I was close to making a new topic but bleh: Sega Retro needs screenshots. Of most things. We're at a stage where virtually all mainstream Sega games have pages on Sega Retro. There is documented proof of these games existing, but what we don't have, is much visual content on the wiki in terms of what these games look like. We have title screens - that's usually about it. Think of how mobygames does it - users just upload screenshots of "things" to help convey what a game is about. The difference is, our wiki is more accurate, and we want a lot more content. I've tried to push this on Sonic Retro too - I don't want bullet point lists of levels or bugs or features - I want screenshots of these things in-game. Show me what that level looks like, show me the interesting bits, show me how to break the game, etc. Examples so far: Daytona USA/Hidden content GameFAQs will give you lists of cheat codes for games. Not all of them work - we can show them working. Space Harrier (JP home computers)/Comparisons Space Harrier was ported to systems that could barely render graphics. How does that compare to the real thing? Fantasy Zone Every level and boss of Fantasy Zone detailed. Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit) bug list This is on Sonic Retro but we'll want similar for Sega Retro some day - visual representation of bugs. And we could use weird stuff as well - loading screens. Credits. High score tables. Localisation differences. And that's before all the maps and sprites and whatever we might need to document a game. Nothing is not important. Also, unlike scans (of which we still need loads), people don't need to invest in hardware to join in with this one. You have copies of Kega Fusion and various flavours of Gens, and modern consoles even have screenshot features - it's exceedingly easy to get something up there. It's just that there's 3809213820193 games out there so the workload needs spreading.
I would like to go on record that the Amstrad CPC version of World Championship Soccer gets my vote for the worst video game to be affiliated with Sega: https://segaretro.org/World_Cup_Soccer/Comparisons This game wasn't great on the Mega Drive, but given its age and its place in history, it can at least be said to be "tolerable". On the Amstrad CPC, it runs at about three or four frames per second, is played entirely in monochrome and like all the computer ports, is reduced to a single KICK button, which can send the ball to players you can't see. The AI will also struggle to score. It is unplayable. Just a friendly bit of public service.
It looks like a crappy straight port of the Spectrum version. That happened a lot on CPC, which was a shame as it was capable of a lot more.
It runs better on the Spectrum. Not by much, but enough to put it in the same performance brackets as some of the other Sega ports (that is to say, 10FPS was totally acceptable back then so make of that as you will). One of the issues with CPC emulation is, because I don't know much about the machine, I can't tell if the choice of colours is pseudo support for monochrome monitors, or that the emulator is set up poorly (or most likely, the colours just suck).
Spectrum games were often monochrome in the playfield to avoid colour clash. That's why lazy "Speccy Ports" like World Championship Soccer were also monochrome on CPC. The colours often weren't even tailored for CPC, and code designed for Spectrum would also run slower on CPC. So yeah, "the colours just suck". :p
The guy who uploaded the Game Toshokan stuff to youtube is now uploading episodes of this show. Such a foresightful archiver ...
Word on the street is Nintendo forced developers to use "brighter" graphics for the Game Boy Advance, in an attempt to get around the lack of a backlit screen. Are there any official development guidelines that explicitly state this? It would be a nice thing to verify. We have Dreamcast development guidelines somewhere - Sega dictated that A+B+X+Y+Start should reset a game (and in most cases it does).
If this is true, I'm curious how Castlevania: Circle of the Moon managed to get around it. It was a launch game, and was so dark as to be all but unplayable on the original GBA. I wouldn't be surprised if this were an internal requirement Nintendo placed on their own first- and maybe second-party studios, and not a mandate for all developers.
That would be a Super Megalo 2 (although it oculd be a Euro Megalo depending on where you are). My understanding of arcade games is that as part of the package, you'd get a set of marquees and instructions for whatever cabinet you were using. These things were pretty much made to order.
There are certainly games with specific modes to change the palettes because of this. Sonic Advance 3 is one: http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Advance_3#Palette_Options
Yeah, it is. It's a parody of virtual YouTuber Ai Kizuna. It's to promote House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn.
And I'm just about done. I've exhausted all the content I've found on youtube, with still plenty of missing episodes. Is it possible to add the review scores from The Zone to Retro's review score aggregater? I was trying to figure out how to do it, but wasn't getting very far, probably because it was built for page numbers and pdf scans, and not videos and time stamps.
Does anybody know what happened to all the old internal SEGA tech once they were rendered obsolete? Like, did they scrap/recycle/dismantle/sell off the old clunky Digitizers or are they all just gathering dust in some forgotten SEGA storage facility?
We were planning to change how reviews are handled, so you might want to wait until it's decided what we're doing. Video reviews are something that needs keeping in mind though (maybe we need a "videoref" template).
I'd suggest doing as you are now - have the scores listed on the The Zone page. I would imagine a videoref template would look like Code (Text): {{videoref|zone|1}} Although I kinda feel like we should have timestamps, and I'm conscious that if a new rip comes along, all the timings will be thrown out of whack. It's also not quite as simple as just television shows. I'd like to think, for example, there's footage of at least one Sega E3 conference out there. And advertisements - can't forget those.
