turboxray

@h3s The x68k is not perfect. There's only like 2-3 enemies on screen at a time. Pixels and colors, sure. But it feels barren compared to the arcade.

@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).

@PopetheRev28 And intelligence is not your strong point. Keep on pluck'n that chicken.

@delt75 It's 2025. Everybody and their mother should be familiar with the PC-Engine by now.

@HammerKirby Because people like to play up and distort that connection for whatever reason - to the point where it's inaccurate. Like, it was just said in passing. No need for an article about it.

"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.

I think Bisqwit passed away a few years ago.

@Sketcz Yeah, and even if you never played it but wanted to for the first time.. it's pretty common knowledge about the original towns people - so you'd ignore their advance anyway. Which makes the point of them lying.. moot.

@delt75 I mean, most likely. In Japan, the three button pad was released for Forgotten Worlds.. although like 90% benefits from it too.

Inspired by a game, but made a completely different game. How is that news? I'm sure every game that came out back then was somehow inspiring to all developers at the time.

@Hairlesswookiee Porting entire games to another system is a lot of work, and little reward. Unless the port is truly something special, and adds something new - not really worth the time IMO. I'm happy just seeing the demos. FYI: Batman and Sunset Riders are written from the ground up - not like what infidelity is doing for the SNES (which is more of a hack than a port).

This is just stupid ridiculous. Why even bother with a c64 at that point? Just put whatever processor you want at this point. This is neither impressive or interesting.. it's just absurd.

I can't decide if it looks like garbage or just a not-so-good wanna-be retro generic look. Somewhere in between.

Still looks better than the PC-Engine version hahah

You got a three screen shot mock-up and somehow this is a news article. Things starting to run dry or what?

Who exactly is the target audience for this??? Real hucard (pce and TG16) games are NOT cheap. If you have those games, then you have the means to own the real thing (a base PCE costs $60-$100 USD). If you play it with a flash card like a TeD.. might as well get a Mister or something else. At least the Analogue Duo plays CDs.. so there is that (and that's still niche audience, again same reason) - but then again I know people that don't trust putting their expensive game CDs in something like the Duo just to get scratched up (because of the auto-feed mechanism).

@avcrypt Others have been experiencing with RP2040 and RP2350 as mappers and addons for carts for a few years now. Someone even wrote a rom emulator with it.

@WileyDragonfly Put the crack pipe down

@ArcadeRacingCENTRAL I'd go further than that and say it is special. There's a LOT cram'd into this game. A LOT of replay value. And 10x better than Final Fight 2 and 3 on the SNES (those games are soo boring). The author completely sucks, but the game while not perfect - is impressive and fun. People just want to hate because it's Fonzy, and I get that more than anyone - but the game itself is quite impressive IMO even with all the ***** that surrounds it (stolen art work).

"Capsyst has taken steps to fix this"
The content is great, but they didn't "fix" anything haha. This doesn't change anything.

"Arms dealer" and "defense contractor" are two VERY different things. Putting "arms dealer" in the headline just feels like sensationalism, regardless of your opinion of him or anything related to defense and war. Use accurate terms.

@Dr_Lugae What's impressive about it? I mean, code wise? Design wise - sure.. but he didn't design the game - just programmed it.

@Steel76 It even has that famed Konami "orchestra hit" haha.

@CocktailCabinet Yeah, the PC-FX is really just a Super-SuperGrafx at heart. The 32bit processor really doesn't do anything for it. Its raster style graphic capabilities are still in-line with 16bit generation, and not a blitter graphics system like PS1, Saturn, N64, etc. Even the 3DO and Jag overpower it in the graphics department (except MPEG layer, and number of total BG layers).

@jesse_dylan Sometimes literal translations can be REALLY dry. I mean, unless you like your translations like you like your British humor...

@slider1983 Sure there is! Pay the low fee and include it. Typically how businesses work. It doesn't look like Vic is blocking anything (whether you like the guy or not).

@montrayjak Not Genesis Drive?

@slider1983 Are you guys done waxing over insignificant details? Because the most important thing here.. is WHY even do a physical re-release of this game to begin with hahah. This game is SOOOO mediocre.. who is even the audience for this thing?

This is a pretty great news and all the comments can talk about is how the Brits and the EU-like are miff'd that the Sega Genesis is the Sega Genesis. lolol

@SilentBluntman So do you say Geneziz?

@MrPeanutbutterz Imagine thinking the word "genesis" only refers to a bible or rock band. Where's the Star Trek love?

@Damo That isn't a requirement tho

@jamess They are not screwed. This WAS their plan all along. They knew Sega was going to get involved, and now they'll use that as an excuse to say all the money is tied up and spent on this "system" (which is complete fake btw).. and can't refund anymore. This is classic scam. Not novel at all. "It's not our fault"

@Axelay71 Emulation exists. Mister exists. SHD3 Pro that adds SGX support to your base PCE exists. SGX add more than just a "bit more grunt". I develop on both the SGX and PCE. The SGX has more "grunt" than the MD (and even the SNES, minus mode7 and transparencies).

People need to stop calling this "fake HDMA". It's literally just traditional tried and true "interrupts".. and that's how it was done before the SNES decided to use a more efficient way of hsync register updates.

@Axelay71 Already happened on NES. And it does a lot more than what this article is showing off. It's quite impressive (not the warping part, but over all performance part).

@Axelay71 The SuperGRAFX has a CDROM attachment and can run with the Arcade Card

@CocktailCabinet Yeah. Although I did a bit more than just provide some artwork haha. I designed how the original effect would work on MD (both main palettes and subpalettes - reducing it ot the smallest foot-print), mocked it up to prove it out (originally shadow/highlight was layered on top of the colored ghost to give it more colors BUT mostly use up less subpalette space on the MD), and created the assets for the MD side of it. It would have allowed 16 colors on the main ghost house layer (this demo keeps the ghost house area for TP at 7 colors), and use 16 colors of a second palette for the mono-chromatic colors. Leaving 32 free for use on anything else. Everything else is just simple grunt work; copy data (and & or | if needed). Shannon was poking around with some different takes on the original approach, like using an additional ADD to do a shift against all pixels (a different way of dividing up sections of the subpalette), and having a second S/H ghost at the same time making it more dramatic effect. But hey, at least I got a shout out hahah

@KillerBOB You probably missed this but it plays actual HUCARDs and CDs. You know, the physical media? The Mister does not.

@sdelfin Because this a chain "glitch". And later arcade versions removed it (CPS-2). Chain combos still exist in the other home ports (SNES and PCE). This is probably the most misleading thing on the internet haha.

Key feature? Way to misunderstand what this really is - it's a bug. And they fixed it in the later arcade releases. But yeah.."key feature" hahah.

@BobaTheFett It doesn't add any more vram. Vram. Video ram. Specialized ram that is attached directly to the VDP, and cannot be accessed either by the CPU or the cart, or anything else beside the VDP. That means nothing on the Everdrive can connect or expand it.
So no, it doesn't add additional vram. There are a few different groups of ram on the MegaCD... none of them are vram. They're just ram. Again, vram has a very special and particular purpose, and no amount of any outside ram can substitute it. I mean, don't reply. It'll save the embarrassment on your side. But I know these things because I actually code for these retro systems. But sure, I lack mental capacity. smh

I love the fact that you think you automatically get twice the processing power from Everdrive simply by enabling MegaCD power. If only.

@BobaTheFett
No "flash cart" can give the MD, let alone SNES/PCE/SMS, more vram. It's impossible. That's a lack of understanding of what VRAM is on your part. And yeah, the largest hardware sprites are 32x32 max.. larger sprites than hardware sprites.. are meta sprites (which how a lot of snes/md/pce/sms/nes games get around the hardware limit.. pretty basic stuff). Developers have been making meta-sprites for generations (including ALL NES games doing this). And quite a bit of the other stuff you've posted are just inaccurate or a complete lack of hardware understanding. This demo is written in C, not even assembly. It doesn't use any special chips. It literally is pretty simple in design - have the storage space for the frames, fit the frame uploads in the allotted vblank bandwidth time, and have the room in vram for it. This doesn't need any special chips for assistance because there's nothing they can offer for this situation. And I can guarantee you this runs on the real hardware, "stock" hardware. No SegaCD or 32x involved here. If you open up the tweet, Pyron even says as much (he always shows off stuff running on real hardware via his CRT).

Calling out Pyron as just a palette swapper? That's quite a bit of an insult. One, he's not the developer/programmer for this, but both people involved are known in the scene and have been demoing stuff on the MD for a couple of years now. You'd know this from following the MD homebrew scene.