Paprium: The Official Thread Mk 2

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Originally Posted by QuickSciFi

What, that?

Oh no, buddy, don't sell yourself short. You and I both know you've already managed to say way more hateful things than that about Paprium and its developers.

Allow me to help you with that:

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If you consider that more hateful than the cat litter remark, I should be laughing out loud and not on the inside
right about now.

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Originally Posted by Gadispalembang

If you consider that more hateful than the cat litter remark, I should be laughing out loud and not on the inside
right about now.

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Yup. You have no filter.

Here's a joke: How many Fonzies does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None, they won't finish the task.
What if Tulio is present? If he's allowed to help, a few seconds. If he can only provide encouragement,
maybe next year?

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Originally Posted by Gadispalembang

Here's a joke: How many Fonzies does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None, they won't finish the task.
What if Tulio is present? If he's allowed to help, a few seconds. If he can only provide encouragement,
maybe next year?

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Still think you're not trolling?

Even Tulio has managed to provide positive feedback and has remained within the confines of respectful discourse.

You, on the other hand, have chosen to only express pedantic and hateful commentary.

*reads it all*

Le sigh ._.

Only thing I could see possibly obvious to criticize is the hues used in the shading, and I can easily see why they went that route (helps give more of a psychodelic feeling, while also dealing with the fact they only have 61 colors to toy with - pretty sure a lot of the odd shades are to work around this limit). Also still frames on their own are not that great, more often than not I need to leave frames in an animation look ugly on their own because you actually need them that way so they work properly while animated (the brain is very good at detecting inconsistencies in motion).

Also the complaint here seems to be that it isn't trying to go the ultrahyperrealistic way.

EDIT: by the way, this is pretty much the best looking beat'em-up I've seen for that hardware generation. Consider why better looking ones aren't a thing =P

I almost wish this was a Master System game, then people wouldn't be complaining about the shading so much.

Can't complain about the shades if the hardware doesn't provide many good ones. :p

oh please don't start picking it to pieces! I actually want this game to appear this year! :D

It's too early to draw any conclusions about this game until someone has actually played it, but it looks promising. The silly name still bugs me though.

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Originally Posted by Gogogadget

He said the code was stolen from Slaughter Sport.

You didn't think he was being serious right?

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I feel ashamed but I thought he was. Sincere apologies :)

To my defense, his post was quoted in another (french) board, with no context (and no mention of Fatman) (I didn't know it was also called Slaughter Sport).

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Originally Posted by AggroSky

Good old Barone, always keeping me honest! Yeah I agree man. Last night my hype-o-meter was in overdrive.

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No problem. I think we're allowed to get hyped every 20 years or so.

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Originally Posted by AggroSky

Although by 16-bit game I meant the consoles, obviously not the arcade! But from what I've seen so far, Paprium looks to measure up to a lot of Neo Geo games I've seen, in terms of graphics and details. But yeah, not every scene looked perfect, the sunset walk seemed a bit drab and lacking in the detail dept for instance.

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We probably differ more in terms of how we name things than what we actually think about the graphics of Paprium.

Detailed graphics IMO imply good texturing and that's an area Paprium still leaves a lot to be desired.
In terms of character sprites, the good ones are as textured as Comix Zone's (an AAA western game). The OK ones remind me Water Margin (a first rate Chinese game) but with inferior shading. The bad ones remind me the worst ones you can find in Generals of the Yang Family (a second rate Chinese game).
The tiles, overall, look better than the sprites in this regard but some scenarios still have large portions of solid colors.

What you're referring to IMO is more related to the variety of tiles and the amount of sprites on screen. In both aspects, I agree, several of the trailer segments and the screenshots show stuff that seem superior to what we've seen on SOR2 and SOR3, for an example.
Paprium graphics are rich but not necessarily well detailed and defined. There's also perspective issues in several of its drawings, including the backgrounds.

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Originally Posted by AggroSky

But you have to admit, screen shots like this really look great:
In contrast, Streets of Rage 2's boat level:

Let's see... We've got some water, a horizon, stars, some railing with an axe, and a repeating floor texture. A few nicks in the railing for a worn look, I'll give it that. But comon man, I mean, there is no comparison really. Streets or Rage 2 is great, but to me Paprium is taking it to a new level. A lot of it probably has to do with all the extra space. That 80 megs is making for lots of room.

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Again, for things like tile variety the 80 Mbit cart can do wonders.
But art is still the key factor here IMO. You can have as much sprites more as you want on the screen, if they don't look good the game will not look good.

And the art styles are very different IMO. I cited Comix Zone not only because of its drawing but also the funky use of shading - this is something Japanese artists would usually avoid.

For what I've seen and read so far, Paprium has:

Pros
- Big sprites
- Lots of enemies and objects (that you can grab) on screen
- Tile variety looks better than most MD games I can remember.

Cons
- Contour and shading are inconsistent across the characters.
- Perspective and proportion issues both on character sprites and on the backgrounds (minor).
- Lack of detail/texturing.

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Originally Posted by AggroSky

Anyway, give me some more examples Barone of super detailed games on the Genesis. I want to see! :D

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Again, if you're talking details and not "amount of stuff thrown at you at once", there's a lot.

Wings of Wor is a very good one, yes. It doesn't have tile variety but most of its bosses are extremely detailed.

The main characters and bosses of Crude Buster are also very good examples IMO. Muscles and clothes are very well detailed (and their transition from one frame to another is usually very, very good); shading is excellent too (the original color choices for the MD version aren't great but all the shades are there).

But, still, the best comparison I could draw is Comix Zone (also due to the funky palette usage), especially in terms of backgrounds:

http://www.arkade.com.br/wp-content/...0/IMG-1875.png

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...b676f1def4.png


I don't think Paprium is light-years ahead of any of that as you said.
But you know what's funny? Paprium graphics have more or less the same strong/weak points of Bio-Hazard Battle; whose graphics I've been advocating and you said in our previous discussion that you see nothing special on it (or something in those lines). But it's pretty much the same deal: lots of different stuff on screen but the detail per background tile and the sprite shading (for the most part) aren't good actually (Paprium's would be more the foreground instead though).

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Originally Posted by AggroSky

I guess what I mean is that when I look at Paprium (for the most part) it looks like the place is lived in and used. When I look at those Streets of Rage 2 shots, they look almost sterile. Just super slick and clean with lots of repeating textures. I guess it could just be the style, I don't know. It also helps that Papriums sprites are so huge, as you can create more detail with larger characters and environments. And like I said, Paprium is an 80 MEG game, Streets of Rage 2 was 16, they had to be much more conservative. So the comparison isn't really fair to begin with.

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Like I said, I think we kind of agree but what you call detail is not what I call detail.

I just would like to add this: it doesn't matter if Paprium uses an 80 Mbit or an 800 Mbit cartridge; the lacking MD palette will always hurt it. If you go funky with the palette slot distribution - in order to have more colors to choose from for each object and character - you'll end up having transitions from brown to pink in a single step (which also happen with Comix Zone). Some people don't see a problem in it, others do; but it's an issue for the artists, that's for sure.
If you're more orthodox about it (statically allocating palettes and palette slots for certain objects; foreground vs background, etc.), you'll end up reducing the shades because you ran out of proper color tones.

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Originally Posted by Gadispalembang

Considering the limitations, I find all of those points meaningless. All I see in those Paprium screenshots are a bunch of
inconsistent sprites with some questionable proportions. The issue here is that you think Paprium's backgrounds look good just because of the lack of repeating tiles. I am not a big fan of repeating tiles, no, but I prefer them when they're nice and detailed as opposed to whatever Paprium has thrown in.

These are larger sprites to work with for the backgrounds in Paprium, it is more difficult to achieve great detail in a reasonable time frame. I just wish the detail in Wings of Wor (and an assortment of other Genesis games) were also incorporated in Paprium.

All that aside, even if the graphics do not improve, it's really the gameplay that matters most. I still hope it's at least nearly as good as SOR2/3!

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This.
But since you used harsh words to make your point in previous posts, people will prefer to pile on you instead of bringing any good arguments.
This is how this thread works. Childish hype and blind praise is allowed, harsh criticism is not.

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Originally Posted by tryphon

I feel ashamed but I thought he was. Sincere apologies :)

To my defense, his post was quoted in another (french) board, with no context (and no mention of Fatman) (I didn't know it was also called Slaughter Sport).

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Ahh you're French, so i'm guessing English isn't your first language.

Yeah context can be pretty easy to miss when translating, and that game has about 1 million names (and sucks). Happens to us all from time to time haha

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Originally Posted by Barone

Paprium graphics have more or less the same strong/weak points of Bio-Hazard Battle;

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That game never gets enough love! The backgrounds were always an issue for me they are particularly sparse in places!

I agree there are some odd spots of janky shading on some sprites going on here and there, even in the context of being in a style like Comix Zone, which is a good comparison. It would be nice if these were polished up for sure. It's hard to argue those purple visor dudes wouldn't indeed look better with three layers of shading on their pants. Overall though I am quite pleased with the sprites and very happy with the backgrounds, and I think it will all look awesome through a CRT in the end.

There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism, we don't want boards dedicated to any subject being an echo chamber for one-note hype. But the manner in which you present your criticism here will go a long way.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

I agree there are some odd spots of janky shading on some sprites going on here and there, even in the context of being in a style like Comix Zone, which is a good comparison. It would be nice if these were polished up for sure. It's hard to argue those purple visor dudes wouldn't indeed look better with three layers of shading on their pants. Overall though I am quite pleased with the sprites and very happy with the backgrounds, and I think it will all look awesome through a CRT in the end.

There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism, we don't want boards dedicated to any subject being an echo chamber for one-note hype. But the manner in which you present your criticism here will go a long way.

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Yes, I agree.

As others have mentioned, the comparison to Comix Zone is apt, WM seems to be going for a comic book like feel with Paprium, and I think they nailed it. If you're doing art in a comic book style, having three vs two layers of shading gives it a very different "feel." The sprites from Wings of Wor were going for a more rounded look, and that's fine, but they would be totally out of place in the world of Paprium. If you don't like what they're doing, that's fine, you're more than welcome to upstage WM by making your own game.