Golden Axe conversion

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Wow, I thought the Amiga version was amazing port and still do, and after seeing the Atari ST port, the first thing I thought to myself was "Really glad they actually made an Amiga port and didn't just port it from the ST!"

People forget that the Atari ST and Amiga are very similar. I am not taking about the Amiga 1200. (because you should then compare it to the Falcon030) Atari 520ST vs Amiga 500. So to expect vastly better games is a little far fetched.

Well i don't see how. The ST is missing link between the 8 and the 16 bits world. The Amiga is above that.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Well i don't see how. The ST is missing link between the 8 and the 16 bits world. The Amiga is above that.

The Amiga 500 and Atari 520ST are both 16-bit computers with very similar specs. Again, not talking about an Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260. Do you know what the Atari Falcon 030 is? That would be a fair comparison to a more modern Amiga 1200/4000.

[Retro-Nerd]

The standard Atari ST doesn't have a blitter and the soundchip is worse than then most 8bit chips. So....

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The standard Atari ST doesn't have a blitter and the soundchip is worse than then most 8bit chips. So....

Correct. I said similar not exact. Expecting the Amiga port of Golden Axe to be leaps and bounds better than it was is not realistic. Now an AGA port for the 1200/4000 is another story. (as would be a Atari Falcon 030 port!)

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Correct. I said similar not exact. Expecting the Amiga port of Golden Axe to be leaps and bounds better than it was is not realistic.

Yes it is. Many Amiga games are "leaps and bounds" better than their ST counterparts, as said above.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Yes it is. Many Amiga games are "leaps and bounds" better than their ST counterparts, as said above.

I disagree. They are more similar than say CGA PC port vs ST port. To each their own.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

The Amiga 500 and Atari 520ST are both 16-bit computers with very similar specs. Again, not talking about an Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260. Do you know what the Atari Falcon 030 is? That would be a fair comparison to a more modern Amiga 1200/4000.

mmhhh..... i'd say you mix up 2 things :

1) the fact that back in the day publishers choosed to make games possible on both machines

2) the 1st one leads some people to believe the amiga or st is the same.


It's completely wrong. the Amiga can do 16,32,64 colors for the OCS/ECS model.

The ST only 16 colors, and as soon as you rise the amount of colors on ST, this computer just crawl, pure and simple.

and the ST lacks seriously a chipset. The Amiga has his 68000 AND its chipset. It makes a serious difference.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

The Amiga 500 and Atari 520ST are both 16-bit computers with very similar specs.

I agree they are in the same range and can be comparable, and back in the day, they where main competitors.
BUT, as dlfrsilver pointed, the OCS chipset Amiga 500 have, makes a huuge difference between the 2. Unfortunately, many ports didn't utilize this, because it was cheaper to make ports based only on 68000 processor.
I personally view A500 processor, just as a half of it's strength, the other half (or more then a half) strength is OCS chipset.

[Retro1234]

I understand both point of views, I think its somewhere in the middle because quite often you hear things like O yes such and such is possible on Amiga just look at SOB etc, but thats 7*8 colours that cant be used for everything! but yes Amiga is more powerful than Atari ST.

[Tigerskunk]

The Amiga is vastly more powerful than the ST on action games ->if utilized correctly.

Hardware scrolling, switching palette colours without any cost with the copper per scaline, blitter objects plus hardware sprites.

3D games are usually better on the ST, though, since the CPU has more grunt.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Steril707

The Amiga is vastly more powerful than the ST on action games ->if utilized correctly.

Hardware scrolling, switching palette colours without any cost with the copper per scaline, blitter objects plus hardware sprites.

3D games are usually better on the ST, though, since the CPU has more grunt.

Correct on all counts. The A500's 2D "sprite&bob" capability is (slightly) over twice that of the Atari ST's CPU-only approach. Add in the "free" smooth scrolling and you end up with games running at quite literally twice the frame rate, while often adding extra effects on top. That is... Assuming the hardware is used correctly, which it often wasn't.

---
As for Golden Axe on the Amiga: I always rather liked it, though I think the colour palette is rather poorly chosen and it's one of the many many games that would've done better if the programmers had allowed a two button stick to be used....

Maybe it's just me, but it just seems likely that the graphics would look a lot better if the colours resembled the Arcade version more. The characters are so "yellow". Makes me wonder if some artistic soul could create such a palette. Perhaps some sort of hack is possible

[Predseda]

[roondar]

I was referring to the skin colour only, which I note isn't yellow in the picture either

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by roondar

Correct on all counts. The A500's 2D "sprite&bob" capability is (slightly) over twice that of the Atari ST's CPU-only approach. Add in the "free" smooth scrolling and you end up with games running at quite literally twice the frame rate, while often adding extra effects on top. That is... Assuming the hardware is used correctly, which it often wasn't.

---
As for Golden Axe on the Amiga: I always rather liked it, though I think the colour palette is rather poorly chosen and it's one of the many many games that would've done better if the programmers had allowed a two button stick to be used....

Maybe it's just me, but it just seems likely that the graphics would look a lot better if the colours resembled the Arcade version more. The characters are so "yellow". Makes me wonder if some artistic soul could create such a palette. Perhaps some sort of hack is possible

How ? the answer is easy : all the graphics were made on Degas Elite, they are in PC1 format. Hence the yellowish aspect, the palettes are coded on 512 colors instead of 4096.

[Phantasm]

I always thought the Amiga port of golden axe stood up really well considering most arcade ports were rushed and took minimal advantage of the Amiga hardware.


It looks fine and it plays well, couldn't ask for much more. I don't care if its significantly improved over the Atari ST or any other version.

[saimon69]

Problem with Golden Axe palette is that has been "westernized"; in the last 30 years there was a distinct difference of tastes between japanese color choice and european ones that now, due to further penetration of mangas animes and games, is mostly disappeared

Megadrive:


Amiga

[jizmo]

I remember Golden Axe having a huge marketing push in the west with two-page ads in computer magazines running for months.

The advertisement had screenshots of the various systems, highlighting on the top the Amiga version that was the lushest one.

It seems a decent port, but I never got into the game myself.

[AmigaHope]

Definitely a decent port. Maybe they used the ST version as a basis but they clearly went out of their way to enhance it with overlays for the arcade-style score and status bars, etc. They could have rewritten the engine entirely and made the overall gameplay better but that would probably mean losing some of the improvements they made (e.g. bringing solid status bars back).

Amiga-optimized games almost never had "real" overlay status bars because it would conflict with the gameplay elements. Games got away with it by enforcing limits such that player/enemy never went high/low enough to actually have to appear below status/score, etc.

ST games just plain didn't do it at all since they didn't have the hardware.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Problem with Golden Axe palette is that has been "westernized"; in the last 30 years there was a distinct difference of tastes between japanese color choice and european ones that now, due to further penetration of mangas animes and games, is mostly disappeared

Megadrive:


Amiga

Saimon, this has nothing to do with the japanese tastes.

the megadrive has only 512 colors in palette, the Amiga 4096.

The Megadrive version is not even an arcade port, because they had to rework the game, due to the cart size limit at the time.

the amiga version is ported from the coin-op.

[saimon69]

We are speaking different languages here (and no, i don't mean French and italian)
first is not about the color number but about the color choice; japanese games used to have more mellow colors compared to western counter parts; then is about color meaning and sense of harmony.

And by the way this is the arcade: