Could the TG16 / PCE handle Donkey Kong Country?

[c0ldb33r]

I've been playing Sapphire lately and get a kick out of the pre-rendered polygonal sprites. It got me thinking, since they're just pre-rendered sprites, could the TG-16 have handled Donkey Kong Country? That game looks great but it's nothing but pre-rendered sprites.

[syphic]

It does look amazing.

[Tatsujin]

beside the loooots of nice parallax scrollings in DKC, I don't think the pce would have had much troubs to do so. maybe some slight color downgrades.

btw, I don't really like DKC, quite boring and naff game IMO. and when it comes to technical gimmickry and stuff, I think  sapphire is the far superior game.

but let the tech. pros talking here

[HercTNT]

I agree, its all prerendered. I don't see why the turbo could not do it.

[Vecanti]

Tech wise would be interesting.  I thought there was a thread a while back where some one converted a bunch of DK Country sprites/backgrounds to PCE pallets and they all looked great?

Game play wise, well, I sold me SNES not long after getting that game.  Just seemed like it was the start of slide in play quality.  That's when the SNES jumped the shark for me.  But I have some friends my age that loved the series. So...

[Lilgrafx]

beside the loooots of nice parallax scrollings in DKC, I don't think the pce would have had much troubs to do so. maybe some slight color downgrades.

btw, I don't really like DKC, quite boring and naff game IMO. and when it comes to technical gimmickry and stuff, I think  sapphire is the far superior game.

but let the tech. pros talking here

Blasphemous! DK Country is a fantastic platformer, same with 2, but 3 is meh.

[DildoKKKobold]

Remember, Donkey Kong Land, which was basically DKC, was on the Gameboy/Gameboy Color.

[motdelbourt]

It should look good on the Turbo, with all the colors available. It was 32 mb IIRC, and it would probably have to be larger on Turbo to pull of with software some of what SNES could do with software.

I always wondered why there weren't more games like R-Type that were divided across several HuCards. Maybe that would have been the way to go here.

That or ACD would be the obvious choice. But actually neither Sapphire or DKC are that impressive to me. There are loads of better shooters and platformers on both systems.

[SignOfZeta]

That game has aged terribly. Not as bad as nearly every PS1 game, but still...such a one trick pony, DKC. Its really really smooth and...that's just about it. All the soul of a cheap set of 22" rims. Revolting.

[Tatsujin]

But actually neither Sapphire or DKC are that impressive to me. There are loads of better shooters and platformers on both systems.

better for sure, but impressive in a technical point of view (crazy gimmickry and stuff), not so much.

[Tatsujin]

beside the loooots of nice parallax scrollings in DKC, I don't think the pce would have had much troubs to do so. maybe some slight color downgrades.

btw, I don't really like DKC, quite boring and naff game IMO. and when it comes to technical gimmickry and stuff, I think  sapphire is the far superior game.

but let the tech. pros talking here

Blasphemous! DK Country is a fantastic platformer, same with 2, but 3 is meh.

that might be, it just never catched me at all. I had much better stuff to play at that time on my PCE

[CrackTiger]

Not all of the parallax could be recreated the same, but otherwise, DKC has less action, sprites on-screen, animation, etc, that Sapphire has. A straight port would lose shades of color, but a customized version could add more color in other places. Pretty much any of the 16-bit consoles can do versions of any 2D game from another console. They just need to be rebalanced to match the new hardware.

[Tatsujin]

yeah, SFII showed that well imo. non of em looking terribly bad color wise. and they are pretty close to each other, considering the very different color capabilities of the three systems.

[8bitForLife]

Someone explain to me why the turbo the colors would have to be downgraded doesnt it have the ability to show 512 colors. Sorry im not up to date on the technical system specs like alot of you guys are. It for sure would need an arcade card.

[CrackTiger]

Someone explain to me why the turbo the colors would have to be downgraded doesnt it have the ability to show 512 colors. Sorry im not up to date on the technical system specs like alot of you guys are. It for sure would need an arcade card.

Systems like the SNES and Game Gear have a larger number of colors to choose from, even though they can't display as much color at once. So when a game is custom made for hardware that uses colors that the PCE or Genesis don't have in their spectrum, they have to use different colors instead. Pretty much the only time it could potentially be a challenge is when doing straight ports of SNES games which spam color gradients. Chances are you'll lose a few shades to some of those banded gradients. It doesn't come up as often when porting from arcade games, because those kinds of gradients are usually used as filler in console games, where as games that aren't strapped for memory are more filled with artwork.

The Arcade Card is only a container, it doesn't upgrade the hardware at all. A HuCard game is potentially limitless, but ACD's, like all CD games, are bottle necked. If the SNES did it on cart, it would be no different than the Genesis or PC Engine doing the same game on a similar sized cart.

[Tatsujin]

Someone explain to me why the turbo the colors would have to be downgraded doesnt it have the ability to show 512 colors. Sorry im not up to date on the technical system specs like alot of you guys are. It for sure would need an arcade card.

it actually can display something like 16 palettes of each 15 colors plus one shared color = 241 for each the background and the sprites = max. of 482 colors on screen. but to achieve that as ingame graphics of an action game would be kind of difficult, or sort of.

again the techies are asked here

[Arkhan Asylum]

That game has aged terribly. Not as bad as nearly every PS1 game, but still...such a one trick pony, DKC. Its really really smooth and...that's just about it. All the soul of a cheap set of 22" rims. Revolting.

You misspelled N64.

[OldRover]

To be more specific about the colors... and this is especially true with that gradient bullshit... the SNES has a 5/5/5 RGB scheme, whereas the Turbo and Genesis both have a 3/3/3 RGB color scheme. The extra bits available to the SNES give it a lot more flexibility, and some games took advantage with all the sickening gradients. Remapping colors for the PC from the SNES isn't difficult though... quite often, it's just a matter of slightly raising or lowering individual palette entries to fit into the approximated colorspace for the PCE (offsets of 36.43 in 24 bit colorspace). Screenshots from SNES emulators seem to always have colors with an offset of 16 or 17 in the 24 bit colorspace, and rarely do SNES games use shades that are so close together than remapping produces identical color results. You really only start to notice it when dealing with, again, those nasty gradients... but then, you can also "cheat" a bit there and use dithering between the bands to achieve similar results.

Example: say one color in the SNES palette comes out to be 33,66,99 in 24 bit colorspace (16+17 = 33, then multiply). The 33 is raised to 36, the 66 is raised to 72, and the 99 is raised to 108 or 109 (depending on how strict you want to be). In some cases, depending on how it looks, you might actually lower a color rather than raising it; it's not usually the case, but it does sometimes look better that way. In any event, this is something you generally want to do manually rather than letting an automated tool do the work since eyeballing the end result is of critical importance.

[esteban]

To be more specific about the colors... and this is especially true with that gradient bullshit... the SNES has a 5/5/5 RGB scheme, whereas the Turbo and Genesis both have a 3/3/3 RGB color scheme. The extra bits available to the SNES give it a lot more flexibility, and some games took advantage with all the sickening gradients. Remapping colors for the PC from the SNES isn't difficult though... quite often, it's just a matter of slightly raising or lowering individual palette entries to fit into the approximated colorspace for the PCE (offsets of 36.43 in 24 bit colorspace). Screenshots from SNES emulators seem to always have colors with an offset of 16 or 17 in the 24 bit colorspace, and rarely do SNES games use shades that are so close together than remapping produces identical color results. You really only start to notice it when dealing with, again, those nasty gradients... but then, you can also "cheat" a bit there and use dithering between the bands to achieve similar results.

Example: say one color in the SNES palette comes out to be 33,66,99 in 24 bit colorspace (16+17 = 33, then multiply). The 33 is raised to 36, the 66 is raised to 72, and the 99 is raised to 108 or 109 (depending on how strict you want to be). In some cases, depending on how it looks, you might actually lower a color rather than raising it; it's not usually the case, but it does sometimes look better that way. In any event, this is something you generally want to do manually rather than letting an automated tool do the work since eyeballing the end result is of critical importance.

I love reading about the actual process of porting a game, given certain constraints, and overcoming the challenges.

[Lilgrafx]

That game has aged terribly. Not as bad as nearly every PS1 game, but still...such a one trick pony, DKC. Its really really smooth and...that's just about it. All the soul of a cheap set of 22" rims. Revolting.

I'd disagree with that, is has very responsive controls, good music, and pretty stellar platforming.

[HercTNT]

I have a love hate relationship with DKC. The graphics are top notch, the sound is amazing, and the controls are spot on. I'm in complete agreement though that its a one trick pony. After my first playthrough i was unable to pick it up again. The frustration factor is so high, i found myself hating the game, but pushing myself along just to finish it. The fun went away quickly.

[CrackTiger]

That game has aged terribly. Not as bad as nearly every PS1 game, but still...such a one trick pony, DKC. Its really really smooth and...that's just about it. All the soul of a cheap set of 22" rims. Revolting.

I'd disagree with that, is has very responsive controls, good music, and pretty stellar platforming.

I think that the artwork/designs look terrible and is what immediately became dated. Unfortunately, it's the only thing they've kept to this day. An example of art done right in a similar style without being soulless, is the original Sonic the Hedgehog. I was disappointed as soon as Sonic 2 came out that they had began evolving towards a more realistic and unoriginal style.

[MottZilla]

Whenever people ask if you could have some game from one platform on another platform they never seem to specify anything after that. Do you mean exactly the same? Almost like what you see with 360 and PS3 games? Or do you just mean more like say, Rock 'n Roll Racing which appeared on both SNES and Genesis (or Mortal Kombat, SF2, etc.)? DKC has simple gameplay that takes advantage of the SNES PPU and SPC chip to offer a good platformer with very nice graphics and audio. So if you don't care about graphics and audio changes, sure the PCE could do it.

If you wanted minimal downgrades you'd want to use the SuperGrafx and the CDROM. Either using a HuCard with alot of ROM while running music from the CD or by using the Arcade Card. You'd still lose any color blending type effects, like I think Squaks the Parrot with the Flashlight effect. But gameplay wise the game could work. Again though really the game was made to show off the SNES PPU and SPC chips. And it does.

For other games it all just depends how much you want to change them to get them on different hardware. Really between the PCE, SNES, and Genesis none of them are a clear winner above any of the rest. They are all different and have different ways of doing things and some things they are better at than the others. Programming wise I do like the Genesis for the 68000 which has a big address space. SNES has alot of addressable memory too but it is a bit less nice with the 65816's system of banks but you can get used to that. PCE just has the 64K so you're going to be banking plenty. But the CPU should be much faster than the SNES which I do like. SNES is nice for having a huge 128K worth of RAM which Genesis coming in second with only 64K and poor PCE in last with 8K. It really makes me wish the DUO had not just integrated the Super CD-ROM but also the SuperGrafx. The PCE seems more complete that way.

[Nando]

I think that the artwork/designs look terrible and is what immediately became dated.

Pre-rendered SGI look was the shiznizzle back then.....CO CO COMBO BREAKER!

But it did have that "plastic" look to it. So shiny!

The SNES benefited from all the artist and dev's that cut their teeth on the PCE.  ;)

[geise]

Well back in 95 people still didn't really know how to properly light a 3d object.  Plus, there really wasn't a great deal of options either.  I'm sure they were using Alias Wavefront or Softimage back then.  Even with those programs lighting was still fairly basic.  So most had this crazy glossy/shiny plastic look to it.  As for the pce hadling it, old rove pretty much seemed to answer that question.  Mine however is why would you want the pce to handle DKC?

[esteban]

...why would you want the pce to handle DKC?

Exactly. We have enough trash on the PCE. Why add more?

[Lilgrafx]

Put a pile of shit under them and label it SEGA and you've got it.

[HercTNT]

LOL go LIL, now tell us how you really feel I like sega, but funny stuff all the same.

[SignOfZeta]

I love Sega, Nintendo, and NEC. I just think DKC is a flash in the pan. Not only is nowhere near as good as World or Yoshi's Island, its not even as good as Rayman or Sonic 3.

Fuck, it's probably better than Vectorman. That's about all I can say for it.

[Bernie]

I love Sega, Nintendo, and NEC. I just think DKC is a flash in the pan. Not only is nowhere near as good as World or Yoshi's Island, its not even as good as Rayman or Sonic 3.

Fuck, it's probably better than Vectorman. That's about all I can say for it.

Have to admit..  Not too big on the DKC games either..  I have all three, and most likely going to let em go soon.  Just happened to get them all in a bundle.  DKC 1 is OK at best, IMO.  I know a lot of people really liked them a lot tho, so I cant say they are bad games..  Just not games for Bernie.

[TheClash603]

I honestly hate the DKC graphics.  My girlfriend plays about 5 games, and this is one of them, so I actually have gone through it a handful of times.  Every time I play the game it just looks more washed out and ugly, it somehow manages to get worse and worse.  HOWEVER, the game is pretty fun, and although it isn't Super Mario World (what is?), it is definitely above average for a platformer.

[SamIAm]

I played DKC 1 so much back in the day, I beat the fastest 100% finish record in Nintendo Power magazine. Like most great platformers, it starts to really shine once you approach it for speed and completion. I just got DKC 2 last year, in fact, and I'm definitely impressed with it, although I haven't learned it much yet. DKC 3...played it, could live without it.

IMO what would suffer the most in a DKC port would be the water stages. The different effects on the two layers really makes them stand out, and they'd be pretty boring as one. This transition would be hard to do justice, and this other 3 layer background just wouldn't look as nice. Of course, this transparency is also out of the question.

The SNES's trump card was its graphics processor, and DKC used the hell out of it. It fun to imagine a port now, but if the two had come out side-by-side back in the day, the TG-16 version would have looked like the poor-man's version.

[motdelbourt]

Some Madden style live action cut scenes would be amazing.