Mega Drive Shock (new website!)

About Altered Beast, the Mega Drive port is said to play better. It also has added parallax scrollings. But at the same time it lacks some visual effects like when the screen turns grey during the boss fights. Like I said it was rushed but still good.

But there are plenty of ports which are better than the arcade, either on Mega Drive or other systems.

There are also plenty of people who genuinely enjoy playing home ports regardless of whether the arcade versions are better or not. Sometimes they just prefer how the ports look, how they sound... Sometimes the ports have additional content which still makes them worth playing in any cases... Some people might also prefer to play with certain pads/sticks rather than others... So many reasons... :)

generally speaking most 16-bit ports loose a lot of frames of animation in most if not all the sprites. So the gameplay may be sometimes subjectively smoother or better, it is almost always jerkier. On the MD there's also usually the big issue of losing a lot of color, the sound, some nice rotating/scaling effects, etc etc. As I always say, there would be way better ports if all those early MD ports were on bigger ROMs, but alas.

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Originally Posted by Gryson

The same can be said for any port. But I think you'll find that for a lot of people, there is some value or 'authenticity' in playing a game the way they used to play it back in the day. Assuming you have a setup capable of playing MAME on your TV (which not all people do), there's still something that feels off about playing an arcade game on a TV with a controller and not in a cab.

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Hmm, I guess if the goal is an "authentic" as possible experience then yes, you need an arcade cab + stick + CRT.

I played many hours of Genesis Altered Beast back in '89 when it was one of the few games I had, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but once MAME came along and I could compare side by side I dropped the Genesis one pretty quick.

Also Jules, your comment about infinite credits is on point. Lots of games get very boring very quickly if you don't set credit limits!

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Originally Posted by Gryson

One thing about Sword of Sodan is that it doesn't look too bad from screenshots, with its big, detailed sprites and all. And it was an early title. I remember thinking how cool the box art looked at the time:

https://segaretro.org/images/archive..._MD_US_Box.jpg

The Japanese cover design looks cool as well:

https://segaretro.org/images/thumb/2..._MD_JP_Box.jpg

The game just plays terribly and really misses the point of fun.

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Yeah, back in 90s when i saw it on magazines looks very cool
also the BLOOD.. the possibility of cut the heads off sell the game for me!

nowadays everybody says that it is a crap.. but when you have 12/14 years olds the things is diferent..
in my head its just a hard game and i'm must be better to finish it..
i have good times playing it with my brother..

much time later i got the amiga version that is much better...

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Originally Posted by Gryson

The same can be said for any port. But I think you'll find that for a lot of people, there is some value or 'authenticity' in playing a game the way they used to play it back in the day. Assuming you have a setup capable of playing MAME on your TV (which not all people do), there's still something that feels off about playing an arcade game on a TV with a controller and not in a cab.

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MD port is amazng for the time.. the voices is not crispy like the arcade but is more cooler for me...
also you got the parallax and etc..
also i always hate the fact the screen becomes black and white when you face the bosses, thanks that this feture are absent on MD.
another thing that i dosen't like in the arcade is the special animation of dragon.. i thinhk is much better on the md

Altered Beast on the Mega Drive is an all time classic and a sheer nostalgia overload for me. I've played the arcade game a few times and it's very impressive just how much the Mega Drive port gets right and, in a few cases, even improves on it.

@chilled: the Mega Drive usually has the best arcade ports of its time so I'm not sure why you're so whiny. Some losses have to be expected given the technical differences with arcade boards and ROM size but overall for a 1988 console that only cost $190 at launch, it's quite the treat to have such quality at home.

So many good arcade ports on Mega Drive (Darius II, Columns, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Gain Ground, Marble Madness, Strider, Golden Axe, Puyo Puyo 1 and 2...) and many that are actually better than the arcade versions! (Hellfire, Zero Wing, Atomic Runner, Gauntlet, Snow Bros...).

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Originally Posted by Pyron

MD port is amazng for the time.. the voices is not crispy like the arcade but is more cooler for me...
also you got the parallax and etc..
also i always hate the fact the screen becomes black and white when you face the bosses, thanks that this feture are absent on MD.
another thing that i dosen't like in the arcade is the special animation of dragon.. i thinhk is much better on the md

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The voices sound great indeed and the parallax scrollings is a great addition! But I disagree about the screen that turns black and white when facing the bosses, I think it's a cool feature but I also think that Sega dropped it deliberately to make screenshots looking better on Mega Drive console and game boxes but I might be wrong on this.

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Originally Posted by Yohko16

So many good arcade ports on Mega Drive (Darius II, Columns, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Gain Ground, Marble Madness, Strider, Golden Axe, Puyo Puyo 1 and 2...) and many that are actually better than the arcade versions! (Hellfire, Zero Wing, Atomic Runner, Gauntlet, Snow Bros...).

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You forgot Crack Down.

just fire up MAME after you've played some MD conversions and you'll see exactly what I mean. Golden Axe suffers greatly from the small rom and lack of colors. I agree the 1988-1990 period was impressive for its time, but ports post-Sonic are just... well.

If the arcade version of Crack Down is actually worse than the MD version, then it must truly suck. The MD version is one of the slowest games in the galaxy when playing 2 players. If one goes into the exit, it speeds up so much it feels like an entirely different game. I wonder how they could mess it up so bad. ToeJam & Earl is also split screen, which much more playfield space on screen, yet it doesn't slow down like that.

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Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

You forgot Crack Down.

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As a good port or as a port better than the arcade?

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Originally Posted by chilled

just fire up MAME after you've played some MD conversions and you'll see exactly what I mean. Golden Axe suffers greatly from the small rom and lack of colors. I agree the 1988-1990 period was impressive for its time, but ports post-Sonic are just... well.

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Again I completely disagree and I know about the arcade versions.

Ports post-Sonic?

Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II look good (despite underusing the hardware in terms of resolution and sprites) and are better games than their SNES counterparts.

Puyo Puyo 1 and 2 look better than PC Engine or SNES.

Atomic Runner looks great (much better than the arcade).

Samurai Shodown looks great (just too bad they cheaped on the cart size and thus it lacks one character).

Saturday Night Slam Masters looks good.

Snow Bros. looks great.

Joe & Mac looks good, better than SNES in my opinion (less colors but higher resolution plus better animation not to mention much more sprites onscreen!).

These are the ones I can think of right now. So for a system that was released in 1988 and that only cost $190 at launch, the Mega Drive is simply amazing and has the advantage over its competitors in the areas that matter more (CPU, resolution, sprite capabilities...).


edit: since I'm at it, I've just posted a thread about 4th gen hardware comparison here: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...a-or-PC-Engine. Feel free to share your thoughts there!

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Originally Posted by Yohko16

As a good port or as a port better than the arcade?

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A good port, single player at least.

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Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

A good port, single player at least.

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ok :)

Ye, I noticed Zebbe post. Weird that the game would struggle like that in 2 player mode, it's not like if it was an impressive game by Mega Drive standards.