PCE, SNES and Genesis Screen Comparison.

[Arkhan Asylum]

As for Rastan Saga II, the PCE takes it again.

not saying much since they both look stupid as hell, lol

[nat]

[Joe Redifer]

The mega bomber man shots for the genesis are corrupt, there about a billion more colors than there should be.

That's because you saved them in the JPEG format.  Bad awak, BAD!

[Tatsujin]

lol@RASATAN

[awack]

That's because you saved them in the JPEG format.  Bad awak, BAD!

haha, my computer went bye bye, so i had to download gens emulator  on another computer and started snapping away but didn't catch the problem until rastan II.

[Ceti Alpha]

[Arkhan Asylum]

Nothing says medieval fantasy epic like a mongoloid with no clothes on swinging stuff around.

[Tatsujin]

one of the best games ever got its just possible worst sequel. thats RASATAN SAGA 2

[_Paul]

One can only imagine the glory that would have been the original Rastan on PCE CD.

[spenoza]

I'm not sure I would have liked Rastan with a CD soundtrack, though, unless it was an original arcade recording. Something about that old sound hardware makes the soundtrack perfectly spooky and ethereal.

[awack]

Kyuukyoku Tiger.


                       pce                                        genesis

[Joe Redifer]

Both are extremely average looking beyond comprehension (is it possible to be even more average than average?) but I think I like the Genesis version a hair better.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Both are extremely average looking beyond comprehension (is it possible to be even more average than average?) but I think I like the Genesis version a hair better.

I think the PCE one is better only because I like the bright ass blue water alot more than the dark blue.

[CrackTiger]

Both Twin Cobras look about even when you balance out the subtle pros and cons, but there are a few colorings I like less on Genesis and more on PCE. The bomb explosion for PCE alone tips the scales for me. In the grand scheme of things though, they're more or less even.

I'd like to see how they compare to the arcade.

[Tatsujin]

The bomb explosion for PCE alone tips the scales for me.

but i have to say, that the MD versions has some more details here and there, but as usual lacks in some colors.

anyway, the pce is more awesome alone due to the fact, it came on one of the most stylish hueys.

[awack]

OK, graphically speaking, here are the two games considered by many to be the best on each system, i got the screenshots of DKC from VGM, i tried to match them up the best i could, some obviously don't match up well.

                     snes                                                pce

[CrackTiger]

The technical quality of BS's bgs is good (the actual art varies), but the sprites are pretty fugly. Of course, the same can be said of DKC.

I'd put BS's graphics behind at least 100 other PCE games.

DKC uses cgi to render some terrible art. It does move around some backgrounds and animated sprites and does some neat special effects, all with a lot of color... but what's the point if the style is so lame?

I'd also put DKC's graphics behind at least 100 other SFC games, but most people don't really care about what the actual art looks like.

[Tatsujin]

so true.

[awack]

I usually don't give my opinion of the comparisons Ive done, but this one is pretty obvious, i have to go with Shadowgate.

DKC has very nice subtle shading due to a process called debabelizing i think, but the out come in this case is slightly boring and forgettable.

Shadowgate, has a very organic and tactile look to its graphics, and amazing detail with no repeating tiles, it can look a bit messy and the sprites do suck. I added a few more shots of some nice looking areas.





                   

[Joe Redifer]

I definitely do like the fact that there are no repeated tiles in Beyond Shadowgate.  I wish more games took this approach, even if they were pixel art like most games are.  BS looks like digitized artwork/paintings.

[Arkhan Asylum]

BS is on a system w/ less power than an Amiga and compares to it in quality and presentation.

I always thought that game,while it does look kinda dopey, is still impressive.

Kind of like those indiana jones and monkey island games... goofy but fancy?

If that makes any ounce of sense.



Donkey Kong looked cool when I was 10 but now i look at it and all I see is boring.  Its very

very
very

Blanddddddd

[Tatsujin]

BS looks like digitized artwork/paintings.

that's probably because it IS (just) digitized artwork/paintings. not?

[CrackTiger]

I don't know if the first DKC has many, but there are boss bgs or maybe npc bgs that aren't repeated tiles. It'd be interesting to see a couple of those compare to BS.

Back in the day the final blow that really took the mystical illusion out of DKC's "32+ bit" graphics for me was how well they translated to the b&w Gameboy, even though the media and Nintendo led everyone to believe that only the SNES had the raw power to harness the technology that reproduced "Toy Story" (the film) quality images.

[awack]

Back in the day the final blow that really took the mystical illusion out of DKC's "32+ bit" graphics for me was how well they translated to the b&w Gameboy, even though the media and Nintendo led everyone to believe that only the SNES had the raw power to harness the technology that reproduced "Toy Story" (the film) quality images.

Have you seen the Gameboy Color port? I put up some comparison shots of it and the original snes version, the GBC shots suck but were the best i could find, still, it gives you a good idea of how well it turned out.
             

             GBC                                           SNES

[spenoza]

I like the BS backgrounds, but I don't think they made optimal use of the PCE color palette. They seem a little more dithered than I would think they would need to be.

[CrackTiger]

Back in the day the final blow that really took the mystical illusion out of DKC's "32+ bit" graphics for me was how well they translated to the b&w Gameboy, even though the media and Nintendo led everyone to believe that only the SNES had the raw power to harness the technology that reproduced "Toy Story" (the film) quality images.

Have you seen the Gameboy Color port? I put up some comparison shots of it and the original snes version, the GBC shots suck but were the best i could find, still, it gives you a good idea of how well it turned out.

I used to have a multi-game Famicom cart with that GBC DKC game on it.

Pretty scary how close they are. The GBC version actually looks better in that purple cave scene.

[awack]

that's probably because it IS (just) digitized artwork/paintings. not?

From my understanding the BG graphics were handled by an outside art studio who hand painted them and were later scanned into a computer.

I like the BS backgrounds, but I don't think they made optimal use of the PCE color palette. They seem a little more dithered than I would think they would need to be.

The BG graphics use more colors than any pce game that i know of, single objects use up to 50 colors, so why the dithered look, the best way i can put it is to imagine taking a digital paint brush, dip and swirl it into the pce color palette(512 colors) then take the brush and drag it across the screen, what you will end up with some times are weird color combinations that don't mix well, in my opinion, this actually looks really good through composite on a CRT TV, which is what i use.

I used to have a multi-game Famicom cart with that GBC DKC game on it.

I'm not a big DKC fan but that would a interesting piece to have.

[CrackTiger]

From my understanding the BG graphics were handled by an outside art studio who hand painted them and were later scanned into a computer.

The bgs and cinemas look like they were done by the same artist who worked on other ICOM Sim games like Shapeshifter. They just did a better job converting them into TG-16 graphics.

The BG graphics use more colors than any pce game that i know of, single objects use up to 50 colors, so why the dithered look, the best way i can put it is to imagine taking a digital paint brush, dip and swirl it into the pce color palette(512 colors) then take the brush and drag it across the screen, what you will end up with some times are weird color combinations that don't mix well, in my opinion, this actually looks really good through composite on a CRT TV, which is what i use.

They just didn't bother to clean up the tiles. A good example is the color chunks on the mushrooms/fungus in this pic-



I'm guessing that they came up with a way to automatically convert single screens to <16 color 8 x 8 tiles, since some of the 16 x 16 corners have more than 16 colors... all while keeping the total number of tile palettes in check. It would've been nice to see the result if they used the same process for a game and cleaned up the tiles. The graphics don't look nearly as good proportionate to the number of colors as an average game, probably because of random color anomalies from converting the graphics and not cleaning them up.

It could be argued that the end result looks like it has photo grain, but it just looks more like dithering to me. It certainly suits this style of game more than any other.

I actually thought that the bgs looked kinda messy and not-so-colorful through composite the first time I played it. It looks much better in S-Video to me.

I'm not a big DKC fan but that would a interesting piece to have.

Same here, but after the novelty wore off I eventually sold it. The same cart had Street Fighter IV on it.

[awack]

It could be argued that the end result looks like it has photo grain, but it just looks more like dithering to me. It certainly suits this style of game more than any other.

You hit the nail on the head with this, i have seen a similar look with handrawn art on posters.

What we have is a game that has a huge amount of detail and a very large number of colors per BG object/tile, in the end it doesn't look like an average 16 bit game, is that good or bad, well, even though i think it looks better than DKC and i would put it in the top ten of pce games, i actually like the sharp and clean look of games like Winds of Thunder, Rondo of blood etc.


Well, it looks like we are getting to the end of this comparison thing, here is some of what is left.
Hit the ice
Daisenpuu
Heavy Unit
Atomic Robo Kid
Kick Boxing
Monster Lair
Langrisser
Ys III
Ys IV
Exile II
Bonanza Bro
Snatcher

[TurboXray]

There's Ninja Spirit for the arcade and Amiga.

[CrackTiger]

There's Ninja Spirit for the arcade and Amiga.

And Gameboy.

I think that awack was planning to stick to PCE vs SNES and Genesis comparisons.

[ParanoiaDragon]

It could be argued that the end result looks like it has photo grain, but it just looks more like dithering to me. It certainly suits this style of game more than any other.

You hit the nail on the head with this, i have seen a similar look with handrawn art on posters.

What we have is a game that has a huge amount of detail and a very large number of colors per BG object/tile, in the end it doesn't look like an average 16 bit game, is that good or bad, well, even though i think it looks better than DKC and i would put it in the top ten of pce games, i actually like the sharp and clean look of games like Winds of Thunder, Rondo of blood etc.


Well, it looks like we are getting to the end of this comparison thing, here is some of what is left.
Hit the ice
Daisenpuu
Heavy Unit
Atomic Robo Kid
Kick Boxing
Monster Lair
Langrisser
Ys III
Ys IV
Exile II
Bonanza Bro
Snatcher

Ys 4??  It never came out for MD, probably some unfinished version laying around somewhere.

Anyways, don't forget Black Hole Assault!

[awack]

Ys 4??  It never came out for MD, probably some unfinished version laying around somewhere.

I was thinking of Ys IV Mask of the Sun for the SNES.

[Joe Redifer]

The BG graphics use more colors than any pce game that i know of, single objects use up to 50 colors

Say what?  Out of all the screens you posted, most have fewer than 75 colors.  Only a couple even hit 80 and the maximum is 82.  I'm sure that there are several more PCE games that use more colors.  There's just gotta be.  If not, then that is truly pathetic on the part of PCE game developers.

[CrackTiger]

The BG graphics use more colors than any pce game that i know of, single objects use up to 50 colors

Say what?  Out of all the screens you posted, most have fewer than 75 colors.  Only a couple even hit 80 and the maximum is 82.  I'm sure that there are several more PCE games that use more colors.  There's just gotta be.  If not, then that is truly pathetic on the part of PCE game developers.

Some sprite heavy BS shots pass 100. LoXII's bosses are in the 90's and I think that it was Tokimeki Memorial (another game with untouched digitized painted bgs) that also has 100+ color screens.

[NecroPhile]

Well, it looks like we are getting to the end of this comparison thing, here is some of what is left.
Hit the ice
Daisenpuu
Heavy Unit
Atomic Robo Kid
Kick Boxing
Monster Lair
Langrisser
Ys III
Ys IV
Exile II
Bonanza Bro
Snatcher

Don't forget Buster Bros. and Todd's Adventures in Slime World, graphical masterpieces both.

[awack]

Say what?  Out of all the screens you posted, most have fewer than 75 colors.  Only a couple even hit 80 and the maximum is 82.  I'm sure that there are several more PCE games that use more colors.  There's just gotta be.  If not, then that is truly pathetic on the part of PCE game developers.

Yes, as far as i know the BG graphics have more colors than any other pce game, most games have displayed information such as health, weapon, magic etc, there are also enemy and boss sprites, for example, one of the snes street fighter 2 shots that Black Tiger posted has 139 colors, but minus the opposing sprite and display info its reduced to 83.

With the exception of one shot, the DKC screens range from 59 to 107 colors (for the BG and one main Character sprite)

The shots below show nothing but the main characther and BG, if you don't limit yourself to just the BG and one sprite, the highest color count is just above 125 colors. Most of the screens i took range from 70 to 125 colors, but i tend to like the lower color count screens the most.



       112 colors


       97 colors


       100 colors

Some sprite heavy BS shots pass 100. LoXII's bosses are in the 90's and I think that it was Tokimeki Memorial (another game with untouched digitized painted bgs) that also has 100+ color screens.

I didn't know that LoXII went that high, thats cool. I have found many pce games that get to 100 colors and above, examples below.

Cotton
Dracula X
Tenchi O Kurau
Magical Chase
Fatal Fury 2/sp
Sol Moonarge

This is just what i can remember.

[CrackTiger]

Yes, as far as i know the BG graphics have more colors than any other pce game, most games have displayed information such as health, weapon, magic etc, there are also enemy and boss sprites, for example, one of the snes street fighter 2 shots that Black Tiger posted has 139 colors, but minus the opposing sprite and display info its reduced to 83.

They may technically have a high number of individual colors onscreen, but the graphics aren't nearly so colorful. The first time I played through in composite, I actually thought that the bgs used only <16 colors total, the result of a quick conversion (using only a single palette for the tiles). I don't know if Magic Engine doesn't display the game correctly or if the process used to make the tiles just pads the overall color count with anomalies, but in the end they still look like low color graphics.

Here are those super high color shots in 16, 32 and 64 colors, along with the originals. The process I used to reduce these screenshots isn't the most efficient (one 32 color pics loses grass detail that the 16 color pic retained), but the results are still pretty telling. For the small amount of coloring differences (an element being greenish instead of yellowish), the 16 color pics still retain most of the detail and dithering.

A change as extreme as 100'ish colors down to as little as 16, or about an 85% reduction should've make them completely unrecognizable. But anyone looking at the computer screen from a foot away wouldn't notice the difference unless looking for it and the 64 color pics are basically identical (I only went as high as 64 to keep the doubling increments). Any tiny differences that a careful eye could pick out are only the result of the color reduction process I used.














The art's still pretty nice in most places (I'm not crazy about the towns), but BS doesn't look anywhere near as nice as a genuinely high colored PCE game (or many average colored ones) for a good reason.

[Lorfarius]

Looks like an Ultima game with those black gates 

[NecroPhile]

A change as extreme as 100'ish colors down to as little as 16, or about an 85% reduction should've make them completely unrecognizable. But anyone looking at the computer screen from a foot away wouldn't notice the difference unless looking for it and the 64 color pics are basically identical (I only went as high as 64 to keep the doubling increments). Any tiny differences that a careful eye could pick out are only the result of the color reduction process I used.

I'd like to see some screen shots from legitimately high colored games after they've gone through the same color reduction process. 

[CrackTiger]

A change as extreme as 100'ish colors down to as little as 16, or about an 85% reduction should've make them completely unrecognizable. But anyone looking at the computer screen from a foot away wouldn't notice the difference unless looking for it and the 64 color pics are basically identical (I only went as high as 64 to keep the doubling increments). Any tiny differences that a careful eye could pick out are only the result of the color reduction process I used.

I'd like to see some screen shots from legitimately high colored games after they've gone through the same color reduction process. 

I'm at work right now, but I've already got a few examples ready to go at home. They basically look like b&w Gameboy games playing through a Super Gameboy.

[awack]

I'd like to see some screen shots from legitimately high colored games after they've gone through the same color reduction process.

Do you mean the traditional use of color, clean non dithered look or super high color counts?

I did some of the DKC shots, i also added a Shadowgate shot at 16 colors, i have to split also.

with out any of the sprites, 73 colors


   32 colors


   16 colors


 again, no sprites, 117 colors


   64 colors


    16 colors                                             16 colors

[Joe Redifer]

The characters in DKC are not sprites?

[NecroPhile]

The characters in DKC are not sprites?

He meant 'not counting the colors in the sprites', as there's 117 colors if you do include 'em.

[awack]

Sorry about that, i was in a hurry.

Like Necromancer said, the color count for all the screenshots, are for the backgrounds only.

[CrackTiger]

Here's a Xanadu II shot in full color, then 16 colors and then below the background in 16 colors and finally the background with 75% reduced colors (less of a reduction than BS received at 16 colors).

Since the full screen pic with sprites is 'only' 82 colors, it's fair to compare a 16 color version, sprites and all, to the Beyond Shadowgate 16 color background pics. The spriteless Xanadu II background is only 44 colors before getting reduced, which means a 16 color version is proportionate to the 32 color BS shots.

Full color                                              16 color full image

16 color background                              Background reduced by 75%




When you tell photoshop to dither a picture, you're giving it creative license to go in and add original artwork. Here's what that DKC screen really looks like when dropped to 16 colors-







This should drive home the point best. Below on the left is a 79 color screen shot from Magical Chase exactly as Magic Engine spits it out. On the right is the same shot in 159 colors. I added real actual PC Engine palette colors to create the pic with twice the number of visible colors. What's the difference? Although it could be argued that some of the additions I made enhance the picture, most of it is just noise.

[awack]

Great shots CrackTiger, i can not see any difference in the magical chase shots. Xanadu II took a big hit eh.

Look at the shots below and tell me that's not incredible, they are all undithered ...due to the art and the way BS uses its colors, it still looks  good at only 16 colors, yet, does not make a big difference if you add 70 or more colors.

16 colors                                              16 colors


16 colors                                               16 colors


CrackTiger, what are your top four pce games as far as graphics go?

[CrackTiger]

Great shots CrackTiger, i can not see any difference in the magical chase shots. Xanadu II took a big hit eh.

Look at the shots below and tell me that's not incredible, they are all undithered ...due to the art and the way BS uses its colors, it still looks  good at only 16 colors, yet, does not make a big difference if you add 70 or more colors.

Yeah, I think that they did a great job translating the BS bg paintings into graphics, they're just not good examples of high color PCE graphics. The 16 color versions of BS still look much better than the 40+ color Willy Beamish for Sega-CD, which was well done, let alone the slap-in-the-face that is Turbo-CD Loom.





The Willy Beamish shots are from Sega-16.

CrackTiger, what are your top four pce games as far as graphics go?

I don't like ranking things, even when it comes to something like "favorites" instead of what's "best". I value art and style way more than technical feats. Some of my favorite in-game PCE visuals are the boss sections of Xanadu I & II. Princess Minerva's boss fights look pretty spectacular for what they are. The bosses of Neo Metal Fantasy are like Dark Falz from Phantasy Star. Lords of Thunder is one of the very best 16-bit games visually, for everything that it packs in all the while constantly changing as you progress through a stage. The (unnecessary) trade off of flat bgs and flicker/break up for the overall visuals of Forgotten Worlds is still well worth it. World Heroes 2 and Fatal Fury 2/Special look pretty amazing. Aeroblasters feels like it was custom made for me, the graphics sound and control are all perfect for me and I prefer it overall to the other versions. I'm still amazed at some of the lackluster comments of Dungeon Explorer II's graphics, which I think are about as good as you could ask for.

[TurboXray]

Don't forget, photoshop and other apps are not keeping in the PCE's palette when you do color reduction. You get illegal PCE colors. Colors that are inbetween PCE values in order to make the color reduction look passable/decent. You have to correct afterwards.

 Also, dithering on the 16color DKC picks is valid because they don't break the tile/color limit(16 colors fits perfect into 1 subpalette and tile color count) - just make sure to keep them in the console legal color palette definition. If you do reduction down to 32 colors and use dither, you bound to get illegal tiles color counts and such (or exceed the number of sub palettes).

[spenoza]

OK, before we veer TOO far away from the point of all this, Beyond Shadowgate, however nice the backgrounds look, suffers from what could be considered unnecessary dithering. A little more work on those backgrounds could have resulted in something clearer and nicer without all the dithering mess.