Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?

[handygrafx]

peonpiate:  this is a tough subject to say definitively.


all three consoles have various strengths and weaknesses.


the PC-Engine was out first (1987)  the SNES came out 3 years later in Japan.

certainly the PC-Engine's  on-screen simultaneous color capabilities are far superior to that of the Genesis, released in 1988 in Japan (as the MegaDrive) which must have been very embarrasing for SEGA since overall, the MD-Genesis is more powerful than the PC-Engine (CPU, Sprites, Audio). how Sega could end up with a mere fraction of the on-screen colors compared to the PC-Engine ( 64 vs hundreds) is beyond me.

only with the arrival of the 32X upgrade in 1994, a 32-bit machine, did Sega have the ability to paint more colors on the screen in hardware (without resorting to tricks like HAM), than NEC-Hudson's consoles.

IMO, the MegaDrive / Genesis should've had the same color capability as its big arcade brother, the System16 board;  which could do something like 1500~2048 colors on-screen out of 32,768 possible.  Also,  Sega should've not cut out the scaling chip that was originally supposedly supposed to be in the MD-Genesis.  We had to wait until 1991-1992 when the SegaCD added full hardware scaling & rotation.

in the end, there is no clear complete winner in hardware, even when adding in the souped up PC-Engine, the SuperGrafx.

the only hardware that's clearly superior to all of them is the NEO-GEO, minus a couple of effects that NEO-GEO did not have that SNES did, which could be made up in software thanks to NEO-GEO's fast CPU.

I wish NEC-Hudson had released a real 16-bit PC-Engine 2 that competed with the NEO-GEO technically, but at an affordable price.

[FM-77]

Games like Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine.

[Black Tiger]

Games like Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine.

Although I can see how some people might pick out particular titles that they feel would be hard to pull off on a different system, why do you think Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine?

It seems to me to be a very un-Megadrivey game that if anything, would be easier for the PC Engine. I never played too far into it, but is there like a cool side-scrolling section later on with like 20 layers of parallax or something?

[Joe Redifer]

the only hardware that's clearly superior to all of them is the NEO-GEO, minus a couple of effects that NEO-GEO did not have that SNES did, which could be made up in software thanks to NEO-GEO's fast CPU.

I am a big Neo Geo fan and I love my AES and its pricey games.  But it is kind of interesting to compare the machine to the SNES and even the Sega CD.  Obviously the Neo kills the SNES with its speed.  And even though the Neo Geo had twice as many colors to choose from than the SNES and could put 16 times as many onscreen simultaneously (4,096 vs 256), Neo Geo games didn't often look a great deal more colorful than SNES games.  I don't think I've ever seen any Neo Geo game with over 512 simulataneous colors in any part.  On a side note, Space Harrier's option screen for the 32X has 4,221 simultaneous colors.  Also I've never seen the Neo Geo do anything like Mode 7 (scaling with actual perspectives).  Nor have I seen it do rotation.  Compared to the Sega CD's scaling and rotation capabilities, the Neo Geo has never done anything even remotely approaching the quality of the scaling and rotation in Batman Returns (driving sequences) and Soul Star.

In my opinion, the Neo Geo is what the stand-alone Mega Drive should have been in the first place.

[FM-77]

I've never seen a PCE game that makes me go "wow", I think they all look either like early Mega Drive games or late NES games. I'm talking about graphics here. Show me one awesome-looking PCE game right here and now:

[takashirose]

Now when you say PC-Engine, do you mean without any cd-rom and upgrade cards?

[malducci]

My friend was borrowing a DUO unit from another friend who went to boot camp (he was older than us). I swear that Duo went flying and crash into the floor more than ten times, still works to this day. The Duo card was short and his dog would come running out of nowhere and not the unit from about 3 feet off the ground. I was amazed to say the least and I also hated that dog to this day.

[FM-77]

Now when you say PC-Engine, do you mean without any cd-rom and upgrade cards?

Yes, but I'd like to see the prettiest CD games and games using various accessories too.

[Nemo]

Games like Light Crusader would be impossible to do on the PC Engine.

In what regard? And Gotzendiener is the closest thing I've seen to LC (not that it really matters since I don't like LC to begin with   ).

I've never seen a PCE game that makes me go "wow", I think they all look either like early Mega Drive games or late NES games. I'm talking about graphics here. Show me one awesome-looking PCE game right here and now:

Sapphire, though that the soundtrack are the only things that it has going for it.

[takashirose]

Well you could say that Lords of Thunder and gate of Thunder are one of the pretiest Super Cd-Rom games and don't forget Dracula X.  Strider using the Arcade is very pretty.  SuperGrafx's Daimakaimura.  A lot of the Hu card ports of genesis games look better than on the genesis.  But do you really care?

[FM-77]

A lot of the Hu card ports of genesis games look better than on the genesis.

Perhaps, but they never looked good in the first place.  

Yep I care. Interesting to see the most graphically impressive games on various systems. But I don't think Dracula X looks that nice. Not as nice as Castlevania The New Generation on MD.

[takashirose]

You're telling me that Castlevania on the Genesis/MD looks better than Dracula X on the PC-Engine Super CD-Rom2?  I doubt it.  Especially the amounts of colour.  Though I do like and have the MD Castlevania, which I like.

[GUTS]

I'd agree with Seldane, Castlevania Bloodlines looks much better than Dracula X.  Drac X was a nice looking game, but Bloodlines just has way more stuff going on.  Same with Contra, the Genesis Contra absolutely smokes the SNES Contra in every way.  Konami really knew what they were doing on the few Genesis games they made, their graphics were always pretty phenominal.

[Joe Redifer]

But I don't think Dracula X looks that nice. Not as nice as Castlevania The New Generation on MD.

I am a huge Genesis fan.  In fact some moron on this forum said that I "hate everything except Genesis" after reading my article comparing Devil's Crush and Dragon's Fury over on Sega-16.  When Dracula X was first released for the PC Engine in Japan, I bought it right away and played through it to 100%.  I loved it.  After that is when Castlevania Bloodlines came out for the Genesis.  It looked so bad in comparison to what I was used to with Dracula X (I refuse to call it "Rhondo" because that just sounds super-mega retarded).  Bloodlines has better visual effects than Dracula X with the psuedo-rotation, reflections and whatnot, but the actual design and artwork was so much better in Dracula X.  I don't attribute that to the PCE's power or abilities, but the designers of said games.  Don't get me wrong, I freakin' love Bloodlines and it is better from a technical standpoint, but not an aesthetic one in my opinion.  Kind of like SNES sound.  Technically it is better than the Genesis, but to me most SNES games sound extremely muffled with next to no high-end or treble.  I prefer Genesis sound aesthetically.

[esteban]

I don't attribute that to the PCE's power or abilities, but the designers of said games.  Don't get me wrong, I freakin' love Bloodlines and it is better from a technical standpoint, but not an aesthetic one in my opinion.  Kind of like SNES sound.  Technically it is better than the Genesis, but to me most SNES games sound extremely muffled with next to no high-end or treble.  I prefer Genesis sound aesthetically.

Indeed, but I'd say SNES suffers from lack of bass, if anything.

To follow-up on a minor point: As I've said in the past, the SNES often sounds "too perfect" and "too polished" for me... I guess I like my chip tunes a little more "raw". Perhaps we should dig up the old thread if we want to discuss music, but I prefer most NES / Famicom tunes over SNES tunes. The limitations of the older hardware was a "virtue" as far as my tastes are concerned. Don't get me wrong, I actually love SNES soundtracks in-and-of-themselves, but they can't compete with the tunes pumped out by the aforementioned consoles, IMO.

On nice-looking games: I always thought "Legendary Axe II" had some of the nicest, most polished graphics in the PCE library. I don't think this game would make Seldane go "wow!", but I thought I'd mention it. Even if you think the character designs are goofy, do you think the graphics are impressive? It's OK to laugh at me