Rondo of Blood Thread

[lukester]

I will admit then when I first got Rondo back in the day I was initially disappointed.

The slideshow intro, the encounter with death, and initial stage before entering the castle seemed a little lackluster for all the hype the game was getting...

Of course, the changed as soon as I entered the castle...

so when was that "back in the day" of yours?

the slideshow intro, the encounter with death, and initial stage (prologe) before entering the castle  was and still is something of the coolest and most stylish a game ever showed in the whole 90s. how can one get disappointed of a show from that great calibre?

Probably lack of 8 way whip from Super Castlevania IV, even though Rondo has an awesome backflip move.

How I view the 16-bit Castlevanias.

Rondo>Bloodlines>Super IV.

[Tatsujin]

How I view the 16-bit Castlevanias.

Rondo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>Super IV.

agreed

[lukester]

How I view the 16-bit Castlevanias.

Rondo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>Super IV.

agreed

Nah, how about a compromise?

Rondo>>>>>Bloodlines>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Super IV.

[Tatsujin]

How I view the 16-bit Castlevanias.

Rondo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>Super IV.

agreed

Nah, how about a compromise?

Rondo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>>>>>Super IV.

ok

[awack]

Back in 1999 I had a lot of what many would consider the best games for the Genesis and SNES, a few hucards and cd some imports for the pcengine, then one day that year I saw one of my friends playing SOTN, I said to myself holy doodoo, the special fx were amazing....I started collecting games again, Gensis, SNES and pcengine games,  obviously nothing had the flair of SOTN, then I soon found out about Rondo, I thought to myself that its not going to have any of that flair or flash of SOTN, because no snes, pce or genesis game had, had
 those kinda animated fx, boy, was I wrong, I couldn't believe it, it had retained dozens of animated special fx.

Then I learned about the snes port and thought, well lets see how this stuff turned out on that system, and of course it was neutered, the snes just couldn't reproduce those animations, nor could the GBA, it wouldn't be until the Nintendo DS that we would see the same quality of animation,.

Its pretty close to being an objective fact that Rondo has the best animated fx between the three major 16bit systems, (enemy burst into flame fx, dracs orb attack, dracs fire attack, shafts lightning,etc, etc, etc) I believe this because other systems(gen,snes) tried and failed at trying to reproduce these fx(at least the snes) and most importantly, what other game has its special fx animations still being used pixel for pixel in games to this day.

So if some one ask you what your favorite system is and you say the pcengine, and they ask what so great about the pcengine, tell them that it produced the best special fx of its generation.

[lukester]

Speaking of Dracula x, how is the cart over $100? Everyone knows it isn't as good as rondo.

Snes gouging sucks.

Pc engine is my favorite. Just bc all the arcade ports and unique action games.

Pce does have nice special fx, like all the shooties. But no scaling and rotation.

EDIT: Forgot about the warping and disintegration effects.

[Black Tiger]

Speaking of Dracula x, how is the cart over $100? Everyone knows it isn't as good as rondo.

Snes gouging sucks.

Collectible prices aren't based on quality, they're based on collectibility.

Pc engine is my favorite. Just bc all the arcade ports and unique action games.

Pce does have nice special fx, like all the shooties. But no scaling and rotation.

EDIT: Forgot about the warping and disintegration effects.

That would be a pro, but unfortunately PCE games do feature lots of scaling, rotation, 3D, morphing, transparencies, etc (Rondo of Blood features impossible-with-Mode 7 scaling and rotating sprites for example).

[jperryss]

That would be a pro, but unfortunately PCE games do feature lots of scaling, rotation, 3D, morphing, transparencies, etc (Rondo of Blood features impossible-with-Mode 7 scaling and rotating sprites for example).

Where? Honest (and possibly dumb) question.

[Otaking]

How I view the 16-bit Castlevanias.

Rondo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>Super IV.

agreed

Nah, how about a compromise?

Rondo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>>>>>Super IV.

ok

Fixed for truth

Rondo>>>>Super IV>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>Dracula XX
 

[Black Tiger]

That would be a pro, but unfortunately PCE games do feature lots of scaling, rotation, 3D, morphing, transparencies, etc (Rondo of Blood features impossible-with-Mode 7 scaling and rotating sprites for example).

Where? Honest (and possibly dumb) question.

Death boss fight.

[spenoza]

See, if you just draw the rotated and scaled frames individually, that's not actually scaling and rotation. That's like the "3D" in Sapphire. Sure, it looks good and qualifies as solid animation, but scaling and rotation is something that is calculated on-the-fly.

[lukester]

See, if you just draw the rotated and scaled frames individually, that's not actually scaling and rotation. That's like the "3D" in Sapphire. Sure, it looks good and qualifies as solid animation, but scaling and rotation is something that is calculated on-the-fly.

Like Jigoku Meguri?

There are these weird rolling head enemies. In the arcade, they actually rotate, but the PCE version has a few "rolling" frames of animation, so it is choppier.

[Black Tiger]

See, if you just draw the rotated and scaled frames individually, that's not actually scaling and rotation. That's like the "3D" in Sapphire. Sure, it looks good and qualifies as solid animation, but scaling and rotation is something that is calculated on-the-fly.

Scaling and rotation are literally scaling and rotation. Real-time/hardware rendered versions of misc effects are "real-time" or "hardware rendered", but no more "scaling" or "rotating". The fact that most SNES fanboys count lots of pre-rendered and non-S/R (see Axelay) effects as "Mode 7" rendered, only drives the point home further. The Genesis has hardware support for real-time transparencies, but you rarely hear retro game fans acknowledge it as such because of this kind of semantics (which tend to be based around a SNES fanboy perspective).

Hardware rendered effects aren't perfectly smooth either, they can be incredibly choppy or silky smooth. The fact that they are or aren't rendered in real-time is independent from the fact that they are scaling/rotating effects.

The SNES is extremely limited or specific in its S/R ability. It can only S/R a single tile layer within specific conditions. It can't do multiple objects or sprites. It hurt game design more often than aided it as developers abused it as filler or designed sections around a checklist of hardware rendered effects instead of designing good stages and then looked to see if the hardware could assist their ideas. The kind of 3D floor effect seen in Super Mario Kart was a genuine new kind of (short lived) gameplay and the best use of "Mode 7", but it isn't simply a hardware-rendered real-time scaling/rotation effect. It also uses raster (and line scrolling/h-sync?) effects. Unfortunately, this effects combo was also abused for filler more than for gameplay.

If you're using scaling and/or rotation completely as a simple visual effect, like Bowser blowing up big in Super Mario World, does it matter if it's an equal number of framers and clarity on a hardware-supported console or pre-rendered on another? Or if it's half the frames with double the clarity when pre-rendered? What would be the difference if you found out tomorrow that the GoT 4-in-1's Super CD screen scaling and rotation was actually rendered by a previously undocumented hardware feature of the PCE CD-ROM?

Mode 7 and any other hardware rendered real-time effects aren't actually a legion of tiny gnomes living in your picture box carrying around a large picture and moving it closer to your eyes and tilting it for you either. It's only rendering frames of animation, often cobbled together from swatches of artwork. Same with so-called "real parallax" which is rendered using multiple tile layers.  It's only real or not in your mind and those tile layers aren't giant paintings like multiplane camera effects in animated films (which still repeat a single background image if it continues long enough). They're an illusion of a piece of artwork which is actually tiled together from swatches of graphics and is all only rendering frames of animation which flash across your TV screen.

[roflmao]

I kinda agree with BT here, but having hardware capable of doing s/r does seem pretty cool. 

What about Star Parodier?  After you beat a boss, a lot of times they zoom into the screen.  Is that proper hardware scaling (as I always imagined it to be) or is that pre-rendered sprites?  Howabout the Gates of Thunder disc?  They are definitely showing off scaling and rotation when you start it up.  Is that all pre-rendered?  I honestly don't know and am now curious.

[Tatsujin]

S/R can be even accomplished on a c64 (few cool demos showed it), it's all about programing techniques and how it can be dispalyed in a simple way.
as BT stated, the SFC/SNES could only S/R one tile or BG plane at once, made it completely incapable to reproduce stuff like for example the super scaler games from sega like space harrier etc.

you can even see that in F-Zero or Mario Kart, that they used the mode-7 for the street/flat environment (playfield) and had to sprite animate all the other objects like drivers, osbtacles, weapons etc. since the SFC is to weak to S/R everything. I would call it even weaker than the MD and PCE in that matter.

now look at stuff like on the x68k, which can reproduce almost 1:1 sega arcade supersaclaer stuff like the super hang on and thunder blade, with all the simultaneous S/R of any objects/sprites/BGs/tiles onscreen, even the x68k has absolutely no hardware S/R ability, its calculating speed was that high that it just could manage such tasks on the fly.