Just played Lords Of Thunder for the sega cd ...

[SignOfZeta]

The best games are usually built around a specific piece of hardware and don't port very well. The Genesis can't do Star Wars (arcade). Not because it lacks CPU or anything, but because SW uses vector graphics and nothing that does raster graphics at 240 lines can pull this off. You need at least a Dreamcast to approximate SW, Battlezone, Asteroids, etc.

Gunstar would f*cking destroy a SNES if it was ported as-is. However, games like Scrambled Valkyrie or Yoshi's Island ported to Genesis would be about as pathetic as Ikari Warriors for NES.

All this is a bunch of fanboi BS. Different systems are different. That's why they are worth owning.

[EvilEvoIX]

I do suspect that the PCE would choke a bit on the particular activity in Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier, but I also think it could do something similar enough. Look at all the crap flying around in shooters like Lords of Thunder. There's not a huge difference between a dozen independent enemies and a boss made of a dozen jointed parts.

It certainly would do a better job than the SNES and the colors on screen would make it look really interesting.  They always do PCE games always "pop", always did.

[Shadow]

Sonic 1 is my favorite Sonic

[Tatsujin]

Sonic 1 is my favorite Sonic

do you agree with me shady, or not?

[EvilEvoIX]

The best games are usually built around a specific piece of hardware and don't port very well. The Genesis can't do Star Wars (arcade). Not because it lacks CPU or anything, but because SW uses vector graphics and nothing that does raster graphics at 240 lines can pull this off. You need at least a Dreamcast to approximate SW, Battlezone, Asteroids, etc.

Gunstar would f*cking destroy a SNES if it was ported as-is. However, games like Scrambled Valkyrie or Yoshi's Island ported to Genesis would be about as pathetic as Ikari Warriors for NES.

All this is a bunch of fanboi BS. Different systems are different. That's why they are worth owning.

Yoshi's Island has a Super FX Chip.  The Mega Drive would need the SVP chip and then could do anything the Yoshi Island cart can do but color.  The SNES uses more of a sampled sound arrangement as well.  It has a keyboard basically and you plug in the notes so you get a clean sampled sound.  The Megadrive literally is a synthesizer so it needs more care with sound.

Scrambled Valkyrie is really clever is that it takes advantage of the SNES's 4 layers of background/foreground moving so it looks like a ton of shit on screen when there CPU is being taxed only a certain amount.  The Megadrive as we know can only handle three but the CPU should be able to create an additional layer of sprites just like the PCE does to make a moving background.

[SignOfZeta]

You missed the point. It doesn't matter why which system did what. They're all dead now. All that matters is that this was a great era for games and there is a ton of cool stuff on all of these machines.

Also, the Neo kicks them all to the curb so these arguments are meaningless.

[Black Tiger]

The best games are usually built around a specific piece of hardware and don't port very well. The Genesis can't do Star Wars (arcade). Not because it lacks CPU or anything, but because SW uses vector graphics and nothing that does raster graphics at 240 lines can pull this off. You need at least a Dreamcast to approximate SW, Battlezone, Asteroids, etc.

Gunstar would f*cking destroy a SNES if it was ported as-is. However, games like Scrambled Valkyrie or Yoshi's Island ported to Genesis would be about as pathetic as Ikari Warriors for NES.

All this is a bunch of fanboi BS. Different systems are different. That's why they are worth owning.

Yoshi's Island has a Super FX Chip.  The Mega Drive would need the SVP chip and then could do anything the Yoshi Island cart can do but color.  The SNES uses more of a sampled sound arrangement as well.  It has a keyboard basically and you plug in the notes so you get a clean sampled sound.  The Megadrive literally is a synthesizer so it needs more care with sound.

Scrambled Valkyrie is really clever is that it takes advantage of the SNES's 4 layers of background/foreground moving so it looks like a ton of shit on screen when there CPU is being taxed only a certain amount.  The Megadrive as we know can only handle three but the CPU should be able to create an additional layer of sprites just like the PCE does to make a moving background.

SNES run 'n guns already show how you could drop the Gunstar Heroes theme in and have a nice enough game. For anything you might lose there's lots to gain, especially if technical tricks were to still be spammed. The Genesis version has noticeable swatches of missing color in most scenes that could be majorly upgraded. Even the Game Gear version still fills the screen with sprites, has the huge sprite jumble bosses and multi-directional two layer parallax that is "technically impossible" for PC Engine.

It's true that the SNES couldn't handle a port of Yoshi's Island either. I'm sure that the Genesis would do a better job and the art style suits its color limitations.

There aren't any parts of Macross SV that require 4 tile layers, for the most part the parallax is all stuff that has been done on PCE with only a single tile layer. The only things that would be downgraded in a Genesis port would be color/detail and transparency effects. Otherwise the onscreen sprites could probably be doubled as it's a pretty low action game by SFC standards.

[SignOfZeta]

It's true that the SNES couldn't handle a port of Yoshi's Island either.

That sentence makes zero sense to me for some reason.

[EvilEvoIX]

You missed the point. It doesn't matter why which system did what. They're all dead now. All that matters is that this was a great era for games and there is a ton of cool stuff on all of these machines.

Also, the Neo kicks them all to the curb so these arguments are meaningless.

This is why I've owned my neo 4 10 years now and have had 2 cabs.  The Neo rules.  I feel the 16-32bit era is the best.

[EvilEvoIX]

It's true that the SNES couldn't handle a port of Yoshi's Island either.

That sentence makes zero sense to me for some reason.

MANY SNES games required additional hardware to run their games.  The most notable being the SUPER FX chip.  Games like Mario Kart needed help with the mode 7 effects and so many other games required helper chips to keep the burden off a relatively weak 16-Bit processor.  The MEGADRIVE in comparison is based off arcade hardware and only one game, Virtua Racing, used upgrades.  This is why I respect the PCE and MEGADRIVE much more than the SNES.  I mean look at what could be done with all these simple hardware upgrades. 

[SignOfZeta]

...WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

The system requirements to run Yoshi's Island are the same as the ones needed to run Home Alone: a cartridge with the game on it. It doesn't matter one bit to me if Nintendo "cheated" by adding a $2 chip to the game cart. It still runs on my SNES.

You fanboys are friggn ridiculous.

...to say that Yoshi's Island can't run on the only system it actually ran on (before the slightly inferior portable ones released a decade later) is...crazy. You guys are nuts.

[EvilEvoIX]

...WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

The system requirements to run Yoshi's Island are the same as the ones needed to run Home Alone: a cartridge with the game on it. It doesn't matter one bit to me if Nintendo "cheated" by adding a $2 chip to the game cart. It still runs on my SNES.

You fanboys are friggn ridiculous.

...to say that Yoshi's Island can't run on the only system it actually ran on (before the slightly inferior portable ones released a decade later) is...crazy. You guys are nuts.

It's just interesting to have this level of performance and competition.  Back then each system was do different and unique in the way it did games.  Today all systems are basically the same there is no variety.

[Tatsujin]

ah, it's much better now.

[Black Tiger]

...WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

The system requirements to run Yoshi's Island are the same as the ones needed to run Home Alone: a cartridge with the game on it. It doesn't matter one bit to me if Nintendo "cheated" by adding a $2 chip to the game cart. It still runs on my SNES.

You fanboys are friggn ridiculous.

...to say that Yoshi's Island can't run on the only system it actually ran on (before the slightly inferior portable ones released a decade later) is...crazy. You guys are nuts.

Your hyper sensitivity to anything you consider critical of the SNES is getting the best of you again. Although you claim to not care about this stuff, you've once again resorted to yelling and swearing when it is suggested that competing consoles could approach what the SNES has done. At the same time you call people pointing out an indisputable technical fact "friggin ridiculous" "fanboys".

The SNES runs most SNES games at 2.66 MHz.
The Sega/Mega-CD CPU runs at 12.5 MHz (you made a big deal of this earlier).
The SFX2 chip runs Yoshi's Island at 21 MHz.

The extra hardware that Yoshi's Island requires to run on the SNES isn't something minimal like the mappers most NES games use or compression chip to increase cart space. It's a full on CPU. But it's not even a huge 150% speed increase like the Sega/Mega-CD... it's 8 times faster than what the SNES runs most games at.

Sure the Retrogen is just a tiny pass through strip that could fit inside a single cart along with a Genesis game PCB. But the SNES isn't really running the Genesis games and couldn't even if they were reformatted like a PCE CD to HuCard conversion.


12.5 MHz Sega-CD = "really damned powerful... The PCE is a much slower machine and the CDROM2 doesn't add anywhere near as much power to the PCE as the MCD does to the MD"

21 MHz SFX2 = "a $2 chip"


Back to the original point, there is nothing special about Yoshi's Island that distinguishes it from other SNES games in any way which would make it impossible to port to Sega Genesis. Except the extra hardware. That is why it is a poor example. Sure you could super charge the Genesis with a SFX2, but again that would remove the only thing unique that makes it more difficult to adapt to Genesis compared to regular SNES games.

[SignOfZeta]

Yoshi's Island isn't a "poor example" of what the SNES can do. Its the BEST example of what the SNES can do. Its the fanciest most SNES-erific game on the SNES. The Genesis is about as capable of running Yoshi's Island as it is of running Windows 7 and any port of it would be as embarrassing as the SNES port of Art of Fighting.

Sure, it needed an extra chip to do it, but in practical use that's beyond irrelevant. You put the game in and it runs. Its a SNES game. It won't fit in a Genesis. Who f*cking cares of that cart has a coprocessor in it or not? Who cares if its black magic, or a tiny cockroach on a treadmill or analog tape player with the soundtrack on it? It only matters to you, and you don't like the SNES or Yoshi's Island. The only reason you even know the FX is there is because you read it somewhere, and that kind of trivial bullshit is evidently all you care about.

These systems are all different. They all have different strengths and flaws. This isn't a bad thing, its a TERRIFIC thing. Its okay that the MD cannot do YI because the SNES can't do The Adventures of Batman and Robbin, the Neo Geo can't do Super Mario Kart, and the Genesis can't do Samurai Showdown.

And when I say "can't" I mean. Never ever ever will. Tech demos and stats are f*cking useless they made it into a period retail game because nobody is going to program top shelf games for these systems again. All the great stuff that will ever be made for the 16-bit stuff has already been made and that's what defines the system; the actual experience of actually playing it.