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Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Appreciation Thread: Alien Storm > Golden Axe

B

BKK

Member
Lettuce said:
Jesus!, remind me never to buy any of your auctions on eBay if they ever come up
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He had a bargain, it was a rare boxed launch model! I wish I hadn't sold it now, or my immaculate boxed PC Engine GT either. Old consoles weren't worth much once PS and SS came along. Especially prior to Ebay when the only options were local free ads.
 
S

Sixfortyfive

He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I'm clicking through the Mega Drive section of Yahoo Japan Auctions, and like half the stuff I'm seeing are Genesis versions.

That market disparity.
 
D

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
eXistor said:
Just picked these up.

US1YDRC.jpg
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Great pickups, love Warsong and its Noriyuki Iwadare heavy metal soundtrack...
 
T

theSlacker

Member
IrishNinja said:
damn, is Popful that mean? that's one of the few that stayed under my radar & shot up way too fast for me to actually grab a valid cop
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It is like zero shift said, bosses are huge bullet sponges. I've heard rumors that that was a western change from Working Designs but never played the original version so I don't know for sure. I remember finding an old forum post from the WD forums where when asked about it, Vic said the only thing in his notes for the game was something like "adjusted difficulty" but he didn't remember one way or the other.

Ah, found it. Was actually a lot more recent then I thought and from the gaijinworks forum, not the WD one. Post 16 is when he talks about finding the translations notes. Later in the thread someone with a beta copy of the game comments that enemies die faster and drop more money.
 
Bar81

Bar81

Member
theSlacker said:
It is like zero shift said, bosses are huge bullet sponges. I've heard rumors that that was a western change from Working Designs but never played the original version so I don't know for sure. I remember finding an old forum post from the WD forums where when asked about it, Vic said the only thing in his notes for the game was something like "adjusted difficulty" but he didn't remember one way or the other.

Ah, found it. Was actually a lot more recent then I thought and from the gaijinworks forum, not the WD one. Post 16 is when he talks about finding the translations notes. Later in the thread someone with a beta copy of the game comments that enemies die faster and drop more money.
Click to expand...

WD was well known for screwing with difficulty, so it is more likely than not that that's exactly what they did in this case.
 
M

Mzo

Member
zero shift said:
Its just fucking terrible. It isn't that the game is hard but that the enemies (especially the bosses) are bullet sponges. If that was fixed it could be a decent game.
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It was originally "fixed." Guess who messed with code they never should have once again?
 
Bar81

Bar81

Member
IrishNinja said:
ehh those two haven't worked together in ages, so suge's not a factor. dre being done with rapping forever now + billionaire are pretty big factors tho
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Dre's not a billionaire and the guy wanted someone to rob him and that's probably the #1 guy that might ever do it given the bad blood between the two.
 
R

rjfs

Neo Member
Bar81 said:
Dre's not a billionaire and the guy wanted someone to rob him and that's probably the #1 guy that might ever do it given the bad blood between the two.
Click to expand...

What makes you think he's not a billionaire? He made over $600 million last year from the sale of Beats alone.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
Bar81 said:
Dre's not a billionaire and the guy wanted someone to rob him and that's probably the #1 guy that might ever do it given the bad blood between the two.
Click to expand...

i don't know what you just said, but i assure you suge has nothing to do with detox never coming bro
 
Z

zero shift

Banned
IrishNinja said:
damn, is Popful that mean? that's one of the few that stayed under my radar & shot up way too fast for me to actually grab a valid cop
Click to expand...

Imagine that if in say the Ys games enemies have double the HP and double the attack power. The same goes for bosses. That is what the game plays like. It's not hard because you need to up your skill, it's hard because of added jank that is mistaken for being "hardcore", something that wasn't uncommon back in the 90s.

Mzo said:
It was originally "fixed." Guess who messed with code they never should have once again?
Click to expand...

It really is odd how much people nostalgically look at that company.
 
R

Rydeen

Member
zero shift said:
It really is odd how much people nostalgically look at that company.
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To be fair to working Designs:
Despite their questionable localization decisions, we received tons of games during their existence that never would've seen the light of day outside of Japan otherwise, and for that I am grateful. Games like the Lunar series, Popful Mail, Silhouette Mirage, Elemental Gearbolt, freakin' ALUNDRA, none of them would've been released in North America if it wasn't for them.

EDIT: Also if we're going to point fingers at Working Designs for "questionable" localizations, may I remind you that Sega themselves were initially going to bring the game here with completely re-done graphics as "LADY SONIC"...
 
P

Piston Hyundai

Member
Rydeen said:
EDIT: Also if we're going to point fingers at Working Designs for "questionable" localizations, may I remind you that Sega themselves were initially going to bring the game here with completely re-done graphics as "LADY SONIC"...
Click to expand...

Sister Sonic, actually. Also, Popful Mail is dope. I like it a lot more than any of the Wonder Boy games I've played.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
zero shift said:
Imagine that if in say the Ys games enemies have double the HP and double the attack power. The same goes for bosses. That is what the game plays like. It's not hard because you need to up your skill, it's hard because of added jank that is mistaken for being "hardcore", something that wasn't uncommon back in the 90s.
Click to expand...

yikes
don't get me wrong; i know Mzo pushes games like Silhouette that WD absolutely broke, and that's garbage...all the same though, i still gotta co-sign Rydeen's post - they brought us so much quality we'd not have seen otherwise that while it doesn't excuse the "tweeks" i'm still a fan overall
 
L

Lettuce

Member
Todays pickups....

wkveLNC.jpg
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Im not sure if Pulseman is a repo or not, not that im too fussed as i only paid £9 for it delivered, but i will try and find a cover for it and print it out.

One thing ive been meaning to ask for a while is i have a PAL version of Alien 3 but have noticed on the spine of the cover there is no Alien 3 title its just got the megadrive logo, was there a run of covers that didnt have the Alien 3 name on the spine or something?.
 
M

Mzo

Member
Finished Final Fight CD today with Haggar. It's kind of a pain with limited continues, but still one of my favorite versions of FF. The sprites not lining up properly is a little distracting when you swing a pipe or piledrive someone. I wonder why that happens.

edit: Also beat Valis! I'm on a roll.
 
Z

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Flizzzipper said:
Is Popful Mail a long game? I've been meaning to play it.
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It's not very long at all. 10-15 hours at most maybe?

Slermy said:
Popful Mail might be hard as nails, but I still really enjoy it. I think it has a lot of charm.
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Popful Mail is not really hard is nails. The bosses can be annoying but you can cheese your way through most of them with consumables.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
I've been replaying the classic Sonic games. They're harder than I remember.

I guess it makes sense since we played these games forever until the next birthday or christmas.
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Lettuce said:
Just sorting out my MD collection, im aiming to swap out all my NTSC Genesis game for PAL Megadrive version, well thats the plan anyway...
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May I ask why you want to swap over to PAL versions?

I live in Europe now but most of my collection is NTSC-U or NTSC-J. I've purchased a number of PAL games and have had mixed success. Some of them work just fine at 60 Hz, which is great, but a lot of them only run at 50 Hz which is awful. Or are you just sticking to games that run at 60 Hz?
 
L

Lettuce

Member
dark10x said:
May I ask why you want to swap over to PAL versions?

I live in Europe now but most of my collection is NTSC-U or NTSC-J. I've purchased a number of PAL games and have had mixed success. Some of them work just fine at 60 Hz, which is great, but a lot of them only run at 50 Hz which is awful. Or are you just sticking to games that run at 60 Hz?
Click to expand...

Well just as the majority of my collection are PAL atm with only about 25% of my games being NTSC, so i would just like to be all PAL (maybe i have OCD) so the boxes match. Which games are you having issues with then, i though the MD handled all 50hz to 60hz fine and was just the SNES that had problems?. Though i know for one that i have tried the PAL version of Streets of Rage 2 and switching to 60hz you have to wait until the Sega Logo disappears and then switch but this causes sync issues and the game to run super slow (or though this could be my framemeister causing this?), is this what your were referring to?

To be fair i have a Mega EverDrive and use that almost all the time now just for convenience sake so this wouldn't be too much of an issue.
 
P

pmj

Member
entrement said:
I've been replaying the classic Sonic games. They're harder than I remember.

I guess it makes sense since we played these games forever until the next birthday or christmas.
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I recently failed twice to reach the end of Sonic 1 and gave up, heh. First time I didn't even clear Green Hill. What's really embarassing is that I remember beating Sonic 1 in an afternoon while visiting friends of the family. I've gone soft.

I was planning on doing a playthrough of the three games in order, but ended up skipping straight to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. That game is too easy, though. I had my first death on Carnival Night because I couldn't remember how to defeat the boss in the downward tunnel ride.

And Lettuce, that's a nice collection. I wish I had some of those!
 
F

Fatnick

Member
Lettuce said:
Which games are you having issues with then, i though the MD handled all 50hz to 60hz fine and was just the SNES that had problems?
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Lock-out chips aside, it varies from game to game. NTSC Sonics 1 & 2 will run more slowly on a pal machine, where as sonic 3 is fine regardless of hardware.
 
L

Lettuce

Member
Fatnick said:
Lock-out chips aside, it varies from game to game. NTSC Sonics 1 & 2 will run more slowly on a pal machine, where as sonic 3 is fine regardless of hardware.
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Odd, years ago i had my pal (60hz mod) console and ntsc console hooked up to the same TV via a scart switcher box and left them running for over an hour with sonic in each and they were still in sync after the hour
 
L

Lettuce

Member
Fatnick said:
Sonic might be a bad example then! (Though wouldnt a 60hz pal be running at the same dpeed anyway?)
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Ah hang on, when you say NTSC sonic game on a PAL Megadrive, do you mean just a vanilla console?, ie not modded to run at 60hz?. If so then yeah for sure a NTSC sonic game would run slower on a 50hz megadrive, as its the console that makes the game run at either 50 or 60hz.

I think im right in saying that all games have all region versions on the pcb its was only around 1992 time and i think streets of rage 2 was the first that had the region lock chip in place, but this could be bypassed by switching the console to 60hz after the sega logo screen....Mega Swiv had a aggresive region lockout chip where it checked after each game and when it went back to the titles screen.

Im guessing the only 50hz games that would have issues on a 60hz console are the PAL optimised games...which i dont think there was a heck of a lot, probably mainly games from PAL developers (psygnosis, Codemasters etc)??
 
K

Khaz

Member
Lettuce said:
Im guessing the only 50hz games that would have issues on a 60hz console are the PAL optimised games...which i dont think there was a heck of a lot, probably mainly games from PAL developers (psygnosis, Codemasters etc)??
Click to expand...

Bad guess.
Aladdin has its music optimised, switch to 60 and the tempo is too fast.
Sonic 2 is kind of music optimised, switch during gameplay and the music will play too fast. Switching while off has the music play correctly at 60Hz.
The story of Thor can't be switched to 60Hz
Sonic 3 can't either, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles has no problem.
Streets of Rage 2 (U) is not only protected, but censored. You want the E/J version and switch accordingly.
Street Fighter 2 (all variations) have the music optimised, when played at 60Hz the music is too fast.

All the music optimised games still play 20% slower with black bars on a PAL machine. Sometime switching with the console off brings the correct tempo like in Sonic 2, but most often it doesn't and you have Benny Hill music at 60Hz.

And that's only the few I bothered to test myself. I'm sure there plenty more out there. I would strongly suggest you do a thorough comparison with an emulator and both U and E roms before deciding for the European edition. The few threads I found at sega-16 are surprisingly unhelpful, with people having no idea what they are talking about.

And I have never encountered a game that was properly, fully optimised for PAL. I have never encountered a game that was speed-optimised for PAL either. Most are music optimised, when they're not just region-locked, but that's it. No crunched screen correction, no gameplay speed correction ever. I wouldn't mind the screen aspect ratio as it would involve redrawing everything, but the gameplay speed is unforgiveable, you don't call a game "optimised" when you just sped up the music.
 
L

Lettuce

Member
Thanks for the info. So regarding testing on emulators i want to force the emulator to 60hz and play the PAL roms correct?

Have done a bit of research and have come up with the following games have issues (either music temp, speed or graphical glitches)....

Aladdin
Alien Soldier
Castlevania
Cool Spot
Earthworm Jim
Ecco Tides Of Time
Mega Turrican
Ranger X
Rocket Knight Adventures
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Sonic 3
Story of Thor
Thunderforce IV
ToeJam & Earl 2:
Virtua Racing
World of Illusion
Zombies Ate My Neighbours

plus street fighter 2 & sonic 2 as you mentioned
 
B

BosSin

Member
@Khaz and @Lettuce: Those posts are really helpful, I was wondering myself about how I could check optimisation before making a purchase.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
Here is AoB&R with the gdapt anti-dithering shader. It's very hit and miss with this thing honestly. Even though the game heavily uses dithering, I honestly barely notice it for the ingame portions. For the cinematics and intermission artwork the thing only half-works with jarring results.

retroarch-0209-011354m4u7n.png
retroarch-0209-011416ydu6b.png

retroarch-0209-013415yaurw.png
retroarch-0209-013423roueu.png

retroarch-0209-013708ceuki.png
retroarch-0209-013728i8udb.png
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Oh, and speaking of Batman & Robin, here is what I was working on last year...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66640537/harley.mp3
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66640537/mr freeze begins.mp3
 
Palom

Palom

Member
lazygecko said:
Here is AoB&R with the gdapt anti-dithering shader. It's very hit and miss with this thing honestly. Even though the game heavily uses dithering, I honestly barely notice it for the ingame portions. For the cinematics and intermission artwork the thing only half-works with jarring results.
Click to expand...

Not to stray off topic, but I've noticed gdapt works best with vertical-line dithering. I switched to mdapt, which did a better job with checkered pixels, while still picking up vertical lines, but the shader stopped working a while ago and I haven't checked since to see if it has been fixed.

Instead, I now use a combination of cbod-v1 for checkered pixels and gdapt for vertical-lines, and it's very close to how mdapt was. Then I just toss scanlines on top of that and it usually looks pretty great. (Sorry SNES game for comparison, but Jurassic Park has some of the most egregious use of dithering I have seen.)

i2mjroOV0nTCu.png
iqsOgzE9ivkT1.png
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I really, really hate the Genesis' limited color palette, but the dithering shaders seem to help out with that a little bit.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
Palom said:
I really, really hate the Genesis' limited color palette, but the dithering shaders seem to help out with that a little bit.
Click to expand...

I think it holds up amazingly well for what it is. The low amount of colors (I think Genesis games rarely exceed an average of 40-50 onscreen colors) really makes the talented and resourceful graphics artists stand out from the rest. Games like Sonic 2 never really feel like they're starved of colors. I think it's also generally responsible for a more sharp and high contrast look compared to SNES titles. Since on the Genesis some of the first art principles you pick up is having most objects share stuff like highlights and shadows. While on the SNES each sprite/object can afford its own dedicated palette, so for example a green character can have a dark green outline instead of just black, making for a "softer" look in general.
 
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