Really, the SNES and Genesis have at least 2 1/2 times more platformers each than the TG16 does. Probably more than that, but that much for sure. I'm sure a list of good SNES or Genesis+SCD+32X platformers would be at least 2 1/2 times as long as a list of good TG16+CD platformers, simply because of the vast gulf in number of releases.
it's true that SNES/MD had more often standard parallax, but also many PCE games have it, as well platfromers. here again, Drac X is one of the parade example of how awesome parallax can look on the PCE.
Many? Some, sure, but I don't know about many. Most platformers do not.
yeah platformers too.
But arcade platformers were relatively uncommon. The genre usually doesn't work well in arcades because of game and level length, so arcade platformers often end up being short and shooting-focused I think. I mean, I know that there are some here and there, including Strider, Ninja Spirit, Legend of Hero Tonma, Chiki Chiki Boys, Toki, and more, but not very many at all compared to the huge numbers of platformers released on the third and fourth console generations. Most platformers were console exclusive games, because you need to play platformers for a longer amount of time and that doesn't work in an arcade because arcade games must be getting a steady quarter burn rate.
Nintendo won the NES and SNES generations mostly because of their name and fame from the FC/NES era. there was almost only nintendo after the 1st video game crash. that's whey it made his big name in the industry.
That isn't true at all in Japan; there wasn't really a crash there because there hadn't been much of a videogame industry pre-crash in Japan. Nintendo won in Japan because they had the best hardware -- in 1983-84 the Famicom was worlds better than the SG-1000 and Super Cassette Vision -- and the best software, too. The Famicom dominated Japanese gaming from '84 to '87. It was the resulting wealth of great Japanese games that sold the NES in the West, combined with some clever marketing from Nintendo, such as using R.O.B. to get the system in toy stores at a time after the crash when stores mostly thought that videogames were a dead fad. Even after that, and with Super Mario Bros. available at launch in 1985, the NES took a while to really take off in the US and wasn't a huge hit until 1987, the year the system started to fade a bit in Japan. (The system's peak here was '87 to '90.)
As for the SNES, they did use the fame they'd made with the NES to make it a success, yes, much like Sony did with the PS2, but being successful the previous generation doesn't guarantee you success, as Sony and Nintendo would both later learn... the SNES also had fairly good hardware design, a good price, good Nintendo marketing, and a great first-party library. They won the generation because of a lot of factors, but essentially they made no major mistakes and had good hardware.
and nintendo is/was also a far bigger company in general.
Huh... what?? No! NEC is a far larger company than Nintendo and always has been. They just weren't that good at leveraging that, and were incredibly abysmal at it in the US. Nintendo is bigger than Hudson, but NEC built the systems, not Hudson.
after the PCE was released it skyrocket even above the FC until the SFC came out over 3 years later! if that doesn't say a lot about the high quailty for an absolute newcomer in the console hardware manufacturer.
Sure, the PCE was definitely successful in Japan in the late '80s. It was the first next-gen system and clearly beat the NES graphically, and I presume that NEC actually marketed it competently there, unlike here.
and most of the fails were anyway results of terrible marketing, rather than the actual game lineup -> see TG16 in USoA.
That's for sure. I think that the TG16 would have almost inevitably fell back to third place after Sonic launched, but the system should have been successful in the time before Sonic launched in summer '91. Before Sonic, even as it is the TG16 probably had a better overall library than the Genesis, but somehow Sega sold more systems anyway... NEC messed things up badly there. NEC definitely had a better 1989 library by a good margin, and maybe 1990 too though that's closer.
NEC should have released the TG16 in the US in 1988, not 1989, and marketed it much better. Releasing first and with competent marketing and distribution would have made a huge difference. I still think Sonic would have been a huge hit and would have lifted Sega up, and Nintendo was going to do well of course, but with a stronger start the TG16/CD would have done a lot better than it did. Oh yeah, and stupid NEC, release the thing in Europe! It'd have done well, I think.
but R-Type sure was also one of the best selling games on the PCE. so that doesn't really mean nothing at all.
I'm sure it was, but despite that Irem made the next two R-Type games SNES-exclusive on consoles. (Well, R-Type Complete CD released, but that was just a combined port, not a new game.) But Image Fight did get a PCE sequel.
The PCE was more directed to an adult audience, in contrast to nintendo, hence arcade ports, at least in japan, where a big deal back then.
Ports of arcade platformers, important? I guess I can sort of see that in the late '80s, but not past that, no.
not at all, but since these sure were popular adult genres in japan, yeah they kinda pushed it more than probably nintendo and sega (see post above, regarding adult audience). also the CD media helped here a lot.
That's true, but they also allowed more adult content than even Sega -- I mean, the Sega CD existed, but neither it nor the Saturn or PS1 allowed as much nudity and stuff as NEC did on the TCD and PC-FX. You're right, they were clearly aiming at an older male gamer audience. As they saw with PC-FX sales, though, that audience isn't big enough to maintain a platform all on its own. You also see this with the Dreamcast, which sold great with that audience but very badly otherwise in Japan, which led to its general failure there outside of the hardcore. But sure, on the PCE/CD, aiming at that audience helped them. They went wrong when in the next generation they decided to have ONLY that stuff, instead of the better -- not perfect, but better -- balance that the PCE has.
but these games do not really show the strength of the system. in contrarz\y, the SFC got lietarlly 100erds of cheap pachi-slot games, which are far worth than most of the PCE adult centric titles. but does this mean that the SFC is incontestably the best console that generation for pachi games?
What do you mean, "far worth than most of the PCE adult centric titles"? I don't know what you mean. But sure, yeah, the SFC certainly is best for pachislot.
I wasn't even thinking of the Genesis when i made that post that bad it was represented in this segment, tho the MCD changed this a bit to the better. but RPGs was truly one of the strongest genre on the PCE and thanks to the use of CD media, as you're saying yourself, and it even revolutioned it in a way, the SNES could never do it due to be limited ot cartridge space only. i admit, that the later SNES RPGs look nice, but the PCE isn't really that much behind that level, and as mentioned it had quite few other quality aspects important in RPGs the SNES had not.
Which the really winner in this genre is, i can't say for sure. i also think this can only be answered by those who played them both and all of em, as well understood them.
Nintendo had Square and Enix, the two behemoths of the genre. They won RPGs. The TG16/CD had a good library of RPGs, but Falcom aside didn't have stuff from the biggest names, and it shows. Remember how Dragon Quest was (and still is?) the best selling series in Japan, and that series was NES and SNES exclusive up until DQ7 followed FF7 to the PS1. Final Fantasy was surely the second best selling and most popular RPG series, and it was also Nintendo-only of course.
I mean, yeah, the PCE has lots of RPGs, many of which are surely good and under-appreciated particularly by Western audiences... but without the two publishers who were the most popular and most highly regarded at the time, they can't be considered to have won the genre overall. The system does have a good RPG library for sure, though, no question.
(Note - I'm not saying this as a big fan of Square or Enix. I'm not that. They just were the most important RPG developers.)
that's right, but i have also to say that only a few of that mountains of platformers are really good ones. i think the PCE is for shooters what the MD is for platformers.
What do you mean? The Genesis+CD+32X does have a lot of good platformers, but the SNES has just as many... the 3rd and 4th generations were the great age of platformers and both systems have lots of great ones. The TG16+CD has a fair number too, though as I've said the TCD has many fewer than it should considering how many games were released for the platform. Oh well.
i think most of the sonic platfromers are in general quality games, but after sonic 1 the big aha experience was gone, and all its successors were just kinda updates with a lopt of repeating elements with few new characters added. for me sonic was never the same again as the first sonic was.
It's true that the experience wasn't as new after the first one, but Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles are such great games that that doesn't matter all that much. They take the first games' basic idea and improve on it in many ways. Sonic CD is pretty good too, though unique in some ways. My overall favorite is 3 & Knuckles, I think, though all four (counting 3&K as one game) are great.
what is the definition of looking next-gen in your opinion anyway? beside of nicer colors, better acoustics and parallax, SMW didn't do anything different than SMB 3 already did. so most if not every PCE platformer does this as well, beside of your ever so important point of some missing parallaxes here and there. in that term f.e. a chiki chiki boy, when not being the greatest game ever, looks much more next-gen than a SMW or many of the other released platformers on the SNES.
i think the significant improvement in SMW was only in the technical department, thus grafx, colors, parallax..hell it even had a few slow downs here and there.
Well, the SNES's main advantages over the NES were better graphics, more colors, bigger sprites, parallax scrolling, transparencies, Mode 7, and the like, so yeah, the biggest improvements were visual... but for something like Mario, those visual improvements did lead to better gameplay too I would say. It did have some slowdown, but it was a launch title even in Japan; they hadn't optimized SNES development yet. Later SNES games would reduce slowdown versus the earlier ones. A faster CPU would also have helped, of course, but they didn't have that.
Also, you're right that Chiki Chiki Boys looks pretty nice, apart from not having parallax. It looks like it plays more like something like Joe & Mac than Mario, though, so gameplay-wise it's not the same thing. That gets back to the point I made earlier about arcade-style versus console sidescrollers.
sonic was something different right, but closer viewed it is a quite simple game regarding level design and grafx. lots of repeatly used tiles and elements. it was fast, but that's all it was.
That's true, in terms of graphical variety, scale, and design Sonic is a shorter, smaller, and simpler game than Mario World, no question. Sega's arcade focus shows, even in console exclusives like Sonic.
