The key missing part arrived yesterday : the controller. After more than 3 weeks I finally got a chance to play the console, and I have been very impressed by what I have seen ! Emulators running on your computer never really come close to the real experience on the console, in RGB, with a good CRT TV.
I discovered that I had to boot the CD-ROM Bios 1.00 to make Altered Beast work. Glad that I picked up a Turbo Everdrive v2. By the way this Everdrive looks like it has a better build quality than my other Everdrives.
Altered Beast is a pretty great port seeing that it was released in 1989. Big sprites, good colors, good music and voices. The game runs fine, but it is very difficult. I could not get past the second boss, I find it a lot harder than on MegaDrive.
Then I played some Gotzendeiner, really liked what I played of the game. Scrolling is a bit choppy. I think that the game won't be a good contender at the most replayable game however. I got stuck in some sort of caves, I will have to give it another try.
I started Anearth Fantasy Stories just to see how it was, and I get the feeling that this will be a fantastic game. I simply need to get in the mood of playing a Japanese game. I will probably be printing an edited version of the guide that you linked me earlier in the thread, it will be much more comfortable playing it this way.
Finally, I spent a maybe an hour on Spriggan Mark 2, and loved the game instantly. I find the visuals absolutely fantastic. Several parallaxes, a lot of sprites, a great sense of depth. The game was crafted with a lot of passion. I played until stage 8 (game was not very difficult on Normal) and had a blast. I stopped because it was getting late.
I also booted my Turbo Everdrive and two or three roms to see if everything was working properly.
On the technical aspect of the machine, I am really blown away by how capable the console is, considering that it was released in 1987. The console simply blows away the MegaDrive in terms of colors, this is absolutely stunning. Emulators and youtube videos never do colors justice, you have to see if on the your TV to understand it.
It seems to me that the PCE is a lot less constraining. You can display almost all colors of the palette, and the Genesis has a big constraint because the 64 colors are divided in 4 palettes, and every tile or sprite can only use one palette at once. When I see how the colors are divided around the screen on PCE, it seems to me that you don't really have this kind of constraint. I am not an expert, but it seems obvious when you see the games.
The quantity of stuff that moves around the screen with no or minimal slowdown is also a pretty impressive thing. It can manage a big number of sprites at once, while even maintaining impressive parallaxes (which are also made with sprites). This is a very interesting approach and I can't wait to see other games.
I will definitely be buying some other games in the future !
