PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG-16/TE/TurboDuo Discussion => Topic started by: akamichi on March 23, 2006, 08:43:39 PM
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While browsing the various links about the Rev playing Genesis and TG16 games, I found this link:
http://www.sega-16.com/Side%20By%20Side-%20Devils%20Crush.htm (http://www.sega-16.com/Side By Side- Devils Crush.htm)
Devil's Crush was recently featured on PCEngine City and I thought the music was pretty damn good.
Anyway, I thought the music comparison was unfair to put it nicely. We've seen other links to this site before (Dynastic Hero I believe), so I thought I'd post it here to hear other people's opinion. Personally I've never played the MD version but I vaguely remember EGM or some other mag saying it wasn't as good as the TG version... mainly because it was a two year old pinball conversion.
And don't get me started on the graphics comparison... At least the author states that the gameplay is pretty much the same.
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I was disappointed in the MD version, particularly as it came from Technosoft that know the machine so well. One thing that annoyed me particularly was the way the music cut out when the samples played. That's pretty bad.
The main board graphics on the Engine version are much nicer, although the MD has some great images int he bonus levels
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I agree, I think the bonus levels in the Genesis version "pop" a little more...but the game still feels a little empty in comparison...like an imitation.
PCE version is by far my fave.
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I'll take the TG16 version over the Genesis/MD version anyday, though I'm not saying it's light years better or anything.
Graphics - For the most part, the TG16 is the clear winner here, with a nice full screen, way more colors, much brighter, and even more detailed sprites. However some of the bonus screen, as a couple people here already mentioned, do look nicer in the Mega Drive version. However one of the bonus stages in the TG16 one was based off Dragon Spirit, so it sort of had to blend in with that game more, and the Mega Drive version kind of tore the style apart to make it look better, so I felt sorry for Dragon Spirit because of this. Overall, TG16 definitely.
Sound - I highly prefer the sound of the TG16 version. Everything sounds so much clearer and since I was never a fan of Techno Soft or Genesis' sound, the Genesis version suffered from that crunchy, rough sound I can't stand for the most part. The skull's evil laugh even sounds quite a bit better in the TG16 original.
Gameplay - Some may not even be able to notice, but there is a slightly different feel in the physics, and they tend to be a little worse in the Genesis verison. There's just something about how you are easily able to control your shots in the TG16 one, but the Genesis version suffers a bit and you just can't get that feel down. I'm not the only person who thinks this, so hopefully someone else can clean this up. However some of the new bonus stages in the Genesis one were really cool, like the one with that devil thing spitting fire. But once again, TG16 takes the cake.
So yeah, I prefer the TG16 original any day - it simply wins in all categories.
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Hands down the music was better on the tg16 than the genesis. Not so scratchy and without the music cuts as the genesis port. Not many people know this but Devil's Crush (including Alien Crush) was produced by COMPILE, which came to me as a surprise because pinball was completely out of their element.
Too bad the genesis port was done by another group. I'm sure if was done by COMPILE they would've spent extra attention to the music like they did with Musha Aleste.
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Whoa, I had no idea Compile had anything to do with Alien's Crush and Devil's Crush? Do you know if they had anything to do with Jaki Crush on SNES? Jaki Crush looks cool, but the way the board is laid out is so annoying because it takes a long time to reach the upper parts.
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Whoa, I had no idea Compile had anything to do with Alien's Crush and Devil's Crush? Do you know if they had anything to do with Jaki Crush on SNES? Jaki Crush looks cool, but the way the board is laid out is so annoying because it takes a long time to reach the upper parts.
Yup, COMPILE also produced Jaki Crush. I remember playing it a long time ago, but felt that it wasn't up to par with Devil's Crush (pce). The tunes are good, but it doesn't retain the speed of Devil's Crush.
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ha! Yeah, I read that Devil's Crush comparison at sega-16 a while ago. I had mentioned that sega-16 was pro-sega when we were discussing another turbo vs. sega article they had (IIRC, they thought Dynastic Hero was lame... and they thought that Dungeon Explorer SegaCD was better than the TurboChip).
I love sega-16 (the fellow who runs is constantly writing new articles... and pretty nice ones, at that) ... but the chiptunes from DE (TG16) are waaaaaaaaaaaaay more memorable and rockin' than the *generic* SegaCD soundtrack. Am I blinded by fanboyism? I don't think so, but maybe I'm deluding myself...
anyway, it was good to hear that you folks had problems with the Devil's Crash comparison as well.
NOTE: IIRC, the reviewer did state that the megadrive version appeared 2 years later... thus allowing extra time to add things (like the bonus games, which are indeed kool -- I wish we had more bonus rooms for the TG-16 version!). Sega-16 reviews usually put things in context and try to be fair -- at least that's the impression I get. The problem is that they still tend to favor the sega versions, regardless.
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I managed to download the ROM of Dragons Fury for Genesis and after playing this for about 15 mins.. I don't agree with that Sega-16 review at all, it reminds me too much of the yesteryears when even a lot of multi formats magazines (that were supposedly supporting all machines) were so.. biased..
I have to admit though the Genesis version has fantastic bonus screens and its in higher resolution and the ball moves around the table faster.. but overall the graphics of the table looks squashed.. and the digitized laughter is.. laughable.. and the music which is one of the important bits of the game lacks the punch that drives you to play on .... sorry but the PC engine has much better sound and better colours... and its FULL SCREEN!
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Whoa, check out the Final Fight comparison.
Talk about biased. How do they expect anyone but the worst kind of Genesis fanboys("I hate everything! ...but Genesis") to take their articles seriously.
Its one thing if you can tell the bias toward a particluar console in a review, but to slag the other system in every comment just makes the author sound like they don't know whayt they're talking about.
He even stops to explain how and why the SNES is technically incapable of processing decent games.
Just before the end, he even even took a shot at FF GBA(could it be because its on a Nintendo system?).
By their own standards in their Final Fght comparison, the PC Engine version of Strider must totally crush the no-thrills Genesis Strider(and any Game Gear ports).
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I just found the "side by side" review where the 32X Virtua Fighter trounces the Saturn game.
So I guess this means he's not comparing versions to each other, just how good of a port it is.
Which would mean that the Sega Master System Monter World III/WBIV utterly destroys both the Genesis version and Dynastic Hero.
Of course, this would contradict his whole, SNES is as weak as a Gameboy angle in the Final Fight review, since getting a port that nice onto a peice of crap like SNES would make it by far the most successful port of all. :)
EDIT:
I just made it to the WBIV/Dynastic Hero & Dungeon Explorer comparisons. It looks like the WBIV/DH review was done by a different guy who was actually not very biased at all.
But this Ken Horowitz guy, who does the others, is insane(mad with Genesis fury).
I won't make any specific comments about the DE comparison, just that its more of the same.
But this quote sums it all up-
"Where the Sega CD blows the Turbo out of the water here is via its support of s-video. If you're lucky enough to have a Genesis modded for such output, there is simply no comparison. The quality of the visuals is so much better than through the Turbo's RF or composite cable that it's an easy choice."
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I just found the "side by side" review where the 32X Virtua Fighter trounces the Saturn game.
So I guess this means he's not comparing versions to each other, just how good of a port it is.
Which would mean that the Sega Master System Monter World III/WBIV utterly destroys both the Genesis version and Dynastic Hero.
Of course, this would contradict his whole, SNES is as weak as a Gameboy angle in the Final Fight review, since getting a port that nice onto a peice of crap like SNES would make it by far the most successful port of all. :)
Ha! I enjoyed reading your observations in this (and the prior) post :). I'll have to go back and re-read the articles in question now. I'm not sure if they are all authored by the same person... which could explain why some articles seem more amatuer-ish than others.
Also, I have yet to read it, but I am pretty sure there is an article on Genny's downloadable game service -- but the title makes some silly claim that it was the first service of its kind. My apologies if I am mistaken.
Anyway, Atari VCS / 2600 had a downloadable game service waaaaaaaaay back in the day (unless my friends are pulling my leg). I gotta find out more info on this service for Atari 2600 -- it's just too kool if they really had that back in the early 80's.
I missed out on the whole phenomenon -- I never saw ads for them; I never met anyone who actually subscribed to these services; etc. It was only in the last few years that I even learned about them.
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I wonder why there isn't a Lords Of Thunder side by side comparison?
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I just found the "side by side" review where the 32X Virtua Fighter trounces the Saturn game.
So I guess this means he's not comparing versions to each other, just how good of a port it is.
Which would mean that the Sega Master System Monter World III/WBIV utterly destroys both the Genesis version and Dynastic Hero.
Of course, this would contradict his whole, SNES is as weak as a Gameboy angle in the Final Fight review, since getting a port that nice onto a peice of crap like SNES would make it by far the most successful port of all. :)
Ha! I enjoyed reading your observations in this (and the prior) post :). I'll have to go back and re-read the articles in question now. I'm not sure if they are all authored by the same person... which could explain why some articles seem more amatuer-ish than others.
Also, I have yet to read it, but I am pretty sure there is an article on Genny's downloadable game service -- but the title makes some silly claim that it was the first service of its kind. My apologies if I am mistaken.
Anyway, Atari VCS / 2600 had a downloadable game service waaaaaaaaay back in the day (unless my friends are pulling my leg). I gotta find out more info on this service for Atari 2600 -- it's just too kool if they really had that back in the early 80's.
I missed out on the whole phenomenon -- I never saw ads for them; I never met anyone who actually subscribed to these services; etc. It was only in the last few years that I even learned about them.
Hell, lots of mags and sites talk about the Dreamcast or Xbox being the first online system when not only did the Megadrive have a modem, but so did the Mark III.
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Did this happen to anyone else?
"I remember when the SNES version of Final Fight hit the streets. It sold like hot cakes and though it had been eagerly anticipated, many were returned the same day. No Guy? No two player mode? Levels missing and names changed? Flicker and slowdown all over the place? Many of my friends swore a Sicilian curse at Capcom that day and were bitter over it for a long time."
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Lol at the s-video remark.
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Did this happen to anyone else?
"I remember when the SNES version of Final Fight hit the streets. It sold like hot cakes and though it had been eagerly anticipated, many were returned the same day. No Guy? No two player mode? Levels missing and names changed? Flicker and slowdown all over the place? Many of my friends swore a Sicilian curse at Capcom that day and were bitter over it for a long time."
hahahahaha. You're finding the gems :). This definitely seems to be written from the perspective of a later-era, not the perspective of when the game actually came out.
As I explained in another thread (the one in which Genesis / SuperGrafx GnG is revealed NOT to be arcade perfect): back then, these were the closest console games had ever gotten to the arcade. People didn't return games because they lacked 2-player modes, characters, a few frames of sprite animations, a level, the original character names, etc. I seriously doubt folks were returning Final Fight SNES en masse. It was awesome to play arcade games at home, period. Some ports were superior than others, for sure...
RANT:
Many contemporary reviews of older games suffer from a lack of perspective, and a lack of context. For example, "slowdown" and "sprite flickering" should be put into context.
Slowdown / sprite flickering was annoying, but, in general, it certainly didn't make games unplayable (unlike, say, poor hit detection, or poor controls make a game unplayable). Slowdown / flickering in Gradius III (SNES) -- I wasn't going to return the game. I still loved it, slowdown and all. Now, I'll admit that slowdown in a shooter is not as detrimental as it is other genres (i.e. vs. fighting games), but I can't think of too many games that were RUINED by slowdown / flickering.
Heck, all of Konami's games during the 8-bit and 16-bit era (which, in general, kicked ass) suffered from slowdown / flickering at some points. It was never a huge problem, because the games kicked ass. They were a blast to play. Yes, I like Gradius III SNES. I still haven't beaten it, but, by golly, I will one of these days.
END RANT
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You're saying Sega-16 is biased? Aren't you biased? I keep hearing Genesis sucks on this site. TG16 is aaalways better.
:roll:
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You're saying Sega-16 is biased? Aren't you biased? I keep hearing Genesis sucks on this site. TG16 is aaalways better.
:roll:
:) I know you're not totally serious. But since I'm waiting in the hotel lobby, I've got some time to kill (and I want to get the most of the $10 I spent to get internet access today, those bastards!), allow me to babble ...
Actually, I never said TG-16 is always better :) . And we love Genny (well, a lot of us, anyway). I think most of us were all bringing up specific points / instances in which we disagreed with sega-16. We are simply reacting to sega-16, which is claiming Genny versions as the best version ever.
We are saying, "Hey, we take issue with points A, B, C, and _________ in your comparison."
If the author of the review acknowledges just a portion of our insights, then the Genny version is no longer "hands down" the best one. Rather, it's still a debate. We may never be able to agree on what the "best one" is, but that's not the point, as far as I am concerned.
The point, IMO, is to present an analysis that fairly addresses all of the strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncracies between different versions -- to better inform readers. I want to appreciate everything each version offers.
For example, I truly believe that the sega-16 reviewer did not *really* give the chip tunes from Dungeon Explorer a chance (or, the person writing the review isn't too fond of chiptunes). Either way, it's a travesty to say that the Sega-CD DE Red Book is "better than" or "gets the edge over" the original HuCard tunes. I like the SegaCD soundtrack -- but it is truly, truly generic compared to PCE DE 1 and PCE DE 2 soundtrack. On its own, I can totally enjoy the SegaCD soundtrack... but when you make your analysis relative to the PCE games... forget about it!
Of course, I'm not saying that everyone should love the chiptunes -- but I would like folks to give them a chance before dismissing them :) . My apologies to the sega16 reviewer if he did give the tunes a chance. I still enjoyed reading his article!
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Steve is one of the least biased people on this board, and it's just one of the reasons why we love him so much. :) (the other reason being him often linking to his Turbo Play scans)
By the way, I never really hear people blantly say "Genesis sucks" on this board and from what I can tell, most people here love the Genesis, myself included.
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Steve is one of the least biased people on this board, and it's just one of the reasons why we love him so much. :) (the other reason being him often linking to his Turbo Play scans)
By the way, I never really hear people blantly say "Genesis sucks" on this board and from what I can tell, most people here love the Genesis, myself included.
I'm actually surprised how non-fanboy pretty much everyone here is.
Especially considering how much of an underdog the Duo is considered to be.
Personally, I find it a lot cooler when some who loves the Jaguar or 3DO talk about how it's better in some ways than other consoles than a Playstation fan trashing Sega and Nintendo.
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I don't think I've seen much bias on this board at all. We all seem to be multiple console owners, and appreciate each one on its own merits.
On the subject of Dungeon Explorer music, I even prefer some of the original chip sounds to the DE2 arranged versions. The chip music in DE has a lovely quality to it.
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The chip music in DE has a lovely quality to it.
I don't know about everyone else, but I absolutely LOVE DE's chip music, it has some of my favorite chip music on the PCE.
There was this one song in the game, that my dad really liked (and still does to this day). In fact, he liked it so much he would turn our surround sound system ALLLLL the way up, almost blasting the speakers out whenever we got to that part in the game. It was so loud that in our back yard you could hear it very clearly and the walls of the house would shake. He liked that game a little too much now that I think about it...
As for the Sega cd version (which I also own) I felt that it's music was bland, forgettable, and extremly generic. In fact, there is this one song that we thought, and still think, sounds perfectly like elevator music. I believe it was the part of the game where there was ice and you had to carefully shoot a block of ice to correctly "carve" it to move onward.
As for the game itself, we felt it was a disappointment compared to the one on the PCE. Sure we played through to the last boss (I can't remember if we ever beat it), but it just wasn't the same.
I guess it felt more like a uninspired generic gauntlet clone whereas DE for the PCE seemed to have expanded more on the original formula, had more depth, more replayability, and more of a feel of adventure. But that's just me, feel free to disagree.
I like the first DE for PCE the best, even slightly over DEII which is also a great game.
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The chip music in DE has a lovely quality to it.
There was this one song in the game, that my dad really liked (and still does to this day). In fact, he liked it so much he would turn our surround sound system ALLLLL the way up, almost blasting the speakers out whenever we got to that part in the game. It was so loud that in our back yard you could hear it very clearly and the walls of the house would shake. He liked that game a little too much now that I think about it...
:)
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Hahahaha, that story of your dad blasting the speakers was hilarious!
Dungeon Explorer really did have an incredible soundtrack. Before I really tried playing through the game, I didn't think the soundtrack was nearly as good as everyone said. But man when you have made it to at least the second dungeon, the music REALLY gets amazing from there! The soundtrack gets better the farther you get, so just when you think you have heard the coolest song in a video game, another one comes which is just a closer step to heaven :) .
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The chip music in DE has a lovely quality to it.
I don't know about everyone else, but I absolutely LOVE DE's chip music, it has some of my favorite chip music on the PCE.
There was this one song in the game, that my dad really liked (and still does to this day). In fact, he liked it so much he would turn our surround sound system ALLLLL the way up, almost blasting the speakers out whenever we got to that part in the game. It was so loud that in our back yard you could hear it very clearly and the walls of the house would shake. He liked that game a little too much now that I think about it...
As for the Sega cd version (which I also own) I felt that it's music was bland, forgettable, and extremly generic. In fact, there is this one song that we thought, and still think, sounds perfectly like elevator music. I believe it was the part of the game where there was ice and you had to carefully shoot a block of ice to correctly "carve" it to move onward.
As for the game itself, we felt it was a disappointment compared to the one on the PCE. Sure we played through to the last boss (I can't remember if we ever beat it), but it just wasn't the same.
I guess it felt more like a uninspired generic gauntlet clone whereas DE for the PCE seemed to have expanded more on the original formula, had more depth, more replayability, and more of a feel of adventure. But that's just me, feel free to disagree.
I like the first DE for PCE the best, even slightly over DEII which is also a great game.
DE's music is one of my fave game soundtracks of all time.
As excited as I was to hear CD versions of a lot of tracks in DEII, I was dissapointed with the instruments they picked for several.
Both in skilled use of the PCE's sounds and in actual composition, the soundtrack matches anything else out there.
If you haven't played all the way through, just use the debde debda code and pick the Bard. You can then listen to every song in the game by using his magic.
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Many contemporary reviews of older games suffer from a lack of perspective, and a lack of context.
Can't agree more, Steve. Notice how reviewers usually use the past tense? "This was a great game", "You could do this and that", "The music was wonderful", etc. They rarely describe the game in the present, except for reminding that "It is an old game".
And it's always infuriating to read a retrogame review which ends with: "Of course, by today's standards, the graphics suck". As if the reviewer had forgotten that by today's standards, there are truckloads of recent games which suck as well. Talk about perspective.
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Nice post as always, Kami, but I was hoping you would post your opinions on the sound between the TG16/PCE and Gen/MD of Devil's Crush :) !
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Many contemporary reviews of older games suffer from a lack of perspective, and a lack of context.
Can't agree more, Steve. Notice how reviewers usually use the past tense? "This was a great game", "You could do this and that", "The music was wonderful", etc. They rarely describe the game in the present, except for reminding that "It is an old game".
And it's always infuriating to read a retrogame review which ends with: "Of course, by today's standards, the graphics suck". As if the reviewer had forgotten that by today's standards, there are truckloads of recent games which suck as well. Talk about perspective.
Whenever I settle down to do a review for my site, I seem to automatically enter 'PC Engine mode' as though I'm reviewing the game at the time it came out, judging it by the standards of the machine itself. I always feel a bit odd about mentioning 'later' consoles in reviews of PCE stuff.