Yeah, for a NES game, this one has left me dang impressed with what I've seen so far.
Genuinely, there's moments where if someone told me this was an early PC Engine or Genesis game, I'd not have blinked an eyelid.
And, I feel I have to get this in there and say, when developers can push the NES like this given the right tools and enough time, dedication, and talent, I can only imagine what they might be able to achieve on the SNES under the same conditions.
Maybe one day we'll get to see more examples of that.
No offense to a bunch of modern indie/homebrew developers, given it's usually just a couple of guys in a room doing their best, but boy do many of these modern indie/homebrew games make me realise just how truly brilliant the designers and artists were at the likes of Capcom, Konami, Treasure, Sega and Nintendo back on the day. Pixel art rarely reaches the same level anymore imo, and we're like 30+ years in the future with everything learned in that time and far more advanced and easy to use tools and such. Maybe those Japanese designers and artists were just on another level, possibly a lot of the fundamentals they comprehensively mastered have been forgotten/lost to most modern pixel artists, and we mostly haven't seen their likes since.
The NES one looks kinda awesome, to the point I was even considering purchasing it. Not so convinced with the C64 one, which rather than looking retro chic stylish just looks old and dated imo.
@DestructoDisk Actually, the PlayStation SotN resolution is 256x208 during gameplay. The menu screens on SotN were in a higher resolution, which the developer said were actually kinda placeholder but just got used as is, almost as if the game wasn't ever really designed with the higher resolution in mind but they decided to add a few menu screens at the higher resolution after the fact rather than redo the entire game in the higher resolution. And the 256 horizontal resolution was standard or the default on pretty much every home console from around the NES era right up to the SNES, but not beyond and not on any Sega consoles from the Genesis forward. And yet, SotN on PlayStation, a system that was once in development as a literal CD expansion for the SNES, was in the same 256 horizontal resolution as the SNES.
None of those graphical things I mentioned were possible on the Genesis in the way they were seen in PlayStation SotN and the way they work and look on SNES, be it the specific way the Mode 7-style rotation and scaling looks (rather than a low-res, low frame rate, low-colour facsimile of it), the specific coloured semi-transparency effects plus gradients (not simple white/black shadow/highlight effects or palette swaps), the amount of proper background layers that often go beyond the two real backgrounds on Genesis vs the standard three and up to four on SNES, the full orchestrated CD audio that's much better suited to SNES PCM sampled audio and also would have been perfectly suited to the once-in-development SNES/PlayStation CD system (as opposed to the one optional PCM audio channel and everything else being FM of the Genesis), the amount of controls/inputs and the way they were specifically mapped to the controller's diamond-layout face buttons and shoulder buttons (as opposed to three action buttons on the default Genesis controller, or the separately-purchased six-button controllers' face buttons that are mapped in a way that's closer to an old arcade button layout than the now industry standard diamond-shaped face button layout plus shoulder buttons that started on the SNES), etc.
But, hey, no argument when it comes to the fact any actual evidence links the PlayStation SotN game to 32X in some tangible albeit very small way rather than SNES in any concrete way, obviously. But my point wasn't arguing objective facts in some court of law, rather just making an observation where quite a few things seem to coincidentally line up to me, which I think points to a possibility that what I said about SotN being in development or at least consideration for SNES at some point might actually be quite plausible imo.
@bring_on_branstons TiagoSC has some legit skills, having done a SNES version of Sonic, a PlayStation version of Sonic, a Genesis version of Mega Man X, etc.
@KingMike Very close: The PC Engine didn't have 15-bit colour. It was actually the same 9-bit as Genesis (a 512 colour master palette). But it could show 482 colours on-screen, so more than both Genesis and SNES totals, just with a much smaller colour gamut than SNES (the SNES had a whopping 32,768 colour master palette).
Yeah, it's possible the PC Engine Rondo of Blood had a big influence there. Well, it definitely did, because SoTN acts like a direct follow on with the first boss in SotN being the last one in RoB. And, yeah, apparently around 90% of PC Engine games run in 256 horizontal resolution just like the SNES.
I think once a couple of games like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing were shown, it was kinda beyond doubt. They were just so graphically stunning to see that at least I knew I was seeing the future there.
I feel very similar when I look at some of the stuff in VR today (and did when I first saw it in '90s arcades too). The first couple of years with the Oculus CV1 and such really felt like another one of those total "Wow!" moments for me personally, which I haven't really felt since I first saw Super Mario 64 demoed on the N64. And I think we're basically living another one of those paradigm=shifting moments with VR [and AR], where I believe ultimately they're going to be even more impactful than 3D graphics in some many ways, especially in terms of gaming and such.
PS. What a very strange thing to totally omit mentioning the groundbreaking N64 at any point. I mean, yeah, Sony and Sega were major players in that first generation of 3D, but the N64 arguably did more for cementing home console 3D out the gate than the Saturn and PlayStation did. And I mean not just in terms of the absolute commitment to 3D polygons, but also the absolute commitment to proper 3D control day one too, which was just as essential a component in making 3D gaming truly work. The N64's anti-aliased 3D polygons, the N64 controller with its proper analog stick, and Super Mario 64's revolutionary 3D take on the classic platformer genre were the most all-in on 3D ever seen [in the home] at that time as far as I'm concerned. It probably should have popped up somewhere in an article talking about the paradigm shift that was the 3D revolution.
And there's also this too, which proposes a way to take advantage of some of the specific SNES features to expand the demo just a little further visually there as well:
@N64-ROX I'm talking about the PlayStation version having all this graphical stuff and such that's bizarrely parallel to what SNES specifically could do technically, which is why I'm kinda convinced someone somewhere must have been thinking about making some version of SotN for SNES at some point.
I edited my post to make it clear what I was talking about. Hope that helps.
And, correct, none of that stuff is in the 32X version that I'm aware of, which only consists of those three sprites thus far that I can tell.
It's great Genesis is seeing all this love. SNES 100% deserves to be seeing it too.
And, if it's basically just about shoving as many stars and colours on-screen as possible, I can easily think of a way to display say 3584 stars and God knows how many colours on-screen on SNES using Mode 0's four background layers and some HDMA to update a few of the 96 visible background colours across all four layers plus the backdrop colour per scanline 224 times down the screen, as well as do colour math blending between layers, etc., before a single sprite has even been used. In fact, if someone were to get real creative with the SNES' colour window capabilities, they could even add another simple layer of stars on top of what I just said too, still before any sprites were used.
But, hey, I doubt anyone will believe me unless they see it running on SNES directly and at that point be beyond question.
If we ever get that SNES game development tool that the average punter can actually use though . . .
My actual point being, it still seems strange to see the modern indie/homebrew scene largely overlook SNES when it's also capable of some very impressive graphical feats if approached with the same can-do attitude.
The Genesis demo above is extremely impressive though, especially because all the stars are being done with full sprite multiplexing, if a total visual eye bleeder.
I'm telling you, I believe SotN must have been in development or at least consideration for SNES at some point before moving to 32X.
The resolution is the same as SNES rather than the standard resolution of any of Sega's post Master System consoles (that's the biggest one imo), it uses patent Mode 7 style effects in multiple places (like the rotating photo in the intro and the sky when Death first appears), the colours port across almost perfectly to SNES' 15-bit palette in many places, it uses proper coloured gradient transparency effects in almost the same way you would do on SNES (like on the text boxes for example), the number of background layers often match up well to SNES, the controls map almost perfectly to SNES, it has music that maps very well to SNES' more orchestrated audio (and obviously would have mapped perfectly to the cancelled SNES/PlayStation CD attachment/system), etc.
Nothing about it screams its main destination was originally supposed to be 32X imo, even though some random Castlevania game was indeed heading that way at some point, which people now think was an early version of SotN.
Just an observation.
And now I'd love to see someone actually try to do a SNES port taking everything I've just said into mind, which these videos of some SotN tests made to SNES' specs suggest would be very feasible:
I mean, it's already coming to Genesis and looks pretty good actually, so clearly it can be put on these old 16-consoles with a few changes and things cut or reduced here and there where necessary.
The standout thing for me here is the scaling and rotating player ship at the start of the levels, which is done with a whole bunch of pre-rendered and pre-stored frames streaming in on the fly rather than any actual real-time sprite scaling and rotation. So I can see where a bunch of that large cartridge memory must have went for sure, especially if they've got a lot of stuff like that in the game.
That's why you couldn't really do this stuff on these systems in the past, other than on Neo Geo where it had huge memory cartridges and had stuff like that actually quite a lot. It's not a technical limitation or indeed a technical feat, just a memory consideration. But, with the size of cartridges you can get for these old systems today, it's now actually practical to include this kind of thing in new indie/homebrew games for these old 16-bit consoles beyond the Neo Geo. I can only imagine the kind of animation you can do like that on these systems today if you want to devote enough space to it.
I wonder how smooth and visually impressive say a modern indie/homebrew fighting game for these old consoles with fully pre-rendered characters and hundreds rather than tens of pre-stored animation frames might look for example, or a driving game where each car can have way more frames depicting really smooth turning and the like.
@President_Leever So, developers have to design games properly to work within the limitations of these 30+ year old consoles if they want the best results.
I think it's understood by most that the SNES and Genesis have various relative limitations, such as the lower colours on-screen, narrower colour gamut, less sophisticated transparency capabilities, lower amount of background layers, lower max resolution, less instructions per cycle, more artificial, scratchy, tinny and grating audio [if not utilized properly] that doesn't support Dolby Surround sound, etc, on Genesis, compared to the lower amount of larger sprites per scanline [before flicker], less space in VRAM for sprite tiles, lower standard horizontal resolution, lower raw clock speed, more muffled audio [if not utilized properly], etc, on SNES.
Ultimately, SNES is a background powerhouse and beyond Genesis in pretty much every way in that area, and Genesis is a sprite powerhouse and in most real-use cases beyond SNES in that area. Audio is basically a matter of personal opinion, because neither is technically superior in all or even most practical use-cases in that area. And the default SNES controller is patently superior to the standard 3-button Genesis controller, but the 6-button Genesis controller, which over half of the Genesis owners would need to buy separately, is arguably about on par.
The takeaway here is that each system has both strengths and weaknesses next to the other and you should play to each system's strengths when designing your games for them if you want to get the best out of them. And if you do that, both can achieve great results that no reasonable person would try to diminish or dismiss.
And the SNES' high-res mode can still show far more colours on-screen than Genesis and absolutely be used for full-quality gameplay:
Not sure what your goal is here in apparently completely ignoring this perfect example I already provided of exactly what the SNES can do in 512x448 mode.
Also, it's a bit misleading to claim the SNES' audio doesn't sound like that too, as many YouTube examples are as they would sound on real hardware to the average listener's ears, and in some cases would actually sound technically better output directly from the real hardware. For example:
All the audio examples I provided sound great on SNES to the average person's ear vs measuring how good a game sounds via some technophile oscilloscope analysis or whatever. Trying to convince people otherwise with misleading isolated individual kHz numbers is disingenuous, given even actual CD quality audio is "only" 44.1 kHz yet clearly sounds far better than Genesis. One random number on paper is not the full audio story, as I'm sure you know fine well.
Anyway, all I did originally was say it would also be great to similarly see some Genesis games ported to SNES, just as that Super Metroid game was being ported to Genesis, and pointed out a few technically factual areas where the SNES versions could even improve upon the originals if someone were to attempt such a thing. Nothing attacking the Genesis there nor lying about the SNES either. And I see no issue with someone wanting SNES to get ports of some Genesis games too.
All your comments about SNES on the other hand come across as basically unwarranted attacks and even disingenuous, like trying to imply slowdown is basically inherent to SNES when that's not even remotely the truth for example, which is just weird and unnecessary. I wonder if anyone else has noticed that.
You don't have to basically attack, deceive, and try to manipulate people's thinking around either system's capabilities to make whatever point you think you are making.
So, unless you have some ulterior motive here, how about we just agree that both systems are great and very capable in the right hands, and also that ports from one to the other are more than possible within each of their respective capabilities and with some changes here and there taking into account each system's particular specs and features.
Well this actually seems pretty cool. I wonder if a similar thing could be developed for other consoles with expansion ports, like the SNES. So maybe you could use wireless controllers for it without having to have a dongle sticking out of the controller ports for example.
And, since you're denigrating SNES for no reason, I'll just point out that Genesis also suffers slowdown at times too, such as in Thunder Force IV as one obvious example:
The standard horizontal resolution on SNES is lower than it is on the Genesis, but SNES does have a higher maximum resolution, with SNES being capable of 512x448 and Genesis 320x448:
But again, since you're denigrating SNES for no reason, I'll just demonstrate some really harsh, scratchy, tinny, and eardrum bursting Genesis sound for comparison too then:
There has to be some way of adding a very simple shell to it and making it look like a little stand or whatever, maybe something like the one for PS2 back in day (but in SNES grey), so it basically looks like a little SNES cartridge greek statue or something when sitting on your desk.
Edit: Ah, I already see that's exactly what they did for the Game Boy version. So, yeah, something like that for the SNES one would be sweet.
Edit: I see they mention GB Studio with Game Boy version. I want something like that for the SNES too. The more casual and latent SNES development community is just waiting for such a thing.
@F-ZeroX Yeah, I think you have the right take on it really. The social part is important, but it has to be authentic and with your real friends and/or people who just want to have normal fun interactions. And, yeah, ideally that would also be in the same room so people can hang out together and have pizza and drinks and stuff like that. VR is never really going to be good for that, although AR/MR will at least allow for it, and more so with each new and smaller iteration of the tech, just with it being like everyone is wearing thick "glasses". Bigscreen Beyond is very near the form factor, and all it needs now is to get a little smaller and have a way for people to see your "eyes" very clearly and it should be good. Hopefully we get to that at some point soon.
Just having a wee go of this on a SNES emulator now and it's actually really cool for what it is. Lots of atmosphere, which the music and ambient soundscape really help with. Makes we really want to turn my novella into a "sound novel" on SNES.
@F-ZeroX Yeah, I get your fear to be honest, but I think most people will be able to use it and not go too mental.
It's just like "social" media, where it's an insidious toxic mess if you happen upon the small group of people acting completely insane. If you properly filter your experience to your own needs and desires though, it can be fine.
For example, I have muted all the plonkers annoying me on Twitter, I've only linked to channels with content I'm generally interested in, and I used a Chrome plugin to remove the "news" panel that pops up on the side. Now all I get is daily gaming and movie news basically. Not more devisive and hateful politics or other stuff like that. And if some random troll does come into my Twitter feed once in a while, I just block them completely. I can't quite get it that clean on YouTube, as you're only able to mute people on your own channel, but they can still troll comment on your comments on other people's videos even if you've basically blocked them, which is unfortunate. Muting them should block any interaction from those people entirely so they can't interact with you or engage you in any from and on anything from you.
If we can manage our VR similar to services like Twitter in the future though, it should be okay. We just need to make sure everyone is educated about these options, because ususally it's not being aware these options even exist that allows for all the toxic stuff to slime its way in.
When it comes to my VR headset, I have turned off all the Meta/Facebook/etc "social" stuff entirely and very rarely play any online multiplayer games or enter any VR chat rooms and such simimarly, so I just play it myself as if I were gaming on an old video game console in my room back in the day. And I'm happy with it being just like that.
This kind of "sound novel" game right here is the perfect game for using the SNES 8bpp mode for full-screen gorgeous high-colour images. I have a simple idea for a way to do it where it would totally work, even with the full screen of text too, just with a little sneaky switching BG mode and image on the fly depending on whether there's text on the screen or not. Not that the 8bpp mode is even necessary, as you can get lovely images in 4bpp on SNES already when handled properly, and then have the other layers spare for additional stuff as per usual. But 8bpp screens would just be the icing on the cake imo.
By the way, I don't know if what the developer did in the game below will prove useful to the developer of the SNES version of Detective Instinct above in anyway as something to study, but I saw it the other day and was mighty impressed with everything happening on-screen there (the large anime characters, lots of dynamic action, switching in new poses and even new characters really fast, all the visual flair, etc):
@KGRAMR In a modern SNES cart you can fit probably over a hundred full-screen 8bpp images (feel free to do the math on that though, as I just plucked the number out of my foggy memory of some conversation once).
And you can display more than a full screen of all completely unique 8x8 8bpp tiles: There's 64KB in VRAM. There's 896 tiles on a 256x224 SNES screen. Each 8pp tile is 64 bytes. 896x64 = 57344 bytes. 64000 - 57344 = 6656 bytes left. That's enough remaining space for the necessary 2KB tile map with some room to spare.
Also, if you only show a single screen and mix it with lower-colour tiles in places where all the extra colours would be unnecessary, it's beyond feasible to use 8bpp images in some kind of graphic novel game on SNES. But, note, I'm just thinking about single full-screen 8bpp images here, so not with a bunch of animated characters on top or dialogue and such. Still, that could allow for some lovely 256-colours-per tile images in between the character interaction stuff.
And you could even scroll these images if you wanted too for a nice extra touch: Pan across lovely 8bpp background image scene, stop at the important bit, quickly switch to a lower-colour background image, load in 4bpp background character [maybe with some 2bpp tiles] and 4bpp sprite character as fast as you can, and go.
I'll just post this here for anyone who actually wants to consider the possibilities of using 8bpp images on SNES:
I have the SNES one and love it, but I'm not entirely convinced the N64 polygon art will hold up as well as lovely SNES pixel art in terms of making a visual compendium out of it. I may be wrong though.
OK, if this is actually coming to SNES in some form, sweet.
I've been saying for some time that SNES could be great for interactive novel type of games, especially if someone were to use its 256-colours-per-tile mode for some truly lovely images.
Looking forward to seeing more of this assuming it progresses further for SNES.
Note for SNES developer: If you want to get two characters on-screen, would it make sense to have one character be made of sprites and the other a background layer, and then try to get the rest of the background and HUD stuff done with the two remaining layers [and maybe a few sprites] there?
For the character made with a background you could draw a bunch of poses into the background sheet and then just jump to them as needed with a window mask hiding the rest of the background, if that makes sense: https://ibb.co/WK7NYwM
Maybe you could also move the various text options to just below the main image on a horizontal bar or something like that in order to get it to work that way. Something like this: https://ibb.co/1qrXkfW
That's in SNES 256x224 resolution with an 8bpp image and 2bpp text by the way. Not that I would expect you to do the game like this, as the characters are part of the background image here, but just thought it would be cool to see how nice an 8bpp image could look, so I quickly cobbled this together.
Also, it might be possible to use 2bpp tiles for any areas of the character that are lower detail and the 4bpp tiles for the higher detail areas of the face and such, just to save some VRAM. You likely won't really notice the lower colour in the low detail areas of these cartoon characters with a wee bit of careful design. Also, I think you can spread the loading of all the tiles for a new pose over more than one frame, which I think would be totally fine when the game is running at 60fps and you're just switching to a new pose now and then. Or maybe you could initially load a 2bpp version of the character and then replace all the tiles with 4bpp version as quickly as you can load them, and then at least there will still be an image there while the higher colour tiles are loading in. At that speed, I doubt anyone would really mind if it took a couple of frames to fully settle into the new image.
Lastly, if you have any moments where it's just the background, you might want to show those in Mode 4 and have lovely full 256-colours-per-tile 8pp images. There should still be enough VRAM spare for some 2bpp GUI stuff too if managed properly. And when the characters pop up you can switch down to the regular colour background image again. If done well the transition should be fine, barely noticeable, and it will just give people some time to look at the backgrounds in gorgeous max SNES colour.
I have a simple concept mockup of something like this, where it shows lovely 8bpp images normally and then switches to lower colour images once somethings else appears on-screen that overlays them and becomes the main focus (just some text in my case), so if you'd like me to send it to you then let me know and I can.
Edit: Also, in case you're not aware, there's a great tool created by Rilden for converting assets to SNES colours in the correct bpp and tile sizes and stuff: https://rilden.github.io/tiledpalettequant/
@NeonPizza "Man, if Nintendo used Quest 3 as a template, but made improvements by adding a QD-LED display for greater colours and slightly deeper blacks, Better controller haptics and adaptive triggers, eye tracking & foveated Rendering for better game performance, and have it wirelessly connect to Switch 2 for games like Mario Kart 9 VR, Metroid Prime 4 VR, Heck, Pokemon Snap! VR etc. It could be a smash hit."
Totally hear you on that.
A Nintendo VR headset that removes all the convolution and clunkiness that is currently part of these Meta headsets and the like, something more akin to the PSVR2's console-like simplicity of setup and use but untethered, and has that usual Nintendo touch of quality and ease of use, could be something truly magical.
Shame there doesn't appear to be anything like that even remotely in the works at Nintendo.
@Mr_Monochrome This is very much your loss. Maybe one day you will give it a go, possibly when headsets are cheaper and you can get a couple or so of them so your friends/family can join in the fun too, and then I firmly believe you'll finally understand what you're missing.
Also, note, while each headset is an individual user experience that can only be worn by one person at a time, multiplayer is huge in VR, and some people might even argue it's the best thing about it. I'm a solo guy, but so many people lap up all the more connected and social games for VR.
And, you might not be aware, but you can use passthrough in many modern VR headsets to see the world around you too, so it's closer to augmented reality when using them like that, which quite a few games/apps do. With passthrough you can still see and interact with other people in the room around you, and they could do the same if they had a similar headset too. With Apple's Vision Pro they even have your eyes projected onto a screen on the front of the headset so people can tell well you're looking at them as well, which I expect might become more common on these devices going forward.
So, VR isn't quite as inward and isolated as I think you might imagine it to be. And I have zero doubt it will be even less so with each passing year and every new headset.
@NeonPizza Whether people feel they need a different head strap with Quest 3 is something I can at east understand, but I think this whole thing about needing a different faceplate is total and utter garbage. I'm not sure how people have bought into the idea that the standard faceplates on any of the Quest headsets were ever uncomfortable or irritating or whatever, but I personally think that narrative is total rubbish and they are all very comfortable. In fact, I think it's the silicon and faux leather ones that are crap and just feel either sticky or actually make you sweat buckets. I'd take the simple cushiony material faceplates any day, and I hope Meta always sticks with those are the default ones.
@ralphdibny You can set it to be a black void with just the two screens. And you can move and scale the top screen (can get it pretty big too, like maybe 100 inches), but I can't figure out any way to move or scale the touch screen.
OK, Just got Citra running on my Quest 3 and tried A Link Between Worlds, and, while it's running a bit chuggy at times and I haven't figured out how to change any settings in Citra and stuff, it's very cool. It's working in passthrough mode, so it's literally like a virtual giant version of just the two 3DS screens floating in front of me in my room, with the top one being in stereoscopic 3D and I can interact with the bottom one using either of the Quest controllers as basically a direct pointer (an instantly responsive and accurate one) and then just press a button to interact with options on the screen there. The analog stick on the left Quest controller moves Link around as if I were using a 3DS or N64 analog stick, the A and B buttons on the right Quest controller act as A and B buttons, the menu button on the left Quest controller acts as the Pause button, etc. It's all very intuitive and feels great. Honestly, if they/I can get this all running smoothly, I do indeed think this will be a kinda awesome way to experience all these 3DS games on my Quest 3. Now just need to get the Virtual Boy stuff properly setup too.
@ralphdibny And, to be clear, the controllers are also directly tracked by the headset, much like the Wii pointer was tracked by the sensor bar (actually the other way around), and they are leagues more precise and responsive than the Wii pointer was, and you don't have to basically just point at a little window directly in front of you to use them either, so they really are perfect for this kind of pointer based and indeed whole motion control interaction. Using the pointer method is literally how you interact with the entire Quest UI or aim any fps games in VR for example (just without any visible lines or cursors). Really VR is the ultimate realisation of the Wii control style, and literally, I think every single Wii game would be sublime in VR like this and far better than the Wii itself could ever manage. That's how good VR is for this kind of stuff--it's literally the peak of both motion and pointer controls to date.
@ralphdibny The headset and the each of the controllers basically have gyros that could be used like this. I presume you just use one of them like a pointer and done.
One problem: It is a total convoluted mess trying to get this all setup and on my headset to actually play it. I feel like Sidequest is on both my PC and headset, but it's stuck on some kind of update loop and I can't seem to actually sideload any of the apps I want to use to play these games. Total pain in the a-hole. It really needs to be as simple as go to either the official store or AppLab and just select install and done. Everything else outside of that is just a total mess imo and not for 99% of people to bother with. I mean, I'm a nerd and/or geek, and I am about ready to give up. That's a fail right there.
@Goat_FromBOTW I totally agree with you other than this thing where everyone seems convinced they need to go out and purchase a different strap and even recommend everyone else do the same too almost as an essential.
I had a Quest 2 and got a BoboVR M2 third party strap for it and it really helped with that headset, which really did hurt my face after not much time of use. But I've been happily playing my Quest 3 with the default strap for months, sometimes for a couple of hours at a time, and I would say it's not remotely essential to purchase a third party strap and not necessary for every to basically compel everyone else to do so.
Now, everyone is free to choose for themselves, of course, by my personal view to share is that the Quest 3 feels just fine and dandy with exactly what comes in the box.
@Serpenterror I think the important thing to remember here is that once the game is ported across it's possible for any SNES artists to simply go in and recolour all the assets to lovely 16-bit colour at will basically. But what you get for now is a port of a NES game that also plays and runs exactly as it's supposed to as well, which would be far less unlikely if someone was trying to just make the original NES Punch-Out!! anew for SNES specifically. So, realy, given this is an unofficial port, it's best positioned to potentially be the best of all worlds, which I honestly do not for one second think some fan-made SNES Punch-Out!! with all specifically written SNES code and new art assets specifically created for SNES, etc, would achieve. As far as porting NES games to SNES goes, I think infidelity is doing it the right way. Now we just need to wait for those talented SNES artist to do the rest of the work with all his port to make the colours more 16-bit. . . .
Looking at the level and the background layers there, I see no obvious technical reason it couldn't have been drawn on the far background layer in roughly the middle of the screen if it was meant to be the castle in the distant background, just like the distant mountains are. And it could have even been drawn on probably the BG3 layer and moving slightly faster than the mountains for some added parallax too, given the SNES could have three overlapping layers in the centre of the screen and they're only actually using two of them in that section in the middle of the screen, with really only the HUD there using a small section of BG3. They definitely knew how to use the three layers at once for fully overlapping scenery [plus the HUD at the same time too], as they have done so in some of the other levels and sections of even that level, so they could have done it there if they really wanted too. And I do not believe for one second the artist would make a patent mistake like drawing the castle that's supposed to be in the far distance into the foreground layer (although maybe the programmer somehow misinterpreted what the artist wanted there and somehow placed the tiles on the wrong layer, which even that I find hard to believe). So I have no idea what's going on there to be honest and what that is supposed to be. Interesting little thing to suddenly learn about.
Damn, what a real shame. The place looked really nice. I guess you have to be very careful with all the cabinets, as I'm going to guess probably some old boards or wires caused the fire.
Is it really an affair if the character is not technically dating any of these women and isn't married, at least as far as I'm aware?
Aren't Indie and Bond really just adults having consensual adult relationships while on their adventures, missions, and escapades, and in Bond's case with kind of a free license to do whatever needs to be done to complete the mission, including even lawfully killing people when necessary?
Am I missing something here?
I mean, personally speaking, that's exactly what makes these characters so interesting and exciting to watch in the first place, because they are doing what most of us only dream about in our wildest fantasies. And isn't that precisely what movies like this are for: Escapism, a bit of a thrill and excitement, some light titillation, and ultimately to have fun.
Comments 831
Re: Former Dawn Is An Impressive-Looking NES RPG That's Also Coming To PC
Yeah, for a NES game, this one has left me dang impressed with what I've seen so far.
Genuinely, there's moments where if someone told me this was an early PC Engine or Genesis game, I'd not have blinked an eyelid.
And, I feel I have to get this in there and say, when developers can push the NES like this given the right tools and enough time, dedication, and talent, I can only imagine what they might be able to achieve on the SNES under the same conditions.
Maybe one day we'll get to see more examples of that.
Re: Cyber Mission Is A Promising Genesis / Mega Drive Game Inspired by Capcom's Forgotten Worlds
No offense to a bunch of modern indie/homebrew developers, given it's usually just a couple of guys in a room doing their best, but boy do many of these modern indie/homebrew games make me realise just how truly brilliant the designers and artists were at the likes of Capcom, Konami, Treasure, Sega and Nintendo back on the day. Pixel art rarely reaches the same level anymore imo, and we're like 30+ years in the future with everything learned in that time and far more advanced and easy to use tools and such. Maybe those Japanese designers and artists were just on another level, possibly a lot of the fundamentals they comprehensively mastered have been forgotten/lost to most modern pixel artists, and we mostly haven't seen their likes since.
Edit: The new title screen does look cool though.
Re: 8BitDo's Next Retro Mechanical Keyboard Is Based On The Commodore 64
The NES one looks kinda awesome, to the point I was even considering purchasing it. Not so convinced with the C64 one, which rather than looking retro chic stylish just looks old and dated imo.
Re: Flashback: The Lost 32X Castlevania That Led To Symphony Of The Night
@DestructoDisk Actually, the PlayStation SotN resolution is 256x208 during gameplay. The menu screens on SotN were in a higher resolution, which the developer said were actually kinda placeholder but just got used as is, almost as if the game wasn't ever really designed with the higher resolution in mind but they decided to add a few menu screens at the higher resolution after the fact rather than redo the entire game in the higher resolution. And the 256 horizontal resolution was standard or the default on pretty much every home console from around the NES era right up to the SNES, but not beyond and not on any Sega consoles from the Genesis forward. And yet, SotN on PlayStation, a system that was once in development as a literal CD expansion for the SNES, was in the same 256 horizontal resolution as the SNES.
None of those graphical things I mentioned were possible on the Genesis in the way they were seen in PlayStation SotN and the way they work and look on SNES, be it the specific way the Mode 7-style rotation and scaling looks (rather than a low-res, low frame rate, low-colour facsimile of it), the specific coloured semi-transparency effects plus gradients (not simple white/black shadow/highlight effects or palette swaps), the amount of proper background layers that often go beyond the two real backgrounds on Genesis vs the standard three and up to four on SNES, the full orchestrated CD audio that's much better suited to SNES PCM sampled audio and also would have been perfectly suited to the once-in-development SNES/PlayStation CD system (as opposed to the one optional PCM audio channel and everything else being FM of the Genesis), the amount of controls/inputs and the way they were specifically mapped to the controller's diamond-layout face buttons and shoulder buttons (as opposed to three action buttons on the default Genesis controller, or the separately-purchased six-button controllers' face buttons that are mapped in a way that's closer to an old arcade button layout than the now industry standard diamond-shaped face button layout plus shoulder buttons that started on the SNES), etc.
But, hey, no argument when it comes to the fact any actual evidence links the PlayStation SotN game to 32X in some tangible albeit very small way rather than SNES in any concrete way, obviously. But my point wasn't arguing objective facts in some court of law, rather just making an observation where quite a few things seem to coincidentally line up to me, which I think points to a possibility that what I said about SotN being in development or at least consideration for SNES at some point might actually be quite plausible imo.
Re: Has This Indie Dev Completely Maxed Out The Genesis / Mega Drive?
@bring_on_branstons TiagoSC has some legit skills, having done a SNES version of Sonic, a PlayStation version of Sonic, a Genesis version of Mega Man X, etc.
Re: Flashback: The Lost 32X Castlevania That Led To Symphony Of The Night
@KingMike Very close: The PC Engine didn't have 15-bit colour. It was actually the same 9-bit as Genesis (a 512 colour master palette). But it could show 482 colours on-screen, so more than both Genesis and SNES totals, just with a much smaller colour gamut than SNES (the SNES had a whopping 32,768 colour master palette).
Yeah, it's possible the PC Engine Rondo of Blood had a big influence there. Well, it definitely did, because SoTN acts like a direct follow on with the first boss in SotN being the last one in RoB. And, yeah, apparently around 90% of PC Engine games run in 256 horizontal resolution just like the SNES.
Re: Even Yu Suzuki Didn't Expect 3D To Become So Big, So Quickly
I think once a couple of games like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing were shown, it was kinda beyond doubt. They were just so graphically stunning to see that at least I knew I was seeing the future there.
I feel very similar when I look at some of the stuff in VR today (and did when I first saw it in '90s arcades too). The first couple of years with the Oculus CV1 and such really felt like another one of those total "Wow!" moments for me personally, which I haven't really felt since I first saw Super Mario 64 demoed on the N64. And I think we're basically living another one of those paradigm=shifting moments with VR [and AR], where I believe ultimately they're going to be even more impactful than 3D graphics in some many ways, especially in terms of gaming and such.
PS. What a very strange thing to totally omit mentioning the groundbreaking N64 at any point. I mean, yeah, Sony and Sega were major players in that first generation of 3D, but the N64 arguably did more for cementing home console 3D out the gate than the Saturn and PlayStation did. And I mean not just in terms of the absolute commitment to 3D polygons, but also the absolute commitment to proper 3D control day one too, which was just as essential a component in making 3D gaming truly work. The N64's anti-aliased 3D polygons, the N64 controller with its proper analog stick, and Super Mario 64's revolutionary 3D take on the classic platformer genre were the most all-in on 3D ever seen [in the home] at that time as far as I'm concerned. It probably should have popped up somewhere in an article talking about the paradigm shift that was the 3D revolution.
Re: Has This Indie Dev Completely Maxed Out The Genesis / Mega Drive?
@bring_on_branstons This is the most developed version of that SNES Sonic demo I've seen:
https://youtu.be/DlrxKECsogE?si=y4NTHmHuCHDfCpZF
And there's also this too, which proposes a way to take advantage of some of the specific SNES features to expand the demo just a little further visually there as well:
https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/sonic-on-snes-vs-genesis/
Re: Flashback: The Lost 32X Castlevania That Led To Symphony Of The Night
@N64-ROX I'm talking about the PlayStation version having all this graphical stuff and such that's bizarrely parallel to what SNES specifically could do technically, which is why I'm kinda convinced someone somewhere must have been thinking about making some version of SotN for SNES at some point.
I edited my post to make it clear what I was talking about. Hope that helps.
And, correct, none of that stuff is in the 32X version that I'm aware of, which only consists of those three sprites thus far that I can tell.
Re: Has This Indie Dev Completely Maxed Out The Genesis / Mega Drive?
@bring_on_branstons I totally hear you.
It's great Genesis is seeing all this love. SNES 100% deserves to be seeing it too.
And, if it's basically just about shoving as many stars and colours on-screen as possible, I can easily think of a way to display say 3584 stars and God knows how many colours on-screen on SNES using Mode 0's four background layers and some HDMA to update a few of the 96 visible background colours across all four layers plus the backdrop colour per scanline 224 times down the screen, as well as do colour math blending between layers, etc., before a single sprite has even been used. In fact, if someone were to get real creative with the SNES' colour window capabilities, they could even add another simple layer of stars on top of what I just said too, still before any sprites were used.
But, hey, I doubt anyone will believe me unless they see it running on SNES directly and at that point be beyond question.
If we ever get that SNES game development tool that the average punter can actually use though . . .
My actual point being, it still seems strange to see the modern indie/homebrew scene largely overlook SNES when it's also capable of some very impressive graphical feats if approached with the same can-do attitude.
The Genesis demo above is extremely impressive though, especially because all the stars are being done with full sprite multiplexing, if a total visual eye bleeder.
Re: Flashback: The Lost 32X Castlevania That Led To Symphony Of The Night
I'm telling you, I believe SotN must have been in development or at least consideration for SNES at some point before moving to 32X.
The resolution is the same as SNES rather than the standard resolution of any of Sega's post Master System consoles (that's the biggest one imo), it uses patent Mode 7 style effects in multiple places (like the rotating photo in the intro and the sky when Death first appears), the colours port across almost perfectly to SNES' 15-bit palette in many places, it uses proper coloured gradient transparency effects in almost the same way you would do on SNES (like on the text boxes for example), the number of background layers often match up well to SNES, the controls map almost perfectly to SNES, it has music that maps very well to SNES' more orchestrated audio (and obviously would have mapped perfectly to the cancelled SNES/PlayStation CD attachment/system), etc.
Nothing about it screams its main destination was originally supposed to be 32X imo, even though some random Castlevania game was indeed heading that way at some point, which people now think was an early version of SotN.
Just an observation.
And now I'd love to see someone actually try to do a SNES port taking everything I've just said into mind, which these videos of some SotN tests made to SNES' specs suggest would be very feasible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Cd4lnOfI4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WO-sr04GY8
I mean, it's already coming to Genesis and looks pretty good actually, so clearly it can be put on these old 16-consoles with a few changes and things cut or reduced here and there where necessary.
Re: Iconic Issues: CVG's Complete Guide To Consoles
Another classic gaming magazine. And the Complete Guide series was great too.
Re: Yuzo Koshiro's Shmup 'Earthion' Is Pushing Sega Genesis To Its Absolute Limit
The standout thing for me here is the scaling and rotating player ship at the start of the levels, which is done with a whole bunch of pre-rendered and pre-stored frames streaming in on the fly rather than any actual real-time sprite scaling and rotation. So I can see where a bunch of that large cartridge memory must have went for sure, especially if they've got a lot of stuff like that in the game.
That's why you couldn't really do this stuff on these systems in the past, other than on Neo Geo where it had huge memory cartridges and had stuff like that actually quite a lot. It's not a technical limitation or indeed a technical feat, just a memory consideration. But, with the size of cartridges you can get for these old systems today, it's now actually practical to include this kind of thing in new indie/homebrew games for these old 16-bit consoles beyond the Neo Geo. I can only imagine the kind of animation you can do like that on these systems today if you want to devote enough space to it.
I wonder how smooth and visually impressive say a modern indie/homebrew fighting game for these old consoles with fully pre-rendered characters and hundreds rather than tens of pre-stored animation frames might look for example, or a driving game where each car can have way more frames depicting really smooth turning and the like.
Re: Jack Thompson, The Man Who Tried To Ban GTA, Thinks Video Games Can Be Good, Actually
It's funny how it didn't take most people decades to figure out that it's not the technology that's the problem but how it's used.
Re: Mega Drive / Genesis Metroid Port Becomes 'Space Hunter'
@President_Leever So, developers have to design games properly to work within the limitations of these 30+ year old consoles if they want the best results.
I think it's understood by most that the SNES and Genesis have various relative limitations, such as the lower colours on-screen, narrower colour gamut, less sophisticated transparency capabilities, lower amount of background layers, lower max resolution, less instructions per cycle, more artificial, scratchy, tinny and grating audio [if not utilized properly] that doesn't support Dolby Surround sound, etc, on Genesis, compared to the lower amount of larger sprites per scanline [before flicker], less space in VRAM for sprite tiles, lower standard horizontal resolution, lower raw clock speed, more muffled audio [if not utilized properly], etc, on SNES.
Ultimately, SNES is a background powerhouse and beyond Genesis in pretty much every way in that area, and Genesis is a sprite powerhouse and in most real-use cases beyond SNES in that area. Audio is basically a matter of personal opinion, because neither is technically superior in all or even most practical use-cases in that area. And the default SNES controller is patently superior to the standard 3-button Genesis controller, but the 6-button Genesis controller, which over half of the Genesis owners would need to buy separately, is arguably about on par.
The takeaway here is that each system has both strengths and weaknesses next to the other and you should play to each system's strengths when designing your games for them if you want to get the best out of them. And if you do that, both can achieve great results that no reasonable person would try to diminish or dismiss.
And the SNES' high-res mode can still show far more colours on-screen than Genesis and absolutely be used for full-quality gameplay:
https://youtu.be/1AGMEZvU14g?si=ehsQBh_WAW-QOlSd&t=1535 (backgrounds running in 512x448 on SNES)
Not sure what your goal is here in apparently completely ignoring this perfect example I already provided of exactly what the SNES can do in 512x448 mode.
Also, it's a bit misleading to claim the SNES' audio doesn't sound like that too, as many YouTube examples are as they would sound on real hardware to the average listener's ears, and in some cases would actually sound technically better output directly from the real hardware. For example:
https://youtu.be/p_60V8UdYEY?si=6aeWOZBiMxFzYNhy&t=13 (read video description)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT4uMVdZ4nU&list=PLgzzAlT_CcFchDRdsl6wWTAKq6hR_bSBP&index=27 (read video description)
All the audio examples I provided sound great on SNES to the average person's ear vs measuring how good a game sounds via some technophile oscilloscope analysis or whatever. Trying to convince people otherwise with misleading isolated individual kHz numbers is disingenuous, given even actual CD quality audio is "only" 44.1 kHz yet clearly sounds far better than Genesis. One random number on paper is not the full audio story, as I'm sure you know fine well.
Anyway, all I did originally was say it would also be great to similarly see some Genesis games ported to SNES, just as that Super Metroid game was being ported to Genesis, and pointed out a few technically factual areas where the SNES versions could even improve upon the originals if someone were to attempt such a thing. Nothing attacking the Genesis there nor lying about the SNES either. And I see no issue with someone wanting SNES to get ports of some Genesis games too.
All your comments about SNES on the other hand come across as basically unwarranted attacks and even disingenuous, like trying to imply slowdown is basically inherent to SNES when that's not even remotely the truth for example, which is just weird and unnecessary. I wonder if anyone else has noticed that.
You don't have to basically attack, deceive, and try to manipulate people's thinking around either system's capabilities to make whatever point you think you are making.
So, unless you have some ulterior motive here, how about we just agree that both systems are great and very capable in the right hands, and also that ports from one to the other are more than possible within each of their respective capabilities and with some changes here and there taking into account each system's particular specs and features.
Re: Someone Has Finally Found A Use For The NES Expansion Port
Well this actually seems pretty cool. I wonder if a similar thing could be developed for other consoles with expansion ports, like the SNES. So maybe you could use wireless controllers for it without having to have a dongle sticking out of the controller ports for example.
Re: "Father Of Xbox" Seamus Blackley Has Plans For The Console's Early Prototype
I've always wanted this to be an actual working console.
Re: Mega Drive / Genesis Metroid Port Becomes 'Space Hunter'
@President_Leever Slowdown and stutter is not inherent to the SNES:
https://youtu.be/Tl7D25I6yDc?si=1j1RHwnSX5c23W4h&t=2849 (running on stock SNES at only 70% of its full CPU speed)
And, since you're denigrating SNES for no reason, I'll just point out that Genesis also suffers slowdown at times too, such as in Thunder Force IV as one obvious example:
https://youtu.be/EmO8WGx1hcE?si=rZ6ukrOYlQoujlpP&t=454
https://youtu.be/EmO8WGx1hcE?si=o14uzaFDwDbE4kMq&t=1982
The standard horizontal resolution on SNES is lower than it is on the Genesis, but SNES does have a higher maximum resolution, with SNES being capable of 512x448 and Genesis 320x448:
https://youtu.be/1AGMEZvU14g?si=ehsQBh_WAW-QOlSd&t=1535 (backgrounds running in 512x448 on SNES)
The SNES' sound isn't muffled when used properly, just as the Genesis' sound isn't scratchy, tinny, and grating when used properly:
https://youtu.be/kloTSpSEyIc?si=173b-T6WJfZlHcC5
https://youtu.be/eUDn26_uCd0?si=6bwaJ0FhtvoRY3ZP
But again, since you're denigrating SNES for no reason, I'll just demonstrate some really harsh, scratchy, tinny, and eardrum bursting Genesis sound for comparison too then:
https://youtu.be/KM1mqsJJUzI?si=E4l5pGuNCtP8yOKc&t=34
Re: "I Spent The First Year Worrying I'd Get Replaced" - Retro Gamer Magazine Turns 20
I have a few choice issues of this magazine. Generally very good.
Re: The Company Behind An Essential Game Boy Accessory Is Making A SNES Version Next
Now that is small, and very cool.
There has to be some way of adding a very simple shell to it and making it look like a little stand or whatever, maybe something like the one for PS2 back in day (but in SNES grey), so it basically looks like a little SNES cartridge greek statue or something when sitting on your desk.
Edit: Ah, I already see that's exactly what they did for the Game Boy version. So, yeah, something like that for the SNES one would be sweet.
Edit: I see they mention GB Studio with Game Boy version. I want something like that for the SNES too. The more casual and latent SNES development community is just waiting for such a thing.
Re: Best Street Fighter Games, Ranked By You
After Street Fighter II, with Turbo being the best imo, the games got a bit convoluted for me.
Re: Fanmade SNES Port Of Punch-Out!! Now Available To Download
Another one to add to the growing list of cool NES ports to SNES. The more the merrier.
Re: Rare SNES Game 'Dottie Flowers' Is Now Available To Download For Free
Well this is very good news.
Hope to see a lot more brand new SNES games like this in the future.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@F-ZeroX Yeah, I think you have the right take on it really. The social part is important, but it has to be authentic and with your real friends and/or people who just want to have normal fun interactions. And, yeah, ideally that would also be in the same room so people can hang out together and have pizza and drinks and stuff like that. VR is never really going to be good for that, although AR/MR will at least allow for it, and more so with each new and smaller iteration of the tech, just with it being like everyone is wearing thick "glasses". Bigscreen Beyond is very near the form factor, and all it needs now is to get a little smaller and have a way for people to see your "eyes" very clearly and it should be good. Hopefully we get to that at some point soon.
Re: 32 Years On, Spike Chunsoft's First Game Has Been Translated Into English
Just having a wee go of this on a SNES emulator now and it's actually really cool for what it is. Lots of atmosphere, which the music and ambient soundscape really help with. Makes we really want to turn my novella into a "sound novel" on SNES.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@F-ZeroX Yeah, I get your fear to be honest, but I think most people will be able to use it and not go too mental.
It's just like "social" media, where it's an insidious toxic mess if you happen upon the small group of people acting completely insane. If you properly filter your experience to your own needs and desires though, it can be fine.
For example, I have muted all the plonkers annoying me on Twitter, I've only linked to channels with content I'm generally interested in, and I used a Chrome plugin to remove the "news" panel that pops up on the side. Now all I get is daily gaming and movie news basically. Not more devisive and hateful politics or other stuff like that. And if some random troll does come into my Twitter feed once in a while, I just block them completely. I can't quite get it that clean on YouTube, as you're only able to mute people on your own channel, but they can still troll comment on your comments on other people's videos even if you've basically blocked them, which is unfortunate. Muting them should block any interaction from those people entirely so they can't interact with you or engage you in any from and on anything from you.
If we can manage our VR similar to services like Twitter in the future though, it should be okay. We just need to make sure everyone is educated about these options, because ususally it's not being aware these options even exist that allows for all the toxic stuff to slime its way in.
When it comes to my VR headset, I have turned off all the Meta/Facebook/etc "social" stuff entirely and very rarely play any online multiplayer games or enter any VR chat rooms and such simimarly, so I just play it myself as if I were gaming on an old video game console in my room back in the day. And I'm happy with it being just like that.
Re: 32 Years On, Spike Chunsoft's First Game Has Been Translated Into English
This kind of "sound novel" game right here is the perfect game for using the SNES 8bpp mode for full-screen gorgeous high-colour images. I have a simple idea for a way to do it where it would totally work, even with the full screen of text too, just with a little sneaky switching BG mode and image on the fly depending on whether there's text on the screen or not. Not that the 8bpp mode is even necessary, as you can get lovely images in 4bpp on SNES already when handled properly, and then have the other layers spare for additional stuff as per usual. But 8bpp screens would just be the icing on the cake imo.
Re: Upcoming ADV 'Detective Instinct' May Be Getting A SNES Port
By the way, I don't know if what the developer did in the game below will prove useful to the developer of the SNES version of Detective Instinct above in anyway as something to study, but I saw it the other day and was mighty impressed with everything happening on-screen there (the large anime characters, lots of dynamic action, switching in new poses and even new characters really fast, all the visual flair, etc):
https://youtu.be/FLJTbpNXVKs?si=GPEgCSbJ95dpbVjt&t=1018
Re: Gallery: Celebrating The Iconic Video Game Art Of Yuji Kaida
Dang, that guy did some amazing work.
Re: Upcoming ADV 'Detective Instinct' May Be Getting A SNES Port
@KGRAMR In a modern SNES cart you can fit probably over a hundred full-screen 8bpp images (feel free to do the math on that though, as I just plucked the number out of my foggy memory of some conversation once).
And you can display more than a full screen of all completely unique 8x8 8bpp tiles: There's 64KB in VRAM. There's 896 tiles on a 256x224 SNES screen. Each 8pp tile is 64 bytes. 896x64 = 57344 bytes. 64000 - 57344 = 6656 bytes left. That's enough remaining space for the necessary 2KB tile map with some room to spare.
Also, if you only show a single screen and mix it with lower-colour tiles in places where all the extra colours would be unnecessary, it's beyond feasible to use 8bpp images in some kind of graphic novel game on SNES. But, note, I'm just thinking about single full-screen 8bpp images here, so not with a bunch of animated characters on top or dialogue and such. Still, that could allow for some lovely 256-colours-per tile images in between the character interaction stuff.
And you could even scroll these images if you wanted too for a nice extra touch: Pan across lovely 8bpp background image scene, stop at the important bit, quickly switch to a lower-colour background image, load in 4bpp background character [maybe with some 2bpp tiles] and 4bpp sprite character as fast as you can, and go.
I'll just post this here for anyone who actually wants to consider the possibilities of using 8bpp images on SNES:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LAY4ulp63Y&t=1228s
Re: Bitmap's N64: A Visual Compendium Launches Today, And We've Had A Look
I have the SNES one and love it, but I'm not entirely convinced the N64 polygon art will hold up as well as lovely SNES pixel art in terms of making a visual compendium out of it. I may be wrong though.
Re: Upcoming ADV 'Detective Instinct' May Be Getting A SNES Port
OK, if this is actually coming to SNES in some form, sweet.
I've been saying for some time that SNES could be great for interactive novel type of games, especially if someone were to use its 256-colours-per-tile mode for some truly lovely images.
Looking forward to seeing more of this assuming it progresses further for SNES.
Note for SNES developer: If you want to get two characters on-screen, would it make sense to have one character be made of sprites and the other a background layer, and then try to get the rest of the background and HUD stuff done with the two remaining layers [and maybe a few sprites] there?
For the character made with a background you could draw a bunch of poses into the background sheet and then just jump to them as needed with a window mask hiding the rest of the background, if that makes sense: https://ibb.co/WK7NYwM
Maybe you could also move the various text options to just below the main image on a horizontal bar or something like that in order to get it to work that way. Something like this: https://ibb.co/1qrXkfW
That's in SNES 256x224 resolution with an 8bpp image and 2bpp text by the way. Not that I would expect you to do the game like this, as the characters are part of the background image here, but just thought it would be cool to see how nice an 8bpp image could look, so I quickly cobbled this together.
Also, it might be possible to use 2bpp tiles for any areas of the character that are lower detail and the 4bpp tiles for the higher detail areas of the face and such, just to save some VRAM. You likely won't really notice the lower colour in the low detail areas of these cartoon characters with a wee bit of careful design. Also, I think you can spread the loading of all the tiles for a new pose over more than one frame, which I think would be totally fine when the game is running at 60fps and you're just switching to a new pose now and then. Or maybe you could initially load a 2bpp version of the character and then replace all the tiles with 4bpp version as quickly as you can load them, and then at least there will still be an image there while the higher colour tiles are loading in. At that speed, I doubt anyone would really mind if it took a couple of frames to fully settle into the new image.
Lastly, if you have any moments where it's just the background, you might want to show those in Mode 4 and have lovely full 256-colours-per-tile 8pp images. There should still be enough VRAM spare for some 2bpp GUI stuff too if managed properly. And when the characters pop up you can switch down to the regular colour background image again. If done well the transition should be fine, barely noticeable, and it will just give people some time to look at the backgrounds in gorgeous max SNES colour.
I have a simple concept mockup of something like this, where it shows lovely 8bpp images normally and then switches to lower colour images once somethings else appears on-screen that overlays them and becomes the main focus (just some text in my case), so if you'd like me to send it to you then let me know and I can.
Edit: Also, in case you're not aware, there's a great tool created by Rilden for converting assets to SNES colours in the correct bpp and tile sizes and stuff: https://rilden.github.io/tiledpalettequant/
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@NeonPizza "Man, if Nintendo used Quest 3 as a template, but made improvements by adding a QD-LED display for greater colours and slightly deeper blacks, Better controller haptics and adaptive triggers, eye tracking & foveated Rendering for better game performance, and have it wirelessly connect to Switch 2 for games like Mario Kart 9 VR, Metroid Prime 4 VR, Heck, Pokemon Snap! VR etc. It could be a smash hit."
Totally hear you on that.
A Nintendo VR headset that removes all the convolution and clunkiness that is currently part of these Meta headsets and the like, something more akin to the PSVR2's console-like simplicity of setup and use but untethered, and has that usual Nintendo touch of quality and ease of use, could be something truly magical.
Shame there doesn't appear to be anything like that even remotely in the works at Nintendo.
Although, we never know.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@Mr_Monochrome This is very much your loss. Maybe one day you will give it a go, possibly when headsets are cheaper and you can get a couple or so of them so your friends/family can join in the fun too, and then I firmly believe you'll finally understand what you're missing.
Also, note, while each headset is an individual user experience that can only be worn by one person at a time, multiplayer is huge in VR, and some people might even argue it's the best thing about it. I'm a solo guy, but so many people lap up all the more connected and social games for VR.
And, you might not be aware, but you can use passthrough in many modern VR headsets to see the world around you too, so it's closer to augmented reality when using them like that, which quite a few games/apps do. With passthrough you can still see and interact with other people in the room around you, and they could do the same if they had a similar headset too. With Apple's Vision Pro they even have your eyes projected onto a screen on the front of the headset so people can tell well you're looking at them as well, which I expect might become more common on these devices going forward.
So, VR isn't quite as inward and isolated as I think you might imagine it to be. And I have zero doubt it will be even less so with each passing year and every new headset.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@NeonPizza Whether people feel they need a different head strap with Quest 3 is something I can at east understand, but I think this whole thing about needing a different faceplate is total and utter garbage. I'm not sure how people have bought into the idea that the standard faceplates on any of the Quest headsets were ever uncomfortable or irritating or whatever, but I personally think that narrative is total rubbish and they are all very comfortable. In fact, I think it's the silicon and faux leather ones that are crap and just feel either sticky or actually make you sweat buckets. I'd take the simple cushiony material faceplates any day, and I hope Meta always sticks with those are the default ones.
But I'm with you on the other stuff.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@ralphdibny You can set it to be a black void with just the two screens. And you can move and scale the top screen (can get it pretty big too, like maybe 100 inches), but I can't figure out any way to move or scale the touch screen.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
OK, Just got Citra running on my Quest 3 and tried A Link Between Worlds, and, while it's running a bit chuggy at times and I haven't figured out how to change any settings in Citra and stuff, it's very cool. It's working in passthrough mode, so it's literally like a virtual giant version of just the two 3DS screens floating in front of me in my room, with the top one being in stereoscopic 3D and I can interact with the bottom one using either of the Quest controllers as basically a direct pointer (an instantly responsive and accurate one) and then just press a button to interact with options on the screen there. The analog stick on the left Quest controller moves Link around as if I were using a 3DS or N64 analog stick, the A and B buttons on the right Quest controller act as A and B buttons, the menu button on the left Quest controller acts as the Pause button, etc. It's all very intuitive and feels great. Honestly, if they/I can get this all running smoothly, I do indeed think this will be a kinda awesome way to experience all these 3DS games on my Quest 3. Now just need to get the Virtual Boy stuff properly setup too.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@ralphdibny And, to be clear, the controllers are also directly tracked by the headset, much like the Wii pointer was tracked by the sensor bar (actually the other way around), and they are leagues more precise and responsive than the Wii pointer was, and you don't have to basically just point at a little window directly in front of you to use them either, so they really are perfect for this kind of pointer based and indeed whole motion control interaction. Using the pointer method is literally how you interact with the entire Quest UI or aim any fps games in VR for example (just without any visible lines or cursors). Really VR is the ultimate realisation of the Wii control style, and literally, I think every single Wii game would be sublime in VR like this and far better than the Wii itself could ever manage. That's how good VR is for this kind of stuff--it's literally the peak of both motion and pointer controls to date.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@ralphdibny The headset and the each of the controllers basically have gyros that could be used like this. I presume you just use one of them like a pointer and done.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
One problem: It is a total convoluted mess trying to get this all setup and on my headset to actually play it. I feel like Sidequest is on both my PC and headset, but it's stuck on some kind of update loop and I can't seem to actually sideload any of the apps I want to use to play these games. Total pain in the a-hole. It really needs to be as simple as go to either the official store or AppLab and just select install and done. Everything else outside of that is just a total mess imo and not for 99% of people to bother with. I mean, I'm a nerd and/or geek, and I am about ready to give up. That's a fail right there.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
@Goat_FromBOTW I totally agree with you other than this thing where everyone seems convinced they need to go out and purchase a different strap and even recommend everyone else do the same too almost as an essential.
I had a Quest 2 and got a BoboVR M2 third party strap for it and it really helped with that headset, which really did hurt my face after not much time of use. But I've been happily playing my Quest 3 with the default strap for months, sometimes for a couple of hours at a time, and I would say it's not remotely essential to purchase a third party strap and not necessary for every to basically compel everyone else to do so.
Now, everyone is free to choose for themselves, of course, by my personal view to share is that the Quest 3 feels just fine and dandy with exactly what comes in the box.
Re: Meta Quest 3 Is The Best Way To Play 3DS And Virtual Boy In 2024
I've been trumpeting on about VR being the way to play games like this for some time. It's actually kind of ideal.
Re: Punch-Out!! Is Getting A Fanmade SNES Port
@Serpenterror I think the important thing to remember here is that once the game is ported across it's possible for any SNES artists to simply go in and recolour all the assets to lovely 16-bit colour at will basically. But what you get for now is a port of a NES game that also plays and runs exactly as it's supposed to as well, which would be far less unlikely if someone was trying to just make the original NES Punch-Out!! anew for SNES specifically. So, realy, given this is an unofficial port, it's best positioned to potentially be the best of all worlds, which I honestly do not for one second think some fan-made SNES Punch-Out!! with all specifically written SNES code and new art assets specifically created for SNES, etc, would achieve. As far as porting NES games to SNES goes, I think infidelity is doing it the right way. Now we just need to wait for those talented SNES artist to do the rest of the work with all his port to make the colours more 16-bit. . . .
Re: Random: What The Heck Is This Mystery Object In Super Castlevania IV?
Looking at the level and the background layers there, I see no obvious technical reason it couldn't have been drawn on the far background layer in roughly the middle of the screen if it was meant to be the castle in the distant background, just like the distant mountains are. And it could have even been drawn on probably the BG3 layer and moving slightly faster than the mountains for some added parallax too, given the SNES could have three overlapping layers in the centre of the screen and they're only actually using two of them in that section in the middle of the screen, with really only the HUD there using a small section of BG3. They definitely knew how to use the three layers at once for fully overlapping scenery [plus the HUD at the same time too], as they have done so in some of the other levels and sections of even that level, so they could have done it there if they really wanted too. And I do not believe for one second the artist would make a patent mistake like drawing the castle that's supposed to be in the far distance into the foreground layer (although maybe the programmer somehow misinterpreted what the artist wanted there and somehow placed the tiles on the wrong layer, which even that I find hard to believe). So I have no idea what's going on there to be honest and what that is supposed to be. Interesting little thing to suddenly learn about.
Re: Japanese Retro Arcade That Took 10 Years To Build Goes Up In Flames
@Mr_Wolf12000 Well, that's just the worst.
Re: Super Mario Bros. CD Is A New ROM Hack Inspired By A Console That Doesn't Exist
Very nice. Looking forward to seeing more.
Re: Japanese Retro Arcade That Took 10 Years To Build Goes Up In Flames
Damn, what a real shame. The place looked really nice. I guess you have to be very careful with all the cabinets, as I'm going to guess probably some old boards or wires caused the fire.
Re: Sega's Turbo OutRun Has Been Brilliantly Remastered By Fans
Game looks pretty cool. The voices are very muffled though.
Re: 3DS Virtual Boy Emulation Gives You 3D Without The Headaches
3DS and any VR headset are kinda ideal for playing these games because of the stereoscopic 3D.
Re: Why Infernal Machine's Director Put A Stop To Indiana Jones's Womanizing
Is it really an affair if the character is not technically dating any of these women and isn't married, at least as far as I'm aware?
Aren't Indie and Bond really just adults having consensual adult relationships while on their adventures, missions, and escapades, and in Bond's case with kind of a free license to do whatever needs to be done to complete the mission, including even lawfully killing people when necessary?
Am I missing something here?
I mean, personally speaking, that's exactly what makes these characters so interesting and exciting to watch in the first place, because they are doing what most of us only dream about in our wildest fantasies. And isn't that precisely what movies like this are for: Escapism, a bit of a thrill and excitement, some light titillation, and ultimately to have fun.