/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8553682]

>an obscure and humble game that requires no extra hardware
>speed, graphics, and physics that put famicom's 3D World Runner to complete and utter shame
How did Chad64 do it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2SvzHY6JhY

[Anonymous No.8553694]

>>8553682
I'm surprised you are shitting on 3DWR when it was programmed by Nasir of all people.

[Anonymous No.8553698]

>>8553682
There was this one Japan-only shmup for the NES that had a very similar presentation to this, and more intricate floor patterns. It was a later release. But here's Mobile Suit Hot Scramble, which is possibly not only the first console FPS, but first FPS as a whole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_z29pKHma0

[Anonymous No.8553721]

>>8553682
To be honest 3D World Runner on the NES really isn't using extra hardware either, it's an UNROM game that doesn't add anything but some rather basic bank switching.

[Anonymous No.8553723]

>>8553694
Skilled programmer doesn't matter when the hardware sucks.

[Anonymous No.8553730]

if it's any consolation neither the C64 or NES versions of Ballblazer are any good and only the Atari original should be bothered with

[Anonymous No.8553738]

>>8553723
You are contradicting yourself considering C64 hardware fuckin sucks and the Amiga was the superior platform I'm '87

[Anonymous No.8553742]

>>8553723
commiedore is trash brev

[Anonymous No.8553752]

BMX Kidz also licked Excitebike.

[Anonymous No.8553753]

>>8553721
It's not UNROM, most UNROM games are 128K in size while this is twice of that. It uses an unofficial mapper called Nina. Also any bank switching cartridge needs a microcontroller for the memory mapper, which counts as extra hardware.

[Anonymous No.8553757]

>>8553698
>more intricate floor patterns
No they're not, but it's nice how the horizon could be shifted up and down.

[Anonymous No.8553759]

>>8553694
Don't expect faggot OP to have any knowledge about that

[Anonymous No.8553760]

>>8553753
https://nescartdb.com/profile/view/387

no it is a standard 128k UNROM cart. also...

>microcontroller

it's just a pair of TTLs used for switching logic

[Anonymous No.8553763]

>>8553752
Fucking undderrated gemmy.

[Anonymous No.8553771]

the Famicom port of The Law of the West is also rather embarrassing

[Anonymous No.8553786]

>>8553760
I've checked the ROM dump myself. I guess this isn't a reliable source.
https://github.com/Kautenja/nes-py/blob/master/nesmapper.txt

>it's just a pair of TTLs used for switching logic
And 8K SRAM.

[Anonymous No.8553792]

>>8553786
>And 8K SRAM
it just replaces the CHR ROM, doesn't really mean anything in of itself

[Anonymous No.8553804]

>>8553792
Of course, the nes was a cheaply built system that didn't have enough RAM for any graphics more complex than super mario bros.

[Anonymous No.8554007]

>>8553753
>It's not UNROM
https://wiki.nesdev.org/w/index.php?title=UxROM
Mapper 002 marks it as the common form of UNROM. Only Senjou no Ookami and Crazy Climber used unique variants of this setup, every UNROM cart used the two 74 series logic chips. The UOROM variant also had the same two logic chips, SRAM, and 256k PRG-ROM's.
>It uses an unofficial mapper called Nina.
Source:Your ass.

[Anonymous No.8555153]

>>8553804
Donkey Kong, actually. It was designed to play Donkey Kong as faithfully as possible, despite the omission of one level.

[Anonymous No.8555203]

>>8555153
fascinating, kinda like how the 2600 was designed to play Combat

[Anonymous No.8555213]

>>8553682
This game makes me think of Sega's Space Harrier series, but if you replaced much of the combat with fidgety platforming.

[Anonymous No.8555216]

>>8555153
Amazing how far they took the thing from there.

[Anonymous No.8556978]

>>8553742
NES was a piece of shit by design though. Yamauchi wanted the cheapest 6502 system ever made while the C64 was made with care and love.

[Anonymous No.8557040]

>>8556978
well, the engineers might have not so much Jack Tramiel and his shitty PSUs and banning Bob Yannes from putting his intended 6 channels in the SID because "too expensive and what we have is good enough."

[Anonymous No.8557568]

>>8556978
>complete shitbox has a bunch of great games
>machine built with care has some, along with mediocre ports of games from the shitbox
How did Nintendo do it?

[Anonymous No.8557701]

>>8557568
They didn't. NES games required 2-5 times as much ROM capacity as other systems of its era to do the same thing due to its tiny RAM and inflexible rendering system. It needed extra VRAM and banked ROM to do anything meaningful, which added even more to the manufacturing cost. The color palate was gaudy, the sprites were flickery, it wasn't a very good system but people bought it because of the cheap upfront cost and are now used to eating crap.

[Anonymous No.8558026]

>>8553698
>first FPS as a whole

[Anonymous No.8558107]

>>8557701
>failing to admit that good games sold the system
Why delude yourself. Were you molested by a Nintendo Nonce?
>t-the people were wrong!!
Christ m8

[Anonymous No.8558248]

>>8557701
>NES games required 2-5 times as much ROM capacity, etc, etc
Yet the games were good, which is the part which actually matters.

>The color palate was gaudy
Haven't I seen your coping ass before? You say that because you're used to the really dull and limited palette of the Commodore 64, the NES could do those kinds of colors, but devs had the option not to, and they chose not to.
I'm not gonna say that the C64 is some incapable machine or anything or that there weren't any good games, but this shit about "It wasn't as technically efficient!" or "Too many colors!" just comes across as this really petty seething.

[Anonymous No.8558865]

the Famicom has very flat blocky and bright graphics with no shading, it's easier on C64 to create a sense of depth and texture

[Anonymous No.8558886]

>>8558248
>Yet the games were good, which is the part which actually matters.
well i guess they are if your imagination doesn't extend beyond running around scrolling levels killing chibi enemies and rescuing a princess since that's like 75% of NES games

[Anonymous No.8558979]

>>8557568
>complete shitbox has a bunch of great games
of course outside first party/Konami/Capcom (Square and Enix are excluded here because RPGs aren't real games) the NES library is mediocre to bad

[Anonymous No.8559007]

>>8558979
>>8558248
there's 1380 NES/FC games I'd estimate about 50 are legitimately great ones worth playing

[Anonymous No.8559356]

>>8559007
as opposed to ZX Spectrum where there's about 5 playable games

[Anonymous No.8559375]

>>8557701
The fact that the NES uses ROM cartridges makes things a little silly because they can't come in uneven sizes. you could have a Spectrum game that's, say, 20k but ROMs only come in even multiples so many NES games only partially fill theirs. For example LOZ uses a 128k ROM yet full half that space is empty. That 256k NES game may only actually be 140k in size. You can disassemble ROMs and verify this; often you will find large amounts of space filled with FFs.

[Anonymous No.8559391]

>>8559375
May depend on the size of the graphics as well?

[Anonymous No.8559504]

>>8557568
>along with mediocre ports of games from the shitbox
huh?

[Anonymous No.8559652]

>>8559375
most of what you can do on the Famicom is influenced by the cartridge hardware, you have a lot more limitations than on computers

[Anonymous No.8559726]

>>8558248
>most of the NES color palette is blues and greens
And now I understand why so many NES games had so much green and blue. Always thought it strange there were so many green and blue ninjas and creatures.

[Anonymous No.8559729]

>>8559726
Shiggy was largely responsible for selecting the colors so I assume he just picked the ones he liked. Perhaps he liked green and blue because it could be useful for depicting outdoor scenes.

[Anonymous No.8560192]

>>8557040
it was. the SID and full 16 color graphics were ahead of the principle competition in 1982 such as the Apple II and Atari 800.

[Anonymous No.8560978]

>>8559729
>Perhaps he liked green and blue because it could be useful for depicting outdoor scenes.

The Japanese really like their blue skies and green fields, I doubt it was just him.

[Anonymous No.8561676]

>>8558886
You're right!
There were totally no games like...
>Contra
>Ninja Gaiden
>Batman
>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
>Wild Gunman
>S.C.A.T
>Lone Ranger
>Castlevania
>Friday The 13th
>Vice: Project Doom,
>Duck Hunt
>Bionic Commando
>Shatterhand
>Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
>Double Dragon
>Blades Of Steel
>Megaman
>Snake's Revenge
>Fester's Quest
>Metal Storm
>Bucky O' Hare
>Tetris
>Ducktales
>Metroid
>Little Nemo
>Jackal
>R.C Pro-Am
>Master Blaster
>Little Samson
>Battle Toads
>Shadowgate
>Uninvited
>Final Fantasy
>Snake Rattle & Roll
>Gremlins 2
>Wizards & Warriors
>Kid Icarus
>Gargoyle's Quest
>Ghosts & Goblins
>Kirby's Adventure
>Startropics
>Micro Machines
>Bubble Bobble
>Salamander
>Journey To Silius
>1942
>Gradius
... nor did any of these hypothetical games have any sequels, which sometimes were even better. There was only Super Mario Bros., if you put in a cartridge which looked like it might be something else, you'd get Super Mario Bros. anyway!

[Anonymous No.8561703]

>>8558979
>>8559007
There is no machine in the history of mankind which has a library of games where the really good stuff makes up the majority.

Famously, about 10000 different pieces of commercial software were published for the Commodore 64, that includes not just games, but also all kinds of office software and work and utility programs. Being a proper computer, it can do a lot of different things, of course.
Of actual games, a cursory Google search shows that it had 721 game titles published for it, which is just slightly more than the 715 games published for the NES, that's quite a lot, but unsurprising given how popular these machines were.

Of the 700+ games on the C64, would you in earnest say that even half of them are really good and memorable and definitely worth playing? i certainly wouldn't, and I wouldn't say that for the equally large library of NES games, there's certainly lots of crap to ignore there.
For either machine, you're looking at less than 100 examples of games which range from truly excellent, to pretty good for what it is but really nothing special.

That still leaves you with a very respectable stack of good and fun 8-bit games, enough to keep you occupied for years. It's the same with the later Sega Genesis and Sony Playstation, you didn't just grab the best games on random.

[Anonymous No.8562362]

>>8561703
>715
the total number of commercially released NES/FC games was 1380

[Anonymous No.8562369]

>>8561676
>1942
Are you Squidding me? this is a horrible arcade port made by Micronics.

[Anonymous No.8562378]

>>8562362
Like half of those are japanese exclusives.

[Anonymous No.8562741]

>>8561676
>Bubble Bobble

also just play this on MAME

[Anonymous No.8562758]

>>8553682
Looks like a whole 2 minutes of mediocre distraction.

[Anonymous No.8562764]

>>8561703
It can help if you loosen what your definition of 'good' is - most consumers would be satisfied with a game that played well and was intuitive, which would bump up the number of NES games by a huge margin. Then there are games that are poor due to their genre, usually ported from a computer, Silent Service might be a good game but I sure don't like it. Then there are the truly atrocious games that you'd have to be insane to think are actually any good, such as Rocky and Bullwinkle. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Comvoy no Nazo might both be brutally difficult and unpleasant games, but at least everything works and the presentation is pleasant, unlike Rocky and Bullwinkle.

[Anonymous No.8562767]

>Smegmic Smegway
Cringe.

[Anonymous No.8562771]

>>8562758
>24 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbH25YNxE4

>35 minutes
Still not much of a game desu.

[Anonymous No.8562824]

>>8562771
I think he's talking about the time til it gets boring (i.e. no longer serviceable as "distraction").

[Anonymous No.8562837]

idk the NES ports of Lode Runner and Boulder Dash are comparatively crap i wouldn't play those over the C64 ports

[Anonymous No.8562845]

>>8553682
>>an obscure and humble game
I prefer the predecessor

[Anonymous No.8562883]

>>8553698
>kino-looking space fps segments that seem to be fun
>followed by shitty side scrolling segments that have enemies that bounce around like ping-pong balls

[Anonymous No.8563232]

>>8561676
>half of the list are chibi scrolling games
kek

The NES has none of these.
>Airborne Ranger
>Buggy Boy
>Crack Down
>Thunder Blade
>Golden Axe
>Paradroid
>Starflight
>The Seven Cities of Gold
>Archon 2
>Microprose Soccer
>Wizball
>Wasteland and Waste Land (both great games)
>Shadow of the Beast
>Demon Stalkers
>Power Drift
>Saint Dragon
>The Return of Heracles
>Dragon Spirit
>Alien Storm
>Alien Syndrome
>Aliens
>Myth
>Barbarians 1 and 2
>Project Firestart
>International Karate
>Castle Wolfenstein
>Infiltrator
>Legacy of the Ancients
>Pool of Radiance
>Stormlord
>the good version of Raid on Bungeling Bay
>Hammerfist
>Speedball 2
>Katakis
>Armalyte
>Parallax
>Defender of the Crown
>Rainbow Island
>Cyberdyne Warrior
>Turrican 1-3
>Rick Dangerous
>Ninja Spirit
>The Last Ninja 1 and 2
>Impossible Mission
>Stunt Car Racer
>Escape to Normandy
>Neuromancer
>Bloodwych
>Midnight Resistance
And this is just touching the surface. Some of the games you listed there even had C64 ports, some better some worse, and while I notice that you're trying to include some of the more distinct games on the NES, they're still losing out to the variety C64 offers. Not to mention hardware enhancements like hard drive, debugger, and accelerator cart that actually makes 3D games fast and playable, can't do that on the NES. Also a bigger and more thriving modern homebrew scene to top that off.

>>8561703
>about 10000 different pieces of commercial software were published for the Commodore 64
It's closer to 30000 actually.

>>8562764
>most consumers would be satisfied with a game that played well and was intuitive, which would bump up the number of NES games by a huge margin.
Not really. Crappy NES games were expensive while crappy C64 games were sold like candies on cassette tapes. Crappy NES games are unplayable due to the difficulty and poor design, crappy C64 games could be made more playable with trainers and debuggers. It was much more of a nightmare on the NES.

[Anonymous No.8563256]

>>8563232
>Also a bigger and more thriving modern homebrew scene to top that off
the issue with NES games is that if you want to make anything good you need to use one of its 250 bank switching setups. that's why the Mega Drive is better--there is absolutely no bank switching.

[Anonymous No.8563327]

Also there's no 6502 decimal mode or collision registers on NES because Nintendo were fags. this makes coding a game more needlessly complicated.

[Anonymous No.8563338]

>>8563232
as well as the good version of Boulder Dash

[Anonymous No.8563354]

>>8563232
>Crappy NES games were expensive while crappy C64 games were sold like candies on cassette tapes. Crappy NES games are unplayable due to the difficulty and poor design
and there were a lot of them. many NES games have awful difficulty, bugs, and game mechanics that sounded good on paper but don't really work when put into practice.

[Anonymous No.8563512]

>>8562837
ruined by chibi shit

[Anonymous No.8563528]

Stop replying to the Australian tranny. You guys never learn

[Anonymous No.8563782]

>>8563232
>Stormlord
just a bad tech demo for a scrolling engine some guy wrote

[Anonymous No.8564424]

>>8563782
Yeah and not a particularly amazing one either. X-Out, Creatures 1 and 2, and Mayhem in Monsterland are far more impressive tech demos with better gameplay. X-Out probably has the best 8 bit BGM tracks in history as well.

[Anonymous No.8565038]

the NES didn't even have scanline IRQs until late advanced mappers most games didn't have

[Anonymous No.8566342]

except only people who knew how to make good video game back then were Japanese and they didn't have C64s

[Anonymous No.8566404]

>>8566342
Japanese games were boring, they only knew how to make action games and they were mostly very similar to each other. The C64 was the better platform for action games anyway, it was smooth, could display large numbers of multiplexed sprites, and the sprites don't flicker. Zamzara is faster and has better physics than all NES action platformer games I know, and even better, the enemies don't respawn when you walk away from their spawn point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRo48Aljli8

[Anonymous No.8566415]

>>8566404
*most enemies

[Anonymous No.8566420]

>>8566342
Japanese games were boring, they only knew how to make action games and they were mostly very similar to each other. The C64 was the better platform for action games anyway, it was smooth, could display large numbers of multiplexed sprites, and the sprites don't flicker. Zamzara is faster and has better physics than all NES action platformer games I know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRo48Aljli8 [Embed]

[Anonymous No.8566585]

>>8566420
>Zamzara is faster and has better physics than all NES action platformer games I know.
There's no music during play though, much of the game borders on being monochromatic (the stage, effects, and enemies all being keyed to one color at times). The stages also seem very short, and lacking in verticality, and the enemies seem rather lethargic, most of the time combat is resolved by standing back and just blasting them from a distance which they can't reach you, occasionally using a powerup that bounces shit against the walls.
I wouldn't say it's a bad game, and it has some nice ideas, what with small bouncing projectiles spewed out to work as area denial against the player, and some cool Giger-esque monster design, but I can't say that it draws me in, there's never a sense of urgency.

The framerate being very smooth and consistent, and the lack of any flicker, is quite nice, but those are also things I can tolerate for a more engaging game (some flicker may not even be easily perceptible on some displays, either, while other flicker may be intentional for creating a transparency effect). For enemies respawning, it depends on if it happens obnoxiously or not, if it stops the levels from getting barren and is used for continued challenge, it's a positive thing to me.

[Anonymous No.8566593]

Compare Zamzara to a game like S.C.A.T (which, admittedly isn't a platformer, but it's space sci-fi with combat)
https://youtu.be/IXlatlbS2Sw?t=152
https://youtu.be/IXlatlbS2Sw?t=532
https://youtu.be/IXlatlbS2Sw?t=649
https://youtu.be/IXlatlbS2Sw?t=1760

>game moves forward whether or not you want to (and at variable speeds and directions), so you're forced to deal with obstacles and enemies in time, or fail
>aside from a gun shooting forward, you have two options which can circle you or be locked in directions, and thus be used strategically for covering otherwise blind angles, as well as for focusing fire
>variety in enemies and hazards, some guys engage you directly, some use seeking missiles, some projectiles break up into a scatter of projectiles as you shoot them, and the subprojectiles must be dodged rather than shot, some enemies do area denial by shooting straight beams, or bouncing angled beams, some shoot fans of projectiles, some enemies move in spiral/corkscrew motions, some are a slowly moving force to avoid or destroy
>cool music playing throughout all the action
>large color variety, stage elements can be various different colors, and independently of that the backgrounds can be black expanses showing city ruins or stars in outer space, optionally detailed interior backgrounds showing all kinds of sci-fi greebling, as well as transitioning between areas like this in one single stage

I wouldn't say that Zamzara is bad, but I would say that it looks kind of underdeveloped, like this would be a beta build to an ambitious and enjoyable game.

[Anonymous No.8566685]

>>8566585
Keep in mind Zamzara was a low budget title. But still, your points
>There's no music during play
Some games are better without it, like most NES games in my opinion, they have repetitive music.
>much of the game borders on being monochromatic
Sure there's C64 colour limitations in display here, but those aren't one colour sprites and backgrounds, they roughly have 3 colours, creating a pleasant looking metallic gradient. The colour limitation was done to make the scrolling smoother and save up memory, NES games wouldn't benefit from such.
>The stages also seem very short, and lacking in verticality
There's no vertical scrolling and the screen height is limited to about 2/3 of the resolution, but there's definitely verticality, and the short stages enhances the gameplay because it makes you feel you're encouraged to complete each of them as fast as you could, like in Quake. The game length itself is about normal.
>most of the time combat is resolved by standing back and just blasting them from a distance which they can't reach you, occasionally using a powerup that bounces shit against the walls
Yes, anything wrong with that? For me it has an enjoyable hit and run gameplay that rarely exists in NES action games. Your character is fast and the enemies are slow, yet they deal high damage and have bigger but shorter reach than your weapons.
>there's never a sense of urgency
There's literally a time limit.

>if it stops the levels from getting barren and is used for continued challenge, it's a positive thing to me
Why worry about barren levels in a linear game? Also dead enemies give you a clue that you've been there before.

[Anonymous No.8566710]

>>8563782
A bitmap scrolling engine IIRC.

[Anonymous No.8566762]

>>8566593
This is a late NES title, and an entirely different genre. Gameplay reminds me of Blood Money and X-Out but less frantic. Really tough games without trainer cheats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvwUmviVQrY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXOqD73hmqc

[Anonymous No.8566824]

you can't flip sprites in hardware on C64 which is a big limitation the NES doesn't have

[Anonymous No.8566835]

>>8566824
That is true although the NES in practice only lets you flip a sprite vertically or horizontally but not in all four axes so you need at least two sprites for each about-face of something. Also on C64 it's trivial to flip a sprite vertically as you can just invert the sprite pattern (horizontal flipping is trickier and uses more CPU time)

[Anonymous No.8566879]

>>8566762
why are all the great C64 shmups European? I don't think I ever even heard of an American one.

[Anonymous No.8566903]

>>8566420
Japan has very few ideas for gaming but they work diligently at perfecting what they do have. Westerners are a lot more willing to experiment but the results can be all over the place.

[Anonymous No.8567109]

>>8559375
Most of the early stuff from the NROM period completely filled the ROM up but larger games often didn't.

[Anonymous No.8567138]

>>8566685
>Yes, anything wrong with that? For me it has an enjoyable hit and run gameplay that rarely exists in NES action games. Your character is fast and the enemies are slow, yet they deal high damage and have bigger but shorter reach than your weapons.
Fair point. Just not my preference I guess.

[Anonymous No.8567198]

>>8564710
homebrew port of BC's Quest For Tires to NES would be neat

[Anonymous No.8567304]

>>8567198
This could be done in NROM, it's simple and only scrolls in one direction.

[Anonymous No.8567495]

>>8567304
yes but C64 needed DMA cartridge for Sonic homebrew to do fast 4 way scrolling while there are many NES games that do this

[Anonymous No.8567519]

>>8567495
Big deal. To do that on NES requires a mapper that does single screen mirroring, it's no different in the end (add-on chip needed).

[Anonymous No.8568116]

>>8566879
Americans preferred simulators like Raid on Bungeling Bay.

[Anonymous No.8568148]

>>8567495
The problem isn't lack of fast scrolling but lack of memory. There are fast scrolling C64 games, with and without VSP, but they don't have background graphics as good as Sonic's. C64 wasn't designed to directly access data from carts to save memory, but ROM cartridge with a cheap DMA MCU could do the job, but there's a RAM expansion unit available so why do that? NES and Master System were designed to directly access tile pages in the ROM while the C64 was designed to decompress them because it's got a fat 64K RAM.

[Anonymous No.8568171]

>>8568148
The NES and Master System don't have DMA, you can't spool graphics data from the cartridge ROM in real time like you can on the 16-bit consoles. You can switch graphics banks during the blank but that's basically it.

[Anonymous No.8568174]

>>8568171
>>8568148
>>8567495
the DMA with Sonic was more designed to take the load of copying the graphics data off the CPU because C64 has memory mapped video and loses 20% cycles during active render.

[Anonymous No.8568183]

>>8568174
>>8568171
yeah it does slow down while the playfield is being drawn but the NES and Master System have similar bottlenecks.

>NES
>can't touch the PPU during active render
>Master System
>can touch the VDP but at a reduced bitrate (so similar to C64)

[Anonymous No.8568194]

>>8568174
>the DMA with Sonic was more designed to take the load of copying the graphics data off the CPU because C64 has memory mapped video and loses 20% cycles during active render.
the VIC-II gets priority over the CPU. if you disable video output via bit 4 of $D011 the CPU will run at full tilt. games often turn it off for fastloaders or anything else where maximum CPU speed is desired.