EGM #18 reader-letter + ed reply + pics of *supposed* SuperGrafx Strider

[nat]

There's a noticable drop in colors between arcade and SCD FW.  

I'd argue that and say that beyond a few colors that were changed intentionally, very little was changed graphically between the two. The biggest difference is that the TurboGrafx version runs on a single layer, but what a great looking layer.

[Black Tiger]

you forget how many sprites are being pushed around the screen in FW arcade, especially the later levels.   CPS1's ability to move upto 256 sprites looks like its being pushed.   The SGX would be hard pressed to match that, much less the 1/2 as powerful PCE that powers the Super CD version.   There's a noticable drop in colors between arcade and SCD FW.   Of course, if the SGX had powered the core of the SCD, a really nice translation of FW could've been made, beyond what was done in the SCD version.   I know you regard the SCD version highly, and I think its great given the hardware it ran on.

There's nothing wrong with a little flicker. But there are still work arounds that could be done that weren't required in the arcade port that most people wouldn't notice unless they ran both side by side.

Although some detail is missing in spots, I don't think most people would even notice the difference in color between the PCE FW and the arcade if they saw them both on TVs.

Although Strider still has a lot of sprites moving around, at least it doesn't have constant streams of bullets that quickly eat up the sprite count/pixel limit.

[handygrafx]

There's a noticable drop in colors between arcade and SCD FW.   

I'd argue that and say that beyond a few colors that were changed intentionally, very little was changed graphically between the two. The biggest difference is that the TurboGrafx version runs on a single layer, but what a great looking layer.

Well you are right in a sense.  the SCD version is much closer to the arcade in terms of color and in keeping the original arcade artwork / detail. It's not perfect as you will find a perfect port in Capcom Classics Collection on PS2, Xbox and PSP, but  I will give the SCD version it's dues,  to the untrained eye, it does look very arcade like, minus that layer of scrolling.

[handygrafx]

 Here is one of the better write-ups on the whole subject

http://lscmainframe.topcities.com/sgxgame.html

Dossier: Strider on the NEC SuperGrafX

The SuperGrafX port of Strider is the most legendary and storied home version, bar none. Everyone has a different opinion or story about it. The most popular of these stories are collected (and hopefully debunked) here.

Some of these stories are true(-ish), and others stem from misunderstandings, while still others are downright fabrications. Here are just a few of them.

LEGEND I: "The programmer of the SuperGrafX Strider port killed himself."

Here's the story as propagated by Ralph Space and Strider-Otaku: in the wake of Strider's massive success in the arcades and on the Sega Genesis, Capcom decided to attempt developing the ultimate version, a home conversion of unparalleled quality for NEC's upcoming SuperGrafX/PC-Engine II console.

The unfortunate programmer assigned to this project was put under intense pressure to deliver a superior port, one that could beat both the arcade version and the acclaimed Sega Genesis/MegaDrive port. To do this, the programmer had to start from scratch, converting sprites into a format the SGX could understand as well as writing and optimizing new source code. Sega didn't have that problem with their conversion, as the Genesis/MegaDrive used the same processor as the CPS-1.

The project dragged on and on in development hell until the programmer finally cracked under the strain and had to be committed. A version for the Turbo Duo Arcade Card was hastily cobbled together and released to much critical derision. The Turbo Duo version was perceived as being vastly inferior to the Genesis/MegaDrive port, and it was this failure to beat out the Genesis version that drove the programmer to commit suicide.



Legend has it that, as an homage to the lost programmer, a teddy bear was placed in every Strider game, representing the programmer's regression. Capcom placed teddy bears even in games where Hiryu was merely making a cameo appearance, like this shot from Street Fighter Alpha 2 shows.

There's just a couple of problems with this legend. The first problem is that there's a teddy bear in THE ORIGINAL ARCADE GAME. You can see it for yourself: download Callus, download the ROM, and follow these directions. Once you actually get inside Ballog on the third level, get past the tanks and the railgun, go down the conveyors, and get to the spot on the floor next to a bunch of shells. If you go back up the conveyor to the topmost row of shells and destroy them, a small teddy bear will pop out of a porthole and laugh at you.
   


The second problem is that NEC Avenue was doing the SGX conversion, not Capcom. The employee wasn't even working for Capcom, so why would they continually pay homage to him in their own games? It's far more likely that the programmer got fed up with all the bullshit he had to put up with and quit working on it. The SGX never caught fire in Japan, much less here in the States, so that's probably why the game wasn't completed: the console died before they got a chance to get it out.

Far be it from me to get in the way of a legend, though. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

LEGEND II: "The SuperGrafX version was going to be better than the arcade version."

There's also no way at all that an SGX Strider conversion would surpass the arcade. Consider: the ROM size for the arcade version weighs in between 32 and 43 megabits, and the maximum ROM size for SGX carts weighed in between 8 and 10 megabits. The ROM would have to be reduced to 25% of its original size just to fit on the cartridge, so concessions would have to be made. The graphics and palette would've been an almost spot-on match, though, and with the SGX's superior sprite handling capabilities and additional scrolling layers, it would've definitely given the Genesis version a run for its money. But surpass the arcade? Not a chance.

LEGEND III: "The SuperGrafX version never existed. It was all a hoax."



[For years, this picture culled from EGM 18 was the only surviving screenshot.]    

Thanks to Lawrence over at NFG Games, quite a few people now think that the SGX version never existed at all. They point out that the only screenshots that have ever surfaced were from EGM #18 (article pictured above, screenshot on left), which wasn't known for its journalistic integrity. Any screenshots purporting to be from the SGX version are doctored arcade or X68000 pics, which the unsuspecting American audience fell for.

Additionally, since Capcom never officially announced the game's release and since other betas and even pirated games have shown up on emulation, but this conversion has not, odds are it never existed to begin with. So they say.



These scans change all that. They were taken from the Japanese magazine PC Engine Fan, and only recently resurfaced. The article immediately to the right is from the Sept. 1990 issue.


Check out the Kazakh shot on the bottom right of the second page. Here, I'll make it easy for you with a side-by-side comparison of the arcade and SGX screenshots:


Now, let's play "Spot The Difference." There are no less than seven points of difference between the arcade shot on the left and the purported SGX shot on the right. I'll list them.

   1.

      The resolution of the shot from the article seems to match one of the maximum resolutions of the SGX (352 pixels), while the arcade shot had to be trimmed down.
   2.

      The shot from the article is missing the "stars" background layer (BG3).
   3.

      There's no time elapsed in the shot on the right and the current score tally is 0, despite the player being halfway through the first level.
   4.

      The edges of Falchion's energy slash are curved more and taper around Hiryu's body more in the shot on the right than in the arcade game.
   5.

      Hiryu seems to have the edge of a red sash sticking out from his waist in the shot on the right. No existing Strider conversion has that.
   6.

      The health meter is completely red and has a gradient on each bar in the shot on the right.
   7.

      The pole Hiryu's clinging to in the arcade shot is thicker than the one from the article.

You can go through it yourself with a fine-toothed comb and find many more points of difference, but we'll stop with those.


Here's an excerpt from the Jan. 1991 issue of PC Engine Fan. You can see the same kind of tapering here as in the Sept. '90 excerpt.

If you look closely, the colors in the screenshots from these articles seem to be on a slightly different palette from the arcade version. You can most easily tell this in the shot with the moon in the Sept. '90 excerpt: the moon is much brighter and whiter than it was in the arcade.

These scans can't be from the arcade game or the X68000 game, and they're certainly not from the Turbo Duo version. The screenshots don't match up. This begs the question: which version are these scans from?

The evidence isn't conclusive, but it is pretty persuasive. These excerpts show a version of Strider with marked differences from anything we've seen. They were not taken from any other version, as they use different sprites and different color gradients. Either the SGX version did exist in some developmental form once or someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to mock it up.

Credit goes out to Chris Covell and Bonknuts over at the PCEngineFX forums for doing the stellar research into these articles.
   

LEGEND IV: "There are ____ number of playable prototypes in existence."

Everyone has a different opinion as to what happened to the prototypes, the beta test versions that HAD to have existed if the game was actually being developed. Daniel Riley of SuperGrafx Extreme is most notorious for spreading the rumor that there were four copies of a three-level playable alpha in existence, which any dedicated collector could find.

Daniel bases his opinion on an old rumor dating back to a 1997 post on the Turbo List, an electronic mailing list for NEC enthusiasts, claiming that, all in all, NEC made five working prototypes. This post marked the first time anywhere on the Net that anyone claimed a specific number of Strider SGX betas existed.

Here's the post:

    From: Mike Lyon [lyonx008@gold.tc.umn.edu]
    Date: Sun, 05 Jan 1997 13:16:20 -0600
    Subject: SG Strider: The Scoop

    Here's the the scoop on Strider for the SG, for all those who are not familiar with the story.

    Strider WAS programmed, up to about level 4, for the Supergrafx. It is not vaporware, as is frequently reported. Instead of using a Strider "mold" (looking at previous code and formatting it for the system), the programmers started from scratch, which was a long and costly endevour. The game was intended to surpass even the arcade version, which sounds good to me. The Supergrafx was more than capable of it.

    When the project was scrapped, due to the massive NES/PCE war that I will not get into, there were FIVE WORKING E-proms. Not cards. E-proms. That's prototypes for all of you not in the know. They're big, ugly, and look nothing like Hu-cards. I do not wish to discount [some random poster], but just how his friend got a hold of this is f*cking beyond me. Take these factors into account:

    Copy #1 went to the Hudson vaults. There it will remain until Hudson goes out of business, at which point it will become part of the Hudson estate or be turned over to a company that might buy them out.

    Copy #2 went to the head programmer of Strider. I believe he lives in Kobe. Good luck in finding him.

    Copy #3 was given to the original designer of Strider, who had a close interest in the development of the SG version. After the failure of the SG, he wasn't present for the ACD development, which could account for it's poor quality.

    Copy #4 was the press copy; this is the copy that Gamefan and EGM and all those mags had the Strider pictures in. The press E-prom contained only the first level of the game and a credit sequence, if I'm correct. The press copy, to the best of my knowledge, no longer exists.

    Which leaves copy #5 and copy #5 ALONE unaccounted for. Maybe [previously mentioned poster's friend-of-a-friend] is the lucky guy who owns THIS TRULY ONE OF A KIND ITEM, but I HIGHLY DOUBT IT.

It's not an entirely accurate post (for starters, the SGX was not "more than capable" of delivering an arcade-superior port, as we've seen), but it's still interesting stuff, huh? If this post is reasonably true, then there are/were 5 copies of the SGX Strider port. Copy 1 is in a vault, copy 2 went to Isuke, and copy 3 went to Moto Kikaku. All three would want to keep copies for themselves, if only for portfolio purposes. Copy 4 is most likely in a landfill somewhere. Gaming magazines don't archive stuff like that. They just don't have room.

Copy 5 is the only one still at large, and it's not on a CD or a HuCard. It's on an E-PROM. E-PROMs are used by gaming companies worldwide while testing games in developmental stages. If someone claims to have a copy of SGX Strider on anything even resembling a HuCard or CD-ROM, they're lying. Period.

Bear in mind, however, that the above post is just where the rumor started, and should be taken with a grain of salt. It's just another gamer's unsubstantiated opinion.

Regardless, if someone says they've seen Strider playing on their friend's SGX, it's almost certainly the ACD version they're talking about. The SGX could play old Turbo GrafX-16 games, and had a CD attachment you could buy that would play Turbo Duo games. So yeah, that person saw Strider playing on the SGX. It just wasn't the SGX version.

The game did exist in some form, at one point. Whether it still exists is anybody's guess. The likelihood of it being in any playable form is slim to none, yet to this day, people keep asking about this particular conversion, hoping that it will turn up somewhere.

Like me.  ^_~

[Bonknuts]

Thanks to Lawrence over at NFG Games, quite a few people now think that the SGX version never existed at all. They point out that the only screenshots that have ever surfaced were from EGM #18 (article pictured above, screenshot on left), which wasn't known for its journalistic integrity. Any screenshots purporting to be from the SGX version are doctored arcade or X68000 pics, which the unsuspecting American audience fell for.

 Except those aren't x68000 pics  :-"

[ccovell]

There are lots of threads here about Strider, but I'll post a new discovery (new to me) in this thread:

There's once again no proof that SGX Strider existed.

I just found some preview shots of Arcade Strider in an old Famicom mag from 1988, and they showed beta shots of the Arcade game. Subsequent PCE magazines used these AC beta shots as stock photos whenever they discussed SGX strider, and so this explains the unique gradients, etc, from the pics in the articles.

More here:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/sp_unreleased_pce.html#sgxstrider

[TheClash603]

I like that it was a myth all along.  I wish I was the one who posted about the 5 copies long ago, the trickery is legendary.

[Bonknuts]

I like that it was a myth all along.

 Not quite.

"Originally, work began on the Super Grafx version back in 1990," claims Kimihisa,"but this console proved too expensive for consumers and didn't sell very well. Game publishers didn't support it much either, so we decided to make a standard PC Engine version instead. It's only recently that we decided to make use of the new Arcade Card to improve the conversion."

 Taken from July 1994 Edge magazine with game preview and interview of developers.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd379/PCGenjin/strider.jpg?t=1295780810

[TheClash603]

I like that it was a myth all along.

 Not quite.

"Originally, work began on the Super Grafx version back in 1990," claims Kimihisa,"but this console proved too expensive for consumers and didn't sell very well. Game publishers didn't support it much either, so we decided to make a standard PC Engine version instead. It's only recently that we decided to make use of the new Arcade Card to improve the conversion."

 Taken from July 1994 Edge magazine with game preview and interview of developers.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd379/PCGenjin/strider.jpg?t=1295780810

Began work on doesn't go very far into detail as to what was done.  They could've just talked about the game and not programmed anything.  I guess at least the mystery is alive somewhat, although with zero screenshots.

[Bonknuts]

Began work on doesn't go very far into detail as to what was done.  They could've just talked about the game and not programmed anything.  I guess at least the mystery is alive somewhat, although with zero screenshots.

 I think 'just talked about the game' falls more under planning to bring to the game out. 'Began work' is implies just that. They started actual work on it. How much they got done, who knows. But it definite involves more than just talking about it. You know, there is another SGX game that was unreleased. The guy that runs Assembler game forums claims to own such a proto (an unrelease SGX game, not just some beta of an existing released SGX game). Though, he's stated that it's not Strider.

 Good work Chris for finding the origins of those shots. It's good to have a confirmation either way. But the magazine article is enough for me to know that the game really was in development for the SGX, and not just some myth or made up crap by magazines, regardless of the actual progress of it. I can move on.

[SignOfZeta]

I think 'just talked about the game' falls more under planning to bring to the game out. 'Began work' is implies just that. They started actual work on it.

That isn't logic, its faith. For all we know "began work" might have just meant they ordered a SGX dev kit and put some dude in charge of the project. "Beginning work" on a game starts with sending some emails, getting some funding aproved, getting manpower together, signing a license (in this case anyway), and of bunch of other unexciting non-coding related BS.

The SGX failed faster and more completely than any system I can think of, and the people at NEC avenue obviously would have known sooner than a real 3rd party. They cancelled the project to cut their losses...they might have cancelled it really early, like...before it even ran.

I find the story about there being 5 protos kind of hilarious/stupid. Sounds like the plot of Voltron. Games aren't developed on EPROMS, they are developed on hard drives. The game would only hit an EPROM if they wanted to send the game around, and they only do that when there is something worth sending around. There is basically no evidence that the game ever reached a state where they would want to send demos out...and why would they send demos to EGM or Gamefan?!? Back then those guys often only reviewed Japanese releases they more or less bought with their own money. Relationships with Japanese companies weren't very strong like they are now, and with NEC Avenue? How many NEC Avenue games even got a US release?

Its incredible how much bullshit surrounds what almost certainly would have been a mediocre port.

[Bonknuts]

That isn't logic, its faith. For all we know "began work" might have just meant they ordered a SGX dev kit and put some dude in charge of the project. "Beginning work" on a game starts with sending some emails, getting some funding aproved, getting manpower together, signing a license (in this case anyway), and of bunch of other unexciting non-coding related BS.

 Faith??? I think you mean interpretation. And for all anyone knows, how accurately translated and in context is 'began work' from that interview? I'm more or less stating the phrase implies more than 'just talking about it'. Whether they did do less than begin working on it, can't be derived from the interview, now can it? But we can put the development of this game in the context of the SGX. How many Capcom games, no make that arcade Capcom games make up the SGX library? Two Capcom arcade ports done on the SGX. A third being worked on is not so hard to understand or expect, and when there's information (official at that) also stating just that. No sir, not faith. Using logic to piece together the missing parts of the picture. And that's all anyone can do.

 Also, why would NEC themselves have to order dev kits? And if they did sub out the work to another company, why would that be an influencing factor of... anything? That's not a big deal, by any stretch of the imagination. And there's no information stating they did or did not have development kits. I don't understand the relevance of speculating that without a single bit of information pertaining to that. You might as well just make something up.

The SGX failed faster and more completely than any system I can think of, and the people at NEC avenue obviously would have known sooner than a real 3rd party. They cancelled the project to cut their losses...they might have cancelled it really early, like...before it even ran.

 The article implies, no states, the project was moved to the PC-Engine. Not canceled. Look at the SGX release date. Look at the games that came out. At what point do you think they realized the SGX was a failure and compare that to the release dates of the SGX games.

I find the story about there being 5 protos kind of hilarious/stupid. Sounds like the plot of Voltron. Games aren't developed on EPROMS, they are developed on hard drives. The game would only hit an EPROM if they wanted to send the game around, and they only do that when there is something worth sending around. There is basically no evidence that the game ever reached a state where they would want to send demos out...and why would they send demos to EGM or Gamefan?!? Back then those guys often only reviewed Japanese releases they more or less bought with their own money. Relationships with Japanese companies weren't very strong like they are now, and with NEC Avenue? How many NEC Avenue games even got a US release?

 The story about the 5 prototypes definitely has no validity. And same with EGM/Gamefan. I think it was already talked about that they most likely simply lifted the screen shots from the Japanese mags, unless I missed where someone said otherwise? And I see no reason why NEC would have a SGX connection with any US companies or mags. There was no reason that I know of. The system was Japan only.

[termis]

Forget the SuperGrafx Strider where a pic never existed.  A more realistic dream is to wish for Tom's Strider palette color fix come to fruition one day.  Pics of these DID exist at one point (with awesome results, I might add), but unfortunately the project seems abandoned, and the pics lost...

[Mathius]

It seems this Tom guy figures Strider ACD was originally a SCD game in the beginning based on his findings.

[SignOfZeta]

If that's true then it sat in development hell for...what, 3 years? Maybe 4? That's possible, of course, but you'd think if they had it that long they would have just made a SuperCD out of the assets.