Would Samurai Spirits/Samurai Shodown do well on the Arcade Card?

[Ninja Spirit]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Amakusa's teleporting based on the Neo Geo's special effects which the PCE can't handle?

[spenoza]

I thought the SNES wasn't too bad about sprites, at least in terms of how many can be put on a line. Perhaps you could clarify for me, though.

[Tom]

I thought the SNES wasn't too bad about sprites, at least in terms of how many can be put on a line. Perhaps you could clarify for me, though.

 Technically, it's the best between the three systems - up to 34 sprites (according to Anomie's newest doc) per scanline. But just like the other three systems, there's still a total number of sprite pixels on a scanline, regardless of the size. For a shooter the SNES could really shine for sprites, but for this situation it would be pretty much the same situation as the PCE - you'd hit sprite pixel limit. Snes has a a little higher sprite pixel limit per scanline at 272 VS PCE's 256. If the SNES used a BG layer for one of the characters, then you have no problem. And then of course, you loose a layer for the background. The SNES also has a convoluted sprite memory layout. It can't show as much unique sprite tiles as the PCE can per screen (without a limiting trick). Heh - everything about the SNES's graphic processors is convoluted.

[nat]

For me, the real roadblock for the SNES re: shooters is the speed. The f*ckin' thing slows down at the drop of a hat. Probably the main reason Space Megaforce plods along at a snail's pace.

[nodtveidt]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Amakusa's teleporting based on the Neo Geo's special effects which the PCE can't handle?

I don't recall the Neo Geo even having any real special effects aside from scaling down. Amakusa's teleport is easily achieved through proper use of sprites.

[spenoza]

I thought even the Neo Geo's scaling was all software and no hardware.

[ccovell]

Scaling is indeed done in hardware on the Neo-Geo.  Sprites can be scaled (shrunken) vertically and horizontally (but almost the entire display on Neo-Geo is a crapload of large, linked sprites, so it's not much of a limitation that the BG can't be scaled).  The only limitation is that while sprites can be scaled vertically in 256 steps, they can be scaled horizontally in only 16 steps.

[Joe Redifer]

How does that compare to, say, the scaling function on a regular System-16 board?

[spenoza]

The only limitation is that while sprites can be scaled vertically in 256 steps, they can be scaled horizontally in only 16 steps.

That's a really odd limitation. I wonder what the origins of that limitation are.

[Joe Redifer]

Game consoles of that era were always quite weird when it came to horizontal space.  For example, it is easy as pie to line scroll every line left and right, but try to do it vertically and you are restricted to huge, giant 8 block wide chunks.  I blame Japan.  Maybe we nuked them a bit too hard.