I just beat Legion.........what a flaming pile, thru & thru!

[Keranu]

Very intriguing.

[Black Tiger]

What you'll have to keep in mind with a company like Telenet is they would toss a certain budget towards diff projects,some expecting to sell well,some expecting to just fill a shelf and sell a average amount and gain a small profit.

I always figured that with Golden Axe, after the lincensing fees, cinemas, voice talent and soundtrack, they'd already gone over budget before getting to the actual game. They probably set their sites too high, hoping to make a big game to match the big license.

Of course, Altered Beast was the exact opposite. But at least we got a decent HuCard out of that license.

Very interesting info, Mike. I haven't heard of Telenet Jr. or Namco Tales Studio before.

The manner in which Telenet used all these divisions was pretty convoluted. Even back in the early 90ies I just couldn't keep up with them. Most real gamers back when I was  a teen just put it like this: All the divisions of Telenet just make up the company itself and there wasnt much point in trying to figure which division was doing what,esp on the USA titles released here,because the ones not programed by Wolfteam tended to just carry the Telenet or Renovation name and not the small divisions names.

I always figured that those companies that I encountered(I'm not familar with all of them) back in the day were more or less the same group, but I'd never understood their relationship before. 

[Michael Helgeson]

You know,I actually like the Altered Beast hu-card port other then its so damn hard because of the continue method.
The lack of voices didn't bother me too much. Graphically it was better then the Genesis/Megadrive port.

[Black Tiger]

You know,I actually like the Altered Beast hu-card port other then its so damn hard because of the continue method.
The lack of voices didn't bother me too much. Graphically it was better then the Genesis/Megadrive port.

Unless you judge graphics solely by technical aspects like like parallax scrolling and resolution.

[Michael Helgeson]

Well actually the game is sharper res wise on Pc-Engine.and has more details in some ways in the backgrounds and characters,but I mean the video output on the Genesis was never all that great,esp in composite. I do kinda feel neither version does the boss characters justice completely. The Genesis does have the scrolling background and demo screen and more voices. Neither version is perfect,and both are stronger in different areas.

[Tatsujin]

Graphically it was better then the Genesis/Megadrive port.

you really think so? for me the MD port appeared much closer to the arcade pendant. huger sprites, more dynamic, parallax. the only advantage which i could spot out on the pce version was the pseudo-zoomout of the enemy-bodyparts after kick their ass up to the pixel-heaven.

[Michael Helgeson]

Well I always felt the enemies on the Pc Engine looked more like the arcade game,and I liked the way they died more. The Genesis version had more foreground and background detail in areas though.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I don't think the arcade version had any paralax in any of the levels IIRC, so, I don't totally take that into account on which one is more arcade accurate.  But, still, it would've been nice is the PCE version had paralax, & it would've been nicer if the cd version had redbook audio!  Not to mention 2 player support.  Why doesn't the cd version support 2 players anyways?  Anyone know??

[Keranu]

I kinda always thought the PCE port of Altered Beast looked nicer than the Genesis version too. The sprites looked more colorful as well as some of the backgrounds, even though everything looked smaller. The music in the PCE version was also pretty good.

[Buster D]

I know that Masaaki Uno the head director and producer for Wolfteam,along with the original founder Masahiro Akishino and most of the programers and staff that worked on the Megadrive/Genesis titles left in 1993 after Telenet decided to restructure and merge everything back into one name/division/company.

I was introduced to Uno-sensei a year and a half ago in a bar (his parents' house in Tokyo is near where I live).  He's a real nice guy, he even helped me a little bit when I was job hunting.  He told me about his work for the various Shining RPGs and for Camelot, but I had no idea about his work for Wolfteam. 

Damn, gonna have to give him an e-mail and buy him a couple more beers, maybe I can get him to talk some more about his old games.  He talks kinda fast so my Japanese usually can't keep up with him, but you have any questions for him (assuming he'll have the time to have a drink with me again)?  Gonna have to find something for him to autograph, too...

[Michael Helgeson]

Yea now that I remember the arcade version had no scrolling background or foreground either. The genesis is a great version,has more voices and the stage graphics do look more close to the arcade esp in layout with the grass on the first stage,but the tiny details of these thing sseem to be missing,details to the sky,bricks ect ect. ALL the characters are closer to the arcade on the Pc-Engine version,esp when you kill them. The deaths on the Genesis are horrible.

The graphics details in stage 2 on the Pc-Engine were reworked completely,so in some spots it looks better,in some spots it looks worse. I never played farther then this on the Pc-Engine version. All I know is from what I see the Pc-Engine handled the actual characters better,as well as the colors and the really tiny details,where as the Genesis version focused on sacrificing the tiny details on some things so that they could keep in something like grass. Either version is  a trade off in certain areas graphically. Also note the Genesis is missing the part where baldie grows large before becoming the boss in stage 1. On Genesis he vanishes in the smoke and becomes the boss. I'm sure there are other areas like this as well where the Pc-Engine out shines the Genesis port,but Ill have to play more to be sure.

[nodtveidt]

Riot was part of Telnet? Well, that explains Exile II's many errors...

[Michael Helgeson]

OUTRUN FUN ! ! !



Both versions yet again do a great job while neither are perfect. One thing I do give the Genesis  a def one up on is the beach left side at the beginning. As you drive the water is visible. On Pc-Engine its just ground,not water. The Pc Engine version is prettier to look at and the Genesis is raw looking with more objects crammed in there at medium detail. Neither version really beats the other. I do not like how the race map plays out on the Pc Engine however. Its altered for some odd reason,I guess to be different.

[Keranu]

Great pics for Altered Beast and Outrun, Mike.

[Emerald Rocker]

The only reason Wolfteam got its name at the beginning of a game or on packaging was because the veteran members of Wolfteam wanted it that way. For a couple of years they they had split from Telenet and enjoyed some independence on its own. I think they got pulled back in around 1990. They were alot more pushy then most people and had alot of pull because Wolfteam was pushing out the best titles for Telenet

Are you referring to the US releases (which I'm not familiar with)?  I ask because, in Japan, pretty much every Telenet release credited the particular development group upfront when you first boot the game.  Even Sledgehammer got their due.  It seemed to be a Telenet tradition to give the developers credit for their work.