Technical feats in Genesis games that impressed you.

[kool kitty89]

^^^
God, looks like the Sega CD was useless except in the hands of a select few developers with all of those bottlenecks.

The comparitively weak Genesis hardware and the slow access of that expansion port really FUBAR'd the capabilities of the SCD & 32X port didn't it?

The expansion port is no slower than the cartridge port though: that's not the problem. The big bottleneck for graphics is the Genesis VDP itsself with DMA limitations: same things apply to all genesis games (including virtua racing -hence the screen clipping and limited framerate -though there's also a limit on rendering speed independent of the DMA and VRAM limits).
The 32x bypasses all of that by having separate video, which is often suggested as what should have been done with the CD. (as a top mounted unit and requiring a video mixing cable)

Had the Genesis had dual VRAM banks the limitation would be substancially reduced, though the color limits wouldn't change. (one hypothetical suggestion was to have VRAM selectable as 2x 32 kB banks OR 1x 64 kB bank as it is now -rather than doubling RAM and adding more to cost)

The RAM limitations aren't so bad, but games would need to be designed catering to such a system, different limitations than carts, trade-offs. Straight cart game ports would only work for 256 kB (2 Mbits) or less, past that you need bank switching, and past 768 kB (6 Mbits) you need multiple loads. Mortal Kombat would be the last example, but it also seems like a fiarly bare bones port: they technically could probably have added more animation and almost definitely improved sound samples. (or more sound samples at least -the sample playback isn't too bad compared to some genesis games) Again, you're limited to 64 kB of sound RAM, but you could reload that from main memory if necessary. (but not from CD in-game, too slow, so only reloading that between stages)

The Sega CD is still a lot less limited in any respect than NEC's PC Engine CD, or even the expanded Super CD. The original CD has only 64 kB of program memory (another 64 kB dedicated to the ADPCM chip). The Super CD increased that to 256 kB the same year the Mega CD was released (1991), so still far more limited. (hence why Street Fighter II came out on hucard)
They eventually released the arcade card with 2 MB, but that was a bit late and only a couple games used it iirc. There's also no CD cache in the PCE CD, unlike the MCD.

Ironically, the PC Engine has a comprehensive expansion bus, more than the Genesis cart port has, and had the MD had such most or all of its limitations could have been circumvented (full address range, video and audio mixing through the expansion port, etc -I think even a VDP bus -in the MD's case there's an unused VDP pixel bus which could have come in handy), NEC could have even released the Supergrafx as an add-on with that, but they didn't and used a far simpler CD add-on. (not even adding the supergrafx enhancements to the duo consoles)

Had Sega used the cartridge port for the CD, they could have flat mapped the full 768 kB to main CPU address space, in fact there's a bunch of reserved address space on the cart port. (iirc there's 10 MB total addressed to the cart port, 4 MB used for games and another 2 and 4 MB blocks iirc -I think the 32x used one of those address ranges -as the Sega CD could have in theory)
Otoh, had the expansion port simply been a clone, or near clone fo the cart pinout with similar addressing and singnals on it, that could have been fine too. (and meant the CD wouldn't have to sit on top to benefit. (addign a few more signals like the analog video lines and/or the pixel bus could have been even more useful -and again, similar to the PCE)

Plus the Sega CD still has 256 kB more than the 32x... (and double the program ram -with the word ram configured for ASIC rendering -it's very in configuration similar to the 32x framebuffers -same 80 ns 64x16 kbit FPMDRAM chips actually, the 32x communicates to the MD though the framebuffers too iirc, rather like the word ram)

I'm ranting again though and rehashing some things I've mentioned before.

Wasn't Stellar Fire for the SegaCD? That counts as an addition if you ask me!

Yep, but if you go to the Sega CD the you've got:

Silpheed (impressive for the music particularly -also the FMV is a higher framerate than uncompressed video could be, but shows no compression artifacting -granted it would only need ~2:1 comoression, possibly less).

Novastorm for similar reasons to silpheed. (music at least, though the graphics are a bit too posterized to really pick out compression, no microblocking though -the PC version has it and cutscenes using "cinepak for sega" do too; not too much dithering either, just tons of posterization)

Core's games: Soul Star, BC Racers, BattleCorps, AH-3 Thunderstrike (Thunderhawk)
Clockwork Tortoise's contributions of Batman Returns, Batman and Robbin (nice FMV too -they also did the Genesis Game), and Joe Montana NFL Football. -Imagine if Road Rash had been done like the Batman games. (not to mention all the Sega arcade scalers -including the couple on the 32x)

F-1 Beyond the Limit is the only Japanese game to make significant use of the ASIC. (Sonic CD does a bit, bit not especially well)

I'm sure I'm forgetting some others though.

[gamegenie]

Wasn't Stellar Fire for the SegaCD? That counts as an addition if you ask me!

no, because the conversation in this thread turned to SEGA CD being worthless.

[gamegenie]

There are numerous Sega CD games that are overlooked and underrated.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (wish they gave it an exclusive name because it's nothing like those shitty cartridge multiplats on Genesis, SNES, & GameGear) , was the first console game I played before the arrival of Resident Evil that use to give me the creeps.

[crazyteknohed]

Well, it's not particular impressive to the techies for some FX and such (or more precisely, the demo/homebrew/etc coders), but that's irrelevant. There's a difference between what's impressive for the system(capability) and what's impressive to the gamer. A good coder is a lot like a magician. He/she will make you think the system is doing more than what it's capable of. But if it impresses you, then it impresses you Nobody can tell you otherwise. Unless someone asks specifically, I'm not going to mention how something is done (or unless it's a tech discussion about what system can do what). Gamers in general like the mysteries and magic of their beloved systems (even if it means being ignorant. Sometimes it's true that being ignorant is blissful. It keeps things impressive, magical, and mysterious).

The difference in opinion between gamers and devs is only too true, Tommy, as exemplified here:

I've heard this before, but I don't get it, all I see is normal 2 layer parallax scrolling, nothing special -other than it using both vertical and horizontal scrolling at different rates for both layers. (prerendered graphics aside)

My point is it looks impressive. It produces an effect similar to that of Clockwork Knight which is a 32-bit game on a 32-bit system. Back in 1995, having a game which looked almost 'next-gen' on my old and battered 16-bit Megadrive certainly impressed me. It might not tax the hardware or use any trickery but the point is that the developer came up with a simple (according to you) method to imitate 3D and that is creative at least, if nothing else.

That's the SNES version in that clip you know, right?

Sorry, my bad. But it looks identical, at least it does on a grainy Youtube clip.

That's not rotation, it's title by tile scrolling, rather like the "rotating" demo in the Afterburner 2 intro. (in fact, that might be a GB layer doing tile by tile scrolling, not sprites)

Okay, here we go again, techies pissing on our parade. It might not be rotation and it might not be a sprite, but it certainly looks like a sprite and it is indeed rotating. Whether it's an impressive technical feat or not, the developer is making it look like the hardware is doing something it's not designed to do, ie sprite rotation.

[retrospiel]

kool kitty 89 is not a dev. Just someone who read too many spec lists and thinks a good SCD game has to be a good tech demo. =P

[kool kitty89]

no, because the conversation in this thread turned to SEGA CD being worthless.

No, not worthless, but with trade-offs vs carts... (also dependent on ROM speed used -slow ROMS having less of an advantage)
Simple ports of existing Genesis games would benefit little or not at all: the more the game is modified to the specific advantages of the CD, the more it can be improved. (it's not as fundamentally limited by RAM as the Super CD -SFII could probably have been done fine, let alone the skimpy original CD-ROM^2)

Beyond that you can do things that are not possible at all on the MD. (graphically and in terms of sound) It really is a different system in general. (the Super CD is equivalent to having games distributed among multiple 256 kB hucards along with the added audio -and in rare cases, streaming video) The Sega CD could be used that way (though with 3x 256 kB banks per load rather than 1 on the Super CD), or it could do much more. (unfortunately limited by design choices/tradeoffs and fundamental limitations of the MD's hardware and expansion provisions)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (wish they gave it an exclusive name because it's nothing like those shitty cartridge multiplats on Genesis, SNES, & GameGear) , was the first console game I played before the arrival of Resident Evil that use to give me the creeps.

Yeah, that one's got a pretty interesting use of streaming backgrounds used for a 2D sidescroller. In terms of gameplay it's a mixed bag, up to personal preference. (but that's true of a lot of games that get tagged as mediocre)

My point is it looks impressive. It produces an effect similar to that of Clockwork Knight which is a 32-bit game on a 32-bit system. Back in 1995, having a game which looked almost 'next-gen' on my old and battered 16-bit Megadrive certainly impressed me. It might not tax the hardware or use any trickery but the point is that the developer came up with a simple (according to you) method to imitate 3D and that is creative at least, if nothing else.

Yes, but I'm not only speaking from a technical POV, but from personal experience and how I never even noticed anything special in that sense. (in years of playing the SNES version -which is generally similar (at age ~9-12), I think running at a different resolution and less dithering or posterization due to more color)
I really didn't even get what people were talking about: I noticed the graphical style (prerendered 3D for much of it), the animation, and the neat crane machine level, but that's about it.
More recently, when I look at the Genesis version specifically it's also got pretty decent use of GEMS and pretty clear digitized sound samples. (there's also the software mod player at the intro)

Sorry, my bad. But it looks identical, at least it does on a grainy Youtube clip.

Yeah, just pointing that out. (the sound made me do a double take -obviously not the genesis)

Okay, here we go again, techies pissing on our parade. It might not be rotation and it might not be a sprite, but it certainly looks like a sprite and it is indeed rotating. Whether it's an impressive technical feat or not, the developer is making it look like the hardware is doing something it's not designed to do, ie sprite rotation.

It's a cool effect, but not rotating though, it's sliding in columns from what I can see. (the effect used in ABII is a bit different though, and does use sprites for sure -ABII on the PC Engine has an even more elaborate example of that "3D" effect)

You could to sprite rotation with animation, which is what is done in many cases (going back to the NES at least -I'd stay the 2600 to be honest -I think Combat uses that method ca 1977). Same thing for "scaling" in many cases, just animation.
Sometimes there are actual software effects applied, and later in that Puggsy video, that scaling head (which does look like real scaling, not animation) really caught my eye. Wolf 3D on the SNES uses software scaling, I think Lawnmower Man does too. (on SNES and Genesis, for the virtual reality portions) I'm not sure of the "sprite" portions of Duke Nukem 3D, Battle Frenzy or Zero Tolerance, but the backgrounds seem to use software raycasting and texture mapping.

Games like Panorama Cotton or Batman and Robbin have a lot of impressive tricks used, with a good amount of animation mixed in. (I think most of the "scaled" sprites in panorama cotton are just animation -but using more cart space than many older games like Space Harrier 2, ABII, STB, etc) I think there's some actual software rendering in portions of the bg, and definitely some neat tricks at the very least.

Another mention would be the horizontal scaling/scanline effect used in Axelay or the 3D Blast special stages. (I think a similar effect was used for the rotating cylinder effect in Castlevania IV)

NES games that appear to have 2 BG scrolling layers are impressive to me, same for Genesis games that appear to have 3 (or more) layers. Not talking line scrolling parallax effects, but actual independent layers. (I think at least one of the acts in Hydrocity Zone does this, or maybe I'm mixing things up)


And again, there's the sound side of things too.

kool kitty 89 is not a dev. Just someone who read too many spec lists and thinks a good SCD game has to be a good tech demo. =P

No I'm not. (not yet at least ) And it goes way beyond spec lists, but discussions and finding out what the specs actually mean in useful conditions, that and things that aren't listed (or are incorrect) in such specs lists. (outside of official hardware docs -but it goes past that for undocumented features too)

But no, I don't think it has to make a good tech demo, but I do think those which make good tech demos are the most *technically* impressive.
Those games show the wasted potential for the platform, particularly with the amount of arcade games Sega had which the added capabilities catered to.

Things like artwork and carefully chosen color palettes with the MD's 4 palette 9-bit RGB limits (plus HL/Shadow effects) can be impressive too, but no moreso on the CD than the vanilla genesis.
Good arrange CD audio is also impressive, but not technically. (doing so with the native hardware is technically impressive -I'd initially thought Silpheed was streaming audio and had to pay closer attention to realize the difference between the CD-DA bonus tracks and the in-game music)

Now I certainly think such "tech demo" games can be good in their own right, but I doubt I'd care much for Joe Montana NFL... (It does look nice -the resolution used for the players probably could have been higher though) I don't care that much for BC Racers either.

Batman Returns, Batman and Robbin, Stellar Fire, Soul Star, Battle Corps, AH-3 Thunderstrike, Silpheed, NovaStorm, and such are good games IMO. (the difficulty curve is a big high in some, and may be less playable for some than others)
It would have been great to have ports of games like Thunder Blade, Galaxy Force, Space Harrier, After Burner, Out Run, etc (or a version of Road Rash rivaling the 32-bit incarnations with graphics like Clockwork Tortoise pushed).


I think there was a portion of anderoid assault where there looked to be a munch of stacked BG layers (not simple line scrolling), which may be possible on the MD alone, but it certainly caught my eye. (one part in particular with what looked like skyscrapers in the bar BG)



A "good" game, is different (but not mutually exclusive) from a "technically impressive" one. And there's a blur of other less technical impressive aspects as well. (musical compositions and art style -opposed to more technical aspects like palette optimization or musical instrument quality of the sound engine, or PCM playback clarity)

I think that we'd agree that Tiido's sound engine in itself is technically impressive, but the compositions and remixes he's done (while perhaps demonstrating the technical aspects of the engine -and his programming ability) are also impressive on a non-technical level. (and I'm not partial to all of his compositions, but that's personal taste -I don't really like the really harsh sounding metal synth stuff -sometimes just that instrument of a composition, not the composition as a whole either)

[Pulstar]

I don't know. Stellar Fire is by far the most powerful looking game on Sega home 16-bitters that required no additional chip-add on additions to achieve it's real 3D experience, nice catchy music with an alluring space world that can not be beat.

It's good developers who made great Games on SEGA CD.

Sierra/Dynamix
Sony Imagesoft (before they went PlayStation)
TruVideo (which I now think was another division of SEGA studios)
Psychosis
JVC
Deep Water (division of SEGA studios)
Digital Pictures
SEGA

Is CORE unworthy of being in that distinguished group? :p

[Elusive]

Rocket Knight Adventures: there's obvious stuff like the screen-warping effect when you're running from the wall of fire in the castle (2-1), the emergence of the final final boss, and the sheer level of detail in the character art and background detail - but I'm really, really in awe about the music that's being pumped out of the Mega Drive. The fact that the same audio chip that gave us GEMS also gave us Stage 1-2's theme is bewildering!

[Silanda]

Just going back to the Mortal Kombat CD memory discussion, it's not quite a simple port as it has a fair amount of animation that was missing from the cart version. In the cart version the standing animations had been butchered and Scorpion and Sub Zero were just palette swaps, these problems were fixed in the CD version. It may not be fair to compare the two directly but if we remove what I believe to be the intro video, the CD version still seems to weigh in at around 64 Megabits. I must admit to finding that slightly perplexing though as that is bigger than the original arcade ROMs.

[M4R14NO94]

Regarding voices:

@0:28 - "Paul Bunyan"?!?!? That reminds me of an episode of Phineas & Ferb (YES I WATCH IT). "Paul Bunyan's! Restaurant, but it's not really good, eh?"
@0:58-1:04 - The voices in Task Force Harrier EX are IM-PRE-SSIVE!
@1:29 - Fischerspooner?

JIZZ IN MY PANTS!

[Mark Robert]

The later levels in Mickey Mania are some of the most gorgeous scenes on the Genesis. Seriously, the lavish detail in the levels coupled with the big, extremely well animated enemy sprites makes this game a sight to behold. Just turn on the game and watch the demo. In one earlier level, you ride up and escalator and there's about 7 or 8 levels of parallax happening. The whole game is quite visually impressive imho.

[kool kitty89]

Is CORE unworthy of being in that distinguished group?

Or Clockwork Tortoise. (driving portions of Batman Returns -and Batman and Robin and Joe Montana NFL -plus MD batman and robin) Those were all Sega published iirc (and Batman Returns recycled Malibu's genesis platforming stages), but all developed by Clockwork Tortoise. (and all lead by John and O'Brien)

I don't know. Stellar Fire is by far the most powerful looking game on Sega home 16-bitters that required no additional chip-add on additions to achieve it's real 3D experience, nice catchy music with an alluring space world that can not be beat.

It did used an add-on though: the Sega CD with the added CPU, ASIC, and RAM. I think the ASIC might have helped a little bit with the polygon rendering; it does convert bitmap graphics to MD tiles on the fly -it can't actually rasterize triangles on its own though -much more useful if you wanted texture mapping though) You've got that 12.5 MHz 68000 to help out with 3D math and rasterization (on top of the MD CPU); Fonzy once mentioned that polygon rendering could probably be done 3x as fast on the MD+CD than the MD alone.

[kool kitty89]

Oh, neat, one more Sega CD game I hadn't know about: Jaguar XJ220, by Core, and correspondingly, Joe's Sega CD scaling video:

And another I'd forgotten about: Night Striker by Taito.

Plus I didn't explicitly mention Cliff Hanger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k80dODWdj9I



Note BloodShot/Battle Frenzy doesn't make use of the CD's added hardware, that was an error. (and a long corrected one that that)

[Flygon]

I have actually been quite impressed by the voice samples in Mega Lo Mania (Or Tyrants: Battle through Time for you Americans). They're some of the clearest I've heard on the Mega Drive... then again, when they take up almost half of the cartridge space (This is an 8 megabit cart), they'd better be good.

Too bad they don't make up for a somewhat lackluster soundtrack.

[sega_game]

Sonic 3d was a pretty good looking game even if it was clunky control wise. It had some pretty nice looking graphics, good looking characters and a nice intro. It may not have been one of the better sonic games but I can't deny that it it looks pretty good.