Author Topic: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?  (Read 1258 times)

Black Tiger

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #30 on: July 18, 2012, 02:31:37 PM »

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).




Altered Beast had its controls tweaked by Tom.

Strider and Golden Axe would benefit most from 60fps scrolling.

Backup saving being implemented for games that only support passwords.

Shapeshifter would be easier for some people to get into if the controls were tweaked.

Bonk's spin in Revenge and Big Adventure could be tweaked back to Adventure-style.

Regional differences could be merged, so that the titles such as the Bonk games use the original graphics.

Tom proved how well the PCE handles extreme speed boosts in SFII'. A balanced boost to the factors that would result in the equivalent of Turbo speeds for the game would be cool. Even if you have to load a different rom for a different speed.

Infinite or increased credits for arcade ports would broaden the appeal of many games.
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RyuHayabusa

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #31 on: July 18, 2012, 03:17:55 PM »
Shinobi could do with a bigger card to really bring it up to the quality it should have been.
Definitely. Add in the missing stages, the close-up attacks, and maybe fix the colors a bit. They're a little too dark. It's already a good port but could've been even better.

Tatsujin

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #32 on: July 18, 2012, 04:27:20 PM »
Yeah, a "complete" shinobi would have been the ubergreat. It would have been instantly one of the best hueys released.
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spenoza

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #33 on: July 18, 2012, 06:16:12 PM »
OK, I've been searching around for the thread that mentions Tom's tweaks to the Altered Beast controls and I can't find it. I want to look into it, now that I have gameofyou's flash HuCard.
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soop

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #34 on: July 18, 2012, 10:01:06 PM »
Shinobi could do with a bigger card to really bring it up to the quality it should have been.

Yeah, it's missing an entire level and powerups.  That said, I do like the game, it's quite faithful otherwise.

Black Tiger

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #35 on: July 19, 2012, 04:38:21 AM »
Such a major overhaul of Shinobi wouldn't be worth a tack-on for the HuCard version. It would be better to just do a pixel-for-pixel port of the arcade, ideally on CD.
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soop

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #36 on: July 19, 2012, 04:43:58 AM »
Such a major overhaul of Shinobi wouldn't be worth a tack-on for the HuCard version. It would be better to just do a pixel-for-pixel port of the arcade, ideally on CD.

NOOOOO!1! I want HuCards.  I don't want loading times, I want Shinobi NAO

SamIAm

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #37 on: July 19, 2012, 08:37:09 AM »
Maybe the most interesting question is: Are there any games that could be vastly improved by simply altering a very small number of bytes in the ROM/CD image? You know, like a game genie code would do.

The amount of effort it takes to pull off improvements rises exponentially with the complexity of the task, and some of the tasks mentioned so far are very, very complex. I'm not saying don't dream, but something is waaaay more likely to materialize if a lot of people get behind something very simple.

Necromancer

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #38 on: July 19, 2012, 08:44:42 AM »
Maybe the most interesting question is: Are there any games that could be vastly improved by simply altering a very small number of bytes in the ROM/CD image?

I don't know about a 'vast' improvement, but it'd be a lot easier to unlock all the bosses in Godzilla if the points needed or points awarded were adjusted.  I wanna pick from all of 'em in vs. mode, dang it!
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Black Tiger

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #39 on: July 19, 2012, 09:10:57 AM »
Such a major overhaul of Shinobi wouldn't be worth a tack-on for the HuCard version. It would be better to just do a pixel-for-pixel port of the arcade, ideally on CD.

NOOOOO!1! I want HuCards.  I don't want loading times, I want Shinobi NAO

A full no-cuts "arcade perfect" PCE port of Shinobi would fit within a single load space of an Arcade Card CD.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 09:13:26 AM by Black Tiger »
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RyuHayabusa

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #40 on: July 20, 2012, 10:25:12 AM »
Of course, perhaps the number one candidate for being improved has to be Golden Axe. What a lump of shit. The Master System port looks considerably better so surely it could be improved dramatically. I'd love to see someone program a demo just with some character sprites and a background to show what could've been done had Renovation not been drinking too much sake during development.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2012, 10:26:59 AM by RyuHayabusa »

esteban

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #41 on: July 20, 2012, 04:37:30 PM »

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).




Altered Beast had its controls tweaked by Tom.

Strider and Golden Axe would benefit most from 60fps scrolling.

Backup saving being implemented for games that only support passwords.

Shapeshifter would be easier for some people to get into if the controls were tweaked.

Bonk's spin in Revenge and Big Adventure could be tweaked back to Adventure-style.

Regional differences could be merged, so that the titles such as the Bonk games use the original graphics.

Tom proved how well the PCE handles extreme speed boosts in SFII'. A balanced boost to the factors that would result in the equivalent of Turbo speeds for the game would be cool. Even if you have to load a different rom for a different speed.

Infinite or increased credits for arcade ports would broaden the appeal of many games.



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MottZilla

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #42 on: July 21, 2012, 06:20:31 AM »
Maybe the most interesting question is: Are there any games that could be vastly improved by simply altering a very small number of bytes in the ROM/CD image? You know, like a game genie code would do.

The amount of effort it takes to pull off improvements rises exponentially with the complexity of the task, and some of the tasks mentioned so far are very, very complex. I'm not saying don't dream, but something is waaaay more likely to materialize if a lot of people get behind something very simple.

Simple things like better looking palettes or infinite continues or other stat adjustments certainly could be done. People do such things to games on other platforms like NES. Adjustments to fix bugs or unfair elements. PCE is no different. Though what I'd like to see for PCE is a translation of Langrisser.

soop

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Re: Could disappointing ports be improved upon now?
« Reply #43 on: July 22, 2012, 11:47:04 PM »
Of course, perhaps the number one candidate for being improved has to be Golden Axe. What a lump of shit. The Master System port looks considerably better so surely it could be improved dramatically. I'd love to see someone program a demo just with some character sprites and a background to show what could've been done had Renovation not been drinking too much sake during development.

that's not really a tweak though - you'd have to completely rewrite it from the ground up