Is "The Ninja Warriors" a Pal optimized game?

[John Man]

Only recently I found the Quartex cracked version of this game and realized it can be booted in NTSC mode but I noticed the music plays faster than on PAL mode.
However, the playing area seems bigger and the playability also seems improved by the overall faster animation.

Having played this game in PAL mode all my life and listened to the music playing in the right tempo, does this mean the game was not intended to be played in NTSC?

Can the game be considered a Pal optimized version?
If so, then why is it that (IMHO) it gets better played in NTSC?

[Amiga1992]

Mentioned many times before: just because a game doesn't use the whole screen doesn't mean it was intended for NTSC machines. Even if it runs well in NTSC machines

Probably when you switch to NTSC all the sprites get deformed (Stretched vertically) besides the music being faster.

This title happens to run well in NTSC, but that's kind of a side effect. The game was developed in PAL machines for PAL screens

[Shatterhand]

This PAL/NTSC thing in old computers is really curious.

My first Amiga was an NTSC one. I only booted it in PAL if the game I was going to play either didn't work at all on NTSC or if it cut a huge part of the screen. I've played many games at the "wrong" speed because of this.... but for me, that's how those games were. I wasn't playing nothing wrong.

With the MSX there was a similar thing, except you couldn't change its region. People on Europe played all Japanese games (the best ones, from Konami, Namco etc) at the wrong speed, but for them that's how the game was. There are dozens of videos of MSX games on youtube being played at the wrong framerate and this annoys me a lot! In the other hand, all european games I played at the wrong framerate too. For me the Auf Wiedersehen Monty theme should sound faster than it really is.

[TjLaZer]

I think in the case of games that were not made to make full use of the PAL screen mode and were manufactured in European countries it was probably due to bad coding that they do not run correctly on NTSC.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

I think in the case of games that were not made to make full use of the PAL screen mode and were manufactured in European countries it was probably due to bad coding that they do not run correctly on NTSC.

You always bring this up and I already explained it to you many times.

Screen size is not all there is to a game. Also it's not just about frame rates.

Even if the bottom part of the screen is not displaying anything, those "lines" of raster time could be used to do stuff. Whether you show anything on the bottom 56 pixels or they are just blank, the beam could go down the full 576 lines if you want. Not displaying anything would improve performance.

Since NTSC machines don't have those extra lines of display, shit happens when you try to execute code at lines that aren't there.

It's not bad coding, the machines are different, and a game that utilizes all rastertime on a PAL machine, will NOT work on an NTSC machine, regardless of whatever visible display size they decided to use

[Galahad/FLT]

Ninja Warriors is unique in that the arcade machine displayed the game in letterbox format as well, Sales Curve simply duplicated it.

[Amiga1992]

On the amiga no two games are usually the same, especially if you see some trickery happening.

It's not a standard kinda format like on a C64 , an MSX or other types of computer. The display is very flexible.

Games that spring to mind doing their own thing display-wise: Pac-Mania, Ghouls N Ghosts, Toki, Snow Bros, Ninja Warriors.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Ninja Warriors is unique in that the arcade machine displayed the game in letterbox format as well, Sales Curve simply duplicated it.

Well, as good as they could. The original Arcade was on tripple-wide screen. Very odd but fun to play.

[Shatterhand]

The amiga port was so good that they even ported the problems of the arcade game to the home version

I just wish the game had music + sfx. That music is *too damn good* to be only on the intro. Zuntata made an awesome job there and the Ron Pieket Weeserik made an incredible effort to make it sound even better than the arcade original.

[Retro-Nerd]

My favorite port was the late Mega CD version, besides the original Arcade (which is still fun in MAME).

[John Man]

Originally Posted by Akira

Mentioned many times before: just because a game doesn't use the whole screen doesn't mean it was intended for NTSC machines. Even if it runs well in NTSC machines

I agree with you.

Originally Posted by Akira

Probably when you switch to NTSC all the sprites get deformed (Stretched vertically) besides the music being faster.

This title happens to run well in NTSC, but that's kind of a side effect. The game was developed in PAL machines for PAL screens

I can see your point (and you are probably right), however I can't help feeling that there maybe more than meets the eye. I mean, the game was released worldwide, right? That would be PAL and NTSC countries.
Could gamers from NTSC countries somewhow be advised to play the game in PAL/RGB 50Hz mode? Was that even possible to do back in the day or something someone would actually do?
Because if not, then in my mind that would suggest some kind of testing (or even planning) must have been made prior to release.

And like I said earlier (and I think you concur) the game runs really well in NTSC/RGB-60Hz, at least I find it more "arcadey". This is something I have trouble believing it is purely accidental.

So, maybe, just maybe, despite the fact the game was developed in PAL machines and for PAL screens, the 60Hz speed increase was (had to be?) taken into account so that the PAL version wouldn't run ridiculously fast when booted in a NTSC Amiga, thus not making it truly PAL optimized - from a possible and perhaps more desirable animation speed point of view of what could be achieved in PAL, regardless of sprite deformation?

I ask this because, although the game is great and plays great I can't help feeling some slowliness in PAL/50 Hz hindering gameplay that is mitigated in NTSC/60Hz. Of course this is only my opinion, I can be completely wrong about all this.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I just wish the game had music + sfx. That music is *too damn good* to be only on the intro. Zuntata made an awesome job there and the Ron Pieket Weeserik made an incredible effort to make it sound even better than the arcade original.

I agree.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by John Man

I mean, the game was released worldwide, right?

That's not exactly how things worked back then for the most part.
There were almost no software houses re-publishing European games in US regions that I know of. If they did, they would have had to make sure the game ran in NTSC machines (I GUESS). That doesn't mean they fixed/modified/adapted/upgraded/downgraded them for NTSC machines. This is probably a case. The game "runs" so it was left as-is.

Could gamers from NTSC countries somewhow be advised to play the game in PAL/RGB 50Hz mode? Was that even possible to do back in the day or something someone would actually do?

I don't know if in 1989 PAL/NTSC switchable Amigas existed.
I don't think anybody advised anything. You were just left to your own devices. As I said before, I think all that happened if one of the very few US-bound publishers put the game in NTSC markets, is that they made sure the game ran on NTSC. They might not have played games through and problems could happen later on. NTSC-fixing was one of the main activities of US crack groups.
This was the same for the C64.

But the Amiga had the advantage of RGB video so actual 50/60Hz switching was possible easily, so I think every Amiga owner in the US at some point made sure their Amiga could switch modes, because they all knew most software was coming from Europe and usually ran only in PAL machines.

And like I said earlier (and I think you concur) the game runs really well in NTSC/RGB-60Hz, at least I find it more "arcadey". This is something I have trouble believing it is purely accidental.

I believe it is a side effect of the game not fucking up a lot when ran in NTSC. All the graphic assets were clearly developed to be displayed on a PAL screen, switching to NTSC makes them deformed vertically.

Dynablaster switched to 60Hz , I think this is the only European-made game that took advantage of the mode being available basically on any Amiga post 1990.
They used the extra framerate to make an on-point, accurate rendition of a japanese game that originally runs at that framerate.


With that said, another game that runs much better and seemingly accurately in 60Hz is Saint Dragon. But was it intended to run that way? Now, I don't really know. Because who made that one? Random Access. The SAME people who made Ninja Warriors, NARC and Silkworm.

In the end you MIGHT be on to something regarding knowledge prior of NTSC running the game better. Would only be confirmed by anyone from Random Access though!

[illy5603]

What Akira says is on point. I used to run NSTC Amigas simply because I am in the US. When I purchased my last 1200 I made sure to get PAL. Since I run an Indivision AGA board it makes no sense to use NTSC for gaming. There were very few games from Europe that were re-worked for NTSC, I know, I used to sell them in mall here back in the 1990's.

[Retro1234]

I prefer playing NTSC as quite a lot of people do now days and remember the game is not vertically centered so maybe they did have the US is mind.

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by Akira

There were almost no software houses re-publishing European games in US regions that I know of. If they did, they would have had to make sure the game ran in NTSC machines (I GUESS).

Interplay did published European games. I suspected Virgin did as well.

A lot of times, the video mode is used for region lock purposes as well.

[Amiga1992]

There was NO "region lock" bullshit back then.
None of the games released in any region had their sale prohibited in any other region.

Region locking came with the Japanese console companies, later in the 90s. No home computer was ever affected by that.

[Retro-Nerd]

Well, some games had indeed some kind of a region lock (maybe not intented). Try e.g. Lost Patrol (IPF image) PAL on NTSC machines (or the other way around, can't remember correctly). It triggers then the Rob Northern copy protection and the morals drops very fast. Just like in the broken cracks of the game.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

It triggers then the Rob Northern copy protection and the morals drops very fast. Just like in the broken cracks of the game.

I've noticed / seen that, not by the using the PAL .IPFs in NTSC mode.

...but with the cracks; hence why I ended up using the .IPFs instead in my WinUAE collection

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Well, some games had indeed some kind of a region lock (maybe not intented). Try e.g. Lost Patrol (IPF image) PAL on NTSC machines (or the other way around, can't remember correctly). It triggers then the Rob Northern copy protection and the morals drops very fast. Just like in the broken cracks of the game.

That's interesting, but if it wasn't intended, it really isn't a region lock then.
If it was intended, I'd like to know why!