Graphics: Turbo vs. Genesis - ye old debate

[nat]

It makes it so a lazy genesis programmer can accomplish cool things with the background that a clever, determined, programmer working with the turbo platform could never pull off as well.

It's clear to me now that OldTurboBastard is either trolling or is mentally unable to grasp the concepts laid out here.

[OldTurboBastard]

It makes it so a lazy genesis programmer can accomplish cool things with the background that a clever, determined, programmer working with the turbo platform could never pull off as well.

It's clear to me now that OldTurboBastard is either trolling or is mentally unable to grasp the concepts laid out here.

Again not true on both counts. Not trolling, just engaged in a lively (if not heated) discussion. That's one of the things a forum is for.

I grasp the conceps laid out here, that the turbo CAN pull off SOME of the parallax featured so often in Genesis games, and I have seen it with my own eyes. But the fact remains it is more difficult to pull off on the turbo and therefore is seen less often and is generally not as complete or involved - which is not good for us turbo gamers and probably the reason we tend to point it out so much in the turbo games that DO have it "Holy cow they finally pulled off parallax!!"

[Michael Helgeson]

I like both systems,and both have abilities to top each other here and there,but if I had to choose a hands down winner in over all quality,esp graphically Id pick Hudson's baby. Paralax scrolling doesn't paint the whole picture anyway. Besides that,no matter how many fine shooters were presented on Genesis/Megadrive,Pc-Engine/TG16 had the better ones available on hucard or scd. Couple that with the nice Neo ports,and Sf 2 Champ,and the other fighters on Scd,the system simply stays as my favorite right beside the Neo.

Any comparisons that could blow me out of the water and prove me wrong? I'd love to see. Plus where, if it all, does the turbo beat out the Genesis in any tech stat categories? I'm talking strictly graphics not sound

Some good examples of excellent programming,to me,are shown on the videos people made:







Good video to watch so you can see how the Pc-Engine handled the Neo stuff the best






Not to knock you OldTurboBastard,but it does seem like your actually more into the other system,Genesis,which is fine,everyone can have their fav,and a right to their opinion,but what you could do to put up a better argument if your dead set on feeling like your right is to do screen shot comparisons or something. We tend to do that off and on around here.

[Michael Helgeson]

I should note however I feel neither systems shooters can touch my Blazing Star and Last Resort on NeoGeo

[Necromancer]

It makes it so a lazy genesis programmer can accomplish cool things with the background that a clever, determined, programmer working with the turbo platform could never pull off as well.

Can you name a single game on the Genesis that could not be done on the Engine?  Using the techniques already mentioned here, all of your coveted parallax could be replicated on the Engine - until it runs out of sprites.  You'd have to find a game that has a shit load of overlapping parallax as well as a ton of sprites, which simply doesn't happen all that often.

You are under the delusion that there is only a handful of PC Engine games with parallax, when in reality there are hundreds.  While nearly every Genesis game has some parallax, much of it is pretty simplistic and nothing technically impressive.

[OldTurboBastard]

Not to knock you OldTurboBastard,but it does seem like your actually more into the other system,Genesis,which is fine,everyone can have their fav,and a right to their opinion,but what you could do to put up a better argument if your dead set on feeling like your right is to do screen shot comparisons or something. We tend to do that off and on around here.

Fair Enough. Thanks for posting the videos some were quite impressive. If I were not at work i'd post some examples. I'm starting to get the feeling that no amount of hard evidence could sway the opinions on this board anyhow. Most seem pretty set that the turbo can do anything the Genesis can do. My argument at this point is that most of the time it did'nt.

As for liking the genesis more - I always enjoyed the turbo when i owned it, I just spent alot of time wishing my turbo games had some of the cool backgrounds I saw so often in the Genesis games -

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback. I'm out for now....

[geise]

Gunstar Heroes.  There's quite a few raster effects Trasure does with that hardware that I don't think would really be able to  be done on the Duo.  I love my Duo way better than my Genesis/MD btw, just adding fuel to the fire 

[nat]

You are under the delusion that there is only a handful of PC Engine games with parallax, when in reality there are hundreds.  While nearly every Genesis game has some parallax,

Good point.

I'd be interested, just for the sake of perhaps getting some acknowledgement from OldTurboBastard, to see a total count of all the PCE games that feature parallax versus a count of all the Genesis games that have parallax.

I'd venture a guess that there isn't as big a gap in the tallies as OldTurboBastard believes.

But Michael (and others) also made a grand point-- parallax isn't the end all and be all of video games.

I'm starting to get the feeling that no amount of hard eveidence could sway the opinions on this board anyhow. Most seem pretty set that the turbo can do anything the Genesis can do. My argument at this point is that most of the time it did'nt.

And judging from your comments, I get the feeling you haven't played many Turbo games-- otherwise you probably wouldn't feel that way.  

[runinruder]

I grasp the conceps laid out here, that the turbo CAN pull off SOME of the parallax featured so often in Genesis games, and I have seen it with my own eyes. But the fact remains it is more difficult to pull off on the turbo and therefore is seen less often and is generally not as complete or involved - which is not good for us turbo gamers and probably the reason we tend to point it out so much in the turbo games that DO have it "Holy cow they finally pulled off parallax!!"

OldTurboBastard makes a good point here.  Take Sinistron/Violent Soldier.  Players were THRILLED by the first stage's parallax, while if the identical game had been released for the Genesis, people would just be wondering why the hell the other stages didn't follow suit.  Dead Moon always garners praise for its scrolling, but such effects would be considered merely obligatory in a Genesis game. 

I'm not one of these tech experts who can explain the ins and outs of each system, but I own hundreds of PCE/Turbo games, and I've played the crud out of just about all of them, so I have a pretty good idea of what the system was capable of visually (or at least what programmers managed/bothered to produce with it).  Things that would seem routine on the Genesis amaze people when they're accomplished in a PCE game.  And I don't buy the excuse that all of these programmers were too lazy or simply unwilling to go the extra mile with the resources available to them, as there were MANY renowned third party developers producing games for the PCE.  I think it's more likely that, as OldTurboBastard has asserted, it was extremely difficult or simply impossible to pull off the sort of visual effects that have been discussed.

Of course, the PCE was capable of outdoing the Genesis in some ways, mostly thanks to colors.  And people have correctly pointed out that certain ports were much more impressive on the PCE (though while some people are quick to use "lazy programmers" as an excuse for the PCE's lack of impressive effects, most don't seem to give the Genesis the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to these ports).  But I don't think the PC Engine was capable of hosting graphics like those in Lightening Force or Aladdin for the Genesis.  I think even the relatively early Castle of Illusion, beautiful on the Gen, would look very 8-bit and unimpressive on the Turbo.   

[geise]

Well Valis III on Genesis has way more parallax than the Turbo version, but to me the Turbo version is better with extra levels, cd music and shitty voice acting.  Then again I guess it doesn't count since it's a CD based game.  Regardless, the "awesome"  Genesis parallax scrolling didn't make it a better gaming experience for me.

[Michael Helgeson]

I love Lightening Force,its def a paralax benchmark,and that really adds to the visuals alot,but I still think Rayxanber 2 and 3,and Gradius 2 look better,not worlds better,but enough.

Takara was a great company when it came to doing what they could with Neo ports on the Genesis and Snes,I don't think it was ever a lazy factor that came into play.Proof of Takara working hard shows in AOF,FF Special, and World Heroes 2 on Snes,and Fatal Fury 1 and 2 and King of the Monsters on Genesis. I think the Pc-Engine just had it better at drawing and moving those kinda sprites though,the types needed for fighting games,much easier then the Snes and Genesis. I think infact SF 2 Champ would have been much better if Hudson worked on it then Nec,as Hudson prob would have strove for a better port while Nec seemed content to just match the others more or less. Proof of that def shows in the Hudson Neo ports. Its also nice to point out that Gradius 1,2 and Salamander on PcEngine are better ports of those 3 then Gradius  3 on Snes.

[OldTurboBastard]

And judging from your comments, I get the feeling you haven't played many Turbo games-- otherwise you probably wouldn't feel that way.  

I lied i'm back... :-)... you already mentioned that a few times...see previous retort.....anyway by popular demand here's some evidence

here' s a clip of mystic defender, one of the earliest games on the genesis..nothing too special really


note the parallax is both vertical and horizontal and overlaps. A great example is the grid background in stage 4(?).  Also note the background is not limitied to dark colors to conceal the black tiles. Again, this is an early genesis game and came out when virtually NONE of the turbo games had any true parallax, only some flat horizontal stuff. That's what i'm reffering to.

I do agree parallax is not the only thing and some have made some other good points on here aside from parallax. It's just obvious to me that the two were not equal on this spec.

[Turbo D]

looks like another mediocre genesis game to me. The parallax I saw in the video was nothing that couldn't be done on the turbo. I could see the cut off on the parallax layers, so I'm not  sure what makes you think its so special 

[nat]

And judging from your comments, I get the feeling you haven't played many Turbo games-- otherwise you probably wouldn't feel that way. 

I lied i'm back... :-)... you already mentioned that a few times...see previous retort.....anyway by popular demand here's some evidence

here' s a clip of mystic defender, one of the earliest games on the genesis..nothing too special really

note the parallax is both vertical and horizontal and overlaps. A great example is the grid background in stage 4(?).  Also note the background is not limitied to dark colors to conceal the black tiles. Again, this is an early genesis game and came out when virtually NONE of the turbo games had any true parallax, only some flat horizontal stuff. That's what i'm reffering to.

Again, I'm really not sure what you're talking about....

The craptacular Bravoman, released in 1988 or 1989 features parallax just like what is displayed by that game in your video. The background also overlaps vertically and horizontally, if I understand your meaning correctly. Witness:

[Joe Redifer]

The PCE sure has a ton of lazy programmers. 

Kidding, of course.  But PCE programmers had to work MUCH harder to achieve the same effect as the Genesis, and that results in man hours.  Many games probably didn't have the budget or the schedule to allow for such things.  With the Genesis it was extremely simple and didn't cut in to production time anywhere near as much. 

I do enjoy how a lot of Turbo fans discount anything that isn't built in to the system as "unnecessary".  If the Turbo can't do it, it doesn't matter.  That's always been the attitude.  I'm not sure why you guys play Turbo instead of the NES with that attitude.  But just look at this thread.  Parallax is obviously a huge issue that many of you have opinions about.  If it wasn't much of an issue, I don't think there would really be much of a debate, especially when only a few people are arguing pro-Genesis or pro-parallax here.  But notice how many of you needed to chime in to state that the Turbo can do EVERYTHING a Genesis can do without exception and if there is something that the Genesis can do that the Turbo can't, it is of no importance.  Big issue amongst you.  A couple of you like Turbo D would rather murder your own mother than play (much less enjoy) a Genesis game.  Fanboyism runs strong here indeed.

I generally prefer the Genesis simply because there are more games available in the style that I want to play, but I'd be a fool to say something like the fact that it can't properly do scaling and rotation doesn't matter.  Lots of games like Super Thunder Blade, Space Harrier 2 and many others look like crap without it.  Sure, it can do some great scaling and rotation in the software, but I won't kid myself.  The Genesis is weak in this area.  But you won't see me on Sega-16 moaning at how scaling doesn't add anything and doesn't make or break a game.  While there is some truth to that, eye candy counts for a lot and can indeed make games more enjoyable.  If you're 100% about the art and not about things that move like parallax and scaling/rotation, then why would you even play games?  Just pause it and stare at the still screen.  Yes, good art definitely helps, but it's not the only thing.  A game needs to move well.  Adding depth via parallax helps achieve cool visuals.