Commodore Amiga question

[Arkhan]

It's where Vampire Killer ( castlevania) came from.  Theres a ton of great Konami games, (original metal gear 1 and 2), alot of RPGs and stuff.

you have that backwards. Castlevania came out on the Famicom first. But the msx version only came a month later, so they were probably in development at the same time.

Ah right right.  Given the like, month difference in release dates, its pretty obvious they were done in parallel, with Vampire Killer having some features/stuff the famicom didnt.

I prefer the MSX one in that regard, because I like the stuff in it that Famicom doesn't have.... i.e.: Treasure boxes with upgrades, merchants, and a bit more of an "adventure" feel to it that was then present in Simons Quest....

and then the newer CVs all do it too.... so I wonder if the majority of people preferred it that way?

[Arkhan]

In regards to the MSX

MSX1:
Commodore 64:

Yeah.  The scrolling is blocky, but isn't so bad that it wrecks the game, especially with that ill ass SCC music.

as for "no scrolling":

MSX2 games:
Aleste 2:
Space Manbow:
Ys:

and little windows:

Xak:
Golvellius 2:

Thems is nice little windows.
Then theres more goodness like Dragon Slayer 6, Sorcerian, and tonssss of other good games.

If we are talking STRAIGHT MSX1 stuff (MSX2 is backwards compatible and as such MSX is usually just the blanket term for the best MSX standard machine you can find), yeah there will be some scrolling-sadness that really doesn't kill any of the games.
  Not really a little window.  Pretty solid game too.  No scrolling, so what.  Duh.

You could look at stuff like Gall Force, Hydlide 3 MSX1 version, and a plethora of other solid MSX1 games.... Antarctic Adventure, more Konami shooters, some more RPGs and text/digital comic adventures.

It's all really good stuff.  The jerky scrolling argument is petty to me.  If it was so bad, I don't think the MSX, and the PC88 would have been as successful as they were. 

And don't get me wrong, the Amiga is fine.  I like games on the Amiga.  Agony, SotB 1 thru 3, and tons of other games are really good stuff. 

That being said, when its a Japanese game being ported to the Amiga, or the Commodore, it usually sucks.  Salamander for C64 is the only one I can think of that managed to make it over good.

[ccovell]

Yeah.  The scrolling is blocky, but isn't so bad that it wrecks the game, especially with that ill ass SCC music.

as for "no scrolling"...

Way to selectively snip quotes, Arkhan, and to overlook glaring faults.  That video of Nemesis, as well as others like Nemesis 2, 3, Salamander, etc show how choppy scrolling can ruin a game.  I have the Konami MSX collection for Saturn, and really, the games are that unplayable thanks to the crap scrolling.

Those Xak and Hydlide videos do indeed show off how tiny the viewing window in many MSX games is.  It's approaching Gameboy dimensions.

Basically, the MSX had great programmers (how could it not? They were Japanese...) but let down by the most idiotic hardware (something all Japanese PCs save for the FM-Towns and X68000) suffered from.

C64 and Amiga games were let down on the programming side (lazy European or (gag, even worse) American conversions of excellent arcade originals.)  But that's another story.  Or rather, one that goes back to the topic of the original post.

Don't get me wrong, I have 2 Amigas and 2 C64s, but aside from productivity and demo fun, other (proper) consoles have much more playable games, conversions from the arcades, etc.  The number of *truly* great Amiga exclusives is quite low, so consoles are usually a better investment.

[Arkhan]

Way to selectively snip quotes, Arkhan, and to overlook glaring faults.  That video of Nemesis, as well as others like Nemesis 2, 3, Salamander, etc show how choppy scrolling can ruin a game.  I have the Konami MSX collection for Saturn, and really, the games are that unplayable thanks to the crap scrolling.

I didn't really selectively snip it, I don't think?  If I did, I didn't mean to.  You said it had no scrolling hardware, so I assumed you meant the usual block-scrolling complaint.  Yeah it's a fault, but I guess I fall into the group of people that don't see it as a huge problem that ruins the games.  I play the games on real MSX hardware and don't find them unplayable.  The only blockscrolling game I can't play is Legend of Kage.  It's just disorienting as hell when you start to jump around. Gall Force is perfectly playable!

I think I would take the MSX shmups w/ the block scrolling (Starsoldier!) over the stuff they put on C64 (Lions of the Universe) any day.  The shmups on the C64 were all pretty terrible.

Those Xak and Hydlide videos do indeed show off how tiny the viewing window in many MSX games is.  It's approaching Gameboy dimensions.

It's not a hardware flaw; its a design preference.  They could have extended the gameplay window without affecting the gameplay speed in games like Xak, Fray and Ys, but chose to put the HUDs in.  I think it was to mimic the then-popular western RPGs like Questron and Ultima. 

Those western games had tiny windows too and were running on hardware that could definitely do better as well.

C64 and Amiga games were let down on the programming side (lazy European or (gag, even worse) American conversions of excellent arcade originals.)  But that's another story.  Or rather, one that goes back to the topic of the original post.

The MSX port of Green Beret is probably the worst thing I've ever seen on a computer, lol.  It made Konami stop letting english speakers port their games for awhile I think.

Don't get me wrong, I have 2 Amigas and 2 C64s, but aside from productivity and demo fun, other (proper) consoles have much more playable games, conversions from the arcades, etc.  The number of *truly* great Amiga exclusives is quite low, so consoles are usually a better investment.

Yep.  The games I like to play most on Amiga/C64 aren't exclusives (D&D/Ultima/other RPGs and arcade games), and the exclusives on either system don't warrant actually having one set up anymore.  Having an A4000 set up on a desk to play like 3 games is sort of obnoxious.

[ccovell]

Those Xak and Hydlide videos do indeed show off how tiny the viewing window in many MSX games is.  It's approaching Gameboy dimensions.

It's not a hardware flaw; its a design preference.  They could have extended the gameplay window without affecting the gameplay speed in games like Xak, Fray and Ys, but chose to put the HUDs in.  I think it was to mimic the then-popular western RPGs like Questron and Ultima.

It was a design preference inasmuch as the programmers didn't want to overload the CPU...  Moving a full screen of data around every time the screen scrolled (by 8 pixels) might have been possible, but not with other objects moving, enemy AI, and a music engine on top of all that, especially with lazy or incapable programmers.

That's the same reason why many Speccy, Amstrad, and Atari ST games had such thick, baroque borders all around the game peephole.

[Arkhan]

The VDP in the MSX2 saves it from overloading the CPU.  It is actually quite nice.  non transparent blitting is pretty damn speedy.  It's very nice! Vroom vroom backgrounds, with minimal work.

You can see some other screen 5 games that are fullscreen/action packed to prove that point.    Aleste 2 and Undeadline for example, use the same screen mode as Fray. Same with Xak 2.

Good stuff!

[Tatsujin]

with Vampire Killer having some features/stuff the famicom didnt.

Vice versa as well, started with scrolling.

[Arkhan]

one things for sure, the lack of scrolling in the MSX2 game prevents the cheesy non-stop enemy respawn spots in the game that often result in DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT.