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Post by Anthaemia. on Jul 23, 2008 7:56:15 GMT
Virtua Fighter 3 proved such a huge leap forward from its predecessor that most fans were put off, hence the long wait and eventual decision to adopt a simpler approach for its sequel. Even today, with only Genki's less-than-perfect Dreamcast conversion as its legacy and very few arcades (outside of Japan, at least) still featuring cabinets, it's no surprise most gamers don't treat VF3 with the respect it deserves. I can only begin to imagine what AM2 may have done next had VF3 been the commercial success Namco experienced with Tekken 3, despite that game not being quite as revolutionary in comparison to its main rival. Instead, the series lost momentum, its creative visionary and - worst of all - didn't really make the shift from one generation to the next. Tekken may have taken a while to get started, but new VF titles are now generally regarded to be higher definition updates of past glories. Hardcore fans still love every new game, though I can just about tolerate VF4 Evolution. After that, I'd rather wait for the (unlikely) return of Yu Suzuki, as without his guidance this once landmark franchise has grown stale in my opinion. At least it's still much faster than Namco's offerings, although I should point out that Soul Calibur and Tekken Tag Tournament have places in my collection before anyone suggests that I may have a problem with anything not produced by Sega. Actually, can anybody think of a game released around this same era close to VF3 in terms of innovation? I'd suggest the relatively obscure Fighting Bujutsu from Konami or perhaps even Takara's similarly underrated D-Xhird, yet neither really compares apart from on a purely technical level. How about Dead Or Alive 2 or Ehrgeiz at a push, maybe? Power Stone 2 might be too far removed from the basic genre to warrant any notable comparison, and while something of a fan it's probably not best that I suggest Mortal Kombat Gold in this context... Of course, I could always mention 2D alternatives to really crack open a proverbial can of worms!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jul 22, 2008 19:16:39 GMT
VF3 vs Tekken? No contest! VF3 vs Tekken 3, on the other hand... who am I kidding? Virtua Fighter 3 all the way!!
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Hexen
Jul 11, 2008 18:38:07 GMT
Post by Anthaemia. on Jul 11, 2008 18:38:07 GMT
One quick search for Hexen on Game FAQS later...
First of all, select "options" at the title screen then input Up, Down, Left, Right, Y, Y, Z, Z, A, X, Up, Down, C and finally B to unlock a cheats menu, which just so happens to include the hidden link-up mode you mentioned. However, please note that it was never fully optimised and varies between running at near-unplayable frame rates or crashing entirely - you have been warned!
Anyway, going slightly off-topic for a moment, did you know that GT commissioned two independently produced conversions of Quake for the Saturn? Probe did indeed start work on a port, but they lacked programming expertise so duties were handed back over to id before the press discovered this early code's failure. Not even the legendary coding skills of John Carmack would prove enough, though a little-known US group called Lobotomy had recently impressed Sega Europe with a game titled Powerslave. Following a rename to Exhumed for PAL regions, their next project was the ambitious double-header of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake (not forgetting Death Tank Zwei, as well)!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jul 1, 2008 17:40:08 GMT
Those pictures come from an early Model 3 emulator, as proved by their native resolution of 496x384 that can't even be reproduced on the Saturn. Also, the PAL version of VF2 does indeed run in a higher display mode than the NTSC edition, but even considering the difference in texture colouring I never had any problems with how AM2 recreated this game back then. Of course, the PS2 treatment could have looked pixel perfect, though at least more recent AGES 2500 titles are closer graphically to their coin-op counterparts.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 22, 2008 1:49:03 GMT
I can honestly say I've never known about these problems with the PAL version of Saga, and due to that I'm not sure if there are similar issues with Zwei as well. Someone here must be able to provide more information, though...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 21, 2008 20:55:58 GMT
I have to be honest, I think Sonic R and Panzer Dragoon Saga were the best graphical examples of what the Saturn was capable of. And I have more respect for Travellerss Tales and Team Andromeda than I do for any of the AM groups or Sonic Team when it came to getting great graphics out of the system. But I just cringe a little when people mention Burning Rangers as an example of good graphics on Saturn. It was still rough at the edges, and with some clipping. Nice lighting, yes, but, in my opinion, it doesn't touch Sonic R and Panzer Dragoon Saga for graphical showcasing. My graphical judgements of Burning Rangers are based on the Rolling Demo on the Sega Flash Discs. I've yet to track down the full game. Nonetheless, I feel Travellers Tales and Team Andromeda, showed up the AM departments and Sonic Team, with superior Saturn graphics. Games I'd like to have seen released? VF3, just to see if AM2 really could pull off something as impressive as TT and TA. While the graphics of Sonic R and the last two Panzer Dragoon games were exceptional, to ignore Virtua Fighter 2, Last Bronx, etc. seems particularly harsh as Sega's AM departments were producing incredible showcases of the Saturn's real potential as well, not to mention the Shenmue prototype or Virtua Fighter 3 - the latter something I doubt would have been a disappointment! Also, you really need to get Burning Rangers as the rolling Sega Flash demo was based on a late-yet-incomplete Japanese build that lacks some of the final version's overall polish. Yes, there is quite a lot of glitching throughout, but in terms of technical achievement few games compare with BR. Where else can you find such large and dense polygonal environments, full of various shading methods, real time lighting plus software transparency effects? Based on what it's rendering, I can sure forgive the occasional flickering polygons and rough-looking textures...
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 21, 2008 20:38:05 GMT
I bought all three Panzer Dragoon titles for the Saturn from their original release dates, and this is the first I've heard of Saga not being properly optimised in PAL territories. Considering how late it arrived over here, I'm not surprised in the slightest that a few corners were cut - as if the decision to favour Japanese over "Panzerese" for most of the game wasn't enough of a hint that Team Andromeda had less time than with previous installments. Anyway, to answer your question I don't recall hearing anything about Zwei being rushed, though it does have the occasional graphical errors. However, I've absolutely no idea if these were present or not in the NTSC editions since I'm more of a PAL exclusive collector... unless a game I want just so happens to be import-only, of course!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 11, 2008 0:37:26 GMT
SSM didn't build its reputation on mistakes, but in terms of World League Soccer '98 coverage they made a rare exception of dropping the ball, so to speak. While the resolution and frame rate are (slightly) higher than in the Victory Goal/Worldwide Soccer games, WLS98 certainly isn't running in the same display mode as the likes of Athlete Kings or Virtua Fighter 2. As for the refresh speed, it's a solid enough 25fps in the PAL version and to be fair I've never had any complaints with the "blockiness" even though I still do prefer the overall look of WWS97 despite its rougher appearance. Silicon Dreams weren't exactly late arrivals on the Saturn programming scene, but with WLS98 and the unreleased Chill they were obviously full of promise that may have been fulfilled even more had Sega not abandoned the Saturn so early. Then again, if the Dreamcast didn't arrive when it did it's unlikely they would have been given the responsibility of updating the Worldwide Soccer franchise using their own WLS engine for a new generation of fans, though I never had complaints with the original 32-bit installments. Finally, it should be noted that the Saturn version of WLS98 was developed first with PlayStation and PC ports started later - for a third party software house that was a very rare thing indeed!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 8, 2008 15:54:42 GMT
On the subject of AM2 games and their frame rates, did you know the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2 not only has a higher resolution than the arcade version but also a slightly higher frame rate? In fact, the first home version to feature the arcade's 57.9fps was the PS2 port released as part of the AGES 2500 budget series, which was spoiled by some rough texture mapping and lighting effects. Considering the improvements in resolution and frame rate (the latter being only in its NTSC form, of course), it's easy to forgive Saturn VF2 for lacking the odd piece of background eye candy - especially when the actual game is so incredible! Besides, not even the Model 2 original included characters with moving heads and fingers. I seem to recall a showcase in SSM where lead programmer Keiji Okayasu revealed how he implemented these extra touches because development was ahead of schedule as a result of so much work being put into the early Tokyo Game Show demo that was sourced for so much of the end product. Even today and despite their obvious downgrades, I personally feel we'll have to wait a long time before someone comes up with anything like the big three of VF2, Sega Rally and Virtua Cop. Vipers did look better, but on a technical level VF2 was part of something really special that not even more recent ports and remakes can emulate - if they really wanted to AM2 could have done a 100% recreation of any Model 2 (and perhaps even Model 3?) game on a contemporary system, and the fact they have failed shows just how much they've stopped caring... which makes me wish we'd seen Saturn VF3 all the more, as that had the potential to be a flawed yet still unbelievable conversion capable of silencing even the most fierce of critics!
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 6, 2008 18:27:22 GMT
Despite usually being so reliable, SSM dropped the ball with its coverage of Fighting Vipers, which to this day still proves a source for people who (wrongly) believe that particular game didn't use the console's high resolution mode. In reality, while all polygons - such as characters and walls - are displayed in a lower resolution than Virtua Fighter 2, the actual background layers are rendered in the same high resolution, and from past experience I can confirm that FV also uses interlacing. Fighters Megamix features the same mix of high and low resolution elements with interlaced frames, but as with its predecessor the slight downgrading allowed for more graphical features such as source lighting and Gouraud shading, both severly lacking in VF2.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Jun 4, 2008 18:16:10 GMT
Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers, Fighters Megamix, Battle Arena Toshinden and Toshinden URA all suffer from this interlacing problem, but what really annoys me with SSF is the way certain PAL games are displayed in the wrong resolution. From my own collection, I've noticed that later Sega Flash demo discs and The House Of The Dead are missing quite a large portion at the bottom, though I'm sure there may be other examples. Does anyone know if there's a way of solving this, or will it require updating from the emulator's programmers? Also, let's hope they implement ISO support for those who don't have an endless supply of blank discs at their disposal...
Even with a mere 1.6GHz single core processor I don't have any complaints with the speed of SSF, although I do admit that a few games could run much better. I'd wanted to build my own "super" computer based on easy-to-buy components identical or as similar to Sega's arcade Lindbergh board as possible, but if a Pentium 4 chipset has problems then I might have to reconsider looking at a multi-core solution with a decent graphics card and plenty of memory. Any recommendations for creating the ultimate Virtual Saturn? Then again, is there a way of hooking my Saturn up to allow for direct feed media? A no frills capture card simply won't do for someone who demands the highest possible quality!
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Post by Anthaemia. on May 22, 2008 15:06:12 GMT
Welcome back again Ant - where you been mate? Me and the "other half" have been settling down in our new home, which needed a lot of decorating work doing, therefore I wasn't able to go online as much as I would have liked. Also, it doesn't help that our street is blacklisted (due to vandalism of previously existing telephone wires) so we couldn't get broadband, but thanks to Vodafone's excellent wireless solution we can now go online without having to walk down to the library for Internet access. As a result, you can expect to see plenty more of me from now on - and can I just say that I've sure missed this place!
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Post by Anthaemia. on May 21, 2008 23:10:16 GMT
I didn't have any major complaints with Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition that I felt could ever be solved with just a quick revision, but the later Japanese update managed exactly that - and if you look extra carefully you will find some texture mapping was given a slight improvement, not to mention the handling, newly-restored music from the original (which the earlier PAL edition sadly lacked) plus the same clock feature also seen in Steep Slope Sliders. If you're a fan of Daytona USA and can play imports, this is definitely one to track down... sorry, I had to slip a joke in there somewhere!
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Post by Anthaemia. on May 7, 2008 13:56:42 GMT
Probe started work on a Saturn version of Destruction Derby 2 as the follow-up project to Die Hard Trilogy in early 1997, but later dropped support for the platform taking a port of Formula One along with it in the process. A very early build of DD2 is currently in circulation, though I've no idea how F1 may have been possible as FOCA's license window for using the 1996 season would surely have closed by the time of this game's completion - and there's no way Probe was using the upcoming '97 roster as this had already been made exclusive to Psygnosis for the PlayStation-only sequel, then in development at Bizarre Creations' studio.
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Post by Anthaemia. on Aug 15, 2007 12:29:49 GMT
Sega actually tried to create its own Saturn emulator for the Dreamcast, which somebody unofficially dubbed "SatCast" once news of its existence finally leaked to the press. Of course, this didn't get anywhere because it soon became obvious that while both consoles do share a lot of the same architecture (the Saturn boasting two Hitachi SH2 chips and the Dreamcast one SH4 processor) they also used Little and Big Endian respectively, preventing true backwards compatibility. Besides, there's also the small point of the Dreamcast having to do the work of eight co-processors, though you can't fault Sega for at least giving it a shot. There is currently a similar homebrew project in the works, but I wouldn't hold your breath for anything remotely playable apart from the odd game that utilised just one chip (such as a few PlayStation-to-Saturn ports I could think of, such as Alien Trilogy for example). Very quickly, I should just point out as well that Sega later attempted to remake several key Saturn titles for the Dreamcast with as much of their original code as possible. This idea too was abandoned, since much of the source for Virtua Fighter 2 has somehow disappeared - for the PS2 remake as part of the AGES 2500 budget series, AM2 was forced to adopt some arcade code and fill in the blanks, explaining why the end product failed to perfectly recreate the coin-op.
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