SOTN on PC Engine

[ClodBuster]

Good job on that one Screencap, Paul.



Other than that, I think the one Castlevania that the PCE got was just as good as it can get.

Super Castlevania, Bloodlines, Symphony, Rondo and Rebirth seem to me be perfect matches for each console hardware they've been released on. Super wouldn't be the same without the silly Mode 7 shenanigans and the farting SPC trumpets. Bloodlines pulls some graphical tricks out of the then aging Genesis you wouldn't expect from it. Symphony is a great amalgamation of smooth animation, rotation/scaling effects and a good soundtrack. Rebirth's fantastic Arcade Konami style synth music would be pretty hard to replicate faithfully on 90s console hardware without going for redbook audio. And talking of Rondo, you guys all know well enough how it turned out when being ported to the SNES.

[Arkhan]

The reflecty water stuff in Bloodlines kicks ass.

I'd like to see Simon's Quest for PCE with some slight tweaks to make it less annoying.   

If you fix the text a little, tweak the heart-grinding, and maybe add some more action to the mansions, it would be great.

like, add bosses instead of just stabbing bowling balls with sticks to finish the mansion.

And make it so you can't f*ckING DIE IN THE TOWNS IF YOU FALL IN THE WATER.

That was pretty stupid of them.

[exodus]

Castlevania Adventure Rebirth is hard to call a throwback - it's a completely new game that uses a similar name, and some similar enemies to the GB game. It's also extremely good! So I'm not sure where this is coming from

[Arkhan]

How is it hard to call it a throwback?

That's literally what it is.  lol

Completely new game on new platform, calling back to the old days.   

Throwback. 

[turboswimbz]

[spenoza]

They are retro. They adhere to an aesthetic from the past.

[Windcharger]

Of course. Purely from a graphics point of view I think you could get decent results although you'd be looking at some rather harsher contrast. Looking at sprite sheets, the colour count isn't greatly out of the PCE's reach. But it's a fun experiment.

Indeed it is fun, which is why I still plan on porting it someday to the Super Grafx Arcade CD-ROM2 System, because the world needs an "SGXACD"!    (Although I'm working on Mega Man X for straight PCE first as a learning experience.   )



Anyway...  The image in the middle is the PSX original, and to the left is what happens when you try to approximate the PSX's palette as closely as possible on the PCE.  As you can see it's interesting, but a bit drab with lots of loss of color information and detail.  The image on the right is what the PCE's palette could do when tweaked a bit for artistic effect to leverage the system's palette strengths, namely using high contrast to your advantage and keeping a majority of the important colors in the middle shades to offer the most surrounding color choices.

I think it's a pretty neat effect...

[SiberianSpForces]

The reflecty water stuff in Bloodlines kicks ass.

I'd like to see Simon's Quest for PCE with some slight tweaks to make it less annoying.   

If you fix the text a little, tweak the heart-grinding, and maybe add some more action to the mansions, it would be great.

like, add bosses instead of just stabbing bowling balls with sticks to finish the mansion.

And make it so you can't f*ckING DIE IN THE TOWNS IF YOU FALL IN THE WATER.

That was pretty stupid of them.

I second this idea. There's a lot of great resources from SOTN and Rondo that could be imported.

[Black Tiger]

They are retro. They adhere to an aesthetic from the past.

SotN was also retro.

[Arkhan]

They are retro. They adhere to an aesthetic from the past.

SotN was also retro.

No it wasn't.   Retro implies you're making a deliberate attempt to throwback.  Like Johnny Rockets.

Sotn was just "the next game in the series, made like we've been doing this whole time."

That'd be like saying the latest RCA TV at the time was retro because it's kinda like the 20 year older one, but with nicer knobs/frame.

people just equate all this old stuff to being retro when it's not.   Rebirth was retro.

[nopepper]

This is pretty neat, but PCE already has a kick ass Castlevania game, so I'd rather see a different franchise get the port treatment.

And to the peeps who are porting Shovel Knight to NES, the question is, why the NES?!? Is it just because of a bigger audience and it's Nintendo? Because that game would fit a million times better on the PCE, with its "fake" parallax and all.

[Arkhan]

Its because the game was basically a hopped up NES throwback, and that's what the plebs want

[spenoza]

If you're going to throw back to an older platform, you're more likely to do it to a popular one. Maybe you missed the 90s, but our platform of choice wasn't very popular in the West back then.

[nopepper]

If you're going to throw back to an older platform, you're more likely to do it to a popular one. Maybe you missed the 90s, but our platform of choice wasn't very popular in the West back then.

What?!? The NES was more popular than the Turbo? No way!!

I totally understand why developers would want to port a high profile game, such as Shovel Knight, to the hardware that inspired its development, and a hardware that is ostensibly synonymous with retro gaming. But really, Shovel Knight is way too much NES on steroids, so I reckon it'll have to be heavily compromised. Instead, the devs could still have gone old school, put it in vintage hardware that fits the game almost perfectly, press some Super CDs and probably still get an audience. If anything, it probably, much to the chagrin of a lot here, bring more fans into the PCE/Turbo world.

But that's the romantic in me writing this, as I know it will never happen, as the Turbo is just way too niche.

[exodus]

They are retro. They adhere to an aesthetic from the past.

SotN was also retro.

yeah - I mean if you're saying adventure rebirth adhered to an older aesthetic on a new platform, so too did SOTN. It sure wasn't all 3D with the newest bells and whistles! I have a pet peeve where "gamers" in general think anything pixel is retro or a throwback (not necessarily saying this is happening here, but that's what got me going).

adventure rebirth takes all the things learned from those prior eras - about sound design, animation, jumps, snappiness, colors, and level design, and pushes it further in a new direction. to me it was taking an old concept forward, rather than looking back and trying to emulate the past. I'd say a throwback emulates the past, but adventure rebirth evolves it, or at least attempts to.