Oh so you inserted the game inside a computer. How wonderful.
MLE
You haven't been banned yet?
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: geise on February 11, 2012, 11:51:11 AM
DMA did an amazing job porting that game. Reflections should be proud. Too bad all Reflections does now is Driver. A new hi-res 2D Shadow of the Beast game would be quite nice.
Thanks for sharing Sunteam!
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 11, 2012, 02:19:59 PM
Oh so you inserted the game inside a computer. How wonderful.
MLE
I think this comment is hilarious. I do not get this explosive hatred for RegalSin. You people need to learn funny.
lol. Yeah, you probably right.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: geise on February 12, 2012, 08:56:21 AM
besides the Reflections logo there's other things that I feel were done better in the pc-engine version. I think the animation on the beast character is a lot nicer than the Amiga version. There's a lot more frames of animation. I like the look better in the Amiga version but animation wise the pc-engine has it beat.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 12, 2012, 09:02:10 AM
The sound is better, and the gameplay itself is better.
The amiga controls suffer, and there's an annoying pause when you go to fight stuff.
The Amiga one still has the best art/atmosphere.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: frozenintears on February 12, 2012, 09:52:11 AM
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: RegalSin on February 12, 2012, 10:41:21 AM
Quote
The Amiga one still has the best art/atmosphere.
The Amiga version was the original, and took advantage of the Amiga sound. It was one of the best music to be created for a videogame for those Amigaers.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: frozenintears on February 12, 2012, 11:33:54 AM
lol thats funny, you said Amiga 5 times.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: ccovell on February 12, 2012, 05:13:18 PM
The whole point about trolls and flamebait is....... ignore them and stay on topic!
The Amiga version was the original, and took advantage of the Amiga sound. It was one of the best music to be created for a videogame for those Amigaers.
What shot the Amiga was the lack of usage in the USA, where the IBM took over, and the Apple already over took the imagery market. Man I love the Amiga.
The Amiga sound is 4 shitty sampled channels with hard panning. The PCE CD version of the music destroys the f*ck out of the Amiga one. :)
It's great for an Amiga soundtrack at least. Probably the best actually. I can't think of much on Amiga that did better.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: esteban on February 12, 2012, 05:48:32 PM
I'm going to read Valis by Philip K. Dick. I don't think I'm ever going to read the werewolf novel by Margaret Carter, but, sadly, I would absolutely love to read a novel based on RI's Shadow of the Beast universe.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: RegalSin on February 12, 2012, 11:20:23 PM
The Amiga version was the original, and took advantage of the Amiga sound. It was one of the best music to be created for a videogame for those Amigaers.
What shot the Amiga was the lack of usage in the USA, where the IBM took over, and the Apple already over took the imagery market. Man I love the Amiga.
The Amiga sound is 4 shitty sampled channels with hard panning. The PCE CD version of the music destroys the f*ck out of the Amiga one. :)
It's great for an Amiga soundtrack at least. Probably the best actually. I can't think of much on Amiga that did better.
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/cooks_transp.gif) You are so needlessly harsh on All Things Amiga, and you know you are simply being contrarian. The Amiga soundtrack for SotB is very nice, indeed. In fact, the entire soundscape (SFX, ambient noise, tunes) are very competently done.
Ill stop there, lest I dignify your other cavalier remarks regarding Amiga soundtracks. (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcgs.png)
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/cooks_transb.gif) Of course, I like the C64 SotB tunes, too.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 13, 2012, 12:45:47 AM
The Amiga version was the original and without it's success, nobody would have seen the PCE version [-X
So? That's like saying "without Breakout, we wouldn't have Arkanoid". True, but Breakout still looks like shit in comparison.
and, Esteban, I like the Amiga one, but there's no denying the PCE CD's destruction. The drums alone are like whoa damn!
I liked the C64 tunes too. That version of the game somehow managed to not suck huge wang.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: geise on February 13, 2012, 01:15:57 AM
I do wish shadow of the beast on the pc-engine cd kept the backgrounds the same in the tree house level and the castle. I wonder why they changed it? Wasn't Shadow of the Beast the exact same version as the pc-e on the Marty?
Sunteam are there any other little graphic things that you could compare in pc-e Beast to the amiga version?
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Tatsujin on February 13, 2012, 01:31:38 AM
the funny thing is, that EVERY beast version looks so different. hell, even the japanese MD and western MD version are like two different games.
btw, heres nice comparison of "all" the beast games on different plat forms:
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 13, 2012, 01:44:42 AM
The western Genesis version was programmed by jackasses
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: geise on February 13, 2012, 02:19:06 AM
Haha well it was published by EA in the states. Not sure if they did the port though.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: KingDrool on February 13, 2012, 03:18:12 AM
You are so needlessly harsh on All Things Amiga, and you know you are simply being contrarian. The Amiga soundtrack for SotB is very nice, indeed. In fact, the entire soundscape (SFX, ambient noise, tunes) are very competently done.
Basically he sticks up for things he feels need sticking up for and condemns things that are too popular, in his opinion.
Amiga? Sucks. iPhone? Sucks.
But Hylide, Energy and China Warrior? Those games are f*ckING AWESOME...even though %99 of the people who have ever owned them consider them more or less totally unplayable. IIRC he even stuck up for the Cybiko.
If we held a poll deciding what the crustiest system ever was, like Odyssey II or Spectrum, and then voted to see what the most miserably boring POS on that platform was, like a sock trading game or a snake clone that only worked via a keyboard that had no numpad and used relative directional input, he would defend it. Its just what he does.
Its only %90 being a contrarian dick though. I really think the other %10 comes from understanding programming much better than most of us and a respect for what has been done with even the crappiest of software. I mean, when we rag on something like...Beyblade for Gamecube, it is, honestly, kind of unfair to ignore the hundreds of man hours that went into it. We do though, because there are hundreds of games released every year. Even the worst ones (usually) deserve some kind of respect, but its hard to recognize that when there are just so damned many of the things.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Necromancer on February 13, 2012, 04:02:35 AM
Interesting, Paul; thanks for sharing. You can tell those guys had a passion to make this game as good as they could, a passion sadly missing from so many other devs that settle for 'good enough'.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 13, 2012, 06:29:57 AM
Basically he sticks up for things he feels need sticking up for and condemns things that are too popular, in his opinion.
It has nothing to do with popularity. The Amiga is an overrated POS as far as gaming goes. I was in the Amiga scene for like, I dunno 6-7 years, along with the Commodore 64. I got tired of that nonsense.
It's a pain in the ass to work with, a pain in the ass to set up, and the games are largely complete crap with over arped music and lame ass guitar samples. The machine is powerful, the operating system is revolutionary, and at the time, it was a powerful machine... but nowadays, it's a clusterf*ck.
The only games of merit are the Psygnosis games, and stuff you can play on the PC instead. I think the only game I can recall that is an amiga exclusive that's worth a damn is Agony. Graphics are usually great, but the games themselves are usually pretty lame. Games that are on Amiga AND C64 are usually more fun on the C64, for whatever reason. Netherworld, Menace, and Turrican come to mind. Shadow of the Beast is better on the Amiga, but still sucks compared to the PCE one...
Anyway, using your logic, I should condemn the PCE. I don't. The PCE rules all. Other popular things you don't see me condeming: NES, Genesis, and MSX.
I don't buy into all the retro chipblurpderping shit that so many others buy into. Tim Follin can suck it. His music is nice, but it's nothing to drop your pants and fap to. It's going to take more than shiney graphics on an Amiga to impress me. I had an Amiga 500 growing up. I played plenty of crap on it when it was current. You know what I did? I said
"this blows" and played Sega and TG-16 instead. Or I fired up Doom, Might and Magic, D&D games, and tons of other PC stuff that played better than the Amiga games.
Quote
Amiga? Sucks. iPhone? Sucks.
Yes, and yes! Apple stopped delivering useful products sometime in the early 90s. I love the Apple ][ line of computers, and the early power macs and shit. This new iMac crap? All this i whatever crap? Useless.
Quote
But Hylide, Energy and China Warrior? Those games are f*ckING AWESOME...even though %99 of the people who have ever owned them consider them more or less totally unplayable. IIRC he even stuck up for the Cybiko.
My China Warrior campaign caused people to try it again and some of them even went "oh , hey this is pretty good". It was like turning a light switch on for some.
Hydlide? Most of the complainers are dumbasses. It isn't Hydlide's fault that roundeye is too stupid to read the instructions and compares everything to Zelda. The game must not be that bad, considering it got the same kind of remake treatment Ys got in Japan for Windows.
Quote
If we held a poll deciding what the crustiest system ever was, like Odyssey II or Spectrum, and then voted to see what the most miserably boring POS on that platform was, like a sock trading game or a snake clone that only worked via a keyboard that had no numpad and used relative directional input, he would defend it. Its just what he does.
No I wouldn't. I defend things that get shit on unfairly by ignorant tools.
Quote
Its only %90 being a contrarian dick though. I really think the other %10 comes from understanding programming much better than most of us and a respect for what has been done with even the crappiest of software.
Not to mention how games like Hydlide paved the way for bigger things, and how China Warrior, the first game for the PCE, dwarfed all the other games at the time. It's even got parallax.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: sunteam_paul on February 13, 2012, 07:00:11 AM
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 13, 2012, 07:30:09 AM
You linked some of his stuff that isn't annoying, at least!
LED Storm is his best work, IMO.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Bernie on February 13, 2012, 07:53:10 AM
Ok, so I just watched the video. Here is what I found or think.
1. Why does the Atari ST version have no music? Sound effects only... wth?
2. Both the Genesis versions along with the Commodore Amiga version have blimps in the background of different sizes flying around... Whats up with that?
3. Sound and music wise, I found the PC Engine version to be the best, of course this is just my opinion. Far as graphics go, I thought the FM Towns version won that one.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: sunteam_paul on February 13, 2012, 08:06:14 AM
Strange how a lot of people like the FM Towns graphics. I think they look terrible.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: spenoza on February 13, 2012, 09:25:08 AM
I find it difficult to compare the CD soundtrack of the PCE version to other, generated versions. Of all the platforms SoTB was on, the Amiga has the most robust basic generated audio setup (it could be argued the SNES was quite a bit better, but only if you like your music played in a metal barrel). I don't relish much of how that audio hardware was used, but it certainly was capable of quite a bit, especially considering when it first hit the market. I think of the PCE version had used chiptunes instead of CD audio it would have lacked quite a bit of the atmosphere.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 13, 2012, 10:29:00 AM
The Amiga isn't generated audio. It's samples. That alone allows it to at least be somewhat comparable to a CD-Audio soundtrack.
As for chiptunes: http://www.aetherbyte.com/downloadables/sotb.mp3
\o/
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Black Tiger on February 13, 2012, 10:47:19 AM
I like the backgrounds of the Mega Drive more than any other version. Too bad the PCE version wasn't based on that.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Tatsujin on February 13, 2012, 11:32:31 AM
The Amiga isn't generated audio. It's samples. That alone allows it to at least be somewhat comparable to a CD-Audio soundtrack.
As for chiptunes: http://www.aetherbyte.com/downloadables/sotb.mp3
\o/
I lump sampling and mod tracker-style stuff in with generated rather than CD. CD soundtracks do not have hardware limits, effectively. They can be a recorded orchestra or a derp with a Casio monophonic keyboard. On the Amiga you have channel limits, limits to what you can do with samples, and pretty solid restrictions on sample properties as well.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Black Tiger on February 13, 2012, 02:15:54 PM
As far as sotb goes, amiga had the best grafic by far and pce and towns had the best music by far. period. close thread.
Is the rest of the Amiga version much better than the first stage? The first stage looks like the Genesis version with poorer color.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Tatsujin on February 13, 2012, 02:24:41 PM
LOL noway. Did you ever seen the amiga one in real? The coloring is like day and night compared to the genny version. Even the poor Youtube video shows the color difference quite good. The Amiga is much smoother and has much more vibrant colors.
And yeah, also the later levels looking all very nice and great on the Amiga.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Mathius on February 13, 2012, 02:25:30 PM
The Amiga isn't generated audio. It's samples. That alone allows it to at least be somewhat comparable to a CD-Audio soundtrack.
Yeah, but they're samples from a soundchip that came out in 1985. That's the old'n days!
The Amiga had sh't tons of great games. Yeah, it had sh't tons of BAD games too. That's only because anybody could program for it if they had one. A little different then a console. So, so much crapware for that thing.
Hard to setup? An A500, you plug it in and stick in a floppy.
But the GOOD stuff for Amiga was stuff that was original. Amiga sucked so bad at 'arcade' conversions. I think part of this was lack of effort on software developers. There are some cluster f**ks for sure. SFII??
Wings Power Monger Dune Alien Breed ProjectX Gods ChaosEngine Another World Cannon Fodder Ambermoon Worms Beneath A Steel Sky Ruff 'n' Tumble Lionheart Battle Squadron A10 Tank Killer Valhalla series Nuclear War!!! Hell yes.
That's not even scratching the surface.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on February 13, 2012, 04:43:29 PM
While I don't love it, & I'd still have to see it in action, I still find it intersting..for lack of a better word. Maybe cuz it's look is the furthest for the original.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: SignOfZeta on February 13, 2012, 06:01:13 PM
f*cking hell that is gross!
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Tatsujin on February 13, 2012, 10:10:47 PM
It looks like the had not the smallest clue of how to put some nice grafx out the marty. So they probably digitized all the backgrounds and put some blurry filters over.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 13, 2012, 11:19:47 PM
Yeah, but they're samples from a soundchip that came out in 1985. That's the old'n days!
Still, the sampled guitars needed to not happen, ever.
Quote
Hard to setup? An A500, you plug it in and stick in a floppy.
I'm talking about setting up anything better . A1200's require some dicking around to make it useful, anything past that is worse. An a500 needs some work too if you want to play non-commercial disks or use WHDLoad.
Quote
Wings Power Monger Dune Alien Breed ProjectX Gods ChaosEngine Another World Cannon Fodder Ambermoon Worms Beneath A Steel Sky Ruff 'n' Tumble Lionheart Battle Squadron A10 Tank Killer Valhalla series Nuclear War!!! Hell yes.
That's not even scratching the surface.
of all those games, I think Ambermoon is the only one worth a damn, to me at least.
That's two Amiga exclusives I like. I always forget about Ambermoon. I have Amberstar for PC. That shit is sweet
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: guyjin on February 14, 2012, 02:46:16 AM
Quote from: Bernie
1. Why does the Atari ST version have no music? Sound effects only... wth?
Back in the day, when the ST and Amiga were popular, they were rivals. The ST was the weaker machine, so if you wanted to make a game for both, you kind of had to go with what the lowest common denominator (the ST) could do. When Amiga games got ported to ST, features often had to be removed because it couldn't do many of the things the Amiga could. It would seem that, in this case, the port was done with a hatchet.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: sunteam_paul on February 14, 2012, 04:43:04 AM
1. Why does the Atari ST version have no music? Sound effects only... wth?
Back in the day, when the ST and Amiga were popular, they were rivals. The ST was the weaker machine, so if you wanted to make a game for both, you kind of had to go with what the lowest common denominator (the ST) could do. When Amiga games got ported to ST, features often had to be removed because it couldn't do many of the things the Amiga could. It would seem that, in this case, the port was done with a hatchet.
The ST had the same sound chip as the 128K Spectrum, and even that had music in game. Seems like the ST was a very lazy port.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 14, 2012, 05:02:34 AM
even the C64 one has music, and the c64 is a pussy compared to the Amiga!
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on February 15, 2012, 07:01:05 PM
One thing I deffinitly love about the PCE version of Shadow of the Beast over any version(not that I've played EVERY single one) is the castle level. From what I recall, the other versions just have the same(nice looking) bg as a 2nd layer. The Turbo version has a castle'ish bg that, to me, adds more atmosphere. I know they did similar stuff in the 2nb underground levels, & that's cool, but the castle level for some reason to me really stands out. Maybe it's cuz I tend to get a little lost in that level, & the PCE version looks more distinct in it's layout? :-s
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: sunteam_paul on February 16, 2012, 04:39:07 AM
Here's something interesting I noticed in Parodius.
Game screen (http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8432/parodius001.png)
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: geise on February 16, 2012, 06:10:38 AM
I hated the whole rivalry bullshit with the ST and the Amiga. The ST was a great machine and that SotB port was a shitty ass port by Eldrich the Cat. The color choice was terrible. The ST couldn't do as many onscreen colors as the amiga till the STe came out. There was no excuse for there to be no music what so ever. Some games on the ST are actually better than the amiga. I owned both computers in the 80's and early 90's. Both were great computers.
Ark you said you were in the Amiga scene? I thought you were 23?
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 16, 2012, 06:32:36 AM
Ark you said you were in the Amiga scene? I thought you were 23?
I am 23.
I grew up with an Amiga 500. my parents traded it for a 386. Thank god for that.
At first I thought damn, what a mistake! Commander Keen, etc. occurred. I know longer thought it was a mistake.
I regret their choice occasionally, but then I remember what a pain the Amiga was. revisiting that platform reminds me of the lameness.
I got into retrocomputing when I was like, 12. I got a C64 for 5$ and was like MAN look at all these RPGs I missed!
I was actually going to program some games for it, but there were too many f*ckfaces in that community so I peaced out and came here instead. Their toolery brought you me! :3
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: spenoza on February 16, 2012, 06:42:06 AM
I was actually going to program some games for it, but there were too many f*ckfaces in that community so I peaced out and came here instead. Their toolery brought you me! :3
How much will we have to pay them to take you back? ; ) I kid, of course. Atlantean looks fantastic and I don't want to give that back!
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 16, 2012, 07:08:39 AM
whats funny is, someone actually ported Berzerk after I left. They did a arcade perfect port though. No jazzy stuff like I was going to do.
I think T2KFreeker here did the art for the packaging actually? Someone here did.
f*ck em. Sucks to be them. The one little group of dicks acted like I'd never get anywhere and I'm just some young loudmouth stomping in their turf.
They couldn't cope with my questioning them or calling them out on their stupidity. Then, I made sure to show them Insanity when it released, and said "its not on the c64 because you guys are dicks."
One of em has been MIA for awhile. I'd like to think he left because I made him feel like trash.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Tatsujin on February 16, 2012, 11:24:32 AM
cool story bro :D
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 16, 2012, 01:23:02 PM
?? Wierd. IIRC, that level(if not most the game) has zero paralax...looks like they were planning to do paralax maybe? :-k [/quote]
Might just be an attempt to save on the memory space of unique tiles.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Tatsujin on February 16, 2012, 04:49:19 PM
since that cherry tree starts to walk, they used a sprite below and a tile in the middle of it. may be it was to big for being one whole sprite? lol? \o/?
:edit: i just played until that point and hell there are sprite flickers in that tree. Someone should also check the half nacked lady painting in the background in stage 2. there were also a lot of flickers, even it's just a background. so i guess same there, half sprite half BG. but why? :-k :?
btw. the cherry tree that walks is a full sprite.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: esteban on February 17, 2012, 01:20:01 PM
OH, LOOK. SOME SPARE SPACE. WE'LL JUST HAVE TO PUT IN A MESSAGE SINCE A CD WILL LAST FOREVER! MIKE DAILLY STEVE HAMMOND RUSSELL KAY WE ALL HATE TG16
:(
Hopefully it is all in good humor.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: RegalSin on February 19, 2012, 06:57:51 AM
How did you find that message?
At one point the Amiga was the European counter part to NEC. No dos bullcrap or crapple computer nonsense. The Apple beat the Amiga because of the size and extra lemoness. The SNES is considered to be a powered up Amiga. I even was into Amiga for awhile.
In America during the early 1990's a programmer, or a person into videogames would have tremendous ammount of disadain towards any system asides, the Commendore and Nintendo.
They probably thought the same thing, everybody is thinking now. They will never get notice, and no good could come of it. Probably the reason why we do not see no blimps ( yes I said blimps not blimp ) flying around in the background.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Arkhan on February 19, 2012, 01:25:46 PM
The Commendore 63 is a great machine.
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: ccovell on February 19, 2012, 01:56:43 PM
This is probably leftover data from an earlier version. Probably some sprites are used for additional colours (palette unknown tho). Possibly not accessible, but if any hackers wanna try...
This is loaded into the bottom of VRAM right before the parallax title screen/main game. Obviously a large test sprite for debugging purposes.
(http://www.chrismcovell.com/images/Beast_Hidden_Tree.gif)This is the same fluffy tree as in Mike Dailly's early Beast ROM: (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4u8cCnKjBs4/SGeU1sf8wzI/AAAAAAAAAL8/v2yyNV3dk7E/s320/tg16beast.png)
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: Vecanti on February 20, 2012, 03:56:56 PM
Thanks for those links Chris there was a ton of great reading from the old days. Cool to see him still playing with PCE stuff too. Anyone ever see any of the official devkit stuff?
Title: Re: Shadow of the Beast. Hmm, interesting...
Post by: sunteam_paul on March 10, 2012, 07:49:56 AM
Hmm, Adventure Island castle breaking up at the beginning: