the lost games!

[Keranu]

I've been meaning to play Rendering Ranger R2, I've heard it's good.

[Bonknuts]

Rendering Ranger R2 is about as crappy as its title suggests.

how can you say that? the game was programmed from a alomst oneman-team, the programming-legend from germany manfred trenz (responsible for almost all the Turricans on Amiga C64 etc).
in the post above i didn't talk about the quality of the game generally (imo i like it a lot, since it is a very special and nice made game). but the technical execution is somehow the best i've ever seen on the SFC (next close one could may be super aleste). the only noticeable stutters are in one of the last stages, where a really huge squadron of enemies attacks you from both side. the screen is full of huge sprites and explosions! in this engagement, you even can't see the BG anymore!
further all the prerender animation are fantastic made and even equal to some of the huge animations in sapphire. since this all is stored on a simple SFC-card, i think it is an unique product, especially in matter of technical aspects.

 RR has the early/mid 90's Euro game design/feel that just looks generic to me. As far as technical, what's so special about it? Those big (and little) enemy sprites are almost all stills, the futher background layers are just seriously repeated tiles. While first boss is nice, it's nothing special and it is a background layer not a sprite. The explosions are nicely animated, but nothing speical either. The first level design and enemy layout is pretty plain - nothing exciting and quite repetitive. Overall its decent - especially if you like that look/style, but it's nothing to write home about.  Nothing in the game screams technical achievement. I guess you have to see it from a console coders point of view - based on the ins and outs and bottle necks of the SNES.

 Besides, prerender graphics like those are a cop-out for hand drawn graphics - IMO. There are plenty of impressive SNES games, just not that one.

[Tatsujin]

yes, i know i can't see all the details in matter of technical issues as may be you do! but in the end the action it is what counts, and the action in RR comes just superior on to the screen. as i said, the style of the game is not to discuss in here, it's leave to everyone's own taste! i cleared it several times as well as alomst all the other jump'n'shot genres on the SFC, and i couldn't find an other title which comes close to the action of RR. of course a contra spirits looks much nicer and more arcadey, also it is more elaborated, but couldn't imo reach the same level in matter of action.

[Bonknuts]

Don't get me wrong, technically it's a solid game    I'll play it some more to see the other levels.

[vestcoat]

Hey Keranu,
I don't know anything about technical system specs, but did those comparison shots with Secret of Mana and Seiken Densentsu 3 abide by the maximum number of colors that the PCE can display?  I know that the number of colors allowed on screen is fewer than the colors available in the palette.

BTW, can you do a shot of what a game would look like on the SMS?

I mean, its one thing if you have a five foot cock made of sand and you thing everything SNES sucks ass and you wonder what the point would be of...

This is a damn funny post!    

[Keranu]

Hey Keranu,
I don't know anything about technical system specs, but did those comparison shots with Secret of Mana and Seiken Densentsu 3 abide by the maximum number of colors that the PCE can display?  I know that the number of colors allowed on screen is fewer than the colors available in the palette.

Yes, that screenshot is perfectly good for PCE standards as far as color use. I have this program that Fragmare from MindRec sent me that converts .bmps to PCE palette format (512 colors). The problem is though that it doesn't divide half the colors for the tiles and half for the sprites, so if you used a image tha thad more than 512 colors, then it wouldn't exactly look like that on the PCE palette. If I recall though, that Secret of Mana screenshot had about 120 colors (which is ok to use since that doesn't exceed 256) and the converted image uses over 70.

BTW, can you do a shot of what a game would look like on the SMS?

Nah, sorry. I don't have a program or know of anyway to filter that in a program. If anyone has a method of doing that, let me know because I would be interested .

[Black Tiger]

Maybe Secret of Mana could be ported to PCE, but it would be one hell of a bad port - the map would have to be removed, tons of sprites would have to be removed (and they would have to be MUCH smaller), no transparency, etc etc etc.

Why would any sprites have to be removed or be smaller? Although I think that a warping map could be pulled off(like Chris Covell's Axelay demo), the world maps in FFIV - FFVI look better before they warp.

The PC Engine has lots of games with nice transparency effects. It doesn't matter how the effect is technically done, only the end result. Like when people say that the PC Engine can't due "true" or "real" parallax. Unless you're told that the parallax you're looking at isn't technically being rendered in the technique that counts as "true", you can't tell when the end result is exactly the same.

Just converting the colors has nothing to do with it - the hardware wouldn't be able to handle it. Have you played through SD3? If not - do it. There's TONS of stuff in that game that the PC Engine couldn't pull off regardless of what techniques were used.

There are a lot of SFC games, like SD3, which most people would've said that the SFC couldn't handle until they were made.

Oh yes. Static images. That proves EVERYTHING! Seiken densetsu can DEFINITELY be ported to PCE, and they should have - because the PCE game would've been better (because, you know, it would be on the PCE)!!

But this is your argument, that the PCE can't handle a SFC port because, you know, it's the SFC.

BTW, can you do a shot of what a game would look like on the SMS?

Here you go-

[Keranu]

Haha, great screenshot .

[SignOfZeta]

The PC Engine has lots of games with nice transparency effects. It doesn't matter how the effect is technically done,

No, it does matter because if its done the only way I've ever seen it done on PCE it looks like flickering crap. SFC transparencies are %100 flicker free if done via hardware acceleration and they are like butter. You could do the Super Metroid super bomb effect on the PCE...it would just look like crapola.

Maybe I'm forgetting some PCE techinque for transparencies that looks better than what I'm used to, but I'm pretty sure its always the same sort of thing they used on Neo Geo and Mega Drive. Its passable, but you wouldn't want to use it large scale because the flickering would be near vomit inducing.

There are a lot of SFC games, like SD3, which most people would've said that the SFC couldn't handle until they were made.

That may be true, but SD3 isn't one of those games, IMO. SD3 is the untimate realazation of the SFC's abilities. There is nothing there that technicall was thought to be impossible, there is just a whole ton of the possible stuff. Maybe more than any cart probably.

[Black Tiger]

No, it does matter because if its done the only way I've ever seen it done on PCE it looks like flickering crap. SFC transparencies are %100 flicker free if done via hardware acceleration and they are like butter.

Maybe I'm forgetting some PCE techinque for transparencies that looks better than what I'm used to, but I'm pretty sure its always the same sort of thing they used on Neo Geo and Mega Drive. Its passable, but you wouldn't want to use it large scale because the flickering would be near vomit inducing.

Vasteel's transparencies, which I assume must be flickered, looked pretty much perfect from my memory. I believe that they even had a couple layers of transparent backgrounds scrolling independantly over a third solid outer space themed bg.

Then there's one or two, where a transparent image of one background peels off of the other and then warps all over the place. It's kind of like doing a warping map like Secret Of Mana, but transparent at the same time.

An easy one to see is one of the last bosses in The Legend Of Xandu II(just use the Premium or Debug tricks, he's in Battle Mode door #7). The animated waterfalls use a flickering effect that actually isn't that well done(the actual bosses also uses even poorer flickered effects). But the whole thing still looks amazing. If a version or port of SD3 wound up looking like that, it'd be fine by me. All the boss fights in LOXII are a good indication of how a port of SD3 could look as good on PCE.


http://superpcenginegrafx.com/img/sotb2.gif

http://superpcenginegrafx.com/xan.mpg


But a game doesn't become garbage just because it gets a port optimized for the new console, instead of a super straight port. Because the original was taylor made for the original hardware, the developer would've had to sacrifice a lot of ideas and do certain aesthetics in a way different from their original vision.

Like say, if in SD3 they original wanted to do most of the effects a different way, but had to change them to make them work on SFC. Does this make the SFC version garbage, since it's not faithful to the original design?

On new hardware, they can put some lost things back and use new different aesthetics. I'd rather have a unique port than a carbon copy. Since there's no such thing as a perfect game(except for our personal biases), then change can be a good thing.

Black_Tiger wrote:
There are a lot of SFC games, like SD3, which most people would've said that the SFC couldn't handle until they were made.


That may be true, but SD3 isn't one of those games, IMO. SD3 is the untimate realazation of the SFC's abilities. There is nothing there that technicall was thought to be impossible, there is just a whole ton of the possible stuff. Maybe more than any cart probably.

This is what I mean, the average expert would've said that SD3 or Tales Of Phantasia would have had to be on CD-ROM before they became a reality.

You could do the Super Metroid super bomb effect on the PCE...it would just look like crapola.

This is also the kind of thing I'm talking about. Instead of having to use a scaling circle due to cart limitations, they could use an amazing animation.

[Emerald Rocker]

Black Tiger makes some great points.  The SNES game wasn't necessarily the original vision in the first place... it could have been a compromise all along.  It's kind of like the original Lunar on Sega CD.  It wasn't their original vision.  A port to the SNES/whatever might have ended up more faithful than the original game.

That being said, when Lunar was put on the PSX (supposedly in "truer" form), it was worse, which proves that sticking to the original vision or the original version doesn't always make for a good game.

It never looks like a transparency from a SNES, or a Saturn, or whatever.

Saturn and transparencies don't mix.

You can talk theories, and programming skill, and single screen tech demos made 10 years after the death of the system, but the shit never actually happened on the PCE during its life which leads me to believe that it was either impossible, or such a bitch that it wasn't worth it because there is no shortage of good programing in the PCE library.

You make a good point here, and it's one that I agree with.  SD3 was never ported to the PCE, and no one ever really asked for SD3 to come out on the PCE anyway, because there were already tons of other great programs.  All the theories about "how" to do it (or not do it) don't matter, because all the talk in the world can't change the past.

there is such a thing as reality and reality says that you can't do Seiken 3 on a PC Engine and achieve anything that does the source material justice.

...but then you turn around and start talking about it again.

There are plenty of games that do things the PCE wasn't supposed to be able to do (Sapphire, Metamor Jupiter, etc).  In one breath you say it's pointless to discuss this, but in the next breath you bring the topic back and try to "win".

You seriously think the PCE couldn't do the original source justice?  That's a huge claim to make -- since "do justice" doesn't even imply "perfect".  However, the point remains... it WASN'T done and it's not going to BE done so, as you said, it's silly talk.  It's easy to beat your chest when no one is going to ever prove you wrong.

Personally, I believe it could be ported in near-perfect (or superior) form.  It's not like we're talking about porting something intense like Ranger-X.  We're just talking about the Seiken Densetsu games!

You can't to Gran Turismo on the Watara Supervision, you can't do Sakura Wars 3 on the Vectrex, you can't do Viewtiful Joe on the MSX.

Silly comparisons.  The generation gap between the systems in your "examples" are all huge compared to the difference between PC Engine and SNES.

And besides, the PCE is the better system of the two, so your analogy doesn't even make sense.

[GUTS]

Besides, whats so special about Secret of Mana 3?  I played it, it looked like every other generic super nes RPG.  Plus it's slow as shit, maybe the PCE could actually speed it up a little since the SNES is a crippled slug with pretty transperancies.  Any system that can do Sapphire could have easily done SOM3 since Sapphire is WAY beyond what the shit SNES was capable of.

[Bonknuts]

Black_Tiger:

 There is another way to transparency effect with much less noticable flicker. It involves switching between two checker board patterns every 1/60 sec - each checker board is 180 phase of the other - resulting in much less flicker. There's also Hsync transparency effects doable on the PCE - see LOT and ShaperShifter for example.

 

You could do the Super Metroid super bomb effect on the PCE...it would just look like crapola.

 You could with the Super Grafx - see here

 The SOM games on SNES seem to update/animate at 30fps instead of 60fps. I assume this might be because of the limited bandwidth the SNES has to its VRAM compared to other systems - doing dynamic tilemap updates and such. This is what Sega's advertising was refering to when had those commercials stating "blast processing". The marketing team trying to coin a term for non-techies.

[SignOfZeta]

Besides, whats so special about Secret of Mana 3?  I played it, it looked like every other generic super nes RPG.  Plus it's slow as shit, maybe the PCE could actually speed it up a little since the SNES is a crippled slug with pretty transperancies.  Any system that can do Sapphire could have easily done SOM3 since Sapphire is WAY beyond what the shit SNES was capable of.

Your raging hatred for SFC/SNES makes you a pretty worthless judge or witness in this discussion. People who actually appreciate both machines are more credible critics/witnesses/theoreticians/whatever.

[SignOfZeta]

Black_Tiger:

 There is another way to transparency effect with much less noticable flicker. It involves switching between two checker board patterns every 1/60 sec - each checker board is 180 phase of the other - resulting in much less flicker. There's also Hsync transparency effects doable on the PCE - see LOT and ShaperShifter for example.

 

You could do the Super Metroid super bomb effect on the PCE...it would just look like crapola.

 You could with the Super Grafx - see here

 The SOM games on SNES seem to update/animate at 30fps instead of 60fps. I assume this might be because of the limited bandwidth the SNES has to its VRAM compared to other systems - doing dynamic tilemap updates and such. This is what Sega's advertising was refering to when had those commercials stating "blast processing". The marketing team trying to coin a term for non-techies.

Well the screen shots look pretty cool, but since I'm on a Mac, and I don't think anyone has written a PCE emu that can do SGX on OSX, I'll have to take your word for it. I guess this makes the SGX even more of a huge disappointment in NEC's history since it could have done stuff like this.