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Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Appreciation Thread: Alien Storm > Golden Axe
- Thread starter IrishNinja
- Start date
sixteen-bit
Member
many different territories represented, too. those pads came from all over the world judging by the designs.
Eh, I have this problem too with one of my controller. moving the connector slightly to the left makes it work again though. Probably another case of a dirty female
connector
IrishNinja
Member
seriously, it's like a UN convention of controllers over there, pretty neat
Picked up an official six button controller off Craiglist for $5. Looks and feels like it was never used. Love finds like this. She was initially selling it bundled with a model 2, sonic 2 and two official 3 buttons. Emailed her asking if she would be willing to sell the six'er separately since it would still be a complete bundle without it. Really happy as I was about to order a Hyperkin off of Amazon.
sixteen-bit
Member
did a double take because it looked like they were playing on a Neptune
I totally had the Sonic and Tails toys. A couple of each! At this point, we still weren't getting the same toys in Canada as in the US, so my dad actually went out of his way to buy the toys for my brother and me when he was visiting down south.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
That happy meal had activities on the bag that corresponded to a few zones from the game. One of them was Flying Battery Zone. I remember spending whole minutes wondering why they made that for a zone that doesn't exist.
sixteen-bit
Member
You have no idea how much my wife wants that. Yeah it seems to have done well there, they had a bunch of different varieties and I wanna say sold through the early 2000's?I assume it was more popular in Japan?
sixteen-bit
Member
Cool pickup!
Friend of Sonic
Member
Discontinued in 2005. Crazy, isn't it?
A Black Falcon
Member
I assume it was more popular in Japan?
It was. There are definitely a lot more Pico releases in Japan than anywhere else. The Pico sold several million systems in Japan, but only 400,000 in the US according to Wikipedia, and here lasted only 1994-1998 (and it was no better in Europe), while in Japan the system lasted until 2005, and was succeeded by another similar educational system after that too, which was released in Japan only, the Beena.
IrishNinja
Member
this phrase made it overseas now? ehhh
bruh did you really go do this before portland tho
Shadow Hog
Member
Seems wholly unnecessary to me. A few places it seems better (like the bricks at the top of the screen in the scene with the giant skeletons and the pendulum), but a lot where I think I'd have just stuck with the original.
Yeah...I kinda gotta say the same. Also whats with changing the magic spear fire to yellowish orange?
MightyHedgehog
Member
Aside from a few improvements to contrast of the background set of tiles and the foreground sprites, that palette hack seems mostly pointless. Don't like the more muted color choices made, personally.
Just bought Quackshot, Taz-Mania & Mystic Defender. Haven't played Quackshot since it was released. Gotta stop visiting these threads.
Quakshot is a solid great game! Borrowed it over 10 times, completed it over 10 times. Should have brought it when I was younger.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Yeah, with a few exceptions, the original is better... the hack often makes things look more washed out and less vibrant. Don't see the point, sorry.
I honestly thought Taz-Mania was awful but yeah Quackshot is great.Just bought Quackshot, Taz-Mania & Mystic Defender. Haven't played Quackshot since it was released. Gotta stop visiting these threads.
I don't know where it is these days, nor do I remember much about it. But I do know that I had and really enjoyed my Pico as a kid. I was really surprised to learn years later that it was a Sega thing.
thechristoph
Sir!
Diablohead
Member
Quackshot was cool, I only rented it a few times but loved it, cousin owns it I think.
Now world of illusion was the bee's knees for me, beat that quite a bit and loved me some coop, a platformer two people can play without feeling like one of the characters is dominant.
As a kid I wish that I had a 6-button controller sooner rather then later, the year before I had a playstation as a present was when I got one of those unofficial 6 button pads with turbo switches on it, the pad itself was cool but I had already rented a lot of games over the years, so I never really played many real 6 button control games.
I also had an megadrive flight stick, was cool but really just a dpad with a,b and c buttons like fighter pilot buttons, was fun to use with F22-intercepter.
Was in my loft the other day and sure I spotted my megadrive box in the distance, at this point I think that i'm lacking the power wire and the mega cd 2 has probably died to damp, I really should buy a new console from ebay when I get the chance.
Now world of illusion was the bee's knees for me, beat that quite a bit and loved me some coop, a platformer two people can play without feeling like one of the characters is dominant.
As a kid I wish that I had a 6-button controller sooner rather then later, the year before I had a playstation as a present was when I got one of those unofficial 6 button pads with turbo switches on it, the pad itself was cool but I had already rented a lot of games over the years, so I never really played many real 6 button control games.
I also had an megadrive flight stick, was cool but really just a dpad with a,b and c buttons like fighter pilot buttons, was fun to use with F22-intercepter.
Was in my loft the other day and sure I spotted my megadrive box in the distance, at this point I think that i'm lacking the power wire and the mega cd 2 has probably died to damp, I really should buy a new console from ebay when I get the chance.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
My favorite Wily Wars edit is what they did to the Yellow Devil in MM1. It's one of the funniest lazy edits I've seen.
For those not aware, the NES and Genesis versions of these games behave pretty differently when too many enemy sprites are onscreen at once. In the NES version, sprites just start flickering a bunch in a typical NES fashion, but nothing much else happens. In Wily Wars, nothing flickers, but the game starts to slow down considerably as the screen gets too busy.
Against the Yellow Devil, Wily Wars slows to a crawl once he starts shooting all of his pieces at you. This would make the boss fight way too easy... so the game designers just had him shoot his pieces out with much less space between them. It's a perfect video game example of putting in a token effort toward treating the symptoms of a problem instead of working on a cure.
That's how I remember it going down, anyway. It's been a while since I played both versions.
For those not aware, the NES and Genesis versions of these games behave pretty differently when too many enemy sprites are onscreen at once. In the NES version, sprites just start flickering a bunch in a typical NES fashion, but nothing much else happens. In Wily Wars, nothing flickers, but the game starts to slow down considerably as the screen gets too busy.
Against the Yellow Devil, Wily Wars slows to a crawl once he starts shooting all of his pieces at you. This would make the boss fight way too easy... so the game designers just had him shoot his pieces out with much less space between them. It's a perfect video game example of putting in a token effort toward treating the symptoms of a problem instead of working on a cure.
That's how I remember it going down, anyway. It's been a while since I played both versions.
I'm in the middle of doing a detailed breakdown of the original NES Mega Man. This is next up.
It does slow down dramatically, and it does become insanely easy.
Rockman Mega World is one of the few games that doesn't mess up when the Genesis is overclocked, though. You can get it to run perfectly.
Gunstarheroes
Member
Wily Wars had a lot of weird graphical issues i'll never understand, but its one of the main reasons Capcom said initially that made them decide bringing the collection over to America, until Sega threw money bags at them for Sega Channel. That second part is more of a guess, but it would make some sense.
I actually just did a video on the game, but i've plugged every video i made for my youtube channel at this point, so i didn't just wanna be constantly shilling.
MightyHedgehog
Member
It would, it really would. I just got done with playing a bit of Bloodlines on my nice 'new' Trinitron SD CRT via SCART>component and those changes would look bad and not push the brightness of that display nearly as effectively. I think most of those changes come from playing on fixed panels via emulators where the difference in intensity of color is really pronounced no matter how you jack up the settings. The original SD look was created and meant to be viewed on CRT with its scanlines and bright picture and no matter what full screen shaders I've used or seen have never come close to its full effect on the real thing.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I've been told that the 32X itself doesn't have any region coding, but that it "inherits" the region setting from the Genesis/MD that it's hooked into. So if you're playing on a US CDX, then you could only use cartridges that can play on an American system. That's all hearsay, though.
Do remember that region-locking on the Genesis is done on a per-game basis. If you want to test before buying, try the game in an emulator that's specifically set to USA mode and not auto-select. If it's region-locked, then you'll get an error message or crash screen when booting the game.
Sapiens
Member
Dracula on MD was always a technical achievement over an artistic one. No amount of colour hacking is going to improve the shoddy aesthetics. Contra was a slight improvement, but still overall ugly. I'm assuming the same team generated these two games. Don't get me wrong, they're gems, but are damn ugly.
It's not like Gunstar or Super Shinobi II which managed to balance the art and tech.
It's not like Gunstar or Super Shinobi II which managed to balance the art and tech.
sixteen-bit
Member
This is how Street Fighter X Tekken should be.
lmao, VR vs Taken 2?
MightyHedgehog
Member
I don't know that I'd use the term 'ugly,' but I agree about its focus on visual gimmickry. CV isn't exactly a pretty series, IMO, though and its pretty regular about garish combinations of color and mildly mismatched art composing the general appearance. I'd put it on par with the NES games, though coming after Rondo, Bloodlines could have used a great deal more consistency. Worst thing about Bloodlines, to me, is the speed of animation for John and Eric...it cycles too fast. Too bad the rumored Mega/Sega CD CV game never panned out as the added ROM space could have been put to equally good use. Agree about Gunstar and Shinobi being at the top of the heap for even application of visual perfection that has no peer on the platform.
Ok so i was having some audio issues on my MegaDrive 2 system, ive been using a RGB scart cable from the eBay seller retro_console_accessories and thought it might be the cable that was the issue so i got a MegaDrive 2 RGB scart cable from retrogamingcables.co.uk. I thought id take some comparison pictures of the 2 cables as i know these are the 2 main companies most of us uses for our retro stuff...
It would appear that the retro console accessories cable seem to have more wires connected (ground i believe) and use caps on the R, G, B lines, where the retro gaming cables cable uses resistors on the R,G,B lines instead and doesnt have as many wires connected or though the wires are slightly thicker.
On thing i have noticed between the cables on my HANTAREX CT 28 EQ MONITOR its that the Retro Gaming Cable scart cable seem to have trouble syncing the screen on a scene change, for example when i first turn the MD2 on and the SEGA logo is display then the picture will jump a few times and then become stable, once the screen changes from the SEGA logo to the intro of the game then the same thing will happen again. This never happened at all with the Retro Console Accessories cable and the picture was 100% stable all the time. Other than this issue they seem to produce the same quality picture. Any ideas what might be the cause of this picture stability issue with the Retro Gaming Cables scart cable is?
It would appear that the retro console accessories cable seem to have more wires connected (ground i believe) and use caps on the R, G, B lines, where the retro gaming cables cable uses resistors on the R,G,B lines instead and doesnt have as many wires connected or though the wires are slightly thicker.
On thing i have noticed between the cables on my HANTAREX CT 28 EQ MONITOR its that the Retro Gaming Cable scart cable seem to have trouble syncing the screen on a scene change, for example when i first turn the MD2 on and the SEGA logo is display then the picture will jump a few times and then become stable, once the screen changes from the SEGA logo to the intro of the game then the same thing will happen again. This never happened at all with the Retro Console Accessories cable and the picture was 100% stable all the time. Other than this issue they seem to produce the same quality picture. Any ideas what might be the cause of this picture stability issue with the Retro Gaming Cables scart cable is?
sixteen-bit
Member
Are you sure it was for CD? I always heard of it as a 32X game.
idk man, I can understand where you're coming from with Vampire Killer (it is a bit inconsistent), but I think Contra is one of the better-looking of the well-regarded MD games. I wouldn't put it significantly under Gunstar, visually.
Super Shinobi II is a class of its own, definitely.
Found it! Great video! Not sure why I didn't subscribe last time, but I just did =] Some quick thoughts:
Inafune isn't the original creator of the Mega Man games, but everyone says he is so I understand.
I didn't really notice any timing issues when jumping, and I've played through Mega Man on the NES like 20 times this past month (for comparison). What was your setup like for playing this? And which model Genesis did you use?
They definitely added a delay between Mega Buster shots and made some weapons like the Metal Blade root you in place until the shot animation is over. Bosses aren't the best way to highlight that delay since they have pretty long invulnerability windows after taking damage. The Cutman fight lasts much longer because he now takes one stick of damage instead of 3 from the Mega Buster.
I'd say that fixing the Foot Holders and making the Yellow Devil easier thanks to slowdown brings down the difficulty of Mega Man 1 by a substantial amount.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Hmmm...I remember Gamefan or Megaplay talking about it, though I think you might be correct as there was the talk of Bloodletting or something or other which may have been what turned into Symphony/Nocturne? So many rumors and BS back then I don't recall very clearly.
Sapiens
Member
Definitely a 32X game (rumoured). Never heard of a MCD variant. And I also had heard that development was shifted over to what would become Symphony/Nocturne. There was that one screenshot that looked like it used an edited Richter sprite from DX.
Edit - this is the one I saw, but it is obviously a fan-edit.
Edit - this is the one I saw, but it is obviously a fan-edit.