SAINT DRAGON: Amiga

[sandruzzo]

Another great one isn't?

[ Show youtube player ]

[ransom1122]

It get's too hard too quick... But yes I like this game a lot

[saimon69]

And another work of the coder of Silkworm and Ninjawarriors, Ronald knew its stuff, pity is missing some levels from the arcade

[Hewitson]

A very good conversion. Absolutely brilliant graphics and sound. But the fact that it ran in two frames instead of one like the arcade was a huge disappointment.

A shoot em up HAS to run at 50/60fps. It's non negotiable.

[vulture]

A very good conversion, a better overall experience if you run it under ntsc, faster and smoother with no more slow downs than the pal version has.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

A very good conversion. Absolutely brilliant graphics and sound. But the fact that it ran in two frames instead of one like the arcade was a huge disappointment.

A shoot em up HAS to run at 50/60fps. It's non negotiable.

And that is why we have a bunch of people that say cannot be done on arcade ports huh? i vehemently disagree!

However cannot stand 17FPS shooters (xenon 2, R-Type 2), 25 is still manageable, 50 with objects updated at 25 optimal

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

A very good conversion. Absolutely brilliant graphics and sound. But the fact that it ran in two frames instead of one like the arcade was a huge disappointment.

A shoot em up HAS to run at 50/60fps. It's non negotiable.

I mostly agree.

Players, bullets and enemies must update every frame.

Scrolling and static enemies in terrain can move at any speed depending on the game.

Like.... imagine if Hybris ran at 25fps.., it would be labelled shit, it doesn’t and thus is one of the finest games in the Amiga catalog.

Geezer

[manossg]

I really don't get this fps fetish, I don't recall anybody back in the day being so obsessed by it.

[DanScott]

Battle Squadron ran at 25fps... but the player ships and bullet HW sprites were updated at 50fps

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by DanScott

Battle Squadron ran at 25fps... but the player ships and bullet HW sprites were updated at 50fps

And i swear if you would have seen it out of context people might have mistaken it as a coin-op!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by manossg

I really don't get this fps fetish, I don't recall anybody back in the day being so obsessed by it.

Because a lot of games were feeling shit, with 17 FPS or less.
I hated it with a passion.

[manossg]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Because a lot of games were feeling shit, with 17 FPS or less.
I hated it with a passion.

Thank you for the explanation, I understand that some games needed to be smooth in order to be enjoyable. Maybe I don't get it, since I am not that much into twitch gaming, but I am sure there were amazing games out there running at less than 30 fps and garbage games that were running at 50.

Heck, I remember enjoying F-29 Retaliator on my A500, running like a slideshow.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by manossg

Thank you for the explanation, I understand that some games needed to be smooth in order to be enjoyable. Maybe I don't get it, since I am not that much into twitch gaming, but I am sure there were amazing games out there running at less than 30 fps and garbage games that were running at 50.

Heck, I remember enjoying F-29 Retaliator on my A500, running like a slideshow.

First off, 3D games are a completely different topic on 8 and 16 bitters.
Also, you won't need a stable 50 FPS for playing Maniac Mansion well, probably.

For action games though, those 17fps games like Xenon2 or Blood Money always felt shit to me.
And don't even get me started on shit like Rolling Thunder, which needed 6 frames to update it's small screen.

I can understand why many of those arcade conversion were done in 25 fps, and it was ->good enough<- most of the times.
For a really good action game, you need 50 fps, though.

When coming from the C64, which usually had those full frame rates, I was shocked how bad many games on the Amiga controlled in its first years, and I didn't understand why. It was supposed to be "THE GRAPHICS MACHINE" in a way. Most games didn't feel like that, unfortunately.

When I saw screenshots of "Obliterator", for instance, I thought this will be a smooth scrolling game, not a slide show.
I think the first game that felt really smooth and extremely playable to me was Turrican.

And I guess, that was one of the reasons why it became so popular. There were simply not many games, that looked good and played well. And smooth frame rates are playing a big part in playing well.

[saimon69]

Need to remember that often (at least in the end of 80s/early 90s) not even arcades did go full frame, actually the "slowing down" was enhancing playability in some cases, in others not

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Steril707

When coming from the C64, which usually had those full frame rates, I was shocked how bad many games on the Amiga controlled in its first years, and I didn't understand why. It was supposed to be "THE GRAPHICS MACHINE" in a way. Most games didn't feel like that, unfortunately.

And here is a different cultural background in action; i am coming from the Spectrum, and full frame there was simply an utopia, i was actually DISTURBED by too smooth framerate, felt was unnatural, that things needed to be smooth but not too smooth else might distract you...

[manossg]

Originally Posted by Steril707

First off, 3D games are a completely different topic on 8 and 16 bitters.

I think 3d games, especially first person shooters, are the only ones for me where a good frame rate plays a significant role.

Originally Posted by Steril707

Also, you won't need a stable 50 FPS for playing Maniac Mansion well, probably.

True, though adventure gaming on the Amiga suffered from dsps (disk swapping per second).

Originally Posted by Steril707

For action games though, those 17fps games like Xenon2 or Blood Money always felt shit to me.
And don't even get me started on shit like Rolling Thunder, which needed 6 frames to update it's small screen.

Bad games indeed, but I think they would still be bad even if they run at 1819843719 fps.

Originally Posted by Steril707

I can understand why many of those arcade conversion were done in 25 fps, and it was ->good enough<- most of the times.
For a really good action game, you need 50 fps, though.

When coming from the C64, which usually had those full frame rates, I was shocked how bad many games on the Amiga controlled in its first years, and I didn't understand why. It was supposed to be "THE GRAPHICS MACHINE" in a way. Most games didn't feel like that, unfortunately.

When I saw screenshots of "Obliterator", for instance, I thought this will be a smooth scrolling game, not a slide show.
I think the first game that felt really smooth and extremely playable to me was Turrican.

And I guess, that was one of the reasons why it became so popular. There were simply not many games, that looked good and played well. And smooth frame rates are playing a big part in playing well.

Now, in the age of the blessed emulators, I have the chance to play through the MD/SNES/PS catalogue, where the action games are supposedly at home and they run at smooth rates. And I am not all that impressed by that.

The same with the C64. It was (and still is) a great system because of amazing games (but I admit that the smooth scrolling and sprites do help), not because of frame rates.

I understand that our perspectives differ, but I prefer to judge a game from the overall experience and enjoyment. Having 14176 colours simultaneously with 172 levels of parallax scrolling and 99999999 fps seems very, ahem, clinical to me and, honestly speaking, pointless, if not from a coder's perspective. I would rather play Gryzor on my CPC any day than Shadow of the beast on the Amiga, for example.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Need to remember that often (at least in the end of 80s/early 90s) not even arcades did go full frame

Do you have examples for that?

I remember most if not all 80ies arcade games I played being pretty smooth.
Also most console games seemed to be running 60 fps, up to the SNES.

It was just with the advent of early 3D (Nintendo64, Sega Saturn and Playstation1) that we have had to endure those horrible low frame rates again.

Originally Posted by manossg

I would rather play Gryzor on my CPC any day than Shadow of the beast on the Amiga, for example.

And I would play Contra/Gryzor on a machine, that can run it with a smooth frame rate and where it scrolls, the way it was intended by its creators...

You are argumenting like a bad game is not a bad game in it self, apart from smooth frame rates or technical achievements.

SotB is a bad game. And that's it, basically.

A good game won't be worse because of high frame rates and some other techy stuff.
But it could be playing a lot better because of them.

[saimon69]

Do you have examples for that?

By memory: Ikari Warriors, Xain'd'Sleena (the mothership and the sea planet were pretty bad), Slap Fight, ASO, i seem to remember R-Type slowing down on certain areas (level 2 with all those darn pseudo-jellyfishes, the "crabs" and the jelly snake shiooting matter at you...)

So in short slowdowns did happen where a 5h17load of enemies and bullets were present, bringing also an arcade board to its knees; however if we stick to the "50FPS or death" philosophy even those should be unacceptable...

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by saimon69

By memory: Ikari Warriors, Xain'd'Sleena (the mothership and the sea planet were pretty bad), Slap Fight, ASO, i seem to remember R-Type slowing down on certain areas (level 2 with all those darn pseudo-jellyfishes, the "crabs" and the jelly snake shiooting matter at you...)

Just watched R-Type, Slap Fight and Ikari Warriors.
You are misremembering those "crabs" in the second level of R-type. They stall in mid air when you shoot them. In no way is the game slowing down fps wise.

On Ikari Warriors and Slap Fight, I don't see any slow downs in the arcade version playthroughs on youtube.. I have to admit, I skipped through those videos, though.

Do you have some time stamps on youtube videos that you can post here that shows this?

[manossg]

Originally Posted by Steril707

You are argumenting like a bad game is not a bad game in it self, apart from smooth frame rates or technical achievements.

SotB is a bad game. And that's it, basically.

A good game won't be worse because of high frame rates and some other techy stuff.
But it could be playing a lot better because of them.

Yes, and I totally agree with you.

And my main point is that an enjoyable gaming experience is paramount. The techy stuff is secondary (a good game won't be made bad because of lack of them and also a bad game won't be made good because of excellent fps/colours/whatevah), a sort of icing to the cake.