Pal Ikaruga rubbish conversion?

[Strider]

I've heard that it doesnt run at 60Htz and frams of animation have been taken out to make it run faster, is this correct?

[yashiro]

There was a big discussion in the PAL forum some time ago.

A search pulls up these links:

Ikaruga PAL GC

Gamecube - 50Hz Optimized PAL Games - Question

[craptest]

That's correct. There is no 60HZ option and the in game speed was retained by dropping frames of animation. However it is far from being a bad PAL conversion. If you can get the local release do so!!

I imported my PAL copy from the UK (the PAL release got cancelled in Australia) and I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. Reading all the negaitve posts I was expecting a WaveRace 64 (or DMC ft: ) type conversion. Not the case.

If you don't have an NTSC cube and dont fancy using the freeloader then definately buy the localised Ikaruga. You will be HAPPY!!

[Lyris]

It depends really, some people (I'm one of them) are very visually sensitive to dropped frames so I didn't find the PAL Ikaruga I played in a store pod very nice to look at (although it might not have been the final version that was released). Of course it does have it's advantages, like the higher number of lines which makes the horizontal mode nicer looking.

[Vaipon]

Someone who plays shmups a great deal will notice the dropped frames straight away, they will stick out like a sore thumb. I find it a bit stupid of Treasure to not have included a 60hz mode, there is no reason that they couldn't of left it in. I can see a PAL conversion a mile off though, and GC Ikaruga is no exception. I can't think of one single situation where an NTSC designed game has benefitted from having a "PAL optimised" display, the dropped frames or the speed difference are always worse imo.

These people saying that they prefer the PAL resolution because it makes the graphics look clearer are talking rubbish imo too. The game was designed for NTSC from the word go. This was the system it was developed and played on. Even when not running in Tate mode, the developers decided that the viewing area of the screen was perfectly adequate, and I know that people can finish the NTSC version of Ikaruga on 1 credit while playing in landscape mode. There is never a point where bullets are difficult to see, Ikaruga is one of the clearest shooters ever. The game was playtested and the screensize in NTSC was determined to be fine (if it wasn't, they would of screwed around with the aspect ratio or the enemy/bullet size until it was). The extra PAL resolutution isn't really necessary to the player at all (especially in Tate), give me the proper frame rate anyday.

As far as PAL conversions go, GC Ikaruga is definintely preferable to situations where they have just slowed things down by displaying all the NTSC frames (DMC for example). Still, if you have the option of buying the JApanese or American version, take that instead. You'll be playing the game exactly how the designers meant it to be played.

[rjpageuk]

There would have been another problem with a "slowed" version of Ikaruga - the online scoreboard.

It would have been a great deal easier to score high scores with a slowed down version of the game so it was imperative that any conversion did not change the speed of the game.

This is probably why the frame skipping method was used.