So, Symphony of the Night on SNES ...

[Greg2600]

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/12/yes-this-is-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-on-the-sega-mega-drive

 

There's a Mega Drive port of this by "Pigsy" that's really been coming along.

[WavyGravy]

Oh, he knows, and it's been tearing him up inside for the better part of a year at least.

[Shaun David]

From what I saw of the demo of SOTN It's looking pretty good can't wait to see more.

[Kirk_Johnston]

4 hours ago, Greg2600 said:

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/12/yes-this-is-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-on-the-sega-mega-drive

 

There's a Mega Drive port of this by "Pigsy" that's really been coming along.

Yes, and it's looking very nice. It was Pigsy's port of SotN to Genesis that inspired me to consider what such a port might be like on SNES.

[Greg2600]

6 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Yes, and it's looking very nice. It was Pigsy's port of SotN to Genesis that inspired me to consider what such a port might be like on SNES.

Ohhhh, the SNES videos are a mockup.  TBH I didn't really see the point of the Genesis "de-make," and not on SegaCD.  The YM2612 not the greatest at that kind of music.

[Kirk_Johnston]

3 hours ago, Greg2600 said:

Ohhhh, the SNES videos are a mockup.  TBH I didn't really see the point of the Genesis "de-make," and not on SegaCD.  The YM2612 not the greatest at that kind of music.

Yeah, as it says in most of the video titles and descriptions, they're very-quickly-done to-SNES-spec tests/mockups showing what is possible on SNES graphically, but they're not running on SNES directly or actual SNES code. Everything you see was converted using Rilden's Tiled Palette Quantization tool to make sure all the colours and palettes are 100% correct, and it's all within the SNES' layer and tile and sprite limits and so on too, just to make sure that what you see is SNES accurate.

 

Note: My examples are in no way trying to demonstrate the SNES pushed to its limits either. With every example, any fully finished and polished version running on a real SNES could certainly look better than my hasty tests, none of which are really even as complex as the standard stuff you'd find in say Castlevania IV or Dracula X on the system already. But they at least give an initial indication/idea of what's possible. Hopefully someday someone will show the full potential there for a port of Symphony of the Night on SNES.

 

Regarding the audio, I think the stock SNES would be a great match there with its lovely orchestrated sounds. I assume people have already done some SNES remixes of SotN tunes, but I've not specifically gone and checked. Would be interesting to hear how close it could get though.

 

Edit: I presume these are real examples of how the music would/could sound on SNES:

Edited January 14 by Kirk_Johnston
Tweaked some text--and lots of other stuff. LOL

[TrekkiesUnite118]

3 hours ago, Greg2600 said:

Ohhhh, the SNES videos are a mockup.  TBH I didn't really see the point of the Genesis "de-make," and not on SegaCD.  The YM2612 not the greatest at that kind of music.

That's the problem with all of Kirk's posts. He's not an actual SNES dev and hasn't actually made a single thing for the system. Most of his posts are Game Maker mockups that most likely wouldn't even work on a real SNES. He buries this in the video description to try and mislead people. He's pretty much just a rabid fanboy trying to keep a 30 year old console war going. He thinks if his game maker demo looks the part it will shut up those pesky Genesis and PC-Engine fans once and for all. He's fine with flat out lying as long as the ends justify his means. He'll try to do some mental gymnastics to claim he's not lying, but all you need to do is ask him why his videos all have SNES Demo in their title with no mention of it being a game maker mockup and watch the reaction. He knows people wont read the video description, only the title. You can also tell this post has really struck a nerve with him as he keeps editing his previous post in reaction to this one.

 

The reason he's actually responding to you is because he has everyone else who's actually called him out on this on his ignore list. He sees you as a new sucker to try and deceive currently. The moment you question whether any of his mock ups will actually run on an SNES and point out the issues in them, he'll put you on ignore as well.

 

Also Kirk since I know you're reading this post as you keep updating it with me, you should know that LegendOfRenegades remixes generally don't adhere to the limitations of the systems. If I remember correctly he just uses a generic midi tracker with console themed soundfonts.

Edited January 14 by TrekkiesUnite118

[jeffythedragonslayer]

29 minutes ago, TrekkiesUnite118 said:

He's not an actual SNES dev and hasn't actually made a single thing for the system.

so, do you consider SNES emulator authors not SNES developers either?

[TrekkiesUnite118]

1 minute ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

so, do you consider SNES emulator authors not SNES developers either?

He's not an SNES Emulator author either so that's irrelevant. The only title he can legitimately claim from what evidence he has provided is Game Maker developer.

[Kirk_Johnston]

You know, having just posted a link to Dracula X above in my previous post, I have to say that this whole initial fire area of the game is dang impressive:

 

It's visually striking and pulling off some really nice overlapping parallax of three background layers alongside some row/line scrolling and raster trickery on two of the layers, plus the obvious multi-coloured semi-transparency, plus an HDMA gradient in the background, and even a wee HDMA switch on BG3 to allow the HUD at the top and that flame section below it on the same layer.

 

That's a nice graphical showcase moment in a SNES game right there. Unfortunately, I kinda hate the particular background visuals for most of the rest of the game.

 

Interestingly, for me at least, this level in Castlevania IV is actually pulling off many of the same tricks at once too:

Edited January 14 by Kirk_Johnston
Tidy up

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Dracula X is just weird on the SNES. In some parts it's nice looking, other parts it's extremely lazy. For example one of the bosses they just straight ripped the tiles from the PC-Engine game, which had a palette and tile based animation for how it entered in the original game. But now on SNES the background is completely different so those animations don't align with the new background and it looks funny:

PC-Engine for Comparison:

As for Castlevania 4, I find it kind of bland in style. Sure there's more colors and layers, but overall I find Rondo of Blood the better looking game with better looking enemies, bosses, and a better overall art style.

Edited January 14 by TrekkiesUnite118

[Kirk_Johnston]

That third SNES background layer can be used for some rather cool things. In this case it's not just the extra layer of multi-coloured semi-transparent ghosts rising up the screen (and without needing to waste any sprites there), but also still the full width HUD too:

 

And I kinda wonder, if you used Mode 0 for four fully overlapping background layers like in my example below [still with zero sprites harmed] alongside some of these cool effects as seen in the two actual SNES Castlevania games, just what you could do there:

 

Something to think about. . . .

Edited January 14 by Kirk_Johnston
You know, the usual tweaking.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

That one layer on the PC-Engine can do some pretty nice stuff too:

Heck you don't even need to do water with a transparency layer, you can just do it with palette swaps:

Something to think about. . . .

Edited January 14 by TrekkiesUnite118

[Kirk_Johnston]

What if someone also then used layer priority shifting across four fully-overlapping background layers, the window/shape masks at the same time to add another parallax layer element, and maybe even now used some sprites to then fake another background layer element on top of that on part of the level as well on SNES. . . .

 

Of course, none of this has to be done. But all of it technically can on the stock SNES. And maybe a mix of some, none, all at different times too. That's what ideas are for.

 

It's interesting for me to imagine not just a SNES port of Symphony of the Night, but also maybe even such a port going above and beyond just directly copying the original and doing some little things of its own that really takes advantage of the SNES' specific features and capabilities too.

Edited January 14 by Kirk_Johnston
I like to edit stuff. LOL

[TrekkiesUnite118]

What if someone also used linescroll and tile priority to add another parallax layer element without slowing down even with SA-1 chip? Also what if you could do the Mode 7 effect and still have another background layer and not have to waste sprites on it? What if someone actually did this on real hardware instead of in Game Maker? What if someone actually showed how those demos could be done with less layers so you didn't have to go down to NES level color depth?

 

Of course that doesn't have to be done. But all of it already has been done on a stock Genesis.

 

And thankfully we don't have to imagine a port of Symphony of the Night that goes above and beyond just copying the original, but doing it's own things as well. We're already getting that on Genesis.

 

So @Kirk_Johnston since it's blatantly obvious you're reading my post and updating yours to respond to it and continuing to do so as I make edits, do you wanna just drop the "I'm ignoring all of you" facade and just start talking to the rest of us like a sane normal human being?

Edited January 14 by TrekkiesUnite118

[KidGameR186496]

13 hours ago, TrekkiesUnite118 said:

Dracula X is just weird on the SNES. In some parts it's nice looking, other parts it's extremely lazy. For example one of the bosses they just straight ripped the tiles from the PC-Engine game, which had a palette and tile based animation for how it entered in the original game. But now on SNES the background is completely different so those animations don't align with the new background and it looks funny:

PC-Engine for Comparison:

As for Castlevania 4, I find it kind of bland in style. Sure there's more colors and layers, but overall I find Rondo of Blood the better looking game with better looking enemies, bosses, and a better overall art style.

Well, Rondo of Blood has the advantages of being a somewhat late PC Engine release (keep in mind that the console came in 1987 and the game came in 1993), as well as the more expansive color palette of the PC Engine and the Super System Card adding more video RAM. Whereas SC IV was one of the early titles for the SNES. So, the visual difference is pretty much obvious.

 

If anybody asked me which 16-bit Castlevania game i like the most, well... You got me there! SC IV, Rondo of Blood, and Bloodlines are fantastic game for their respective platforms and arguably some of the best entries in the series, but choosing one over the other is tough X'D

[WavyGravy]

I quite like the look of SCV4. I think they were going for more of a painterly-baroque style with the graphics, and I think the muted colours really helps to sell it. Rondo probably takes the cake, though, the amount of animation and variation that comes from having crazy amounts of storage is pretty tough to ignore, and the art style is very cohesive throughout.
In terms of the games, I think it comes down to Rondo and SCV4. I think SCV4 has more interesting level design and the control feels better to me, but Rondo has amazing boss fights and lots of extras. For me, it's SCV4, but if someone told me they like Rondo better, I wouldn't argue with them as they're so close to each other. Bloodlines is not in the running for me, though. Great game, sure, but not in the same league as Rondo and SCV4 in my opinion. 

[Kirk_Johnston]

16 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

You know, having just posted a link to Dracula X above in my previous post, I have to say that this whole initial fire area of the game is dang impressive:

 

Thinking about it further, I'd actually love to see someone port the original Rondo of Blood game properly to SNES too. It looks to be graphically simpler than the SNES games for the most part, but just a really high quality game in the series in terms of the lovely pixel art and overall consistent high level of quality throughout.

 

There's nothing there I can see at a glance outside of the CD-specific stuff the stock SNES couldn't handle and indeed improve upon in many areas given its much more advanced background capabilities (I won't list all the advantages here) and very similar sprite capabilities (less dedicated VRAM for sprite tiles, less versatility in on-screen sprite sizes, and less total colours dedicated to sprites, but more sprite objects per scanline, more sprite tiles per scanline, more sprites on-screen total, sprite semi-transparency, no need to waste sprites to fake the parts the PC Engine presumably used to fake extra background layers or layer elements at times, which also means even more leeway to work within the sprite objects per scanline and sprite tiles per scanline limits, and vastly greater colour gamut/range from that 64x bigger master palette). It's capable of all the same tricks to just fake additional layers and stuff too, like using animated tiles, using sprites, switching palettes, etc. And, if someone wanted to do more than what's possible on the stock SNES to get even closer to the original, like add in the original CD music to a SNES port for example, there's always the likes of MSU1 for that and/or other chips to do whatever else, if that's what floats their boat. But I'd personally like to see just a stock SNES version first (means I could run it on my SNES mini easily too).

 

Yeah, I think a SNES version of Rondo of Blood that also uses some of its specific features and capabilities in cool additional ways too could actually be very nice. Even a one level test to see what's possible there on SNES would be interesting to see.

 

Edit: Wait, is Rondo of Blood actually running on the original PC Engine [just with the CD ROM attached] or is it running on one of the later systems with added graphical capabilities and built-in CD drives and the like? And, if it's just the original PC Engine with CD ROM attached as I think it possibly is, what does the CD ROM add-on on bring to the table other than CD audio, if anything? Because I just noticed the parallax in that first level, and I'm curious if that's a cool method of faking the additional overlapping parallax there (given the original PC Engine only has a single actual background layer and similar sprite capabilities to the SNES), or if it's running on some later system in the PC Engine family that allows a second or more background layer(s) or something? I know there's quite a few different machines that fit under the PC Engine umbrella, so it's a bit confusing what games are actually capable of running on what PC Engine.

Edited January 14 by Kirk_Johnston
Added in extra stuff

[TrekkiesUnite118]

You already have that with Dracula X. Honestly if there's any 16-bit system that should get a homebrew port of Rondo, I'd say the Sega CD is the first choice.

 

EDIT:

Again it seems we have to respond through edits because Kirk loves this silly form of indirect communication. Rondo of Blood runs on the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM system, which is just the original PC-Engine CD with a larger System Card to store more data. The original CD-ROM Card was 64KB I believe, the Super System Card upgraded that to 256KB. The final System Card upgrade was the Arcade Card which added an additional 2MB of RAM to the existing 256KB of the Super System Card. None of the combo units have additional graphical capabilities or hardware added, they just have the Super System Card built in. All the CD-ROM adds to the PC-Engine is additional storage space, CD Audio, and I believe an ADPCM channel. Whatever data is currently needed by the game needs to be loaded into the System Card and runs off the base PC-Engine Hardware. There's no additional hardware added, just more data. The only PC-Engine with expanded capabilities was the SuperGrafx, which only had about 6 games made that used it.

 

Basically Kirk don't underestimate the PC-Engine's capabilities. Lots of games are able to get pretty advanced layers of parallax using sprites, dynamic tile updates, etc:

This one is just a plain old Hucard by the way:

 

Edited January 14 by TrekkiesUnite118

[Kirk_Johnston]

 

I just realised the illusion of two layers of parallax in the first level is all done by drawing everything to the edges of exact 8x8 tiles on any parts that are going to be used as the foreground elements and then it's just using some simple tile animation on the background to fake the extra parallax. The pixel art is just drawn so well that even though I expected it was just a single layer and some well-done trickery, I honestly didn't even notice it was all totally angular tiles until right now. A simple trick that even the NES could do, so nothing the SNES couldn't do similarly (or it could just use one of its actual extra background layers for an even better result and achievable with far less faff), but so well done there. Very nicely hidden.

 

I've come to really respect and love using the PC Engine as a research case for how I can do all of the stuff it does on SNES too, because some of these PC Engine games really look great and totally hide its limitations extremely well, and it would obviously be possible to do a whole lot more besides on SNES because of all the extra capabilities and graphical tricks built directly into it. I really need to closely study a lot more PC Engine games, and definitely with how it manages and overcomes or just hide its particular sprite limitations (the max 16 sprite objects and 32 sprite tiles per scanline especially)--I mean, there's some dang cool sprite bosses in Rondo of Blood on PC Engine--and pretty much all of the tricks employed on PC Engine could also be taken advantage of on SNES as well, along with all the extra SNES-specific tricks and such.

 

So, for this particular level it would be very simple on SNES to just use two actual background layers, put a few sprites on-screen that don't threaten the SNES' max 32 sprite objects and 34 sprite tiles per scanline limit or its sprite VRAM limit, and pretty much done. But I'm sure there are some other areas of the game where some nice little tricks would come in handy on SNES in order to get basically a perfect and maybe even upgraded port at times.

Edited January 14 by Kirk_Johnston
Added an extra paragraph

[TrekkiesUnite118]

The main bottleneck you might run into going from PC-Engine to SNES is how much data you can update in VRAM during active display. The SNES is pretty limited in that area while the PC-Engine is pretty much the king of doing that for it's generation.

[turboxray]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

 

Thinking about it further, I'd actually love to see someone port the original Rondo of Blood game properly to SNES too. It looks to be graphically simpler than the SNES games for the most part, but just a really high quality game in the series in terms of the lovely pixel art and overall consistent high level of quality throughout.

 

There's nothing there I can see at a glance outside of the CD-specific stuff the stock SNES couldn't handle and indeed improve upon in many areas given its much more advanced background capabilities and very similar sprite capabilities (less dedicated VRAM for sprite tiles, less versatility in on-screen sprite sizes, and less total colours dedicated to sprites, but more sprite objects per scanline, more sprite tiles per scanline, more sprites on-screen total, sprite semi-transparency, no need to waste sprites to fake the parts the PC Engine presumably used to fake extra background layers or layer elements at times, which also means even more leeway to work within the sprite objects per scanline and sprite tiles per scanline limits, and vastly greater colour gamut/range from that 64x bigger master palette). And if someone wanted to do more than what's possible on the stock SNES to get even closer to the original, like add in the original CD music to a SNES port for example, there's always the likes of MSU1 for that and/or other chips to do whatever else, if that's what floats their boat. But I'd personally like to see just a stock SNES version first (means I could run it on my SNES mini easily too).

 

Yeah, I think a SNES version of Rondo of Blood that also uses some of its specific features and capabilities in cool additional ways too could actually be very nice. Even a one level test to see what's possible there on SNES would be interesting to see.

 Rondo is a nice looking game and does do some nice effects for PCE, but it's not pushing the hardware. And definitely isn't pushing the PCE in the color department. It's not pushing the PCE in the sprite department either (plenty of room in the Sprite Table because PCE can do bigger sprites than SNES). Matter of fact, a LOT of the animations are sectional sprites, palette effects, and particles. A combination for all of it. That's something that doesn't take up as much space as dedicated 'bitmap' animation (because the SuperCD 3.0 CD RAM couldn't hold much). It might be a tell-tale sign why Konami dialed that back on the SNES port of Dracula X, even though it has the rom space for it. 

 

 Rondo is weird in that it has stages are mismatch in art quality; a few areas are really nice, while others are plain and very tile-y looking. Almost as if different areas were developed earlier in the game's development time. Or they had a mixture of different artists with different skills, but it's a mismatch of you start looking at the game. This is an area the PCE could easily improve over its own; no snes needed.

 

 If the SNES was pushing sprites like the PCE does, it wouldn't look good when dropout happens. Ritcher could disappear instead enemies or bosses, etc. The SNES can't do the boat scene as-is because of this (MD could tho). Generally, the congested sprite usage would need to be cut back a little bit and/or more thought put into the sprite routines to keep up on the SNES (for the areas that need it, general areas wouldn't be too much of an issue). I.e. you wouldn't want to put it as-is, and but at least you'd get some background enhancements. 

 

 

 But really, a better port would be the PC-Engine SuperGrafx CD with Arcade Card.. not the SNES. Way more vram, way more sprites per line, way more total sprites, way more detail for tiles, and has additional backgrounds. You could even make areas with 3 FULL backgrounds with FULL 4bpp color. The original Rondo doesn't even come close to pushing the PCE's color capabilities (both palettes and colors), so the SGX version would easily have an opportunity for an upgrade there. SGX ACD would be a better platform if we're talking about more capabilities for an upgrade. SNES might have 15bit color, but the original game didn't even come close to pushing the PCE's 9bit VCE palette to begin with.

 

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Edit: Wait, is Rondo of Blood actually running on the original PC Engine [just with the CD ROM attached] or is it running on one of the later systems with added graphical capabilities and built-in CD drives and the like? And, if it's just the original PC Engine with CD ROM attached as I think it possibly is, what does the CD ROM add-on on bring to the table other than CD audio, if anything? Because I just noticed the parallax in that first level, and I'm curious if that's a cool method of faking the additional overlapping parallax there (given the original PC Engine only has a single actual background layer), or if it's running on some later system in the PC Engine family that allows a second or more background layer(s) or something? I know there's quite a few different machines that fit under the PC Engine umbrella, so it's a bit confusing what games are actually capable of running on what PC Engine.

There's no difference between a PC-Engine with a CD attachment, or the all-in-one PCE CD system. They are the same.. not graphical upgrades or anything. Same old tech '87 tech (core and CD), packaged into a single product - no CD speed increased, not audio or video upgrades, etc.  

 

 Weird how you claim to be a snes graphics expert but can't wrapped your head around simpler concepts the PCE pulls off. Why don't you try running it through Mesen and figure it out for yourself? All PC-Engine games are PC-Engine games. The CD adds a different storage medium, but the interface is primitive - there's not caching or DMA, or anything. There are no enhancements, except a single ADPCM channel. The CPU does all the manual heavy lifting for the CD interface (which is why they added a second process in the Mega CD). The original PCE CD system is STARVED for ram, and only allows simplistic games. The SuperCD 3.0 card added some ram, but games advanced by then and and by the time the SuperCD ram expansion was released.. it was still starved for ram relatively speaking to SNES and MD carts.. it only adds 192k more ram. CD RAM "emulates" a cartridge.. so at any point in time, it's like having a tiny cart (and lots of load times).

 

The Arcade Card fixed the ram issue and is in-line for its release date (comparing it to carts from other systems), but only a few titles use it. And of the titles that do show it off, they still don't use all of the available ram. Some games, like Mad Stalker, use it just to load the entire game into ram at the beginning, which is not how you optimize for that kind of ram (or for a CD game in general). Mad Stalker is basically the MSU or MD+ equivalent back in the day.

 

34 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

 

I just realised the illusion of two layers of parallax in the first level is all done by drawing everything to the edges of exact 8x8 tiles on any parts that are going to be used as the foreground elements and then it's just using some simple tile animation on the background to fake the extra parallax. The pixel art is just drawn so well that even though I expected it was just a single layer and some well-done trickery, I honestly didn't even notice it was all totally angular tiles until right now. A simple trick that even the NES could do, so nothing the SNES couldn't do similarly (or it could just use one of its actual extra background layers for an even better result and achievable with far less faff), but so well done there. Very nicely hidden.

Again it amazes me that you pretend to be a "graphics expert" and are just now finding out these simple effects??? 

 

 

 

 FYSA: I know that SNES smw hack video with mode 7 and sprites for the foreground layer you posted is supposed to be in response to my PCE Bonk demo with its "obect layer", but the SNES is more limited in this area. The weird reverse cell drop-out priority order means the SNES is the least capable in this area for this type of effect. The PCE can easily let things dropout behind sprite sections/areas and you wouldn't even seen it. The Bonk demo is a simple demo, meant to show of a library for the PCE.. it's not the full effect of it. The full effect is something the SNES couldn't do without using the SA-1, doing sprite analysis to manually drop out sprites, and still going to need some SA-1 power to do real time sprite compositing to combat the effect. The "stock" PCE doesn't need any of that and neither does a "stock" Genesis (it can also do this trick because it follows the same rules as PCE). The "stock" SuperGrafx could put off FULL 4 BG layers with FULL 4bpp support using its 32 palettes. Maybe I should make an extended Bonk demo for the "stock" SGX to show it off.

 

17 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

You know, having just posted a link to Dracula X above in my previous post, I have to say that this whole initial fire area of the game is dang impressive:

 

It's visually striking and pulling off some really nice overlapping parallax of three background layers alongside some row/line scrolling and raster trickery on two of the layers, plus the obvious multi-coloured semi-transparency, plus an HDMA gradient in the background, and even a wee HDMA switch on BG3 to allow the HUD at the top and that flame section below it on the same layer.

 

That's a nice graphical showcase moment in a SNES game right there.

If you specifically love that, I've got something you're going to love on the PCE hahah. 2024 is going to be a nice year for PCE demos.

 

Edited January 14 by turboxray

[Cris1997XX]

1 hour ago, turboxray said:

But really, a better port would be the PC-Engine SuperGrafx CD with Arcade Card.. not the SNES. Way more vram, way more sprites per line, way more total sprites, way more detail for tiles, and has additional backgrounds. You could even make areas with 3 FULL backgrounds with FULL 4bpp color. The original Rondo doesn't even come close to pushing the PCE's color capabilities (both palettes and colors), so the SGX version would easily have an opportunity for an upgrade there. SGX ACD would be a better platform if we're talking about more capabilities for an upgrade. SNES might have 15bit color, but the original game didn't even come close to pushing the PCE's 9bit VCE palette to begin with.

 

Oh heck yeah, we really need that! Kirk would finally shut up for once 😁

Edited January 14 by Cris1997XX

[roots.genoa]

I had no idea SuperGrafx CD with Arcade Card was a thing; did homebrew games were released for that combo? The Analogue Duo would probably be the easiest way to play such a game anyway.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

5 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

I had no idea SuperGrafx CD with Arcade Card was a thing; did homebrew games were released for that combo? The Analogue Duo would probably be the easiest way to play such a game anyway.

I think @turboxray said at one point there was nothing stopping NEC from putting the SuperGrafx hardware on an expansion device that hooked in the expansion port on the back, it just never happened. So someone could in theory make an FPGA version of it that hooks into that port for people to use with their real PC-Engines, similar to what's been going on with EverDrives adding Sega CD on a chip.