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

andymcc

Banned
Today is the 25th anniversary of Mega Drive's release.

i can still remember getting my Genesis. I didn't get a Japanese Mega Drive until I went to Japan the first time about 11 years ago.

With Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade. As a kid I saw Space Harrier 2 shortly after getting a Genesis and Sonic and was pretty blown away by it. I hadn't seen the original, obviously, lol.

I got mine with Altered Beast (the pack-in ver obv.) A few weeks later, dad and I went to TRU to pick up two games, I got to pick one and he picked the other. I got Ghouls n Ghosts and he got one of the Sega Sports Baseball games. I remember telling him not to get Super Thunder Blade because he had it for Master System and I really didn't like it lol.
 

bjork

Member
Today is the 25th anniversary of Mega Drive's release.

I'm still using my father's Genesis. I had a C64, he didn't like Nintendo stuff, and he wanted a Genesis. This was 1990, so it was already out for a bit here. But it was during the time where they had a "pick one of these games for free" promotions going, so I think he picked Pat Riley Basketball? I know in the first week he went from just having Altered Beast to also having Arnold Palmer Golf, Super Monaco GP, Tommy Lasorda Baseball, and then Pat Riley a bit later.

My first game on it was Target Earth, because I was at a TRU with my grandmother and it was $7 new. So great, but so hard.
 

discoalucard

i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
In comparison, DecapAttack is so sleep-inducingly boring that I would not recommend it to anyone except for the most diehard Psycho Fox (SMS) or Kid Kool (NES) fans, since the game plays like those two games do (same developers I think?)... but seriously, just play Psycho Fox again, it's not nearly as bad as DecapAttack is. At least it IS better than Kid Kool, but that's not saying very much.

No way, Psycho Fox is terrible compared to Decap Attack. That series always had really weird physics but they finally fixed it up by the 16-bit entries. The soundtrack is amazing and it's a prefect Halloween game to boot.

(They were all developed by Vic Tokai, BTW.)
 

Bog

Junior Ace
Played a little Final Fight CD over the weekend. Still can't get over how great the Framemeister is, especially when a console is connected via RGB. Might be tough to tell with an iPhone pic, but yikes it's nice.

SZPqLpU.jpg
 
Loved Final Fight CD..even the James Brown style "wwaaaaoo yeeeeaaaahh" vocals in the music. lol

There's a sound glitch in the last boss if I remember correctly. The last boss yelling out the same "wahoo" sound that the first boss yells out when I punch him.
 
I think I will play some Mega Drive/Genesis stuff tonight. I recently picked up Castlevania Bloodlines, Batman and Robin and McDonald Treasureland.. I also need to take a look and see how some of my other games in my collection look in component SCART.
 

Khaz

Member
Played a little Final Fight CD over the weekend. Still can't get over how great the Framemeister is, especially when a console is connected via RGB. Might be tough to tell with an iPhone pic, but yikes it's nice.

SZPqLpU.jpg

As much as I like when pixel art is crispier, I feel you lose too much of the dithering effect now. Look at this floor, where you were supposed to have light variation, you now have a bicolor streaked floor. I think we may lose something by using too advanced signal purification. But maybe it's the picture and it feels better for real.

At least pixels are round and not squared. You may want to push the contrast more so that bright pixels blend better with their neighbours while retaining scanline effect on darker spots.
 
With Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade. As a kid I saw Space Harrier 2 shortly after getting a Genesis and Sonic and was pretty blown away by it. I hadn't seen the original, obviously, lol.
Those games are some of the worst Genesis games... those and Super Hang-On. The horrendous framerates completely ruin the games! If you want to play Space Harrier, play the fantastic 32X version (or any ports or the arcade game -- on Saturn, DC, WiiVC, etc.).

I can see how those games would impress someone who saw them for the first time, since they LOOK very good, but those framerates are so, so bad...

No way, Psycho Fox is terrible compared to Decap Attack. That series always had really weird physics but they finally fixed it up by the 16-bit entries. The soundtrack is amazing and it's a prefect Halloween game to boot.

(They were all developed by Vic Tokai, BTW.)
I got Psycho Fox several years after Decap Attack, and I was surprised because it wasn't as bad as Decap Attack is... it's not quite as tediously dull. It's still not that great, overall, though.

Today is the 25th anniversary of Mega Drive's release.
Should there be/is there a thread celebrating this?

Bullshit! I played DecapAttack for the first time in Sonic's UGC and fell in love. A very underappreciated gem imo.
The game was one of the earlier games I got for the Genesis after getting the system in '06, and yeah, I really disliked it in short order. The game is boring, the attack range is far too short (I know all three games are like that, but it was a bad idea from the start), etc.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
if you made a thread i'm sure it'd be filled with "robot farts" and "lol this one shitty licensed game was better on SNES than Genesis and here's the youtube vid to prove it"

Also, somebody will eventually do an audio comparison using Rock and Roll Racing.
 

Tain

Member
It's wild to think that once gsync is a thing emulating hardware on PC will give you better IQ and less lag (visually at least) than the real deal via upscalers.

but CRT remains king~
 
Eh, there's still gonna be lag for some emulators even with a better syncing system. I've noticed some take a split-second for Mario to jump in SMW when my SNES never did, either plugged in directly to the TV via S-Video or plugged into the XRGB. This was with the ASUS monitor that EVO uses, with only a frame or so of lag on its own.
 

Tain

Member
What emulators are you using, and in what OS? If you're using, say, bsnes in Windows 7/8, you will definitely get lag unless you sidestep desktop composition (which is a total pain in 8). Maybe on top of stuff like controller lag if you're using an adapter.

Emulators right now are often practically lagless when using a lagless monitor with no vsync, triple buffering, or aero-induced vsync. Gsync apparently adds no additional delay on top of that raw screen tearing output, so I'd think a setup with a gsync monitor would at least match dedicated upscalers in terms of lag and beat them in terms of visual fluidity (since ultimately the upscaler needs to deal with timing differences and the emulation setup will not).
 
Also, somebody will eventually do an audio comparison using Rock and Roll Racing.

and then show youtube videos that will have been recorded from emulators which are notorious for covering up the flaws in the SNES sound hardware making it sound better then it actually was and, in the Genesis' case because FM is harder to emulate, Genesis music will sound worse then it actually was.
 
What emulators are you using, and in what OS? If you're using, say, bsnes in Windows 7/8, you will definitely get lag unless you sidestep desktop composition (which is a total pain in 8). Maybe on top of stuff like controller lag if you're using an adapter.
Yeah, BSNES/Higan on Windows 7. Didn't know about that "Desktop Composition" thing, though; I'll have to check that that's not turned on. (I mean, I prefer my desktop looking like it came from friggin' Windows 95, so it's not like I'm getting the Aero-based benefits from it... and what other benefits does this thing even offer?)
 

Bog

Junior Ace
What emulators are you using, and in what OS? If you're using, say, bsnes in Windows 7/8, you will definitely get lag unless you sidestep desktop composition (which is a total pain in 8). Maybe on top of stuff like controller lag if you're using an adapter.

Emulators right now are often practically lagless when using a lagless monitor with no vsync, triple buffering, or aero-induced vsync. Gsync apparently adds no additional delay on top of that raw screen tearing output, so I'd think a setup with a gsync monitor would at least match dedicated upscalers in terms of lag and beat them in terms of visual fluidity (since ultimately the upscaler needs to deal with timing differences and the emulation setup will not).

This is great and all, but one is emulation and one is the real thing. I won't touch an emulator for retro stuff.
 

Khaz

Member
Yeah, BSNES/Higan on Windows 7. Didn't know about that "Desktop Composition" thing, though; I'll have to check that that's not turned on. (I mean, I prefer my desktop looking like it came from friggin' Windows 95, so it's not like I'm getting the Aero-based benefits from it... and what other benefits does this thing even offer?)

Yes, 7 and 8 (and Vista before them) added more delay thanks to Aero. The developper of Ootake (PC-Engine emulator) explains it quite well:

Factor that Win7/Vista is avoided from game player "Delay Problem"
Solves "Delay Problem" of emulator at Ootake

From Ootake. (excellent emulator overall and best PCE emu imo)

I should add that even in the best conditions, CRT, no lag, no OS slowdowns, etc. an ideal emulator will still be one frame behind the real deal, due to the emulation process itself. I'm no expert, I read that somewhere.
 

Tain

Member
It's important to note that you don't need to worry about Aero if the software you're using runs in true full-screen mode. Some emulators don't support this, though (only borderless window fullscreen), which leaves them victims to Aero/desktop composition. BSNES and Dolphin are like this off the top of my head. I haven't used it in a bit but I'm assuming Ootake is too.

lol, sorry for emulation-related derails.

This is great and all, but one is emulation and one is the real thing. I won't touch an emulator for retro stuff.

That's understandable. I'm not planning on selling my SDTV setup or anything, and a scaler is still the only way to go for those that want to stick to real hardware but use modern displays (and that includes all displays, like huge gorgeous plasmas). It's just a really, really nice step forward for emulation.

Hopefully some time in the next decade all sorts of displays will have their timing controlled by whatever is feeding them content and Micomsoft will take advantage of it.
 

IrishNinja

Member
#TeamHDTVUpscaled #50inchScreenMoneyGreenLeatherSofa

next year.

we are so having a party..one of ya'll gotta make mod by then so we can ban the naysayers

if you made a thread i'm sure it'd be filled with "robot farts" and "lol this one shitty licensed game was better on SNES than Genesis and here's the youtube vid to prove it"

i'm letting it go
...i'm letting it go

Lol @ people piling on Carmack.

He's probably not too fond of the Framemeiser's additional frame of input lag either

yeah that would've ruined his kids' day no doubt, man where's that YOURE PLAYING IT ALL WRONG thread when you need it, haha
 

qq more

Member
Am I a traitor if I'm going to ditch my Genesis console for the RetroN 5? (kidding about the traitor part lol)

I don't have good room for my CRT so I'm sticking with my HDTV. Hoping RetroN 5 turns out fantastic because I'd love an inexpensive option to play my retro games on the TV.
 

IrishNinja

Member
i really do hope that pans out as an acceptable substitute for many, i'm only concerned because while i hear android emulators have gotten better, prior Retrons weren't known for accurately representing the genesis' sound...eager to hear reviews on this one though!
 
Am I a traitor if I'm going to ditch my Genesis console for the RetroN 5? (kidding about the traitor part lol)

I don't have good room for my CRT so I'm sticking with my HDTV. Hoping RetroN 5 turns out fantastic because I'd love an inexpensive option to play my retro games on the TV.

Please let us know how well Retron 5 runs games.

I might get one eventually if only to back up a bunch of my save files for posterity lol
 

qq more

Member
Please let us know how well Retron 5 runs games.

I might get one eventually if only to back up a bunch of my save files for posterity lol

Sure thing! I'm going to be doing the OT and impressions. So dang excited for the thing. I'm hoping Amazon allows pre-orders for it soon.
 

Rygar 8 Bit

Jaguar 64-bit
yeah was thinking of buying one as well that way i dont have this cluster fuck of wires everywhere just hope someone makes one for the cd based systems as well at some point
 

IrishNinja

Member
yeah was thinking of buying one as well that way i dont have this cluster fuck of wires everywhere just hope someone makes one for the cd based systems as well at some point

oh wow, yeah a sega-CD/turboCD/3DO/CDI etc device would be goddamn amazing, but i dont think like half of those have android emulators...
 
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