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NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: guyjin on February 05, 2008, 08:58:43 AM
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So I finally have that arcade card. Sapphire is great; If it's the only game I play with the AC, it's worth it.
However, to make my Arcade card even more awesome, I'd like to know what the best (and worst) ACD games are.
To get it started:
The other ACD I own is Fire pro female wrestling. From what I've seen of the Fire Pro games, they are very technical, and not button mashers, and this one is no different. I can't figure out how to do even basic throws. Also, outside of the wrestling itself, the game is very text-menu heavy. It took me a while just to figure out how to go one-on-one against the computer with a pregen character. The graphics are simple, but attractive, and after the long initial loading screen, there really isn't any loading at all.
A two-player mode exists, but I have yet to try it. There also seems to be a tag team mode. The game seems to have a wrestler creation mode, which appeals to me, but until I learn Japanese, there is no hope that I can create one.
in short, this might be fun if you speak the language (and aren't squicked by female wrestling - some of whom seem to be playing the part of men) but the typical pcenginefx user should avoid this.
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As a soon-to-be owner of an Arcade Card I'm also curious to see the opinions of the best and worst.
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If its like the other fire pro wrestling games, you have to time the button press to exactly when your wrestlers hands touch the other guy. So you run up, hit the grapple button, wait a second for the animation, then hit a direction and either tap or hold the grab button as soon as your wrestler reaches out and touches the other guy. Great fun, makes for some awesome 2-player battles since its all about timing and not just who ever grabbed first like most other wrestling games.
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I've never played that version of FP but when the Saturn version came out I didn't have very much Japanese knowledge and I didn't have much trouble with the edit mode. Choosing the AI stuff can be hard, but just designing the wrestler and picking the moves isn't very hard. Its complex and easy to get lost in, but it would be in English too.
Like I said though, I've never played that version and the fact that it even has edit mode is kind of surprising since I thought all that stuff started on Saturn. The early FP games on PCE were total garbage.
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said with ease:
Best: Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire (10AAA+++)
Worst: It is said that it is shared by Battlefield Wrestling '94 or Fire Pro Female Wrestling
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Best (imho) was Fatal Fury Special & Strider. These were the first 2 ACD game I played and they're awesome.
Worst? Hmmm...probably Mad Stalker.
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what's so worse about mad stalker? or different said, what makes it more worse than one of those shitty wrestlers, which could've almost be done on a 2mBit Hucard (regardless to music issues)?
o'coz, it isn't that a great game, but neither it's really bad.
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The neo-geo ports are better than what you will find on the snes and genesis/sega cd, i was most impressed with world heroes 2 and fatal fury special.
Kabuki Itouryodan has good music, some of the backgrounds are very nice, and as far as i can tell, the best animation for a fighting game on the system.
Mad stalker: i think this game is damn good but a lot of people will disagree, this game has huge sprites moving at blazing speeds and screen filling explosions, it has great sound effects to go along with the action. The gameplay is single plane brawler like ninja warriors for the snes, it also has a versus mode.
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The greatest is of course Kabuki Itouryoden, followed by Fatal Fury Special and World Heroes 2.
Sapphire is a good game, but not nearly as fantastic as its generally made out to be, nor as good as many non uber rare PCE shooters.
If bicompatibles count, then Popful Mail is one of the very best as an actual game, plus it has very nice aesthetics all round. If you're not a fighting fan, then I'd rate Popful Mail the best by far.
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Sapphire is a good game, but not nearly as fantastic as its generally made out to be, nor as good as many non uber rare PCE shooters.
as we talking here about ACD games only, sapphire is keeping up the unbeaten best of all them. what makes people think of other games could battle against sapphire, with just having a itsy bitsy of chance?
The greatest is of course Kabuki Itouryoden, followed by Fatal Fury Special and World Heroes 2.
so you like beat'em ups? but let me say, that world heros isn't a good one in this category of this genre. doesn't matter if on the neo geo or PCE. but great port though.
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What does Popful Mail add when played with the ACD card?
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Sapphire might be a little overhyped, but it really is a rock-solid game overall and certainly worthy of much of the praise it gets.
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Sapphire might be a little overhyped, but it really is a rock-solid game overall and certainly worthy of much of the praise it gets.
now that statement sounds just fair. plus, it uses the hardware to its absolute uber max. and the music just rox to no end, which shouldn't be unconsidered.
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I think sapphire is very good vert scrolling shooter, not as good as spriggan or nexzr though, sapphire is of course more famous for being a technical showpiece than for its gameplay but what a showpiece, for example the Egypt boss transforms into a giant mecha type thing then he starts spinning on his axis while rotating around the screen with incredible animation at the same time huge orbs feel the screen, i don't remember any slow down or flicker...HOLY HELL, let me repeat... HOLY HELL.
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Such feats are amazingly simple when you have such a huge memory pool to utilize. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they look awesome. :D
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Madou Monogatari is the best ACD game and one of the greatest PCE games ever made. Art of Fighting and Kabuki Itourryoudan are also very good. And 3x3 Eyes, while not Arcade Card exclusive, is a must for its AC-enhanced cinemas (not to mention it's a cool comic).
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Such feats are amazingly simple when you have such a huge memory pool to utilize. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they look awesome. :D
and also it doesn't change the fact, that such incredible and awesome looking effects where played by a tiny bastard 8-bit hardware made in '87.
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I think sapphire is very good vert scrolling shooter, not as good as spriggan or nexzr though, sapphire is of course more famous for being a technical showpiece than for its gameplay but what a showpiece, for example the Egypt boss transforms into a giant mecha type thing then he starts spinning on his axis while rotating around the screen with incredible animation at the same time huge orbs feel the screen, i don't remember any slow down or flicker...HOLY HELL, let me repeat... HOLY HELL.
HOLY HELL!! YES :D
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What does Popful Mail add when played with the ACD card?
I tried to figure that out the other day, but it kept crashing in Arcade Card mode and I ran out of time.
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TRU FAX: The Arcade card makes the PCE more powerful than the playstation. :dance:
The greatest is of course Kabuki Itouryoden, followed by Fatal Fury Special and World Heroes 2.
I'm not a big fan of fighting games, especially since I'd have to get a get a 6 button controller (right?)
If you had to choose only one of those 3, which would you pick?
If bicompatibles count, then Popful Mail is one of the very best as an actual game, plus it has very nice aesthetics all round. If you're not a fighting fan, then I'd rate Popful Mail the best by far.
I'll look it up.
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Quote from: The Old Rover on Today at 06:16:04 PM
Such feats are amazingly simple when you have such a huge memory pool to utilize. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they look awesome.
Absolutely, the neo-geo fighters, kabuki itouryodan and its great animation, mad stalker with its large, well animated, fast moving sprites but then you look at strider and instead of saying to yourself, holy hell you say, what the well, sure, in some ways its better than the genesis port but you cant help but think that it should have been so much better.
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Sapphire might be a little overhyped, but it really is a rock-solid game overall and certainly worthy of much of the praise it gets.
Yes, its very nice. Clearly the #1 ACD but...it could have been better. The art direction in Sapphire is just all over the place. I realize that since time travel is part of the plot that this sort of thing is inherent, but it could still be half as coherent as it is technically impressive. Also the sound effects are annoying and loud. The music seems nice but its quieter than the music in, say, LoT, so I can't enjoy it as much over the shitty sound effects.
Its a nice game, but I really think both Gate of Thunder and Lords/Winds of Thunder are very much better. Also there are quite a few SCD shooters I keep hearing are great that I've never had a chance to play that are also probably better.
Fatal Fury Special is also very nice, but now that the MVS cart can be had for $10 its not very relevant. The whole point of console ports of Neo Geo games was that you could afford them, so now all the Neo Geo ports, as amazing as they are, are pointless.
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Popful Mail isn't a very good game on Turbo CD, it's OK at most. Sapphire should definitely be crowned the best arcade card, I don't know why it's even up for debate since everything else is old archaic fighting games or shit like Mad Stalker that just plain sucks.
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There may still be some games to come that challenge Sapphire's crown. :dance:
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but not within the ACD category :dance:
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I wouldn't have said it otherwise; of course it's in the ACD category! :D
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i mean, there's no game within the ACD category, which is able to come up challenging Sapphire :D
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We'll see about that... ;)
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Yeah, knock yourself out buddy. Code away. Code away.
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but it could still be half as coherent as it is technically impressive
I totally agree with that statement.
To me, Kabuki Itoryoudan is the best and most impressive ACD game. Still, I've never played Madou Monogatari so I couldn't tell about this one. Neogeo ports are really impressive, too (World Heroes 2 is the best port IMO) but as it has already been said, I'd rather play them on my AES system (which is better than the MVS, not t'echnically of course as they are the same thing but just because I like AES carts better).
Sapphire is of course very impressive but I hav eto say that sometimes, graphics are rather lame (like this kind of lion boss in stage 2).
Mad Stalker is ok but too repetitive.
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I definitely think Art of Fighting is a match for Sapphire. It's just as technically impressive and could clearly only be done with the ACD.
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I am pretty much impressed with all the Neo ports except FF2. It was a good port but not as good as the other 3. I'm very pleased with Strider. I like it alot more then the Mega Drive version. Sapphire is a great game and all,but if you take out the special rendered fx/sprites the actual game itself barely competes with Spriggan in alot of areas. Spriggan is still the better shooter.
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The stone creature/boss in Sapphire is so frackin' cool. The Arcade Card was really starting to make PCE games look like PS1/Dreamcast games.
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The stone creature/boss in Sapphire is so frackin' cool. The Arcade Card was really starting to make PCE games look like PS1/Dreamcast games.
They're called golems. Read some fantasy! :x
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They're called golems. Read some fantasy! Mad
haha. Negatron. Fantasy makes me noxious. I almost threw up with boredom watching The Lord of the Rings...though the cartoon version was pretty cool - mainly because of Ralph Bakshi's sweet animation. Seriously though, I could never get into fantasy. Science fiction? Yup. But fantasy, not so much.
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Lord of the rings is kinda boring, actually. Trying to read the first one puts me to sleep. But the movies are good.
Have you ever read any Shadowrun novels? that world is a weird mix of fantasy and scifi which I really like.
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Ceti, I agree. For reading, good sci fi trounces any and all fantasy contenders (pretenders?). Still, some fantasy is worth a look. Like Zelazny's Amber series. Of course, Zelazny was a sci-fi author, so it's natural he'd kick the pants off the fantasy genre at its own game.
But WOW am I off-topic...
Uhhh, uhhh.... ACD, yeah! Were there many (any) RPGs that could put the ACD to work?
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Uhhh, uhhh.... ACD, yeah! Were there many (any) RPGs that could put the ACD to work?
The aforementioned Madou Monogatari, though it's a first-person dungeon crawler (starring the characters you probably know from Puyo Puyo) rather than a traditional-style RPG.
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The aforementioned Madou Monogatari, though it's a first-person dungeon crawler (starring the characters you probably know from Puyo Puyo) rather than a traditional-style RPG.
GAH, I hate dungeon crawlers. So boring.
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Wasn't Brandish kinda A scd/acd type game?.I heard Strider wasn't very good.There was only one stage that had multi plane scrolling.
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I heard Strider wasn't very good.There was only one stage that had multi plane scrolling.
Graphics are crummy, but the audio blows away any version of Strider out there.
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Eh, I dunno. Technically the music is better, of course. Strider's voice when he swings his sword sounds really compressed and bad. Many of the characters talk to you during the stage and they don't sound so hot, either (besides, that just wastes time). The sounds are different from those in the arcade, for example the amazon bitches screams sound completely different (and muffled).
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but the audio blows away any version of Strider out there.
no way!! i like the MD or Arcade original audio way better! it's really well composed and fits the best to the game / each scene.
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Brandish can use the ACD, but I think it only makes the game scroll a bit smoother. As for Madou Monogatari, I wouldn't
call it a "dungeon crawler." It is first person, but the emphasis is more on puzzle solving. The puzzles take you all over
the tower. You can build your own walls and floors in real time. It plays a lot more like an adventure game then anything
else in my opinion. Great game, but the language barrier might be too scary for some.
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How would the ACD make a game scroll more smoothly? All it has is some additional memory.
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How would the ACD make a game scroll more smoothly? All it has is some additional memory.
In theory...if CPU time is consumed for tile decompression, the game could...in theory...scroll slower. If the data was stored uncompressed in the ACD RAM banks, no CPU time is wasted decompressing the graphics and...in theory...it would scroll smoother.
The ACD also has a couple of math operations, but I don't know if they'd factor in here or not...but they may.
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I believe one of the folks here verified that Brandish just caches some of the dungeons on the extra ACD RAM to decrease load times, but it shouldn't do anything extra during actual game play.
And yeah, as for Strider audio, I should probably say that I like the BGM a lot better than the original. I probably should've said the music. I can agree with the muted sound effects compared to the original, but the music -- there's just no contest. :P
http://dl.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?classicgaming/contra/history/strider/Strider%20Arcade%20-%20Raid.mp3
http://dl.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?classicgaming/contra/history/strider/Strider%20PCE%20-%20Raid.mp3
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How would the ACD make a game scroll more smoothly? All it has is some additional memory.
One way PCE games can "fake" parallax/layered bgs is with animated bg tiles.
Ys III's choppy bgs may be faithful to te MSX version but its thought that it didn't improve the scrolling frame rate because it was still only a 2.0 CD game. But if the game had 36 times as much space to store frames of animation, in theory it should be able to animate things as smooth as possible.
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But most of the background tiles are small and repeated. All it has to do is shift the tiles. I don't think jittery scrolling is a memory issue. It's a programming issue.
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its thought that it didn't improve the scrolling frame rate because it was still only a 2.0 CD
Tenshi no Uta II is a Super CD and has similar issues.
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But most of the background tiles are small and repeated. All it has to do is shift the tiles. I don't think jittery scrolling is a memory issue. It's a programming issue.
That is completely correct in that case. :D
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Extra memory could help, though. Imagine if parts of the BG used animated tiles to simulate multiple layers for both up and down directions. More memory would mean more animated tiles instead of just one or two repeated across the entire screen. That way the screen wouldn't have to scroll one tile at a time and would be less jerky.
That would also mean a hell of a lot more artistic and programming work, though.
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I don't think jittery scrolling is a memory issue. It's a programming issue.
The problem with that assumption is that it's too general from issues that are very specific.
There are many ways to do dynamic tile animation. Some have emphasis on memory restrictions, others on processing cycles required, and other still on bandwidth to vram transfer. It really depends on the effect and the cost of doing it via dynamic tiles. Dynamic tiles introduce other limitations in how the display is arranged.
If SCD memory is used, there are some methods to really decrease the choppiness of the scrolling in Ys 3. Hell - I'd even dumb the res down from 342x240 to 256x240 to further help it.
A little bit of info: Lords of Thunder uses dynamic tiles to simulate the lines scrolls in the stages, not hsync scrolls as you would normally think.
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I haven't played much ACD games. Strider doesn't do it for me and the NEO GEO ports are ok but the one that makes owning a Arcade Card worth while for me is SAPPHIRE. Such a eye candy and music to my ears. However from want I been reading on this topic, kabuki itouryodan is way up there. I never played it but I would to try. This is not in Kadamose library. Would any body else willing to sale me a CD-R copy of kabuki itouryodan? :pray:
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Would any body else willing to sale me a CD-R copy of kabuki itouryodan? :pray:
Why, is the game rare or something? I had bought for under $15 last year.
Edit: Also, you can get correct dumps from CD games from the PC Engine Entity HUB on DC++
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Edit: Also, you can get correct dumps from CD games from the PC Engine Entity HUB on DC++
...when it works again, you mean... ;)
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Why, is the game rare or something?
no it isn't. but may be for some people still harder to get than an iso from the net.
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There are good ACD games?
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There are good ACD games?
is this question taken seriously?
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No. FM-77 is kind of a troll, from what I can see.
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FM-77 trolls in jest. Don't take his "trolling" too seriously because unlike a "real" troll, he doesn't believe the stuff he says...he just says it to play devil's advocate. :lol:
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I am pretty much impressed with all the Neo ports except FF2. It was a good port but not as good as the other 3. I'm very pleased with Strider. I like it alot more then the Mega Drive version. Sapphire is a great game and all,but if you take out the special rendered fx/sprites the actual game itself barely competes with Spriggan in alot of areas. Spriggan is still the better shooter.
I'm gonna butt heads with michael on this one... I really liked FF2. I bought it new for $4.99 last year, and it's spent a lot of time in my car for the music!
I played a lot of this one in the arcade when it first came out, and most of the music sounds terrific, with the lone exception being Joe's music.
If you're a fan of FF2 you'll love this port.
If you're not a fan, the difficulty level will probably pwn you.
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I love FF2 for one-player gaming.
For multiplayer FF Special is a must though.
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I love FF2 for one-player gaming.
For multiplayer FF Special is a must though.
I'm totally biased because I played the hell out of FF2 in the arcade but never spent much time with Special.
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I love FF2 for one-player gaming.
For multiplayer FF Special is a must though.
I'm totally biased because I played the hell out of FF2 in the arcade but never spent much time with Special.
I agree with nat, gotta have Special for multiplayer. The boss characters rule.
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I am pretty much impressed with all the Neo ports except FF2. It was a good port but not as good as the other 3. I'm very pleased with Strider. I like it alot more then the Mega Drive version. Sapphire is a great game and all,but if you take out the special rendered fx/sprites the actual game itself barely competes with Spriggan in alot of areas. Spriggan is still the better shooter.
I'm gonna butt heads with michael on this one... I really liked FF2. I bought it new for $4.99 last year, and it's spent a lot of time in my car for the music!
I played a lot of this one in the arcade when it first came out, and most of the music sounds terrific, with the lone exception being Joe's music.
If you're a fan of FF2 you'll love this port.
If you're not a fan, the difficulty level will probably pwn you.
Well its not butting heads,just what you prefer most. The thing is though FF2 doesn't run as smooth and is missing frames compared to the FF Special port,and the load times are not as fast if I remember right. Still,the port of FF 2 on PCE is far better then Genesis and Snes,easily,and still worth nabbing if you can get it for $5-10.00.
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Still,the port of FF 2 on PCE is far better then Genesis and Snes,easily,and still worth nabbing if you can get it for $5-10.00.
That's the best thing about FF2-- it's dirt cheap. I got a sealed copy for free a few years back from a case of 'em that was discovered at Hudson Japan... It doesn't get much cheaper than that.
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FFSpecial PCE does have the upperhand over FF2 PCE, that said... For some reason I prefer the soundtrack for FF2 over FFSpecial. It might be that I owned FF2 PCE for longer the FFSpecial and I'm used to it sounding a certain way. There are just some minor differences in the soundtrack that prevents me from enjoying FFSpecial.
Hmm... Maybe I should attempt to make a FFSpecial disk with the FF2 redbook audio...
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Such feats are amazingly simple when you have such a huge memory pool to utilize. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they look awesome. :D
and also it doesn't change the fact, that such incredible and awesome looking effects where played by a tiny bastard 8-bit hardware made in '87.
Agreed- I was blown away when I played Saphire - "How'd they do that?" kept running through my head. For pure visual candy, I've seen nothing on the PC engine that comes close. Now bring on the "But have you seen X game??" posts...
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FFSpecial PCE does have the upperhand over FF2 PCE, that said... For some reason I prefer the soundtrack for FF2 over FFSpecial. It might be that I owned FF2 PCE for longer the FFSpecial and I'm used to it sounding a certain way. There are just some minor differences in the soundtrack that prevents me from enjoying FFSpecial.
Hmm... Maybe I should attempt to make a FFSpecial disk with the FF2 redbook audio...
In the few minutes I've spent with Special (I do own both ACD ports) I noticed this too. I prefer FF2's music to Special's so far.
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sapphire is indeed awesome and perhaps technically the best acd and because there are so few acd only games (we are talking about acd only games here, right?), it can have the gold medal for overall best. i enjoyed all of the fighting games so much though with world heroes being my nostalgic fave. i was never crazy about the wrestling games even though battlefield features a lot of american wrestlers. the games were technical with tons of options but i never appreciated the depth they offered. graphically, they are not that great and that was disappointing to me. unlike most, i had a gas with mad stalker even though the backgrounds in it just suck. the gameplay of that title is just so cool. as for strider...i was never more determined in my life to beat a game than that one. i was so excited when i did that i video taped it. it pissed me off to no end for the difficulty of the last stage and its sloppy flickering but there was a lot in it to like also. i have a feeling there is little on that disc to warrant the ACD as much of it could already be done on SCD. if you are intersted, i wrote a feature on all of the acd only titles which is still over at hudsonent.com.