Hypothetical PCE port :: Flame Zapper Kotsujin

[Michirin9801]

The obvious sprite(s) to do as a test case would be the Red Bomb skull animations.

If those can be made to look really good at the 224-horizontal resolution, in PCE colors, then the whole conversion might look decent, even at lo-res.

I did a quick and dirty edit here of just that, it could be better and less dithery if I put more time into it but here's what I got:

This damn thread raised my hopes.

Then dashed them.

Suddenly, a flicker of hope appeared....

Smothered.

Sorry >w>
Well, I did put "Hypothetical" in the title, I didn't want to get people's hopes up after all...

[elmer]

I did a quick and dirty edit here of just that, it could be better and less dithery if I put more time into it but here's what I got:
[img]http://orig05.deviantart.net/2e42/f/2017/097/f/f/skull_bomb_by_michirin9801-db51b55.png[/img

Wow, that's much nicer that I expected! Great job! 

I was going to complain about the resolution for a while, and then I realized that you'd drawn it in 2x2 pixels. 

OK ... so it that graphic can look that good (there's a small loss in the outline shape, but nothing significant, and the colors [/i]do[/i] make up for it IMHO), then a lo-res port would probably be possible.

The next issue is screen-overdraw.

That's where touko is pointing out that 64 sprites are nowhere near enough for the overdraw that's going on in FZK.

I agree ... I really can't see how to make that game work on a PCE, even with dynamic drawing into the background, without causing a ton of flicker.

As he said ... even the SGX would be pushed at times (IMHO), but in the case of the SGX, we'd use the 2nd background plane to create those full-screen bomb effects, which would save the extra SGX sprites for other things ... like some of the parallax or layered enemies.

But you really don't seem to like the SGX proposal.

No problem ... I understand that I'm one of the few people that really love that PCE variant.

I just can't see how you can get that particular game to look decent on a standard PCE.

Maybe I'm just not being creative-enough.

Back-in-the-day, it was all about doing what-you-could with the hardware that was out-there.

And so compromises were inevitable, and expected, and part-of-the-job.

But these days ... for someone like me anyway, it's all about the quality of the end-result. And I'm just too damned stupid to figure out how to make Kotsujin look really *good* on a regular PCE.  :oops:

[Michirin9801]

I did a quick and dirty edit here of just that, it could be better and less dithery if I put more time into it but here's what I got:

Wow, that's much nicer that I expected! Great job! 

I was going to complain about the resolution for a while, and then I realized that you'd drawn it in 2x2 pixels. 

OK ... so it that graphic can look that good (there's a small loss in the outline shape, but nothing significant, and the colors do make up for it IMHO), then a lo-res port would probably be possible.

The next issue is screen-overdraw.

That's where touko is pointing out that 64 sprites are nowhere near enough for the overdraw that's going on in FZK.

I agree ... I really can't see how to make that game work on a PCE, even with dynamic drawing into the background, without causing a ton of flicker.

As he said ... even the SGX would be pushed at times (IMHO), but in the case of the SGX, we'd use the 2nd background plane to create those full-screen bomb effects, which would save the extra SGX sprites for other things ... like some of the parallax or layered enemies.

But you really don't seem to like the SGX proposal.

No problem ... I understand that I'm one of the few people that really love that PCE variant.

I just can't see how you can get that particular game to look decent on a standard PCE.

Maybe I'm just not being creative-enough.

Back-in-the-day, it was all about doing what-you-could with the hardware that was out-there.

And so compromises were inevitable, and expected, and part-of-the-job.

But these days ... for someone like me anyway, it's all about the quality of the end-result. And I'm just too damned stupid to figure out how to make Kotsujin look really *good* on a regular PCE.  :oops:

I'd be fine with a SGX version so long as it wasn't the only version because, you know, that would really limit the amount of people who can play it >w>

You see, I REALLY LOVE the idea of pushing the weaker hardware and getting as much out of it as possible! Heck, one of the biggest reasons why I love the PCE so much _{(other than the sound, and the really fun games it has)} is because I know (or at least have an idea of) how limited its hardware is, especially in comparison to its contemporaries, and yet I see it pulling off mind-blowing stuff both with and without the CD add-on that compares with, and sometimes _(often?) even surpasses its more technically advanced competitors!

So making a good-enough port of a 1996 computer game into a 1987 console, without any add-ons, but taking advantage of some of the add-on features if detected, is a VERY attractive idea to me, not only because it would show off what the system can do, but also because it would maximise the amount of people who could experience it!
Personally I wouldn't mind having less bullets on-screen, or less enemies, or a little bit of flickering here and there, so long as we could somehow capture the essence of the game and put it on a system that I love and where it would feel right at home~♥

Also, I didn't draw at 2x2 pixels, I just took a screenshot at 2x resolution and put it on my sta.sh because I find it easier to look at that way >w>
Oh and, I did this a few months back:

[Dicer]

I did a quick and dirty edit here of just that, it could be better and less dithery if I put more time into it but here's what I got:

Wow, that's much nicer that I expected! Great job! 

I was going to complain about the resolution for a while, and then I realized that you'd drawn it in 2x2 pixels. 

OK ... so it that graphic can look that good (there's a small loss in the outline shape, but nothing significant, and the colors do make up for it IMHO), then a lo-res port would probably be possible.

The next issue is screen-overdraw.

That's where touko is pointing out that 64 sprites are nowhere near enough for the overdraw that's going on in FZK.

I agree ... I really can't see how to make that game work on a PCE, even with dynamic drawing into the background, without causing a ton of flicker.

As he said ... even the SGX would be pushed at times (IMHO), but in the case of the SGX, we'd use the 2nd background plane to create those full-screen bomb effects, which would save the extra SGX sprites for other things ... like some of the parallax or layered enemies.

But you really don't seem to like the SGX proposal.

No problem ... I understand that I'm one of the few people that really love that PCE variant.

I just can't see how you can get that particular game to look decent on a standard PCE.

Maybe I'm just not being creative-enough.

Back-in-the-day, it was all about doing what-you-could with the hardware that was out-there.

And so compromises were inevitable, and expected, and part-of-the-job.

But these days ... for someone like me anyway, it's all about the quality of the end-result. And I'm just too damned stupid to figure out how to make Kotsujin look really *good* on a regular PCE.  :oops:

I'd be fine with a SGX version so long as it wasn't the only version because, you know, that would really limit the amount of people who can play it >w>

You see, I REALLY LOVE the idea of pushing the weaker hardware and getting as much out of it as possible! Heck, one of the biggest reasons why I love the PCE so much _{(other than the sound, and the really fun games it has)} is because I know (or at least have an idea of) how limited its hardware is, especially in comparison to its contemporaries, and yet I see it pulling off mind-blowing stuff both with and without the CD add-on that compares with, and sometimes _(often?) even surpasses its more technically advanced competitors!

So making a good-enough port of a 1996 computer game into a 1987 console, without any add-ons, but taking advantage of some of the add-on features if detected, is a VERY attractive idea to me, not only because it would show off what the system can do, but also because it would maximise the amount of people who could experience it!
Personally I wouldn't mind having less bullets on-screen, or less enemies, or a little bit of flickering here and there, so long as we could somehow capture the essence of the game and put it on a system that I love and where it would feel right at home~♥

Also, I didn't draw at 2x2 pixels, I just took a screenshot at 2x resolution and put it on my sta.sh because I find it easier to look at that way >w>
Oh and, I did this a few months back:

Perfectly stated...

[Michirin9801]

Perfectly stated...

Thanks ^^

[elmer]

Oh and, I did this a few months back:

Excellent, that looks great! 

Also, I didn't draw at 2x2 pixels, I just took a screenshot at 2x resolution and put it on my sta.sh because I find it easier to look at that way >w>

I know, I never thought that you did. But it did take a bit to figure-out that you were showing a 2x2 magnified PCE image against a 2x4 magnified PC9801 original, for some reason.

Something like this would have been a lot more useful, because it's so much easier to see what you've gained in color, and lost in resolution ...

You see, I REALLY LOVE the idea of pushing the weaker hardware and getting as much out of it as possible! Heck, one of the biggest reasons why I love the PCE so much _{(other than the sound, and the really fun games it has)} is because I know (or at least have an idea of) how limited its hardware is, especially in comparison to its contemporaries, and yet I see it pulling off mind-blowing stuff both with and without the CD add-on that compares with, and sometimes _(often?) even surpasses its more technically advanced competitors!

That's a wonderful goal to have! I really hope that you get to do it someday! 

But you're going to need to find a programmer that's willing to do a lot of custom-coding for each-and-every level and on-screen effect, which will take them far, far longer than the art side is going to take you, only to have something that's (IMHO) going to compare rather poorly with the original game.

I took another look at the video, trying to figure out just how many of the effects and "sprites" could actually be dropped down into dynamic-tiles, and at-the-end-of-the-day, "yes", I believe that you could do *something* on the PCE that would look approximately like FZK.

If you reserve some colors in the palette of each background tile, then you could draw each bomb effect into the background as it happened on-screen.

That would be one way to avoid having all the sprites flicker like mad or just disappear.

But it comes with its own costs.

Perhaps someone will want to take on the challenge someday.

Personally, I agree with the idea of pushing the limits of the PCE (or SGX) ... but to me that means doing something that's actually going to look good on the systems, which means deeply understanding those limits, and then taking advantage of every opportunity.

IMHO, the basic design of FZP just breaks a few too many of those limits to actually get a good end-result.

Hopefully someone will come along, program the game, and show me that I'm wrong.

[Arkhan]

Hopefully someone will come along, program the game, and show me that I'm wrong.

It's coming right after Xymati and PC Gunjin, lol.


I think this game would be an exercise in insanity simply due to the sprite limitations.   On a PC-98, you don't really have that.  You can blit around as many things as you want until the framerate starts to take a shit. 

On a PCE, you lose this luxury and life sucks a bit on the programming side.

Admittedly, I think the majority of the game's charm is the sound and the giant skeleton boom, but we have Tatsujin for that.  The gameplay isn't providing anything spectacularly different from the boatload of shooters we already have. 

I think you'd lose a lot of the charm switching to the PCE because you'd lose the FM bell sound.


The layered scrolling effects aren't really hard.   Other games already do that.   It's just the sprite limitations that will really make this a royal pain in the ass.   You'd either have epileptic flickering, or a SuperGrafx only game that will still flicker, only less often.


This sort of thing is also why PCE as a whole didn't really get graced with bullet hell games.  Touhou stuff would've been great but you need like 9000 sprites to deal with the bullets.   

[Michirin9801]

Admittedly, I think the majority of the game's charm is the sound and the giant skeleton boom, but we have Tatsujin for that.  The gameplay isn't providing anything spectacularly different from the boatload of shooters we already have. 

I think you'd lose a lot of the charm switching to the PCE because you'd lose the FM bell sound.

But this music is exponentially better than the music in Tatsujin >o<';
And so is the gameplay if you ask me, and with that I mean that it's difficult but not damn-near-impossible...

Also, yeah, we couldn't do an FM bell like that on the PCE, but who's to say we couldn't do something just as good?

[Arkhan]

Admittedly, I think the majority of the game's charm is the sound and the giant skeleton boom, but we have Tatsujin for that.  The gameplay isn't providing anything spectacularly different from the boatload of shooters we already have. 

I think you'd lose a lot of the charm switching to the PCE because you'd lose the FM bell sound.

But this music is exponentially better than the music in Tatsujin >o<';
And so is the gameplay if you ask me, and with that I mean that it's difficult but not damn-near-impossible...

Also, yeah, we couldn't do an FM bell like that on the PCE, but who's to say we couldn't do something just as good?

Tatsujin on PCE is gooned up and plays hard as if you've beat and looped it.   

You can get sort-of-FM-bells on PCE.   

I think ultimately, the inability to barf that many sprites in a reasonable manner for all the bullets basically screws it all up.

If that sort of thing were functionally doable, I would rather see a Touhou game, I think. 

You could do the game, but would basically have to cut down on "amount-of-bullets" which would impact the gameplay and probably make it too easy, and boring.

If you cut all the screen effects, downsize some sprites, and cram it together a bit, it'd maybe work.

but then you'd have to wonder if that also impacts the gameplay.

damn bitmapped screen modes.

[Michirin9801]

Tatsujin on PCE is gooned up and plays hard as if you've beat and looped it.   

You can get sort-of-FM-bells on PCE.   

I think ultimately, the inability to barf that many sprites in a reasonable manner for all the bullets basically screws it all up.

If that sort of thing were functionally doable, I would rather see a Touhou game, I think. 

You could do the game, but would basically have to cut down on "amount-of-bullets" which would impact the gameplay and probably make it too easy, and boring.

If you cut all the screen effects, downsize some sprites, and cram it together a bit, it'd maybe work.

but then you'd have to wonder if that also impacts the gameplay.

damn bitmapped screen modes.

Touhou is fine and all, but I like Kotsujin better, I can't pin-point why exactly though, I just really love that game!

You know, Kotsujin isn't really that hard, I mean, I'm not THAT good at shooters and I've managed to beat it on normal using continues, I can't even beat Soldier Blade (although I can get to the final boss, I just haven't beaten the final boss, but to be fair, I kind of haven't tried hard enough) and that's because Soldier Blade is the 2nd easiest in the series (the only one that's easier is Star Parodier which I also beat)
So that's proof enough that the PCE can make shooters that are much harder than Kotsujin coughTatsujinCough so I wouldn't worry about the game becoming too easy...

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the stages were "re-arranged" and/or "re-orchestrated" somewhat (or something like that) to better accommodate for the PCE's limitations, I mean, I know for a fact that I'm not gonna get that many bullets on-screen on the PCE, but so long as the gameplay was the same, the music and the challenge were still there, and the bomb effects were similar enough, I'd be satisfied...

But once again, this port is probably never gonna happen... If _{(read: "When")} I am to work on a PCE shooter, I'd prefer to make an original game, and that's only really gonna happen after I'm done with that Mega Drive project that's in development hell at the moment because college is taking all of my free time away...
Also, don't worry about assets, by the time I'm even remotely ready to beg for programmer help I'll already have all the assets done >w>

[Arkhan]

Tatsujin is harder for different reasons, though.  Other harder PCE games are hard for other reasons too, like the general enemy patterns, speeds of enemies, and stuff like that.

Kotsujin to me kind of relies on the bullet spray dodging for difficulty.  If you have to water them down, I don't know that it would be as engaging.  It would be playable, but I suspect it would get boring.

Making a new game tailored to the PCE would be a better idea, I think.
 
Even if you rip off the art and music and just repurpose it so it almost feels like Kotsujin, lol.

[Michirin9801]

Tatsujin is harder for different reasons, though.  Other harder PCE games are hard for other reasons too, like the general enemy patterns, speeds of enemies, and stuff like that.

Kotsujin to me kind of relies on the bullet spray dodging for difficulty.  If you have to water them down, I don't know that it would be as engaging.  It would be playable, but I suspect it would get boring.

Making a new game tailored to the PCE would be a better idea, I think.
 
Even if you rip off the art and music and just repurpose it so it almost feels like Kotsujin, lol.

Yeah, that's a good idea...

[elmer]

Kotsujin to me kind of relies on the bullet spray dodging for difficulty.  If you have to water them down, I don't know that it would be as engaging.  It would be playable, but I suspect it would get boring.

Making a new game tailored to the PCE would be a better idea, I think.
 
Even if you rip off the art and music and just repurpose it so it almost feels like Kotsujin, lol.

Yeah, that's a good idea...

Yep ... I think that you've shown that you can make the artwork look great at the lower resolution, and you've definitely shown that you can make the music sound excellent on the PCE! 

If you can just redefine the gameplay away from being a total bullet-hell then it might work.

IMHO, even the SGX would be hard-pushed to recreate the large amount of screen-overdraw from all of those bullets and enemies.

And I don't see the SNES or the Megadrive really having much chance of doing it ... they don't have enough sprites, and neither do they have the upload-to-VRAM bandwidth to draw enough elements into the background.

[touko]

I agree elmer the SNES and MD cannot have any chance too,and the sgx is the best candidate for sure to do this game at a decent level and keep most parts intact.

[Michirin9801]

IMHO I don't see the SNES or the Megadrive really having much chance of doing it ... they don't have enough sprites, and neither do they have the upload-to-VRAM bandwidth to draw enough elements into the background.

I agree elmer the SNES and MD cannot have any chance too,and the sgx is the best candidate for sure to do this game at a decent level and keep most parts intact.

C'mon, even the Game Boy Advance or the X68000 wouldn't have enough sprites to do that game, and both of which could do twice the sprites that the SGX can, I mean, have you ever seen a bullet hell on the X68000? I know I haven't, but to be fair, I haven't played nearly enough X68000 games to know... But still, that game could only be done on the PC-98 because it doesn't flicker, the same way Touhou could only be done on the PC-98 back in the day...
Unless you're capable of doing that whole "draw bullets to the BG layer" thing, in that case it might just work...

You know, changing the gameplay to a non-bullet-hell shooter but keeping the graphics and music was exactly the kind of compromise that I had in mind when I proposed a PCE port of this game, and personally, I think it would be better than an attempt to a 1:1 recreation, just think back to Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, the NES and PCE versions have similar gameplay graphics and music compositions, but the level design of each stage is completely different, and so are many of the bosses, and I think that was a great thing, because once I beat the NES version I hadn't run out of JCAKF to play, because the TurboGrafx version gives me a different and yet still familiar experience to play through! I wasn't just playing through the same game again with better graphics, I was playing through what felt like a sequel or re-imagining of the same game, it played the same, which is nice, but I was experiencing new and different stages with the same themes!

Now apply that to Kotsujin, the graphics, music and themes of the stages would be similar, but you'd be playing through a different game with the same controls, one more tailored to suit the PCE's hardware and just as challenging as the original! (In other words, about as hard as Soldier Blade)
So if you had already played and beaten Kotsujin on the PC-98, you wouldn't be playing a watered-down version of the same game with more colours and slightly different music, you'd be playing a game that looks, sounds and feels like Kotsujin, but with different "level design" so you'd be experiencing new but still familiar stages! In my head that's perfect...