Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?

[RyuHayabusa]

lol, why in the name of the devil would the pce not be able to handle the checker board? something even far more inferior systems could handle.

Look at it this way: PCE Space Harrier needs lots of its video RAM for multiple sizes of sprites, bullets, trees, etc.  There may not be enough space for a checkerboard floor.  With the way the game does it now, it just changes colours on different scanlines, which uses no VRAM at all.  With a checkerboard, you'd need a large (256x128 or so) triangular-floor-shaped background and all the tiles to go along with it.  It is not simply a matter of doing scanline effects (that makes for horizontal stripes only, as Space Harrier PCE already does.)

No doubt that you know more about hardware than I do, but doesn't the PC Engine have the same amount of VRAM as the Mega Drive, 64kb?

[ccovell]

Yes, but the Mega Drive can do BG tile flipping (meaning more tile efficiency in RAM), and the PCE can't.  The PCE could indeed have a checkered floor, but at the cost of fewer frames for the enemy scaling, etc.  Which I bet the MD version has -- Space Harrier II was a bit choppy animation-wise.

[spenoza]

As much as I love the PCE, and as much as I'm sure the design made a great deal of sense back when it was designed, technically and financially, I can't help but feel as if the entire system suffers from a preponderance of missed opportunities, so many of them minor.

An extra background layer, more CPU work RAM, lack of BG tile flipping, even an additional audio channel or two or a separate sound CPU to take some of the load off the main CPU. And yet, compared to its contemporaries, it was a much more robust design. Technology was, as it is now, changing rapidly, so there's no way of prognosticating what effect even the most minor of changes would have had on system cost or longevity.

[Arkhan]

It doesn't need any extra audio channels.  That's crazy talk.  6 is plenty. 

[spenoza]

It doesn't need any extra audio channels.  That's crazy talk.  6 is plenty. 

Who said anything about need? Hell, look at the NES. 4 is enough. That doesn't mean more aren't useful.

[Arkhan]

You made it sound like it was a missed opportunity.   That kind of implies that its something they really should have dove for.  I don't think an extra channel or two would have done much, really.

[Black Tiger]

Every console has seemingly "missed opportunities" in design/ support. I can't think of any console which doesn't have people saying "if only" they'd done this or that.

[spenoza]

Every console has seemingly "missed opportunities" in design/ support. I can't think of any console which doesn't have people saying "if only" they'd done this or that.

What it ultimately comes down to is, how low-hanging was the fruit of that missed opportunity? What would have been the short term financial costs vs the long term opportunity costs for those adjustments? The work RAM one just kills me.

[Tatsujin]

Space Harrier II was a bit choppy animation-wise.

Just a bit?

[MottZilla]

As much as I love the PCE, and as much as I'm sure the design made a great deal of sense back when it was designed, technically and financially, I can't help but feel as if the entire system suffers from a preponderance of missed opportunities, so many of them minor.

An extra background layer, more CPU work RAM, lack of BG tile flipping, even an additional audio channel or two or a separate sound CPU to take some of the load off the main CPU. And yet, compared to its contemporaries, it was a much more robust design. Technology was, as it is now, changing rapidly, so there's no way of prognosticating what effect even the most minor of changes would have had on system cost or longevity.

And the SNES could have used a faster CPU, and more Sound chip RAM. And the Genesis could have used more color palettes for more total colors on screen (4 color palettes for everything on screen was pathetic compared to SNES and PC-Engine) as well as maybe a more featured YM chip. So sure the PCE could have used things that came along in the SuperGrafx like a second background layer and much more RAM. But when making these systems they couldn't have everything and ofcourse didn't have a crystal ball. Though we will all probably hold them accountable for a few bits that we think should have been no brainer decisions.

Personally I hold it against Sega for the really stupid 4 color palettes for 64 total colors. It seems like a pretty inexpensive and extremely important thing to add another set of 4. My suggestion has always been for minimal reworking, just have sprites and background have their own four 16 color palettes for a total of 128 colors. It wouldn't have been too much more memory or logic to implement and doubling the amount of colors could have really helped in alot of games. Mortal Kombat is always a good example. With only 4 different color palettes and two of them being assigned to each fighter, you have only 32 colors for everything else, HUD and background as well as blood sprites. Projectiles will use their fighter's colors which looks odd particularly Cage's green force ball ending up a weird gray blob.

It might actually have been best atleast in this fighting game's case to have 8 color palettes for sprites. It may have cost a bit more than the improvement would be worth though. But I'd stay by the initial improvement of giving sprites and backgrounds separate color palettes. Having half of the SNES's color palette count available certainly would have been better than a quarter.

The main thing the PC-Engine seems to lack, I guess it would be handy if it had that 2nd background layer. But when you see games like Lords of Thunder that give that amazing illusion it's hard to really be too mad at them. Though clearly if they'd had a real second layer it would have helped. I'd read somewhere that the PCE basically could either have had VRAM access anytime or a second BG layer and they went with VRAM access anytime. If that's true I think they made the wrong choice as having to abide by typical vblank/vram access rules isn't a huge deal as compared to the benefit of having a second background layer.

The SuperGrafx atleast showed us a bit of what could have been. But the SGX suffered from the PCE's success I think.

[RyuHayabusa]

http://forum.fobby.net/index.php?t=msg&goto=669&#msg_669

Has anyone seen this SGX Strider demo before? This guy claims to have made a Strider demo with a sprite and background ripped from the arcade running at near arcade resolution. Unfortunately it was posted in 2007 and the link and pics no longer work.

[soop]

awww!  someone must have it!

[RyuHayabusa]

awww!  someone must have it!

Now that I think about it, I do recall seeing a pic of it. It was the Strider Hiryu sprite on the first stage sky background, with the lights and stuff. The building and floor that he walks on was not present. I wish someone would continue work on it. Honestly, I think SGX Ghouls N Ghosts could've been improved. For instance, The color of Arthur's face is way too white, not flesh tone like the arcade. Also, it looks like they got lazy with some of the distant background stuff in the beginning of the first stage, plus the little wooden fence thing at the very beginning is missing. Maybe even 8 megs wasn't enough to put in all that detail, who knows. I noticed they cut some corners like where the roots are on the side of the hill right before you fight Shielder, the first level boss. In the arcade there are two distinct designs for the roots but in the SGX version, there's only one and all they did was flip the image in one of the spots to make them look different. I'm a stickler for detail. Still a great port though.

[esteban]

To get back to the heart of this thread: What games are the candidates most in need of "tweaking"?

I wouldn't consider Space Harrier as strong a candidate as something like Impossamole, where the (coldet) collision detection needs some finessing. Or Order of the Griffon, where the music cuts out prematurely at the onset of each melee (battle).

Sadly, Ballistix can never be "fixed" because it is fundamentally a lame game.

No, I'm lying. I would love Space Harrier to be tweaked (if only to include OUI OUI JUMBO as a playable character).

[sunteam_paul]

Shinobi could do with a bigger card to really bring it up to the quality it should have been.