Turbo facts

[VenomMacbeth]

Even so, they managed to pull off some fantastic parallax (I'm guessing with tile animation?)  Go look up Dead Moon & Terraforming if you doubt me.

That's one of the classic myths about how "real" parallax works. Thr SNES and Genesis do that kind of parallax the exact same way as the PC Engine typically does and in forums, video comments, etc the fans of those other consoles tend to be most impressed by this kind.

Could you explain this more in-depth?  Are you saying the SNES & Genny use dynamic tiles more often than separate scrolling background layers?

That does make sense; with the exception of occasional clouds, usually the parallax effect is used on the ground.  It seems silly to use an entire background later for a graphic that only takes up about an 8th of the screen, if that.

[Black Tiger]

Sliding strips of a tile layer and usually done just by literally sliding strips of the tile layer along at different speeds. Raster(?) effects like the swirly lava/firey bg in TFIII and the floors in SFII are also just sliding strips back and forth, but in strips as narrow as a single pixel/line.

Dynamic tiles are usually used in single-tile-layer hardware for the kinds of parallax that would usually involve two overlapping tile layers. But even some Genesis and likely SNES games use dynamic tiles to get extra layering.

There are other tricks as well. Tom wrote a text with a ascii art diagram making it easy to understand how the "invisible" color from the PCE tile palettes is esentially a third layer and can be incorporated for different types of parallax/layering.

The PCE can also change the color of each line of that furthest background color as each line of each frame is drawn(?). So you can create what looks identical to an independent scrolling tile layer of a color gradiant (which SNES games soam too often as it is). The first stage of the Turbo Magical Chase is a good example of that.

Something else the PCE can do is vertically slide horizontal strips of the tile layer. Again, it is used for all kinds of parallax and can create the illusion of many overlapping tile layers.

[VenomMacbeth]

Ahh, that clarified it even more.  I knew about the line scrolling effects, but I guess I didn't make the connection that the same technique could be used on a line of tiles.

Regarding dynamic tiles, would Sagaia or Choplifter on the SMS happen to use this effect?  Both have excellent parallax, but Sagaia even has the raster effects you mentioned.  I think Recca on the FC does the same thing. 

I just assumed that since those consoles ran on an 8-bit processor, the PCE used the same techniques.  I guess the dual grafx processors make overlapping tile layers possible?

[Black Tiger]

Bitness is irrelevant, just as sprites and tiles are just sprites and tiles, not 8-bit or 16-bit things. Tile layers, like sprites, are rendered by the gpu, which is 16-bit in the PCE. The only real comparative weakness of the PCE vs MD/SFC (single vs multiple tile layers), that youtube commenters and the like often point out as a sign of the system only being "8-bit"... is actually the major 16-bit part of the hardware. Some of the slightly more enlightened PCE detractors sometimes argue that the weak "8-bit" cpu couldn't handle any more than a single tile layer (completely ignoring how powerful the cpu obviously is at running 2D games).

But we don't have to theorize about an alternate reality, we already got a PC Engibe with a second tile layer AND an extra layer of sprites. The cpu is still the same, it still doesn't have any helper chips to offload sound duties like the Genesis and SNES do, and yet SuperGrafx games still toss around a crapload of sprites against overlapping tile layers without slowdown.

Sagaia and Choplifter just do line scrolling/h-sync(?) type stuff. Basically, if there is no reason for dynamic tiles, they almost always aren't used as they take up memory. But lots of SMS and NES ganes do use them. The SMS/GG in particular has some unbelievable stuff. Off the top of my head, the Jungle Book, Lion King, Cyber Shinobi(?), Robocod... there might he a youtube video out there with a lot of parallax examples.

Some NES games with dynamic tile parallax (including transparency) are Bucky O'Hare, Battletoads and that popular Mecha game.

Sonic 2 is one of the Genesis games I remember using dynamic tiles for extra layering.

[EvilEvoIX]

Al lot of these older systems can do Parallax scrolling.  Hell even the Atari 2600 has some games that do it.  The NES does it well too.  It's all up to the programmers and their talents.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltuRuGM271Q

[Black Tiger]

Al lot of these older systems can do Parallax scrolling.  Hell even the Atari 2600 has some games that do it.  The NES does it well too.  It's all up to the programmers and their talents.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltuRuGM271Q

NES games require special mappers added to carts in order to do parallax. The HUD in SMB is supposed to be impressive because the developer managed to pull it off without extra hardware.

[Dicer]

"History" of bomberman

[Necromancer]

Bomberman '93 and '94 came out first on PC not PCE?   

[Black Tiger]

Bomberman '93 and '94 came out first on PC not PCE?   

Bonus points for displaying all the 4:3 games stretched to widescreen.

They included Hi Ten Bomberman and Robo Warrior, but not Deden No Den or Star Parodier.

[Pokun]

Bomberman '93 and '94 came out first on PC not PCE?   

Also the first PC Engine Bomberman game. They forgot "Engine" on them all!

And wasn't the first Bomberman originally just a Hu-Basic game? In the video they say it's an MSX game, but MSX had MSX-BASIC as far as I know.

[ClodBuster]

"History" of bomberman

History of - BOMBERMAN (1983-2015)