Battle of the Ports

[Team Andromeda]

The Mega Drive doesn't use magic compression, so an 8mb cart would have come with the same problems.

The likes of Streets Of Rage , Altered beast , Golden Axe and so on were early games and just 4 Meg carts. All had 2 player modes and lots of sprites on screen.

The SNES actually has a lot of tricks up its sleeve to help programmers with performance

That it did (that can be said about most systems), but mode 7 and the various other Snes tricks weren't going to help with a CP-1 Arcade port of a game like Final Fight. Quite a few Snes games had issues with slowdown or even seeing the 2 player modes being dropped, not just from Capcom either . The Snes CPU for certain type of games really helped back developers.

The simple fact is - games development was in its infancy and far from as professional as it was today. If we had had the same standards and approach to development as we have to today back then

I think it was more of a factor that Japan just didn't back the format at all. Add that to the Amiga developers not having the soruce code had to developer the game with small teams in just a few months and in some cases not even having the Arcade game they meant to be porting in office and had to video tape the game in the Arcades

[nakamura]

I cannot believe what I'm reading in here.

[Leon Retro]

The likes of Streets Of Rage , Altered beast , Golden Axe and so on were early games and just 4 Meg carts. All had 2 player modes and lots of sprites on screen.

Number of sprites on the screen and 2 player mode has nothing to do with rom size. You think that Capcom could have magically put more graphics onto an 8mb Mega Drive cart, but I don't know how???

I agree that a Mega Drive Final Fight would have had more sprites on the screen and probably a 2 player mode. But I'm just saying that the SNES port could have been much better than it was. With a 16mb cart, you could have more levels and better quality music, but there would still be issues, such as a lack of enemy sprites.

That it did (that can be said about most systems), but mode 7 and the various other Snes tricks weren't going to help with a CP-1 Arcade port of a game like Final Fight.

Of course the Mega Drive with its 68000 CPU and VDP was much more suited to running CPS-1 games, but the SNES could still deliver a reasonable version of Final Fight. I really wish Capcom had released a 16mb Final Fight a bit later, when developers had really got to grips with the SNES' hardware, as I'm sure, despite lacking enemy sprites, it would have been far nicer than what we got.

I think it was more of a factor that Japan just didn't back the format at all. Add that to the Amiga developers not having the soruce code had to developer the game with small teams in just a few months and in some cases not even having the Arcade game they meant to be porting in office and had to video tape the game in the Arcades

But the fact is - Japanese publishers were far more professional when it came to development. If the Amiga had been popular in Japan, I'm sure all the arcade ports would have been far better. But at least some talented people in the UK managed to do a good job, as shown with The New Zealand Story & Rainbow Islands. Those games set a benchmark for the Amiga in 1989, but few Amiga developers could deliver that sort of quality. The gaming industry in the West was just too amateurish back then.

[nakamura]

Yeah from people who never played on the system, which always winds me up a little. Even back in those early days developers would favour one type of system and take the easy route of trying to port code over, instead of trying to use each system to its fullest.

Funnily enough, this is what EA did with the SNES...


Leon, spot on, ROM size does not denote number sprites on screen. The reason Final Fight lacked Guy and a level was that fact it was on an 8mb ROM and it simply wasn't big enough. The lack of a two player mode we can only guess but lack of time, expertise with the system to get it running well etc. Super Turrican was only a 4mb cart and that moved a lot of sprites around very quickly indeed.
The SNES Final Fight is still quite frantic to play despite the lack of sprites, something the later games lacked.

The MD could have certainly housed a very cool port without the need for MCD, although as busy as SoR1 was for the time, it only ran at 30fps and SoR2 is certainly impressive but the sprites aren't quite as large as in Final Fight iirc.

[samanosuke]

The only bad point of the Amiga is in its standard, most efficient graphics mode, it only displays 32 colours. So half the colours a Mega Drive delivers - and far fewer than Capcom's CPS-1.

In danger of splitting hairs here, very few (if any?) Megadrive games actually reached anything close to the full 64 colours (source: Sega 16 forum) for one reason or another. Factor in the Amiga's vastly superior palette and a lot of the time Amiga games looked more colourful than their Megadrive counterparts, on screen colour limitation notwithstanding.

Just look at the likes of Dune (Mega CD), Flashback and T2 Arcade on both machines and tell me which looks the more colourful.

[Team Andromeda]

You think that Capcom could have magically put more graphics onto an 8mb Mega Drive cart, but I don't know how?

Capcom no matter the size of the Cart would have been able to do a far better job of it on the Mega Drive for a Final Fight type of game , where as you could say that the Snes would have been far more able to handle a port of Metal Hawk and the MD just wouldn't be able to cope with it . And yes any decent developer, will be able to push a machine more with bigger carts and getting more use to the hardware . Of course when ones dares to say that against some early games Snes or MD, there's hell to play .

But the fact is - Japanese publishers were far more professional when it came to development

Better on consoles for the most part. I wouldn't say that means there were more professional . There were some pretty amazing games coming from Western developers in the 16 bit days be that on the PC or consoles. They were making some really good stuff onthe PC.

The reason Final Fight lacked Guy and a level was that fact it was on an 8mb ROM and it simply wasn't big enough.

Or maybe it was also down the Snes CPU which wasn't bit great in some aera's; Golden Axe was just a 4 Meg cart and it kept the 2 player mode and all the Arcade levels. Slowdown was more of an issue to Snes games Mega Drive had a rubbish colour pallet and a joke of a sound chip and those what it real short comings, the Snes main one was the CPU

All systems had their good and minus points and we all should be more than grown up about it to realise it

[buster_broon]

How come the SFC did such a great job with the Streetfighter series but it took a massive 24Meg cart for the mega drive to pull it off, which also had terrible sound (from memory)

Just a question for the tech heads

[Team Andromeda]

How come the SFC did such a great job with the Streetfighter series but it took a massive 24Meg cart for the mega drive to pull it off, which also had terrible sound (from memory)

Just a question for the tech heads

Mega Drive only had one sample channel and so couldn't play simultaneous speech samples , music wise its closer to the Arcade . Btw the MD version of SF II was 24Meg because it had all the speech, the intro and the new animations and moves found in various Arcade upgrade made at the time

[nakamura]

Oh my God. Jesus wept, TA, I'm out.

[buster_broon]

I was led to believe it was more the SNES hyper fighting content that was added, not the arcade updates!

[Team Andromeda]

I was led to believe it was more the SNES hyper fighting content that was added, not the arcade updates!

Turbo and Championship edition also came to the Arcades via an Upgrade chips

[Leon Retro]

The SNES Final Fight is still quite frantic to play despite the lack of sprites, something the later games lacked.

Yeah, the lack of enemy sprites wasn't a big problem. I have even known people to say they prefer having less enemies to deal with. But whatever people prefer, it's just a fact that the SNES couldn't push as many big sprites around as the arcade version.

So my point about the SNES version is that I'm sure it could have come far closer to the coin-op given a 16mb cart and better programming. Because it was an early game and 8mb was the norm, it really felt like a let down and with hindsight a missed opportunity.

The MD could have certainly housed a very cool port without the need for MCD, although as busy as SoR1 was for the time, it only ran at 30fps and SoR2 is certainly impressive but the sprites aren't quite as large as in Final Fight iirc.

Yeah, Final Fight would have worked well on the Mega Drive. SoR1 was quite impressive upon release, but little did we know how Sega would push the Mega Drive far more with SoR2. The second game really is a stunning achievement in all areas.

In danger of splitting hairs here, very few (if any?) Megadrive games actually reached anything close to the full 64 colours (source: Sega 16 forum) for one reason or another. Factor in the Amiga's vastly superior palette and a lot of the time Amiga games looked more colourful than their Megadrive counterparts, on screen colour limitation notwithstanding.

If you want a perfect example of the Amiga's problems with 32 colours on screen compared to the Mega Drive, play Alien Storm. The Amiga version tries to replicate the coin-op and looks quite horrible, whereas the Mega Drive delivers a far closer to the arcade look. This sort of thing can be seen in other arcade ports to both systems, such as Golden Axe. It's clear that the Amiga is displaying 32 colours, whereas the Mega Drive can deliver more. Maybe not the full 64, but certainly quite a bit more than 32.

But I know that the Amiga did have a few tricks to give the impression of more colours on the screen, but that was mostly with gradient backgrounds, like those see in RoboCod. But with arcade ports of games that weren't designed for the Amiga's hardware, it's clear that the Amiga was displaying 32 colours and that the Mega Drive versions looked quite a bit nicer.

Better on consoles for the most part. I wouldn't say that means there were more professional . There were some pretty amazing games coming from Western developers in the 16 bit days be that on the PC or consoles. They were making some really good stuff onthe PC.

It's just a fact that Japanese publishers were far more professional in their approach to game development. The rest of the world was far more amateurish at that time, but it doesn't mean there weren't genius Western programmers doing cool things.

[Yakumo]

Mega Drive had a rubbish colour pallet and a joke of a sound chip and those what it real short comings, the Snes main one was the CPU

No no no no! The Mega Drive does not have a joke of a sound chip. Western developers had a joke of a sound engine and skills. In the right hands (mostly Japanese) the Mega Drive could sound amazing! There is nothing wrong with the Mega Drive sound chip at all.
Actually I'm currently in the middle of producing a Mega Drive music album collection. I'll be making it public once it's completely done.

[Team Andromeda]

No no no no! The Mega Drive does not have a joke of a sound chip.

The fact that the MD only had hardware 1 channel for PCM or Sample playback really hurt the MD for music that used any sort of real instruments . It really should have more more hardware support for sample channels. Sure there were a lot of good sounding games on the MD (and quite a few by Western developers) But compared to the best of the Snes, its not even close and I didn't like the tinny sound found in a lot of Mega Drive games either.

The Amiga version tries to replicate the coin-op and looks quite horrible, whereas the Mega Drive delivers a far closer to the arcade look

C'Mon that's not really fair . The MD port was done by like a team of 10 or more In-House staff with full access to the Arcade code, the Arcade team (in those days of SEGA the Arcade staff were on the same floor as the consumer staff) and the best tools SEGA could provide the console team with , unlike the Amiga port done by a handful of staff playing the Arcade in the office (if they were lucky) no access to the Arcade team and could dream on with getting access to the source code.

[Team Andromeda]

Oh my God. Jesus wept, TA, I'm out.

Its so sad that you always have to do this with anything Super Famicom . Its like that system is a prophet and any sort of decent is blasphemy and will not be tolerated.