Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?

[Joe Redifer]

Sewer Shark is an ugly mess, if I'm going to watch video and press a button every few seconds I want something cool to look at, not the same length of grainy sewer over and over.  The Sega CD version of Road Avenger is the BEST fmv game ever made, btw.  Nothing is cooler than that intro song, it gets me so pumped to get revenge.

Agreed on all counts.  Road Avenger makes me play it again and again because it is so "crazy insane".  Driving through hotels and whatnot plus you destroy several helicoptors before the game ends.  I bought the Saturn version which has MUCH weaker audio throughout the game and is also missing the song.  I did create a Quicktime video just for fun that uses the Saturn opening video but with the Sega CD audio for the opening song.  I also created a DVD for a friend that had a "subtitle" option for the opening lyrics.

[Black Tiger]

Sounds pretty good. Is it heavy on kanji? I can handle hiragana and katakana, but i only know about 1% kanji For this reason, i was thinking about trying to play through Tenjai Makyou Zero on SFC instead of Manji or Kabuki, since Zero is pretty devoid of kanji.

TMII and Kabuki Den are the most Gaijin friendly TM RPG's, language-wise as well as in other aspects.

Both games have large easy to read text with english names(listed at the top of the screen) for pretty much every item written in katakana in the menu screen.

Ziria and Zero use small hiragana for most things and Zero in particular, models it's menues after SNES Final Fantasy's and has the highest number(like 30 to 1) of non-essential items that make it very hard for people without any Japanese language skills.

TMII & Kabuki Den are easier to figure out on your own and are reasonably straight forward. Ziria has some tricky spots that could get you stuck forever without a walkthrough.

Zero is ridiculously non-straight forward. It can be really confusing and overwhelming for real gaijins, compared to TMII and Kabuki Den.

[grahf]

thanks for the heads up.

[FM-77]

Keranu: Why do you think The Legend of Xanadu is graphically impressive? Sure, there are some pretty pictures in it, but in-game - it's an NES game. Looks almost exactly like DQ1-4.

[SignOfZeta]

TMII and Kabuki Den are the most Gaijin friendly TM RPG's, language-wise as well as in other aspects.

Both games have large easy to read text with english names(listed at the top of the screen) for pretty much every item written in katakana in the menu screen.

Are we talking about the same games? I have TMII for PCE, and GC, and I have to say its the most Japanese-heavy Japanese RPG I've ever seen.

For a TM game, maybe its not bad, but it's vastly more dificult to play for people with very little Japanese knowlege than, say, Final Fantasy.

[malducci]

but in-game - it's an NES game. Looks almost exactly like DQ1-4.

 I can't beleive you think that. Sure the chars might be small but in no way does that game look like DQ1-4. Yeah, 3 color sprites from a 64 washed out palette of the nes - that exactly what Xanadu looks like

 But you're right, it's not awesome Unless Kenaru was refering to Legend of Xanadu II?

[Keranu]

Keranu: Why do you think The Legend of Xanadu is graphically impressive? Sure, there are some pretty pictures in it, but in-game - it's an NES game. Looks almost exactly like DQ1-4.

Seldane I must ask, have you ever played a NES game ? NES games generally use 10-20 colors on screen while I am sure the LoX games are in the 40-70 range and you can easily tell the difference when it comes to games like that. Sorry to pick on you here, but lets do a small comparison :

Nice looking overhead NES game (and I even used one of your example, Dragon Warrior IV):



Overhead screen of the first Legend of Xanadu:



I kind of find it funny how I was able to take a screenshot in Dragon Warrior IV that turned out so similar to the layout of the LoX screenshot . Anyways, that Dragon Warrior IV screenshot is using 17 colors while the LoX screenshot is using an impressive 85, cleary a huge difference and the difference can easily be seen. Even the nicest looking overhead on Genesis wouldn't be able to look quite as sharp as that LoX screen since it uses 21 more colors than the Genesis can use, but that's a different story.

Here is a comparison of the side scrolling screens using Mario 3, a very nice looking NES game, compared to another LoX screen:





Once again, huge difference but then again these two games have completely different styles. 12 colors for the Mario 3 screenshot and 64 for the LoX one.

Some think LoX2 graphics are even more impressive, but I won't bother throwing in those screenshots for comparison. Also, I have a soft spot for the graphics in the first LoX .

[FM-77]

Okay sure, there are more colors, but design-wise, it looks like an NES game. A Super CD-ROM game from 1994!

Here are some nice overhead Mega Drive games. I find all of these much nicer-looking than LoX: (in fact, LoX doesn't even compare to them)



Hmm, looking at these screenshots, I haven't seen ANY overhead PCE game that looks better than these games. LoX2 and Ys IV are in the same league, but they aren't really better-looking (and they are SCD games!)

[Keranu]

Seldane, you're just crazy - that's all I have to say . I'm sure I am far from being the only one to think that Legend of Xanadu looks nothing close to a NES game .

Nice looking Genesis games, but keep in mind the PCE could handle those with no problems.

[FM-77]

Nice looking Genesis games, but keep in mind the PCE could handle those with no problems.

Maybe. But why didn't they make any?

[Keranu]

They made plenty, but maybe they just didn't fit the tastes of a certain person located in Sweden (or should I say Esteria instead?) .

[FM-77]

Show me. One is enough.  

[grahf]

One could argue that design-wise, all those genesis games you posted look like NES titles also.

[GUTS]

Those Genesis games look way better than any overhead Duo game, easily.  Beyond Oasis alone is way beyond what the PC Engine was capable of, hell Gotzendeiner is one of the most graphically impressive PC Engine games and it chugs when there are more than a few sprites on screen and they're not even close to as big as the ones in Beyond Oasis.

[Joe Redifer]

Keranu where are you getting the extra color from in your screen shots?  I counted only 16 colors for the NES DQ game (the maximum it could put on the screen out of a total palette of 52) and 84 for the PCE Xanadu game.  Granted 1 color isn't a big deal I am just curious what method you are using to count the colors.  Maybe your method is counting the transparency channel of the PNG format as a color?  By the way the Super Mario 3 shot you posted only has 8 colors, not 12.

Anyway I will admit that most PCE and Turbo overhead games seemed to have more of a "tiled" or "patterned" look than the Genesis and SNES overhead games.  Doesn't mean they aren't fun.