@CocktailCabinet Fair enough. I mean, I actually have a bunch of its games emulated on my Quest 3, and some of them are pretty cool. And it is a piece of Nintendo's history.
Isn't that price a little bonkers for a portable system like this?
I don't mean relative to how much it costs to make and such, but just the fact people are spending that much on a wee retro handheld to play some old games.
@CocktailCabinet Well, it ended up not being a thing at all. But we already know there were plans to make something far more powerful than the basic first prototype PlayStation model seen here. I've linked to an article in my comment above that shows some of the things Nintendo was planning for the final version of the SNES CD, and it's clear it would have been pretty capable for its time. Like I said though, it never happened ultimately, but we do know something at least. And we didn't get any new Nintendo hardware outside of in-cart coprocessors for the SNES until the N64 basically. Let's just pretend the Virtual Boy never existed.
It's great that all these classic Sega games are coming to almost every modern platform these days. Everyone gets to enjoy them, be they Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, whichever company's fans. Good times for all gamers everywhere getting in on the Sega action.
These actually look pretty cool. I like the SNES ones, especially the Japanese/European design, because that's my favourite console of all time. And I actually think the PC Engine ones look pretty dang sweet too. Something about those almost flat credit-card-sized HuCards just works really well aesthetically there.
PS. Pretty sure their Twitter said that the SNES was actually the first system they made these for, so they're not just adding SNES to the range now, but rather the new Wave 3 versions add more SNES games into the book format than they had there initially when they kicked off this whole idea.
Hey, I don't think my removed comment was particularly inappropriate given the content of this article and some people's pretty strong opinions expressed therein. It was more just being a little cheeky and poking fun at the fact some people have major issues with some things in some games but are often totally hypocritical when it comes to the endless acts of violence we see in the vast majority of video games, most of which are literally about shooting and killing things--and those things are often humans. I just think people should either stand by their virtue and call for it all to be removed or chill out and remember it's just silly mindless entertainment most of the time, even the decades-old controversial stuff. Literally, a few clumsy pixels on a screen in a game made to titillate and stir up a bit of heated debate really ain't worth getting all genuinely riled up over and going on some crusade. There's actual real and serious issues in the world, and the obvious silliness that is Custer's Revenge is not one of them.
Ooh! It's kinda crazy seeing the Sony/PlayStation brading on a SNES controller.
@garbageprincess Kind of interesting reading about that Nintendo/Philips/Sony CD device, as it's a lot more powerful than the narrative that some bad actors would like to spread these days, saying the SNES CD device wasn't even going to be as powerful or as capable as the Sega CD in an apparent effort to once again undermine anything to do with SNES for whatever reason. But, clearly, Nintendo was working on or at least planning something quite a bit more powerful and capable than the Sega CD at one point (21.477 MHz vs 12.5 MHz, 32-bit vs 16-bit), combined with the SNES' standard much higher colour count, proper transparency effects, up to twice as many background layers, higher max resolution, Mode 7 scaling and rotation, etc. And there's even reports it was going to basically include the equivalent capability of the FX[2] chip directly built in as well at one point, which came from the lips of Dylan Cuthbert himself as I recall:
I've noticed there's been a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history and the narrative around these two consoles by certain people in recent times. Maybe some others have noticed that too. But the more you know, right.
Then, thank you, Cruis'n USA, because Sega Rally Championship is one of the greatest racing games of all time imo. And Cruis'n USA is pretty decent too.
@sanmansan The price of SNES games was higher than Genesis games in general, but evidently not specifically because of the occasional use of in-cart coprocessors. And it's important not to confuse correlation with causation here, so as not to distort the narrative and facts.
The point being, the specific pre-planned strategy of using in-cart coprocessors in some SNES games was actually a pretty great move on Nintendo's part when all is said and done, because it was financially viable, helped keep the SNES relevant for longer, allowed some pretty advanced titles for the time to come to the system that simply wouldn't have been possible otherwise, and it didn't come at an obvious hassle or downside to the end SNES user.
Now, some people might try to reframe things here and/or go off on nerdgasm tangents for their own reasons, but the truth is the SVP was ultimately a flub for Sega, while Nintendo's strategic use of in-cart coprocessors was a win win situation for both Nintendo and SNES gamers. And that's really all I've said from the start.
@Ristar24 Yeah, I'm thinking that's the real angle here.
Now, it could be he's a total monster pushing all his disgusting and genuinely held beliefs through the medium of games, which I would not support in the slightest. Or, he's just playing the system. In which case, I honestly don't care if he's being controversial as all hell.
I'm not genuinely interested in these very basic games anyway, so it's up to each person to choose for themselves on this one.
@RadioHedgeFund And I'm sure some other people think like you too.
But, funnily enough, I think the 2D Mario games are actually better for just blasting through than Sonic personally, because I can easily avoid all the other stuff and just run through the levels cleanly from start to finish, and the levels in the 2D Mario games are generally brilliantly designed around that. But with the 2D Sonic games I'm always accidentally running into enemies and spikes and such, because there's not enough time to see them coming on-screen and the idea is to always go as fast as you can--it is literally the defining aspect of Sonic games. I guess once you've practiced multiple times and remembered the exact level layouts and enemy placements in Sonic games then you can do that more so, but I actually find remembering the layout of those typically labyrinthian Sonic levels and where all the enemies and spikes and such are pretty impossible most of the time, especially when I just gotta go fast.
If you simply wanna run through a Mario game in less than an hour:
@no_donatello Yup, pretty much what I said, just with a few examples pointing to what would be evidence of other people's contrary opinions. And I also mentioned sales figures as well, which are just numbers. Opinions and numbers. It's all okay.
Now, let's go check literally every single Best Games of all Time list and see where Sonic the Hedgehog 2 appears compared to the likes of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, etc. . . .
And let's compare the sales of Sonic the The Hedgehog 2 to all those games too. . . .
@Sketcz Either way, I think that step by step tutorial would be something great for anyone even remotely interested to have something to just go through.
I guess it might be a bit like how people went through typing in one line of code at a time from a magazine back in the day, however that specifically worked. But, for me, any step by step instructions that make at least some meaningful sense as I'm following them in terms of what I'm doing and why, including the very initial getting started steps, and that basically cannot be easily guffed (that just means I can't f' it up somehow), are exactly what I'm looking for. I pretty much cannot even start to learn something any other way.
Now--and this is a [half] joke--if you can do that showing me how to setup my my system for and then program a very simple SNES game, that would be perfect.
Edit: Yeah, I can't quite follow what to do. I can run a game in Mesen, open the debugger--not sure about where to see the WRAM bit (maybe in the memory viewer?)--but outside of that it just looks like I'm in the Matrix. I'm like Neo as he's first awaked to the real world and only sees a bunch of random green numbers scrolling down a screen. I can't quite see the woman in the red dress as I'm looking at those number yet. I clearly still don't believe I am the one! Lol
So, I'm having a look at this right now. I have Mesen 2.0 and Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World open on my PC (a patched version, in case that's relevant).
Question, I might have missed something in the article above, but where/how do you actually type in to change the number to then test the difference in the emulator?
@Sketcz Thanks for the reply. Thanks for the understanding and acknowledgement that not everyone is made the same. Thanks for the extra encouragement without being patronizing. Maybe I'll have a look at that at some point.
Ignore the brigade. Looks like a potentially cool little game, and with a pretty funny bonus for the Digital Version Plus too. As long as the end game is made well and is fun, you're good in my book. Achieving any level of meaningful success as a commercial game developer in this day and age ain't easy, so I wish you all the best. Have at it.
@bring_on_branstons Agreed. It's a very solid SNES title imo. One little thing I would change is just the exact way Buster attacks, because it's never been quite my jam how he specifically flips back there, but other than that a nice little game overall. Great visuals (lovely sprite work, excellent use of colour, and quite a few of the SNES' features and cool graphical tricks thrown in for good measure), solid controls and gameplay (if you're all good with the specific attack method), catchy music and appropriate toony sound fx, nice use of the characters and license, etc. It's actually a very good licensed game on SNES.
@mariteaux I think you think you're debunking something I said or something. What is this, national kangaroo court day. Your point is about on par with my point: I'm saying for most people it's actually not "easy"*, and you're basically saying for some people it is easy. Bonus star for you. Do you feel better about that now. All good and fair in the world again.
*What is easy is flippantly throwing out to to world how "easy" something like this is, which is actually potentially pretty insulting and offensive to anyone who doesn't naturally grasp this kind of thing instantly and intuitively (think of people with learning disabilities, autism, non-programmery-type minds, people who just learn things a different way, ME who probably combines a few of those, etc).
I didn't read all that--seemed to go a little bit into the weeds--but I think I got the gist. And, assuming I did get the correct gist, I certainly appreciate someone patching SNES games like this to improve and/or just fix them in various ways. So, kudos.
Edit: Yeah, it seems you're thinking it should be extremely easy to follow some stuff you did with the code there in this article. Yup, sure. I laugh sometimes at how some people who are clearly really out of touch with the common man genuinely think certain things are so simple for everyone, especially anything around code and all the tools required to mess around with it. It's simple for certain people who think a certain way and do things a certain way. Outside of that, it's a convoluted mess. If your granny couldn't follow it all on her own without further instructions, it's not "easy".
But, double kudos to you for actually figuring it out and doing something there. That's more than worthy of praise for sure. Because, I'll tell you this, messing around with this kind of stuff really ain't "easy" at all. It takes a certain type. And it's not for the average gamer.
@CocktailCabinet Here, let's just make it real simple and cut all the complete bullcrap missing the point sidetrack nerdgasm fluff. It's just video games, not life and death, and, as pertaining to the article, the interview, and my core point and hot take on it, Sega dun flubbed on this one and Nintendo didn't. Deal with it. And that's my final word on it.
@CocktailCabinet Those things are utterly irrelevant to the original point I made and continued point I am making about the in-cart coprocessor approach as pre-planned--or not in Sega's case--and enacted by both companies.
But, hey, go off on some more nerdgasm tangents all you want.
And, if you have a problem with someone editing a comment, why not go away for a day and then come back and reply at that time. Stop being so eager to put across your rebuttal to my original point the second after I finish typing initially.
I edit stuff to clean up and refine what I am saying. Deal with it, or cry about it.
@sanmansan That facts seem to support my point that the use of the in-cart coprocessors did not noticeably or negatively affect SNES owners purchasing carts in some overt way every time they went out to buy a game, like games with coprocessors were always more expensive for the end consumer than games without them.
Sometimes using these in-cart coprocessors did have an effect on the price relative to other standard games and sometimes it didn't--for the end consumer. Sometimes games without in-cart coprocessors were actually more expensive than games with them--for the end consumer. So, ultimately, Nintendo's approach of using these in-cart coprocessors was basically frictionless for SNES consumers and gamers when all is said and done. That's my only point in that regard really.
Now, some people are maybe trying to prove otherwise for their own agenda or whatever, but the facts as even provided by your own examples don't support that.
So, basically, on that particular point, Nintendo did gud. I'd like to think you can reasonably agree there--but maybe I am wrong on that one.
@CocktailCabinet You can babble on and try to reframe it to fit your nerdgasm narrative all you want. My point is still exactly the same as my very first post: Nintendo did the whole in-cart coprocessor thing perfectly and exactly as planned both in a hardware and strategy sense from day one, and Sega utterly flubbed there precisely because it hadn't intentionally pre-planned for this specific in-cart coprocessor approach at any point from either a hardware or strategy sense. Sorry if that upsets the flock--be you one of them or not.
@CocktailCabinet Nope, the argument I am making and have made since my very first comment here is that Sega did not design the Genesis with the specific use of in-cart coprocessors in mind in the slightest--and you know exactly what I mean here, especially in the context of the article and interview--and it never remotely planned this as a strategy before the system's release either. It used this specific approach for the first and only time with the SVP as a clunky hack job reaction to Nintendo's massive success with Star Fox and the FX chip. And, where Nintendo's very much pre-planned hardware and business strategy in that regard was a huge success from literally day one and indeed throughout the lifespan of the console, Sega's was ultimately a huge flop in that same regard (and not just with the SVP, but even with the likes of the Sega CD and 32X too).
And, guess what, yes, it very much is the church of Sega and Genesis trying to spin any other bullcrap take on it--yeah, I said it.
@sanmansan Yeah, SNES' cartridge prices definitely varied just like on Genesis, and sometimes it was due to using SlowROM vs FastROM on SNES specifically, or using a larger ROM size, or having a battery backup for saves, or having a coprocessor, and even sometimes a combination of those.
But, even your previous example shows plenty of games that were more expensive than Zelda that didn't use an in-cart coprocessor:
So, the pricing in those examples clearly proves that it was not a rule that all games that used in-cart coprocessors were automatically more expensive than other regular games to the end consumers, which goes back to my whole point regarding how well implemented this use of in-cart coprocessors was in general as a very deliberate product strategy on Nintendo's side.
In Nintendo's case it was something implemented from day one and was basically invisible to the end user unless it was literally plastered on the box and the game was noticeably marked up to prove some kind of point about how cutting-edge it was. And in Sega's casse Virtua Racing was the most expensive Genesis game ever made, used a big chunky cartridge because they couldn't fit it into a normal one, came late in the system's life, and the in-cart coprocessor approach never got used again by them because their particular solution here just wasn't viable going forward.
The use of in-cart coprocessors was basically frictionless on SNES and something that was very intentionally designed into the system that was used from the get-go and ended up being extremely successful ultimately vs Sega's messy single-time copycat hack job attempt at a similar approach very late in the Genesis' life. It just is what it is.
@CocktailCabinet See above, as my original point remains the same.
And, hey, if you want to claim the Sega CD is basically an in-cart coprocessor, especially in context of and when considering the content of the article and interview and then my original post and assertion in regards to it, go ahead.
My original assertion in my very first post remains unchanged.
@Steel76 The thing with that is it would require using more colours to do an entirely different set of less bright and contrasting far background tiles that could be more easily visually separated from the foreground and sprite tiles and give a greater sense of depth and distance there. You'd want more muted and pastel tones as well as less contrast in the far background there to really sell the effect imo. And, ideally, you'd want the sprites to be bolder than both the background layers too, but maybe a bit less than any elements that pass in front of them.
The Genesis basically has four 16-colour palettes to work with for both the sprites and backgrounds combined, chosen from the 512-colour master palette, and the game currently looks to be sharing most of the same set of very bright and contrasting colours across the background, the foreground, the sprites, and the HUD. So, you might be looking at using separate palettes for the far background, the main layer, the sprites, and any stuff in front of the sprites to really get the best results. But that then limits how many colours you can actually use in each of those elements individually with some room for crossover, and you really want to be able to use as many colours for the sprites as possible to make them look as nice and varied colour-wise as you can.
It's a challenge within the Genesis' colour limitations, but certainly not impossible. And there's still plenty of time for them to tweak that.
Which ultimately boils down to, on Genesis you can be a little less optimal with your code and should still be able to maintain 60fps.
And in that same spirit, on PC Engine you can probably be even a bit more suboptimal with your code and still stay at 60fps, on SNES you have to be a bit more optimal with your code to maintain 60fps, and on Neo Geo you could probably just piss around wasting code cycles and such with a game like this and still hit a steady 60fps purely because of how crazily powerful and capable it is.
Because, just in case the point I was making wasn't obvious, it's that--since you can't go above 60fps max on any of these old consoles--if you've already hit a steady 60fps, your speed is optimal there.
Then the rest comes down to how you work within the actual colour limitations, the sprite limitations, the background limitations, the audio limitations, how you take advantage of the specific built-in special graphical tricks and features of each system, how you take advantage of each system's controller and its inputs, and so on to achieve the best results possible on each console.
And, if a solid 60fps is ideally achieved and it's basically all running smoothly, the real focus of importance from the end user becomes all those other things: How the game looks, sounds, controls, and plays. At least that's how this end user thinks about it anyway.
Looks like the developer did a solid job here within the Genesis' specs, playing to its strengths and smartly avoiding or masking its limitations somewhat effectively.
And now my mind turns to how nice does the final game look, how good does it sound, how well does it control, and how much fun is it to play. . . .
@sanmansan I was aware SNES games were generally a bit more expensive than Genesis games. What I'm not 100% sure of is how the typical SNES game with an in-cart coprocessor compared price-wise to the typical SNES game without one. That's the part I'm interested in regarding each company's approach there and how effectively each of their strategies were both planned and implemented ultimately. My main assertion being that Nintendo actually planned for the specific use of in-cart coprocessors on SNES from literally day one and Sega simply didn't. And, as perfectly detailed in the article and interview above, it's clear this was the case when reviewing the single time Sega actually did use one: It came at the end of the system's life, it was overpriced, it didn't even fit in a normal cart, and they gave up with such an approach after that solitary example. So, I think Nintendo's very deliberate strategy there was clearly a success, while Sega was patently just fumbling around throwing whatever at the wall to see what would stick by that point--and it showed.
@sdelfin "but then their customers were paying a premium on various chip-enhanced games each time they bought one, so there was a downside."
Here's a question: Were games like Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, Mega Man X2/X3, Ballz 3D, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream land 3, F1 ROC II, PGA Tour 96, Super Mario RPG, Top Gear 3000, etc, all more expensive than other typical SNES games without the add-on chips in the carts?
I know some SNES games were higher priced than normal SNES titles, but I'm not sure if it was attributable to the use of expansion chips every time.
My experience at the time was that most SNES games just cost the price of most SNES games, with a few exceptions in special cases where a game really was pushing the boat out or was a big exclusive and super hyped or was an import title and such. Like Street Fighter II was pretty steep at launch as I recall, but that didn't even use an add-on chip as far as I'm aware. And I'm sure Star Fox was sold at a premium, but there the FX Chip was specifically marketed as some groundbreaking technological achievement that justified such a thing, even going so far as it being prominently displayed on the box.
And, obviously, the single time Sega used an in-cart add-on chip in Virtua Racing, they also made a huge deal out of it and similarly displayed it on the game box too, and that absolutely cost a lot more than a normal Genesis game.
@Dehnus Maybe it's more about certain people not understanding exactly what I'm saying, or certainly not interpreting it properly and/or going off on some side point I'm not even talking about.
If some people think Sega designed and was planning for the use of in-cart add-on chips from day one, go ahead and live that delusion. It didn't and wasn't. It was prepared to add stuff like the Sega CD and had designed the base console with that particular kind of pre-planned hardware expansion in mind, but it was utterly unprepared for what Nintendo did when it was designing the SNES to specifically use in-cart add-on chips to expand its capabilities in an affordable and practical way from day one--and Nintendo executed on that strategy perfectly out the gate.
But, hey, if it makes some people feel better about the Genesis now to believe Sega was on the ball and had some in-cart add-on chip master plan all along--but just forgot to enact it and exploit it until 1994 and in a really clunky and expensive way that they then used for precisely one game and never again--have it it.
I'm sure that's exactly the picture the interview above paints when coming in with such an absolute devout belief already in mind.
@Dehnus You have literally zero clue what I understand, as you don't know me--or do you?
Maybe it's time to report you for stalking or something, as you should know nothing about me other than my user name and what I've said in here--none of which have ever remotely stated what I know about the inner workings of any console hardware on a electrical engineering level. If you do know more about me, it suggests you've found that information externally and now might be using it in here in a rather sinister way.
So, what is it, a total random uninformed assumption about what I do and don't know, or is it something else?
There was no pre-planned design strategy with Genesis for specifically using in-cart coprocessors in mind the same way there was with the SNES. The Genesis had the same built-in capability to be expanded with additional external hardware and such like every other console of the time, and any pre-planned expandability was used in exactly the way it was intended with the likes of the Sega CD that even required its own power supply and use of new CD media for its games. And then some other random stuff was kinda just hacked in there eventually out of a bit of desperation too like the 32X and that SVP for Virtua Racing and such.
And the Genesis clearly needed some expansion stuff to successfully compete in the market with its biggest competitor at the time, which Sega certainly wasn't shy about doing and expecting people to build that "Tower of Power" and pay a pretty penny for it. That's how the aging hardware stayed somewhat relevant next to a machine that could display far more and nicer colours, proper multi-coloured transparency effects, more background layers, full-screen full-res 60fps background scaling and rotation, could play Dolby Surround sound, had a standard controller that was far more versatile, and used a bunch of additional in-cart chips to augment and expand its stock capabilities as intentionally designed from the get-go by Nintendo.
Also, using your logic, I guess we can say the SNES was also designed to eventually push fully ray traced graphics, that it was designed to use the Super Everdrive, and was designed with HDMI mods in mind, etc, since all those things have also been achieved via exploiting various hardware and software elements of the console--right. It's amazing to think the SNES Nintendo's engineers consciously planned that use of full ray-tracing into the system from the start, but they just left that built-in expandability feature for someone to exploit down the line. Wow!
The SVP was a reactionary hack job that was a last-minute response to Nintendo's massive success with the SNES' FX chip and the brilliant Star Fox, and we all know it. But at least the single commercial game that used the SVP was pretty good.
@CocktailCabinet Yes, just as the SNES was clearly designed to run fully ray traced graphics from the get-go, since someone has now exploited the hardware to do that too--obviously.
There's a difference between being able to exploit hardware to do new unintended things and what the creators were deliberately designing it for in the planning stages. I'm not saying you can't exploit these systems beyond their intended designs. But everything else you can now exploit the Genesis to do was not because Sega planed for in-cart add-on chips. It was with the likes of the Sega CD in mind--which is not an in-cart chip.
@Dehnus Why am I even surprised at someone totally missing my point.
If using in-cart coprocessors like on SNES was similarly pre-planned from the start on Genesis too, you would have seen some actual examples of this other than Virtua Racing that came in 1994, literally couldn't even fit into a normal cart, and that cost nearly the same price as buying a new console at the time.
It was a total and utter stopgap reaction to the success of Star Fox and FX chip solution from Sega for the Genesis that came very late in its life in this case.
But, yes, the actual console was designed to be expanded with things like the Sega CD for example (there's where the enhanced audio comes into play), as was the case with most consoles from that time (NES, PC Engine, Genesis, SNES, etc), where they all had dedicated built-in expansion ports and extra circuitry intended for this exact potential for adding new external devices and such.
But that's not what I'm talking about here, and you should know better.
Also, stating some general details and facts ain't "fanboy bull". But it clearly upset you a whole lot. I'm surprised you didn't throw out "Genesis Does" and "Blast Processing" while you were typing that rage post there.
@KingMike That Sunsoft cartridge sounds kinda bonkers. Lol
No wonder it was so expensive. Because, unlike with the SNES where [Edit: I tweaked my wording slightly to avoid the wrath of the nerds] Nintendo very intentionally pre-planned for the specific use of these in-cart coprocessors at the system design stage and enacted their strategy from literally day one (see Pilotwings), Sega absolutely did not. The SVP was a hastily thrown together stop-gap reactionary solution for Genesis, clearly spurred on the by the massive success of Star Fox and the FX chip, and it was very good for precisely one very expensive commercial game at the tail end of the system's life.
I don't know the ins and outs of the tech being used in the Virtua Racing cart, but I feel like Virtua Racing's SVP probably came closer to basically being a separate console just shoved into a cart than any of the SNES' extra chips ever did. But I'm just speculating there based on what I said previously about the way these things were or were not planned and intentionally designed into the hardware strategy from the start. One approach felt very organic and pretty much invisible to the end consumer 99% of the time, and the other not so much.
Wasn't the Virtua Racing cart also quite a bit bigger than a normal Genesis cartridge too, like they literally couldn't fit the final design into a normal cartridge because it simply wasn't ever supposed to be a thing on Genesis in the first place, and it showed.
Meanwhile, there were around 70 basically normal cartridge games on SNES that used extra in-cart coprocessor chips in various ways, and it often resulted in some of the best and/or more technically impressive games on the system: Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario RPG, Doom, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Star Ocean, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Land 3, Far East of Eden, Dirt Racer, Stunt Race FX, Vortex, Mega Man X2/X3, Star Fox, Yoshi's Island, etc.
Again, for anyone who gets this deep into the weeds, I'm sure this is great. I've personally never once looked at SNES and thought it was too blurry, but there we are. Now it's basically perfect though, right.
PS. I still think the "Fixes One Of The Console's Biggest Problems" bit is hilarious. I don't think some people are in touch with the common man anymore--if they truly believe this was/is even remotely a big deal outside of total niche technophile and nerd circles.
I personally like the design of this, mostly. If they could just have more than one colour for every input on the front, I think it would make it look that little bit more premium, which is the final design touch it needs imo. Oh, that and just make it a SNES d-pad, as that variation of just ain't doing it for me.
If, so, I think we can safely say there is a willing and paying audience there for actual brand new SNES titles too if they are up to at least this standard.
Just needs more brand new high quality games for it now.
@MisterStu Well, that proper leap from the classic 16-bit 2D visuals to the era of 3D graphics is basically the biggest graphical leap and paradigm shift the industry has ever seen, so you're not wrong. Still, when people saw pre-rendered 3D of this quality in their 16-bit games, it was a hugely impacting moment too. It was a bit like how it was seeing the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park for the first time. We had seen some cgi before, but we suddenly realised we'd witness the future of computer graphics and special effects right there.
@bring_on_branstons I've always preferred the first two games in the series overall, but there are some levels in DK3 that are just lovely too. And I think the boss battles are better than in 1 as well.
I think it you took the best levels from 1-3 and the best boss battles from 1-3, cut out any of the weaker moments and combined them into one game, it would just be stunning and peak 16-bit era platforming.
Comments 831
Re: Super-Rare SNES PlayStation Controller Is Going Up For Auction
@CocktailCabinet Fair enough. I mean, I actually have a bunch of its games emulated on my Quest 3, and some of them are pretty cool. And it is a piece of Nintendo's history.
Re: The Next Analogue Pocket Limited Edition Is Made From Aluminum, Costs $500
Isn't that price a little bonkers for a portable system like this?
I don't mean relative to how much it costs to make and such, but just the fact people are spending that much on a wee retro handheld to play some old games.
Re: Super-Rare SNES PlayStation Controller Is Going Up For Auction
@CocktailCabinet Well, it ended up not being a thing at all. But we already know there were plans to make something far more powerful than the basic first prototype PlayStation model seen here. I've linked to an article in my comment above that shows some of the things Nintendo was planning for the final version of the SNES CD, and it's clear it would have been pretty capable for its time. Like I said though, it never happened ultimately, but we do know something at least. And we didn't get any new Nintendo hardware outside of in-cart coprocessors for the SNES until the N64 basically. Let's just pretend the Virtual Boy never existed.
Re: Have You Ever Wondered Why There's No Sega Logo On Streets Of Rage 4, House Of The Dead, And Arcade 1Up's OutRun Cab?
It's great that all these classic Sega games are coming to almost every modern platform these days. Everyone gets to enjoy them, be they Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, whichever company's fans. Good times for all gamers everywhere getting in on the Sega action.
Re: Random: Can You Spot Every Easter Egg In This Slick Super Mario 3 "Remake"?
Boy how I wish this was a real official Switch game.
Re: Here's Some Gameplay Footage From Sega Rally Successor Over Jump Rally
Still looking great.
Is there footage of a remake version of the first/main Sega Rally track, as that's my favourite and the one I really want to see.
Re: Wave 3 Of Book4Games' "Precision Game Storage" Range Includes SNES, PC Engine And Game Gear
These actually look pretty cool. I like the SNES ones, especially the Japanese/European design, because that's my favourite console of all time. And I actually think the PC Engine ones look pretty dang sweet too. Something about those almost flat credit-card-sized HuCards just works really well aesthetically there.
PS. Pretty sure their Twitter said that the SNES was actually the first system they made these for, so they're not just adding SNES to the range now, but rather the new Wave 3 versions add more SNES games into the book format than they had there initially when they kicked off this whole idea.
Edot: https://x.com/Book4Games/status/1805985005039939608
At least that's how I'm reading that tweet.
Edit 2: Yeah, from their Wave 2 kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/book4games/precision-game-storage-2nd-wave-revised-campaign#:~:text=so%20long%20ago%3A-,April%202021,-%3A%20we%20partnered
Re: Rescue Force Is A Metal Gear Clone That Comes With A Remake Of Troublesome Adult Game Custer's Revenge
Hey, I don't think my removed comment was particularly inappropriate given the content of this article and some people's pretty strong opinions expressed therein. It was more just being a little cheeky and poking fun at the fact some people have major issues with some things in some games but are often totally hypocritical when it comes to the endless acts of violence we see in the vast majority of video games, most of which are literally about shooting and killing things--and those things are often humans. I just think people should either stand by their virtue and call for it all to be removed or chill out and remember it's just silly mindless entertainment most of the time, even the decades-old controversial stuff. Literally, a few clumsy pixels on a screen in a game made to titillate and stir up a bit of heated debate really ain't worth getting all genuinely riled up over and going on some crusade. There's actual real and serious issues in the world, and the obvious silliness that is Custer's Revenge is not one of them.
Re: Super-Rare SNES PlayStation Controller Is Going Up For Auction
Ooh! It's kinda crazy seeing the Sony/PlayStation brading on a SNES controller.
@garbageprincess Kind of interesting reading about that Nintendo/Philips/Sony CD device, as it's a lot more powerful than the narrative that some bad actors would like to spread these days, saying the SNES CD device wasn't even going to be as powerful or as capable as the Sega CD in an apparent effort to once again undermine anything to do with SNES for whatever reason. But, clearly, Nintendo was working on or at least planning something quite a bit more powerful and capable than the Sega CD at one point (21.477 MHz vs 12.5 MHz, 32-bit vs 16-bit), combined with the SNES' standard much higher colour count, proper transparency effects, up to twice as many background layers, higher max resolution, Mode 7 scaling and rotation, etc. And there's even reports it was going to basically include the equivalent capability of the FX[2] chip directly built in as well at one point, which came from the lips of Dylan Cuthbert himself as I recall:
https://www.nsidr.com/archive/snes-cd-profile/#:~:text=One%20Standard%20to%20Rule%20Them%20All
I've noticed there's been a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history and the narrative around these two consoles by certain people in recent times. Maybe some others have noticed that too. But the more you know, right.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@Sketcz Great. Thanks.
Re: We Have Cruis'n USA To Thank For Sega Rally's Brilliance
Then, thank you, Cruis'n USA, because Sega Rally Championship is one of the greatest racing games of all time imo. And Cruis'n USA is pretty decent too.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@sanmansan The price of SNES games was higher than Genesis games in general, but evidently not specifically because of the occasional use of in-cart coprocessors. And it's important not to confuse correlation with causation here, so as not to distort the narrative and facts.
The point being, the specific pre-planned strategy of using in-cart coprocessors in some SNES games was actually a pretty great move on Nintendo's part when all is said and done, because it was financially viable, helped keep the SNES relevant for longer, allowed some pretty advanced titles for the time to come to the system that simply wouldn't have been possible otherwise, and it didn't come at an obvious hassle or downside to the end SNES user.
Now, some people might try to reframe things here and/or go off on nerdgasm tangents for their own reasons, but the truth is the SVP was ultimately a flub for Sega, while Nintendo's strategic use of in-cart coprocessors was a win win situation for both Nintendo and SNES gamers. And that's really all I've said from the start.
Re: Rescue Force Is A Metal Gear Clone That Comes With A Remake Of Adult Game Custer's Revenge
@Ristar24 Yeah, I'm thinking that's the real angle here.
Now, it could be he's a total monster pushing all his disgusting and genuinely held beliefs through the medium of games, which I would not support in the slightest. Or, he's just playing the system. In which case, I honestly don't care if he's being controversial as all hell.
I'm not genuinely interested in these very basic games anyway, so it's up to each person to choose for themselves on this one.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@GhaleonUnlimited For now, just to make any guide as straightforward and easy to follow as humanly possible.
As the saying goes “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself” ― Albert Einstein
And this six year old, going on 48, agrees.
Re: "The Game That Surpassed Super Mario" Is Available In The West For The First Time
@RadioHedgeFund And I'm sure some other people think like you too.
But, funnily enough, I think the 2D Mario games are actually better for just blasting through than Sonic personally, because I can easily avoid all the other stuff and just run through the levels cleanly from start to finish, and the levels in the 2D Mario games are generally brilliantly designed around that. But with the 2D Sonic games I'm always accidentally running into enemies and spikes and such, because there's not enough time to see them coming on-screen and the idea is to always go as fast as you can--it is literally the defining aspect of Sonic games. I guess once you've practiced multiple times and remembered the exact level layouts and enemy placements in Sonic games then you can do that more so, but I actually find remembering the layout of those typically labyrinthian Sonic levels and where all the enemies and spikes and such are pretty impossible most of the time, especially when I just gotta go fast.
If you simply wanna run through a Mario game in less than an hour:
https://youtu.be/hDitYMLZ1QU?si=Idc73afFcqYlc0mm
Horses for courses.
Re: "The Game That Surpassed Super Mario" Is Available In The West For The First Time
@no_donatello Yup, pretty much what I said, just with a few examples pointing to what would be evidence of other people's contrary opinions. And I also mentioned sales figures as well, which are just numbers. Opinions and numbers. It's all okay.
Re: Rescue Force Is A Metal Gear Clone That Comes With A Remake Of Adult Game Custer's Revenge
Removed
Re: "The Game That Surpassed Super Mario" Is Available In The West For The First Time
@RadioHedgeFund Sure, bud.
Now, let's go check literally every single Best Games of all Time list and see where Sonic the Hedgehog 2 appears compared to the likes of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, etc. . . .
And let's compare the sales of Sonic the The Hedgehog 2 to all those games too. . . .
But, I understand, YOU think it's better.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@Sketcz Either way, I think that step by step tutorial would be something great for anyone even remotely interested to have something to just go through.
I guess it might be a bit like how people went through typing in one line of code at a time from a magazine back in the day, however that specifically worked. But, for me, any step by step instructions that make at least some meaningful sense as I'm following them in terms of what I'm doing and why, including the very initial getting started steps, and that basically cannot be easily guffed (that just means I can't f' it up somehow), are exactly what I'm looking for. I pretty much cannot even start to learn something any other way.
Now--and this is a [half] joke--if you can do that showing me how to setup my my system for and then program a very simple SNES game, that would be perfect.
Edit: Yeah, I can't quite follow what to do. I can run a game in Mesen, open the debugger--not sure about where to see the WRAM bit (maybe in the memory viewer?)--but outside of that it just looks like I'm in the Matrix. I'm like Neo as he's first awaked to the real world and only sees a bunch of random green numbers scrolling down a screen. I can't quite see the woman in the red dress as I'm looking at those number yet. I clearly still don't believe I am the one! Lol
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
So, I'm having a look at this right now. I have Mesen 2.0 and Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World open on my PC (a patched version, in case that's relevant).
Question, I might have missed something in the article above, but where/how do you actually type in to change the number to then test the difference in the emulator?
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@Sketcz Thanks for the reply. Thanks for the understanding and acknowledgement that not everyone is made the same. Thanks for the extra encouragement without being patronizing. Maybe I'll have a look at that at some point.
Re: Rescue Force Is A Metal Gear Clone That Comes With A Remake Of Adult Game Custer's Revenge
Ignore the brigade. Looks like a potentially cool little game, and with a pretty funny bonus for the Digital Version Plus too. As long as the end game is made well and is fun, you're good in my book. Achieving any level of meaningful success as a commercial game developer in this day and age ain't easy, so I wish you all the best. Have at it.
Re: "The Game That Surpassed Super Mario" Is Available In The West For The First Time
Some cheeky marketing right there. Lol
Did it help with sales of the game?
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@bring_on_branstons Agreed. It's a very solid SNES title imo. One little thing I would change is just the exact way Buster attacks, because it's never been quite my jam how he specifically flips back there, but other than that a nice little game overall. Great visuals (lovely sprite work, excellent use of colour, and quite a few of the SNES' features and cool graphical tricks thrown in for good measure), solid controls and gameplay (if you're all good with the specific attack method), catchy music and appropriate toony sound fx, nice use of the characters and license, etc. It's actually a very good licensed game on SNES.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@mariteaux I think you think you're debunking something I said or something. What is this, national kangaroo court day. Your point is about on par with my point: I'm saying for most people it's actually not "easy"*, and you're basically saying for some people it is easy. Bonus star for you. Do you feel better about that now. All good and fair in the world again.
*What is easy is flippantly throwing out to to world how "easy" something like this is, which is actually potentially pretty insulting and offensive to anyone who doesn't naturally grasp this kind of thing instantly and intuitively (think of people with learning disabilities, autism, non-programmery-type minds, people who just learn things a different way, ME who probably combines a few of those, etc).
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
I didn't read all that--seemed to go a little bit into the weeds--but I think I got the gist. And, assuming I did get the correct gist, I certainly appreciate someone patching SNES games like this to improve and/or just fix them in various ways. So, kudos.
Edit: Yeah, it seems you're thinking it should be extremely easy to follow some stuff you did with the code there in this article. Yup, sure. I laugh sometimes at how some people who are clearly really out of touch with the common man genuinely think certain things are so simple for everyone, especially anything around code and all the tools required to mess around with it. It's simple for certain people who think a certain way and do things a certain way. Outside of that, it's a convoluted mess. If your granny couldn't follow it all on her own without further instructions, it's not "easy".
But, double kudos to you for actually figuring it out and doing something there. That's more than worthy of praise for sure. Because, I'll tell you this, messing around with this kind of stuff really ain't "easy" at all. It takes a certain type. And it's not for the average gamer.
Re: Wii And GameCube Emulator Dolphin Gets A Version Number Overhaul
Well, that was a waste of my time. Lol
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@CocktailCabinet Here, let's just make it real simple and cut all the complete bullcrap missing the point sidetrack nerdgasm fluff. It's just video games, not life and death, and, as pertaining to the article, the interview, and my core point and hot take on it, Sega dun flubbed on this one and Nintendo didn't. Deal with it. And that's my final word on it.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@CocktailCabinet Those things are utterly irrelevant to the original point I made and continued point I am making about the in-cart coprocessor approach as pre-planned--or not in Sega's case--and enacted by both companies.
But, hey, go off on some more nerdgasm tangents all you want.
And, if you have a problem with someone editing a comment, why not go away for a day and then come back and reply at that time. Stop being so eager to put across your rebuttal to my original point the second after I finish typing initially.
I edit stuff to clean up and refine what I am saying. Deal with it, or cry about it.
@sanmansan That facts seem to support my point that the use of the in-cart coprocessors did not noticeably or negatively affect SNES owners purchasing carts in some overt way every time they went out to buy a game, like games with coprocessors were always more expensive for the end consumer than games without them.
Sometimes using these in-cart coprocessors did have an effect on the price relative to other standard games and sometimes it didn't--for the end consumer. Sometimes games without in-cart coprocessors were actually more expensive than games with them--for the end consumer. So, ultimately, Nintendo's approach of using these in-cart coprocessors was basically frictionless for SNES consumers and gamers when all is said and done. That's my only point in that regard really.
Now, some people are maybe trying to prove otherwise for their own agenda or whatever, but the facts as even provided by your own examples don't support that.
So, basically, on that particular point, Nintendo did gud. I'd like to think you can reasonably agree there--but maybe I am wrong on that one.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@CocktailCabinet You can babble on and try to reframe it to fit your nerdgasm narrative all you want. My point is still exactly the same as my very first post: Nintendo did the whole in-cart coprocessor thing perfectly and exactly as planned both in a hardware and strategy sense from day one, and Sega utterly flubbed there precisely because it hadn't intentionally pre-planned for this specific in-cart coprocessor approach at any point from either a hardware or strategy sense. Sorry if that upsets the flock--be you one of them or not.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@CocktailCabinet Nope, the argument I am making and have made since my very first comment here is that Sega did not design the Genesis with the specific use of in-cart coprocessors in mind in the slightest--and you know exactly what I mean here, especially in the context of the article and interview--and it never remotely planned this as a strategy before the system's release either. It used this specific approach for the first and only time with the SVP as a clunky hack job reaction to Nintendo's massive success with Star Fox and the FX chip. And, where Nintendo's very much pre-planned hardware and business strategy in that regard was a huge success from literally day one and indeed throughout the lifespan of the console, Sega's was ultimately a huge flop in that same regard (and not just with the SVP, but even with the likes of the Sega CD and 32X too).
And, guess what, yes, it very much is the church of Sega and Genesis trying to spin any other bullcrap take on it--yeah, I said it.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@sanmansan Yeah, SNES' cartridge prices definitely varied just like on Genesis, and sometimes it was due to using SlowROM vs FastROM on SNES specifically, or using a larger ROM size, or having a battery backup for saves, or having a coprocessor, and even sometimes a combination of those.
But, even your previous example shows plenty of games that were more expensive than Zelda that didn't use an in-cart coprocessor:
https://cdn.retrojunk.com/article-images/0zEX3imG6pCJz0q4g5iMG.jpg
So, the pricing in those examples clearly proves that it was not a rule that all games that used in-cart coprocessors were automatically more expensive than other regular games to the end consumers, which goes back to my whole point regarding how well implemented this use of in-cart coprocessors was in general as a very deliberate product strategy on Nintendo's side.
In Nintendo's case it was something implemented from day one and was basically invisible to the end user unless it was literally plastered on the box and the game was noticeably marked up to prove some kind of point about how cutting-edge it was. And in Sega's casse Virtua Racing was the most expensive Genesis game ever made, used a big chunky cartridge because they couldn't fit it into a normal one, came late in the system's life, and the in-cart coprocessor approach never got used again by them because their particular solution here just wasn't viable going forward.
The use of in-cart coprocessors was basically frictionless on SNES and something that was very intentionally designed into the system that was used from the get-go and ended up being extremely successful ultimately vs Sega's messy single-time copycat hack job attempt at a similar approach very late in the Genesis' life. It just is what it is.
@CocktailCabinet See above, as my original point remains the same.
And, hey, if you want to claim the Sega CD is basically an in-cart coprocessor, especially in context of and when considering the content of the article and interview and then my original post and assertion in regards to it, go ahead.
My original assertion in my very first post remains unchanged.
Re: Cancelled SNES Game 'Cooly Skunk' Could Finally Be Getting A Cartridge Release
Funded, with £45K so far. Great stuff.
Re: Interview: "The Mega Drive / Genesis Is Built For Speed" - ZPF's Creator On Developing A New 16-bit Shmup In 2024
@Steel76 The thing with that is it would require using more colours to do an entirely different set of less bright and contrasting far background tiles that could be more easily visually separated from the foreground and sprite tiles and give a greater sense of depth and distance there. You'd want more muted and pastel tones as well as less contrast in the far background there to really sell the effect imo. And, ideally, you'd want the sprites to be bolder than both the background layers too, but maybe a bit less than any elements that pass in front of them.
The Genesis basically has four 16-colour palettes to work with for both the sprites and backgrounds combined, chosen from the 512-colour master palette, and the game currently looks to be sharing most of the same set of very bright and contrasting colours across the background, the foreground, the sprites, and the HUD. So, you might be looking at using separate palettes for the far background, the main layer, the sprites, and any stuff in front of the sprites to really get the best results. But that then limits how many colours you can actually use in each of those elements individually with some room for crossover, and you really want to be able to use as many colours for the sprites as possible to make them look as nice and varied colour-wise as you can.
It's a challenge within the Genesis' colour limitations, but certainly not impossible. And there's still plenty of time for them to tweak that.
Re: Interview: "The Mega Drive / Genesis Is Built For Speed" - ZPF's Creator On Developing A New 16-bit Shmup In 2024
"The Mega Drive / Genesis Is Built For Speed"
Which ultimately boils down to, on Genesis you can be a little less optimal with your code and should still be able to maintain 60fps.
And in that same spirit, on PC Engine you can probably be even a bit more suboptimal with your code and still stay at 60fps, on SNES you have to be a bit more optimal with your code to maintain 60fps, and on Neo Geo you could probably just piss around wasting code cycles and such with a game like this and still hit a steady 60fps purely because of how crazily powerful and capable it is.
Because, just in case the point I was making wasn't obvious, it's that--since you can't go above 60fps max on any of these old consoles--if you've already hit a steady 60fps, your speed is optimal there.
Then the rest comes down to how you work within the actual colour limitations, the sprite limitations, the background limitations, the audio limitations, how you take advantage of the specific built-in special graphical tricks and features of each system, how you take advantage of each system's controller and its inputs, and so on to achieve the best results possible on each console.
And, if a solid 60fps is ideally achieved and it's basically all running smoothly, the real focus of importance from the end user becomes all those other things: How the game looks, sounds, controls, and plays. At least that's how this end user thinks about it anyway.
Looks like the developer did a solid job here within the Genesis' specs, playing to its strengths and smartly avoiding or masking its limitations somewhat effectively.
And now my mind turns to how nice does the final game look, how good does it sound, how well does it control, and how much fun is it to play. . . .
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@sanmansan I was aware SNES games were generally a bit more expensive than Genesis games. What I'm not 100% sure of is how the typical SNES game with an in-cart coprocessor compared price-wise to the typical SNES game without one. That's the part I'm interested in regarding each company's approach there and how effectively each of their strategies were both planned and implemented ultimately. My main assertion being that Nintendo actually planned for the specific use of in-cart coprocessors on SNES from literally day one and Sega simply didn't. And, as perfectly detailed in the article and interview above, it's clear this was the case when reviewing the single time Sega actually did use one: It came at the end of the system's life, it was overpriced, it didn't even fit in a normal cart, and they gave up with such an approach after that solitary example. So, I think Nintendo's very deliberate strategy there was clearly a success, while Sega was patently just fumbling around throwing whatever at the wall to see what would stick by that point--and it showed.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@sdelfin "but then their customers were paying a premium on various chip-enhanced games each time they bought one, so there was a downside."
Here's a question: Were games like Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, Mega Man X2/X3, Ballz 3D, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream land 3, F1 ROC II, PGA Tour 96, Super Mario RPG, Top Gear 3000, etc, all more expensive than other typical SNES games without the add-on chips in the carts?
I know some SNES games were higher priced than normal SNES titles, but I'm not sure if it was attributable to the use of expansion chips every time.
My experience at the time was that most SNES games just cost the price of most SNES games, with a few exceptions in special cases where a game really was pushing the boat out or was a big exclusive and super hyped or was an import title and such. Like Street Fighter II was pretty steep at launch as I recall, but that didn't even use an add-on chip as far as I'm aware. And I'm sure Star Fox was sold at a premium, but there the FX Chip was specifically marketed as some groundbreaking technological achievement that justified such a thing, even going so far as it being prominently displayed on the box.
And, obviously, the single time Sega used an in-cart add-on chip in Virtua Racing, they also made a huge deal out of it and similarly displayed it on the game box too, and that absolutely cost a lot more than a normal Genesis game.
But maybe I'm remembering things wrong there.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@Dehnus Maybe it's more about certain people not understanding exactly what I'm saying, or certainly not interpreting it properly and/or going off on some side point I'm not even talking about.
If some people think Sega designed and was planning for the use of in-cart add-on chips from day one, go ahead and live that delusion. It didn't and wasn't. It was prepared to add stuff like the Sega CD and had designed the base console with that particular kind of pre-planned hardware expansion in mind, but it was utterly unprepared for what Nintendo did when it was designing the SNES to specifically use in-cart add-on chips to expand its capabilities in an affordable and practical way from day one--and Nintendo executed on that strategy perfectly out the gate.
But, hey, if it makes some people feel better about the Genesis now to believe Sega was on the ball and had some in-cart add-on chip master plan all along--but just forgot to enact it and exploit it until 1994 and in a really clunky and expensive way that they then used for precisely one game and never again--have it it.
I'm sure that's exactly the picture the interview above paints when coming in with such an absolute devout belief already in mind.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@Dehnus You have literally zero clue what I understand, as you don't know me--or do you?
Maybe it's time to report you for stalking or something, as you should know nothing about me other than my user name and what I've said in here--none of which have ever remotely stated what I know about the inner workings of any console hardware on a electrical engineering level. If you do know more about me, it suggests you've found that information externally and now might be using it in here in a rather sinister way.
So, what is it, a total random uninformed assumption about what I do and don't know, or is it something else?
There was no pre-planned design strategy with Genesis for specifically using in-cart coprocessors in mind the same way there was with the SNES. The Genesis had the same built-in capability to be expanded with additional external hardware and such like every other console of the time, and any pre-planned expandability was used in exactly the way it was intended with the likes of the Sega CD that even required its own power supply and use of new CD media for its games. And then some other random stuff was kinda just hacked in there eventually out of a bit of desperation too like the 32X and that SVP for Virtua Racing and such.
And the Genesis clearly needed some expansion stuff to successfully compete in the market with its biggest competitor at the time, which Sega certainly wasn't shy about doing and expecting people to build that "Tower of Power" and pay a pretty penny for it. That's how the aging hardware stayed somewhat relevant next to a machine that could display far more and nicer colours, proper multi-coloured transparency effects, more background layers, full-screen full-res 60fps background scaling and rotation, could play Dolby Surround sound, had a standard controller that was far more versatile, and used a bunch of additional in-cart chips to augment and expand its stock capabilities as intentionally designed from the get-go by Nintendo.
Also, using your logic, I guess we can say the SNES was also designed to eventually push fully ray traced graphics, that it was designed to use the Super Everdrive, and was designed with HDMI mods in mind, etc, since all those things have also been achieved via exploiting various hardware and software elements of the console--right. It's amazing to think the SNES Nintendo's engineers consciously planned that use of full ray-tracing into the system from the start, but they just left that built-in expandability feature for someone to exploit down the line. Wow!
The SVP was a reactionary hack job that was a last-minute response to Nintendo's massive success with the SNES' FX chip and the brilliant Star Fox, and we all know it. But at least the single commercial game that used the SVP was pretty good.
@CocktailCabinet Yes, just as the SNES was clearly designed to run fully ray traced graphics from the get-go, since someone has now exploited the hardware to do that too--obviously.
There's a difference between being able to exploit hardware to do new unintended things and what the creators were deliberately designing it for in the planning stages. I'm not saying you can't exploit these systems beyond their intended designs. But everything else you can now exploit the Genesis to do was not because Sega planed for in-cart add-on chips. It was with the likes of the Sega CD in mind--which is not an in-cart chip.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@Dehnus Why am I even surprised at someone totally missing my point.
If using in-cart coprocessors like on SNES was similarly pre-planned from the start on Genesis too, you would have seen some actual examples of this other than Virtua Racing that came in 1994, literally couldn't even fit into a normal cart, and that cost nearly the same price as buying a new console at the time.
It was a total and utter stopgap reaction to the success of Star Fox and FX chip solution from Sega for the Genesis that came very late in its life in this case.
But, yes, the actual console was designed to be expanded with things like the Sega CD for example (there's where the enhanced audio comes into play), as was the case with most consoles from that time (NES, PC Engine, Genesis, SNES, etc), where they all had dedicated built-in expansion ports and extra circuitry intended for this exact potential for adding new external devices and such.
But that's not what I'm talking about here, and you should know better.
Also, stating some general details and facts ain't "fanboy bull". But it clearly upset you a whole lot. I'm surprised you didn't throw out "Genesis Does" and "Blast Processing" while you were typing that rage post there.
@KingMike That Sunsoft cartridge sounds kinda bonkers. Lol
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
No wonder it was so expensive. Because, unlike with the SNES where [Edit: I tweaked my wording slightly to avoid the wrath of the nerds] Nintendo very intentionally pre-planned for the specific use of these in-cart coprocessors at the system design stage and enacted their strategy from literally day one (see Pilotwings), Sega absolutely did not. The SVP was a hastily thrown together stop-gap reactionary solution for Genesis, clearly spurred on the by the massive success of Star Fox and the FX chip, and it was very good for precisely one very expensive commercial game at the tail end of the system's life.
I don't know the ins and outs of the tech being used in the Virtua Racing cart, but I feel like Virtua Racing's SVP probably came closer to basically being a separate console just shoved into a cart than any of the SNES' extra chips ever did. But I'm just speculating there based on what I said previously about the way these things were or were not planned and intentionally designed into the hardware strategy from the start. One approach felt very organic and pretty much invisible to the end consumer 99% of the time, and the other not so much.
Wasn't the Virtua Racing cart also quite a bit bigger than a normal Genesis cartridge too, like they literally couldn't fit the final design into a normal cartridge because it simply wasn't ever supposed to be a thing on Genesis in the first place, and it showed.
Meanwhile, there were around 70 basically normal cartridge games on SNES that used extra in-cart coprocessor chips in various ways, and it often resulted in some of the best and/or more technically impressive games on the system: Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario RPG, Doom, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Star Ocean, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Land 3, Far East of Eden, Dirt Racer, Stunt Race FX, Vortex, Mega Man X2/X3, Star Fox, Yoshi's Island, etc.
Re: Jaw-Dropping SNES Mod Fixes One Of The Console's Biggest Problems
Again, for anyone who gets this deep into the weeds, I'm sure this is great. I've personally never once looked at SNES and thought it was too blurry, but there we are. Now it's basically perfect though, right.
PS. I still think the "Fixes One Of The Console's Biggest Problems" bit is hilarious. I don't think some people are in touch with the common man anymore--if they truly believe this was/is even remotely a big deal outside of total niche technophile and nerd circles.
Re: Prince Of Persia Gets Astonishing Unofficial Port For The Commodore Plus/4
This looks like a very good port there.
Re: Evercade Maker Blaze Is Releasing Two New Super Pocket Consoles This Year
I personally like the design of this, mostly. If they could just have more than one colour for every input on the front, I think it would make it look that little bit more premium, which is the final design touch it needs imo. Oh, that and just make it a SNES d-pad, as that variation of just ain't doing it for me.
Re: The Soundtrack To SNES Doom Just Got An MSU-1 Upgrade
The original SNES PCM soundtrack was already pretty great in this version as I recall.
What we could do with is that proposed improvement that would increase the frame rate. Alongside any other QoL features and such.
The SNES could go even further with this port methinks.
Re: Cancelled SNES Game 'Cooly Skunk' Could Finally Be Getting A Cartridge Release
Has it made £30,000 on Kickstarter already?
If, so, I think we can safely say there is a willing and paying audience there for actual brand new SNES titles too if they are up to at least this standard.
Just needs more brand new high quality games for it now.
Re: F-Zero On Game Boy Color? This Might Be The Closest We Get
This looks pretty cool for what it is.
Re: Cancelled SNES Game 'Cooly Skunk' Could Finally Be Getting A Cartridge Release
@NinChocolate Yeah, probably the worst choice for a mascot when you think about it.
Re: Rare Artist Shows Donkey Kong Country Concept Art 30 Years After It Stunned The World
@MisterStu Well, that proper leap from the classic 16-bit 2D visuals to the era of 3D graphics is basically the biggest graphical leap and paradigm shift the industry has ever seen, so you're not wrong. Still, when people saw pre-rendered 3D of this quality in their 16-bit games, it was a hugely impacting moment too. It was a bit like how it was seeing the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park for the first time. We had seen some cgi before, but we suddenly realised we'd witness the future of computer graphics and special effects right there.
Re: Rare Artist Shows Donkey Kong Country Concept Art 30 Years After It Stunned The World
@bring_on_branstons I've always preferred the first two games in the series overall, but there are some levels in DK3 that are just lovely too. And I think the boss battles are better than in 1 as well.
I think it you took the best levels from 1-3 and the best boss battles from 1-3, cut out any of the weaker moments and combined them into one game, it would just be stunning and peak 16-bit era platforming.