PC Engine ACD Art of Fighting

Liquid Snake · 05/12/2006, 08:38 AM

I have both AES & PS2 versions of AOF.

I've heard PC Engine ACD version of AOF has voices during intermissions and ending.....is it true?

Just wonder how good is PC Engine ACD port ....anybody?

There is only one online review but I just want to find out more about it.

Kaminari · 05/12/2006, 10:33 AM

Well, if you consider the technological gap between a NeoGeo and a PC Engine, the PCE port is a wonder. And with a Hori arcade stick, this is the next best thing after the arcade version.

Ninja Spirit · 05/12/2006, 10:52 AM

Zoom in zoom out and everything?

Keranu · 05/12/2006, 08:55 PM

I have always been interested by the PCE port too. I'll buy it as soon as I get a Arcade Card Pro. You can never seem to find any indepth reviews for this port.

akamichi · 05/13/2006, 01:38 AM

Quote from: "Ninja Spirit"Zoom in zoom out and everything?

Yup. It's actually pretty amazing considering there's no real hardware support for it.

Ninja Spirit · 05/13/2006, 09:42 AM

Ah that's great.

One fun question though, if Samurai Spirits were to get a PCE arcade card version, would it be a successful port?

Keranu · 05/13/2006, 04:34 PM

I'd say so considering how awesome the PCE port of Fatal Fury 2/Special was and how I hear positive things about Art of Fighting.

td741 · 05/15/2006, 11:11 AM

Note: the Zooming-in and Out isn't quite the same. The PCEngine version is a resolution change (I think). The game just cuts between the two different views without a "gradual zooming-in/out" of the Neo.

It works well though, since the zooming-in/out of the Neo's version was very quick.

akamichi · 05/15/2006, 11:34 AM

Quote from: "td741"Note: the Zooming-in and Out isn't quite the same. The PCEngine version is a resolution change (I think). The game just cuts between the two different views without a "gradual zooming-in/out" of the Neo.

It works well though, since the zooming-in/out of the Neo's version was very quick.

AFAIK, the zooming effect is simulated with resolution changes. However, it doesn't just cut between zoomed in and zoomed out. There are intermediate steps in there. Not as good as the Neo of course but at the same time not as rigid as 2 "views". If I get some time, I'll make a video of it.

EDIT: Just played the game and it's pretty much 2 views. There might be one intermediate step in there, but it's hard to tell.

Before I saw AOF on PCE, I thought Samurai Spirits would be impossible to do on PCE w/zooming. But after I played AOF and witnessed the actual zooming in and out, I was convinced that SS could be a possibility. Of course it never happened, but I was wishing for it!

grahf · 05/19/2006, 10:32 AM

I played the HELL out of Samurai Shodown (Spirits) back in middle school. I have the SNES version but the lack of memory really limits it. They trimmed a lot out of it.

Ninja Spirit · 05/19/2006, 11:15 AM

I just remembered, one of the episodes of PCEngineFX TV covers FFS.

I can understand about SS not doing well on Arcade Card.

The zooming, the number of characters there are especially Earthquake eats up alot of megs than the Duo can handle.

Come to think of it, taking Earthquake out of the Sega CD and Genesis versions is easy to understand why.

grahf · 05/19/2006, 12:07 PM

They had that one huge character in Fatal Fury Special, so i think Earthquake would be more than possible. Also, the number of characters doesnt matter since a CD. As long as the PCE can handle two characters on screen at once (which it can, judging by the other fighters) it should have been possible.

Bt Garner · 05/19/2006, 12:36 PM

Quote from: "grahf"They had that one huge character in Fatal Fury Special, so i think Earthquake would be more than possible. Also, the number of characters doesnt matter since a CD. As long as the PCE can handle two characters on screen at once (which it can, judging by the other fighters) it should have been possible.

Frames of animation is where the issue would lie. I am not familiar with this character, but I am guessing that any large character, or one with lots of frames of animation would very quickly suck up the 256KB very quickly. Yes, I am discounting the AC memory -- transfer to and from the additional RAM is slow (not as slow as from the CD), but it would certainly be noticable in a game if you had to say, swap out 128 KB worth of sprites. You can get away with it, if there is a natural break in the game, but otherwise you would end up just creating an unnatural one.

-bt

Tatsujin · 05/31/2006, 12:04 AM

amazing game but also struggles with the same lack of playability as its original does!

i still like to see a perfect port of MotW, shin samurai spirits or gekka no kenshi

Ninja Spirit · 05/31/2006, 01:16 AM

MotW? The biggest Neo Geo game in existence on the Arcade Card?

Don't count on it.

Tatsujin · 05/31/2006, 02:34 AM

Quote from: "Ninja Spirit"Don't count on it.

i never would count on it for sure, it's just a kind of an imagination, how a port would appear if the power of the arcade system is improoved to its absolute maximum!

Keranu · 05/31/2006, 05:10 PM

Well Mark of the Wolves probably would never be ported to our lovely Arcade Card, but some months ago I did take a few screenshots of the game and used a program to convert the screenshot to PCE palette standards and the result looks like this (top screenshot is Neo Geo, bottom is PCE):

Tatsujin · 05/31/2006, 08:29 PM

looks just great^^ of course some BGs have to be recolored to the PCE palette, not just converted, to get may be a better result. but the converted colors in the ingame screens just looking great. now the final question would be, how the arcade pce could handle the technical specs of the game (animations, dynamic, scaling (analog AoF), action etc)..and not at least the loading time

btw: with which methode you converted the palette from NG to PCE standard? can i do that with photoshop?

Keranu · 05/31/2006, 08:47 PM

The program I use is called RGB2PCE and was sent to me by a fellow PCE graphic designer on IRC that I talk to. I don't think it can be found on any sites, so I can email it to you if you want. Better yet, I should upload it to my webspace and offer it, which I'll do a little later.

But like you said, you would have to do some hand customizing on the graphics to make them look even closer. An example in those screenshots are the light clouds in the background. In the original you can see a very faint cloud, but in the converted image it does not appear since the program couldn't find a color to use for it, so redrawing the cloud using a simple white color would work

.

Quote from: Tatsujinnow the final question would be, how the arcade pce could handle the technical specs of the game (animations, dynamic, scaling (analog AoF), action etc)..and not at least the loading time Razz

I'm no PCE programmer (just a graphics artist) but I would say that would be one helluva game to port to Arcade Card

. I think you could get away with keeping a lot of the animation frames for the sprites, but might have to cut a few frames from sprites and bacgkrounds to conserve the RAM. Luckily there isn't a whole lot of characters in the game (as oppose to KoF), so that saves some extra RAM. I'd imagine loading times would be annoyingly long

.

By the way, here are some other Neo Geo game screenshots I took and also converted to PCE standards:

Magician Lord

Metal Slug

King of Fighters '98

KoF'98 would actually look a little different/worse on the PCE than the screenshot shows since that screenshot more than likely uses more than 256 colors for the background.

Tatsujin · 05/31/2006, 09:29 PM

also looks great, and here again especially the ingame shoots!
thx a lot, i would be very glad to get that color-converter, so please check PM

Keranu · 05/31/2006, 10:42 PM

No problem ;) .

By the way, Bonknuts on these boards dithered the fin on the battle ship in the Metal Slug screenshot to make it look better, so this shows how much nicer you can make the games look just by doing some adjustments yourself:

"dithered PCE (left) and original PCE(right)

"

TurboXray · 06/01/2006, 11:25 PM

hehe...

To Tatsujin: You can use Photoshop to do the dithering, once you have the converted PCE palette of the output from the util Keranu mentioned.

Here's another sample. Photoshop for the dithering and slight hand adjustment on a few colors - PCE legal ofcourse.

pcedev.net/pics/mlord-dither3.jpg

Keranu, you already know Metal Slug 1 is totally doable on the arcade card - hint - hint...

You've got my vote

-Rich

Keranu · 06/01/2006, 11:32 PM

Nice job on the ditering, looks a lot nicer. But what's with the butchered .jpg image conversion?

Quote from: "Tomaithous"Keranu, you already know Metal Slug 1 is totally doable on the arcade card - hint - hint... Laughing You've got my vote Cool

And just what's that suppose to mean

? You and your sneaky secret tricks.

TurboXray · 06/01/2006, 11:48 PM

Oh, you mean the res? I was just 'eye balling' the cut and paste from your original.

QuoteAnd just what's that suppose to mean ?

Oh nothing, just on my list of demos to....

Keranu · 06/02/2006, 03:13 AM

Hehe, you always have goodies hidden up your sleeves

!