Thoughts on Metamor Jupiter

[Gredler]

The fad caused too many developers of games for all consoles to waste frames of animation on pre-rendered scaling instead of real artwork and animation.

Exactly, this ruined a generation for me at the time. I've gone back and "gotten over it" but at the time it was atrocious to me.

I think that the fully pixelated part of that explosion is a poor attempt at mosaic, which several other PCE games do well.

These over-scaled explosions are one of the examples of how poorly it can be done, I would say. I agree, that there are a lot of examples of it well done, but man this is a example of how fugly it can be when done in excess.

El Viento on Genesis was one of the stand out criminals in doing this, 4:20 in it starts. The inital explosions are not too horrible, but once the squids/octopus shows up.


But to keep it on topic, what are some of the good obey examples of sprite scaling? I think this game does a admiral job, from a video perspective, but I am sure there are plenty of better examples.

[Dicer]

But to keep it on topic, what are some of the good obey examples of sprite scaling? I think this game does a admiral job, from a video perspective, but I am sure there are plenty of better examples.

Star Parodier does it quite a bit...

[imparanoic]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaya_Matsuura

it's Vib ribbon, parappa the rapper and unlammy jammy first game!

[shubibiman]

I would love any corrections/additional information on this blurb I wrote:

PSY•S: What?! I never realized that the soundtrack to Metamor Jupiter (SCD, 01.22.1993) was, apparently, by Psy•S, a Japanese progressive pop/rock band. Masaya Matsuura, the main creative force behind Psy•S, would create PaRappa the Rapper (12.06.1996) on PlayStation nearly four years after composing the soundtrack to Metamor Jupiter on PC-Engine.

I thought I'd share that trivia, since I haven't really played this game in years...which means it must not have impressed me to much

Or, now that I think about it, I wanted to wait until I had the VIRTUAL CUSHION before fully experiencing Metamor Jupiter. 

Never heard of that but as a prog fan, I must check that. I don't really know japanese prog bands though. But I wouldn't be surprised if it were true as the musics in this game often sound "progish".

[shabba]

Not to ignore the pixel discussion, but this looks like a cool game. It's mid priced on Ebay and there are 3 or so for sale right now.

[Sadler]

But to keep it on topic, what are some of the good obey examples of sprite scaling? I think this game does a admiral job, from a video perspective, but I am sure there are plenty of better examples.

Star Parodier does it quite a bit...

I still think Star Parodier might be the best looking game on the system. A few other examples: Nexzr I think uses tiles to show the player's ship huge after a level and maybe sprites to show the player scaling in at the beginning? Bomberman '93 has scaling at the end of a multiplayer match. Panic Bomber has the giant bomb effect.

[KingDrool]

Inspired by this thread, I took out the game and played it for a bit last night. It's a pretty decent game, for sure. Really great graphics (mostly), cool effects, etc. And it didn't feel like a Gradius ripoff as much as I thought it would. I got more Gate of Thunder vibes, actually. Especially from the first boss.

But, as usual, Chris's review was pretty spot on.

[Necromancer]

Cosmic Fantasy 4 uses that mosaic crap in scene transitions.

[EmperorIng]

Not to ignore the pixel discussion

Please do, as I didn't make the topic about pixel-rotation and sprite-scaling. 

Inspired by this thread, I took out the game and played it for a bit last night. It's a pretty decent game, for sure. Really great graphics (mostly), cool effects, etc. And it didn't feel like a Gradius ripoff as much as I thought it would. I got more Gate of Thunder vibes, actually. Especially from the first boss.

While the first boss has a "shoot the core!" vibe, the game doesn't really have the meticulous design of a Gradius, imo. Some of the later bosses have really lightning-fast attacks that you sort of have to know in advance to deal with (the tentacle boss towards the end comes to mind), with oodles of health to boot. Enemies come at you so damn fast in this game.  I mean, there are some things to like though which is why I am open to hearing more from others.

Hard to pin down its inspiration: maybe a dash of R-Type, maybe a dash of the 100 other hori space shooters released at this time.

[Necromancer]

Please do, as I didn't make the topic about pixel-rotation and sprite-scaling. 

Because nobody should discuss aspects of the game's graphics? 

[EmperorIng]

Please re-read OP please; the topic is about Metamor Jupiter.

[Necromancer]

Please re-read OP please; the topic is about Metamor Jupiter.

Metamor Jupiter has mosaic effects, scaled and rotated sprites, and whatever effect the neat tube level background is called; discussing such graphical effects and comparing 'em to those found in other titles is certainly on topic, so what exactly is your problem?

[EmperorIng]

It's a shooter that is not talked about too much on this forum - a search results in less than 80 posts mentioning it, and most of those posts talking about wanting to buy it, or its good graphics.

I thought I would open up a topic of conversation to hear about people actually playing it, and what their opinions of the game are.

But to keep it on topic, what are some of the good obey examples of sprite scaling?

not to single out Gredler.

Just want to keep things on-topic. My topic about Efera and Jiliora (another game virtually untalked about) was quickly derailed with the discussion of how much A Black Falcon sucks at Ys (consensus: very) and every other game in existence. I certainly don't mind at all people talking about the graphical effects in-game (even with the odd comparison or two), though I personally think that's a bit besides the point (and reinforces my thoughts in the OP that people only talk about the game's gfx). However, a general discussion of graphical effects and sprite-scaling is best-suited for a different topic. Even if it means there's less discussion about this game, that's fine by me; it just shows me there isn't much to talk about. Nothing stops someone from bumping a topic months or years later (as I've done) to chime in.

[Black Tiger]

Cosmic Fantasy 4 uses that mosaic crap in scene transitions.

Only Chapter 1 is a Sness fest.

[EmperorIng]

I'll give that nullity's thread made me chuckle. One point:

I don't think I will ever 1cc this one

A guy I know on another forum has 1CC'd every 16bit console shooter in existence, including Metamor Jupiter, and considers it one of the hardest shooters of the era to 1CC (though not for completely good reasons, in his opinion). He also noted interestingly that the PCE has the most shooters of these consoles without any scoring whatsoever (e.g. Hany in the Sky, Legion, Psychic Storm, etc.).

It makes me wonder why Flight Plan didn't see fit to throw in the extra few lines of code to give numeric values for enemies shot down. lol I guess Metamor Jupiter is in the purest sense a console shooter.