Battle of the Ports

[importaku]

It's essential you get the permanent powerups from all the boss rooms to be able to pull it off as the fairy shield & box of wings are vital for the later levels. The hardest bit is getting the damn diamonds to fall in the right parts of the screen, it's so easy to screw up missing them especially on levels that have tiny platforms for them to land on.

Still it's a fantastic game that has aged extremely well, still as fun to play as ever.

[Nu-Eclipse]

At the risk of being controversial (and let's face it, not for the first time on here), I feel that Parasol Stars is a superior game.

[nakamura]

I fully agree.

[samanosuke]

At the risk of being controversial (and let's face it, not for the first time on here), I feel that Parasol Stars is a superior game.

Not played it since it was released so could be a case of rose-tintedness here, but as I recall the Amiga conversion was uncharacteristically excellent.

Played - and still own - the PCE version and that is great too, especially with a mate.

[S3M]

Another good episode, the MD version wasn't glitched the arcade extra version has the same black backgrounds. One thing that annoyed me with a lot of the of the home computer ports is they totally removed the final 3 islands meaning you never got to see the proper ending as after all 7 diamonds were collected you just got the bad ending and that was your lot.

Yeah Graftgold did an ace port for the Amiga version, but it's a real shame it didn't include the extra islands. I believe it was done to the publisher not wanting to put the games on two disc.

The Saturn & PlayStation version is based on Graftgold code and doesn't include the extra islands as a result. It was also Graftgold's last game as they called it a day due to the rising costs of games.

Parasol Stars on the Amiga is also superb another ace port, perhaps better than the PC-Engine version and includes all the hidden world this time around too.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Let's be crystal clear: Amiga Parasol Stars is a decent port with some decent touches, but it really isn't as good as the PCE original (remember: there is no Parasol Stars coin-op).

[importaku]

I have played parasol stars, It's still a good game but it lacks the depth of rainbow islands, been trapped in single screens with a clunky umbrella mechanic doesn't help things once that thing is charged up you move slow as hell making for some frustrating deaths on later levels.

I much prefer the secrets in rainbow islands as they take a lot of skill to pull off, there are powerups so rare that there are ones that people still don't know the condtions to make them appear.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Personally, I find Rainbow Islands' rainbow mechanic to be more clunky than that of Parasol Stars, especially when it comes to dispatching enemies.

But each to their own.

[Leon Retro]

SNES audio always sounded muffled. Kind of daft having sampled based audio when you only have small capacity carts to store games on. The hardware filter was necessary to hide the low quality samples. Ruined some cracking compositions. And seems even worse next to good clear FM audio.

Lots of SNES games have music that sounds terrible, but it was down to developer ineptitude, not the SNES hardware or cartridge size being the problem. Listen to the best music the console has to offer, in games such as F-Zero, Castlevania IV, Contra III, Actraiser, Plok etc... and you'll hear clear, high quality music that is really impressive and pleasant.

The same situation with the Mega Drive. Lots of Mega Drive games(especially American ones) have awful tinny music. Play games like Sonic, Streets of Rage 2, Castle of Ilusion etc... though, and you'll realise that the machine can produce nice quality music in the right hands.

The same could be said for all sorts of machines. It's best to judge hardware by what the top creatives got out of it, because quality can vary wildly.

[Asura]

The MCD was just an expansion to the MD though, it never really offered any thing more than extra storage and a slightly better sound chip. It was still limited to the Mega Drive's 9bit colour and other stuff.
It was the 32x that offered any real improvements.

Had to reply to this; the Mega-CD was more than just an add-on that let the Megadrive use CD storage. It contained new hardware too.

For example, the Megadrive alone could never do the Mode-7 F-Zero style special stages in Sonic CD.



Other titles, such as Thunderhawk, would also not have been possible on the vanilla Megadrive.

[Colin]

Thunderhawk, for me, was the greatest game on the Mega CD. I adored it.

[nakamura]

Amazing game. Loved it and no 2.

[Colin]

Not sure i remember second one, what was that on? Playstation and Saturn?

[Team Andromeda]

Funny how the SNES port is pretty much better than the mega cd version

That's more to do with the fact that Prope also handle the Mega CD version and like with the MD didn't do a great job . Play MK III on the MD and one can see what a difference a decent team can do .

The MCD was just an expansion to the MD though, it never really offered any thing more than extra storage and a slightly better sound chip. It was still limited to the Mega Drive's 9bit colour and other stuff

That's just the stuff that comes from people who's either never really played the Mega CD or the ones who just played the likes of Sonic CD and Final . Looking over the sheer class of the likes Lunar II, Rise of The Dragon, PopfulMail and the likes There's no way the MD, Snes , or even the Neo Geo could handle the scaling and rotation effects seen in the likes of these ...

[Colin]

I have such happy memories of getting my Japanese MCD1, I even adored Earnest Evans ans Sol Feace, no matter how ****e they were. Looking back though my top three would definitely be Thunderhawk, secret of monkey island and final fight CD. Probably the best looking console add on ever. ( For me!)