Castlevania: SotN "Remake"

[IntelliMission]

Some guy who already did a Genesis remake of the Game Gear's version of Shinobi is doing it for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. The sprites look almost identical complete with animations, the music has yet to be started but I hope will sound great, the backgrounds lose some detail... But the game will be linear, so it will not really be the same game.:

 

 

I do prefer linear games, but I also disagree with the reason he gives for changing the gameplay ("it will be more interesting"). I would have tried a 1 to 1 copy.

 

Still, it looks pretty cool!

[Tanooki]

That's surprising how much the lowly genesis could pull off.  I really do wish it was more of a faithful conversion, though, maybe it's necessary given the hardware limits despite all that was worked out.  A truly open castle like that game has already may be a bit much within the memory etc limits.  Either way, the bonus would be a new game with existing assets so it won't be another re-run.  Glad I have a Nomad again, and a mega everdrive too.

[turboxray]

The video is kind of misleading. Demos don't mean a whole lot. I would reserve judgements and awe for when they have an actual stage with enemies, items, FX, etc all in it - i.e. a real game engine and design. 

 

 The biggest issue I see right off the bat: the Genesis only has four 15 color subpalettes. They don't share colors across the palettes. Alucard is one full palette. Another enemy they show uses another set of 15 colors( or one palette). You literally have two palettes left after that (for background ?). There's also the issue of detail (you can only fit so much into vram at a time regardless of rom size). I mean the game was always doable, which cut backs, on a 16bit system (linear or not). Hopefully that doesn't come to a shock to anyone haha. But the real trick here is going to be the color/subpalette management on the system. A lot of Genesis games tend to make use of 7-8 color enemies/objects, and share colors with backgrounds, to stretch the color limitations. You don't get free access to all 61 colors on screen. If you did, Genesis games would look way more colorful than they do. I don't think 7-8 color versions of some enemies is going to lend itself too well to these conversions. So it comes to down to an artist to re-imagining the stage/room artwork/color-usage in order to get more color usage for enemies, and/or limit the types of enemies that can appear on screen at once. That's not about code.. that's clever artistic/design skill to hide the limitations. Those are the things I'm going to be looking at. Because I mean, the overall game engine/logic itself is nothing special. Totally within the capabilities of the system.

 

Side note: the SNES, given its extra BG layer and more colors, would yield an easier conversion in that respect. But good luck finding a capable C development environment for it. All this homebrew we've been seeing in the past 4+ years on the MD is because the C and C development libraries/tools for it.

[SlidellMan]

I thought I'd share his demo on Shadow and Highlight mode:

 

[youxia]

This looks quite dreadful, but I don't mean it as a slight towards Genesis or the dev, it's just how it looks on a modern display (at least in these videos, which partially might be caused by compression or their choice of filters or AV connections).

 

SotN is one of the pinnacle of 2D art games from the SD era, and really should be experienced on a CRT, failing that, using some decent CRT shaders on some other platform. This way even a port to Genesis could look very good indeed.

[bubufubu]

2 hours ago, youxia said:

This looks quite dreadful, but I don't mean it as a slight towards Genesis or the dev, it's just how it looks on a modern display (at least in these videos, which partially might be caused by compression or their choice of filters or AV connections).

 

SotN is one of the pinnacle of 2D art games from the SD era, and really should be experienced on a CRT, failing that, using some decent CRT shaders on some other platform. This way even a port to Genesis could look very good indeed.

 

I mostly agree with you.  I just don't see much of a point in creating a, clearly inferior, homebrew in the first place for a game that looks worlds better on its intended console with a CRT.  Everything is going to be a downgrade due to it being a regressive endeavor.  So, what was the point here?  To display what the Genesis is capable of?  I'd like to think we already know that.  To show us what could have been?  But the Genesis predated the PlayStation by several years so it's a never was scenario.  To show off his skill for some friends?  Ok, cool.

 

17 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Oh stop it with the backwater CRT purist mumbo jumbo as it's coming off as a slight even if not intended.

 

The hell is your problem?  There's nothing wrong with youxia's post.  Whether you like it or not, intent matters and you don't get to speak for him.  Nocturne In The Moonlight was made for...wait for it...the Sony PlayStation.  Back then, we had CRTs.  You're ragging on someone (who's not alone with his preference) for encouraging others to experience the game the way its actual developers intended it to be experienced?  The fuck?  What should he have done, Tanooki?  Decried all past technology and kissed the homebrewer's ass as much as you did?  I imagine you have a sign above your room that reads: "No Purists Allowed".

[Tempest]

Stop with the personal attacks people.

[Asaki]

20 hours ago, bubufubu said:

To show us what could have been?  But the Genesis predated the PlayStation by several years so it's a never was scenario.

There were a few games released for the Genesis in 1997 (the year SotN was released), so it's not impossible that it could have happened, but it is highly unlikely.
All of them were American made games, and it looks like Konami themselves stopped releasing Gen/MD games in 1994.

[Steven Pendleton]

17 hours ago, Asaki said:

There were a few games released for the Genesis in 1997 (the year SotN was released), so it's not impossible that it could have happened, but it is highly unlikely.
All of them were American made games, and it looks like Konami themselves stopped releasing Gen/MD games in 1994.

Not all were American; Appaloosa, a European studio, released The Lost World, which is a very impressive technical showcase for the system and a really great game overall, in 1997. If anyone hasn't played it yet, try it because it's great. Not perfect, but it's a fun game with coop multiplayer, a lot of variety in the missions, and some very cool technical stuff going on. I believe it was also the last officially licensed release on the system in PAL territories or something like that, but I'd have to check again.

 

Anyway, as for Dracula X, I am looking forward to trying it when the port/remake is finished.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Not all were American

I think the meant Western.

[Punisher5.0]

Pretty cool project. I'm surprised that they are going for a higher resolution than the PS version. It'll be interesting to see if they can stick to that. The game overall looks better so far.

[Greg2600]

Not much personal interest in this, but odd he'd use Shinobi as a base and not Bloodlines.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Greg2600