you even argue it runs at the same speed?  I have all three games the md certain runs the most fluid and the least amount if slow down.  What game on the PCE comes close to the later games on the MD?  Everyone and their mother screwms Dracula x.  Great game but not the end all be all.  The music is for sure.  Not one example given that moves as smooth as Vector man or earthworm Jim or Alien Soldier.  I just get anger from people.  That said I feel the PCE Had the best shooters and am still trying to beat most of them.



It's hard to directly compare these two machines directly as a lot of turbo cd games can't compete against the sega cd because the sega cd has upgraded hardware so it's tough and we compare a cd to a md cart.  That said I love the turbo and md about the same followed by the nes and then the snes in that order.

[SamIAm]

I suspect that there is very, very little difference between the SNES, PCE and Genesis in terms of their practical, technological limits on doing sprite animation. They all have the very similar bottlenecks in terms of color, pixel bandwidth, and memory. It's a fairly unremarkable thing to compare, IMO.

The reason why there's nothing like the best Genesis stuff is mostly because nobody made it. Even Treasure said in an interview that there's not really anything that special about moving a few sprites around together. The important thing is the artistic vision to make it look good.

And the rest of the game looks like meatgrinder sauce? I think that drac x shows some of the nicest back ground presentation in the whole 16-bit game era. so many details, so much variations, so much graphical content overall. no other akumajou game came just close to that. not before the 32-bit era was ringed in.

The backgrounds are kind of hit and miss, though. Some of them are technically and artistically very well done, like the final third of stage 1 on the normal path. For every moment like that, though, there's another like this:

or this:


I actually think CV4's environments are much more interesting to look at overall, in spite of a couple of odd palette choices. They may not win the background-tile count, but they move more interestingly thanks to all the layers and effects. If you were to describe the scenes with words rather than tile-counts, they also hold up very well in terms of amount of detail.

Once you get past the flashy cutscenes and high-production music in DraculaX, I think the game's greatest asset is its bosses. Not only is their size, color, and animation the best in old-school Castlevania, but their behaviors and the tactics they demand to beat them are the most sophisticated as well. CV4 does really badly there, and CV3 and the X68K game aren't quite there, either. That's what I'd tell a first-time player to focus on and try to appreciate. The backgrounds, not so much.

[EvilEvoIX]

Artistic vision is indeed Paramount.  I always thought Nintendo particularly the SNES had extremely clever artistic vision.  The PCE was clever in the legendary ax series and Bonk for sure.  Magical Chase is really colorful and some neat sprites.  Think the shooters are by far the most clever.  Top quality stuff it owns the 16 bit gen for sure.

[SignOfZeta]

Do not debate with EvilEvoIX. 60+ pages were wasted on sega-16 with people trying to reason with him (Genesis fans valiantly defending the PCE). No matter how specific an example you give him, it won't change his mind that even though he "has all the games", he is convinced that the PC Engine is just an NES that can do more color and not part of the same generation as Genesis and SNES. He also doesn't count the CD games as being PCE or part of any generation, because the CD-ROM upgrades and reflashes the bios of the PC Engine hardware and CD games could not be done on HuCards.

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

Yeah that's...pretty dumb. Is he comparing the PCE SFII' to Turbo on the other systems perhaps? Regardless, I'm not sure where the "small" comes from. All three systems have smaller sprites than the arcade.

SFII' is kind of annoying to me because its so often used as a yardstick of PCE power by people who understand the PCE really well but don't honestly know shit about Street Fighter. This guy seems to not really know either and also be blind.

[EvilEvoIX]

Do not debate with EvilEvoIX. 60+ pages were wasted on sega-16 with people trying to reason with him (Genesis fans valiantly defending the PCE). No matter how specific an example you give him, it won't change his mind that even though he "has all the games", he is convinced that the PC Engine is just an NES that can do more color and not part of the same generation as Genesis and SNES. He also doesn't count the CD games as being PCE or part of any generation, because the CD-ROM upgrades and reflashes the bios of the PC Engine hardware and CD games could not be done on HuCards.

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

Yeah that's...pretty dumb. Is he comparing the PCE SFII' to Turbo on the other systems perhaps? Regardless, I'm not sure where the "small" comes from. All three systems have smaller sprites than the arcade.

SFII' is kind of annoying to me because its so often used as a yardstick of PCE power by people who understand the PCE really well but don't honestly know shit about Street Fighter. This guy seems to not really know either and also be blind.

This is the problem with fanboi posts.  Take the rosé colored glasses off.  Understand that all consoles have strengths and weaknesses.  Enjoy the console for what it is and what it represents.  Not one console is the end all be all.  To me the PCE represents color perfection and excellent shooters and really cool upgrades.  The Snes as a main stream consoles with extremely clever 1st party games and art and stupid amounts of slow down.  The Mega Drive to me shows the experience of Sega and arcade hardware and using arcade hits to grow their console and build on that.  What's not to like between the three and I own them all.

[SignOfZeta]

Do not debate with EvilEvoIX. 60+ pages were wasted on sega-16 with people trying to reason with him (Genesis fans valiantly defending the PCE). No matter how specific an example you give him, it won't change his mind that even though he "has all the games", he is convinced that the PC Engine is just an NES that can do more color and not part of the same generation as Genesis and SNES. He also doesn't count the CD games as being PCE or part of any generation, because the CD-ROM upgrades and reflashes the bios of the PC Engine hardware and CD games could not be done on HuCards.

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

Yeah that's...pretty dumb. Is he comparing the PCE SFII' to Turbo on the other systems perhaps? Regardless, I'm not sure where the "small" comes from. All three systems have smaller sprites than the arcade.

SFII' is kind of annoying to me because its so often used as a yardstick of PCE power by people who understand the PCE really well but don't honestly know shit about Street Fighter. This guy seems to not really know either and also be blind.

This is the problem with fanboi posts.  Take the rosé colored glasses off.  Understand that all consoles have strengths and weaknesses.  Enjoy the console for what it is and what it represents.

The real problem with fanboi posts is the stupid-ass gifs in the sig.

[turboswimbz]

Understand that all consoles have strengths and weaknesses.  Enjoy the console for what it is and what it represents.  Not one console is the end all be all. 

FALSE
THE PCE IS LIFE!  EVERYTHING ELSE EXISTS SO THAT THE PCE MAY EXISTS.  WITHOUT PCE LIFE HAS NO MEANING.

[Tatsujin]

Obviously...I...

...have not checked my PMs about obnoxious signatures.

[Tatsujin]

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

that statement of him brought me quite a good giggle

and it also instant-disqualifies him from any further tech discussions regarding the pc engine.

[Tatsujin]

I suspect that there is very, very little difference between the SNES, PCE and Genesis in terms of their practical, technological limits on doing sprite animation. They all have the very similar bottlenecks in terms of color, pixel bandwidth, and memory. It's a fairly unremarkable thing to compare, IMO.

The reason why there's nothing like the best Genesis stuff is mostly because nobody made it. Even Treasure said in an interview that there's not really anything that special about moving a few sprites around together. The important thing is the artistic vision to make it look good.

And the rest of the game looks like meatgrinder sauce? I think that drac x shows some of the nicest back ground presentation in the whole 16-bit game era. so many details, so much variations, so much graphical content overall. no other akumajou game came just close to that. not before the 32-bit era was ringed in.

The backgrounds are kind of hit and miss, though. Some of them are technically and artistically very well done, like the final third of stage 1 on the normal path. For every moment like that, though, there's another like this:

or this:


I actually think CV4's environments are much more interesting to look at overall, in spite of a couple of odd palette choices. They may not win the background-tile count, but they move more interestingly thanks to all the layers and effects. If you were to describe the scenes with words rather than tile-counts, they also hold up very well in terms of amount of detail.

Once you get past the flashy cutscenes and high-production music in DraculaX, I think the game's greatest asset is its bosses. Not only is their size, color, and animation the best in old-school Castlevania, but their behaviors and the tactics they demand to beat them are the most sophisticated as well. CV4 does really badly there, and CV3 and the X68K game aren't quite there, either. That's what I'd tell a first-time player to focus on and try to appreciate. The backgrounds, not so much.

I may live on with that statement, but I have to say that f.e. bloodlines (vampire killer) has much more boring and very misscolored backgrounds here and there. at times it is a real pain to even watch at it.

As for CV4, I don't see so many memorable and nice backgrounds there, like in Drac X. A lot of them are also made by a bunch of randomly placed bland blurred mixed pixels, with not much of an expression or charisma, which reminds me much more of the NES era, than anyting seen in Drac X.

[Tatsujin]

I have spent hours running through my collection on my puter and the closest thing I can see is Magical Chase in terms of Cart. 

do you even own a real hardware and games? or are you pulling off your poor statements based on some crappy emulator trials during boring lonesome nights?

[EvilEvoIX]

Do not debate with EvilEvoIX. 60+ pages were wasted on sega-16 with people trying to reason with him (Genesis fans valiantly defending the PCE). No matter how specific an example you give him, it won't change his mind that even though he "has all the games", he is convinced that the PC Engine is just an NES that can do more color and not part of the same generation as Genesis and SNES. He also doesn't count the CD games as being PCE or part of any generation, because the CD-ROM upgrades and reflashes the bios of the PC Engine hardware and CD games could not be done on HuCards.

The SFII' sprites appearing "slow and small" to him is all you need to know.

Yeah that's...pretty dumb. Is he comparing the PCE SFII' to Turbo on the other systems perhaps? Regardless, I'm not sure where the "small" comes from. All three systems have smaller sprites than the arcade.

SFII' is kind of annoying to me because its so often used as a yardstick of PCE power by people who understand the PCE really well but don't honestly know shit about Street Fighter. This guy seems to not really know either and also be blind.

This is the problem with fanboi posts.  Take the rosé colored glasses off.  Understand that all consoles have strengths and weaknesses.  Enjoy the console for what it is and what it represents.

The real problem with fanboi posts is the stupid-ass gifs in the sig.

Can't hate on Terry Bogard boy you'll just sound silly.

[EvilEvoIX]

I have spent hours running through my collection on my puter and the closest thing I can see is Magical Chase in terms of Cart.

do you even own a real hardware and games? or are you pulling off your poor statements based on some crappy emulator trials during boring lonesome nights?

Does the ever drive count?  I have one for my Genesis and now the PCE.  I have most games for both.

And whoever posted that Treasure could make the three systems do similar things is wrong.
In fact, here is an interview with Treasure from 1993.  Very interesting.

http://megadrive.me/2011/11/03/an-interview-with-treasure/

[SignOfZeta]

Well, first of all, all "hate on" whatever the fuck I want.

Now that that's said, that animation is one of my favorite in the history of fighting games. I love the good ol Buster Wolf.

However, many of us are experiencing significant slowdown on our machine thanks to this gif of yours. Terry is cool as hell, but you're being a prick by bogging down other people's PCEFX experience. We would appreciate it if you'd replace it with a less CPU-intensive graphic.

[EvilEvoIX]

Well, first of all, all "hate on" whatever the fuck I want.

Now that that's said, that animation is one of my favorite in the history of fighting games. I love the good ol Buster Wolf.

However, many of us are experiencing significant slowdown on our machine thanks to this gif of yours. Terry is cool as hell, but you're being a prick by bogging down other people's PCEFX experience. We would appreciate it if you'd replace it with a less CPU-intensive graphic.

Ok I see your point now.  Ill post up a PCE animation it's far less grafical intensive ;).

[Tatsujin]

Well, first of all, all "hate on" whatever the fuck I want.

Now that that's said, that animation is one of my favorite in the history of fighting games. I love the good ol Buster Wolf.

However, many of us are experiencing significant slowdown on our machine thanks to this gif of yours. Terry is cool as hell, but you're being a prick by bogging down other people's PCEFX experience. We would appreciate it if you'd replace it with a less CPU-intensive graphic.

Ok I see your point now.  Ill post up a PCE animation it's far less grafical intensive ;).

Now you see hes point, even we're trying to tell you since a week, also with PMs sent?

How just simply about something non-animated non-bulky, or just a simple cool text? Too much asked? We're not over at fancy pantsy troll drift Neo-Geo & co. here.

[SamIAm]

I remember Tom made a good post about PCE SFII's speed where he explained why it wasn't particularly relevant - to the system running the game at 60fps, fast vs. slow is basically a difference of waiting a couple extra frames before loading the next animation frame. Do you wait three frames, or five? There's nothing taxing about waiting. What matters is the processes that happen on the frame where the next animation loads. If PCE SFII had simplified collision detection zones or didn't break down the character into as many pieces, then THAT would be a pretty good indicator that it didn't have the juice to handle the game well.

I do suspect that the PCE would choke a bit on the particular activity in Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier, but I also think it could do something similar enough. Look at all the crap flying around in shooters like Lords of Thunder. There's not a huge difference between a dozen independent enemies and a boss made of a dozen jointed parts.

[SignOfZeta]

The best games are usually built around a specific piece of hardware and don't port very well. The Genesis can't do Star Wars (arcade). Not because it lacks CPU or anything, but because SW uses vector graphics and nothing that does raster graphics at 240 lines can pull this off. You need at least a Dreamcast to approximate SW, Battlezone, Asteroids, etc.

Gunstar would fucking destroy a SNES if it was ported as-is. However, games like Scrambled Valkyrie or Yoshi's Island ported to Genesis would be about as pathetic as Ikari Warriors for NES.

All this is a bunch of fanboi BS. Different systems are different. That's why they are worth owning.

[EvilEvoIX]

I do suspect that the PCE would choke a bit on the particular activity in Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier, but I also think it could do something similar enough. Look at all the crap flying around in shooters like Lords of Thunder. There's not a huge difference between a dozen independent enemies and a boss made of a dozen jointed parts.

It certainly would do a better job than the SNES and the colors on screen would make it look really interesting.  They always do PCE games always "pop", always did.

[Shadow]

Sonic 1 is my favorite Sonic

[Tatsujin]

Sonic 1 is my favorite Sonic

do you agree with me shady, or not?

[EvilEvoIX]

The best games are usually built around a specific piece of hardware and don't port very well. The Genesis can't do Star Wars (arcade). Not because it lacks CPU or anything, but because SW uses vector graphics and nothing that does raster graphics at 240 lines can pull this off. You need at least a Dreamcast to approximate SW, Battlezone, Asteroids, etc.

Gunstar would fucking destroy a SNES if it was ported as-is. However, games like Scrambled Valkyrie or Yoshi's Island ported to Genesis would be about as pathetic as Ikari Warriors for NES.

All this is a bunch of fanboi BS. Different systems are different. That's why they are worth owning.

Yoshi's Island has a Super FX Chip.  The Mega Drive would need the SVP chip and then could do anything the Yoshi Island cart can do but color.  The SNES uses more of a sampled sound arrangement as well.  It has a keyboard basically and you plug in the notes so you get a clean sampled sound.  The Megadrive literally is a synthesizer so it needs more care with sound.

Scrambled Valkyrie is really clever is that it takes advantage of the SNES's 4 layers of background/foreground moving so it looks like a ton of shit on screen when there CPU is being taxed only a certain amount.  The Megadrive as we know can only handle three but the CPU should be able to create an additional layer of sprites just like the PCE does to make a moving background.

[SignOfZeta]

You missed the point. It doesn't matter why which system did what. They're all dead now. All that matters is that this was a great era for games and there is a ton of cool stuff on all of these machines.

Also, the Neo kicks them all to the curb so these arguments are meaningless.

[CrackTiger]

The best games are usually built around a specific piece of hardware and don't port very well. The Genesis can't do Star Wars (arcade). Not because it lacks CPU or anything, but because SW uses vector graphics and nothing that does raster graphics at 240 lines can pull this off. You need at least a Dreamcast to approximate SW, Battlezone, Asteroids, etc.

Gunstar would fucking destroy a SNES if it was ported as-is. However, games like Scrambled Valkyrie or Yoshi's Island ported to Genesis would be about as pathetic as Ikari Warriors for NES.

All this is a bunch of fanboi BS. Different systems are different. That's why they are worth owning.

Yoshi's Island has a Super FX Chip.  The Mega Drive would need the SVP chip and then could do anything the Yoshi Island cart can do but color.  The SNES uses more of a sampled sound arrangement as well.  It has a keyboard basically and you plug in the notes so you get a clean sampled sound.  The Megadrive literally is a synthesizer so it needs more care with sound.

Scrambled Valkyrie is really clever is that it takes advantage of the SNES's 4 layers of background/foreground moving so it looks like a ton of shit on screen when there CPU is being taxed only a certain amount.  The Megadrive as we know can only handle three but the CPU should be able to create an additional layer of sprites just like the PCE does to make a moving background.

SNES run 'n guns already show how you could drop the Gunstar Heroes theme in and have a nice enough game. For anything you might lose there's lots to gain, especially if technical tricks were to still be spammed. The Genesis version has noticeable swatches of missing color in most scenes that could be majorly upgraded. Even the Game Gear version still fills the screen with sprites, has the huge sprite jumble bosses and multi-directional two layer parallax that is "technically impossible" for PC Engine.

It's true that the SNES couldn't handle a port of Yoshi's Island either. I'm sure that the Genesis would do a better job and the art style suits its color limitations.

There aren't any parts of Macross SV that require 4 tile layers, for the most part the parallax is all stuff that has been done on PCE with only a single tile layer. The only things that would be downgraded in a Genesis port would be color/detail and transparency effects. Otherwise the onscreen sprites could probably be doubled as it's a pretty low action game by SFC standards.

[SignOfZeta]

It's true that the SNES couldn't handle a port of Yoshi's Island either.

That sentence makes zero sense to me for some reason.

[EvilEvoIX]

You missed the point. It doesn't matter why which system did what. They're all dead now. All that matters is that this was a great era for games and there is a ton of cool stuff on all of these machines.

Also, the Neo kicks them all to the curb so these arguments are meaningless.

This is why I've owned my neo 4 10 years now and have had 2 cabs.  The Neo rules.  I feel the 16-32bit era is the best.

[EvilEvoIX]

It's true that the SNES couldn't handle a port of Yoshi's Island either.

That sentence makes zero sense to me for some reason.

MANY SNES games required additional hardware to run their games.  The most notable being the SUPER FX chip.  Games like Mario Kart needed help with the mode 7 effects and so many other games required helper chips to keep the burden off a relatively weak 16-Bit processor.  The MEGADRIVE in comparison is based off arcade hardware and only one game, Virtua Racing, used upgrades.  This is why I respect the PCE and MEGADRIVE much more than the SNES.  I mean look at what could be done with all these simple hardware upgrades.

[SignOfZeta]

...WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

The system requirements to run Yoshi's Island are the same as the ones needed to run Home Alone: a cartridge with the game on it. It doesn't matter one bit to me if Nintendo "cheated" by adding a $2 chip to the game cart. It still runs on my SNES.

You fanboys are friggn ridiculous.

...to say that Yoshi's Island can't run on the only system it actually ran on (before the slightly inferior portable ones released a decade later) is...crazy. You guys are nuts.

[EvilEvoIX]

...WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

The system requirements to run Yoshi's Island are the same as the ones needed to run Home Alone: a cartridge with the game on it. It doesn't matter one bit to me if Nintendo "cheated" by adding a $2 chip to the game cart. It still runs on my SNES.

You fanboys are friggn ridiculous.

...to say that Yoshi's Island can't run on the only system it actually ran on (before the slightly inferior portable ones released a decade later) is...crazy. You guys are nuts.

It's just interesting to have this level of performance and competition.  Back then each system was do different and unique in the way it did games.  Today all systems are basically the same there is no variety.

[Tatsujin]

ah, it's much better now.

[CrackTiger]

...WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

The system requirements to run Yoshi's Island are the same as the ones needed to run Home Alone: a cartridge with the game on it. It doesn't matter one bit to me if Nintendo "cheated" by adding a $2 chip to the game cart. It still runs on my SNES.

You fanboys are friggn ridiculous.

...to say that Yoshi's Island can't run on the only system it actually ran on (before the slightly inferior portable ones released a decade later) is...crazy. You guys are nuts.

Your hyper sensitivity to anything you consider critical of the SNES is getting the best of you again. Although you claim to not care about this stuff, you've once again resorted to yelling and swearing when it is suggested that competing consoles could approach what the SNES has done. At the same time you call people pointing out an indisputable technical fact "friggin ridiculous" "fanboys".

The SNES runs most SNES games at 2.66 MHz.
The Sega/Mega-CD CPU runs at 12.5 MHz (you made a big deal of this earlier).
The SFX2 chip runs Yoshi's Island at 21 MHz.

The extra hardware that Yoshi's Island requires to run on the SNES isn't something minimal like the mappers most NES games use or compression chip to increase cart space. It's a full on CPU. But it's not even a huge 150% speed increase like the Sega/Mega-CD... it's 8 times faster than what the SNES runs most games at.

Sure the Retrogen is just a tiny pass through strip that could fit inside a single cart along with a Genesis game PCB. But the SNES isn't really running the Genesis games and couldn't even if they were reformatted like a PCE CD to HuCard conversion.


12.5 MHz Sega-CD = "really damned powerful... The PCE is a much slower machine and the CDROM2 doesn't add anywhere near as much power to the PCE as the MCD does to the MD"

21 MHz SFX2 = "a $2 chip"


Back to the original point, there is nothing special about Yoshi's Island that distinguishes it from other SNES games in any way which would make it impossible to port to Sega Genesis. Except the extra hardware. That is why it is a poor example. Sure you could super charge the Genesis with a SFX2, but again that would remove the only thing unique that makes it more difficult to adapt to Genesis compared to regular SNES games.

[SignOfZeta]

Yoshi's Island isn't a "poor example" of what the SNES can do. Its the BEST example of what the SNES can do. Its the fanciest most SNES-erific game on the SNES. The Genesis is about as capable of running Yoshi's Island as it is of running Windows 7 and any port of it would be as embarrassing as the SNES port of Art of Fighting.

Sure, it needed an extra chip to do it, but in practical use that's beyond irrelevant. You put the game in and it runs. Its a SNES game. It won't fit in a Genesis. Who fucking cares of that cart has a coprocessor in it or not? Who cares if its black magic, or a tiny cockroach on a treadmill or analog tape player with the soundtrack on it? It only matters to you, and you don't like the SNES or Yoshi's Island. The only reason you even know the FX is there is because you read it somewhere, and that kind of trivial bullshit is evidently all you care about.

These systems are all different. They all have different strengths and flaws. This isn't a bad thing, its a TERRIFIC thing. Its okay that the MD cannot do YI because the SNES can't do The Adventures of Batman and Robbin, the Neo Geo can't do Super Mario Kart, and the Genesis can't do Samurai Showdown.

And when I say "can't" I mean. Never ever ever will. Tech demos and stats are fucking useless they made it into a period retail game because nobody is going to program top shelf games for these systems again. All the great stuff that will ever be made for the 16-bit stuff has already been made and that's what defines the system; the actual experience of actually playing it.