Kinda funny how there's shadows on the characters in this Saturn game, and yet most games on my Quest 3 still don't have shadows on the characters. Well, not funny, rather frikin' absurd and annoying actually. Quest 3 developers really need to get their **** together.
Great. But you know what I really want, a version of the original SNES Star Fox that runs at a proper 60fps [with gameplay speed adjusted to play properly at that frame rate], in full HD, and with no visible pop-in. I think that would be amazing, and imo it's actually a better game than Star Fox 64.
'You might need to be a certain "vintage" to really get it'
Yeah, with many retro consoles there's some appeal for myself, but not quite with this system. Well, maybe some. I think I'd actually have to have it in front of my and try it out and see if any of the games truly stand the test of time.
Although, I think I did play Manic Miner on an old Spectrum recently at the games exhibition in Edinburgh, and it was honestly fun--with a joystick. But I might be remembering incorrectly and it was on a C64 or something.
I also played some home computer version of Defender with a joystick there as well, and it really was great.
Mind you, it did sell even less than the Wii U, and most people consider that a flop. So there's that.
Also, now that I think about it, and going by the conditions of the article, the Wii U might actually be the most successful console "Flop" of all time".
@AJB83 I think that should be long enough. Just have a couple of sets of batteries, one in the system and one charging/charged that you can swap out when necessary, and sorted. It's what I do with my Quest 3 controllers and it's all good. Mind you, they last for weeks before needing to be changed, but the point is the same. It works great in my experience and is a very simple and practical solution. And the best thing with that setup is that you can never run down the built-in controller battery and accidently forget to charge it again and thus not be able to use the controllers the next time you go to play on your Quest. It's actually one of the major benefits of just having rechargeable batteries you can easily switch in and out as and when required.
@jruasap Sorry, but you shouldn't get to dictate that. It's not for you to force everyone else into your worldview around weapons and the businesses that make them. Andural is a legitimate American company making legitimate products for satisfied clients, of which there are hundreds-thousands of similar legitimate weapons businesses in this world. It's not some shadow evil corporation or something out of a Jame Bond movie, and Palmer isn't some fantasy evil villain trying to destroy mankind and take over the world. You don't have to like weapons, but that's your personal choice, so leave it at that. You should be talking about the ModRetro Chromatic in here and save your politics for where they belong.
@Pho Again, don't just accept what the mainstream is feeding you, nor see some comments out or even in context and create a whole "he's evil" backstory out of largely fluff. It's never usually that simple, and it most certainly isn't in this case.
Dude was attacked for decades with hoards of people coming at him based on total lies and manipulation spread by a group of very powerful people with very insidious agendas, and then he was eventually fired and ousted from the company he created and removed from the public discourse for a long time for entirely false reasons, most of it very left/Dem politically driven and aligned too. And the people behind that have all come out and apologised for what they did*.
Don't allow the lies and liars to manipulate you too. I'm sure you're better than that.
*This bit is very important: The people who did all of this to him and led to him being cancelled, all came out and openly admitted their errors and apologized publicly to him for what they had done, far too late and after they nearly destroyed his entire life. Palmer clawed his way back to where he's at despite them. But remember, he just wanted to make VR headsets. That was his dream. And they tore it away just because he didn't have the same political views as them, which, after many years, we've come to learn is just like more than half of America that also doesn't share their views either. So blame those people who lied to and manipulated everyone and attacked him if you must blame anyone, because they turned a dude who just wanted to make VR the future into a dude who came up with another very successful business venture that you personally just don't happen to agree with this time around. And if you don't know who "them" and "they" are, it shows you haven't done any of that research I just told you about.
It avoids the slightly cheesy garishness that some people might think is a negative with the other colour options, which I actually agree with to some degree. Although it's clearly very intentionally going for that retro almost '70s styling there, so it is what is is.
And, imo, it also has less of an unfinished characterless test mould look than the Analogue Pocket too:
@nocdaes I'll take that bet, especially given how long AA batteries have been around (it's like a hundred years, give or take) and how often those USB connections have changed in even the last decade or so. I hope to God you're right though, and the current USB C version sticks for at least a few decades, irrespective of whatever the future holds for AA batteries.
Yeah, the two cons aren't really cons for the people the ModRetro Chromatic is aimed at imo. In fact, it's precisely because it's so focused on just doing basically one thing entirely right that it's actually the most appealing of all these modern retro handhelds imo.
To me, the Analog Pocket comes with much of the faff and fuss that puts me off so many modern devices, while the ModRetro Chromatic returns me to a time where things were just simple and just worked--and worked exactly as you would intuitively and instinctively expect--and that's the thing drawing me to it more than anything else.
Christ, even something as simple as having a proper physical on/off switch that does exactly what it says on the tin and no more or less, with no way to possibly make just turning the device on and off remotely a pain in the *ss, feels like magic in 2024.
The only reason I'm every wavering at all with the ModRetro Chromatic is simply because I'm not as in love with old GB/GBC games as I am with GBA games. But, if this were a GBA version of such a device [which means it would also play GB/GBC games anyway] and it was made with this kind of love and attention to just getting all the core things absolutely right, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
@MysticWangForce Well, the upcoming Doom Definitive Edition for SNES supports a brand new controller with rumble built in, so that's something actually rather cool. And there you can at least control the game fully properly too, which is just as important as frame rate, if not even more so. But I'm sure the five people who own a VMU that will mod it like this and for some reason want to play Doom on it over all the other options in 2024 will have a . . . time with it.
@bring_on_branstons He's been doing the quote thing a lot lately. It's the perfect way to plausibly deny any personal accountability for the sentiment of the article. And I'm sure some people buy that too.
On the topic of resolution, the Genesis does have a higher standard resolution on the horizontal axis (320x224 on Genesis vs 256x224 on SNES), but the SNES actually has the higher max resolution overall (512x448i on SNES vs 320x448i on Genesis).
Yeah, the SNES definitely doesn't get as much indie/homebrew love these days, sadly. But I'm hoping that will improve once "SNESmaker" finally releases at least.
And I'll add a few interesting new SNES games below just to show it's certainly not dead at least:
I mean, it's obvious the modern SNES indie/homebrew dev scene is nowhere near as matured as the Genesis one, but at least there's some stuff happening there.
@bring_on_branstons Yeah, it's the title and some of the wording that gives away the slight fanboy bias to me. And it's just not necessary. Genesis fans don't need to try to undermine the SNES' greatness to feel better about the Genesis. The Genesis is great. But, boy, it seems some people really are carrying a lot of bitterness and resentment towards both SNES and its fans, and it's slowly leaking out more and more it appears to me. And that's doubly as sad when I see it coming from professional multi platform gaming journalists and such. Just not necessary at all.
@mashk Well, my personal favourite tunes of that era are the main themes in Streets of Rage 1 and 2 on Genesis along with Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Tetris Attack, Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, F-Zero, Castlevania IV, Star Fox, Super Metroid, ActRaiser, etc, on SNES. And I'm sure many people will also pretty clearly swing one way or the other or indeed even land somewhere roughly in the middle of the two consoles.
No one is arguing the Genesis can't output great audio unless they are a troll. But a lot of people do still think the SNES' sound capabilities are superior or at least great in their own way, largely due to uniquely having all eight channels be PCM sampled audio plus the ability to officially support Dolby Surround sound too for example. And this is without anyone creating cutting edge sound drivers in modern times to push the audio to its absolute technical limits.
Now, the Genesis can certainly do some very close representations of whatever original SNES music, but in every example I've listened to it still can't quite 100% match the SNES' sound ultimately, mostly because many of the Genesis' sound channels still have to be synthesized FM audio trying to replicate the SNES' more realistic PCM instrument sounds. So it can sound almost as good to the untrained ear as SNES in the right hands in some cases, but still not quite as good, and in some use cases it can actually sound better.
What I've not heard yet is a single Castlevania IV tune on Genesis that sounds quite as good as the original SNES version when listened directly side by side imo. And bear in mind this is comparing decades-old SNES originals with brand new Genesis versions made in modern times and with far more advanced audio drivers and such.
Actually listen to them next to each other, as it's much easier to hear where they differ when you play them side by side:
I'd personally say the SNES version still ultimately sounds better overall. And again, that's without having over thirty years to figure out how to get the best possible compression and audio quality out of the console using the most advanced modern sound drivers and so on.
The tune on Genesis sounds great in its own right though, and that's largely due to a combination of Pyron doing a good job on that version and the original simply being a great tune in its own right independant of the tech behind it. Great music is just great music, and the Castlevania IV soundtrack is brilliant.
Both consoles are great, and both can lay claim to many stunning achievements, but I personally think Pyron is one of those shills trying to devalue the SNES and overhype the Genesis as the greatest thing in the Universe in the guise of "disproving myths" to make fans of that system feel vindicated or whatever, and it's just sad and needy literally three plus decades after these systems were truly relevant to be that desperate for validation.
Both SNES and Genesis are great, but the SNES can matter of fact technically do some things the Genesis cannot and never will, and visa versa. It's that simple, and some people clearly truly still have to learn to cope with that reality.
@nukatha I recall him saying that was removed. A bit unfortunate, but I guess balanced out by all the other improvements and additions. But I wouldn't quote me that it's for sure not going to be in there.
@hste @Steel76 Personally, if it runs directly on the SNES using what otherwise looks like a totally normal SNES cartridge and comes packaged like any other official SNES game too, etc, I'm very cool with that.
I don't want people to go so far that what I'm playing doesn't even look or sound like anything remotely possible on a SNES anymore, so no "SNES" Breath of the Wild that's just the original game running on some Raspberry Pie in a cart or such. But this isn't that at all; this is a legit SNES game by any reasonable definition imo. So it's all good.
I'd welcome many more titles like this Doom updated version and Xeno Crisis in a heartbeat, along with a bunch of new homebrew games that just run on the stock console with no extra in-cart chips as well, such as Till & Hat for example:
@slider1983 There's not any live action from what I know, just some pre-rendered logo animations basically. But, still, it's kinda cool to see FMV like this in an actual physical cartridge SNES title.
I actually think there are a lot more new games than that for Genesis either already released or in the works, so maybe it's only covering boxed games or something?
Someone should do something like this for SNES too--but it also needs to start getting a lot more new games to really make it worthwhile. Still, I'd like to ask someone out there to start it to get the ball up and running for that system too.
Here's some to start: Yo-Yo Shuriken, Nightmare Busters, Xeno Crisis, SNES Doom Definitive Edition, Cooly Skunk, Shockman Zero, Aero the Acro-Bat (re-release?), Black Jewel Reborn, Rendering Ranger R2 (western release), etc.
Edit: Ah, yeah, it says at the top it's physical releases. My bad there.
Genuinely, I would have believed this was a Genesis game if I hadn't been told otherwise, both the visuals and audio.
Apparently these guys plan on making a SNES game next. And if that happens, I cannot wait to see what they do there.
It's bonkers that this game isn't funded on Kickstarter already, especially with some of the games that got all their money in hours-days on there.
PS. I think this game also shows that a lot of what makes many modern games on these old consoles look so dang impressive actually often comes from them being made in modern times rather than somehow the specific system being this magical device capable of feats beyond all others. We have a NES game here that could pass as a Genesis title imo, so it's made it clear to me that many of the new games and demos I'm seeing on some of these other retro systems are a result of the same conditions of having extra time, experience, sheer dedication, and new tools and even ways to enhance the hardware that simply weren't a realistic option in the past. It makes me wonder what some of those other systems would truly be capable of under the same conditions. And I'm thinking of the SNES here personally, and just how far it could be pushed in the right hands by that same standard.
@nitro2k01 Yeah, there's always ways to approximate something. But the real deal is the real deal, and I think most people can usually see the difference, be it in resolution, frame rates, smoothness of the rotation and scaling, the full screen effect, etc.
Interestingly, all of those other ways of faking Mode 7 can be used on SNES too. The unfinished port of Puggsy on SNES actually used the same faux rotating technique as on Genesis, and it was actually slightly smoother on SNES due to the system having higher fidelity column scrolling (columns are 8 pixels wide on SNES vs 16 pixels wide on Genesis):
But it's still particularly cool when you see a system like the NES pulling off even something somewhat similar to these 16-bit systems with fake Mode 7 and fake HDMA effects and such be honest.
Now would be a good time to release a proper physical version of the sequel that was in development for SNES and reportedly like 99% complete. That would be all kinds of awesome to see this as a new SNES release today.
@KitsuneNight I don't care if people disagree on "principle". The truth it what it is, and I'm just stating it. Too many people are far too willing to jump on whatever the new bandwagon is. The Internet generation is utterly desperate to be seen as all virtuous and pure. But painting him as some criminal or person of evil repeatedly doesn't make it so, and it doesn't make the people doing that any better. All the people casting stones should go ahead and try to start their own companies, try to have decades long successful careers in their chosen field, make their own crowdfunding campaigns, try to turn some old business into something new again with all the odds against them, win some world championship in whatever field they choose, etc, and we can all see how much sunshine shines out their a**** by the end of it. Like everyone else is pure and innocent. Children drink that Kool-Aid. Adults see right through such childish naivety. I'm not getting onboard the false virtue train.
Edit: Oops! I forgot I said I wasn't going to say anything else on it. My bad. Have at it.
Comments 968
Re: Sega Saturn Finally Gets Its Own Version Of Shenmue (Kinda)
Kinda funny how there's shadows on the characters in this Saturn game, and yet most games on my Quest 3 still don't have shadows on the characters. Well, not funny, rather frikin' absurd and annoying actually. Quest 3 developers really need to get their **** together.
Re: Star Fox 64 Is Getting A Fanmade PC Port With High Framerate Support
Great. But you know what I really want, a version of the original SNES Star Fox that runs at a proper 60fps [with gameplay speed adjusted to play properly at that frame rate], in full HD, and with no visible pop-in. I think that would be amazing, and imo it's actually a better game than Star Fox 64.
Re: Review: The Spectrum - Does Sir Clive Sinclair's Legacy Proud
@Azuris Yeah, sounds like we're on a similar page there.
Re: Anniversary: Sega Saturn, The Most Successful Console "Flop" Of All Time, Turns 30 Today
@smoreon Yeah, that's an interesting one.
Re: Review: The Spectrum - Does Sir Clive Sinclair's Legacy Proud
'You might need to be a certain "vintage" to really get it'
Yeah, with many retro consoles there's some appeal for myself, but not quite with this system. Well, maybe some. I think I'd actually have to have it in front of my and try it out and see if any of the games truly stand the test of time.
Although, I think I did play Manic Miner on an old Spectrum recently at the games exhibition in Edinburgh, and it was honestly fun--with a joystick. But I might be remembering incorrectly and it was on a C64 or something.
I also played some home computer version of Defender with a joystick there as well, and it really was great.
Re: Anniversary: Sega Saturn, The Most Successful Console "Flop" Of All Time, Turns 30 Today
Mind you, it did sell even less than the Wii U, and most people consider that a flop. So there's that.
Also, now that I think about it, and going by the conditions of the article, the Wii U might actually be the most successful console "Flop" of all time".
Re: Anniversary: Sega Saturn, The Most Successful Console "Flop" Of All Time, Turns 30 Today
It didn't flop; it just came in last place in that generation in terms of sales.
Re: The Untold Story Of WipEout Zero, The PS4 Anti-Grav Racer We Never Got To Play
Damn, the visuals here actually look awesome. And not just technically, but artistically too. I would love a new WipEout game that looked like this.
Now, I might have missed any links to video footage of the game in the article, but I would love to see that.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
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Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@AJB83 I think that should be long enough. Just have a couple of sets of batteries, one in the system and one charging/charged that you can swap out when necessary, and sorted. It's what I do with my Quest 3 controllers and it's all good. Mind you, they last for weeks before needing to be changed, but the point is the same. It works great in my experience and is a very simple and practical solution. And the best thing with that setup is that you can never run down the built-in controller battery and accidently forget to charge it again and thus not be able to use the controllers the next time you go to play on your Quest. It's actually one of the major benefits of just having rechargeable batteries you can easily switch in and out as and when required.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
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Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
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Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
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Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@jruasap Sorry, but you shouldn't get to dictate that. It's not for you to force everyone else into your worldview around weapons and the businesses that make them. Andural is a legitimate American company making legitimate products for satisfied clients, of which there are hundreds-thousands of similar legitimate weapons businesses in this world. It's not some shadow evil corporation or something out of a Jame Bond movie, and Palmer isn't some fantasy evil villain trying to destroy mankind and take over the world. You don't have to like weapons, but that's your personal choice, so leave it at that. You should be talking about the ModRetro Chromatic in here and save your politics for where they belong.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@XiaoShao Yeah, they do. They're basically just regular GB/GBC carts for all intents and purposes.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
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Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@Pho Again, don't just accept what the mainstream is feeding you, nor see some comments out or even in context and create a whole "he's evil" backstory out of largely fluff. It's never usually that simple, and it most certainly isn't in this case.
Dude was attacked for decades with hoards of people coming at him based on total lies and manipulation spread by a group of very powerful people with very insidious agendas, and then he was eventually fired and ousted from the company he created and removed from the public discourse for a long time for entirely false reasons, most of it very left/Dem politically driven and aligned too. And the people behind that have all come out and apologised for what they did*.
Don't allow the lies and liars to manipulate you too. I'm sure you're better than that.
*This bit is very important: The people who did all of this to him and led to him being cancelled, all came out and openly admitted their errors and apologized publicly to him for what they had done, far too late and after they nearly destroyed his entire life. Palmer clawed his way back to where he's at despite them. But remember, he just wanted to make VR headsets. That was his dream. And they tore it away just because he didn't have the same political views as them, which, after many years, we've come to learn is just like more than half of America that also doesn't share their views either. So blame those people who lied to and manipulated everyone and attacked him if you must blame anyone, because they turned a dude who just wanted to make VR the future into a dude who came up with another very successful business venture that you personally just don't happen to agree with this time around. And if you don't know who "them" and "they" are, it shows you haven't done any of that research I just told you about.
Here's just one example of that: https://x.com/boztank/status/1841623880609480803
And even John Carmack got in on that too:
https://x.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1779171248083177500
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@lemonjellydude I think you can get a rechargeable battery pack for it. You might need to check up if I'm correct or wrong there.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@RupeeClock No arguments from me there.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@gingerbeardman Just get the black one, as that looks lovely imo:
https://modretro.com/cdn/shop/files/CH_Midnight_copy.png?v=1719375388&width=823
It avoids the slightly cheesy garishness that some people might think is a negative with the other colour options, which I actually agree with to some degree. Although it's clearly very intentionally going for that retro almost '70s styling there, so it is what is is.
And, imo, it also has less of an unfinished characterless test mould look than the Analogue Pocket too:
https://images.analogue.co/product_pocket.7222b8472b28b96b77ea6ddfbc16444c.png?w=4000&auto=format&q=100&s=2ea5e74ea93cf0c0d9c8e7f1cb1189f3
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
@nocdaes I'll take that bet, especially given how long AA batteries have been around (it's like a hundred years, give or take) and how often those USB connections have changed in even the last decade or so. I hope to God you're right though, and the current USB C version sticks for at least a few decades, irrespective of whatever the future holds for AA batteries.
Re: Review: ModRetro Chromatic Is So Close To The Real Thing You'd Think Nintendo Made It
Yeah, the two cons aren't really cons for the people the ModRetro Chromatic is aimed at imo. In fact, it's precisely because it's so focused on just doing basically one thing entirely right that it's actually the most appealing of all these modern retro handhelds imo.
To me, the Analog Pocket comes with much of the faff and fuss that puts me off so many modern devices, while the ModRetro Chromatic returns me to a time where things were just simple and just worked--and worked exactly as you would intuitively and instinctively expect--and that's the thing drawing me to it more than anything else.
Christ, even something as simple as having a proper physical on/off switch that does exactly what it says on the tin and no more or less, with no way to possibly make just turning the device on and off remotely a pain in the *ss, feels like magic in 2024.
The only reason I'm every wavering at all with the ModRetro Chromatic is simply because I'm not as in love with old GB/GBC games as I am with GBA games. But, if this were a GBA version of such a device [which means it would also play GB/GBC games anyway] and it was made with this kind of love and attention to just getting all the core things absolutely right, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Re: "Still Haven't Forgiven Atari For This" - Remembering The Ill-Fated Gameband Smartwatch
But, hey, Kickstarter gets rich.
Re: Of Course The Dreamcast's "Most Powerful VMU" Can Play Doom
@MysticWangForce Well, the upcoming Doom Definitive Edition for SNES supports a brand new controller with rumble built in, so that's something actually rather cool. And there you can at least control the game fully properly too, which is just as important as frame rate, if not even more so. But I'm sure the five people who own a VMU that will mod it like this and for some reason want to play Doom on it over all the other options in 2024 will have a . . . time with it.
Re: Gallery: 'Painting Icons' Is A Fitting Send-Off For Former Rare And BBC Artist Brett Jones
Looks very cool.
Re: A New Night Striker Game Is In Development At M2
That car artwork looks so good. Imagine a modern game looking like that!
Re: The Genesis Just "Broke Another Myth" With This Amazing Rendition Of A Classic Castlevania Tune
@bring_on_branstons He's been doing the quote thing a lot lately. It's the perfect way to plausibly deny any personal accountability for the sentiment of the article. And I'm sure some people buy that too.
On the topic of resolution, the Genesis does have a higher standard resolution on the horizontal axis (320x224 on Genesis vs 256x224 on SNES), but the SNES actually has the higher max resolution overall (512x448i on SNES vs 320x448i on Genesis).
Yeah, the SNES definitely doesn't get as much indie/homebrew love these days, sadly. But I'm hoping that will improve once "SNESmaker" finally releases at least.
And I'll add a few interesting new SNES games below just to show it's certainly not dead at least:
Till & Hat:
https://x.com/SokZaJelo/status/1818297535393591670
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnHwPpRxnO8
Rex Nobilis:
https://x.com/CommodoreKulor/status/1677789447964995584 (this is actually running in 512x448i resolution)
https://x.com/CommodoreKulor/status/1799527579906626033
Doom Definitive Edition:
https://youtu.be/0oEUF1Py5-4?si=wN_DS_Lq3I3Y1ih3
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/08/doom-is-getting-a-new-and-improved-definitive-release-on-super-nintendo
Maxwel Olinda's shmup:
https://x.com/MaxwelOlinda1/status/1821338448462045590
SuperDan:
https://x.com/Kannagichan2/status/1837394433802678276
https://x.com/Kannagichan2/status/1856078167942762605
https://x.com/Kannagichan2/status/1854276456232452601
Castlevania Bloodlines Port
https://x.com/Proteus_Ressus/status/1826693579290673213
https://x.com/Proteus_Ressus/status/1818108405183033722
https://x.com/Proteus_Ressus/status/1815403857075429746
Triple Impact:
https://x.com/MisterDigifox/status/1856301948116291841
https://x.com/landsat77/status/1852407255762686333
https://x.com/MisterDigifox/status/1850652158888480844
https://x.com/landsat77/status/1839371561935266090
Cooly Skunk (full release of previously unreleased game)
https://youtu.be/ICckn4X_AwU?si=xd8I38qq7XuFqhyT
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/483270682/90s-replication-of-cooly-skunk
I mean, it's obvious the modern SNES indie/homebrew dev scene is nowhere near as matured as the Genesis one, but at least there's some stuff happening there.
Re: The Genesis Just "Broke Another Myth" With This Amazing Rendition Of A Classic Castlevania Tune
@bring_on_branstons Yeah, it's the title and some of the wording that gives away the slight fanboy bias to me. And it's just not necessary. Genesis fans don't need to try to undermine the SNES' greatness to feel better about the Genesis. The Genesis is great. But, boy, it seems some people really are carrying a lot of bitterness and resentment towards both SNES and its fans, and it's slowly leaking out more and more it appears to me. And that's doubly as sad when I see it coming from professional multi platform gaming journalists and such. Just not necessary at all.
Re: The Genesis Just "Broke Another Myth" With This Amazing Rendition Of A Classic Castlevania Tune
@mashk Well, my personal favourite tunes of that era are the main themes in Streets of Rage 1 and 2 on Genesis along with Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Tetris Attack, Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, F-Zero, Castlevania IV, Star Fox, Super Metroid, ActRaiser, etc, on SNES. And I'm sure many people will also pretty clearly swing one way or the other or indeed even land somewhere roughly in the middle of the two consoles.
Re: The Genesis Just "Broke Another Myth" With This Amazing Rendition Of A Classic Castlevania Tune
Stop shilling.
No one is arguing the Genesis can't output great audio unless they are a troll. But a lot of people do still think the SNES' sound capabilities are superior or at least great in their own way, largely due to uniquely having all eight channels be PCM sampled audio plus the ability to officially support Dolby Surround sound too for example. And this is without anyone creating cutting edge sound drivers in modern times to push the audio to its absolute technical limits.
Now, the Genesis can certainly do some very close representations of whatever original SNES music, but in every example I've listened to it still can't quite 100% match the SNES' sound ultimately, mostly because many of the Genesis' sound channels still have to be synthesized FM audio trying to replicate the SNES' more realistic PCM instrument sounds. So it can sound almost as good to the untrained ear as SNES in the right hands in some cases, but still not quite as good, and in some use cases it can actually sound better.
What I've not heard yet is a single Castlevania IV tune on Genesis that sounds quite as good as the original SNES version when listened directly side by side imo. And bear in mind this is comparing decades-old SNES originals with brand new Genesis versions made in modern times and with far more advanced audio drivers and such.
Actually listen to them next to each other, as it's much easier to hear where they differ when you play them side by side:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsG2UMWEmyU (Genesis)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tug9a0X-mM4 (SNES)
I'd personally say the SNES version still ultimately sounds better overall. And again, that's without having over thirty years to figure out how to get the best possible compression and audio quality out of the console using the most advanced modern sound drivers and so on.
The tune on Genesis sounds great in its own right though, and that's largely due to a combination of Pyron doing a good job on that version and the original simply being a great tune in its own right independant of the tech behind it. Great music is just great music, and the Castlevania IV soundtrack is brilliant.
Both consoles are great, and both can lay claim to many stunning achievements, but I personally think Pyron is one of those shills trying to devalue the SNES and overhype the Genesis as the greatest thing in the Universe in the guise of "disproving myths" to make fans of that system feel vindicated or whatever, and it's just sad and needy literally three plus decades after these systems were truly relevant to be that desperate for validation.
Both SNES and Genesis are great, but the SNES can matter of fact technically do some things the Genesis cannot and never will, and visa versa. It's that simple, and some people clearly truly still have to learn to cope with that reality.
Re: Interview: Meet The Man Who's Upgrading SNES Doom With The "Super FX 3" Chip
@nukatha I recall him saying that was removed. A bit unfortunate, but I guess balanced out by all the other improvements and additions. But I wouldn't quote me that it's for sure not going to be in there.
Re: Interview: Meet The Man Who's Upgrading SNES Doom With The "Super FX 3" Chip
@hste @Steel76 Personally, if it runs directly on the SNES using what otherwise looks like a totally normal SNES cartridge and comes packaged like any other official SNES game too, etc, I'm very cool with that.
I don't want people to go so far that what I'm playing doesn't even look or sound like anything remotely possible on a SNES anymore, so no "SNES" Breath of the Wild that's just the original game running on some Raspberry Pie in a cart or such. But this isn't that at all; this is a legit SNES game by any reasonable definition imo. So it's all good.
I'd welcome many more titles like this Doom updated version and Xeno Crisis in a heartbeat, along with a bunch of new homebrew games that just run on the stock console with no extra in-cart chips as well, such as Till & Hat for example:
https://youtu.be/qnHwPpRxnO8?si=0LyfWKapH1ngGktm
The more of all this kind of stuff, the merrier as far as I'm concerned. Keep it coming.
Re: Interview: Meet The Man Who's Upgrading SNES Doom With The "Super FX 3" Chip
@slider1983 There's not any live action from what I know, just some pre-rendered logo animations basically. But, still, it's kinda cool to see FMV like this in an actual physical cartridge SNES title.
Re: Interview: Meet The Man Who's Upgrading SNES Doom With The "Super FX 3" Chip
Definitely impressed that this is a thing on SNES in modern times. Will be cool to see all the improvements they ultimately add in this version.
Re: 36 Years After It Released, There Are So Many New Genesis Games Someone Has Built A Site To Track Them All
@mollipen Thanks for all the extra info.
Now, unless you have some good reason for not doing so or just some bias against it, could you do a SNES list like this too?
Re: 36 Years After It Released, There Are So Many New Genesis Games Someone Has Built A Site To Track Them All
@ambifx Yeah, I should have checked a bit more before posting there. lol
Re: 36 Years After It Released, There Are So Many New Genesis Games Someone Has Built A Site To Track Them All
I actually think there are a lot more new games than that for Genesis either already released or in the works, so maybe it's only covering boxed games or something?
Someone should do something like this for SNES too--but it also needs to start getting a lot more new games to really make it worthwhile. Still, I'd like to ask someone out there to start it to get the ball up and running for that system too.
Here's some to start: Yo-Yo Shuriken, Nightmare Busters, Xeno Crisis, SNES Doom Definitive Edition, Cooly Skunk, Shockman Zero, Aero the Acro-Bat (re-release?), Black Jewel Reborn, Rendering Ranger R2 (western release), etc.
Edit: Ah, yeah, it says at the top it's physical releases. My bad there.
Re: Flashback: "The S**t Absolutely Hit The Fan" - When WipEout (And Sara Cox's Bloody Nose) Shocked A Nation
Classic seminal game in the future racing genre that I think just nailed everything both in the game and around the game.
Re: Interview: How NES RPG Former Dawn Is Bringing CD-ROM Power To Nintendo's 8-Bit System
Still amazed this hasn't been fully funded yet. The mind boggles.
Re: 29 Years Later, A New Donkey Kong Country 2 Cheat Code Has Been Discovered
Well that's pretty cool.
Re: "If You Were Threatened Before This, It's Going To Get Much Worse" - Taki Udon Takes Aim At MiSTer FPGA Rivals
On face value, and as long as I'm not missing something here, I support this move.
Re: Think The NES Can't Handle Mode 7? Think Again
@Guru_Larry Yes, correct, those are not Mode 7. They do look cool though.
Re: We Can't Quite Believe That Former Dawn Is Running On Real NES Hardware
Genuinely, I would have believed this was a Genesis game if I hadn't been told otherwise, both the visuals and audio.
Apparently these guys plan on making a SNES game next. And if that happens, I cannot wait to see what they do there.
It's bonkers that this game isn't funded on Kickstarter already, especially with some of the games that got all their money in hours-days on there.
PS. I think this game also shows that a lot of what makes many modern games on these old consoles look so dang impressive actually often comes from them being made in modern times rather than somehow the specific system being this magical device capable of feats beyond all others. We have a NES game here that could pass as a Genesis title imo, so it's made it clear to me that many of the new games and demos I'm seeing on some of these other retro systems are a result of the same conditions of having extra time, experience, sheer dedication, and new tools and even ways to enhance the hardware that simply weren't a realistic option in the past. It makes me wonder what some of those other systems would truly be capable of under the same conditions. And I'm thinking of the SNES here personally, and just how far it could be pushed in the right hands by that same standard.
Re: Think The NES Can't Handle Mode 7? Think Again
@nitro2k01 Yeah, there's always ways to approximate something. But the real deal is the real deal, and I think most people can usually see the difference, be it in resolution, frame rates, smoothness of the rotation and scaling, the full screen effect, etc.
Interestingly, all of those other ways of faking Mode 7 can be used on SNES too. The unfinished port of Puggsy on SNES actually used the same faux rotating technique as on Genesis, and it was actually slightly smoother on SNES due to the system having higher fidelity column scrolling (columns are 8 pixels wide on SNES vs 16 pixels wide on Genesis):
https://youtu.be/Pvn5mAqisaU?t=1450
But it's still particularly cool when you see a system like the NES pulling off even something somewhat similar to these 16-bit systems with fake Mode 7 and fake HDMA effects and such be honest.
Re: "There Are No Bad Options" - The SNES 2CHIP Vs 1CHIP Debate Just Got Put To Bed
Boy be doing wonders for the SNES there.
Re: Ratalaika Games Is Bringing Two More SNES Games To The West For The First Time
Not to shabby looking. Happy to see some more releases for SNES, even if it's just Western versions of previously released games.
Re: Anniversary: Killer Instinct Is 30 Years Old
Now would be a good time to release a proper physical version of the sequel that was in development for SNES and reportedly like 99% complete. That would be all kinds of awesome to see this as a new SNES release today.
Re: Original Super Mario Bros. Gets Upgraded Game Boy Color Port, Complete With Yoshi And Wario
This is actually very cool, and it would be rather awesome playing it on the ModRetro Chromatic.
Re: After The Epic Failure Of The Intellivision Amico, Tommy Tallarico's New Goal Is Becoming A Backgammon Legend
@KitsuneNight I don't care if people disagree on "principle". The truth it what it is, and I'm just stating it. Too many people are far too willing to jump on whatever the new bandwagon is. The Internet generation is utterly desperate to be seen as all virtuous and pure. But painting him as some criminal or person of evil repeatedly doesn't make it so, and it doesn't make the people doing that any better. All the people casting stones should go ahead and try to start their own companies, try to have decades long successful careers in their chosen field, make their own crowdfunding campaigns, try to turn some old business into something new again with all the odds against them, win some world championship in whatever field they choose, etc, and we can all see how much sunshine shines out their a**** by the end of it. Like everyone else is pure and innocent. Children drink that Kool-Aid. Adults see right through such childish naivety. I'm not getting onboard the false virtue train.
Edit: Oops! I forgot I said I wasn't going to say anything else on it. My bad. Have at it.
Re: After The Epic Failure Of The Intellivision Amico, Tommy Tallarico's New Goal Is Becoming A Backgammon Legend
@GhaleonUnlimited See above.