Ranger X: The Official Debate Thread

[Keranu]

Joe, I like you; you have a very interesting side in this debate . You're both defending the Genesis and defending the fact that Ranger X didn't do anything special. Fantastic .

Well for an "anti-fanboy" he seems a bit unobjective, especially since he italicized the "for a Genesis game" as if Genesis games usually don't have good graphics because it is teh suX0rz.  He went on and on about how boring Ranger X was when that was never the issue.  Also he seems fairly unfamiliar with the Genesis library.  Also why would someone have to make a claim in their signature that they are anti-fanboy... as if otherwise nobody would know that?  That's like having a sig that says "I'm not gay, really!"

Is it not possible he could say the same about the Turbo or SNES as well ? I'll let nod speak for himself on this one, it's stupid for me to go on about this, haha.

Here is a game the TurboGrafx-16 could not do 100% (graphically) without major sacrifices:
Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse.

I'm interesting in knowing why. Granted I haven't really played through much of Castle since I was a kid, but this is a very interesting title to choose. I can't think of any "major" sacrifices the Turbo would have to do to port it, but the only minor thing I can think of that Castle does is a seperate plane layer, which the Turbo would have to fake. It might use that transparency trick Genesis has, but once again simple transparency tricks can be faked to look just as good. Other than that, I doubt the game uses more than 64 sprites on screen or anything like that.

Here is a game the Genesis could not do 100% (graphically) without major sacrifices:
Super Castlevania IV

Of course it would suffer some color limitations, but the main problem that comes to mind is that rotating room level, which might be possible but I wouldn't know. We actually discussed if this could be on the Turbo hardware back on the Magic Engine forums and there were some interestings posts.

The list(s) go on and on.  It seems to me that many people on this board think that the Turbo can do basically anything the Genesis can do bar none.

I personally don't think that. I think the Genesis and SNES could handle any game on the Turbo just as well as the Turbo did. I do think that the Turbo might not be able to handle any "mode 7" heavy SNES game, unless maybe you include extra RAM options like Super and Arcade CDROM2 cards. However I suppose it depends on which game really.

My question is this:  Why didn't it and if it did why didn't it more often?  The system was tops in Japan, no?  Therefore it had plenty of developers with plenty of experience, many of them who did interesting tricks on the Genesis.

This is a very good question and I have been wanting to know a solid answer myself. This might sound stupid, but do you think American popularity has anything to do with it? CrackTiger also pointed out something interesting on that other flame thread that the Genesis was more in competition against SNES, so it tried recreating effects the SNES did, while the PCE kind of had a world of it's own like Gamecube does today.

I think the overall library of Turbo games look more polished than the Genesis library, but it seems developers were really utilizing Genesis and SNES hardware more than they were with the PC Engine.

[Keranu]

95% isn't the whole game, so I win.  Ranger X officially cannot be done on the PC Engine, as confirmed by a programmer.

Ok, then you must admit that probably around 90% of the Turbo library couldn't 100% be ported to the Genesis because they use more than 64 colors on screen or use more than 32 colors for the background or sprite layer.

Also Keranu, our argument over pre-rendered vs polygons wasn't whether or not they looked like shit, it was over the fact that the Genesis had games with polygons.  You stated that every game on Genesis that looked like it had polygons was pre-rendered Donkey Kong Country style, I said that Hard Drivin and LHX both had polygons.  Again, I win; the Genesis had games with actual polygons, as confirmed by an programmer.

Once again, I said I hadn't played those games so I assumed they were pre-rendered like most games were. You also said Silpheed used real polygons, that game looks pre-rendered to me and I've heard another programmer say that was pre-rendered. So the debate might still be open for discussion.

[OldRover]

Silpheed is pre-rendered. That's why it maintains such a high framerate and is able to look 3D even when it isn't. There's plenty of memory to take advantage of, and enough CPU horsepower to do the massive data transfer the game requires.

GUTS, the game very well can be done on the PCE, but some modifications would have to be done, as I specified. And like Keranu stated, there's a ton of games that were on the PCE that could never be ported to the Genesis at face value. By your logic, GUTS, Lords Of Thunder cannot be ported to the Genesis, and neither can Dungeon Explorer. But wait, weren't they ported? Of course, but with major changes in order to fit the limitations of the console. So you don't "win" at all. Get off your high horse before it gets sent to the mucilage factory.

Joe, I find your attempts to flame me humorous. But that aside...I agree that Castle Of Illusion couldn't be 100% faithfully duplicated on the PCE due to its two free-scrolling backgrounds. But other than that, it's a pretty basic platformer that any old-school console could handle without difficulty. However, my knowledge of the Genesis library is very good, maybe not as good as some but good nonetheless.

I didn't say that Ranger-X did anything special, in fact I stated just the opposite. I just stated that a lot of the good tricks we've seen on Genesis hardware before were put into a single game.

As for this comment of yours...

"Well for an "anti-fanboy" he seems a bit unobjective, especially since he italicized the "for a Genesis game" as if Genesis games usually don't have good graphics because it is teh suX0rz."

...let's get a little real here, shall we? Many Genesis games, due to hardware limitations, had to go dither-crazy, and this looks like crap on a clear screen (looks fine on a television though). A lot of games use colour-pooling (Sonic 2 for example) which looks like complete crap and yes, the colour output of the Genesis simply isn't as powerful as the PCE so this makes it look even worse. But putting words into my mouth is the quickest way to piss me off. I never stated for a moment that the Genesis was "teh suX0rz". I love the Genesis' library of games and have quite a few favourites (including one you mentioned...Castle Of Illusion). But I cannot stand fanboys at all, or people who make false claims about complete bullshit. So what if the Genesis was technically inferior in many ways? It doesn't mean it didn't produce some great games. They did the best they could with such limited technology. The same applies for all those old consoles. So getting all fanboyish over your favourite console is pretty retarded, and making false claims about a console that isn't your favourite is even more retarded.

[SignOfZeta]

OK, so all this silliness motivated me to go fetch a Ranger X ROM and see what was so special.

Since Guts here is the game's biggest proponent, and he's proven himself to be aesthetically retarded on a several occasions, I expected to find a pretty lame title. I actually like what I played of the game quite a bit though. Its a bit chaotic so its good that you have a long life bar because not getting hit is pretty hard. Your mech is big, the screen scrolls kind of quickly, and that's a recipe for just running into shit constantly. For me anyway. I've been thinking about starting a Genesis/MD collection, and if that ever happens (first I need a good deal on a Mk 1 Genesis/Sega CD combo) I'll be sure to get this game.

As for the graphics and its adaptability to PCE, here's how I see it. I think, maybe, that something more than workable could be done with the PCE and this game. Closer than the Sega port of LoT. Maybe. See, its hard to tell because while nothing in it strikes me as PCE-impossible, yet the game taken as a whole seems to be quite a bit more complex that PCE usually (ever?) are in reality.

What seems to have happened with the PCE is that once the CDROM (Super CDROM really) got a foothold, and it was established that you could sell games with Hal Mikimoto, and Megumi Hayashibara that's what the emphasis became. The SNES couldn't do that sort of thing, and nobody gave a shit about Mega CD, so that's what things started to focus on. Therefore, we were floored with titles like Sapphire, and Kaze Kiri when they did come out because that sort of thing was so rare, even when to be honest there could have been a lot more games like those if everyone wasn't so obsessed with cinemas.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the PCE could do Ranger X, but we'll never know because right about the time the Duo was released people, for the most part, stopped caring about making games like that for the PCE. The Megadrive got Ranger X, the PC Engine got...Graduation 2. Oh joy. In the end though, Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie, graphics-wise, obliterates any shooter on all three machines.

So, theories aside, we're back to this again:

Good points:

MD: Speed!
SNES: Color, transparency, scaling.
PCE: In-bewteen color, a CDROM that people actually developed for, huge RAM (if using AC)

Bad points:

MD: Everything is brown, no FX to speak of compared with SNES
SNES: Cannot push sprites well at all, slows down, sound DSP is annoying if not used well. Same with the color. Castlevania IV is just...fruity looking.
PCE: Also not much in the way of FX, CDROM games were hampered by RAM limitations (until AC).

But now a third category!

Individual Charms:

MD: Old fashioned code based special FX impossible without the 68000. I suppose Ranger X is an example, but I think a batter example of this sort of thing is The Adventures of Batman and Robin. Not a great game, but a fancy one for sure. Sega and Treasure!
SNES: The ability to base an entire game around a single special effect. Super Mario Kart is impossible on the other two systems (aside from Mega CD). Square and Nintendo!
PCE: Tons of cool memory wasters, mainly in the form of "cinema". Streaming PCM sound that allows for more audio in a game than the running time of a CD. Hudson, and Falcom!


So, basically its all good. Quit being bitches.

[TurboXray]

The Genesis can also scroll vertically at different speeds on the same layer, but not each individual pixel.

Joe, I think the vertical scrolling your talking about would be the canyon level of Musha? I'm pretty sure the veritcal and horizontal scroll registers of the VDP are locked per scanline. I've read through Charles MacDonalds hardware document on the Genesis VDP (video display processor). That trick uses tile swapping - hence the 8x8 limitation. The Gen also has tile flipping for the BG(used in the canyon level) so the PCE would require twice as much tile memory for the same effect.

95% isn't the whole game, so I win. Ranger X officially cannot be done on the PC Engine, as confirmed by a programmer.

Baka!

 
 I'll give my input about the game. My friend ordered the import when it can out in japan. Back then I thought the game was pretty good. I borrowed it from him and played until the third level. The effects up to that point weren't jaw dropping, but they were nice. I thought the graphics(up to level 3) were good relative to the Genesis game library/standards. But the game didn't hold my interest and I gave it back. I recently watched him beat the game a few months ago - the game hind of goes downhill so I didn't missed much. I do like the tunnel effect, but it is not the same effect from Super Castlevania 4 as I think someone mentioned earlier.

MD: Old fashioned code based special FX impossible without the 68000. I suppose Ranger X is an example, but I think a batter example of this sort of thing is The Adventures of Batman and Robin. Not a great game, but a fancy one for sure. Sega and Treasure!
SNES: The ability to base an entire game around a single special effect. Super Mario Kart is impossible on the other two systems (aside from Mega CD). Square and Nintendo!
PCE: Tons of cool memory wasters, mainly in the form of "cinema". Streaming PCM sound that allows for more audio in a game than the running time of a CD. Hudson, and Falcom!

The CPU being a 68000 had nothing to do with the effects in Ranger X or other titles. 98% of all effect on the Gen are not CPU intensive/generated/processed - the effects came from the VDP.

[Seldane]

GUTS, Ranger X might've done a bunch of tricks, but none of them were things that Turbo or SNES games didn't do. For fun, I'll name PCE games that did any trick Ranger X did (at least the ones I can think of in the top of my head):

Fake mutli-layers of parallax - Shape Shifter did this and did a damn fine job, I'd say did an even better job.

3D maps that looked like shit - Falcon had 3d objects that could be comparable and what do you know, they still looked like shit .

Palette Swapping - Legendary Axe II is one that comes to mind with the title screen if I recall.

The 3D backgrounds in the level 2 boss room - Street Fighter II' used either the same effect or an awfully similar effect for the floors in each level.

Cramming a bunch of sprites on screen - Terraforming is a good choice that comes to mind. I haven't played the game in awhile, but I recall it having just as many sprites on screen as Ranger X. Hell, I think it even suffered less slowdown and possibly flicker.

Okay, those games are using ONE techique EACH. This game uses them all. SIMULTANEOUSLY. Could the PCE handle them all at once without slowdown? I have no idea.

Also: when you guys are giving an example an "impressive" SNES game, it seems that you're always mentioning Castlevania 4. One of the ugliest SNES games (in my opinion), it is also just a pretty lame launch title that looks like a PCE game. There are far more graphically and technically advanced SNES games out there.

Also (again) why do people always think that "bright colors" automatically translate to "good graphics"? Personally, I think bright colors are terrible, and that games with very dark colors look far, far better than a game using bright colors.

[OldRover]

Okay, those games are using ONE techique EACH. This game uses them all. SIMULTANEOUSLY.

It doesn't use them all simultaneously. It just uses them all during the course of the game.

Could the PCE handle them all at once without slowdown? I have no idea.

Since they're not all being used at once, it's impossible to tell without actually trying it.

Also: when you guys are giving an example an "impressive" SNES game, it seems that you're always mentioning Castlevania 4. One of the ugliest SNES games (in my opinion), it is also just a pretty lame launch title that looks like a PCE game. There are far more graphically and technically advanced SNES games out there.

SC4 just used a few hardware features that some consider impressive, like the big rotating rooms. Nothing special really. There are definately FAR more impressive games on the SNES.

Also (again) why do people always think that "bright colors" automatically translate to "good graphics"? Personally, I think bright colors are terrible, and that games with very dark colors look far, far better than a game using bright colors.

It's not about bright colours, it's about rich colours. Colours on the Genesis tend to look a bit washed out, and on the PCE the same colours look more vibrant. It has to do with the differences in the colour encoders used in the two machines. Furthermore, it's all opinion when it comes to bright colours anyways...some like them, some do not. I like both.

[_Paul]

Wow, this thread reminds me of the Commodore 64 vs ZX Spectrum pissing contests when I was at school.

Who cares if machine X can't replicate machine Y 100% perfectly? Arguing about it is as pointless as the whole 'Can Mario beat Sonic in a fight' kind of thing.

Each machine has strengths and weaknesses, but it's the ability of the programmers that it mostly comes down to. After all the Spectrum, a low powered 8-bit computer could do filled polygons ('Solid 3D' in those days) and even full screen parallax scrolling when pushed. Does it matter?

[Emerald Rocker]

Metamor Jupiter does a different version of the SCV4 "rotating room" effect, where you're flying down the barrel of a massive cannon. It actually ends up looking a bit better.  Unfortunately, Metamor Jupiter also has a scaling/rotating first boss that slows the system down to a 3-frames-per-second crawl.  It's interesting that the game handles the ridiculously flashy effect really well, but can't handle a boss scaling and rotating onto the screen.

Anyways, since it looks like this thread is still going on, I figure I ought to highlight a few more passages from the private AIM conversation that started it all.  Just to put things in perspective.

(1)
(01:08:06) Keranu: But saying it can't be done on PCE is silly;.
(01:08:16) Emerald Rocker: it can't be done on PCE.

(2)
(01:15:19) Keranu: But the MIPS is a hard fact.
(01:15:28) Keranu: You can't ignore specs.
(01:15:32) Emerald Rocker: yes you can

(3)
(01:15:38) GUTS: its also a hard fact that that must not matter much since ranger X smashes the pce library
(01:15:49) Keranu: GUTS, you are basing that on your opinion now.
(01:16:03) GUTS: no i'm basing that on the fact that ranger x has too much for the pce to handle
(01:16:04) Keranu: You think Ranger X looks nice, that's YOUR opinion, not fact.
(01:16:12) GUTS: hell it couldn't even handle a decent port of Altered Beast
(01:16:19) Keranu: Ok, now ask a programmer to make a port of it for you.
(01:16:37) Emerald Rocker: the programmers already had their chance at Altered Beast and failed

(4)
(01:17:37) Emerald Rocker: where's the Contra Hard Corps of the PCE
(01:17:41) GUTS: yeah hard corps would not be possible on the pce
(01:17:48) Keranu: This is ridiculous.

(5)
(01:23:10) RuninRuder: the turbo might have been "weaker" in effects but it used its strengths optimally, the colorful crisp graphics in rondo and gate for instance, plus brilliant cinemas
(01:23:37) RuninRuder: the snes was "powerful" but used its strengths for absolute shit and crippled its games with flicker and slowdown
(01:23:39) Keranu: Plus processor speed.
(01:24:06) RuninRuder: genesis had some nice effects at times, used better than snes effects, but looked horrible due to limited colors very often
(01:24:12) GUTS: well except that Chrono Trigger is beyond what the turbo could o

(6)
(01:24:45) Keranu: In fact, you want to see what Metal Slug would look like on Turbo?
(01:24:47) GUTS: they'd have to change all the huge background graphcis to tiles
(01:24:51) Emerald Rocker: weren't the sprites bigger than the Turbo could do?

(7)
(01:27:46) GUTS: lets compare Riot zone to Streets of Rage III
(01:27:59) GUTS: no contest, and that's the best the duo could do

According to the private AIM chat that started this, the PCE cannot handle:
Chrono Trigger, Contra Hard Corps, Dragon's Fury, F-22, Golden Axe, LHX, Metal Slug, Ranger-X, Streets of Rage 3, or... Altered Beast.

Personally, I can't wait to read Dragon's Fury: The Official Debate Thread.   =D

[TurboXray]

This arguement is funny. More to the fact that the arguements are based on: if it could have be done then it would have been done (on the PCE).  

(01:16:12) GUTS: hell it couldn't even handle a decent port of Altered Beast

Baka!  

Metamor Jupiter does a different version of the SCV4 "rotating room" effect, where you're flying down the barrel of a massive cannon.

 Yeah it's similar, except the SNES independently scales each scanline unlike the MJ effect.

[CrackTiger]

Not trying to argue with you here, but I want to hear your suggestions of Genesis games that do more impressive tricks. Contra: Hard Corps is one that comes into my mind.

Isn't The Adv. Of Batman & Robin supposed to be harsh killer?

It seems to me that many people on this board think that the Turbo can do basically anything the Genesis can do bar none. My question is this: Why didn't it and if it did why didn't it more often?

I've gone into detail about some of the reasons why before, but to sum it up. The answer is that it didn't need to... and why would it(they)?

Why didn't more Genesis & SNES games try to reproduce massive animated CD-style cinemas with voice and digitize in entire soundtracks in Neo Geo sized carts?

Why does Square spend 100 million dollars to produce and market an RPG that is simpler gameplay-wise than an NES game?

The PC Engine succeeded so well and for so long because of the types of games it had, not the kind it didn't. Once the CD-ROM format took off early on, why would a developer spend more of its time programming in visual tricks for a consumer who's more looking forward to another huge game with beautiful cinemas and yet another killer CD soundtrack? Also, PCE fans obviously settled for games that were just plain fun as well, since there are quite a few hits that aren't aesthetically cutting edge.

Where as the Genesis was battling it out against the SNES, both systems trying to prove how "powerful" they were and trying to cram as much as they could visually into a small cart. So we got more detailed, but repetative graphics with lots of effects inplace of animation(mainly the SNES) to save on space.

The reason why more developers didn't try to go crazy with effects in PC Engine games is the same reason the DS is the most succesful gaming system ever and the PSP is on it's deathbed. As a PCE publisher, you didn't make the big bucks putting out tech demos as games.

And it's all about money in the end. Which is why we saw more tech demo games on Genesis & SNES, because publishers were actually able to make money that way. DKC was marketed for all it's dohickery and Sonic 2 was sold on blast-processing. Where as Tengai Makyou II was marketed for it's gameplay length, voice work, story, music, character design, etc... -as the type of game only the PC Engine could do.

And again, on any console, every time an effect can't technically be done by the same means, it can either be reproduced in a different way(in which case, why does it matter how it was done?) or a different or better, possibly system-specific effect or other upgrade can be used.


Personally, I'd rather play this game-







Than this game-





It's like the Saturn, it may have been capable of doing pretty much anything, but it was hard to program for. So not everyone went the extra mile that some developers did (those who did often called those who didn't "lazy" in interviews). But just because it didn't have more games at the time doing certain things, it doesn't mean that it can't do most of what the N64 and PSX can and did.

But I usually hear people (even PSX & N64 fanboys) say that the Saturn never saw it's full potential. But when it comes to the PC Engine, we get so many people just saying, "the PC Engine can't do it".


Someone mentioned how the Chris Covell demos are nothing special. Well, what makes them so special is that this is just some guy making these for fun, without a development team or dev kit. And look at what he's already come up with. And so often anti-PCE'ers like to say that the PCE has no chance of comparing to the big 2, because is straight up can't do "blankety blank" at all. Well look at all the "blankety blank" some amateur pulled out of the PC Engine's ass.

Here is a game the TurboGrafx-16 could not do 100% (graphically) without major sacrifices:
Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse.

What does this game do that'd require a sacrifice? Someone mentioned a multi-directional background or something. Magical Chase has one, with a couple of uniquely shaped layers floating around inbetween and like 4 times the sprites. Other than doubling the color, I don't know what the difference would be.

Here is a game the Genesis could not do 100% (graphically) without major sacrifices:
Super Castlevania IV

I've never actually played this game, but from what I've heard and seen in screenshots is that there's a level or levels that rotate 360. Didn't Sonic 1 do this in it's bonus rounds, except more detailed and colorful with animated walls?

95% isn't the whole game, so I win. Ranger X officially cannot be done on the PC Engine, as confirmed by a programmer.

With everything that the PC Engine could add, especially on CD, especially with the Arcade Card, wouldn't a PCE port really wind up around 120+%?

Who cares if machine X can't replicate machine Y 100% perfectly? Arguing about it is as pointless as the whole 'Can Mario beat Sonic in a fight' kind of thing.

Exactly! Everyone knows that Bonk would wipe the floor with both of them!
 

Anyways, since it looks like this thread is still going on, I figure I ought to highlight a few more passages from the private AIM conversation that started it all.  Just to put things in perspective...........

Too...  much..  ripe material...  to comment on...

__________________

"I'm not gay, really!"

[GUTS]

In case you guys hadn't picked up on it by now, we were fucking with Keranu in chat.  Personally I think the PCE could do a decent job of Ranger X, hell honestly I think Lords of Thunder actually looks better.  I doubt there's any games on either system that couldn't be done on the other one with some minor sacrifices.  What I find amazing about Ranger X is what nod mentioned, that it uses basically every graphical trick in the book and puts it all in one awesome mech-blasting package.

And Keranu, Silpheed does use polygons for the player ship, enemies, and most bosses.  That's why they look like complete shit compared to the pre-rendered backgrounds.

The real question here is whether or not the shit, handicapped SNES could do Ranger X or Lords of Thunder, and resounding answer is NO.  That would be like giving speed to a guy in a wheelchair.  So what have we learned by this thread?  The SNES sucks shit while the PCE and Genesis rock it's face off.

[Odonadon]

Okay, I kinda predicted all this in my second post.. but anyway, since Emerald Rocker and GUTS are basing their argument soley on opionion, I thought I'd respond to this post which I thought was kind of funny.

Anyways, since it looks like this thread is still going on, I figure I ought to highlight a few more passages from the private AIM conversation that started it all.  Just to put things in perspective.

(1)
(01:08:06) Keranu: But saying it can't be done on PCE is silly;.
(01:08:16) Emerald Rocker: it can't be done on PCE.

Because..... ?

(2)
(01:15:19) Keranu: But the MIPS is a hard fact.
(01:15:28) Keranu: You can't ignore specs.
(01:15:32) Emerald Rocker: yes you can

You can?  Why?  This is the only piece concrete evidence you would posibly have to support your position, and yet it is to be ignored

(3)
(01:15:38) GUTS: its also a hard fact that that must not matter much since ranger X smashes the pce library
(01:15:49) Keranu: GUTS, you are basing that on your opinion now.
(01:16:03) GUTS: no i'm basing that on the fact that ranger x has too much for the pce to handle
(01:16:04) Keranu: You think Ranger X looks nice, that's YOUR opinion, not fact.
(01:16:12) GUTS: hell it couldn't even handle a decent port of Altered Beast
(01:16:19) Keranu: Ok, now ask a programmer to make a port of it for you.
(01:16:37) Emerald Rocker: the programmers already had their chance at Altered Beast and failed

Let's have a look at SUPERIOR Sega ports ont he PCE shall we, such as After Burner II, Space Harrier, etc.  Altered Beast was an abomination, but that just means the programmers screwed up, not that the PCE couldn't do it.  You say it "couldn't handle a decent port of Altered Beast", well there has never been a decent port of the game so I'm curious how you know that.  Also, I am a little concerned that you would consider PCE's Altered Beast a "decent port".  I was going to give Ranger-X a spin and see what the hype is about, but am starting to re-think that if PCE's Altered Beast is "Decent" to you

(4)
(01:17:37) Emerald Rocker: where's the Contra Hard Corps of the PCE
(01:17:41) GUTS: yeah hard corps would not be possible on the pce
(01:17:48) Keranu: This is ridiculous.

Not sure if you are trying to help Keranu win his argument with this post or what, but to me it looks like you are content on the "It can't handle game X because I say so" position.  Fine, I'll agree with Keranu that the Genesis can't handle 90% of PCE games.  I don't have anything to back this up (other than colour and sprite size differences), but then again this argument isn't based on facts - only opinion.

(5)
(01:23:10) RuninRuder: the turbo might have been "weaker" in effects but it used its strengths optimally, the colorful crisp graphics in rondo and gate for instance, plus brilliant cinemas
(01:23:37) RuninRuder: the snes was "powerful" but used its strengths for absolute shit and crippled its games with flicker and slowdown
(01:23:39) Keranu: Plus processor speed.
(01:24:06) RuninRuder: genesis had some nice effects at times, used better than snes effects, but looked horrible due to limited colors very often
(01:24:12) GUTS: well except that Chrono Trigger is beyond what the turbo could o

It can't do Chrono Trigger because....?  We all know Square spent as much time on the PCE port of Chrono as they did for the SNES version, so it's apparent it couldn't be done.  Wait a minute, I just made that up!

(6)
(01:24:45) Keranu: In fact, you want to see what Metal Slug would look like on Turbo?
(01:24:47) GUTS: they'd have to change all the huge background graphcis to tiles
(01:24:51) Emerald Rocker: weren't the sprites bigger than the Turbo could do?

From what I remember, I seriously doubt it.  I've seen many Turbo games with bigger sprites.  Perhaps this was programming trickery, not sure.

(7)
(01:27:46) GUTS: lets compare Riot zone to Streets of Rage III
(01:27:59) GUTS: no contest, and that's the best the duo could do

Wow, even us PCE experts here didn't know that Riot Zone was the pinacle of the PCE's capabilities.  Good to know.  For a man with nothing to support his argument, you sure know alot about the PCE's capabilities

According to the private AIM chat that started this, the PCE cannot handle:
Chrono Trigger, Contra Hard Corps, Dragon's Fury, F-22, Golden Axe, LHX, Metal Slug, Ranger-X, Streets of Rage 3, or... Altered Beast.

According to reality (not the AIM chat), these should all be possible.  I can't say I liked any of those games listed too terribly much, so I'm not upset that decent ports never made it over.  I'll take my existing PCE library any day over the 10 games the PCE simply "could not ever do".

OD

[CrackTiger]

And Keranu, Silpheed does use polygons for the player ship, enemies, and most bosses.  That's why they look like complete shit compared to the pre-rendered backgrounds.

Does this mean that Sapphire is also using real polygons? At least on the non-boss enemies?

__________________

"I'm not gay, really!"

[Odonadon]

In case you guys hadn't picked up on it by now, we were fucking with Keranu in chat.  Personally I think the PCE could do a decent job of Ranger X, hell honestly I think Lords of Thunder actually looks better.  I doubt there's any games on either system that couldn't be done on the other one with some minor sacrifices.  What I find amazing about Ranger X is what nod mentioned, that it uses basically every graphical trick in the book and puts it all in one awesome mech-blasting package.

Okay this is starting to make sense, I thought you and Emerold Rocker were either in denial (been caught there before), or just insane

The real question here is whether or not the shit, handicapped SNES could do Ranger X or Lords of Thunder, and resounding answer is NO.  That would be like giving speed to a guy in a wheelchair.  So what have we learned by this thread?  The SNES sucks shit while the PCE and Genesis rock it's face off.

[/quote]

Well, you may be starting another argument here  As a fan of all three systems, owning at least one of each for several years (hell I Even traded my TG16 for a SNES when it first game out), I have to say statements like this is unecessary.  I personally like the SNES better than Genesis, but I still really enjoy the Genesis .  I think all systems could do each other's games, but there would be pro's and con's to each.

I love the Genesis for it's style, and excellent games.  A lot of games use a lot of great animation too (Cyborg Justice).

I love the SNES for it's epic games - RPGs mainly - primarily because of it's good music chip and cool FC it can do, transparencies, whatever.

I love the PCE just because I like it better overall.  I like the games better, I think some of the games have superior graphics to the Genesis or SNES, some have superior music, etc.  Overall I like it better.  Doesn't mean I hate any one system.  I don't think the SNES is shit, I think it's excellent.  Nintendo knows (and knew) what they were doing.  Same with Sega.  Same with Hudson/NEC.

OD

[SignOfZeta]

Also (again) why do people always think that "bright colors" automatically translate to "good graphics"? Personally, I think bright colors are terrible, and that games with very dark colors look far, far better than a game using bright colors.

Well, personally I hate dark games. I like bright autumn leaves more than the leaves you find frozen to the concrete in your driveway in January. Really though that's just a difference in individual taste. MD games are mostly all muddy and brown because of its hardware. The SNES could do muddle and brown, but most games were bright probably because these machines were new at the time and programers were probably excited to be able to use these new colors coming from the FC, or the C64, or whatever.

The PCE has quite a few colorful games, and quite a few drab ones.

I'm not sure why I just typed that last sentence...

[Keranu]

I really liked CrackTiger's post that discusses why PCE didn't get all the fancy special effect support from developers like the other consoles did. I think CrackTiger hit the nail with the hammer, it seems most logical to me. Oh and the Bonk 3 screenshots were fantastic !

Well, personally I hate dark games. I like bright autumn leaves more than the leaves you find frozen to the concrete in your driveway in January.

This line rules .

By the way GUTS, I thought you didn't believe what programmers say? I thought you said they were just theorists with no hard facts? Has GUTS gained a soft spot in his heart for the beloved programmers ?

[SignOfZeta]

And Keranu, Silpheed does use polygons for the player ship, enemies, and most bosses.  That's why they look like complete shit compared to the pre-rendered backgrounds.

Does this mean that Sapphire is also using real polygons? At least on the non-boss enemies?

I doubt it. You mean like the really simple blue ones that look like they were stolen from Viewpoint? Those are almost definitely pre-rendered...just as they were in Viewpoint. Without some real technical skills it would be impossible to prove either way, but I think its safe to say they aren't real-time since there really wouldn't be any point in it.

As much as people hoot and toot about Sapphire, from what I can see its your basic shooter with enemies that have a crapload of animation, and sound FX that are really bad. I quite like the game, especially 2 player, but I still think GoT is the best PCE shooter.

[OldRover]

Actually, GUTS, I think the SNES graphics processor could handle many of the effects in Ranger-X easier than the Genesis did...and it would have to, because its crap processor would otherwise be too bogged down. As far as LoT goes...sure, it could be ported to the SNES but the music would suffer greatly for it.

Gotta hand it to you though...that escape tactic to save face was classic. Haven't seen that in years, usually people just go down fighting.  

[Seldane]

95% isn't the whole game, so I win. Ranger X officially cannot be done on the PC Engine, as confirmed by a programmer.

With everything that the PC Engine could add, especially on CD, especially with the Arcade Card, wouldn't a PCE port really wind up around 120+%?

Maybe. But that's not the console we're talking about - that's a PC Engine CD. With an add-on.

[CrackTiger]

Also (again) why do people always think that "bright colors" automatically translate to "good graphics"? Personally, I think bright colors are terrible, and that games with very dark colors look far, far better than a game using bright colors.

There's a difference bewteen Bright vs Vibrant colors as well as Dark vs Dull.

But when most people talk about colorful games, I think they usually mean higher color games, which can be very dark or bright and are usually more detailed.

Regardless of palletes and theoretically maximum colors per screen limits, the real determining factor to how well color gets used in games, is all the little bottlenecks along the way.

The PC Engine seems to be able to produce some very nice vibrant graphics, even when a high number of colors technically isn't being used.

SNES games sometimes look kinda drab, even when they're using a high number of colors.

Genesis games sometimes recycle colors, to keep detail in sections, but wind up with clashing colors. But it seems to also have some weird bottle necks that sometimes keep it from getting near it's onscreen color limit.

One day I was making these two screens into gif's for a project and was surprised when I noticed how much color was changed in the Genesis version. The PCE version only uses 68 colors. The Genesis version got cut down to 41, but way more shades were recycled than I would've thought necessary, even with 41 colors.







Anyone know why'd they do this?

95% isn't the whole game, so I win. Ranger X officially cannot be done on the PC Engine, as confirmed by a programmer.

With everything that the PC Engine could add, especially on CD, especially with the Arcade Card, wouldn't a PCE port really wind up around 120+%?

Maybe. But that's not the console we're talking about - that's a PC Engine CD. With an add-on.

So are we now limiting all Genesis and SNES theoretical ports to 8 meg carts?

And does the 32X platform not exist?

The "add-on" is the real system as we all know and love it. It didn't tank like the Sega & Mega-CD and it didn't add any processing power or specialty effects/chips either.

The CD format lasted longer than the PC Engine went without it beforehand and was the main format that all PCE software was produced for.

__________________

"I'm not gay, really!"

[Joe Redifer]

Wow so much to respond to!  I'll do this by memory since going back and quoting everything will take forever.

1 - Castle of Illusion - Yes, the two BG layers are what I am talking about.  One of them would have to be sacrificed and that is quite a large graphical sacrifice in my opinion.  We all agree the Turbo could fake this with sprites to some degree in a few certain areas, but not 100%.  Maybe a better example would be Thunder Force IV since it does put a bunch o' sprites on the screen.

2 - nodvietd (?) - Fanboy argument accepted.  I never meant to imply that you personally said "genesis is teh sux", though.

3 - Vertical scrolling - I have no idea how it works and yes MUSHA uses it to a limited degree.  I have seen games with horizontal line scrolling combined with the 8 pixel vertical scrolling to do a limited rotation effect, so I don't know about scrolling being locked to a horizontal line (but then again I am not an authority on how that was achieved).  You can see this in quite a few later Genesis games like Gunstar Heroes, Adventures of Batman and Robin, Shinobi III (barely).  Hell even Gynough/Wings of Wor used this for the BG(s) in a level and that was a fairly early game, come to remember.

4 - Genesis multi-plane scrolling - This isn't in response to anything, but I'm pretty sure the Genesis can, for example, have layer 1 as the backmost BG layer, then layer 2 overlapping in front of it, and then layer 1 overlapping in front of layer 2, and then layer 2 overlapping in front of layer 1 again, etc etc etc just as long as layer 1 never overlaps itself horizontally and the same with layer 2.  I think the 32X worked in a similar way.  It imported the graphics from the Genesis and layed 32X graphics over that and then output.  However I have seen 32X graphics be between Genesis layers which is pretty amazing considering the layering must be done in analog.

[_Paul]

95% isn't the whole game, so I win. Ranger X officially cannot be done on the PC Engine, as confirmed by a programmer.

With everything that the PC Engine could add, especially on CD, especially with the Arcade Card, wouldn't a PCE port really wind up around 120+%?

Maybe. But that's not the console we're talking about - that's a PC Engine CD. With an add-on.

Considering that aside from CD music, the only thing the CD unit adds is the extra memory in the System cards, then given more storage a HU can do the same as a CD game. Then, you add enough storage to a Megadrive cart and it can do even better looking games. Then you add more to a HuCard and it can do amazing games. Then you add more to...

See where this is going?

[Seldane]

What I mean is that you're comparing small Mega Drive carts to CD-ROM based games.

[_Paul]

What I mean is that you're comparing small Mega Drive carts to CD-ROM based games.

Yeah, what I mean the whole system v system argument is pretty pointless.

[Joe Redifer]

Pointless but fun.

[_Paul]

And whats with the dissing of Altered Beast? I think it's a perfectly good conversion, on all systems.

/abcomparisonwt9.gif

[TurboXray]

3 - Vertical scrolling - I have no idea how it works and yes MUSHA uses it to a limited degree. I have seen games with horizontal line scrolling combined with the 8 pixel vertical scrolling to do a limited rotation effect, so I don't know about scrolling being locked to a horizontal line (but then again I am not an authority on how that was achieved). You can see this in quite a few later Genesis games like Gunstar Heroes, Adventures of Batman and Robin, Shinobi III (barely). Hell even Gynough/Wings of Wor used this for the BG(s) in a level and that was a fairly early game, come to remember.

 What I mean is that on a H-sync interrupt, once you write a new value to the vertical or horizontal register of the VDP, that value takes place on the next scanline. So multiple writes would be useless as the last write would be the one taking effect for the next line. Charles MacDonald would know better than I on this one.

 For the rotating effects - I believe Gunstar Heroes (rotating plane) and Contra (big rotating dancing mini Boss) use the equivalent effects as Cotton(PCE) first level boss. It's a tile swapping/building/shifting method, but the effect limits all tiles to 16colors for that layer. The larger the image and more complex effect, the more bandwidth to the VDP is required. The 68000 DMA to the VDP VRAM port is pretty fast(needed for the effect) - faster than the SNES DMA.

4 - Genesis multi-plane scrolling - This isn't in response to anything, but I'm pretty sure the Genesis can, for example, have layer 1 as the backmost BG layer, then layer 2 overlapping in front of it, and then layer 1 overlapping in front of layer 2, and then layer 2 overlapping in front of layer 1 again, etc etc etc just as long as layer 1 never overlaps itself horizontally and the same with layer 2. I think the 32X worked in a similar way. It imported the graphics from the Genesis and layed 32X graphics over that and then output. However I have seen 32X graphics be between Genesis layers which is pretty amazing considering the layering must be done in analog.

 Yeah, you can set priorities between the BG layers. Thunder Force 4 does this for the first level(ocean level) on the clouds to make it look like there are more than 2 BG layers. The effect is pretty convincing until you try to scroll the fake BG layers vertically independently of the main BG - that's why all BG's move vertically in unison. The SNES has a lot of systems beat with up to 4 independent BG layers, but it handicapped with just 64k VRAM for all those layers.

Anyone know why'd they do this?

 I'm not sure if this applies to this screen, but simply saying a system can do 64 colors does not imply just that. Infact, the genesis, turbo, snes can only do 16colors per 8x8 tile. The genesis has 4 16color palettes to chose from, the SNES has 8 16color palettes, and the PCE/TG/SGX has 16 16color palettes. Any pixel inside a tile can not access/use a color outside its 16color assigned palette. Technically, the genesis can display 64 colors, but in reality certain 60 or less color backgrounds are not possible on the genesis display with some sort of (limited) palette trick. This excluding shadow/highlight which is taxing to the sprite count/scanline limit or use of second layer BG.

 

Without some real technical skills it would be impossible to prove either way, but I think its safe to say they aren't real-time since there really wouldn't be any point in it.

 I can say. I've looked at the spites and tiles of the ISO data track and all the polygons are pre-rendered - enemies and bosses. Kind of sad as these could have been nicely hand drawn art instead

[Seldane]

Yeah, what I mean the whole system v system argument is pretty pointless.

Useless? Yes. Fun? Obviously. Just look at the activity in this thread. Six pages in what, one day?

[GUTS]

Gotta hand it to you though...that escape tactic to save face was classic. Haven't seen that in years, usually people just go down fighting.  

Escape tactic?  You can't tell we were joking from the log Keranu posted?  I thought it was pretty obvious we were fucking with him, I'm surprised it got to 5 pages with nobody but Obadon having a clue.

Oh and Silpheed DOES use polygons, just play the game and you'll see what I mean.  Go to the option screen and you can view and rotate any enemy or boss in the game that is made of polygons.  The backgrounds and last boss are obviously pre-rendered, duh, but the enemies, player ship, and bosses use polygons.

[OldRover]

I HAVE played Silpheed, and it was always very clear to me that the models were pre-rendered.

[Joe Redifer]

GUTs is right on this one.  The backgrounds in Silpheed are all streamed off of the CD.  Why they are not grainy like normal Sega CD video is beyond me, but the CD is constantly accessing and streaming.  The in games models, (ie: player ship, enemy ships, boss, etc) are all real polygons and that is why they are so teeny tiny and run at a different frame rate than the background (anyone besides me ever notice that?).  You can rotate them at will in the options screen and all that nonsense.

What I am not sure about is the intro and cut scenes.  I would assume they are pre-rendered.  However my friend has a CDX that will play the intro all the way up to stage 1.  Stage 1 loads the HUD, then the CDX tries to stream it and the game freezes.  It won't run after that.  The disc is fine.  It works great on my model 1 Sega CD.  But if the CDX has problems streaming video, why does it run the intros so effortlessly?  I also noticed that the intros seem to have a higher sound quality.

Somebody needs to hack the disc and extract the video files so we can see.

[Keranu]

I played Mega Bomberman for the first time just a few days ago and I didn't even know it was a port of Bomberman '94. What's worse than that title screen is the actual ingame level, it lost a ton of color and detail.

/bombermancomparekm9.png

[Joe Redifer]

I honestly would expect no less from Hudson.  They would want to make sure their system looks better.  There really isn't any reason for the Genesis version to look THAT horrible, and it is awful.

[Odonadon]

And whats with the dissing of Altered Beast? I think it's a perfectly good conversion, on all systems.

From that statement I have to assume you haven't played the PCE version  Yeah it looks alright, but controls like shit - nowhere near as nice as the arcade and Genesis versions.  Collision detection seems to be far more sensitive too.

OD

[Keranu]

I honestly would expect no less from Hudson.  They would want to make sure their system looks better.  There really isn't any reason for the Genesis version to look THAT horrible, and it is awful.

The thought came across my mind and that could be very true, but then again they did a good job with the Lords of Thunder port and even made a completely updated (or is it a whole different game?) version of Dungeon Explorer.

[SignOfZeta]

I honestly would expect no less from Hudson.  They would want to make sure their system looks better.  There really isn't any reason for the Genesis version to look THAT horrible, and it is awful.

Well, horrible or not, Mega Bomberman is still one of the MD's most colorful games. Make what you will of that...

[T2KFreeker]

I like Bomberman '94 and Mega Bomberman, It is all a matter of taste I guess. Either way, I like both the Genesis and the Turbo Grafx, but since the Turbo is my favorite system, I cannot get into this as I am biased and it isn't fair because of that.

[Joe Redifer]

Dammit why do I have to log on every single time I post in this thread?

Anyway Dungeon Explorer on the Sega CD is a totally new game... and not really all that great in my opinion.  As for Mega Bomberman being one of the Genesis' most colorful games... if that screenshot posted above of the first level is any indication of what the rest of the game looks like, I'd definitely disagree.  I've seen Sega Master System games that look more colorful than that.

[guyjin]

I wouldn't say mega bomberman looks awful, but it clearly isn't as good as '94.

[Keranu]

Well, horrible or not, Mega Bomberman is still one of the MD's most colorful games. Make what you will of that...

Nah, I'd say there are far more colorful games for Genesis than Mega Bomberman. Sonics, Dynamite Headdy, and Socket immediately come to mind.

[_Paul]

And whats with the dissing of Altered Beast? I think it's a perfectly good conversion, on all systems.

From that statement I have to assume you haven't played the PCE version  Yeah it looks alright, but controls like shit - nowhere near as nice as the arcade and Genesis versions.  Collision detection seems to be far more sensitive too.

OD

Meh it isnt as smooth as the other versions, but the controls aren't game breaking by any means. I mean it's no Golden Axe.
But then again, I really enjoyed the Master System version of Altered Beast so who am I to argue  

[Keranu]

I didn't think the PCE version of Altered Beast was bad really. In fact I thought it was pretty cool when I first played it and thought it looked nicer than the Genesis version. The controls don't bother me too much, it's just annoying that you have to press UP to jump and jumping will feel all weird, is this fixed with a three button pad or whatever? The thing that bummed me the most though, honestly, was the lack of voice samples! Those are classic, Altered Beast just isn't Altered Beast without them.

[Seldane]

The thought came across my mind and that could be very true, but then again they did a good job with the Lords of Thunder port and even made a completely updated (or is it a whole different game?) version of Dungeon Explorer.

Dungeon Explorer it is a completely different game, yes - but Hudson didn't develop it. They published it but that's all. Westone (creators of the Wonder Boy / Monster World games) developed that game.

[SignOfZeta]

As for Mega Bomberman being one of the Genesis' most colorful games... if that screenshot posted above of the first level is any indication of what the rest of the game looks like, I'd definitely disagree.  I've seen Sega Master System games that look more colorful than that.

I'm not going by the screen shot, I'm going from memories of when I played the game back in the day. I remember being quite impressed with it, and liking it a lot. At the time I'd played a shitload of Genesis games. Since I worked at a video store that stocked just about everything, I played the vast majority of anything even slightly interesting from the 16-bit era. I had certainly played the Sonic games, and Dynamite Heady. I love Dynamite Heady.

[CrackTiger]

And whats with the dissing of Altered Beast? I think it's a perfectly good conversion, on all systems.

Although I never made it too far through the PCE port, I think that both ports are okay, but should've been a lot better.

And whats with the dissing of Altered Beast? I think it's a perfectly good conversion, on all systems.

From that statement I have to assume you haven't played the PCE version  Yeah it looks alright, but controls like shit - nowhere near as nice as the arcade and Genesis versions.  Collision detection seems to be far more sensitive too.

Considering how the original game played to begin with, it couldn't have lost very much.  

Oh and Silpheed DOES use polygons, just play the game and you'll see what I mean. Go to the option screen and you can view and rotate any enemy or boss in the game that is made of polygons.

Although I don't doubt that the Sega-CD could produce the in-game polygon characters in realtime, I wouldn't be surprised if they still used prerendered sprites in the game, but realtime single models in the options mode.

The thing that first led me to believe that the in-game "sprites" were probably prerendered is the fact that they animate within a 2D plain and there is no reason to render them in realtime, not unless they're going to do loopty loops and fly at the screen and stuff.

I hope someone who can be trusted does hack into the game someday to lay this issue to rest.

I honestly would expect no less from Hudson. They would want to make sure their system looks better. There really isn't any reason for the Genesis version to look THAT horrible, and it is awful.

Why would Hudson sabatoge one of it's own games and sell it to try to make 'its own system' look better? This doesn't make any sense.

Why didn't they sabatoge all their SNES and NES games then?

And the Megadrive wasn't really ever even competing with the PC Engine after the beginning and certainly not that late in the systems' lives.

There isn't any reason for any substandard port to be as horrible as it may or may not be. I don't think console-wars subterfuge ever entered into a port's development.

Otherwise, "Super Sonic The Hedgehog" would've been a 5fps launch title for the SFC and the 12-color choppy Cranky Kong Country would've been the Genesis' first $200 68 meg cart. Plus, none of those crappy Sega to NES ports moved SMS systems.

If they were putting out PCE games as secret weapons, they wouldn't have let the developer of the Lords Of Thunder port do such a good job of getting so much color out of the Sega-CD version either.

Mega Bomberman was made primarily for the American audience(was it even released in Japan?), where the Turbo had already long since hopelessly lost out, Hudson had abandoned it's 'own' console years earlier and Bomberman '94 didn't exist.

What Hudson was actually doing with games like Mega Bomberman and Lords Of Thunder, was trying to make money in the USA off of it's large PCE library. Mega Bomberman (and Lords' especially) could only do harm to the Duo in America. And Hudson could care less.

As for Mega Bomberman being one of the Genesis' most colorful games... if that screenshot posted above of the first level is any indication of what the rest of the game looks like, I'd definitely disagree. I've seen Sega Master System games that look more colorful than that.

I don't think that Mega Bomberman has very good Genesis graphics, but it's unfair to compare it to a system as colorful as the SMS.

__________________

"I'm not gay, really!"

[GUTS]

Sega CD Dungeon Explorer is awesome, Westone rules.

[Kaminari]

There are several Mega Drive games using polygons. It can natively handle polygons, unlike the SNES and PC Engine.

Nice piece of documented information here. So a PC Engine clocked at 7.2 MHz can't "natively" handle polygons, but an Atari XL crawling at 1.8 Mhz can run 3D effects nobody would deem possible?

Check out Numen and think about it again.

Not the best polygons ever, but for a computer that is almost 30 years old, that's not too shabby either. And considering both machines are based on the same CPU, in my opinion that says a lot about the untapped potential of the PCE in this domain.

Granted, the PCE was not designed by Jay Miner...!

[Joe Redifer]

And whats with the dissing of Altered Beast? I think it's a perfectly good conversion, on all systems.

As to be expected, my comments about Altered Beast are the definitive ones.  So CLICK HERE to read my reviews on ALL versions of Altered Beast.  That's right I review them all: Arcade, Genesis, Sega Master System, NES (Famicom), PC Engine (Both HuCard and CD-ROM), GameBoy Advance, and even the PS2 version.  Click and read NOW!

[OldRover]

The way I see it...the PCE port of ALtered Beast is terrible. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Genesis port buries the PCE port many times over. I've actually played through and beaten the Genesis port, yet I couldn't even get through the first level of the PCE port due to the terribly shitty controls and haphazard coldet that rivals Impossamole. However, it's almost a moot point as far as I'm concerned...a crap port of a rather lackluster and dull game isn't really going to scar my experience...but someone still has some serious explaining to do for the exceptionally shitty port of Golden Axe to the PCE.