Screenshot Comparisons (PCE vs MD vs SFC) — awack's enduring legacy

[esteban]

Some of you may be interested in this (help me fix errors):

https://www.tg-16.com/screenshot_comparisons.htm

UPDATE: in the past few weeks*, I tried to get all the MAJOR STUFF from awack's original thread. I literally read the entire thread, noting major games (but my notes are incomplete). I had to avoid this forum in order to get this work done. That's why I have been M.I.A.



MY THOUGHTS:

0.0 1,500+ images on one page is insane (poor design!). I think my best bet is to split up games by genre? Any other suggestions on organizing this stuff?

0.5 Surprisingly, even my mobile devices can handle 1500+ images on Jumbo Page. How about you?

1.0 I know I'm missing games (didn't he do Dracula X?)...provide a LINK (and description) so I can easily get to the content

2.0 The sprite comparisons are my next step? I only included a few thus far...

3.0 I will NEVER include Black Hole Assault (or whatever the game is called). I have a link to it, but I just can't defile the spirit of the project with BHA.

4.2 Some of the comparisons I left out were stretching things (DKC vs Beyond Shadowgate), but maybe I will add them later. They didn't make the "first cut"... UPDATE: a separate page for all of the stuff that that doesn't neatly fit into the "straightforward comparison category" would solve this...

5.0 Please help me correct any errors.

6.0 Sometimes an image is missing/lossy format/flawed or sourced from the interwebs, if you can contribute better screenshots (preferably, your own original), do so!

7.3 I may change my mind on #3


* I started this over a year ago, but as of a few weeks ago, I had only covered ~50% of awack's original content.



DREAM GOAL:

23.5 Most comparisons are between TWO games, but there is room for THREE. if you wanted to take screenshots from arcade/other platform that matched the existing screenshots (location in game), I could easily add them. It would make the comparisons even more fun (ARCADE ORIGINAL, when one exists, would be IDEAL/PRIORITY).

24.0 Mega Bomberman is .jpg (lossy) and needs to be .png/.gif (non-lossy)

[NecroPhile]

Farkin' imageshack ate my Don Doko Don comparison. 

I'll check the archives and forward it on if I can find it.

[bob]

Site keeps crashing my iPad. 

[esteban]

Farkin' Image Shack ate my Don Doko Don comparison. 

I'll check the archives and forward it on if I can find it.

I actually had this in my notes: "Lost in the ether...Don Doko Don"

Seriously, though, I noticed that images for Don Doko Don were MIA...4 images, IIRC?

Site keeps crashing my iPad. 

Hmmmm... I have iPad2 and it is fine with Safari/Chrome. Also, iPhone 4 Verizon is fine.

Of course, this will be moot when I split the page into multiple pages. 

[Nando]

NICE! Will test it out at home with the tablet. Looks good on the browser. No layout issues that I can see.

[bob]

Site keeps crashing my iPad. 

Hmmmm... I have iPad2 and it is fine with Safari/Chrome.

Same here.  I tried it again and it worked fine.  Must have just been my connection.  Stoopid FIOS, can't wait for my contract to be up!

[NecroPhile]

No luck finding Don Doko Don, but I did find the one for Columns.  You got an email addy I can send it?

[esteban]

No luck finding Don Doko Don, but I did find the one for Columns.  You got an email addy I can send it?

Thanks for looking, I was hoping you'd find it.

I have Columns saved...but it's just one huge image, right? What was Sun_Team_Paul_ thinking?

He did the same thing for...Altered Beast? I gotta put those up, I forgot about Columns and AB...

ASIDE: It's sad that my brain is filled with this information instead of the birthdates of my loved ones.  Seriously! 

[NecroPhile]

Columns is my pic.  'Tis easier in one big image - one file to upload, one link, and no worries about layout formatting.

Perhaps one day I'll redo the Don Doko Don comparison and do one up for ze Hatris too.

[esteban]

Columns is my pic.  'Tis easier in one big image - one file to upload, one link, and no worries about layout formatting.

Perhaps one day I'll redo the Don Doko Don comparison and do one up for ze Hatris too.

(1) I hear you  about formatting...in the original thread it was confusing if anything was slightly misaligned.

(2) HATRIS! Do it, because then I can...

(3) Recycle old stuff! And start a misinformation campaign about the history of Hatris...

[SuperPlay]

Great page there esteban :-)

[esteban]

Great page there esteban :-)

Thank you, kindly. 

[Gillian Seed]

I remember lurking in the original topic a long time ago. I realize these are more than likely emulation shots, but man do those super crisp Mega Drive pics sure make me want to upgrade from the crappy composite output I'm currently stuck with.

[CrackTiger]

I remember lurking in the original topic a long time ago. I realize these are more than likely emulation shots, but man do those super crisp Mega Drive pics sure make me want to upgrade from the crappy composite output I'm currently stuck with.

The Mega Drive/Genesis benefits the most (of the three consoles) from upgrading beyond stock composite. Even if you're the type who wants to see games with certain effects retained, using an adapter to turn s-video into composite will give you the vibrant color the graphics actually have, while still improving clarity.

[awack]

1.0 I know I'm missing games (didn't he do Dracula X?)...provide a LINK (and description) so I can easily get to the content

SNES







                                          PCE






I did a lot of dracx stuff that's by far my favorite game, I did one of rondo vs sotn.

Rondo                                          SOTN











I never did finish sprite ripping I wanted to do, one reason was because of Rondo, I played that game a million times and every time I played it I saw a new animation and I got sick of it no other game was like this...no other game that I looked into my self or saw some one elses complete sprite tables came close to the number of real frames as rondo, not only that but if you look at the some of the better animated games like The adventures of batman and robin for the genesis or demons crest, or earth worm jim etc, the the sprites are far smaller than whats in rondo, I mean damn, the enemy attacks such as projectiles are larger than just about any sprite of the best 16 bit games, it truly is an amazing game.

[jperryss]

I know the images are small, but having all 1500 of 'em load at once is a waste of bandwidth and seems kinda silly.  I'd do 5-10 games per page with an alphabetic page jump at the bottom.

[Gillian Seed]

Dracula X on SFC is actually one of the titles that's always at the top of my want list, even though most people make it sound like crap. Is it just me or does that game have some of the best sound on the system? I'm used to the CD soundtrack of Rondo of Blood and I still almost like the SFC version of Richter's theme just as much as the PCE CD. 

By the way I'm really bummed that I missed out on all the comparison talk in the original topic. The Shadow of the Beast Amiga vs. PCE argument in particular

[awack]

I f I remember the shadow of the beast comparison got kinda heated.

[Gillian Seed]

I was just reading it and it went on for like 3 pages. At least that's how much I read, it probably kept going. Retro Nerd seems very passionate about the Amiga. Even though I do not own or have ever played an Amiga I could respect his argument about the darker tone of the Amiga port and the controls being fine if you grew up with an Amiga. Black Tiger also really knew what he was talking about.

Also is the Genesis port of that game just bad? The reason I ask is because that game seems to have so many fans, yet I played the Genesis port once and found it to be very mediocre. I'm kind of ignorant to the general reception of that game during it's time. 

Here's a refresher of that argument if anyone wants it (probably not ) https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=6609.msg113797#msg113797

[CrackTiger]

Dracula X on SFC is actually one of the titles that's always at the top of my want list, even though most people make it sound like crap. Is it just me or does that game have some of the best sound on the system? I'm used to the CD soundtrack of Rondo of Blood and I still almost like the SFC version of Richter's theme just as much as the PCE CD. 

By the way I'm really bummed that I missed out on all the comparison talk in the original topic. The Shadow of the Beast Amiga vs. PCE argument in particular

Unfortunately, the gameplay in Dracula XX is broken. Richtor doesn't control properly and the stages were designed terribly and/or nothing was tweaked after play testing. So the stages conflict with the control/gameplay and getting clipped once at full health can get you juggled to death like Night Creatures. It's a real waste as it would have been nice to have some additional content after the PCE version.

[EvilEvoIX]

I remember lurking in the original topic a long time ago. I realize these are more than likely emulation shots, but man do those super crisp Mega Drive pics sure make me want to upgrade from the crappy composite output I'm currently stuck with.

The Mega Drive/Genesis benefits the most (of the three consoles) from upgrading beyond stock composite. Even if you're the type who wants to see games with certain effects retained, using an adapter to turn s-video into composite will give you the vibrant color the graphics actually have, while still improving clarity.

Agreed, It looks amazing with SCART but then you really see dithering which doesn't bother me but may bother some.  These old consoles really look good on a smaller crt IMHO.  On my 36 inch you need to sit back a bit but on my 20 inch via composite it still looks good and the dithering does its job faking colors and transparencies albeit with the dreaded rainbow banding.

[esteban]

I did a lot of dracx stuff that's by far my favorite game, I did one of rondo vs sotn.

I never did finish sprite ripping I wanted to do, one reason was because of Rondo, I played that game a million times and every time I played it I saw a new animation and I got sick of it no other game was like this...no other game that I looked into my self or saw some one elses complete sprite tables came close to the number of real frames as rondo, not only that but if you look at the some of the better animated games like The adventures of batman and robin for the genesis or demons crest, or earth worm jim etc, the the sprites are far smaller than whats in rondo, I mean damn, the enemy attacks such as projectiles are larger than just about any sprite of the best 16 bit games, it truly is an amazing game.

Awesome!    Thanks. I updated the page...

Dracula X: PCE vs SFC
Dracula X: PCE vs. PlayStation

I still have to incorporate all the sprite comparisons...but I found the link to that thread:

Sprite design/animation in PCE Dracula X: Rondo of Blood

So, I have work to do  

By the way I'm really bummed that I missed out on all the comparison talk in the original topic. The Shadow of the Beast Amiga vs. PCE argument in particular

I wish I had followed the thread more closely, myself 

I know the images are small, but having all 1500 of 'em load at once is a waste of bandwidth and seems kinda silly.  I'd do 5-10 games per page with an alphabetic page jump at the bottom.

Of course. That was point 1.0 on my list...except... I suggested that organizing by GENRE might be more useful...I'm open to your thoughts/suggestions.

[CrackTiger]

If you're up for it, I would have an index page with sections of links such as alphabetical groups (A - F, G - N, etc), an all-in-one and any other groupings which seem popular, with a number count of games and/or screen shots next to each link.

[Gillian Seed]

You know what we need? Some Spriggan and MUSHA comparisons.  Maybe some Robo Aleste to go along with it?

[exodus]

Just piping in to agree with the above :3

[edit] - would also like to see Jaguar screen comparisons in the Raiden comparison crawl!

[CrackTiger]

You know what we need? Some Spriggan and MUSHA comparisons.  Maybe some Robo Aleste to go along with it?

It's all in the stickied screen shot comparison thread, along with Super Aleste.

[awack]

Yeah the spriggan comparison has been done, go to page 73, that's where most screenshots are....the spriggan screens are washed out though, I don't know of any vertical shooter on the pc engine genesis or snes that's as pretty as spriggan, Sapphire does have some really nice back grounds though, I was just thinking about some of the impressive regular cd rom2 games, for example Macross 2036, Shockman 3, Spriggan, Down Load 2, and when you think that the super cd has 4x the memory, I mean, wow.

[exodus]

okay, well a) I'm stupid and can't find it and b) it would be real cool if some person with big muscles updated that link at the top of this thread to incorporate all the additions from the actual thread...

ALSO if someone with boundless time went and made sure all the screens were at their proper display resolution that'd be easier for comparison's sake too.

look at me, volunteering others to spend their time!!! 

[Mathius]

That has always impressed me too. Spriggan's CD-ROM2 status always makes me do a double take to make sure I am not playing a Super CD-ROM2 game. Shubibinman 3 falls into that category as well. The large memory limitations of the CD-ROM2 seem nonexistent with these games.

[awack]

Oh I forgot Terraforming is also a  regular cdrom2, some of the best looking 16bit graphic games are cdrom2 games which is only 64k of memory... of course we have to remember that none of that memory includes the music or cutscenes, you can also laod that 64k of twice during each level, once for the regular level and once for the boss, that means in theory you have one megabit per level and that doesn't include music so you can see why they are more impressive than hucard games, what vertical shooter on hucard comes close to spriggan or horizontal shooter on hucard compares to Macross 2036

Supercd games have in theory 2 megs of memory per level, again, not including music or cutscenes etc  I compared the sprite size of winds of thunder to some of the best 16 bit shooters and the sprites are about 2.2 trillion times larger I believe, plus when you add the huge variety of sprite and their frames up, instead of a few hundred sprite frames the best 16 bit cartridge games  you have around a thousand sprite frames for the entire game, now look at the background detail, in two levels alone, you just about have more variety than in entire games like lightning force, violent soldier or Macross sd for the super famicom, we are so lucky to have gotten a system like the pc engine.

[wildfruit]

I remember lurking in the original topic a long time ago. I realize these are more than likely emulation shots, but man do those super crisp Mega Drive pics sure make me want to upgrade from the crappy composite output I'm currently stuck with.

streets of rage 2 through rgb is a feast for the eyes
and ears

[CrackTiger]

okay, well a) I'm stupid and can't find it and b) it would be real cool if some person with big muscles updated that link at the top of this thread to incorporate all the additions from the actual thread...

ALSO if someone with boundless time went and made sure all the screens were at their proper display resolution that'd be easier for comparison's sake too.

look at me, volunteering others to spend their time!!! 

It's at the top of the PC Engine section.

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=6609.0

Esteban is just a
Turbo lover.

Do you mean proper display aspect ratio? That's only good for comparing proportions and distorts the image quality. Almost all of the screen shots are taken from emulators and are in their proper resolution.



Awack: Tom recently talked about how many games use as much as 32kb just for code, which makes CD2 games in general all the more impressive.

[Mathius]

Awack: Tom recently talked about how many games use as much as 32kb just for code, which makes CD2 games in general all the more impressive.

I would like to hear more about this in greater detail while dumbing it down for neanderthals like myself. 

[roflmao]

Awack: Tom recently talked about how many games use as much as 32kb just for code, which makes CD2 games in general all the more impressive.

I would like to hear more about this in greater detail while dumbing it down for neanderthals like myself. 

Seconded!

[turboswimbz]

Awack: Tom recently talked about how many games use as much as 32kb just for code, which makes CD2 games in general all the more impressive.

I would like to hear more about this in greater detail while dumbing it down for neanderthals like myself. 

Seconded!

Quadrupled!

[CrackTiger]

Awack: Tom recently talked about how many games use as much as 32kb just for code, which makes CD2 games in general all the more impressive.

I would like to hear more about this in greater detail while dumbing it down for neanderthals like myself. 

Basically, it would mean that CD2 game stages, cinemas, etc spend half their space on code (leaving only the size of the smallest SMS game for graphics) while SCD games spend 1/8 their space on code and the rest can be used for graphics. It would also prove how valuable any repurposed adpcm space would be for games like Monster Lair. If it's possible to use all of the adpcm memory for graphics, then a CD2 game could potentially have 3 times as much artwork in a single stage (but I think there are restrictions in how you can utilize it). I wonder if Spriggan uses some adpcm space for graphics?

[exodus]

CrackTiger - I mean that while the games are in their proper resolution, they're not displayed at the actual aspect ratio you'd see on a television.

for example:
pce vs snes
 

unless SNES owners had square TVs, there's no way that SNES image (right) is shown at the correct aspect ratio. I'm just saying that if one wanted to curate this stuff for real, it would be best to bring everything to the aspect ratio that users see, for comparison's sake, and also for the sake of representing the game properly as it is *displayed*.

Sometimes it's the SNES, sometimes the MD, sometimes the PCE, but in many spots on this list, there are games shown in proper resolution, but they were designed to be squashed and/or pulled to fit a screen, so wouldn't actually ever look like those screengrabs.

Of course, a gargantuan amount of work has been done already, it's just a wishlist thing for me.

[CrackTiger]

Black Tiger - I mean that while the games are in their proper resolution, they're not displayed at the actual aspect ratio you'd see on a television.

for example:
pce vs snes
 

unless SNES owners had square TVs, there's no way that SNES image (right) is shown at the correct aspect ratio. I'm just saying that if one wanted to curate this stuff for real, it would be best to bring everything to the aspect ratio that users see, for comparison's sake, and also for the sake of representing the game properly as it is *displayed*.

Sometimes it's the SNES, sometimes the MD, sometimes the PCE, but in many spots on this list, there are games shown in proper resolution, but they were designed to be squashed and/or pulled to fit a screen, so wouldn't actually ever look like those screengrabs.

Of course, a gargantuan amount of work has been done already, it's just a wishlist thing for me.

You still can only simulate it in pictures and it still is only good for comparing how things are proportionate to one another. The only way to see how the games would really look on any given TV, is to hook each system to two identical TVs and compare them in real-time.

Emulator screen shots allow you to judge the actual image/graphic quality best. There are so many details to appreciate in emulated screen shots that are lost the moment you re-size them to an uneven integer and/or filter them.

These pics aren't a great example for just how distorted the graphics get at 4:3 aspect ratio, but you can see that they are not what the game looks like on your TV. Filtering increases the color count by 400 times and introduces thousands of colors that don't exist in the PC Engine's palette.


89 colors <---------------------------------------------------> 116 colors



35089 colors <------------------------------------------------> 30135 colors

[exodus]

hmm, could it really be that there is *no way* to properly display them on a PC?
I guess the scanline thing is one issue, but screenshot comparisons wind up being rather difficult when things are stretched and skewed... to me that has a greater effect than colors, but, well... I guess I'll look into it more!

[Gillian Seed]

I personally would like some comparisons of actual hardware in the future. I might start it myself since I have a capture device and I do enjoy buying the same games on multiple consoles.