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Post by Anthaemia. on Dec 10, 2018 17:57:44 GMT
I really do hope these first two remakes are a way of testing the water to see if the far more ambitious Panzer Dragoon Saga is worth also giving the same treatment, but I've not exactly heard good things about the quality of Forever Entertainment's previous output. After the disappointing recent Shenmue I & II remaster set, my fingers are firmly crossed that lessons have been learned at Sega...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Oct 27, 2018 19:29:58 GMT
As much as I love Clockwork Knight myself, I'm glad a third game didn't come out. I don't trust SEGA not to have ruined it at that point, and especially now. I'd hate for them to even remake the game as again I don't trust them, but a re-release on Steam and other consoles as a downloadable title would suit me just fine. I know about Pengin War (and own the proto), but would have much prefered to see that release as part of a compilation title. One non-english magazine did mention it possibly being released as part of a double pack alongside a version of Baku Baku Animal, which is another game I love, so I would have loved such a thing! I was cautiously optimistic about the unreleased Gamecube sequel in the form of an RPG that I'm convinced actually started life on the Dreamcast prior to SEGA leaving the market due to my own research. I feel like it would have been a 3D platformer with RPG elements. It could have been interesting. Other than that, I'm happy it just stayed at the two games, and that it will remain forever perfect imo. Your idea of what Knight'n Knight might have been sounds very much like Dark Savior for the Saturn, and I agree with you that it probably began life on Dreamcast (along with so many of Sega's earliest third party titles, for that matter). As for a possible compilation set, don't all three original Clockwork Knight games - including Pengin War - run flawlessly in SSF and most other Saturn emulators with similarly high levels of compatibility? I'm surprised Sega hasn't yet released such packs for Clockwork Knight and Panzer Dragoon...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Oct 20, 2018 1:37:32 GMT
Very sad, Bug and Bug II were really good games and if not for the insane difficulty levels and lack of saving, could have been amazing games imo. Its a shame Realtime Ass, weren't given the task of making Sonic X, can't help but think they would have done a better job and making a half decent 2.5 Sonic game using the BUG game engine . I've always thought the PC version of Sonic Xtreme looked very much like it was running on the BUG! engine (which wasn't ever the case, I should point out), so the first thing I did when playable code finally surfaced was create something that worked quite well: Despite only being put together as a joke, the slower pace and ability to climb walls seemed a far better match for Bug than it would have for Sonic in a flagship 32-bit game. Unfortunately, all that remains of my ill-fated sprite swapping project is this lone screenshot, though I remember it wasn't exactly difficult to implement, with only the HUD not working when I gave up on the idea. I'm actually surprised nobody's tried taking the concept to its logical conclusion, but it's clear there isn't much love for Bug these days... and Clockwork Knight or Astal, for that matter!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Oct 14, 2018 13:15:39 GMT
According to vintage press releases, it seems as if SOA had very high hopes for BUG! as the company's new flagship series. Sales of the original game were so high that plans were announced not just for the eventual sequel, but a computer-animated kids TV show, which I've heard was quite far into production when the powers that be decided to pull the plug on this and another installment in the Saturn franchise that I once saw mentioned under the possible working title of FREE BUG! (due to its major plot element of the two previous auxiliary characters teaming up with a new third partner to help save the titular figure). My guess is that Bug Too! didn't perform as well as originally expected, or maybe Realtime Associates chose to move away from the Saturn, joining the majority of third party developers after mid-1997? Also, it probably didn't help that there were considerable problems behind the scenes at SOA by this point as well - Sega Technical Institute folded soon after the completion of Die Hard Arcade, while many of the remaining staff were quickly assigned to work on either localisations or the ill-fated Eclipse and Black Belt hardware projects, with only a few able to produce relatively basic tech demos when it came time to finally unveil the Dreamcast. This splitting of resources is why the Dreamcast launched with very few US-developed Sega titles in development beyond Geist Force, and even that wouldn't ultimately see the light of day. By contrast, the Saturn hit shelves with plenty of support from Sega's US division, including Black Fire, Ghen War, BUG! and Congo... Actually, maybe it's for the best that their mostly disappointing efforts didn't spill over to dilute the Dreamcast's even more crucial launch window?
As for Deep Fear, I really am surprised that became a "one and done" type game, especially when you consider that Capcom was doing everything in its power around the same time to rework Resident Evil 2 into the springboard for an entire franchise that endures to this day. I definitely agree that the next logical step for Deep Fear would have been to set a follow-up or even a prequel in space, but it seems as if Sega chose to focus on Blue Stinger as its major next generation survival horror showcase, later joined by the initially Dreamcast-exclusive Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Astal seems to have been quickly forgotten in the push to emphasise polygons over sprites, and we very nearly did get a Streets Of Rage 4, or at least that was until Core and Sega fell out because of the former wanting its product to appear on rival systems, leading to its eventual release as Fighting Force. Similarly, before Lobotomy Software folded, plans were underway for a sequel to Exhumed, while it's odd that you should mention Sega potentially taking a leaf from Namco's book, since Kenji Sasaki moved from working on the first Ridge Racer to being a major creative force on the team responsible for Sega Rally. Ironically, around the same time, Seiichi Ishii went the other way, recycling a lot of his unused character designs for Virtua Fighter in the Tekken series. Although the likes of Manx TT, Sega Touring Car and even Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition are all very different from Sega Rally, I recall each of these being described by journalists as spiritual successors to Rally, or in the case of the latter, it was literally created on a heavily modified version of the Saturn version's engine.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Oct 14, 2018 12:55:42 GMT
I'll definitely agree with you about the frame rate of Virtual Hydlide perhaps being a major barrier to newcomers, though I never found Mystaria to be all that slow. As a turn-based RPG, the slower pace only really becomes noticeable during fights, and even those animations can be disabled.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Oct 14, 2018 1:00:45 GMT
One little air bubble, though... Core said the Saturn VF3 they saw had two playable characters. I agree that it seems unlikely that Tomb Raider II for Saturn got very far along at all. Core were showed off a beta of Saturn Ninja before they even said they had started on TR2. Also, around this time they were complaining that Sega hadn't let them see the technical specifications for the 3D accelerator cartridge yet. Assuming they were indeed going to use that cartridge for TR2, I can't imagine they could get much done without knowing what hardware limitations they were working with. Was there ever any confirmation about which two characters were in the tech demo that Core staff remembered playing? I've seen quite a few sources talk about a tech demo featuring Aoi (displaying various techniques over a solid blue background), but never anything interactive. Indeed, that particular demo was only ever seen on one of several VHS tapes doing the rounds within Sega's offices, while the aforementioned demos showcasing Akira were from long before even pre-production began on Saturn VF3. I don't recall the exact dates right now, though I'm fairly sure the Akira demos first appeared in magazines around late '95, when Tadahiro Kawamura of AM2 presented the earliest revision of SGL. As for Core having a performance target for the Eclipse cartridge, I remember quite a few magazines claiming the specifications would be comparable to the upcoming Black Belt system also being prepared by SOA. At the very least, it wouldn't surprise me if Core's programmers were told to expect the same 3dfx chipset in Eclipse as Black Belt, or perhaps a slightly less powerful variation. If my understanding is correct, the custom graphics processor that 3dfx created for Black Belt was an amalgam of the Voodoo 2 and Banshee, though I can't imagine this solution being cost effective for an upgrade like the Eclipse. Maybe it was aiming to more closely match the first generation of Voodoo card, only with the least possible amount of VRAM to keep the RRP down? What always stunned me about the collapse of the deal between 3dfx and SOA is just how close the former came to going under when this collaboration fell through. Despite all the critical and commercial success of the Voodoo range in particular, it seems that 3dfx was developing and churning out so many products that the company as a whole had been running on fumes. I've even seen claims that the money 3dfx received in compensation was the only thing stopping it from declaring bankruptcy at the end of the 1997-8 financial year, as it had already done most of the work necessary ahead of a planned Voodoo 3 launch in early '99! Finally for now, if my ever-reliable contact within Sega Europe is correct, the NDAs for all internally-developed Saturn games released in the US and Europe have now expired. Just a few months ago, we had an extensive interview with many of the key staff at Team Andromeda on the subject of how Panzer Dragoon Saga came to be, and I'm hoping that Yu Suzuki will finally stop being so vague about Saturn VF3 or the 32-bit "Shenmue" prototype. The evidence points to these definitely existing, yet he's typically dismissive of wanting to give them much of his time in retrospect. If he remains silent, we can safely assume it's because the failure of those projects to materialise really did hurt his feelings. I've been told that corporate opinion quickly changed against AM2 in general when the arcade version of VF3 failed to build on the series' established fanbase, with Shenmue II being the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Once management saw that Shenmue wouldn't develop anything beyond a cult following, AM2 suddenly went from having an unprecedented degree of control and record-breaking budgets to being reined in. Soon, we'd have a flood of relatively conservative sequels including the likes of Virtua Fighter 4, Out Run 2 and Virtua Cop 3, with Yu himself never again sharing the pedestal of contemporaries such as Yuji Naka or Tetsuya Mizuguchi, at least not until he returned to the spotlight with Shenmue III. Now that I think about it, I'm amazed Yu stuck around within Sega for as long as he did... Who even remembers Sega Race TV, which stands as perhaps the only high profile game released between Shenmue II and III to bear his name in its credits?
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Post by Anthaemia. on Oct 13, 2018 23:57:17 GMT
I'll second Mystaria, but definitely not Virtual Hydlide... *shudders*
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Post by Anthaemia. on Sept 27, 2018 21:26:44 GMT
What members of Core Design claimed to have seen of Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 is unlikely to have been running on the Eclipse upgrade because this was never completed, though it was probably developed by AM2... According to other sources from within Sega Europe who saw the same "VF3" build, this was a simple character movement tech demo featuring Aoi practicing moves over a plain background (similar to the more basic samples showcasing Akira that were included with some revisions of the Sega Graphics Library toolkit). My understanding is that lead programmer and conversion director Keiji Okayasu created this at some point in mid-to-late 1996 as part of research into whether the Saturn could even handle such a demanding game, with Yu Suzuki announcing that production would commence with immediate effect at the November '96 press conference where he also revealed Fighters Megamix.
According to a former Sega of America insider who I've spoken to, a much later version of Saturn VF3 was seen in the form of a rolling demo, with others describing this as actually being a VHS tape prepared by AM2 for internal use. Previously, a cassette of the earliest Saturn software had found its way into the hands of the UK's Official Sega Magazine, which printed various screenshots of a SGI workstation target sequence for what later became Panzer Dragoon, then still known by its working title of 3D Shooting Game. So much we know about has yet to see the light of day, and I very much doubt that Core had access to anything like final Eclipse hardware. At the very least, they were able to begin converting Tomb Raider II using a PC-based approximation with the same 3dfx chipset, though I'm not convinced such work could have lasted for long, as Sony was quick to buy console exclusivity to the franchise, which lasted until after the Dreamcast's launch. Whether the end result justified the hype or not, I can still remember the fanfare when Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was announced for Sega's next generation system.
P.S. Since we're on the subject of Core Design, was there ever any proof that Core had been responsible for the ill-fated Dreamcast conversion of SCUD Race? If anything, this would have been a continuation of the sample files seen in early "Katana" development kits, which I'm fairly sure originated from Sega of Japan's own in-house hardware division.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Sept 27, 2018 0:45:11 GMT
Has anyone tried reaching out to Gemini (AKA Loboto 3) about the possibility of his expertise in translating 32-bit era games being enlisted to help create an English version of Grandia for the Saturn? He's got quite a few projects on the go right now, though I can imagine this being the kind of challenge that might interest him...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Sept 27, 2018 0:29:37 GMT
"This ol' chestnut, huh?"
Just like the 32-bit version of what later became Shenmue, AM2 was busy converting Virtua Fighter 3 to Saturn* without any knowledge of the so-called Eclipse accelerator cartridge, which had been conceived within Sega of America (and was already cancelled by mid 1997, when the division's R&D team had already moved its focus to the similarly ill-fated Black Belt project). Whatever form Saturn VF3 would have ultimately taken, you can rest assured that it was running on 100% vanilla hardware.
*Following months of technical research, actual development took place between November '96 and late August '98, with the cancellation officially documented as happening in mid-September. Slightly earlier, work on the retroactively titled Shenmue Saturn Version began at the beginning of '96, continuing up through to the middle of '97, when AM2 decided on a platform change to what was then still known internally as Guppy and later Katana.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I suddenly have the urge to see whether it's possible to order some chestnut and/or vanilla tea anywhere...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jul 5, 2018 23:28:40 GMT
Although it may seem like Sega's hardware decisions - especially in the console market - were all over the place, there's a clear path that can be traced through its 8-bit technology all the way up to the Saturn's design, but the Dreamcast/NAOMI was evidently a clear break from tradition. Even then, the main CPU remained an evolution of Hitachi's SuperH chipset, not to mention Yamaha was still involved with the audio side of things.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 29, 2018 11:01:01 GMT
While I can see the convenience of developers using pre-existing engines, I really have a problem with more recent versions of Unreal Engine in particular - you'd think it would be easier for artists to get away from that look, but so many games are limited by the overall aesthetic of this underlying platform. Unity is a little more flexible visually, but there's no denying that support for such engines would be appealing for those who choose to go with an external solution, whether it's because they lack the necessary time, budget or resources to do everything bespoke.
On a hardware level, I'd definitely go with something that is faithful to Sega's approach. Every new generation saw massive improvements over the last, yet kept some tried-and-tested components. For example, just look at how often the Motorola 68000 popped up, along with the Hitachi SuperH series of processors. Any console in the mid 2000s would probably not have included a 68k, but as an evolution of the Naomi, Dreamcast and Hikaru, perhaps there might have been a SH4, even as a sub-controller if not the main CPU. Also, a dedicated GPU seems likely, especially as the Dreamcast took this approach already.
In terms of potential storage formats, I suspect that Sega would have eventually switched from the proprietary GD-ROM to the more standard DVD-ROM, since they'd already demonstrated a prototype standalone unit. DVD seems a good idea when you consider how readily available and affordable PC drives are, though I'm also curious to see where Sega's loyalties might have gone in the generation following Dreamcast, as Microsoft made the mistake of putting its proverbial eggs in HD DVD rather than Blu-ray, which it's believed came out on top partly because of Sony adopting this in the PS3, just as DVD was helped by PS2 sales.
On the other hand, the Dreamcast was quite a radical move away from the approach that had worked for the Mega Drive and Saturn, so maybe the company would have pulled a similar trick yet again had it remained in the hardware business long enough to bring a seventh generation contender to market? Although the overall quality was similar enough to the untrained eye, I always felt that NAOMI was a step back from the Model 3 range, though I can appreciate development was both easier and cheaper with the Dreamcast-derived board.
This may seem like a drastic curve ball to throw programmers, but what if Sega followed Microsoft in embracing PowerPC technology for a period? A true numbered successor to Model 3 with a console equivalent might have been absolutely brilliant for those of us who saw NAOMI as somewhat regressive, but once again, I totally understand why Sega decided to go with the most accessible option it could. Saying that, maybe something based on the NAOMI 2 or Hikaru would provide enough of an upgrade without alienating coders now familiar with the Dreamcast?
Whatever ends up being used for this new project, there's more than enough logic in Sega's past decisions to create a loose roadmap for its components that would honour the company's spirit. Alternatively, the authenticity could come from choices made in creating the actual software, as many of Sega's later internal development studios had very distinctive approaches. For example, United Game Artists had a tendency to push the audio side of its presentation as something more than just background music, and much of Smilebit's output had a very "dry" look, if that makes any sense.
Finally, just as the VMU concept was carried over to some of Sega's arcade machines during the initial Dreamcast period, this also saw a planned evolution in the form of the MP3 player. Rather than maintaining support for the original VMU, perhaps you could look into similarly expanding its capabilities, or at least the storage? This next option might require more work, but can you imagine something between the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the even more obscure Sega Vision? Stereo audio output and a full colour screen would be great, as would support for MP4 or some equivalent. I can dream...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 25, 2018 0:31:25 GMT
A follow-up console to the Saturn? Would this happen to be the same platform I remember being proposed in a thread over at the ASSEMblergames message board a few years back? I seem to recall that being designed around a dual-SH4 setup with a Kyro II SE graphics processor and more than enough RAM to handle the most demanding CPS3, Hikaru or NAOMI 2 titles, making it a true "best of both worlds" powerhouse for 2D and 3D software (which is a direction I'd have liked Sega to adopt beyond the Dreamcast)! Of course, any system is only as good as the code being produced for it, and I don't remember what the plans were for its operating system, media storage format and development libraries. Would something with those levels of specification be up to the task of supporting later iterations of the Unreal Engine, for example?
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 17, 2018 21:19:57 GMT
I've long since given up trying to make sense of Saturn game prices on eBay in particular, as I sold my once prized PAL edition of Deep Fear a few years back (which is not a decision I made lightly - my personal circumstances were very difficult for a while), only to find the same copy trading hands between a small number of European collectors, each time its value increasing significantly beyond the £100 that I managed to sell it for. After discussing this pattern with a few other people, I came to the conclusion that a select group might be looking to inflate the market by using a handful of visible yet rare titles, each of its members pocketing a little extra profit in the process with each cycle. In addition to my "watermarked" Deep Fear, featuring an imperfection that I deliberately introduced to help identify this later on, I've seen a Panzer Dragoon Saga with the same worn outer case doing the rounds as well, not to mention someone's Burning Rangers that has a similarly distinctive cosmetic detail. I won't say any more, but I'm hoping those responsible will find it harder to continue making further ridiculous amounts from this activity now SD card solutions are quickly becoming a reality. Then again, I've just seen a console with the Rhea mod installed, and the asking price is an absolutely astronomical £750, so perhaps the problem is worse than ever? ...and you wonder why I prefer emulation to building up my physical library these days!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 17, 2018 15:56:55 GMT
I don't typically like to resurrect old threads, but I'm able to contribute quite a lot to this particular subject, so hopefully you won't mind if I make an exception...
Anyway, those screenshots aren't from the Dreamcast or PC conversions of Sega Rally 2, but instead show the initial arcade location test build (you can tell because of the higher polygon count on the car models, plus the vastly superior reflection effect in windows along with some advanced shading techniques that only the Model 3 board supported). That specific course was dropped at some point after the initial location test, meaning it received plenty of coverage from magazines and websites back in the day. I once read many of the additional courses from the PC and Dreamcast editions of Sega Rally 2 were recycled ideas that didn't make the cut in the arcade original, though I've no idea why this mountain-themed stage failed to also return. At the very least, it wouldn't surprise me if some leftover data remained in the final ROM, since there have been quite a few discoveries pointing to what the developers planned. For example, several voice clips exist that didn't serve a purpose until the Dreamcast/PC conversion, such as directions only used in Desert SS2, Snowy SS1 and the "sunny" variation of Snowy SS2. As with the debug menu for Sonic The Fighters taking years to become fully documented, I suspect it will be a long time before anyone puts in the necessary effort to see whether anything further is lurking in the SR2 arcade files.
If anyone is interested, I could upload a large number of magazine scans featuring this lost circuit. I've always hoped someone could piece together its layout and recreate this in a different game, or perhaps even the home versions of SR2 by using a model editor, though there just doesn't seem to be the interest or wider demand for either, sadly.
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