Depends on what you mean by unavoidable. You can sacrifice sprites to get more border slots to change colours. The moose chase scene in Mickey Mania does this.Quote:
Originally Posted by tryphon
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Depends on what you mean by unavoidable. You can sacrifice sprites to get more border slots to change colours. The moose chase scene in Mickey Mania does this.Quote:
Originally Posted by tryphon
Thank you ! I just need to change one colour :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
I just hope the CPU penalty won't be too noticeable...
Very fast!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
The rotation calculation is performed in real time, or the sprites are already pre-stored in ROM?
The ship is built by sprites or you are using a background layer?
Street Racer on the Saturn actually does this too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
Specifically, it uses the VDP2 to display two sets of scaling clouds (RGB0 matrix 0 and 1), one as clouds in the sky and the other as shadows the clouds leave on the ground. Then it uses the RBG1 to display a scrolling background, and then changes the scroll values during VBLANK to set up the mode 7 floor (RBG1 can only have one rotating matrix handled in hardware). Then it spices things up with extra sprites to make the background richer. And behind everything, you have the VDP2 Line Colour used for a vertical gradient. This is a feature of the VDP2 where you can set a different colour to every line of the back-most pixel.
It also blends certain polygons into the mode 7 ground, when they are too close to the camera. This has the side effect of hiding all sprites behind the polygons (powerups, player character, etc), but at least you can see the ground. I think it would have looked nicer if they could do this for the most distant polygons instead, but then the background would've looked less rich.
I could be completely wrong, but this is my best guess:Quote:
Originally Posted by EPSYLON EAGLE
I would guess there are just a few sprites being rotated in software, or possibly pre-rendered at lots of different angles. These rotated sprites are then arranged next to each other to form the walls. It's a really cool looking effect however it's done.
I'd forgotten that Cybernator has the same kind of giant faux scaled explosions as Anett Futatabi.
There are a bunch at the 10:35 mark onward:
http://youtu.be/mdsxzwZz8WU
They don't appear any better than the ones in Anett Futatabi and still seem like they're not worth using over the many alternatives.
Could this trick be used to add back the slight zoom out on the sprites of the Fatal Fury characters when switching planes on the arena to the more distant one?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
I guess this is how Treasure's Yu Yu Hakuso game performs it.
Greetings.
Yeah, it's literally what the Yuu Yuu Hakusho game does.
I was watching Console Wars and they showed this boss that's does some type of scaling effect's
jumps to 18:14
https://youtu.be/4OmY75Xa5pQ?t=1095
I'm not sure what's going on in that game o_o Like, it's… inconsistent. As if they were trying hard in some parts but then left things too rough. Especially the music.
Anyway:
2:16 for silhouette effect
5:04 for swinging rope
21:10 more scaling
The scaling is choppy enough that I'm going to guess that they just tried to do it in software.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dr apocalipsis
I think it's what Art of Fighting on the SNES is doing too. A mode 7 background that's actually scaling + manipulating overlapping sprites for the character scaling effects. The game playfield doesn't actually scale very far out. It's a shame that it wasn't tried for the Mega Drive version of Fatal Fury; as simple as the trick is, it would have looked pretty impressive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
EDIT: I don't think it's what the Super Famicom port of AoF2 is doing though. My suspicion is that it's using prescaled sprites for the zoomed out, maybe using the trick for an intermediate frame.
I always like when they tries do it and keeping the original feeling..Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
instead of just cut the content like the majority of ports
Brian the lion really is an impressive showcase of effects on amiga.
https://www.mobygames.com/images/sho...screenshot.png
https://media.giphy.com/media/e6b1tX...jKtW/giphy.gif
http://codetapper.com/assets/icons/brian_the_lion.png
https://s.mprd.se/GameBase%20Amiga/S...on_(AGA)_2.png
That game is full of tricks, but the tunnel and the mode-7 menu in particular are stunning.
That said, some of the best looking Amiga games have little to no graphical tricks (Ruff'n'Tumble, Chaos Engine, Disposable Hero, Virocop...)
Good art beats effects everytime. Worrying too much about effects can even be detrimental (see Turrican 3 and Lionheart, excellent art wasted on low colour foregrounds).
The secret level in Ranger X does Y-axis scaling. Probably the least impressive thing the game does though, given the ridiculously huge explosions, gigantic animated multi-sprite bosses, linescroll pseudo-3d up the wazoo, palette changing depending on your Y position to simulate lightning (as you flow in/out of the forest), using VDP highlight effect as a gameplay feature and not just eye candy (avoiding searchlights), scaling in the title screen, and 3d wireframe cutscenes and ending (different ones too, depending on difficulty).
And one of the best sounding instruments for guitar and drums on the console.
Did I leave anything out...?
That reminds me of something the game does that's impressive only out of sheer audacity.
Look carefully at the legs:
https://i.imgur.com/le14gJo.png
The damn legs are dithered with transparent pixels:
https://i.imgur.com/J8KxUdz.png
They somehow got away with using the background as an extra shade (・～・)
Its a cool artistic eye in reality, the background is drawed to pass this feeling...
this game stands out on almost everything, including these litle details
Ranger-X also uses highlight in stage 2 for light wells, which are also an important part of that level design.
Is this where we all start gushing over Ranger-X?
Ranger-X > Cybernator. Come at me Snerds.
You can control the camera in the wireframe cutscenes of Ranger X, either with a cheat code or with the 2nd controller, I forgot which.
I wanted to mention that, but it's far more impressive on stage 5 where it is used as search lights. It doesn't just act as a static shield that protects you from some enemies (those annoying little floating sperms), it tilts around and sounds the alarm when you cross the beams, making tons of enemies swarm over you. It adds an element of stealth to the game, because you have to sneak around avoiding the searchlights. All that action, gunning down hordes of enemies with an overpowered mecha, and now you have to sneak around instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryoandr
However, your mecha is light powered, so standing in the beams charges up your power, which is otherwise extremely limited on this night-time level. And if you run out of power, the level gets so much harder as you can't use your special weapons (which are capable of cancelling enemy attacks). It's a really nice gameplay twist, for a 16-bit game, I think. Of course you can also kill the patrol ships in advance, then have your support ship gun down the repeatedly spawning smaller drones, and get full power charge for no cost. But you would need to figure out the level for that, first.
The whole "light powered charge" is also an interesting gameplay element. On stage 2, you can only charge from the light beams, that you have to crack open the ceiling for first. They put one right next to you in your spawn point at the start, so if you hold down your gun constantly, chances are you'll activate one immediately. On stage 3, the light can't penetrate the thick forest ceiling, so you have to fly up into the sky to get charged. On stage 4, you have to shoot the window of a room where the light is on, and camp there for a charge. Stage 5 has the headlights. Stage 6 has the lights in the BACK of the level, and if you get behind thick wall covers, you'll get no charge (getting there will also darken the other backgrounds palette). However there is also an enemy which shoots you from BEHIND the background, and so getting behind cover will protect you from its attacks.
Having your power up doesn't just allow you to use special attacks that make the game easier, but allows you to convert power to health at select points. So now you have two reasons to keep yourself charged up.
This always impressed me. Such a simple twist in the gameplay and allows much more variety in the levels than simply running and gunning. The game is well designed in more ways than just the graphics and the music. Makes me wonder why it never got a sequel or a later mention anywhere. Alisia Dragoon was like that too, a superbly designed one-hit-wonder that could have been a series. That one at least had it's soundtrack (and two unused tracks) converted to the Saturn on the Game Basic disc, but neither had gotten any mention whatsoever later on. Who even owns the rights to them, Sega, or someone else?
How many layers of parallax does the first stage of Ranger X even use? 8, 9? Gotta be one of the highest ones, on the system, not counting Thunder Force IV.
Strips aren't a big deal. The floors in SFII are the same kind of thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
Some games have 20+ strips and misc layers that are greater than one pixel tall.
This SMS launch game has 8 or 9 strips:
https://youtu.be/N4LyIKU2qmM
It's not just using strips though. There's a skybox, a mountainside with a fortress on top (this one gets segmented to at least 3 strips - the fortress, cliffs, and some dirt on the bottom), then on the bottom you have the "mountainside" layer covered by a stone wall, which is covered by a layer of desert, which is covered by a layer of wall pieces on the bottom. And a mothership on the top, although that's just a sprite.
I understand that it's just 2 layers segmented into stripes with different parallax speed, and with their layer priorities changed mid-scanline. But it still looks like if it something like 6 or 7 background layers active at the same time.
I think it tends to irk some people because there are games that actually attempt to get more than two layers on the same scanline (e.g. Mushroom Hill in Sonic & Knuckles, or round 1-2 in Ristar). Granted, what is technically impressive and what people think is impressive doesn't always match.
I had never heard about Ranger-X until I started going around on internet (and even then only after a few years). The game just wasn't that well known. In fact it seems a good chunk of the library falls under this.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
I wonder how many of those games would fare better nowadays if they got rereleased now.
EDIT: quickly looked up, Ranger-X was made by Gau Entertainment (the only game they ever made), which was then renamed to Nex Entertainment, which was then bought by Nextech, which was then bought by… Sega. Not sure if anything else happened after that, and I imagine this needs proper confirmation (as purchasing a company doesn't necessarily mean the rights transfer or that they didn't get sold to somebody else at some point, etc.), but it seems to hint that Sega probably owns the rights to the game (well, that's fitting I guess).
Mind you, that's assuming they even kept the rights to the game in the first place rather than the publisher… but the publisher was also Sega ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (though Samsung published in Korea instead)
I was sort of lucky, we had a shitload of bootlegs here and I got a bootleg of the Japanese version (Ex-Ranza) with the copyright infos and logos on the box airbrushed out. It also had a bunch of bugs in the sound code due to it being a bootleg. Stage 3 music was heavily slowed down on it, and I actually prefer it that way.
Also managed to luck into jp version of Bare Knuckle 3 because of those bootlegs. I never understood why the English version of that was so hated (always rated lower on magazine lists - note that on PAL lands, SOR2 was unreasonably slow and I preferred BK3 because of that). I haven't played English SOR3 until emulation became a thing. Boy that was a disappointment.
In the japanese version of Ranger X, Stage 6 had a game breaking bug by the way. In the part where you have a laser trip going on the top and 3 fans blowing you upwards into them. The laser trips have their end point off screen, above the viewpoint, so if you destroy them (necessary to get past the part without the shield), you have an empty block on the ceiling which you can fly through. However you can't fly back and can't progress any further. It's the only such bug in the game as far as I know, and it's on the last damn level too. The English copies had it fixed by blocking the hole in the ceiling.
English versions also added an easy mode, a very hard (Heavy) mode with an altered palette for some reason, and the motorcycle was brutally overpowered because it fired twice as fast if you enter it.
Which effect do you mean? I don't remember Mushroom Hill doing anything special, other than the 3d gates on the boss.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
It seems that before Gau and Nextech, the team responsible the game worked at Nextech, which explains some things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
The hills visible between the trees in the background move at a different speed, the game does it by rewriting tiles on the fly. Ice Cap does this with the windows underground too, as well as Carnival Night, Launch Base and Hill Top for stuff showing behind tall structures. Also the gumball bonus stage does this.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
Oh, I see. I didn't notice that. I guess you just take some effects for granted.
It's sad how quite a few of the best MD games sold like crap back in the day (MUSHA, Gunstar Heroes, Ranger-X...)
That didn't really happen on the SNES, most of the games on my SNES list sold pretty well as far as I know. Hagane probably being the only exception, and even that was only in the US.
You can definitely feel the Wolf Team pedigree in Ex Ranza. Some of the collisions and the way the sprite bounces off enemies is like El Viento. The game's penchant for oversized explosions is in line with that game too.
Of course Ex Ranza is far more polished and on another level technically compared with any of Wolf Team's previous MD efforts.
Great game. Love the forest stage, as you keep feathering the thruster to stay in the sunlight long enough to charge your special weapon - while dogfighting swarms of interceptors - before glancing at the radar, lining up your target and dropping down below the foliage to unload your firepower on the numerous ground-based enemies.
Also, the main sprite. One of the best on the machine IMO. The way it straddles an incline looks awesome!
Ex-Ranza had a bad reputation at time here in Brazul, its amazing to look but everyone hates to play it,Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
i finish at the time because i have a mission to try finish everygame on my locals rent stores.
about Hagane is strange, because i see over internet thats this game never comes to stores in US or something like that,
but here in Brazil is very common, me and my friend bought this in his aaniversary because we love shinobi
and almost every games rent store here this games was there..
so its sounds strange to me
The whole "blockbuster exclusive" thing about Hagane is just internet bullshit, but it definitely flew under the radar. Same with Demon's crest now that I think about it, another pretty sweet game that didn't sell very well.
I've seen some old reviews of Ranger-X that are pretty bad, people really dislike the controls. I never really understood the dislike myself, first time I played the game I could move around no problem. I didn't know light was important or that you could break the ceiling in the cave level which was a far bigger issue.
I think I just opened a hole by accident and stood inside it to dodge the flying pink sperms, which then made me notice that my weapon power was recharging. It was a total "Whooaa" moment that made me appreciate the game even more.
Yeaaaaaaaah, I'm not sure what the problem with the game is o.O It's not like e.g. Red Zone which is awesome graphically but a goddamn pain in the ass to actually play (it has a difficulty curve that resembles a square wave, to put it mildly), and the bike is still manageable enough even with a 3-button controller so it's not that either. The light thing is definitely a bigger problem since yeah, it's very easy to miss that you're meant to break the ceiling. Especially since it's actually possible to complete the level without ever doing it.
Incidentally! (and going back on topic) Those sperm thingies are actually translucent (as translucent as S/H will let you, anyway)
https://i.imgur.com/8SLgAp5.png
https://i.imgur.com/03wX9Ey.png
EDIT: also now that I look at this screenshot again, it seems the game also is using S/H to get more subtle shades for the walls (much like how Ecco sometimes does it).
We didn't have Blockbuster in my hometown, but I did rent Hagane from a Canadian chain that I believe wasn't very big. Our particular store brought in imports ftom U.S., Europe and Japan.
Especially given that Gau Entertainment was a new company, it's highly likely that Sega not only published but also produced Ranger-X (i.e. paid Gau upfront to develop the game), in which case they likely had the rights all along. Sega would usually hold onto the rights in such cases (for example, Shining Force and Gunstar Heroes).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
I was really impressed with Yar's Revenge. The field strip cycled through all 256 colors that the 2600 could produce. I'm most certain that the NES, C64 and Master System couldn't do the game justice.
The only thing I remember Yar's Revenge for is that barrier in the middle of the screen, they didn't have space for the graphics or cpu power to generate the pseudorandom noise, so they just used one of the code portions of the cart and read it out as graphics.
I suppose that's why they put a breakable ceiling right a the start, on your spawn point. If you start the game with the gun button held down, you break it open immediately. I'm not sure if that helps or makes it worse, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
For me, the bigger problem was that stage 2 is nonlinear. At first I made it to the right (methodically destroying all the eggs on the wall), and then I had no idea what to do. Took a while until I figured out that there is a radar, and that you have specific targets on each level.
Oh by the way, on that right most section on stage 2, there's a bug. The boulders, when destroyed, release more of those floating things. If you time the destruction of the boulder while there's another explosion on screen (from the sperms getting killed by the light beam for example), it will glitch out and will spawn 50 or so of those things instead of ten, plus a lot of slowdown. It's not a special anything, but produces some neat fireworks.
Speaking of the 2600:
http://ftp.atarimania.com/2600/screens/battlezone.gif
The mountains and the tank are something else. I particularly love how the wheels animate differently depending on how you move.
You should take a look at how the Gameboy Color version turned out.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
https://youtu.be/NUR--_qwwqw
The neutral zone has been reduced to 4 colors and the sound is pretty meh. The barrier is improved, but everything else is rather bland.
The point is that there are endless other effects that are possible, as well as the ability for detailed background and sprite artwork, lots of animation, much deeper gameplay, more objects, misc.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
The color abilities of the 2600 are very cool and are a big part of the lasting appeal and uniqueness of the console. But you're still talking about very crude pixelart with colors cycling through it.
At 1:50 in this video is one of many cool effects acheived on SMS that would suit Yar's Revenge:
https://youtu.be/TstSgPwaOQo