It actually works backwards from what you're thinking. Although homebrew for PCE is still just getting started in the grand scheme of things, yes, the Super CD format is already a bottleneck. Homebrew developers aren't as efficient as professional development teams with official dev kits bitd, especially when working with something like HuC. So having more than enough space, like say ACD format, is already beneficial for games that don't come off as top end 16-bit console games.
I beg to differ. The official devkit isn't the real crutch here. It's the part where they were paid to sit for 40+hrs a week and work on this stuff.
Mysterious Song's cinemas already surpassed the Super CD load space and the battles with background art and no loading in and out of fights is jam packed. The final cinemas of MSR are broken into three sections and a bunch of art and animation was cut. Many high end retail RPGs from bitd lacked battle bg art. Full screen RPG battle bgs with animated sprites would benefit from the jump to ACD or a huge HuCard.
This is not by any means a jab. I just don't think it's really sensible to hold MSR as the standard for CD use with homebrew projects...
The cinematics are cool. Definitely. However, like you've mentioned, they're a bit over the top as far as space. In hindsight, maybe they should have been dialed down some, especially since commercial RPGs succeeded with less. Maybe there was a reason they went with less commercially. It just works better in the end.
Also, at it's core, Mysterious Song is pretty much still that same simple RPG it was on DOS. Yes it has colorful, variety filled backgrounds not normal for RPGs on the platform, but again, look what commercial games did with less as far as battles go. Cosmic Fantasy rocks the black menu style combat no problem!
So yes, you pushed the storage capacities of the CD, and it's a job well done in that regard...but look how long it took to get all of it wrapped up.
Is it really a great idea to hold a 10+ year project with better than commercial cutscenes/backgrounds in battle as the standard?
Again, not jabbing in the slightest, I bet that if the game were done with less over-the-topness on the cutscenes, and simpler battle backgrounds all in the interest of space conservation...
the game would still be just as good, and may not have run into so many issues throughout the years.
This is just my 2 cents. I am one of those "know your limits" kind of people. I don't often go for over-the-top. I just go for neat/sorta flashy/works good/has nice tunes.
Jungle Bros is also going to be limited by what will fit in a single load, not by whatever content people could be bothered to put together.
This is again one of those know your limits kind of things. On paper everything seems great, but it all adds up. It sucks, but it's true.
Aetherbyte and Frozen Utopia/Eponasoft take a bit of a different approach to getting things done. Neither is bad.
I just don't think the standard should be a 10+ year long project, because no one in their right mind is going to try doing shit like that again.
as far as HuCards go, they offer great possibilities, but also aren't as quick and easy to manufacture/get going...
and I am sure down the line all kinds of neat little "son of a bitch" problems will arise from a Hu project.
