PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG-16/TE/TurboDuo Discussion => Topic started by: Sadler on June 30, 2011, 04:07:27 PM
Title: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Sadler on June 30, 2011, 04:07:27 PM
I realize there aren't a huge number of choices for this. Falcom seems like an obvious choice with gems like Ys and Dragon Slayer. Red is another good choice. I'm guessing it might be sacrilege to say this, but IREM wouldn't make the list for me. Chris Covell might though! 8)
What do you think?
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Keranu on June 30, 2011, 04:16:26 PM
Pack-in-Video.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Tatsujin on June 30, 2011, 04:21:31 PM
How's about just Hudson/Red itself?
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Sadler on June 30, 2011, 04:24:06 PM
To be honest, I don't understand the relationship between the two. Was Red at one time owned by Hudson?
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Black Tiger on June 30, 2011, 04:33:58 PM
RED... followed by Hudson Soft.
Most of my favorite (PCE) games were developed by RED.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 30, 2011, 04:51:26 PM
Is Red actually a developer? I mean, do they have coders and such? I always thought they just did art and design and things like that.
Anyway, Hudson, obviously. Both a dev and a publisher. Bomberman 94 is impressive as hell, but even when they just port something, like Fatal Fury or Ys, they take that shit to 11. Plus, they largely made the system itself.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: spenoza on June 30, 2011, 04:52:04 PM
Probably Atlus. While Hudson and Red made some great games, it's also due to Hudson making so damn many. Atlus only did a few PCE games, but every single one was great, AFAIK.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: nat on June 30, 2011, 05:39:00 PM
Anyway, Hudson, obviously. Both a dev and a publisher. Bomberman 94 is impressive as hell, but even when they just port something, like Fatal Fury or Ys, they take that shit to 11. Plus, they largely made the system itself.
I agree with Zeta, as long as we're limiting it to Turbo/PCE developers. Hudson Soft has a staggering amount of just PHENOMENAL games on the console. Granted, they developed more games for the system than any other softhouse so they have something of an advantage right off the bat. They produced some clunkers, but a miniscule amount by comparison to some others.
Runner-up for me would be Compile. Not a single bad game developed for the system (excluding their involvement with Namco's "Xevious" debacle).
If we expanded this to include all consoles, I'd say the SEGA of 1985-1996 gets the ribbon for the best developer of all time.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: BlueBMW on June 30, 2011, 05:41:23 PM
Compile or maybe Naxat. :D
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: nat on June 30, 2011, 05:42:19 PM
I don't think Naxat really developed much, they were mostly just a publisher.
They may have developed Psychosis in-house, but that's all I can think of offhand.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Lilgrafx on June 30, 2011, 06:23:07 PM
Accolade!
Who could ever forget a classic like Jack Nichols Power Golf :lol:
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Mathius on June 30, 2011, 07:52:46 PM
Compile, then Hudson/Red tied for 1st. Probably Falcom for 2nd. I am sure I am forgetting some. NEC did pretty good with its Capcom ports. I am still being amazed my Daimakaimura! Did NEC port SSII:CE, or was it done by Capcom themselves? I don't own the game yet, so I have no immediate reference.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: DragonmasterDan on July 01, 2011, 01:43:22 AM
I realize there aren't a huge number of choices for this. Falcom seems like an obvious choice with gems like Ys and Dragon Slayer. Red is another good choice. I'm guessing it might be sacrilege to say this, but IREM wouldn't make the list for me. Chris Covell might though! 8)
What do you think?
Did Falcom actually make any of their own PC Engine games, Ys, Dragon Slayer, Popful Mail were all ported by Hudson as far as I can remember.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Bonknuts on July 01, 2011, 01:47:57 AM
Yeah, Falcom didn't do anything on consoles other than license out their games that were originally design and made for Japanese computers.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Necromancer on July 01, 2011, 02:33:39 AM
Hudson definitely gets the top spot, followed by Riverhill Soft for teh Facclerball.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: ccovell on July 01, 2011, 04:24:26 AM
Besides Hudson, It's gotta be Atlus. Atlus did the programming & music on Bonk's Adventure, Legendary Axe II, Dungeon Explorer, Somer Assault, several other excellent games. Maybe after them, it's Compile & Inter State Kaneko (NEXZR, Star Parodia, Super Star Soldier)
Don't be fooled by brands which are mostly just publishers, like NAXAT, Victor Musical Industries, etc. Ys I-II was programmed by Alfa System, for example.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Black Tiger on July 01, 2011, 05:36:01 AM
Don't be fooled by brands which are mostly just publishers, like NAXAT, Victor Musical Industries, etc. Ys I-II was programmed by Alfa System, for example.
Yeah, for years I didn't realize Naxat was just a publishing house for developers like Compile. It's misleading if you don't know better when "Naxat" is the only brand readily visible on a game. For example, four Compile-developed games on the system were published by Naxat... But only two of them actually mention Compile on the title screen. The other two don't mention Compile anywhere at all, to the best of my knowledge.
Apparently, this sort of thing was not uncommon in those days, however.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Keith Courage on July 01, 2011, 07:37:36 AM
One of my faves was working designs. It's just a shame that they never translated more of their games to english.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Black Tiger on July 01, 2011, 07:37:55 AM
We've had similar threads in the past, but this is a "favorite" topic and not a "teh best!" one.
As far as what counts as development, good programming is cool, but a game is all about the design. Miyamoto doesn't program anything, but he's heralded as some sort of heroic genius.
The Tengai Makyou, Bonk and Thunder brands are enough for me. Hudson obviously would be my second favorite and was involved with my favorite RED games. What major games did Hudson do completely on their own? There's Bomberman obviously, and Nectaris... which is either a rip off of, or developed by the people behind Famicom Wars. Gulliver Boy was licensed, but they at least made the game what it was outside of that. Cobra II is also licensed... Other than Bomberman and Nectaris, what are some decent original, created from the ground up games from Hudson?
Aldynes Be Ball Soldier series (did Compile employees only work on GunHed?) Sapphire Neutopia games -even if they are based on Zelda
Is that it?
Quote
I thought they did II, since it was all bare bones like the Saturn ports of their games, but Hudson did I, which is %100 lux.
That's what I thought, anyway.
All I know is, they're both original games and Falcom sells ports of them for PC to this day. No other versions or spin-offs exist as far as I know.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: DragonmasterDan on July 01, 2011, 08:01:08 AM
There's Bomberman obviously, and Nectaris... which is either a rip off of, or developed by the people behind Famicom Wars. Gulliver Boy was licensed, but they at least made the game what it was outside of that. Cobra II is also licensed... Other than Bomberman and Nectaris, what are some decent original, created from the ground up games from Hudson?
Famicom Wars was developed by Intelligent Systems (Nintendo 1st party), at that time there was very little turnover there. Nectaris was inspired by Famicom Wars.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: SignOfZeta on July 01, 2011, 08:05:14 AM
One of my faves was working designs. It's just a shame that they never translated more of their games to english.
I can't tell if this is a joke aimed at confused WD fanboys, or legitimate confusion.
WD has never developed anything, they've never even ported anything. They were just a translation house with zero taste who took year or two longer than anyone else does to translate a game so they could add stupid shit like Clinton jokes and terrible cardboard cutouts as an excuse to jack the price up.
EDIT: Now I get it. f*ck. I'm bad at this.
So is this guy: http://www.cracked.com/blog/i-cant-tell-if-world-being-serious-anymore/
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: DragonmasterDan on July 01, 2011, 08:06:51 AM
One of my faves was working designs. It's just a shame that they never translated more of their games to english.
I can't tell if this is a joke aimed at confused WD fanboys, or legitimate confusion.
WD has never developed anything, they've never even ported anything. They were just a translation house with zero taste who took year or two longer than anyone else does to translate a game so they could add stupid shit like Clinton jokes and terrible cardboard cutouts as an excuse to jack the price up.
They did develop that Warlords Clone, "Lords of Lunar" that was hidden on the making of disc. :)
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: SignOfZeta on July 01, 2011, 08:11:49 AM
Don't be fooled by brands which are mostly just publishers, like NAXAT, Victor Musical Industries, etc. Ys I-II was programmed by Alfa System, for example.
Yeah, for years I didn't realize Naxat was just a publishing house for developers like Compile. It's misleading if you don't know better when "Naxat" is the only brand readily visible on a game. For example, four Compile-developed games on the system were published by Naxat... But only two of them actually mention Compile on the title screen. The other two don't mention Compile anywhere at all, to the best of my knowledge.
Apparently, this sort of thing was not uncommon in those days, however.
Yeah, if there is one thing I've learned about game development in Japan its that if you take any game, regardless of what it is, any game, regardless of what's in the credits, its very very hard to ever be sure that it wasn't actually made by Tose. If if Tose doesn't take credit, they still might have done it and are just being modest or holding to a contract or maybe they just forgot about it.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Necromancer on July 01, 2011, 08:12:10 AM
Yeah, if there is one thing I've learned about game development in Japan its that if you take any game, regardless of what it is, any game, regardless of what's in the credits, its very very hard to ever be sure that it wasn't actually made by Tose. If if Tose doesn't take credit, they still might have done it and are just being modest or holding to a contract or maybe they just forgot about it.
Tose is very often hired to port games from one platform to another, they also worked on many games that they did not actually develop. In some cases doing things like bug fixes. A lot of classic NES games for example were developed by Nintendo and then Tose was hired to bug fix them.
Added in edit: Some site had a list of games Tose was involved in based on the board in their main office that had a copy of everything that had worked on. Just keep in mind, these weren't all games developed by Tose, merely that Tose was hired to assist in some way with them. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Tose were outsourced to handle localizations on the cheap as well.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Dyna138 on July 01, 2011, 08:23:14 AM
Hudson, Red and Compile are some of my favorites. Beyond what's already been mentioned I'd like to add Konami with their pretty much arcade perfect ports of Gradius, Gradius II, Salamander and also for that little game called Dracula X Rondo of Blood.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Mathius on July 01, 2011, 11:26:06 AM
Hudson, Red and Compile are some of my favorites. Beyond what's already been mentioned I'd like to add Konami with their pretty much arcade perfect ports of Gradius, Gradius II, Salamander and also for that little game called Dracula X Rondo of Blood.
Baa! Konami! I knew I forgot one. Parodius Da! Dracula X!
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: ccovell on July 01, 2011, 02:40:43 PM
The first step if you want to know the companies behind a game is to stop by GDRI and do a search. Example:
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Produce!
Aldynes was by a developer named Produce!
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: geise on July 01, 2011, 03:04:01 PM
Well since Ys Book I&II is my favorite on the PC-Engine/Turbo I have to go with Alfa Systems. Others that I love and is a hard decision for me is (in order):
Hudson/Red for the Bonk/Zonk and Thunder Series Compile for the obvious shooters Konami for Dracula X, Parodius Da!, and Twin Bee Telenet/Riot for Valis, Exile, and Cosmic Fantasy series
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Sadler on July 01, 2011, 03:04:30 PM
The first step if you want to know the companies behind a game is to stop by GDRI and do a search. Example:
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Produce!
Aldynes was by a developer named Produce!
I just used pcecp, which is based off of the official PCE Catalog.
That site isn't very comprehensive and is missing many PCE games altogether, but it does seem like a good source of 'hidden' involvement by various companies. If its info is true, then-
Gate of Thunder is more or less a Technosoft game and therefore basically Thunder Force V.
Many Genesis fans like to trash Lords of Thunder for Sega-CD. I wonder if they'd feel the same way if they had known all along that it was developed by Technosoft employees.
Westone made Aoi Blink, Appare! Gateball and Power Eleven.
Of course, it's open for anyone to edit and I could've just gone and put anything in there. Michael Scott summed it up best-
"Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information."
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Mathius on July 01, 2011, 04:19:03 PM
I always thought Got felt a little too close to Thunder Force III. But, I need more proof to believe it.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Bonknuts on July 01, 2011, 05:08:00 PM
I always thought Got felt a little too close to Thunder Force III. But, I need more proof to believe it.
(skip the opening cinema)
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Bonknuts on July 01, 2011, 05:25:53 PM
RED is a strange company. Paired with Hudson quite often (or for all?) on the PCE. It seems they don't handle the programming side though. Just game design/developement. Case in point is Bonk/PC-Genjin. RED, under the direction of Hudson, develops the game but a different company handles the actual programming (Atlus IIRC). There was an interview with relative info on this (though it was mostly about Bonk 3 and the company involved with it).
If RED didn't actually handle the programming side of GOT (which is more advanced that most SCD games that I've traced through in the debugger), then it's entirely possible Hudson provided the in house development team (which Hudson is well known for). And it's entirely possible this was the first project of ex-techosoft employees for in house programming. That site has CAProduction as the later official name for the development team, which Sapphire for the ACD is listed as one of their projects.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Mathius on July 01, 2011, 05:43:55 PM
For example, four Compile-developed games on the system were published by Naxat... But only two of them actually mention Compile on the title screen. The other two don't mention Compile anywhere at all, to the best of my knowledge.
As far as I know, Naxat published Spriggan and Spriggan II that I know for sure are Compile games. But what about the 2 others? Gunhed was published by Hudson and Sylphia by Tonkin House. There's no other Compile game published by Naxat I can think of.
Here are my favourite devs for the system :
-Hudson/Red -Kaneko : just a few games for the system but 100% über quality (Super Star Soldier, Star Parodia, Nexzr, Aeorblasters) -Konami : it's a bit of a shame that they started releasing PCE titles late in the pce's lifespan -Right Stuff : I love all of their games, I love their style. Everything they did, they did it right (well at least to me).
Oh, and of course :
-Irem.
And I hate Namcot. It's a shame that the biggest third party that backed the PCE from the beginning did little to improve the technics of most of their games that rather look like little improved NES games.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: sheath on July 03, 2011, 11:52:03 AM
I'd have to go with a tie between Hudson and NEC for number one, then IREM and NCS for number two. NEC's Arcade Sega adaptations are generally great and Hudson has always been one of my favorite developers and I mourn their loss to Konami. I haven't played much from Compile on the PCE, I'll have to see what I've been missing.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Mathius on July 03, 2011, 02:50:58 PM
I'd have to go with a tie between Hudson and NEC for number one, then IREM and NCS for number two. NEC's Arcade Sega adaptations are generally great and Hudson has always been one of my favorite developers and I mourn their loss to Konami. I haven't played much from Compile on the PCE, I'll have to see what I've been missing.
Get Spriggan!
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: sheath on July 03, 2011, 03:41:29 PM
Yeah, I'm watching that one on ebay but $50+ pretty much blows my budget for an entire month.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Black Tiger on July 04, 2011, 12:50:14 AM
For example, four Compile-developed games on the system were published by Naxat... But only two of them actually mention Compile on the title screen. The other two don't mention Compile anywhere at all, to the best of my knowledge.
As far as I know, Naxat published Spriggan and Spriggan II that I know for sure are Compile games. But what about the 2 others? Gunhed was published by Hudson and Sylphia by Tonkin House. There's no other Compile game published by Naxat I can think of.
Compile had two other games published by Tonkin House in addition to Sylphia:
Cyber Knight & Cyber Dodgeball. Cyber Knight was conceived and designed by Group SNE who took a RED-like role, while Compile did the actual programming, graphical art, and music. Cyber Dodgeball is all Compile, to the best of my knowledge.
The two other Naxat published Compile games are Alien Crush and Devil's Crush. Alien was a Compile project from start to finish, but I guess RED handled concept design for Devil while Compile did the programming et al.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on July 05, 2011, 05:43:05 AM
Hudson/Red made the console. I guess if Hudson by itself, and Hudson/Red are separate than that would be my number one and two. You never saw another company pump out so many quality ports and original titles to another console! For the most part I also really enjoyed Konami's PCE titles.
How about some NCS/Masaya love?
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Liquid Snake on July 05, 2011, 08:07:43 AM
For odd reason I love NEC Ave.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: nat on July 05, 2011, 11:55:42 AM
That's.... odd. How many original games did they actually develop? They did shitloads of arcade ports of other people's games, but the only two I can think of they did themselves were Download and Download 2.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Mathius on July 05, 2011, 01:04:31 PM
That's.... odd. How many original games did they actually develop? They did shitloads of arcade ports of other people's games, but the only two I can think of they did themselves were Download and Download 2.
Download is a killer game. I can't speak for the 2nd one though.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: turbofan1 on July 05, 2011, 01:09:27 PM
My two favorites,Icom and cinemaware .
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Arkhan on July 06, 2011, 07:36:57 PM
MICROCABINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Keranu on July 09, 2011, 01:15:11 PM
The two other Naxat published Compile games are Alien Crush and Devil's Crush. Alien was a Compile project from start to finish, but I guess RED handled concept design for Devil while Compile did the programming et al.
Of course! How could I forget that? I was looking in the shmup corner ^^; I didn't know for Cyber Knight and Cyber Dodgeball though.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: spenoza on July 12, 2011, 06:36:00 AM
See, that information actually lowers Compile on my list. I'm still putting Atlus at the top, though.
Title: Re: Who's your favorite developer for TG?
Post by: Marll on July 22, 2011, 11:10:39 AM
Hudson, Red and Falcom, in no real particular order.