teh reversed question: Thunderforce 4 on PC Engine (?)

[Tatsujin]

some people claim, that thunder force 4 on the Mega Drive is the non plus ultra when it comes up to 16-bit shmups and defeats everything ever seen on the PCE. i doubt that immense and also have to say that TV4 on the MD is a technical wreck, since the slowdowns sometimes comes near to those of a Gradius 3 or Super R-type on SFC, although there is much more on screen of course.
usually technosoft was well known for their technical cleverness on that system, so i assume they pushed it quite to its maximum possible. resulting from that fact, the MD was quite overchallenged with that piece of software.

so i'm wondering now, how would have Thunder Force 4 looked on the PCE as well pushed to its maximum (as they did with sapphire etc).

my opinion is, and since slowdowns and flickers were rarelly seen on the pce if professionals took over the coding, that except of some parallax issues the game would had run quite faster with less slowdowns and with a slightly prettier color palette in overall.

this shouldn't become a MD bash topic, but i stand behind my opinion that the pce was more powerful to display on-screen action (dynamics, speed, low flickers etc.) with a higher amount of color than the MD and therefore a TF4 wouldn't have been an impossible issue for the PC Engine.

[Black Tiger]

A version of TFIV could be made very nice on PCE, but in order to fully take advantage of/work around the PCE's strengths/limitations, things like background layering would have to be done with different looking effects.

But I also think that TFIV could be done much better on MD as well.

[Tom]

 The slowdowns were surprising in that game. They were going after the SNES crowd? I got it when it was released and remember being amazed but the production value visually and effects. But after that wore off, I found myself going back to TF3. For me TF4 doesn't know when to be subtle at times - you get over saturated buy the constant visual effects. And the music is a bit...rough/low res distorted sounding. The compositions are good though, just not better than TF3 

 As for the game on PCE, some of the effects wouldn't be doable. Some effects require dual layers like the desert/sand level. Funny that you posted about this. I had planned out at one time how one could go about doing TF4 on an ACD platform. Most of the Ocean side level scrolling could be done on the PCE with lots of optimizations and memory . TF4 also recycles a lot of colors, so the PCE version would definitely improve in some areas/levels. But MD does a lot of blurrying for its composite/RF giving the appearance that it has more shades or smoother blending than what's really there, so it's not likely PCE added colors on screen would be dramatic over the MD version. MD games tend to use hues that bleed/blend easier usually with high contrast or deep hues too. That said, I think an ACD port totally optimized for the PCE would be great. Maybe even change a few level designs

 

[awack]

some people claim, that thunder force 4 on the Mega Drive is the non plus ultra when it comes up to 16-bit shmups and defeats everything ever seen on the PCE.

That sounds like people from Planet pcengine forums

It is a optimized Genesis game in some ways, like the use of dual backgrounds to good effect as has been said here, but like you mention, with slow down and stuttering(1st level line scrolling)

With the super CD or ACD you could have more diverse looking levels.As Tom has said about the sand storm and Black Tiger said about using different effects, one could see using sprites to simulate a sand storm especially since there isn't allot of action on screen for that level and sprites can overlap each other, of course it would look far less convincing.


 

[Joe Redifer]

I agree with Black Tiger (who used to be known as Black_Tiger for those of you finding yourselves extremely confused) that it could be done even better on the Genesis than it currently is.  It contained only 8 MEGA POWER and it is amazing what they did with that small amount of space.  Just imagine if they made it 16 MEGA POWER or even 24 MEGA POWER!  My brain stops functioning when I think of MEGA POWER that high because my brain simply cannot process something so amazing!

I think they could approximate the scrolling in the first level on the PCE just as long as it didn't have to scroll up or down and overlap itself.  I would love to hear how the music sounded coming from the PCE chip.  Since the PCE couldn't do the dreaded "fake guitar" then it would have likely sounded pretty smooth and made the melody composition stand out even more.  Just as long as they didn't use the gritty drums from Air Zonk, it would probably sound cool.

[Tom]

I think they could approximate the scrolling in the first level on the PCE just as long as it didn't have to scroll up or down and overlap itself.  I would love to hear how the music sounded coming from the PCE chip.

 Yeah some of the scrolling would be cut back, but less than you think. Since the scrolls 'layers' are fixed with the screen scrolling and can transfer over to the PCE with Hysnc+dynamic tiles.   

Since the PCE couldn't do the dreaded "fake guitar"

No?
http://pcedev.net/MOD_DOCS/metal_mod.avi
And another MOD on the PCE - http://pcedev.net/MOD_DOCS/Top_Gear.avi
(That's a beta player and nothing is optimized - sample scaling has artifacts and samples are not optimized for PCE res. And no, it's not my version of a MOD player for PCE)

 

[Joe Redifer]

Since the PCE couldn't do the dreaded "fake guitar"

No?
http://pcedev.net/MOD_DOCS/metal_mod.avi
And another MOD on the PCE - http://pcedev.net/MOD_DOCS/Top_Gear.avi
(That's a beta player and nothing is optimized - sample scaling has artifacts and samples are not optimized for PCE res. And no, it's not my version of a MOD player for PCE)

You crushed my soul a little bit there, though the second one wasn't bad.
 

[Black Tiger]

I think it's safe to say that most people thinking about a version of TFIV done well on PCE would be a Super CD or ACD game. Imagine what TFIV could be like as a Sega-CD game.

[Turbo D]

Imagine what TFIV could be like as a Sega-CD game.

Would it be like a shitty fmv? 

[Michael Helgeson]

I think it's safe to say that most people thinking about a version of TFIV done well on PCE would be a Super CD or ACD game. Imagine what TFIV could be like as a Sega-CD game.

It would still be better on Arcade Card Cd.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I think they could approximate the scrolling in the first level on the PCE just as long as it didn't have to scroll up or down and overlap itself.  I would love to hear how the music sounded coming from the PCE chip.

 Yeah some of the scrolling would be cut back, but less than you think. Since the scrolls 'layers' are fixed with the screen scrolling and can transfer over to the PCE with Hysnc+dynamic tiles.   

Since the PCE couldn't do the dreaded "fake guitar"

No?
http://pcedev.net/MOD_DOCS/metal_mod.avi
And another MOD on the PCE - http://pcedev.net/MOD_DOCS/Top_Gear.avi
(That's a beta player and nothing is optimized - sample scaling has artifacts and samples are not optimized for PCE res. And no, it's not my version of a MOD player for PCE)

 

Man, that's nuts, sounds like Amiga!  This may sound stupid, but, does each instrument/mod use 1 sound channel I assume?  Could a PCE game have mixed mod/psg?