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Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Appreciation Thread: Alien Storm > Golden Axe

L

Laevateinn

Member
Hey guys, I got (part of) a Phantasy Star tattoo. We ran out of time so I need to come back whenever my vacation refreshes.

Pictures:

ZNWs3w7.png
Click to expand...

fAgLFR9.png
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TkMO9pn.png
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ResidentDante

ResidentDante

Member
alienator said:
We released our latest new megadrive demo 'OVERDRIVE 2' last night.

watch live: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/135854774?t=03h45m11s

or download the rom for yo flashcarts: here

it simply will fail on every emulator on this planet because of the tricks we used.
Click to expand...
Just tried this, awesome! I had to reconnect up my PAL MD to make it work. I got some weird warning before the demo began saying something about my MD1 having plane mix errors, but the demo looked fine compared to the video.
 
B

b3b0p

Member
That tattoo is dope! Even if it wasn't Phantasy Star it's one of the best coolest tattoos I've seen. Who is the artist? What did you use as a reference?
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
MikeHattsu said:
No more onsen for you? ;p
Click to expand...

I also have a shitty Mjolnir tattoo I got when I was a lot younger because I like Scandinavian metal. Non-private onsen were already out of the picture.

davidwhangchoi said:
that's dedication. and nice looking, artist did a good job =)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm super happy with it.

b3b0p said:
That tattoo is dope! Even if it wasn't Phantasy Star it's one of the best coolest tattoos I've seen. Who is the artist? What did you use as a reference?
Click to expand...

The artist is Hori Benny. I found him from the Japanese Tattoos book he co-wrote with Brian Ashcraft.

I emailed him and said I wanted a Phantasy Star tattoo and his reply was basically "omg you have no idea how much I love Phantasy Star". I think this book was his primary reference. He's super cool.

Our schedules didn't mesh well since I had already bought tickets and was planning to use that day in Tokyo to organize our luggage and chill. We ended up having to take the Shinkansen early in the morning and the last one out that night so we could get back in time to get our luggage sent to the airport.
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
alienator said:
Not sure if right place and if/or there are still megadrive developers lurking here, but we released all our tech info and finds on the vdp / debug register (ab)used in Overdrive 2 right here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ST9GbFfPnIjLT5loytFCm3pB0kWQ1Oe34DCBBV8saY8/pub

enjoy the read and happy figuring out !!
Click to expand...

This is cool. Thanks. I keep trying to teach myself 68k and MD programming so things like this are much appreciated. I'll look it over this weekend.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
What were the poll results? Obviously we didn't update the thread title for April but fingers crossed we get Ranger X for May!

alienator said:
Not sure if right place and if/or there are still megadrive developers lurking here, but we released all our tech info and finds on the vdp / debug register (ab)used in Overdrive 2 right here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ST9GbFfPnIjLT5loytFCm3pB0kWQ1Oe34DCBBV8saY8/pub

enjoy the read and happy figuring out !!
Click to expand...
Will do! Still hanging for a cart copy of it ;)

Quick question: From the video, it didn't seem quite as impressive (personally) as the first one. I guess viewing it directly on my MD1 it will blow me away even more?
And is this one best viewed at 50hz like the first?
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Sorry guys, as i wrote a few weeks ago, I am spending six weeks in Paris without my Mega Drive, so hasnt been keeping up completely. Sad to see there has been no discussion of Marvel Land though.

Anyways, here are the poll-results:
12YkCIx.png
Click to expand...

A total of 39 votes and its a tie for Rolling Thunder 2 and Ranger X, both of them got 12 votes. The rest of the results were:
Strider - 8
Toejam & Earl - 4
Valis 3 - 3

This mean we will do Ranger X in may and Rolling Thunder 2 in june (since i need to order this lol).
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
damn! good votes, congrats to Ranger X...finally gonna have to give that one a proper go, then

Laevateinn said:
I ended up finding a copy of Marvel Land in Osaka so I'll be playing it this weekend.
Click to expand...

post your thoughts, i played it casually in the day & seemed to enjoy it but never did pick it up for get far
 
A

alienator

Member
Shaneus said:
What were the poll results? Obviously we didn't update the thread title for April but fingers crossed we get Ranger X for May!


Will do! Still hanging for a cart copy of it ;)

Quick question: From the video, it didn't seem quite as impressive (personally) as the first one. I guess viewing it directly on my MD1 it will blow me away even more?
And is this one best viewed at 50hz like the first?
Click to expand...


Well, i cant force u to find it quite as impressive as OD1 ;) but the amount of stuff going on under the hood and onscreen (full screen zoomers, border-breaking, the 3D (checkout the dev screenshot here under this bit) is for sure waaaay more advanced than OD1.

notstreaming.gif


it will only run on a 50hz PAL md, the sacrifices for running it on NTSC will be very severe downgrading everything.
 
B

BTails

Member
sixteen-bit said:
I wonder when they're gonna release though. Gunstar still isn't out and that was announced ages ago
Click to expand...

The good thing with Data Discs, is that even if they "announce" a release like this, they don't put it up for sale until they have the actual records on hand. No lengthy pre-order period/delays!
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Wow, two very different games won the poll, exciting! Can't wait to get stuck into both along with everyone else :)

alienator said:
Well, i cant force u to find it quite as impressive as OD1 ;) but the amount of stuff going on under the hood and onscreen (full screen zoomers, border-breaking, the 3D (checkout the dev screenshot here under this bit) is for sure waaaay more advanced than OD1.

notstreaming.gif


it will only run on a 50hz PAL md, the sacrifices for running it on NTSC will be very severe downgrading everything.
Click to expand...
Jesus, that's crazy. I was probably only mildly impressed because I only saw it via that stream. On console and PVM I'm sure my mind will change!

Sad update: The demo won't play with my flash cart, it says it's too big :(

God damn it, I was really looking forward to watching it! It's there any way it can be shrunk? I have the Everdrive X3, which supports a max size of 7MB :/
 
A

alienator

Member
Shaneus said:
God damn it, I was really looking forward to watching it! It's there any way it can be shrunk? I have the Everdrive X3, which supports a max size of 7MB :/
Click to expand...


i feel your pain :) i got an everdrive x1 ;/ cant even watch my own demo !

but cart production should start soon.
 
ResidentDante

ResidentDante

Member
TeaJay said:
I tried the demo on my system. It's crazy impressive, especially the rain in the beginning. I love the 2D graphics but the 3D was really amazing as well.
Click to expand...
Did you get any warnings at the very first self test screen too?

Maybe alienator can shed some light on what the self test does!
 
T

TeaJay

Member
I have flashcarts for all my systems. When I went out and bought them I bought the best ones I could at the time because why not, I'd be annoyed if the more versatile ones have an option I want to use later. So, Mega Everdrive, I guess that's the equivalent of X7 nowadays. The demo runs beautifully, just had to remember to flick the 50hz switch.

(also SD2SNES which is what I recommend to people every time.)
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Ah, nice work! I only got my X3 a year or so ago, couldn't justify the X7 at $170US. But it's okay, I'm officially "on the list" for the physical cart when it comes out! Can only hope the price doesn't sting too much.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
davidwhangchoi said:
what game is that? the demo screenshot looks good.
Click to expand...
It's not a game, it's a "demo".

Back in the early 90s there was a thing called the demoscene, where groups of people with a love for exploiting hardware tricks and programming would create a "demo" of their group's skills, complete with music and often doing things that people didn't believe things were possible with that hardware.

The demoscene kinda started with the C64 (as far as I know), then moved onto the Amiga. The PC demoscene then ran parallel (and in competition somewhat) with that, spawning groups like Future Crew (who would later become Remedy Entertainment) and a few others.

Even though PC hardware is getting more complicated and getting more impressive demos, many people still like to try and push existing, fixed-spec hardware to the limit. That's what you're seeing above, with Titan's Overdrive 2 and of course, their original Overdrive.

I didn't actually mention that demos are non-interactive, too. So they're like cool music videos :)
 
D

davidwhangchoi

Member
thanks Shaneus for the info =)
i should crosspost this as i usually just put my haul in retroGAF but it's genesis games:
i picked these up last night during dinner:
dNzedyLh.jpg
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
Just beat Marvel Land. I thought it was okay. The music was great, the graphics were charming, the power-ups were interesting but there were a few things that bugged me about the gameplay.

The biggest issue was how prone to slowdown this game is. The Genesis is a mighty system with blast processing and shouldn't feel this sluggish throughout. Certainly they could have spent a little more time optimizing. The final part of 4-6 was practically unplayable due to all the slowdown. Sometimes I felt like I was jumping blindly. I'm also not a fan of opening a door to be sent back several stages. Finally, the bosses are horrible. I hate this about Alex Kidd but it's worse here.

I feel like iIt's trying to be a lot of games that were out at the time. I get little glimmers of Alex Kidd, Wonder Boy, and Super Mario Bros (castles at the beginning of a world. I wonder where I've seen that before?). In the future, I think I'd rather play any of those games instead.

It's kind of amazing that Sonic the Hedgehog came out roughly the same time as this. I get the sense that nobody really understood the Genesis or was trying to go beyond the standard platforming formula that the greats had established plus a gimmick or two. Once Sonic was released, the world changed and everyone had to catch up.

Finally, I could never figure out why sometimes my trail power up was large and sometimes it was short. I ended up not relying on it too much.
 
V

Voliko

Member
Laevateinn said:
Just beat Marvel Land. I thought it was okay. The music was great, the graphics were charming, the power-ups were interesting but there were a few things that bugged me about the gameplay.

The biggest issue was how prone to slowdown this game is. The Genesis is a mighty system with blast processing and shouldn't feel this sluggish throughout. Certainly they could have spent a little more time optimizing. The final part of 4-6 was practically unplayable due to all the slowdown. Sometimes I felt like I was jumping blindly. I'm also not a fan of opening a door to be sent back several stages. Finally, the bosses are horrible. I hate this about Alex Kidd but it's worse here.

I feel like iIt's trying to be a lot of games that were out at the time. I get little glimmers of Alex Kidd, Wonder Boy, and Super Mario Bros (castles at the beginning of a world. I wonder where I've seen that before?). In the future, I think I'd rather play any of those games instead.

It's kind of amazing that Sonic the Hedgehog came out roughly the same time as this. I get the sense that nobody really understood the Genesis or was trying to go beyond the standard platforming formula that the greats had established plus a gimmick or two. Once Sonic was released, the world changed and everyone had to catch up.

Finally, I could never figure out why sometimes my trail power up was large and sometimes it was short. I ended up not relying on it too much.
Click to expand...
That part made me rage. The big blue maze stage was just annoying. Otherwise decent enough platformer but yeah I'll never replay it.
 
L

Leynos

Member
socksfelloff said:
http://www.gamingrebellion.com/2017/04/new-game-old-console-paprium-interview/

New interview with the Paprium devs. Great read!

This interview pushed me over the edge. I just pre ordered the limited Japanese version!

I wonder why the recommend playing it on a model II after mentioning the game pushes the MD to the absolute max.
Click to expand...

Hmm, in the interview they mention that the PAL version will "use the 240p resolution for a more full-screen image." I have a modified Genesis that can be switched from PAL to NTSC mode. Should be interesting to see any differences.
 
K

Khaz

Member
Leynos said:
Hmm, in the interview they mention that the PAL version will "use the 240p resolution for a more full-screen image." I have a modified Genesis that can be switched from PAL to NTSC mode. Should be interesting to see any differences.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure. The aspect ratio should be screwed up in any case, you'd have a bit more of the background but I'm not sure it's worth it.
 
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