Rondo of Blood Thread

[Tatsujin]

Mode 7 was abused for title screens, but really made racing games more fun and fluid.

but also flatter than ever before.

[CrackTiger]

Hardware effects are neat, but looking at what happened with the SFC, I think that the creativity shown in PCE games would have been stifled and we wouldn't have wound up with the unique library that we love.

I understand this statement, and there were certainly instances like this. Super ghouls n ghosts was not as good as ghouls n ghosts genesis, and effects made it even harder to play.

However, better hardware effects/chips also help with a game.

Yoshi's island is a great example. The super fx chip and other effects help to bring the warm, colorful world really to life.

Star fox has 3d that hasn't aged well, but there were many exciting level designs possible because of it. Entering the enemy tunnel and shooting the core in stage 3 is an epic moment with great buildup.

Heck, f-zero plays rather well still thanks to mode 7. Mode 7 was abused for title screens, but really made racing games more fun and fluid.

Not all snes games were stifled. Some cases, the effects embraced the creativity.

You can slap external processors onto a HuCard the same as games like Yoshi's Island, Star Fox, Super Mario Kart, Pilot Wings etc require for the SNES to run them. Star Fox doesn't use Mode 7 at all for its 3D, so it isn't an example of built-in hardware making games better (and the Genesis has more polygonal games rendered purely by cpu power). I've also heard tech savvy people say that Yoshi's Island doesn't bother using SNES hardware for its scaling and rotation either.

Yoshi's Island, really is a great example of the point I am making. The SFX2 chip is 7 - 10 times faster than the SNES cpu and combined with the amazing SNES hardware effects, it was used as filler in place of animation. The bosses in Yoshi's Island almost all feature an unprecedented ONE frame of animation, while a few of them feature as many as two or perhaps even three frames! But thanks to Mode F(iller), those static images swirl, rotate and pixelate to give the illusion of movement without any additional artwork. They also mostly consist of round outlines with a couple dots as the artwork for the single static frame.

Super Mario World II : Yoshi's Island - All Boss Battles

The SNES/SFX2 chip effects aren't actually responsible for the warmth or color of that game world. That's the artwork side, which the reliance on special effects waters down in memory-starved SNES cart games.


I said in my previous post that F-Zero style gameplay is the one great thing that Mode 7 (+ misc effects) provided. It wasn't worthwhile enough for developers to continue using in the 32-bit generation, but it was a new and unique gameplay experience when it wasn't also used as filler in games like FFVI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc.

[PukeSter]

How good is snes at big sprites compared to pce? Even hucards like liquid kids have some massive and very mobile bosses.

[Nando]

HAH! Yoshi's bosses are animated by Flash! lol

I've never played this game so that was an interesting surprise. The game has some superb art direction, I'll give it that and I've heard it's a great platformer.

Lame bit about the bosses.

[JoshTurboTrollX]

This joke was already attempted.

Yet neither were funny.  You can joke about alot of things here at PCFX, but saying Rondo is an overrated or terrible game gets you put in the fucking SNERD closet for life.

Rondo for SCD usually gets ranked in my top 3 PCE/Turbo games and easily in my top 10 favorites of all times for all consoles.

Trollololol

Anyone who doesn't think Rondo is an incredible game needs admitted to a mental ward.  Of course it's awesome.  It's still one of the best, if the THE best, of the Castlevania games ever made... duh.

[CrackTiger]

How good is snes at big sprites compared to pce? Even hucards like liquid kids have some massive and very mobile bosses.

The SNES could perhaps do more than PCE for huge sprites and I mean real actual sprites, not one big character rendered with a tile layer. But it would have to be only big stuff, like two giant Bonks from Bonk 3... and nothing else. It can only use 2 different sprite sizes, which bottlenecks development for types of games with a variety of sprites sizes.

This is a highly optimized SNES fighter which relies on all the player sprites being the same size:

Gundam Wing Endless Duel - Combo Video (Part 1/2)


But when you're dealing with a variety of player, projectile, effect, etc sprite sizes, it really brings down what the SNES can display compared to PCE or MD:

[Nando]

BT - How do I download all your gaming knowledge to my brain? LOL  either that or point me to some dang resources.  ;)

[PukeSter]

HAH! Yoshi's bosses are animated by Flash! lol

I've never played this game so that was an interesting surprise. The game has some superb art direction, I'll give it that and I've heard it's a great platformer.

Lame bit about the bosses.

Yoshi is one of the defining games of the 16-bit gen.

However, I have not played it in years due to it's massive length and playing it all the time on my game boy advance.

I do have a snes copy, I may start it again after beating gears of war and mizubaku daibouken.

[Tatsujin]

it's strange, I could really never got into yoshi's island. I love SMW, but I can't play yoshi's island.
for me it's just way to annoying and honestly its art style doesnt't appeal to me at all.
it sure isn't a bad game or looks anything bad (technically) I guess, but it's kinda just very far away of the type of games I like. and I tried it many times, just couldn't provide me any fun.

[PukeSter]

it's strange, I could really never got into yoshi's island. I love SMW, but I can't play yoshi's island.
for me it's just way to annoying and honestly its art style doesnt't appeal to me at all.
it sure isn't a bad game or looks anything bad (technically) I guess, but it's kinda just very far away of the type of games I like. and I tried it many times, just couldn't provide me any fun.

Is it Baby Mario that is the turnoff? That's kinda silly. Though it sucks when you are trying to gain all 30/10 stars for completion and then you get knocked down to the standard 10/10 timer.

But yeah, Yoshi's Island is a very different playing type of platformer. Very long levels, a buttload of them, and you do them at your own pace. Lots of secrets and fun to be found though.

I still remember the music to this day.

And don't let boss battles be a turnoff. In fact, every single one is completely unique and magnificent.

Here is the Ralphael the Raven fight.

[A Black Falcon]

It's definitely true that SNES scaling and rotation is very limited.  Only one thing can be rotated, and it can only be a background layer and not a sprite or foreground object... that's a big limitation.  But for a $200 system in 1990-91, that was the best they could do, and it was pretty great for the time.  It isn't full scaling and rotation, but it allows for some interesting effects and games which pushed the racing game particularly forward.

If you're using scaling and/or rotation completely as a simple visual effect, like Bowser blowing up big in Super Mario World, does it matter if it's an equal number of framers and clarity on a hardware-supported console or pre-rendered on another? Or if it's half the frames with double the clarity when pre-rendered? What would be the difference if you found out tomorrow that the GoT 4-in-1's Super CD screen scaling and rotation was actually rendered by a previously undocumented hardware feature of the PCE CD-ROM?

Mode 7 and any other hardware rendered real-time effects aren't actually a legion of tiny gnomes living in your picture box carrying around a large picture and moving it closer to your eyes and tilting it for you either. It's only rendering frames of animation, often cobbled together from swatches of artwork. Same with so-called "real parallax" which is rendered using multiple tile layers.  It's only real or not in your mind and those tile layers aren't giant paintings like multiplane camera effects in animated films (which still repeat a single background image if it continues long enough). They're an illusion of a piece of artwork which is actually tiled together from swatches of graphics and is all only rendering frames of animation which flash across your TV screen.

You have a point here, but there is a difference between hardware and software effects, and there is a difference between software scaling and just faking it with a sequence of images that make it look like scaling, which the larger medium of the CD allowed the TGCD to do.    But between that and the Sega CD, which has real sprite scaling and rotation?  It's clear which is better.  I doubt that the TGCD could ever manage to pull off SoulStar or The Adventures of Batman & Robin.  Or Super Mario Kart either.  But they could put a lot more stuff on those discs than a SNES cartridge, and push that far and you get the end result of something really amazing looking like Sapphire.

But yeah, which technique is "better"?  I don't know... but technically actually doing the rendering yourself, particularly things like software sprite scaling in Genesis or TG16 games that is actually decently done (TG16 Outrun would be an example of that), is more technically impressive than just doing it through animations of a "scaling" object.

Hardware effects are neat, but looking at what happened with the SFC, I think that the creativity shown in PCE games would have been stifled and we wouldn't have wound up with the unique library that we love.

I don't really get this... and since this is a Rondo of Blood thread, how about thinking about platformers.  It's more creative to have a platformer library loaded with NES-style games, like the TG16 has, than ones full of newer and more innovative experieinces like you find on the SNES and Genesis?  Honestly the very weak (outside of RoB) platformer library is one of the major reasons why I still think that I have to consider the TG16/CD my third-favorite 4th gen console; there is nothing on the system that matches up to Super Mario World or Sonic the Hedgehog, and for a generation where many of the best games (and many of my favorite games) were platformers, that is a problem.

Yeah, the CD system allowed for more than you see on the often simple HuCard titles, but apart from Rondo of Blood, none of the few other CD sidescrollers match up to the best on the SNES, I don't think.  Like, TGCD Valis IV is better than SNES Valis IV, but it's not all that great of a game on either platform.  The problem here isn't RoB though, it's the rest of the genre on the system, cart and CD.  After RoB next best probably is the Bonk games, and while they're good games, they're no match for Mario or Sonic.

And as for visual effects, yes I like the Mode 7 rotation levels in Super Castlevania IV.  I was kind of disappointed that none of the other Castlevania games that generation had them.  Mode 7 usually wasn't right for platformers, but in a few specific cases it could be interesting.  SNES visual effects are impressive and are a real plus for the platform.  It's something it needed, with how slow that CPU is...

Same with Neo Geo. It wouldn't be the same if it could do 3D and other effects besides sprite shrinking. Just look at the Hyper Neo Geo 64. Would you rather have more of that or the art-heavy kind of content we got with the regular Neo Geo?

The Neo-Geo is 1990 hardware.  1990 3d would be what, Hard Drivin'?  That wouldn't have held up long at all... so sure, the choice to go with sprites helped that hardware last a lot longer.  The quickly dated 3d is a big part of what doomed the Hyper Neo Geo 64, after all.

It's bad enough that too many PCE games feature pixelization as an effect as it is.

Visual effects are often nice, though.

Mode 7 was abused for title screens, but really made racing games more fun and fluid.

but also flatter than ever before.

That's not really true, some games manage hills in Mode 7 racing games, and other games (like Mario Kart) have some vertical elements in the tracks other than the racers, too.   It is true that the main racing plane is flat, but it's still much more 3d than anything on consoles before.  Linescroll racing games are fun, but their courses look nothing like real ones.  Mode 7 allows for an approximation of real turns and circuits in a racing game, and it looks great (when done well).

Oh, and Mohawk & Headphone Jack is a pretty unique one... it's a Mode 7 side-scrolling platformer with rotation and gravity and stuff.  Crazy weird game, and it's flawed, but it's technically interesting and can be fun sometimes too.  It's the kind of thing that you could never have done on the other 4th gen consoles, though the Sega CD or 32X might have been able to handle it.[/quote]

HAH! Yoshi's bosses are animated by Flash! lol

I've never played this game so that was an interesting surprise. The game has some superb art direction, I'll give it that and I've heard it's a great platformer.

I think it's not quite as good as the first Mario World, but Mario World is one of the or maybe the best 2d platformer ever, so that's a very high bar to clear... but regardless, Yoshi's Island is definitely a fantastic game.  I do dislike that it's kind of easy, until you want to get everything at which point it gets really really hard; I'd rather have a more consistent difficulty curve, but YI isn't really like that.  Otherwise it's great though.  And yeah, it looks fantastic.

Lame bit about the bosses.

What?  Yoshi's Island's bosses look really impressive!  Watch that video.  The number of frames of animation doesn't really matter when they've got great effects like those going on...

Rondo>>>>Super IV>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bloodlines>Dracula XX
 

I'd switch Rondo and Super IV on that (they're both really amazing, but I slightly prefer SCIV), but otherwise I agree.  Bloodlines and Dracula XX are very disappointing compared to the previous two.

[PukeSter]

I still don't get Super IV love. It's very slow, somewhat ugly, and not very fun to play. Bloodlines is linear, but the faster speed and more exciting action, along with a few of Rondo's improvements makes it much better than Super IV imo.

People claim the 8 way whip is fantastic, but it's more like you need it rather than you want it. Backflipping in Rondo, however, can get you out of a pinch in many defense situations, though you don't even need it to win.

Kind of like how they replaced the 4 way shooting from GnG with double jump in SGnG. Double jumping was not practical for tough situations, just something you needed, while 4 way shooting you needed, but was extremely handy a lot of the time.

I prefer PCE platformers over Genny. I really like the hack and slash platformers, along with Taito's Bubble Bobble derivatives. Never liked Sonic. Marvel Land is a favorite of mine though.

SNES platformers are the best library as a whole, but even they are different. Many of them involve jumping on enemies, rather than methodically attacking up close like Bonk and Legendary Axe.

[FraGMarE]

As for platforming ninja games on the various 16bit systems, i'd have to say Ninja Spirit pretty much destroys all the Shinobis and Hagane on the SNES.  Irem were freaks.

That's one platforming game that Irem got oh so right on the TG16.  Flicker and all.

With CVIV vs. Rondo vs. Bloodlines, I will admit that I played CVIV and Bloodlines long before Rondo, so the nostalgia nod would have to go to those two games, and guess what... i can *STILL* recognize Rondo as a better game.  It's just put together better.  Also, Simon walks funny in CVIV.  Looks like he just woke up hung over and is lurching towards the bathroom.  Bloodlines is decent, but not as good as Rondo or CVIV, imo.  Bloodlines has a return to some of the classic gameplay elements, like Rondo, which is cool, but the graphics and sound just cant compete with CVIV and Rondo.

I would also say Bonk's Revenge is approaching the quality of a SMW or a Sonic.  The first Bonk game, no.  Bonk 3 would have been pure gold had the level design been better.  :/

[Tatsujin]

lol, saying the PCE was not got at platformers is like saying the SNES lacked in good RPGs. sure most would heavily disagree with the latter statement.

it might have no mario game nor a sonic one, because it neither was a nintendo or sega system. so that would be just logical, right?

but it has (selection):

Adventure Island / Dragon's curse -> undeniable a master piece of a platformer
New Adventure Island -> better than any AIs on the SNES
Akumajou Dracula X - Chi No Rondo  -> must not be discussed any further
Aoi Blink -> cute an unique platformer
all PC Genjins / Bonks -> super charisma, funny gameplay and jokes, certainly not as fast as a sonic but sure makes some great fun
Bikkuri World -> best and most authentic arcade port of the classic. its an early game yeah, but damn well made
Bonanza Bros -> much better than on the MD
Chiki Chiki Boys -> much better than on the MD, and an almost copy for the original CPS-1 game
Daimakaimura -> by far the best version of its time. also arguable better than super ghoulsy
Dynastic Hero -> great platformer with great musics, which makes it the better version
Faussete amour -> great gem
Gekisha Boy -> very unique gem
Genji Tsushin Agedama -> very action loaded platformer
Horror Story -> superb arcade conversion
Jackie Chan -> super gameplay, super fun
Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman 2 & 3 -> imo better than rockmans
Kato chan & Ken chan -> early game but very funny and great playability
Legend Of Hero Tonma -> only arcade conversion
Mizubaku Daibouken -> great port an super funny kewt game
Ninja Spirit -> one hell of a ninja game blaster
Parasol Stars -> unique successor of the bouble serie
Rainbow Islands -> best version
Son Son II -> early game but what a balst to play
all valis -> undeniable better than on any other systems
Wonder Boy III - Monster Lair -> almost 1:1 arcade and galaxies better than the MD port

and a tons of others.

[FraGMarE]

I would have to agree with ABF about comparing the overall platformer library of the TG16, Gen and SNES, in that the TG16 library was smaller while retaining about the same crap-to-awesome game ratio.  Tatsujin rattled off a list of what?  about 30 decent to awesome TG16 platformers worth playing?  There would probably be about twice that amount of platformers I'd consider "decent" or above on the Genesis and SNES, i'm guessing.  :/

That's not the say the PCE/TG16 doesn't have some real brilliant gems.  It certainly does.  And I see what TBF is saying, but I think it's just due to an overall smaller library, rather than a distinct deficit in good platformers specifically.

[A Black Falcon]

I could write a lot more about this, but in short, I think there are three basic issues with the TG16/CD's platformer library.

- Not having parallax scrolling makes the games look more dated than SNES and Genesis platformers do.  I know it's just a visual thing, but it really does add to the improved-NES-like feel many of the (HuCard particularly) games have.  I know there are a lot of good reasons why it didn't happen, but I kind of wish that the SuperGrafx had caught on, and NEC had released, like, a SGX Duo instead of the PCE Duo as their main system... parallax really helps the look of those games.

-When comparing first party libraries, Hudson and NEC's best sidescrollers aren't quite as great as Sega or Nintendo's best.  In the 4th generation you really needed a great first party platformer to compete, and Hudson and NEC's best aren't quite at Mario or Sonic's level.  Bonk is close... but not quite.  And Hudson and NEC didn't respond to Sonic by making something great in response to it.  I know Sonic was a much bigger hit in the US than Japan, which is probably a lot of why, but Hudson had a style for its platformers and stuck to it pretty much through the generation.  They didn't really respond to Mario World and Sonic 1 with anything too much different from what they had done before.  And yes, this applies to Hudson's SNES ones as well as their TG16/CD platformers.  Super Bonk 2 is still the same basic formula as the first game.  It's a good formula and they are great games, but they aren't quite as great as Sega and Nintendo's best.  For instance Super Bonk 2 is from 1995, the same year as Yoshi's Island and Ristar.  As for NEC, they mostly stuck to ports of games from other platforms, and very few are traditional platformers... did they have anything original other than Genji Tsushin Agedama and Horror Story?  Bazaru de Gozaru No Game Degozaru is really a puzzle game, and Renny Blaster a beat 'em up, and that's all I can find that isn't a late port of something.  But as we see from the direction they went with the PC-FX, platformers clearly weren't a focus for NEC.

-The TG16/CD has a much smaller third party platformer library than the SNES or Genesis do, as fragmare said.  Many fewer releases, and the ones that there are are more likely to be earlier -- there are more HuCard platformers than CD for sure.  I'm sure it didn't help either that some of the system's major third party supporters faded or fell apart mid-gen, such as Telenet, Naxat Soft, and NCS Masaya.  After '92 none of those three were the same again.  Konami did release RoB, but that was their ONLY platformer for the system, while the SNES and Genesis both got quite a few platformers from them, some great.  Capcom was no better; apart from Sonson II (and maybe SFII?), which they seem to have maybe made themselves, they did almost nothing with the system.  They didn't do too much on Genesis either, but Sega had a better library of third-party stuff there to make up for that, while Hudson and NEC didn't.

I would have to agree with TBF about comparing the overall platformer library of the TG16, Gen and SNES, in that the TG16 library was smaller while retaining about the same crap-to-awesome game ratio.  Tatsujin rattled off a list of what?  about 30 decent to awesome TG16 platformers worth playing?  There would probably be about twice that amount of platformers I'd consider "decent" or above on the Genesis and SNES, i'm guessing.  :/

That's not the say the PCE/TG16 doesn't have some real brilliant gems.  It certainly does.  And I see what TBF is saying, but I think it's just due to an overall smaller library, rather than a distinct deficit in good platformers specifically.

Yeah, and when you're talking about the generation(s) where 2d platformers were at their peak in terms of volume, that is a big deal.  The TG16/CD has a huge library of shmups, which is probably the best overall of any console ever, but being great at only one genre isn't enough to make a console great, not when its competition was great at more genres.   

However, when you compare first party-published libraries only, the disparity in release totals really isn't the problem.  Sega did release a lot of platformers on the Genesis, but Nintendo didn't publish so many on the SNES.  They went for quality over quantity.  I've made a list of Sega and Nintendo platormers... I should consider adding Hudson/NEC's TG16/CD stuff, might make for an interesting comparison.  But while Sega flooded the Genesis with first-party-published platformers from both Sega of Japan and a bunch of Western studios, Nintendo released zero to two platformers a year on average on the SNES -- Super Mario World (1990 JP/1991 US/EU), nothing in '92 and '93, Donkey Kong Country and Super Metroid if you count it (1994), DKC 2 and Yoshi's Island (1995), DKC 3 and Kirby Super Star (1996), and Kirby 3 (1997)... and that's it, I believe.  That's not a lot in volume, just a lot in quality.  Sega's best are about as good, but with so many more releases, the average quality is a bit lower... but they made up for that with numbers.  Hudson/NEC?  Even combined, they have average volume (similar to or less than Sega), and neither one released a game as incredible and industry-defining as Sonic turned out to be.

The good to bad ratio on the TG16/CD's platformer library as a whole might be similar to the other platforms though, sure.  But that library is smaller, and RoB is the only one that reaches the same peak as the best platformers on the other platforms (though the Bonk games are close).

lol, saying the PCE was not got at platformers is like saying the SNES lacked in good RPGs. sure most would heavily disagree with the latter statement.

No, those two things aren't alike at all.

it might have no mario game nor a sonic one, because it neither was a nintendo or sega system. so that would be just logical, right?

Of course, but in order to keep up with Nintendo and Sega, Hudson and/or NEC had to release games on par with Sega and Nintendo's best platformers.  It was the most important genre that generation.  They released some good ones, but they weren't quite on par with Sega and Nintendo's best, and they were likely to be late ports of games from other platforms (most of NEC's) or somewhat dated in design (Hudson).

I still don't get Super IV love. It's very slow, somewhat ugly, and not very fun to play. Bloodlines is linear, but the faster speed and more exciting action, along with a few of Rondo's improvements makes it much better than Super IV imo.

People claim the 8 way whip is fantastic, but it's more like you need it rather than you want it. Backflipping in Rondo, however, can get you out of a pinch in many defense situations, though you don't even need it to win.

I don't know if I've ever bothered to backflip in RoB... but that's in part because i lamost never play as Richter because of how weak his attacks are compared to Maria's, and how great the double jump is.  A backflip really doesn't seem very useful in comparison.  But the 8-way whip?  It's fantastic, and I am one of the people who thinks that it was really unfortunate that Konami decided to never use it in a Castlevania game again.  SCIV has the best whip controls in the franchise.

Also, SCIV looks good, and has incredible music and great level designs.  Bloodlines has annoyingly long levels and an unforgivably crippled save/password system (limited continues in a Castlevania game is not okay!), and doesn't have enough levels, either.  Also the graphics and music aren't as good as either SCIV or RoB.  And they removed the 8-way whip, too.  "One character can attack diagonally while on the ground only and the other can while in the air only" is a cruel, stupid joke.

Kind of like how they replaced the 4 way shooting from GnG with double jump in SGnG. Double jumping was not practical for tough situations, just something you needed, while 4 way shooting you needed, but was extremely handy a lot of the time.

GnG is a fun, somewhat challenging game, but personally I find SG&G almost impossibly hard!  Seriously, I've beaten Genesis G&G.  Beat it in like a day or two after buying it... though the infinite continues helped a lot.  But while I have SG&G on SNES and GBA, even on the GBA where the game has saving, I've still never managed to get past the second level.  That game is too hard to be fun.

I prefer PCE platformers over Genny. I really like the hack and slash platformers, along with Taito's Bubble Bobble derivatives. Never liked Sonic. Marvel Land is a favorite of mine though.

SNES platformers are the best library as a whole, but even they are different. Many of them involve jumping on enemies, rather than methodically attacking up close like Bonk and Legendary Axe.

Do you like NES platformers more than Genesis ones too?  Otherwise I really can't understand at all saying that TG16 platformers are better than Genesis ones...

As for Sonic, I can't be objective there, yeah; the Genesis Sonic games made a big impression on me... I thought Nintendo made the best console games, but Sonic sure was amazing too.  And the Genesis Sonic games are still great, too.  And regardless of personal opinion, the games made a huge impact on the industry.  There's a reason why Sonic is still a popular franchise.

Also, the best way to attack enemies in Bonk is to jump on them (with your head)...

[PukeSter]

Yes, NEC Avenue co-developed SonSon II with Capcom, one of Capcom's few "legit" games on the system. Other than Street Fighter II, and most likely SideArms Special (Capcom did the sound, also for the HuCard version, and new boss designs are based on rejected concept art for the original game)

Can't really say for the NES, as I'm not a big fan of 8-bit systems.

Ristar is great, yes, but it seems overly long. I almost get bored when I play it. I'll give it a go sometime.

Yes, I really adore GnG, but despise SGnG. Very slow pacing, and much of the difficulty also comes from shoehorning special effects, like the intestinal track turning level. The 5 minute long raft level can go **** itself. Not to mention the arrows are the only good weapon in the game.

[NecroPhile]

I could write a lot more about this, but in short.....

In short?!?   

There's too much dumb in your wall of repetitive text to even bother formulating a concise response.  "Eight way whips are teh awesomesauce!" and "it's too hard with Richter!"..... let me know when you graduate to the big boy pants and maybe I'll give a fuck about your opinion.

[GohanX]

Rondo's only flaw is that it's too easy.

[PukeSter]

I could write a lot more about this, but in short.....

In short?!?   

There's too much dumb in your wall of repetitive text to even bother formulating a concise response.  "Eight way whips are teh awesomesauce!" and "it's too hard with Richter!"..... let me know when you graduate to the big boy pants and maybe I'll give a fuck about your opinion.

Dude, he never said Richter was too hard, he just said Richter sucked. Don't be so hard on him. ;)

I love playing as Richter, because I FEEL strong. He's a Belmont, and I prefer the tradition.

Actually, Maria is technically weaker than him, but having 2 doves at a time, with 2 possible hits for each dove makes her stronger.

Rondo is easy-normalish with Richter, but a ****ing cakewalk with Maria. The final boss is a prime example. Maria's sub weapons suck though.

And again, 8 way whip isn't even needed in Rondo. It really isn't. The game is perfectly manageable without diagonal directions.

[bob]

I can't wait for lords of shadow 2

[PukeSter]

I can't wait for lords of shadow 2

These games any good? If their cheap I may pick them up.

[A Black Falcon]

I could write a lot more about this, but in short.....

In short?!?   

The first version was longer.

There's too much dumb in your wall of repetitive text to even bother formulating a concise response.  "Eight way whips are teh awesomesauce!" and "it's too hard with Richter!"..... let me know when you graduate to the big boy pants and maybe I'll give a fuck about your opinion.

The eight way whip is really awesome and should have been in every Castlevania game after SCIV, yes.  Better controls make games better.  Limited, restricting controls don't do that.  Yes, they can make games harder, but that kind of artificial difficulty is rarely a good thing.

As for the latter one though, I could say something there, but lukester said it already -- you're entirely misrepresenting what I said.  It's not that the game is hard with Richter; even with him it's probably one of the easier games in the series.  It's that it's so much more fun with Maria that it's no fun to play as him, with no double jump and only half the damage.

Dude, he never said Richter was too hard, he just said Richter sucked. Don't be so hard on him. ;)

I love playing as Richter, because I FEEL strong. He's a Belmont, and I prefer the tradition.

Actually, Maria is technically weaker than him, but having 2 doves at a time, with 2 possible hits for each dove makes her stronger.

Yeah, that she does double damage is key.  You're right that he can take more hits, but it's not enough to make up for how much more limited and weaker he feels in terms of movement and attacks.

Rondo is easy-normalish with Richter, but a ****ing cakewalk with Maria. The final boss is a prime example. Maria's sub weapons suck though.

And again, 8 way whip isn't even needed in Rondo. It really isn't. The game is perfectly manageable without diagonal directions.

It is, but that's another reason why Maria is better -- her normal attack hits on a bit of an arc, so while she doesn't have aiming control her attacks do attack a wider area than Richter's whip does, and also with the red birds special she has great coverage of the space directly above her.  I rarely use the other specials of hers unless I have to...

[Tatsujin]

- Not having parallax scrolling ....

but there is a lot of parallax scrolling. just because it can't do hardware parallax doesn't mean it can't do parallax at all.

Funfact, you talking always like PCE platformers look and feel like 8-bit NESish, but yet the PCE got the best and most faithful arcade ports of all the 3 systems.

-When comparing first party libraries, Hudson and NEC's best sidescrollers aren't quite as great as Sega or Nintendo's best.  In the 4th generation you really needed a great first party platformer to compete, and Hudson and NEC's best aren't quite at Mario or Sonic's level...

But at the same time, it was also a huge deal to have as most as accurate arcade games in your own four walls. so who wins this one? nobody really cared much about console exclusives back then as long the games were either good or as close as possible ports of one of the fame arcade games at the time. I think R-Type f.e. helped the PCE extremely to push it into instant sales heaven back in 1988 in Japan.

You have also to consider that on the PCE a big bunch of platformers were already released before the SFC even hit the market

No, those two things aren't alike at all.

yeah, but also it's unfair to say the PCE was only good at shooters, because that's plain wrong. if it wasn't that good at plat formers as the other two as you feel, it sure was equaly good if not even better in the RPG department.

Of course, but in order to keep up with Nintendo and Sega, Hudson and/or NEC had to release games on par with Sega and Nintendo's best platformers.  It was the most important genre that generation.  They released some good ones, but they weren't quite on par with Sega and Nintendo's best, and they were likely to be late ports of games from other platforms (most of NEC's) or somewhat dated in design (Hudson).

Sega had only Sonic and Nintendo had only Mario, big deal here. whilst I am quite a fan of sonic 1, i didn't really like any of its successors much, they just put in more and more and got more boring with each part.
and yeah, SMW is one hell of a fun bringing and long motivating platformer, agreed, but it was basically already everything done before in SMB 3. Also SMW looks partly very simple and 8-bittish, which you are repeatedly claiming is more of a PCE thingy.

[wildfruit]

Does nobody love bravoman?

Sent from my Lumia 520 on Scabb Island using Tapatalk

[A Black Falcon]

- Not having parallax scrolling ....

but there is a lot of parallax scrolling. just because it can't do hardware parallax doesn't mean it can't do parallax at all.

I didn't say it can't do it at all, I said that it doesn't have hardware parallax, and as a result most games don't have parallax.  I know some non-Supergrafx games have (software) parallax scrolling, such as Valis IV and Bravoman.  It looks pretty nice in those games.  But I'm sure that took some tricky programming, since so few games have parallax in them, even with the Arcade Card.  I mean, both Arcade Card platform/action games, Strider and Mad Stalker, have no parallax.  Meanwhile on SNES and Genesis most games in the genre have it.

Funfact, you talking always like PCE platformers look and feel like 8-bit NESish, but yet the PCE got the best and most faithful arcade ports of all the 3 systems.

Platformers too?  Or are you just talking about shooters and the like?

-When comparing first party libraries, Hudson and NEC's best sidescrollers aren't quite as great as Sega or Nintendo's best.  In the 4th generation you really needed a great first party platformer to compete, and Hudson and NEC's best aren't quite at Mario or Sonic's level...

But at the same time, it was also a huge deal to have as most as accurate arcade games in your own four walls. so who wins this one? nobody really cared much about console exclusives back then as long the games were either good or as close as possible ports of one of the fame arcade games at the time. I think R-Type f.e. helped the PCE extremely to push it into instant sales heaven back in 1988 in Japan.

Nobody?  But Nintendo won the NES and SNES generations mostly because of console exclusives, not arcade ports.  Some arcade ports helped them (Street Fighter II, for instance), but they weren't the main deciding factors.  Clearly many people cared about console exclusives.  Sega was always more arcade-focused, and that did work for them on the Genesis, but it started breaking down after that...  but Hudson/NEC arcade-focused?  I don't know, they released some, but was it enough to call it a major focus of the platform? But including third-party releases that probably is more true. R-Type and Image Fight were certainly big selling points for the platform.  I know Image Fight was a pretty big hit in Japan, even though here it wasn't at all... and isn't PCE Image Fight one of its best selling games or something?  That's surely why the TCD got an exclusive Image Fight sequel, while R-Type had gone to the SNES.

But anyway, I was talking mostly about platformers there.  Arcade platformers are very uncommon, so any advantage in some arcade ports would mean little as far as platformers go.  Sure, it has better versions of stuff like Chiki Chiki Boys and Monster Lair, but arcade-style platformers like those weren't the main draw on SNES or Genesis.

You have also to consider that on the PCE a big bunch of platformers were already released before the SFC even hit the market

That's true.  I would be more forgiving of early ones like JJ & Jeff, yeah.  For 1987 that game's good.

No, those two things aren't alike at all.

yeah, but also it's unfair to say the PCE was only good at shooters, because that's plain wrong. if it wasn't that good at plat formers as the other two as you feel,

I said great, not good.  Sure, there are other genres the system is good at.  But I meant "Which genres is this system every bit as good as the other ones that generation at?"

To answer my own question, I'm sure that the TCD is incontestably the best console that generation for digital comics, gal-games, and mahjong titles.  NEC put more and more focus into that stuff over time, and it shows.

it sure was equaly good if not even better in the RPG department.

The system probably is better for RPGs overall than the Genesis, yeah, though the Sega CD does have my favorite JRPG of the generation in Lunar 2, but the SNES?  The SNES has just as many or more RPGs than the TG16+CD, and more later, better-looking ones from the top companies in the genre, too.  I mean, Falcom supported the PCE, but Square and Enix did not, and they were the two biggest and most influential RPG studios.  Only a few TCD RPGs (LoX II, AnEarth...) show off graphics as good as later SNES games.  This is a genre the TG16/CD is quite good at, yes, but I don't know if it quite matches the SNES...

Of course, but in order to keep up with Nintendo and Sega, Hudson and/or NEC had to release games on par with Sega and Nintendo's best platformers.  It was the most important genre that generation.  They released some good ones, but they weren't quite on par with Sega and Nintendo's best, and they were likely to be late ports of games from other platforms (most of NEC's) or somewhat dated in design (Hudson).

Sega had only Sonic and Nintendo had only Mario, big deal here. whilst I am quite a fan of sonic 1, i didn't really like any of its successors much, they just put in more and more and got more boring with each part.

Sega released mountains of Genesis platformers that weren't Sonic.  Some were Japanese, such as the Castle/World of Illusion games, but many others were Western-developed, but Sega published those so they count.  Vectorman, X-Men, Greendog, Jurassic Park, etc etc.  Not all of them are great, but Vectorman definitely is.

As for the Sonic games, I think that all of the Genesis Sonics are great.  I do like some things about the first game, such as the slower-paced puzzle elements in some levels that you rarely see in the later games, but they're all great.  Well, the platformers are; I'm not a fan of Sonic Spinball.

and yeah, SMW is one hell of a fun bringing and long motivating platformer, agreed, but it was basically already everything done before in SMB 3. Also SMW looks partly very simple and 8-bittish, which you are repeatedly claiming is more of a PCE thingy.

Yeah, not all SNES and Genesis games really push things forward either, sure.  Many early (ie, pre-Sonic) Genesis games don't have much "next-gen" about them apart from graphical fidelity and parallax backdrops... and some SNES games are like that too, sure.  But as for SMW, I think that does look next-gen.  What parts are you talking about that don't look as good?

As for SMW vs. SMB3, I think that SMW is a significant improvement over SMB3, but it is a similar concept, that's true.  That is probably a big part of why Sonic became such a phenomenon, because it was something new while Mario World, while exceptional, wasn't quite as much.

[Nando]

The 8 way whip changes the mechanics of the whole series. It makes secondary weapons irrelevant and I don't believe it has been used since. Correct me if I'm wrong pls.

[spenoza]

Scaling and rotation are literally scaling and rotation. Real-time/hardware rendered versions of misc effects are "real-time" or "hardware rendered", but no more "scaling" or "rotating". The fact that most SNES fanboys count lots of pre-rendered and non-S/R (see Axelay) effects as "Mode 7" rendered, only drives the point home further. The Genesis has hardware support for real-time transparencies, but you rarely hear retro game fans acknowledge it as such because of this kind of semantics (which tend to be based around a SNES fanboy perspective).

I agree that simply dedicating frames of animation to an effect can net better results. Lots of SNES scaling and rotation was really gimmicky. You are correct, of course, about the limitations as well. But, really, there's no point simply selecting apart animation that happens to represent scaling or rotation when it really just falls under good use of animation frames, something a great many PCE developers excelled at.

The "semantics" that separate SNES MODE 7 as simply scaling and rotation are a bit inaccurate and arbitrary, but I think the hardware capabilities of these systems are important. The SNES did manage to use MODE 7 and hardware alpha transparency in some very unique ways to great visual effect, in ways the Turbo and Genny couldn't reproduce. Likewise, the Turbo used extra CD memory to do lots of great animation effects that other systems couldn't really handle well in the context of an actual playable, enjoyable game due to memory or storage limitations. None of these system-specific traits make one system better than another, simply different. It does lend very different personalities to the different systems, which is why I think it is important to some. I enjoy the PCE, SNES, and GEN greatly, and I tend to enjoy them in different ways, and with different types of games. Nothing wrong with recognizing those differences and giving them names, so long as it is handled responsibly.

It can only use 2 different sprite sizes, which bottlenecks development for types of games with a variety of sprites sizes.

Fortunately, the SNES could display enough sprites and sprite pixels to often, though not always, overcome that. Still, the graphics restrictions on the SNES can be really odd at times. It was not a straight-forward system.

Also, Rondo is cool and all, one of my fave, if not my fave, Castlevania games, but really, what the PCE needed was Bubsy. I think Bubsy was what made the SNES and Genny a success. The lack of Bubsy on the PCE is what made it fail in the US. Because who doesn't want a cat in a sweater with 'tude. Seriously.

Bubsy, guys. At the very least, there should have been a Rondo/Bubsy mashup/crossover, where instead of Marie and Richter, you just play as Bubsy, lashing zombies with yarn.

[Tatsujin]

I didn't say it can't do it at all, I said that it doesn't have hardware parallax, and as a result most games don't have parallax.  I know some non-Supergrafx games have (software) parallax scrolling, such as Valis IV and Bravoman.  It looks pretty nice in those games.  But I'm sure that took some tricky programming, since so few games have parallax in them, even with the Arcade Card.  I mean, both Arcade Card platform/action games, Strider and Mad Stalker, have no parallax.  Meanwhile on SNES and Genesis most games in the genre have it.

it's true that SNES/MD had more often standard parallax, but also many PCE games have it, as well platfromers. here again, Drac X is one of the  parade example of how awesome parallax can look on the PCE.

Platformers too?  Or are you just talking about shooters and the like?

yeah platformers too.

Nobody?  But Nintendo won the NES and SNES generations mostly because of console exclusives, not arcade ports.  Some arcade ports helped them (Street Fighter II, for instance), but they weren't the main deciding factors.  Clearly many people cared about console exclusives.  Sega was always more arcade-focused, and that did work for them on the Genesis, but it started breaking down after that...  but Hudson/NEC arcade-focused?  I don't know, they released some, but was it enough to call it a major focus of the platform? But including third-party releases that probably is more true. R-Type and Image Fight were certainly big selling points for the platform.  I know Image Fight was a pretty big hit in Japan, even though here it wasn't at all... and isn't PCE Image Fight one of its best selling games or something?  That's surely why the TCD got an exclusive Image Fight sequel, while R-Type had gone to the SNES.

Nintendo won the NES and SNES generations mostly because of their name and fame from the FC/NES era. there was almost only nintendo after the 1st video game crash. that's whey it made his big name in the industry. and nintendo is/was also a far bigger company in general.
after the PCE was released it skyrocket even above the FC until the SFC came out over 3 years later! if that doesn't say a lot about the high quailty for an absolute newcomer in the console hardware manufacturer. and most of the fails were anyway results of terrible marketing, rather than the actual game lineup -> see TG16 in USoA.

but R-Type sure was also one of the best selling games on the PCE. so that doesn't really mean nothing at all.

But anyway, I was talking mostly about platformers there.  Arcade platformers are very uncommon, so any advantage in some arcade ports would mean little as far as platformers go.  Sure, it has better versions of stuff like Chiki Chiki Boys and Monster Lair, but arcade-style platformers like those weren't the main draw on SNES or Genesis.

The PCE was more directed to an adult audience, in contrast to nintendo, hence arcade ports, at least in japan, where a big deal back then.

I said great, not good.  Sure, there are other genres the system is good at.  But I meant "Which genres is this system every bit as good as the other ones that generation at?"

To answer my own question, I'm sure that the TCD is incontestably the best console that generation for digital comics, gal-games, and mahjong titles.  NEC put more and more focus into that stuff over time, and it shows.

not at all, but since these sure were popular adult genres in japan, yeah they kinda pushed it more than probably nintendo and sega (see post above, regarding adult audience). also the CD media helped here a lot.
but these games do not really show the strength of the system. in contrarz\y, the SFC got lietarlly 100erds of cheap pachi-slot games, which are far worth than most of the PCE adult centric titles. but does this mean that the SFC is incontestably the best console that generation for pachi games?

The system probably is better for RPGs overall than the Genesis, yeah, though the Sega CD does have my favorite JRPG of the generation in Lunar 2, but the SNES?  The SNES has just as many or more RPGs than the TG16+CD, and more later, better-looking ones from the top companies in the genre, too.  I mean, Falcom supported the PCE, but Square and Enix did not, and they were the two biggest and most influential RPG studios.  Only a few TCD RPGs (LoX II, AnEarth...) show off graphics as good as later SNES games.  This is a genre the TG16/CD is quite good at, yes, but I don't know if it quite matches the SNES...

I wasn't even thinking of the Genesis when i made that post that bad it was represented in this segment, tho the MCD changed this a bit to the better. but RPGs was truly one of the strongest genre on the PCE and thanks to the use of CD media, as you're saying yourself, and it even revolutioned it in a way, the SNES could never do it due to be limited ot cartridge space only. i admit, that the later SNES RPGs look nice, but the PCE isn't really that much behind that level, and as mentioned it had quite few other quality aspects important in RPGs the SNES had not.
Which the really winner in this genre is, i can't say for sure. i also think this can only be answered by those who played them both and all of em, as well understood them.

Sega released mountains of Genesis platformers that weren't Sonic.  Some were Japanese, such as the Castle/World of Illusion games, but many others were Western-developed, but Sega published those so they count.  Vectorman, X-Men, Greendog, Jurassic Park, etc etc.  Not all of them are great, but Vectorman definitely is.

that's right, but i have also to say that only a few of that mountains of platformers are really good ones. i think the PCE is for shooters what the MD is for platformers.

As for the Sonic games, I think that all of the Genesis Sonics are great.  I do like some things about the first game, such as the slower-paced puzzle elements in some levels that you rarely see in the later games, but they're all great.  Well, the platformers are; I'm not a fan of Sonic Spinball.

i think most of the sonic platfromers are in general quality games, but after sonic 1 the big aha experience was gone, and all its successors were just kinda updates with a lopt of repeating elements with few new characters added. for me sonic was never the same again as the first sonic was.

Yeah, not all SNES and Genesis games really push things forward either, sure.  Many early (ie, pre-Sonic) Genesis games don't have much "next-gen" about them apart from graphical fidelity and parallax backdrops... and some SNES games are like that too, sure.  But as for SMW, I think that does look next-gen.  What parts are you talking about that don't look as good?

what is the definition of looking next-gen in your opinion anyway? beside of nicer colors, better acoustics and parallax, SMW didn't do anything different than SMB 3 already did. so most if not every PCE platformer does this as well, beside of your ever so important point of some missing parallaxes here and there. in that term f.e. a chiki chiki boy, when not being the greatest game ever, looks much more next-gen than a SMW or many of the other released platformers on the SNES.

As for SMW vs. SMB3, I think that SMW is a significant improvement over SMB3, but it is a similar concept, that's true.  That is probably a big part of why Sonic became such a phenomenon, because it was something new while Mario World, while exceptional, wasn't quite as much.

i think the significant improvement in SMW was only in the technical department, thus grafx, colors, parallax..hell it even had a few slow downs here and there.

sonic was something different right, but closer viewed it is a quite simple game regarding level design and grafx. lots of repeatly used tiles and elements. it was fast, but that's all it was.

[bob]

I can't wait for lords of shadow 2

These games any good? If their cheap I may pick them up.

Well, I get flogged for liking them, but I often give some leniency to some of my child-hood favorite franchises.  I can appreciate the lineage and just play the game for face value.
Think God of War in a Castlevania setting.  Some good camera motion in certain spots make the game feel "bigger" at some points.  A few very half-baked Colossus style boss fights that were implemented poorly.  Essentially just big QTE sessions.  Story was ok, ending was great, ready for the next one.
They just re-released Lords of Shadow "Complete" edition (or whatever it's called) that includes the first game and all the DLC on physical disc.  I think it's $30, but is really just a vehicle to get people hyped on the Shadow 2 in February.  I haven't tried any of the DLC, so I can't comment on that.

[geise]

Dead Moon is one of the  parade example of how awesome parallax can look on the PCE.

O:)

Love you tats. xoxo

[FraGMarE]

Tatsujin and Black Falcon are locked in an...

OBEY WAR

[Tatsujin]

OBEY wins, as it always does

[A Black Falcon]

Really, the SNES and Genesis have at least 2 1/2 times more platformers each than the TG16 does.  Probably more than that, but that much for sure.  I'm sure a list of good SNES or Genesis+SCD+32X platformers would be at least 2 1/2 times as long as a list of good TG16+CD platformers, simply because of the vast gulf in number of releases.

it's true that SNES/MD had more often standard parallax, but also many PCE games have it, as well platfromers. here again, Drac X is one of the  parade example of how awesome parallax can look on the PCE.

Many?  Some, sure, but I don't know about many.  Most platformers do not.

yeah platformers too.

But arcade platformers were relatively uncommon.  The genre usually doesn't work well in arcades because of game and level length, so arcade platformers often end up being short and shooting-focused I think.  I mean, I know that there are some here and there, including Strider, Ninja Spirit, Legend of Hero Tonma, Chiki Chiki Boys, Toki, and more, but not very many at all compared to the huge numbers of platformers released on the third and fourth console generations.  Most platformers were console exclusive games, because you need to play platformers for a longer amount of time and that doesn't work in an arcade because arcade games must be getting a steady quarter burn rate.

Nintendo won the NES and SNES generations mostly because of their name and fame from the FC/NES era. there was almost only nintendo after the 1st video game crash. that's whey it made his big name in the industry.

That isn't true at all in Japan; there wasn't really a crash there because there hadn't been much of a videogame industry pre-crash in Japan.  Nintendo won in Japan because they had the best hardware -- in 1983-84 the Famicom was worlds better than the SG-1000 and Super Cassette Vision --  and the best software, too.  The Famicom dominated Japanese gaming from '84 to '87.  It was the resulting wealth of great Japanese games that sold the NES in the West, combined with some clever marketing from Nintendo, such as using R.O.B. to get the system in toy stores at a time after the crash when stores mostly thought that videogames were a dead fad.  Even after that, and with Super Mario Bros. available at launch in 1985, the NES took a while to really take off in the US and wasn't a huge hit until 1987, the year the system started to fade a bit in Japan.  (The system's peak here was '87 to '90.)

As for the SNES, they did use the fame they'd made with the NES to make it a success, yes, much like Sony did with the PS2, but being successful the previous generation doesn't guarantee you success, as Sony and Nintendo would both later learn... the SNES also had fairly good hardware design, a good price, good Nintendo marketing, and a great first-party library.  They won the generation because of a lot of factors, but essentially they made no major mistakes and had good hardware.

and nintendo is/was also a far bigger company in general.

Huh... what??  No!  NEC is a far larger company than Nintendo and always has been.  They just weren't that good at leveraging that, and were incredibly abysmal at it in the US.  Nintendo is bigger than Hudson, but NEC built the systems, not Hudson.

after the PCE was released it skyrocket even above the FC until the SFC came out over 3 years later! if that doesn't say a lot about the high quailty for an absolute newcomer in the console hardware manufacturer.

Sure, the PCE was definitely successful in Japan in the late '80s.  It was the first next-gen system and clearly beat the NES graphically, and I presume that NEC actually marketed it competently there, unlike here.

and most of the fails were anyway results of terrible marketing, rather than the actual game lineup -> see TG16 in USoA.

That's for sure.  I think that the TG16 would have almost inevitably fell back to third place after Sonic launched, but the system should have been successful in the time before Sonic launched in summer '91.  Before Sonic, even as it is the TG16 probably had a better overall library than the Genesis, but somehow Sega sold more systems anyway... NEC messed things up badly there.  NEC definitely had a better 1989 library by a good margin, and maybe 1990 too though that's closer.

NEC should have released the TG16 in the US in 1988, not 1989, and marketed it much better.  Releasing first and with competent marketing and distribution would have made a huge difference.  I still think Sonic would have been a huge hit and would have lifted Sega up, and Nintendo was going to do well of course, but with a stronger start the TG16/CD would have done a lot better than it did.  Oh yeah, and stupid NEC, release the thing in Europe!  It'd have done well, I think.

but R-Type sure was also one of the best selling games on the PCE. so that doesn't really mean nothing at all.

I'm sure it was, but despite that Irem made the next two R-Type games SNES-exclusive on consoles.  (Well, R-Type Complete CD released, but that was just a combined port, not a new game.)  But Image Fight did get a PCE sequel.

The PCE was more directed to an adult audience, in contrast to nintendo, hence arcade ports, at least in japan, where a big deal back then.

Ports of arcade platformers, important?  I guess I can sort of see that in the late '80s, but not past that, no.

not at all, but since these sure were popular adult genres in japan, yeah they kinda pushed it more than probably nintendo and sega (see post above, regarding adult audience). also the CD media helped here a lot.

That's true, but they also allowed more adult content than even Sega -- I mean, the Sega CD existed, but neither it nor the Saturn or PS1 allowed as much nudity and stuff as NEC did on the TCD and PC-FX.  You're right, they were clearly aiming at an older male gamer audience.  As they saw with PC-FX sales, though, that audience isn't big enough to maintain a platform all on its own.  You also see this with the Dreamcast, which sold great with that audience but very badly otherwise in Japan, which led to its general failure there outside of the hardcore.  But sure, on the PCE/CD, aiming at that audience helped them.  They went wrong when in the next generation they decided to have ONLY that stuff, instead of the better -- not perfect, but better -- balance that the PCE has.

but these games do not really show the strength of the system. in contrarz\y, the SFC got lietarlly 100erds of cheap pachi-slot games, which are far worth than most of the PCE adult centric titles. but does this mean that the SFC is incontestably the best console that generation for pachi games?

What do you mean, "far worth than most of the PCE adult centric titles"?  I don't know what you mean.  But sure, yeah, the SFC certainly is best for pachislot.

I wasn't even thinking of the Genesis when i made that post that bad it was represented in this segment, tho the MCD changed this a bit to the better. but RPGs was truly one of the strongest genre on the PCE and thanks to the use of CD media, as you're saying yourself, and it even revolutioned it in a way, the SNES could never do it due to be limited ot cartridge space only. i admit, that the later SNES RPGs look nice, but the PCE isn't really that much behind that level, and as mentioned it had quite few other quality aspects important in RPGs the SNES had not.
Which the really winner in this genre is, i can't say for sure. i also think this can only be answered by those who played them both and all of em, as well understood them.

Nintendo had Square and Enix, the two behemoths of the genre.  They won RPGs.  The TG16/CD had a good library of RPGs, but Falcom aside didn't have stuff from the biggest names, and it shows.  Remember how Dragon Quest was (and still is?) the best selling series in Japan, and that series was NES and SNES exclusive up until DQ7 followed FF7 to the PS1.  Final Fantasy was surely the second best selling and most popular RPG series, and it was also Nintendo-only of course.

I mean, yeah, the PCE has lots of RPGs, many of which are surely good and under-appreciated particularly by Western audiences... but without the two publishers who were the most popular and most highly regarded at the time, they can't be considered to have won the genre overall.  The system does have a good RPG library for sure, though, no question.

(Note - I'm not saying this as a big fan of Square or Enix.  I'm not that.  They just were the most important RPG developers.)

that's right, but i have also to say that only a few of that mountains of platformers are really good ones. i think the PCE is for shooters what the MD is for platformers.

What do you mean?  The Genesis+CD+32X does have a lot of good platformers, but the SNES has just as many... the 3rd and 4th generations were the great age of platformers and both systems have lots of great ones.  The TG16+CD has a fair number too, though as I've said the TCD has many fewer than it should considering how many games were released for the platform.  Oh well.

i think most of the sonic platfromers are in general quality games, but after sonic 1 the big aha experience was gone, and all its successors were just kinda updates with a lopt of repeating elements with few new characters added. for me sonic was never the same again as the first sonic was.

It's true that the experience wasn't as new after the first one, but Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles are such great games that that doesn't matter all that much.  They take the first games' basic idea and improve on it in many ways.  Sonic CD is pretty good too, though unique in some ways.  My overall favorite is 3 & Knuckles, I think, though all four (counting 3&K as one game) are great.

what is the definition of looking next-gen in your opinion anyway? beside of nicer colors, better acoustics and parallax, SMW didn't do anything different than SMB 3 already did. so most if not every PCE platformer does this as well, beside of your ever so important point of some missing parallaxes here and there. in that term f.e. a chiki chiki boy, when not being the greatest game ever, looks much more next-gen than a SMW or many of the other released platformers on the SNES.

i think the significant improvement in SMW was only in the technical department, thus grafx, colors, parallax..hell it even had a few slow downs here and there.

Well, the SNES's main advantages over the NES were better graphics, more colors, bigger sprites, parallax scrolling, transparencies, Mode 7, and the like, so yeah, the biggest improvements were visual... but for something like Mario, those visual improvements did lead to better gameplay too I would say.  It did have some slowdown, but it was a launch title even in Japan; they hadn't optimized SNES development yet.  Later SNES games would reduce slowdown versus the earlier ones.  A faster CPU would also have helped, of course, but they didn't have that.

Also, you're right that Chiki Chiki Boys looks pretty nice, apart from not having parallax.  It looks like it plays more like something like Joe & Mac than Mario, though, so gameplay-wise it's not the same thing.  That gets back to the point I made earlier about arcade-style versus console sidescrollers.

sonic was something different right, but closer viewed it is a quite simple game regarding level design and grafx. lots of repeatly used tiles and elements. it was fast, but that's all it was.

That's true, in terms of graphical variety, scale, and design Sonic is a shorter, smaller, and simpler game than Mario World, no question.  Sega's arcade focus shows, even in console exclusives like Sonic.

[SuperDeadite]

SMB3>SMW.  Only people born after 1986 will disagree.  SNES has aged terribly, just slow moving, low animation, muffled sound garbage these days.

[Nando]

SMB3>SMW.  Only people born after 1986 will disagree.  SNES has aged terribly, just slow moving, low animation, muffled sound garbage these days.

It was the shinny new coat of paint that won them kids over.  Damn thing looked like a cartoon and the teaser screen shots had everyone drooling before the game was even in close to being done, but yea SMB3 > SMW all the way.

I think everyone I know remembers these pics

/2kec7o.jpg

[geise]

I'm becoming and old bastard and I will always like SMW more than SMB3.

I still don't know what else we're talking/arguing about in here?  There is no arguing when it comes to Rondo of Blood.

[CrackTiger]

I'm becoming and old bastard and I will always like SMW more than SMB3.

I still don't know what else we're talking/arguing about in here?  There is no arguing when it comes to Rondo of Blood.

It's not about Rondo of Blood, it's about daring to speculate that Nintendo could possibly not be superior to everything else. Saying that consoles/libraries are overall equal, balanced or simply different/unique is not enough. You must admit that nothing even compares to Nintendo.

[TurboXray]

It can only use 2 different sprite sizes, which bottlenecks development for types of games with a variety of sprites sizes.

Fortunately, the SNES could display enough sprites and sprite pixels to often, though not always, overcome that. Still, the graphics restrictions on the SNES can be really odd at times. It was not a straight-forward system.

The problem is, is that the added benefits the SNES has for sprites - rarely ever materialize into something practical. Case in point; 128 sprite table size. It's basically there as a band-aid fix for the limited sprite size selection. The most common sprite setup used in SNES games, is the 16x16 / 32x32. 32x32 is wasteful on sprite scanline pixel bandwidth, if the object is in between 16x16 and 32x32. Thus, either eat the vram wasted space and sprite pixel scanline bandwidth - or use smaller 16x16 segments and eat the cpu overheard of meta sprite conversion to OAM table.

 16x16 and 8x8 is a nice option, but you'll be eating through that OAM table of 128 entries pretty quickly with 8x8 entries (and even with 16x16 entries). Assuming you don't max out the table, you will give a nice sprite pixel scanline optimization. As well as better vram optimization. But, you're going to put a ~lot~ more overhead on the processor. The OAM layout already has a slight cpu overheard for the MSB of X position, you'll just compound that with all the meta-sprite matrix math and conversions. This SNES already has a relatively slower CPU compared to the other systems; this is just gonna bog it down further.

 NES had this problem. All sprite objects are maybe up of 8x8 cells. Megaman frames can be up to 9 sprites just to build one of his frames. There's a lot of overhead in the meta-sprite to real sprite conversion; you have to add base position to all offsets, you have to check each 8x8 cell segment for screen wrapping and if so - clip it, you have to do special repositioning coords to flip the while meta-sprite, etc. The NES would be that much faster, if it could just call a single 16x16 or 32x32 sprite. The SNES will have all these same issues to deal with as well. 

 Outside a very few specific cases, the SNES has the weakest sprite setup of the three systems. It's not terrible per se (after all, the x68000 had only one sprite size; 16x16 and a sprite table size of 128 entries. Of course, it also had twice the sprite pixel scanline bandwidth of the snes), but when you look at it in the context of the rest of the video specs of the snes - it's actually kind of bad.

Also, Rondo is cool and all, one of my fave, if not my fave, Castlevania games, but really, what the PCE needed was Bubsy. I think Bubsy was what made the SNES and Genny a success. The lack of Bubsy on the PCE is what made it fail in the US. Because who doesn't want a cat in a sweater with 'tude. Seriously.

Bubsy, guys. At the very least, there should have been a Rondo/Bubsy mashup/crossover, where instead of Marie and Richter, you just play as Bubsy, lashing zombies with yarn.

All joking aside, that Sonic/Busy formula can work on the PCE quite well. What I mean by that, is focus on moving fast through out the a level, enemies are sparse so it's more about avoiding them than trying to hunt them down/etc. I had worked out a nice map system that used PCE sprites for the foreground. The map entries were made up of 32x64 block entries. Of course, that's a meta block and could translate into a group of sprites - or a single 32x64 hardware sprite to save on SAT size. Clipping the screen to 240xYYY allows the system to scroll sprites without "popping" on the edges. 32x64 can be switched to 16x64 really easy on the fly, and without having duplicate sprite blocks in vram. A little clipping of the screen height with a status bar and you have enough SAT entries to pull this off. You just need to do some careful design work on the sprite map side (level design) to avoid blank out, but it's not as bad as you might think. I was really blown away, once I started doing the mock-ups and calculations.

[Nando]

It was all about the colors maaaaaaaaaaaan. SNES games had some of the prettiest screen shots on print media for a long while, that and the Nintendo sigil was marked across the foreheads of just about every single US gamer at the time. Nintendo WAS video games.




*goes off to play Soldier Blade :mrgree:

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, SMW is definitely a better game than SMB3.  SMB3's levels are too small!

[RyuHayabusa]

SMB3>SMW.  Only people born after 1986 will disagree.  SNES has aged terribly, just slow moving, low animation, muffled sound garbage these days.

Have to disagree on both of those statements, and I was born in 78. SMW vs SMB3 is purely subjective to begin with, but I prefer SMW though I love SMB3 as well. As for the SNES not aging well, I'd say it's aged as well as any of it's contemporaries. It has it's share of crap titles like any other console but it has it's share of all time classics. SMW, Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Yoshi's Island, Final Fantasy IV+VI, Chronotrigger, Axelay, Contra III, Actraiser, and on and on. When it comes to sound, yes, there are many examples of terrible synth horns and guitars, but in the right hands the SNES sounds amazing. Donkey Kong Country, Axelay, Castlevania IV, Chronotrigger, etc. I love the Turbo but the SNES was a damn fine system too.

As for Rondo vs CIV, like I've said before Rondo is the deeper game but CIV has a spookier atmosphere due to the darker visuals and the more gothic music. While I love Cross a Fear and Opus 13 they don't really create a dark mood like you'd expect for a Castlevania game. Nostalgia aside Rondo is the better game but I still love CIV.

[geise]

I agree with everything you said.

[yoyo]

Indeed an incredible game. One of the best experiences I had with the PCE.

[munchiaz]

I'll give one thing to SCIV. The soundtrack is def different than most castlevania games, but in a good way. Rondo is still the better game, But SCIV is good as well

[GohanX]

The soundtrack to Castlevania 4 is indeed amazing.

[awack]

In some ways SCIV is a study in how not to design a game, even people who call it their favorite game of all time tell you that you just have to get past the first  three or four levels and then things pick up, for the most part you will only have around 2 or 3 enemies on screen at once, you have far more on screen in Rondo of course, the main way you or at least most people die in SCIV from what Ive seen is from disappearing blocks and such, in Rondo its doing battle with enemies, enemy AI seems to be far superior In Rondo as well, SCIV gives you multi direction whip...in comparison Rondo gives you the ability to jump on and OFF stairs, multiple characters, different paths to choose, item crash, back flip, slide, tumble, double jump, money actually has a purpose, able to pick your secondary weapon back up, a lot of people might not know but if you keep your finger on the jump button your able to control your jump, and the turtle crash, your able to control where goes (up or down) with the direction pad.

Like I was saying before, here are some of the fx/animations that are still being used today, no other snes or genesis game can claim this. This is where Rondo of blood is the best of its generation.









here are all of the similar SCIV fx/animation for comparison..cant capture transparencies

[Tatsujin]

and not to forget about one of the most important factor in games generally "THE PASSION FOR DETAILS".

Drac X was a huge milestone in that department, and can still hold up ultimately well with all the 2D casts that have been released ever since until these days.

[RyuHayabusa]

Keep in mind that CIV is an early SNES title and only 8 megs whereas Rondo is a Super CD game that came out late in the lifespan of the PCE. When it comes to sprites and frames of animation of course it's going to win out over CIV. Having hundreds of megabytes compared to 1 megabyte will give you an advantage when it comes to frames of animation and detail. Same thing goes for Forgotten Worlds PCE vs the Genesis port. Heck, even Ghouls N Ghosts could've been closer to the Supergrafx port had it been 8 megs instead of 5 megs. As I said before, Rondo is the better game due to it's depth it still lacks the atmosphere created in CIV due to the darker visuals and tunes. And, I love the first few levels of CIV, especially level 2 in the forest. The parallax in the clouds looks cool and the music creates a dark atmosphere. Something I loved about Symphony of the Night is that it's music had elements of both games. Some upbeat tunes that sound nice and a few creepy tunes like when you go down into the darker areas of the castle. Lastly, keep in mind that Slogra and Gaibon were carried over to SOTN as well. Not sure what other games used Rondo sprites besides SOTN.

[FraGMarE]

The thing that bugs me the most about CV4 isn't the length of the game, number of animation frames, linear paths or any of that... it's the fact that Simon's sprite looks as if it's made up of about 5 or 6 separate sprites all kind of trying to coordinate into something resembling a walking animation.  It's just clunky and weird looking.