Comments 79

Re: Surprise! The Developers Behind Cuphead Just Announced A New 8-Bit Spin-Off For The Sega Master System

turboxray

@h3s I don't care what you or anyone else likes. That's subjective. I'm talking about facts (specs). You can like whatever you want, but the SMS doesn't have more sprites per line than the NES - and all the other things I've already gone over. Whether you notice the flicker more on the NES than the SMS, is also irrelevant.

And mappers are part of the NES lexicon whether you like it, think it's fair, or not. I mean, 90% of master system games have mappers too. If the game is larger than 0.4megabits on the SMS.. then it has a mapper in the cart. How do you think Phantasy Star on the SMS is 512k (4megabits) when the z80 only has 64kbyte of address lines (and only 48k is available for carts).

And just so you understand, the SVP is helluva lot more than what a simple mapper is on the NES or SMS. The SVP is literally an additional processor on the cart. A mapper is nowhere near that complex, involved, or even capable. They are not comparable. In CV3, the cpu is doing 100% of the work. It's controlling the graphics. Etc. Mappers are not co-processors.

Re: Surprise! The Developers Behind Cuphead Just Announced A New 8-Bit Spin-Off For The Sega Master System

turboxray

@h3s

"8 sprite limit for nes vs 16 for MS (That’s why a well programmed MS game has less sprite flicker which is incredibly annoying.)"
Sorry, but it's a limit of 8 per line for both. Both.

"It’s not really fair to compare how much better the best mapper for the nes was because only Castlevania 3 used it."
This isn't about fair. This is about what each system's design/arch is capable of. You don't get to exclude mappers on the NES simply because the SMS could NOT benefit in the same way. And the SMS has mappers (it literally needs them).. it just doesn't have mapper integration with its video processor like the NES has. That's Sega's fault for dropping the ball there. The SMS design very much did need such a mapper, or DMA, because it's already slow at uploading to VRAM.. and now it has the burden of twice the pixel information (4bpp vs 2bpp). It's like Sega tacked on more color, and forgot the rest that goes with it.

Look, I'm not some n00b. I've written assembly for the z80, 65x, other processors for more than 20 years. The z80 having more registers, making it easier, is a misnomer. Both are "Accumulator" style processors - the 65x fastpage ram IS its register set. It has up to 128 16bit "address registers" via DP/ZP (aka BC, DE, HL). The Z80 has three.. at the most (less because you need some of them for other stuff). The z80 is soo cramped for registers because it lacks the necessary address modes - the 65x has those, and is why even tho it has 3 regs total, it's faster, easier, and can do more. You don't know this until you've cut your teeth on these processors. I could do on and on, but the z80 is not "good" processor for performance - was just popular. And lacking direct addressing modes on the z80 means register/stack juggling - that's not clean, or nice, or easier.

Re: Surprise! The Developers Behind Cuphead Just Announced A New 8-Bit Spin-Off For The Sega Master System

turboxray

@Exerion76
The base audio on the NES is far superior than the SMS. Literally, the NES is more advanced and faster than the SMS in every way possible.. except color. That is it. The SMS is weaker in almost every category except color. Matter of fact, if the SMS didn't have 4bpp color format, we wouldn't even be talking about it today.

"On NES, those expansion chips in the NES carts, was doing that extra work, not the native NES hardware itself."
This is how I know you're an SMS fanboi. This is the lame argument that keeps getting perpetuated by SMS fans. Look, it's part of the system. I'm sorry Sega didn't have the foresight to think of it and also implement it. But you don't get to define the NES, in terms of other systems. The NES is what it is.

"Check out this WIP demo, as an example."
I'm well aware of the demo, and others. It's literally just a simple demo using 4bpp.. which is no surprise that's what the SMS can do.

Look, I like the SMS. There are some cool tricks that you can do with it (that no commercial software has done, and no one in the homebrew community has done yet). But some retro gamers really have a skewed misunderstanding of the capabilities of the system. Just because it's better in the color cell department, doesn't mean it's better everywhere else (and 90% of it is not).

Re: Surprise! The Developers Behind Cuphead Just Announced A New 8-Bit Spin-Off For The Sega Master System

turboxray

@Exerion76

"I play on all systems."
Apparently not often enough.

"Master System has 8KB of RAM and 16KB of VRAM which is largely superior to the NES' 2KB of work RAM and 2KB of VRAM, and it also the Zilog Z80 processor runs at 3.58mhz whilst the NES's Ricohs 2A03 and 2A07 run at 1.79 and 1.66mhz"

Wow. You're really gonna quote specs at me when you don't even have a clue? The z80 is a SLOW arse processor. Even at 3.58mhz, a 65x at half the speed is going to both match it and beat it. Why did you quote the PAL NES cpu too hahah.

VRAM is 16k on the SMS, sure, but ALL graphic cells are twice as large: 4bpp vs 2bpp. So the VRAM ended up being the same amount on the SMS for the same number of cells. (VRAM or VROM on the NES for cells is 8k). Except they're not even equal after factoring in the cell storage format. Because the NES PPU has dedicated memory for the tilemaps and palette memory - that it doesn't have to share with graphic cells. Guess what the SMS VDP has to share vram with? You guessed it - tilemaps and palette data. That means less tile cells in vram. On top of that, SMS only has a 256px wide tile map.. the same size as the screen. You have to clip the display in order to scroll. It also turns into a small annoying cpu overhead.

The NES PPU can swap out ANY section of pattern vram at ANY time. That is literally the design of it. So no mapper? It still have more "vram" room than the SMS.. with a mapper - it even destroys 16bit system in the amount of data it can swap out - you could swap out the entire vram on every scanline. That's incredible powerful, and the SMS has nothing like it. Not only does it not have anything like it, the SMS is painfully slow in updating vram during vblank. Even the NES is faster at this, if you want to go the traditional route. The NES also has a fast "sprite table" DMA to update vram. Again, that's a slow process on the SMS. Speaking of sprites... no sprite flipping what so ever on the SMS. That's a HUGE deal - especially for two player games (eats up more vram, and/or requires more vblank time for updates). Another thing the SMS can NOT do - is reposition the Y scroll for the BG during active display. All you have is X scroll updates. The NES can do both.

Yes, the stock NES has 2k of work ram. Any NES game worth its salt, uses 2k+8k for 10k work ram. Problem solved.

Re: "This Is The Most Evil Mega Drive Game" - Developer Kai Magazine Software Accused Of Using Stolen Artwork

turboxray

The worse part of all of this.. is the end result is garbage. The guy clearly hasn't learned how to make a game outside of novice 101 gaming making since the past, what.. 7 years? The gameplay is just horrible in all his stuff. I remember playing Life on Mars.. which got rave reviews by some youtube reviewers.. the controls and collision design was worse than amateur.. it's n00b level design. Everything is duller than dull. The guy just puts out trash with a pretty coat of paint.. and charges money for it. And apparently MD community are fine with it. No wonder why he literally called the MD homebrew/retro community a "gold mine".

Re: Check Out Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood Running On The Sega Genesis / Mega Drive

turboxray

@sdelfin Are you kidding me? Garbage grates on you ears.. Captain Commando isn't garbage. It doesn't grate on your ears. I know of one SNES game that comes close to that. One. I know of plenty of Gen/MD that are in fact garbage.

" I even said I know why people say that."
But clearly you don't.. if you're using an example of Captain Commando as a definition of garbage hahah. And no, I don't care about that game. Yeah no, me thinks you're probably to much of a bias fan of FM sound to really understand.

And yes, just because arcade systems used the YM2151.. doesn't make it superior. Plenty of mediocre sounding music in the arcades (instrument-wise). In particular, thin-stealy type sounds for instruments (off the top of my head, CPS-1 1941). To the point were Gen/MD home ports of arcades games with its "inferior" 2612.. sound better.

Re: Check Out Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood Running On The Sega Genesis / Mega Drive

turboxray

@sdelfin Worst case scenario, snes game music is average - not garbage. Worst case scenario on the MD.. it will grate on your ears. I owned both BITD.. and this was a fact haha.

But people have preferences. MD fanbois like to act all shocked when people don't prefer its flavor of FM. I'm not really a fan of SID chip sound, and c64 fanbois gasp in disbelief hahah.

I get why people don't care for certain types of sounds for music. It's a thing. I love me some of the traditional FM sound of the Genesis.. but don't begrudge people that don't. But all FM all the time, and it wears on my ears after while. It's nice to have other systems to break in the mix.

Re: Why Should Sega Have All The Fun? Looks Like The SNES Is Getting A Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night Port, Too

turboxray

@UtopiaNemo Since you have reading comprehension failure, let me quote myself:
"It would have been a fraction of the original PS1 game."

The see the past tense there? That means my statement, which is a reply to someone else saying this should have come out for the SNES bitd, is in that context. Rom sizes were definitely limited back then, and costly too.

Nowadays? Of course you can do whatever you want - assuming you got the skill to make a mapper or find someone to do it for you. Or cheat and use the MSU-1 + cart ram. But you can't SIMPLY just put a 64megabyte rom setup on the snes. It doesn't have the address range for it, and no emulator supports that. And you've excluded anyone who has a flash card already. What you can theoretically do and what is practical.. are two very different things. Ask me how I know.

So saying "Flash ROMs can be whatever size".. that's a false statement for BITD, and that's an ignorant statement for the system today.

Re: Why Should Sega Have All The Fun? Looks Like The SNES Is Getting A Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night Port, Too

turboxray

@ChromaticDracula As a cart? It would have been a fraction of the original PS1 game. This needs an insane cart size or a SNES CD. Even if you dial the graphics back for the SNES to handle - there's just too assets in the original. It would have to be seriously watered down to fit on a cart. This is why the MD "version" took a different approach and making a cut-down mostly action only version (missing a lot of the levels).

Re: "They Really Hated It" - The Battle To Get British English Into Dragon Quest VIII

turboxray

@Guru_Larry "Scottish/Welsh/Irish"
Ohh please, noooo. Hahaha.

"But I remember hearing in the '80s, a lot of cartoons would hire Canadian voice actors as an inbetween the American/British accents"
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Have you ever listened to Canadians talk? Outside a few vowel shifts in some words, it's basically American accents without any seasoning.

Re: What Happens When An Arms Dealer Publishes Your Video Game?

turboxray

@palpalpalpal
"Words have meanings. Some have several. Such as “lecture”, which you misinterpreted here by choosing its literal meaning over the figurative one."
If you want act all touched in the head, and petty, because you got corrected... that's cool too I guess. Do you need to keep going? Is your ego still bruised? The fact that you had to look any of this up.. and definitions by congress... just goes to show you have no clue about any of this. This isn't your world. Stop.

Re: 1994 PC Engine RPG 'Emerald Dragon' Has Been Translated Into English

turboxray

@KingMike
"But does it have EMERADUDODORAGON!!? (the Japanese guy screaming the title on the SFC version)"
Ohh it does.. louder, more dramatic, and without the muffling of the SNES version hahah. The cut-scenes in the PCE CD version are generally pretty dramatic.

"I'm not sure if the PCE-CD version is affected, but I have heard the original computer versions were a pretty challenging game. I just know the SFC version is really busted, making it one of the easiest RPGs I've ever played. Good though.
I've heard the SFC version was extra-busted if you got all the casino prizes, which was something I've heard was also an exclusive to that version."
The PCE CD version is the first in the re-imagined versions of Emerald Dragon. All other versions - FM town, x68000, MSX, etc are all based on the PC88 original. The SNES version came out after the PCE version, and is based on the PCE version from what I've played through on the SNES one. The PCE CD version is easy.. (unlimited magic, meaning unlimited healing in battle if your character doesn't die).

Re: What Happens When An Arms Dealer Publishes Your Video Game?

turboxray

@palpalpalpal
"No need for the lecture"
You literally said, "so what’s your point?". And now you got it. And legit, that's not even a lecture - it's barely even a paragraph.

A defense contractor is a very specific term and has nothing to do with providing mail. A defense contractor provides tech, intelligence, vehicles, and arms to the defense sector of the US government.

So yes, when the title of the article says "when an arms dealer" - it's both ignorant and for attention. That's my point.

Re: What Happens When An Arms Dealer Publishes Your Video Game?

turboxray

@palpalpalpal Because words have meanings. Words matter. His company, not him, is a defense contractor to the US government. An "arms dealer".. just (re)sells arms to any one. Ammunitions, guns, etc. An arms dealer is a private individual or private company that buys and re-sells arms. That's not what Anduril or the rest of the defense contractors are. Using the wrong terms makes people appear ignorant.

Re: 1994 PC Engine RPG 'Emerald Dragon' Has Been Translated Into English

turboxray

@infostormerdotcom This is a bit different than the Super Famicom one. They added an "overworld" to the SFC version, which dramatically brings the scale down of the world compared to the PCE version (and ALL other versions). SFC version is just cut down in a lot of areas of the game, and then updated with some very average looking modern tile work over the original look.

Re: One Of The Best Modern Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Shmups Is Getting Another Cartridge Release This Month

turboxray

@slider1983 It is a fun game! And the visuals are so weird. So it's something different. It's got reply value.

It's just that it is popular now to just say hyperbole stuff about new homebrew even when it's clearly not even close to accurate. I saw someone say this game could be mistaken for a 32bit Saturn game. WUT.

There's nothing technical on showcase here - AT ALL. 4-5 split scrolls IS the bar for Genesis games, not exceeding it. It's not pushing or doing anything interesting with the hardware - AT ALL. It's got some funky color choices, but it's not pushing the game in anyway in the color department. The amount of enemies and stuff on screen is mostly mundane to average at best. There's almost nothing in the way of animation (bosses or enemies). A lot of repeating tiles and less details than the still shots would imply. Sound track is just good FM stuff, but not something I'd listen to outside the game. There's no real theme - and stages don't even have proper transitions. It just fades from one sub-section to another, like it's a hodge-podge of little stages that don't really belong or connect. Like they made little test stages for a demo.. couldn't decide how they fit together - but did it anyway. There's not much there, overall design wise. That just leaves some weird visuals/art/colors, decent music, and it plays well enough.

That doesn't mean it's a bad game.. because it definitely is NOT a bad game. Like I said, it's fun. And it's new. That itself is worth a lot. It's worth buying IMO (can't say that about all homebrew coming out).

Re: One Of The Best Modern Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Shmups Is Getting Another Cartridge Release This Month

turboxray

"When we first reviewed ZPF back in May 2025, we awarded it an 8/10 and called it "a masterpiece of programming" and "a shmup experience which can easily be ranked with the very best 16-bit gaming has ever seen"."

^Which is pure BS. Look, it's a fine homebrew game.

But people need to stop with the BS. There's nothing about this game that's top tier. Matter of fact, it's easy to see some of its amateurish design peek through. Calling it a master-piece and one best shumps on the system.. does a HUGHE dis-service to the top tier games in the system's library.

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