The sad reality of comparisons is that many ports do not demonstrate a console limit, but the limit of the game developer. Many PC Engine ports demonstrated here are simply terribly created ports. I am not claiming that the PC Engine is more capable than the Genesis, but many Sega to PC Engine ports were limited due to poor development. I personally enjoy both consoles.
I like both consoles, too. They had their advantages and limitations. PCE has better color overall, for example. But the Gen/MD has more technical advantages overall, as one would expect from a newer system. Still, in the case of this video, you'll find plenty of people who swear all the PCE ports are better. Which, hey, that's fine if that's their opinion, but I explained why I made the choices that I did in detail.
As a gamer since the early 1980's I will always say the 6th generation 1998-2004 was probably the most creative best era and also last true gaming era. PC games were amazing, portables, PS1 and N64 were peaking, Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube and Xbox had amazing games, fun games, system only games and the list goes on. Most games today are just better graphics of the creativity that came from that era. Having said all this if I was stuck alone for the rest of my life on an Island with one era I would pick 16 bit era. SNES, Genesis and Turbo/Pc Engine. The 3 systems have my young years/teenage years and the most joys. I never get bored of it.
3:50 Sound better on the Mega Drive? Did you eat magic mushrooms or what? They left out the lead guitar, that alone is worth skipping the MD version. Same mistake at 27:52. Space Harrier music is garbage on the MD, it is a quad amputated version of the arcade track. The PC Engine has the punch, the stereo imaging and the steroids a sound track for this game needs. You even get that bonus Staff Roll track, one of the greates pieces of game music ever conceived.
Uh, no. The melody track was removed from most arcade releases of After Burner II, so the Genesis port sounds a lot closer to the vast majority of AB II arcade cabinets. The biggest difference is in the FM instruments on the Genesis. The YM2612 FM instruments on Genesis sound WAY closer to the arcade's YM2151 FM instruments than the ones created by the PSG on the PCE. You can like the PCE version better if you want, personal preference is fine, but it sounds a lot less like the arcade original than the Genesis version does. There are some great sounding PCE games, but overall I feel like it's aged way worse than most systems and there's a really abrasive, grating quality to a lot of the instruments used in many of the system's PSG music tracks.
I'm totally ok with all the comparisons here. While that doesn't mean it's "better" I prefer the PCE port. the better framerate and those fake scalling effects and the landing sequences really give the game a little visual push. Also I'm glad the tunes have the melody versions of After Burner and Final Take off. Nowdays I play the Saturn port with the flight stick tho :P
Yeah, I know a lot of people prefer the PCE version if After Burner. Definitely not me, though 😁 The choppiness of the ground kind of negates the higher frame rate for me since it actively affects gameplay and I find the significantly less precise controls frustrating. And I also find the music pretty grating in this one... it's good to have a version with the melodies, but I've come to prefer the harder edge of the rhythm only versions over the years. But some of the instruments they used in this one... Ugh, my ears, lol. I've probably played it more on 3DS than anything else in recent years myself. The 3D in the super scalar games is amazing in most of them.
To be fair, in the video hes says thats AB on PCE looks better, but that's the MD play better, in this case I think is personal taste. Both games are good port, so maybe the better score could be a draw in this case.
As long as you exclude Golden Axe on the Pce, all the other Sega ports on the Pce are pretty good. A lot of the "is one port better than another" comes down to a personal preference of gameplay and audio. For example - I don't like the way the background in Altered Beast for the Genesis constantly speeds up and slows down. So I actually prefer the PCE version even though it is more difficult. Outrun on the PCE just looks and sounds better to me but that's just a personal preference(engine sound can be turned off in the options menu).
Opinions definitely can and do differ. For me, I've never had a problem with the scrolling on Genesis Altered Beast, I vastly prefer it to the PCE version because it aside from the color on the sprites, it looks better and IMO plays and sounds a lot better. I know I'm in the internet minority when it comes to my Out Run preference. Also, yes, turning off the engine sound is a must in that version, lol. I had to show it to people that might not have seen/heard it before but I would never casually play with it on. Still, appreciate hearing your perspective and thanks for watching and commenting!
PC engine is the worst 8 Bit system created it has terrible graphics and Weak tiny sound bits. SEGA MASTER has FM sounds and better colors. No wonder it didn't sell well in the United States let's call It TERRIBLEGRAFX- 8
Always had a soft spot for PCE Outrun because of the car sprite, but agree the MD version was superior overall. Glad you included the Shinobi MD homebrew port, its so close to the arcade in looks and feel of the game, would have been amazing to have got that back in the day compared to the awful ports on other systems around at the time. Hope they finish it some day. Great video!
Thanks, glad you liked it! As for the homebrew version of Shinobi... it's been three years since the last demo but a little birdie told me it's still being worked on (slowly) and in it's current unreleased state has some additions like... two bosses! Who knows if it'll ever get finished, but it's really impressive, either way.
@@InglebardGaming The homebrew Shinobi port looks very good. Hopefully it gets finished. There was a homebrew Golden Axe port being worked on for the PC Engine that looked pretty amazing but it looks like that project is dead.
Yeah, Shinobi is still being worked on, but the progress is very slow at this point. For the main dev (Tryphon) it's strictly a spare time project. But through someone that helps him, I've been assured recently its not abandoned and he's added a few significant things to it since the demo.
It was definitely impressive compared to the competition when it originally released in Japan in 1987. Most of the games are considerably better than similar titles (especially action games) on say the NES or SMS. When it came out here in the fall of 1989, well, things had already changed significantly. It's still good, but you can tell it's a few steps behind the 16-bit consoles in most ways.
@Inglebard Gaming Oh yeah your right ! I researched PC-ENGINE it has weak colors compared SEGA MASTER even. I'll delete my negative comments immediately 😬
Yeah, a lot of these Sega games really come off a bad ports on the PCE, but I think it speaks largely to the fact that the PCE really specialized in other genres. I play Megadrive for a very different vibe and type of game than I play the PCE for. I’ve also never heard anyone claim that Sega games are better on PCE in my 30-ish years in gaming. Would be curious to know where claims like that are being made and taken as fact.
As for the claims, they were all over news groups and forums for years, as far back as the late 90s. I don't see it as much in general terms these days, but as people discover the PCE has ports of some of these games for the first time, especially Out Run and After Burner, a lot of people jump right into saying they're better without having much experience with them. For example, sure After Burner on PCE runs at roughly double the framerate of the Genesis version. But the horizon in the PCE game is a chunky, pixely mess and it doesn't animate smoothly when changing angles. The movement of the plane is much more rigid which also strongly effects the gameplay, making it impossible to use the subtle angles you can maneuver into in the Genesis (and arcade) game. But these days, some people see that it runs smoother on PCE and declare it the winner right away. There's lots of that on retro gaming UA-cam.
As someone who's been playing all of these versions and many more since they were new, I disagree. The PCE is missing a ton of roadside scenery that's present in the Genesis game. Stuff like the water and sailboats in the first stage, the roadside sand dunes in the desert and lots more. This gives it a much emptier look than the Genesis port.
@@InglebardGaming I can agree the PC Engine lacked a few iconic environment details which is likely due to hardware limitations. However, the sprite assets, color pallet and even the music more closely resembles the arcade in my opinion. I haven't played either so I couldn't give my opinion of what version plays better. I feel like the PC Engine ports of these Sega arcade classics looked more authentic to arcade versions when compared to what Sega released on their own system. This was one of the biggest disappointments I had with Sega during the Genesis days.
The music in the Genesis version is WAY closer to the arcade game than on PCE, IMO, I just can't fathom how anyone could think the opposite. I think your opinion would change if you actually played these versions of the games, some things are hard to get across in a just a few minutes of video footage, particularly with the low volume of the music I used so the commentary could be heard.
Sorry if I was a tad harsh in that last reply, rereading it now, I realize I should have toned it down. Anyway, appreciate you coming back with the update!
Great video, man! You were even handed and I tend to agree with you on most of these ports. I love both of these consoles and I find it amazing how many Sega games actually released on the PCE. Have you done a Hudson ports video? I will have to go through your back catalog, cuz I've been really enjoying your content!
Thanks! No, I haven't done (and probably wouldn't do) a Hudson one. Maybe Taito, Konami or Capcom, though. Glad you're enjoying the videos, appreciate it!
opinion based comparison videos are hard to watch if you disagree with a view, which I do. But kudos to you for fine editing and a neat look at the thoughts of someone that had played and gotten used to Sega games on Sega hardware. I would imagine someone that played these Sega classics on PCE only in their youth would have a completely opposite view of these games. Like me!
Thanks, appreciate you watching it through and leaving the comment! I don't ever expect everyone to agree with me so I just tell it like it is from my perspective and let the chips fall where they may. I did play many of these PCE games when they were brand new. We got our Genesis and TG16 about two weeks apart when they both launched in the late summer of 1989!
nice comparison. overall what i can tell from the video is that yes, PCE lacks visuals compared to Genesis but it seems smoother, at least for these games, especially for the platformers. but, in reallity, Genesis is indeed a better system overall and of course PCE was not meant to compete with 16bit systems of the era but it does ok. PS: about the colour accuracy of genesis in outrun: i could be wrong, but i never remember the testarossa being hot-rod red in the arcade, but more like that orangy-red colour (i don;t know how it's called), that the real car had. of course that could have been the worn out crt's of the arcades themselfs or perhaps the genesis is more closely to the turbo outrun arcade?
I can talk about general color accuracy but that's a little too specific for me. I've mentioned in the past I'm color blind, but I can still tell which version's colors look more similar to another's. And that bluish tint in the road on the PCE version stands out from the gray of the arcade and Genesis versions.
Gain Ground plays fine on PC Engine and have beat it (I own both versions). I prefer it and you can pause and scroll up and down freely at anytime. I never found the need to do that though. Being zoomed out certainly isn't "essential". Your movement speed is faster... it actually the easier of the two versions.
Never understood the hate for the Genesis port of OutRun either. Been playing it since I was 5 years old (well before I was aware of the arcade version let alone being big enough to play it lol) There is that color hack that makes the colors a little better and closer to the arcade, but whoever made it messed up by giving the Canyon stage the wrong sky color (sunset) which was only used in the overseas/international course map which is not in the Genesis version.
This seemed rigged against the PCE. I've owned/own all 3 of these and sought out the Sega titles and I do not agree with some of the comments as it doesn't parallel reality. Altered Beast needed to be knocked, but Fantasy Zone and Shinobi was an unfair comparison and the PCE one is on point(for FZ), you can't call victory with differing titles, that's ridiculous. Reading the comments and talk about myth, this feels like a hit piece largely. The Genesis which I do own now (PCE I let go of recently) does not have the better releases in a majority of the cases, while for some like Shinobi it definitely does. This is clickbait.
I thought the same thing too. I also owned both back in the day, to include a couple imported consoles (my dad was stationed in Camp Hansen, Okinawa). The reasoning given by the channel narrator makes no sense to me.
You disagree, that's fine. That doesn't make it rigged or click bait. The games were shown right next to each other with an explanation of why one was chosen over the other and nothing was altered in any way, this was as fair a comparison as anyone could make it, and I've owned all of these games for decades now. The rules were the same games were compared when possible and similar sequels when they weren't, I said that right upfront. Genesis Shadow Dancer uses the same exact play mechanics as arcade Shinobi (except adding the dog) and has the exact same controls. That was the main context of the comparison. If I wanted to be unfair I would have compared PCE Shinobi to Genesis Shinobi III. Super Fantasy Zone vs Fantasy Zone was the same deal. The play mechanics and even most of the power-ups are identical. I didn't even show any power-ups exclusive to Super or discuss those. Again, you can disagree with my results all you want. But everything was clearly explained at every stage of this. I've also done plenty of PCE videos over the years that were very favorable to the system. L
I read this as "I disagree with you and your evidence based conclusions, therefore SHAM!!!" Everyone's welcome to disagree and say why and make their points. I respond to just about every comment. The reasoning and methodology for everything was clearly explained at the start of the video. The same games were compared wherever possible and a similar sequel to an original when not. So now I just have to wonder, would you still feel it was a sham if the conclusions went in a way you agreed with instead of one you didn't?
@@InglebardGaming Yes, I don't care what console won...at all. It is the different games that discredit this. As JK said, SFZ and FZ isn't even a fair shake. Why even compare those games then? "My reasoning" is a lame excuse. You shouldn't have even bothered with it at all...but you musta needed that filler.
Yes, I put this video out a few weeks before Sega announced that. I'll definitely see how it compares to the arcade and PCE/TG16 versions when it comes out.
Gotta say that with the a few exceptions (like Puyo Puyo) the PC Engine game did appear to have better graphics... as long as they weren't moving. Colors were often more vibrant and objects had more detail. But that seemed to have taken it's toll on the sound and in particular the animation. Once you see the games in action is clear that PC Engine lacked fluid motion and had less detailed animation. I imagine this is why many seemed to feel more sluggish than the Genesis as well.
The PCE color palette, while limited to 512 just like the Genesis, was definitely a little more pleasant. The Genesis palette was heavily focused on greens for some reason while the PCE seemed to have a wider variety of color - you can especially tell with greys. It could also display way more colors on-screen than the Genesis... but it usually didn't. If you look at color counts, it's usually right in the same neighborhood, so it was all about the variety. Personally, I think PCE sound has aged a bit badly compared to the Genesis and SNES. Some games sound great, but there are a lot that just have abrasive instruments. It's got finer stereo than the Genesis but much rougher volume control. People can definitely disagree on this but I vastly prefer the FM (+ dac and PSG) setup of the Genesis. When used right it's 10 channel sound (more like 14 these days with XGM) is great. In the end, both systems are good and have their share of great games. The Genesis shares similar architecture to a lot of the contemporary arcade games, which led to games looking, sounding and feeling more like arcade games.
Your profile picture looks almost identical to ashens’s profile picture, in fact the only reason I clicked is because I thought you was ashens, I’m not complaining I found something I like but still :/
Ha, well sorry about that and welcome! I had my friend make the logo and badge for me a few years ago from a real picture, personally I don't think the full size one (on the thumbnail) looks like Ashens', but having to clip just the head from that for the channel badge makes it a smidge similar I guess. I've been thinking about doing something to help it stand out a bit more anyway I'll probably update it soon.
@@InglebardGaming no I think it’s great honestly no harsh feelings, I’m just saying it’s what got me to click this video haha XD, also I think you should do as you wish but I like it, plus now I can see the differences
Ha, that's cool, I just don't want anyone to get the impression that I tricked them into clicking on the channel, since that's definitely away to NOT get subs.
Sadly, the PC Engine was meant to go up against its 8-bit competitors. Because of multiple case redesigns, the TurboGrafx was late to the North American market. Worse, because HudsonSoft took so much money per machine with those designs, that company made money while NEC lost their respective shirts. If they'd instead built a true 16-bit 65816-based machine like SNES, but based it on a CD-ROM, NEC might have been able to contend with the tough console wars of the 1990s. Instead, they poured money into the weakest known player while charging a bit too much for what they were offering.
It would have been interesting to see what the system might have been like if NEC had gone with different components. It's tough to argue in support of using a modified 6502 in a system that came along as late as the PCE.
@@InglebardGaming Perhaps, but having programmed the system for a bit over a year now I'd say the CPU is probably a smaller weak point than it's sometimes thought to be. Working 8 bytes at a time does slow you down, but at least it's running fast (for the time) and has some pretty good custom instructions added by hudson. 128K of VRAM would definitely be the biggest upgrade you could make, and the system was designed for it (as was the genesis), but it was probably too expensive. The supergrafx a second 64KB, and it's too bad it never got any games. Not a single CD game even bothered adding any support. Would have been a waste of development time, but it would have been awesome. The single background layer is another pretty obvious drawback, but it also had the awesome side effect in that it leaves video memory free to have data uploaded to it almost all of the time. On the genesis you have to be much more careful and vram upload windows are much tighter. And on snes you can't upload to vram at any time other than vblank.
i remember defending TG16 against my Sega Bredren And In Retrospec TG16 was great for imports but my Sega friends couldnt get it because sega did have both domestic and import games but TG16 felt really special then vs other systems
The PCE / TG16 was a good system and had it's share of good games. My brother bought one almost right after it came out here and I bought a Turbo CD for it cheap a few years later. Even in some cases where I awarded the win to the Genesis game, the PCE versions were still good. Only three of them were bad.
I wanted to wait until I'd seen the whole video for commenting first, but this was a great set of comparisons. I also wasn't aware that PCE ports of Sega games were considered better overall so this was a new one on me. Either way, your video proved that to be a myth! 😂
Ha, thanks! Yeah, that was all over newsgroups and forums from decades ago, now. You can still see some of it if you do a web search. I think it was mostly the 'exotic' factor - since most of these were only available in Japan.
I'll take Afterburner and Outrun on PC Engine over the Genesis. Your pro-Sega bias was pretty clear in that you failed to mention so many of the flaws of the Sega ports. Less detail, less color, no psuedo-scaling on Afterburner. Crappy palm tree effect, terrible HUD and the screen going black at the start of Outrun. Also, yes, Dynastic Hero lacks parallax but you gave Sega the nod on music? Also, I think it's important to remember how many of the PC Engine ports were done by crap developers like Asmik and Telenet rather than in house by Sega.
You have a different opinion, that's fine. I explained why I liked which version better. AB sounds, plays and feels way better on Genesis than PCE. The choppy ground rotation and way less precise aiming hurts that version, IMO. I brought that up in the video. Out Run, similarly, plays better, had much better sound and music, and feels more like the original than the PCE version. And the music in PCE Dynastic Hero isn't good. It's generic and has zero character. Being redbook doesn't automatically make a soundtrack superior to a chiptune soundtrack. If they had done CD versions of the music from the original game, it would have been better. The new compositions just weren't good. Again, you don't have to agree with me, I'm fine with anyone that doesn't. But I gave the exact specific reasons why I made my choices the way that I did. You can see lots of positive PCE coverage on this channel if you look at my whole catalog of videos.
@@InglebardGaming Afterburner plays fine on the PCE. Let's not forget that the Genesis port is missing the landing on the street scenes, no color gradient in the sky, smaller background objects even if there are a few more and a terrible ground texture that ruins the illusion of movement. The PCE may use a solid color but on the Genesis it looks like the bushes, rocks, waves etc are floating on a flat image. Plus there's no scaling for the carrier or refueling plane.
Zero of those things you mentioned affect the actual gameplay, which is what I was talking about. The angles for aiming and the fluidity of the control are considerably worse on PCE, in my opinion. On Genesis, it's way easier to position the plane and lock onto enemies at more oblique angles. The rotation of the landscape is also way more fluid and not locked to sharp angles. It's all likely a byproduct of the Genesis version having been designed to support analog control, but it results in much better digital only control, too. Keep in mind I didn't say the PCE game is bad, just that because of the gameplay, control and sound, I think the Genesis version ends up being the better game overall. PCE AB II is still a good port and probably my second favorite one of the era.
@@InglebardGaming I have to disagree about the gameplay. The Genesis port is so slow compared to the PC Engine port. The PC Engine port feels closer to the arcade with it's speed and easy rolls. It's rough in some areas, particularly the canyon section, but it plays better and has more details as previously mentioned.
I completely disagree. Still, that's fine, I know a lot of people prefer the PCE version. But I stick to my reasoning on why I think the Genesis version is the better game.
Interesting video and agree with some of your judgements, but not on Gain Ground, After Burner 2, Space Harrier, Wonderboy5/Dynastic Hero which I think are better on PCE/TG-16. Columns, Puyo Puyo and Puyo Puyo Su, I would call a tie, not enough differences to pick one over another. Shadow Dancer is a way better game than PCE Shinobi, but they are not the same game, so not a fair comparison.
Disagreement is fine, I know some of my choices are against popular opinion, but I gave my reasoning behind them. After Burner II is a close call, but the choppy horizon movement, worse controls and less arcadey music make the PCE version much less appealing to me. Losing all the parallax in Wonderboy V and the flat out weird new soundtrack of the PCE CD version dropped that one below the Genesis original for me. For the puzzle games, the control and sound are all better in the Genesis versions, IMO. Not trying to convert anyone else's opinion, just explaining my own! I may do another video on this topic soon with other company's games and that one will probably also elicit some strong opinions.
It is definitely not a preposterous question at all. Consoles were far, far different from what we see today. The Genesis and PC Engine have vastly different hardware from each. One has a stronger processor while the other was a mean color displaying machine (for their time). Further, both machines have more than one processor.
I was thinking of this video while recently playing most of these Sega conversions for the PCE I realize why I think I like them a little more in some ways graphically. Yes the Genesis does handle more screen effects like parallax and some other details. But subconsciously I think my mind is really having a hard time getting around the color limitation of the Genesis. I grew up playing a lot of these in the arcade before the Genesis was released. The PCE ports of games like space harrier outrun and afterburner all have colors that are more of a match to what the arcade had. In a very basic global glance they feel more accurate. I guess I would say subconsciously accurate.
Sorry, but After Burner is a total beast of a game on PCE, I really love it, it plays amazing, the MD version is poor. About Out Run, well, the MD version for this strange graphic style, on PCE the graphics look and feel like the arcade, and the snare drum sample on MD version could be the same as the arcade, but they choose to use the one from Sonic, terrible choice.
PCE Afterburner is a good port for the hardware and I like it. But for me, the rougher controls, super choppy horizon rotation and sometimes grating musical instruments take it down a notch below the Genesis version. But I know some people disagree with me on that stuff, and I'm fine with that. I feel like Out Run is a less successful port to PCE than Afterburner was. It's still OK, but never got the live for that version, it's missing so much on the roadsides and the music is kinda bland. And don't get me started on the engine sound, lol. At least they let you turn that off.
@@jc_dogen Yes, PCE Afterburner music (and game - clearly better than Gen/MD version - is fantastic, with great instruments, PLUS, very critically, it retains the lead melodies, which were removed from later versions of arcade machines (although it remains in the arcade ROM, unused).
I was only looking at Sega developed games or ones that were closely associated with them. I didn't cover any games from other companies like Capcom, Toaplan, Kaneko etc. Those would be a topic for another time!
@@netoantonio I like the Genesis Truxton version better, not even getting into graphics or sound comparisons, it was just more fun to play as PCE Tatsujin owned me to the point I didn't have as much fun. Same with Air Buster vs Aeroblaster, not that I necessarily give the Genesis the advantage for graphics/sound, just the brutal difficulty of the PCE game.
Great job! I agree with most of your takes! Maybe you can do a follow up video on shmups which appeared on both systems, I think it will be a much tougher fight then!
SHMUP is another huge mith in the internet abot PCE being superior on similar titles. Nice that's now we had shmup junkie that's makes some amazing comparisons being fair to both sides. SHMUP video follow up for great justice :D
I can only take so much hate, lol. But after I recover from the amazingly sharp and totally unbiased barbs to which I've been subjected, I might look at some of those, too.
@@InglebardGaming your wrong bro PC Engine has better fps, better scaling, and more enemies on screen. PC Engine Afterburner port is closer to arcade, and Space Harrier is better on PC Engine.
No bro, Inglebard is right, and he brought solid arguments, in fact just look at the screen in the comparative: everyone realizes that Genesis is better.
I have zero attachment to either machine and certainly didn't grow up with them or anything (I was firmly in the Commodore 64 and then Amiga fandom at the time), and for what I can tell I mostly agree with your assessment. I think it all boils down to SEGA tasking with the PCE ports some B grade developers that is some cases did Tiertex level jobs. Which might not have been completely unintentional on SEGA's side. I mean, there is still money to be made on competing consoles but you don't really want them to outshine your own machine. Still, I'm impressed that the PCE got a port of Power Drift, while neither the Mega Drive or the Master system did it.
Yeah, since they just licensed stuff they were hands off with the development and quality control. Still, most of the games are good. The only ones I'd say are bad are Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Shinobi. It was weird that only the PCE got Power Drift. It's so-so on the machine. I imagine Sega passed it over on Genesis because of how cut back a port would have to be. They could have done a decent Sega CD version, though. In the end, I don't think Sega intentionally wanted any games to be worse on the platform. They were way behind in Japan and needed whatever help they could get.
I loved my c64s and Amigas back then. After the crash here in 1983, the C64 was pretty much the only way to play good, new games until the NES came out. And the Amiga was super impressive when it hit in 1985.
Lots of reasonable takes here. I too don't know how the myth that the PCE Sega ports were generally superior endured, it's an interesting mystery. I however don't personally consider Super Fantasy Zone a remake or port of the original game though, to me it's 100% it's own thing and stands alone in the series. And Wonder Boy has aged more gracefully than SMB for my tastes - I'll take the first two Wonder Boy games over any later entry (and Adventure Island) because 30 years later they're the ones that are a pleasure to relearn, re-master. Would it be controversial to say that Thunder Blade and Galaxy Force were better videogames on the SMS than on MD? I've always thought this. Anyway, you put out some meaty videos. Very enjoyable.
Thanks, glad you liked it! With Super Fantasy Zone, I didn't include it as a remake, it's just the Genesis/MD equivalent to the arcade Fantasy Zone performance-wise and shows a nearly equivalent game running on the two platforms to really illustrate the differences between them. For Galaxy Force and Thunder Blade, it could be pretty easily argued the SMS versions are better than the Genesis versions. Sega really dropped the ball on those 16-bit ports. They couldn't have been close to the arcade originals, but they could have been better than they were. As for the myth, who knows how these things get started or why they persist? The PCE is a nice enough system and was the first to really up the ante power-wise. It's just maybe a half-step behind the fully 16-bit systems.
@@InglebardGaming Only a step behind them until you deal with its final form. Add a CD drive and an arcade card, and even Sega of Japan would be in awe of all the wasted potential. Anyways, I'll happily support the myth of Turbo superiority if we're talking about Afterburner. The clean aesthetics and user-friendly control are all great arguments for Sega's version, but Sega's version lost all the arcade spectacle. The appeal of the game was narrowly weaving through scene stealing smoke trails and over the top arcade style explosions, not counting how many animation frames they're using to simulate smooth sprite scaling in the enemy jets.
We'll just have to disagree on After Burner II. The things that sealed the deal in favor of the Genesis version for me were the much better controls, much better ground/horizon rotation, and music that's a lot closer to the arcade version. The bonus rounds also look and play way better in the Genesis game, I should have shown those. Anyway, I expected the two most people would disagree with were After Burner and Out Run. The PCE versions are both good and worth playing, I just think the Genesis versions of those are better for the reasons I stated in the video.
@@InglebardGaming It's just a matter of priorities. The Genesis version sacrifices my favorite parts to avoid taxing the cpu or taking up too much ROM space, and the PC Engine sacrifices a bit of what you want in favor of a pure focus on what I'm looking for. Realistically, we're just lucky to get two ports that split the difference. I wonder how often that happened, back in the day? Only other example I can think of, off the top of my head, is Samurai Shodown.
Yeah, they're definitely both good and I appreciate what they did with the PC Engine version. It would have been interesting to see what the Genesis version would have been like if it came out a year or two later. Same for Space Harrier II.
For all the titles you picked, some of them are not the kinds of titles you can do cut and dry comparisons of, and this just comes off as very pick and choose to achieve a specific outcome as far as list goes. For one, Shinobi vs Shadow Dancer. Shinobi was a arcade port. Shadow Dancer was not a port of the arcade game. Neither was Super Fantasy Zone, which was a sequel, like Space Harrier II. Super Thunder Blade, like Shadow Dancer, was just reworked from the ground up and does not really resemble the original game. As far as Altered Beast goes, while I like both the Genesis and PCE-CD ports, I prefer the PCE-CD release though, as it uses more character assets from the arcade board sprite/animation wise. Having to use up as a jump button is not a disadvantage. You have to use it in about every fighting game, so you should already be used to that. But, if its that much of a drawback, one could buy a NEC Avenue Pad 3 and mod it to swap button 3 over to up, so you can have a jump action button on the 3rd button. The Genesis port has many character sprites that were simply reworked for whatever reason, so they are not arcade accurate, and the zombies look cheap as hell on their death animations, along with other things being too watered down. The sound fx were also changed from the arcade, including the voices (there is a rom hack that restores some of the audio back to the arcade). Then you have the whole other thing of just leaving many major titles off this comparison list that were released on the core systems and their cd-rom upgrades. Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury 2 and Special, Raiden, Air Buster, Sorcerian, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Dragon Slayer, Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition, Forgotten Worlds, Chiki Chiki Boys, Hellfire, Zero Wing, Tatsujin, Lords of Thunder, Bomberman 93, Devil's Crash, Twin Hawk, Exile, Cosmic Fantasy, Popful Mail, Snatcher, Rainbow Islands, Populous, Panza Kick Boxing/Best of the Best, Might and Magic III, Black Hole Assault, Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2, Todd's Adventures in Slime World, The Ninja Warriors, Shadow of the Beast, Twin Cobra, John Madden Football, the Valis games, Y's III, New Zealand Story, Cadash, Rastan Saga, Volfied, Strider, etc. There is a much larger picture to paint here, which you chose to ignore doing. And if you factor it all in and keep the inner Sega 90s fanboy in check, you will see in many major titles the PCE/TG wins, especially if the goal is to look closer to the arcade release of a game concerning the arcade ports. There is a few times there were NEC Avenue did fuck it up, like with Strider or the Altered Beast hucard release, but over all there are way more winners than losers in the complete lineup.
You fail to understand this was only a comparison of Sega games on the system. It's right in the title, the thumbnail and explained up front in the video, it only covers games that were developed or published by Sega and I literally covered every one of them where an original or sequel showed up on both systems.
One amusing thing is that on the Turbografx-16, Dragon's Curse has different names for your alternate forms... Lizard Man, Piranha Man, and so forth. Your first and final form is, drum roll please, Hu-Man.
I like plenty of PCE games, this video was just about specifically comparing Sega titles on each platform. I might do a similar video with other company's games on both platforms, too - maybe Taito or Capcom.
Altered Beast for the PC Engine, despite being total garbage does actually contain sprite scaling. Pay attention to the zombies when they die on the floor level...their arm that is facing the screen falls off and scales while it does. I know, I know it's barely noticeable but it's there.
A good comparision. Since you asked opinion, for me: I could call Afterburner a Draw, and invalidate shinobi comparision cause the games aren't the same game. That said, for me it was always obvious that the Genesis ports, most arcade ports, are always better then the PCE Engine. In the end, I agree with most of your conclusions.
Thanks! I expected people to disagree on Afterburner and Out Run. Still, I had my reasons for those! For Shadow Dancer vs Shinobi... the play mechanics should have been basically identical (minus the dog) so I think it was as fair as looking at stuff like Space Harrier vs Space Harrier II.
@@InglebardGaming NO. You don't get the point. They are different games. Just because you respond to all comments does not mean you are right. Your phrase "I think it was as fair" says it all. You only care about what you think.
I can only tell you what I think and why - I don't know what other people think. If someone disagrees with what I think, that's fine. I'm not shutting anyone down or shadow banning their comments. But I will offer other information that clarifies or supports an opinion I have... why wouldn't I? People disagree on things. They have conversations about those things. Often, at the end, they still hold the same positions. Sometimes they change. It's how life works. You don't like my opinions in this video or why I have them. Fine. I doubt anything I say will change that. That doesn't make either one of us 'right' or 'wrong.' But there's no reason to be surprised when I elaborate on what an opinion I have is or why I reached it.
I never heard that ever ha ha to be honest the PC Engine is a 8 bits and I remember that people tend to compare it to the Master System and the NES. The Megadrive came here in 1990 and the PC Engine in 1989 but in 1987 in Japan (and some distributor here tend to push the Japanese version back then). Basically that was 2/3 full years prior to the Megadrive.
Yeah, in Japan PCE was 1987 and the MD was 1988. Here in the US the systems both came out in 1989, less than a month apart, which is why they're so often directly compared here. Now, to be fair, I'd say the PCE is a step between the other 8 and 16-bit consoles power-wise.
The PC Engine is only 256px wide resolution, like the SNES. This is because an 8bit external bus cpu is not capable of higher resolutions whereas the smd has a 320px horizontal resolution.
That is incorrect. The PC Engine could vary the display width from 256 pixels all the way to 512 pixels. It was programmable. Many games ran in lower resolutions, though. Most Genssis/MD games ran in 320x224 mode, but the Genesis/MD also had a low res mode of 256x224 that was used in a fair amount of titles, including many ports from SNES (like the Street Fighter ports). This was often done so companies could reuse the same graphics built for SNES, they'd only have to tweak colors for the Genesis/MD's palette.
@@InglebardGaming yeah I know all that Inglebard. But it wouldn't be all the way up, as in any number inbetween. The 8bit cpu cannot count above 256 with a single byte, which is why the resolution is 256 wide. You could double the load on the cpu to get exactly double that but not an arbitrary number. Not with an 8bit cpu. Because an 8bit bus is delivering only 1 byte per transfer cpu cycle. So to update a resolution above 256 wide is going to take an addition load on the cpu, just to make a number higher than 256.
@@InglebardGaming if that explanation half made sense it's because I half understand what I said and kind of guessed a bit... I think it must be right though.
@@iwanttocomplain The PCE's VDC takes care of the graphics, including resolution, and it's 16-bit. That's also really not how graphics are processed on this system, so it's kinda moot there. The CPU simply modifies a register in the VDC to alter the timings of the chip to achieve different resolutions, it's not responsible for drawing the lines in any way, so 8-bit's plenty for that. There are also 5 bits just for setting the horizontal resolution, so there are quite a few modes it can be set to. Once it's set, there's no penalty to the CPU, or the VDC for that matter. Unlike the Genesis, though, you don't get more sprites per line by cranking the resolution up.
In some interviews with the original Japanese game dev team in charge with making a Shinobi game for the Sega MegaDrive both for Japan's gaming market and abroad... the dev team mentioned that for whatever reason they could accomplish more or offer more for the home consumer hardware buyer if they instead made an original home experience not available in arcades... While I respect that and the MegaDrive Super Shinobi games were excellent, there probably was some "port" fatigue going on and from their perspective they probably felt that too many early MD games were just offering the arcade at home experience and hardly the original experience... or something like that... So finding out that a fan dev is working on the original arcade Shinobi for the Sega MegaDrive is great news since we already know the MegaDrive can handle it and make it better than the arcade version. A pitty on that MegaDrive Phantasy Zone... Sega of America staff didn't bother to localize it.. what the hell were they thinking... a pixel crunching 60fps full color masterpiece is made by Sunsoft and SoA just lacked.. oh wait SoA is why we got stuck with live action FMV games and 32X... makes sense now... Hey I would advise that since you have mentioned this before. Whenever you speak about the 80s and 90s videogames... yes even if you talk about Nintendo 64 and SNK NeoGeo MVS/AES ROM Cartridge sizes... it is more logical to use terms like Megabits... Megabit does not equal a Megabyte but mentioning a 512kilobyte Cartridge size just comes off like someone measuring floppy diskette files... We all know that current smartphones take some variable quality photos that can easily take up 1.5MB to 3MB plus in size or more and can add up quickly... plus the gamer magazines back then when they started to officially support home videogame systems actually did use the terms "Megs" even if EGM kind of abused the term by implying that larger ROM size meant a better game which wasn't always true buy did help many videogames and systems realize untapped power... Sure the Nintendo 64 had the largest mass production ROM Cartridge size at 512 Megabits or 64 Megabyte but using kilobytes or bits is just confusing to magazine readers and even those of us with a background in computer terms because such terms were not really used on game systems. Also as far as NEC PC-Engine hardware... the CPU is 8bit but the graphics chipset is full 16bit correct? While Sega was able to splurge on a 16bit CPU... the problem with trying to say a system was just a souped up 8bit system is that years later Atari boldly claimed their Jaguar was "64bit" and accused the consumer of not doing the math... some type of insulting advertising similar to 3DO calling Nintendo and Sega's hardware kid's toys to get us to fork over money for their 3DO system that was a horrible design... especially when the Sega Saturn launched. Even Sega in Japan initially tried playing that game and were going to actually use that the Sega Saturn was a "64bit system" so long as you added up the two 32bit CPUs and not the 32bit SH1, 32bit VDP1/VDP2 and 16bit 68k variant... But later on Sega did claim that the "Dreamcast" was actually a 128bit system... but as a ploy to make the Nintendo 64 look old or bad... the Sony PS2 in Japanese press actually claimed that the PS2 EE+GS was actually 128bit also and note that these companies had marketing departments using these terms most likely in response to the 1988 Sega MegaDrive launch with boldly golden 16bit logo on the Japanese launch systems which got shrank down for worldwide release... NEC PC-Engine was indeed a 16bit graphics system even if the CPU was 8bit... there is some controversy on the Super FamiCom CPU being a souped up 8bit CPU made to have 16bit features because originally Nintendo was planning on full backward compatability with the old FamiCom and FamiCom Disk Drive games where recently some fan hobbyists are trying to enable a type of software emulation of NES/FamiCom games on the Super FamiCom or Super Nintendo hardware by claiming to use a mode in the CPU.
OK, lot to discuss here! First, when I do single game comparison videos, I show sizes in both megabits/megabytes and KB. I cover the megabits because people were used to that from that era and that's how carts were often labelled on the Sega side of things. I cover KB and MB because that's how people are more comfortable these days and understand those units more since they're more universal than megabits. You can see what I'm talking about here in most of my "Utterly Pointless Comparisons" episodes. Yeah, it was a real shame they didn't bring Super Fantasy Zone over here. At least they included it as an official game on the Genesis / Mega Drive Minis, though. With Shinobi, yes, the devs wanted to bring something new that better fit the home market, which is why we got Super Shinobi / Revenge of Shinobi. But Sega did plenty of ports of older arcade games after, there was no reason even at some point later they couldn't have done Shinobi. I mean, we got OutRun roughly two years after the Genesis launched here in the US. Regarding the 'bitness' of the PC engine, I know there's debate, but really, it's an 8-bit system. The CPU can only handle 8 bit instructions which is what settles things, IMO at least. Yeah, the graphics chip(s) are 16-bit, but that doesn't change how the CPU handles processing, For the SNES, its 65C816 (variant) is fully 16-bit, even though its an extended 65C02, basically. It may have been held back by its speed and backwards compatibility with the 6502, but it was unquestionably 16-bit. Technically, its faster than a Motorola 68000 at the same clock speeds. The only problem was, we didn't really ever see a 65C816 at clock speeds similar to the 68000 in any commercial computers or game systems, it was pretty much always slower - typically half the mhz (or even less) of 68000s. Really, I think after we hit the 32-bit era, with stuff like the 3DO, Saturn and PlayStation measuring consoles in 'bits' became impractical because of the complete architectures they used. Computer components and processing changed a lot in that time. And of course today, game consoles have sort of come full circle... some really old ones had similar hardware to computers of the time (like the Colecovision, SG1000 and MSX) and today, the PS5 and Xbox Series are basically just PCs, from an architecture standpoint, with a few tweaks. Also, I'll die on this hill: the Jaguar was not 64-bit, lol. I'm not commenting on it or its game quality, but it functionally did not have a 64-bit CPU. Two 32-bit graphics processors doesn't equal a 64 bit system. Not even with a 64-bit bus.
I don't get why you consider adding more voices to Puyo Puyo "baffling", when that greatly enhanced all the in-game cutscenes have their humor enhanced by it. I mean, voice acted cutscenes became as bog-standard as the Tsu's mechanics in later entries. Not every CD game needs an all-arrange soundtrack. Even Sega knew this, as their CD version of Golden Axe used the original score.
Well,. you're only partially correct about Golden Axe. The Sega CD version uses a redbook recording of the arcade soundtrack, it's not the same as the cartridge version. The source is still the system16 board's ym2151, but its recorded in the case of GA, not generated. As for priority given to the voices, if you like it better, that's fine. But you can't argue that was anything close to common. While there are a few PCE games that use PCE chiptunes, the vast majority use primarily redbook audio. On Sega CD, almost all the games have redbook soundtracks, a few use the Sega CD's PCM chip and only a compilation of cartridge games uses the Genesis FM and PSG chips and even then only for some games in the compilation. Edit: fixed a few typos in the first paragraph
Fantastic video. Internet myths like these are hilarious. Equally as hilarious is when people claim the SNES had all the best games of the era, and had all the "peak" games lol. Anyone who's played beyond beginner level will know both the Genesis and PCE had bangers which were as good if not better. Chrono Trigger is the one which always makes me laugh, people bring that up as if Phantasy Star 4, Shining Force 2, and the Lunar games weren't just as good. In fact, out of all those, Phantasy Star 4 would be my pick.
While there were way fewer RPGs on Sega systems, they definitely had some great ones, no question about it. I love all the games you mentioned and Lunar: Eternal Blue on Sega CD is ny favorite RPG from the entire 16-bit era on any platform. I do still love some of the SNES RPGs, too, though. There's room for great games on any system in my crusty old gamer heart, lol.
Still in the middle of watching the video... Just wanted to say as a Gain Ground fan I generally like all of its ports however because of being zoomed in another thing the pc engine version lacks is co-op. I mean the arcade was 3 players and even the master system port is 2 player, and a good variation of the game.
Damn, never knew Wonderboy in Monster World was made to other consoles than Megadrive/Genesis... Luckily it looked like crap so I don't have to hunt that PCE version out and finish it :D Great video, cheers dude!
There are bunch of pc engine games that mop the floor with Sega genesis, like super street fighter 2 ^ bomberman 94, just to name a few. depends who ports them. Sega gen does only 64 colors on screen & pc engine does 486 colors on screen.
Those are theoretical hardware limits for PCE colors. In actuality, most games show between 40 and 80 colors on screen. I've run MANY of them through color counting software.
Yes, but they're extremely similar when it comes to gameplay and all the technical aspects. I explained that's why I compared them, they're the closest equivalents and show the differences in the hardware. I also showed the homebrew work-in-progress Shinobi for a more direct comparison, too.
Well, I went over my reasons in the video but I'll elaborate here if you want. The Genesis version's horizon rotation is WAY smoother than the PC Engine versions and has way more angles. The planes have more frames of animation on Genesis for their "scaling" (just redrawn sprites in both games). The control is way superior on the Genesis game, it's not even close - the control is MUCH smoother and it's easier to target enemies thanks in part to all those extra angles you can move within. The vulkan gun is also a lot more effective and easier to use on Genesis. Plus we get three action button for the controls instead of two plus the run button on PCE. The music and sound in the Genesis game is also much more similar to the arcade game than the PC engine game. The higher framerate on the PCE in this case barely even matters because the horizon rotation is so choppy and it has significantly fewer animation frames and angles you can move within. Also visually, while the ground items are larger and more varied on PCE, there's way more on screen at a time on the Genesis port. For example, I never count more than 16 ground objects on PCE in any still screenshot, usually 12-14. In the Genesis version it's not uncommon for it to have 20 or 22 items on the ground in any still screenshot and sometimes more. To be clear, I'm not saying the PC Engine version is bad. It's a good game and a good port. But between the two games, for all the reasons I said above, the Genesis version is the better game IMO.
Say which thing? That the PCE Sega titles were better than the Genesis ones? Check out old gaming forums and newsgroups... old as in like 20-25 years ago. It became a super common thing that lots of people just glommed onto and perpetuated. You'll even find really old posts (13+ years old) from people you may be familiar with from modern UA-cam on them.
The more I find out Sega had alot of games PCE.. makes me wonder why Sega and Nec didnt just join forces?? Is the PCE a 8bit or 16bit. I'm pretty new too the system.
@@InglebardGaming thank you for the info somebody was telling me it's 16bit cos it has two 8 bit chips, I was telling them that's not how that work if the CPU is 8 bit then it 8bit system. They didn't get it. I told if you were too swap brains with and ape it doesn't change the brain it just in a different body they understood after that lol.
Technically the graphics processor was 16-bit, but we don't measure systems by that. For example, we consider modern computers 64-bit because if the CPUs instead if say 300+ bit because if the GPUs.
@@shenglongisback4688 The CPU, despite being 8-bit, is actually really fast. 6502s are very efficient, and the clock speed of the PCE's 6502 is quite high. It gets a lot of work done (depending on the workload it can definitely be faster than the Genesis), and has some advantages like being able to do write to all areas of memory even while the screen is being drawn, which the SNES and Genesis can't do. Great for streaming in new data, doing weird stuff with raster effects, or just giving it more time to do calculations. It's a really good CPU for its time, actually, it's kind of a shame that people get so hung up on it being 8-bit. To Inglebard's point, it's probably better to think of things in terms of generations than "X-bit" systems. The PCE uses an 8-bit CPU, but it's very clearly a generation ahead of what the Master System and NES could do, and the SNES and Genesis are close enough in power that they're definitely in the same generation.
I had both in the 90’s (& I still have them) and although I really like and enjoy my TG16, TurboExpress & TurboDuo(s) there is no doubt my Genesis had the better versions of almost all games that showed up on both systems mostly due to playability, sound and graphics so I spent my TG16 playing time on it’s exclusive titles
Same here, and generally yes, the Genesis versions are better, which should be expected. There are definitely some cases where thr Turbo/PCE version of a game wins out, though.
I never understand the praise for the sound from the Mega Drive. It had a impossible to program for 4-op FM chip, everyone struggled with the disaster sound generator. Even Sega itself. It is so hard to make any intrument not sound like a xylophone or a Maria Carey fake Rhodes 73. Sure it has more bass and sounds more high def, but most OSTs just sound crap on it. After Burner on the PC Engine has a lead sound that sounds like an electric guitar by some means. In the MD version they just skipped it. Space Harrier is also miles better on the PCE. Somehow the fake stereo of the MD is one major reason that it sounds so bad. On the average 14" kids TV back in the nineties nobody cared, but on a good stereo Trinitron you need the 16-step panning from left to right of the PC Engine. Same with Sonic. Sonic 1&2 on the Game Gear sound so much better than on the MD. The MD tracks sound like they have the handbrake on them. They sound very uninspired next to the high energy pumped tracks on the Game Gear.
Each to their own. I personally don't like the way the PCE sounds, sounds like a NES to me most of the time and I vastly prefer the genesis sound to PCE. There are difficulties in programming ANY retro machine. The lack of a second background layer on PCE was a huge short-coming that was present in nearly every other 16 bit system - meaning clever techniques had to be used to create impressions of parralax. It also had less sprites than the megadrive or snes and had a tonne more sprite flicker as bosses etc had to use sprites rather than a background layer. The impossible to program for system you talk about has the strongest 16bit dev scene around so missed the mark there a bit !
@@shannonbirt9267 I love both systems. They actually complement each other well with their relative strengths and weaknesses. This guy's Inglebaard is a total Genesis mark however. If i had to choose one it would be the PCE but that's because i like arcade conversions and shooters and the PCE is a bit better i would say for arcade ports and shooters mainly due to it's color pallete. I would say for just about every other genre the M.D has the better variety of quality games. Also i can't help but respect how amazing the form factor for the PCE was., it was so small! ClassicJapanese tech miniaturizing like that.
The praise is because it has some of the best soundtracks of the 4th gen. Yeah, it took skill and talent to get right but many people wrote amazing drivers for it. Koshiro, Sakimoto, Technosoft Sound Team, Compile, Sonic Team, Toaplan, Factor 5, Jesper Kyd, etc, etc.
This video was just looking at games that were originally created by Sega on both platforms. Popful Mail and Dragon Slayer were both Falcom games so they didn't fit in here. Sega did the Genesis ports but not the originals. I'll probably do similar episodes with other companies' games down the line sometime.
1) I think most SEGA ports are very well done on the PC Engine. A lot better than this video tries to proof otherwise. The music is always excellent 2) Shmupwise the PC Engine is another class. Galaga 88 and Final Soldier ALONE are worth getting a PC Engine, where there is no single game to get a Mega Drive for. 3) There are a bunch unique or best on PC Engine games with the best chiptune music on any machine. Some absolute first league OST's are Neutopia II, Jackie Chan, Cross Wiber, Final Soldier, Bomberman 94.... 4) The HuCard, compact case, multitap, expansion port, RGB out by default: the hardware is top notch: elegant, nice design, technically perfect, compact. Try that fugly US SNES completely turned yellow with its hollow bricks with stickers as carts.... 5) It's still quite original to collect PC Engine. If you step into someones home with a SNES or Mega Drive collections, it is: ok, seen that, done that. Boring.
@@lovemadeinjapan "Shmupwise the PC Engine is another class. Galaga 88 and Final Soldier ALONE are worth getting a PC Engine, where there is no single game to get a Mega Drive for." Umm... MUSHA, Gaiares, Fire Shark, Elemental Master, Eliminate Down, Undead Line (hidden gem), Super Fantasy Zone, Battlemania 2 and Thunder Force III & IV? All are essential 16-bit shmup material, IMO.
To be clear, for this specific video the footage is from emulation. But there isn't a game in it I haven't played extensively on real hardware. Generally if there's anything affected by emulation, if there's a delay or lag in controls vs real hardware, I'll point that out in videos so people know what they're seeing isn't representative of the real thing. You can see examples of me calling out some differences between emulation and real hardware in some of the single board computer videos I've done in the past. Specifically, I did one comparing four SBCs and Genesis and 32X emulation had severe input lag with PicoDrive on those systems even though the games themselves ran at the right speed without frameskipping.
Maybe a small part of the reason that western retro gamers bought and accepted the idea that the PC engine sega ports were "always superior" is quite frankly the lingering hangover of the first great console war(GREAT console war, dont @ me atari bros)... i was there, while my family was on both sides due to the large age range between us, and it meant we had access to and loved both sega and nintendo, when the console war rolled hot it didnt matter, i was considered a sega kid by some no matter how many snes games i owned and loved... people that grew up with sega have a huge amount of love for it, but keep in mind there is a VERY LARGE segment of western gamers that grew up not just loving nintendo, but believing that sega was their worst enemy, something that in their eyes was possibly going to kill the gaming world as they knew it..even as they grew up and ostensibly left single console rigidity behind (particularly when tons of them ended up dumping nintendo 64 for playstation, maybe somewhat against their will) due to sony's dominance they still saw sega as nothing but a loser/ enemy thing, and that the failures of the game gear/32X/ saturn (which theyre wrong about, saturn rules) just reinforced these ideas ... so once they got into emulation and retro gaming and are told that even at sega's western height( the period they hated/feared them the most) a technically weaker console that failed in the west but did great in japan had even better versions of sega's own games, it probably validated alot of their beliefs so they just went along with it and spread it... p.s i agree that i never understood the hate against Outrun on the genesis, i played it so much as a 10 year old that i still hum its music... its controls feel great...
Good points. There could definitely have been some of that lingering. I also have older siblings, so we when I was younger we had pretty much all the systems of the time except the Neo Geo (almost had that, too, but that's a long story). I fully admit I have my preferences, but I'm objective and have my opinions for a reason. Like I said in another reply, I don't default to Sega versions are always better, I wouldn't argue Wipeout is better on Saturn than Playstation. I go with what makes sense.
@@InglebardGaming sorry it was just a thought..... to be honest though i had a ps like most in the the US and only discovered how great the saturn was later, and its amazing how many games are better on it than ps... except symphony of the night, konami's nagoya branch must not have been up on the saturn yet...whoa maybe im like those i described previously..man, no one i knew got even close to owning a neo geo... just the arcades and the ports... but ive got most of those games now, shoddy emulation aside...
These games are also in higher resolution on Megadrive/Genesis compared to the PC Engine which runs almost all its games at the same lower res as the Snes does.
I do prefer the SEGA GENESIS version over the the SNES and PC-ENGINE version. But at the end of the day PC-ENGINE has the best 16-bit graphics! It's a lot more closer to the arcade when it comes to the colors! 🎉🎛🔉🎵🎮🤘😃📺🎮🤩🎧🎚🔊🎶🎊
@@demonology2629 Genesis had Special Champion Edition which was conversions of two arcade versions (Champion Edition and Turbo Hyper Fighting) with options on which version to play, PCE was a straight up Champion Edition version (no Turbo version option). But I think the PCE version was a bit better, way more colorful, much better voices/sound effects. Genesis had one layer of scrolling PCE didn't have and a few sprites in Guile's stage missing from the PCE version though to nitpick.
"For best results view at 1080p60fps. If you've been into retrogaming and emulation for a while you've probably seen this said in a whole bunch of forums, newsgroups, reddit threads or whatever: Sega games are better on PC Engine than they are on the Genesis / Mega Drive". I'm sorry , but you are a 35 years latter and peoples from this era don't live this era so they can't feels or done any memories from this time . Specially because nearly all play this games on emulators. Also collect a lot of retro games and sell it 8x espenssive than original retail don't made any one a great gamer .
Well, I can bust out the Captain from MXC and the "Well you're wrong!" quote here, because according to UA-cam analytics, my audience is roughly 90% over the age of 40 which means they were indeed around when this stuff was new and did indeed see all those things I mentioned in the description. I've seen a lot of retrogaming UA-camrs talk about the age of their audience, including before I started this channel, and yeah, they were right. It makes sense, because the people who take the time to watch videos on these topics are the ones who, like me, played all or most of this stuff when it was new. In this case, that data speaks clearly.
C’mon. Shadow Dancer vs. Shinobi? They aren’t even the same game! You should have at least compared PC Engine Shinobi to Master System Shinobi running on the Power Base converter. PC Engine Shinobi wins.
The video is about comparing Sega games on the PC Engine and Genesis, not the SMS. Shadow Dancer on the Genesis (and the arcade version, even though its a different game) uses the exact same play style as arcade Shinobi which was ported to the PCE, so how is this a giant leap? The only difference when it comes to play mechanics is the dog. Otherwise... you throw shuriken, you jump between multiple heights, have close quarter attacks, get a power up when picking up the required collectibles in the level, even the enemies in SD are basically just reskinned Shinobi enemies. The bigger problem were all the cuts to PCE Shinobi that removed stuff present in the original arcade version... all of mission 2, all the close quarters attacks, the power ups and the bonus rounds. PCE Shinobi looks good on first glance but it was chopped to ribbons and the gameplay was heavily affected. It's no different that comparing stuff like Space Harrier I and II, Thunderblade and Super Thunderblade, etc. I said in the video multiple times that I compared the closest equivalents when the same title was not available on both systems and that's exactly what's in the video.
@@InglebardGaming If that was the kind of comparison you would want to make, then it would be like Shadow Dancer versus Ninja Spirit, or Shadow Dancer versus Kaze Kiri also, and throw Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III into the mix. Or hell, throw in Castlevania Bloodlines vs Dracula X. This is why it's best to stick with apples to apples comparisons via ports, unless you want to present yourself as ridiculously biased, which unfortunately you did. Both systems have highly regarded titles to offer in this genre. If you're going to approach it as a genre topic, you need to take an unbiased approach and be more transparent about what both platforms offered at the time.
@ConfusionDistortion Now you're going out of your way to be silly. Shinobi and Shadow Dancer have the same play mechanics, the same control scheme, the same level structure, the same multi-height platform gameplay, the same screen clearing ninja magic and more. You can't say that about Shadow Dancer and Ninja Spirit or your other examples. You sound like a superfan of PCE that is upset you didn't see a confirmation bias video. There's plenty of positive PCE coverage on this channel including direct comparisons of the same title. If you want videos that just declare it the greatest system ever and ignore the technical limitations of the system or automatically say multiplatform games are better on it without actual reasons, you'll have to go someplace else for that.
@@InglebardGamingJust to be fair, Shinobi on the PCE was a tiny 3 megabit HuCard developed by Asmik, a company with a lackluster track record. That's one of the issues with these comparisons. Sega did their ports in-house while the PCE ports were licensed to some shoddy developers half the time.
I owned both the Genesis and the TG16 in the 90s... It wasn't even close. Overall, the Genesis had a MUCH better gaming library with better music, sound, gameplay, and graphics (especially more detailed backgrounds and sprites) than the TG16.. More colors on the TG16 doesn't matter when the sprites and background details are so lacking!
Yeah, I had both systems and the SNES each from wtihin a week or two of when they launched here in the US. I like the TG16 well enough, but I think its inarguable that in most ways its clearly a step below the Genesis and SNES. That's not an insult to it... it came out between the NES/SMS generation and the Genesis/SNES generation and it definitely feels like a bridge between those generations, having some of the limitations of the earlier systems with some of the improvements of the newer systems.
@@InglebardGaming Yeah, I know what you mean. Some of us during that time colloquially said TG16 felt like a "12-bit" rather than a true 16-bit system. That said, I must admit that I think Order of the Griffon on the TG16 was better than Warrior of the Eternal Sun on the Genesis. OotG remains my favorite western/computer-style RPG from the 16-bit era.
I was objective. You just don't agree with my results, and that's fine. If I wasn't this would have been 16-0-0. I gave my reasoning for each decision and showed everything side by side to illustrate why and how I came to my conclusions.
@@InglebardGaming I get that but clearly Gain Ground on the PC Engine is clearly a superior game. Same goes for Bonanza Bros and Wonder Boy in Monster Land. The fact that you sided with the Genesis so much makes it all seem like a clear case of bias.
Gain Ground on PCE is super zoomed in and only 1 player. The Genesis game has an aspect ratio more like the arcade where you can see the whole play area and it's two players. And has extra levels. The arcade game was three players. I should have mentioned that in the video, didn't think about it. Bonanza Bros I listed as a draw. The color is a little nicer on PCE, but its missing the parallax from the arcade and Genesis games and the two games play similiarly. I *said* Wonderboy in Monsterland was better than the SMS game in the video! I didn't score that because it was a bonus look at the rest of the WB series. The video was about comparing Genesis and PCE, not Genesis and SMS. But I did say the PCE versions of WB in ML and Dragon's Trap are better on PCE in the video. The only Wonderboy game that 'won' on Genesis was Wonderboy in Monsterworld, and that one IS better on Genesis, IMO.
OK. And I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Like anyone, I'll advocate for my positions, but if you disagree, I'm fine with that. In what ways do you think WB in Monster World (Dynastic Hero) is better on PCE /TG 16 CD?
I found your opinions on the music very funny. The PC Engine always has the better renditions of classic SEGA arcade tunes. On the Mega Drive they either lack speed, some channels (After Burner hello!), always lack proper stereo (the MD simply does not do stereo) and often even complete tracks (the utterly amazing Space Harrier staff roll of the PC Engine).
You are factually wrong about almost everything you just said. The missing in channels in After Burner aren't "missing," the Genesis/MD conversion is based on arcade After Burner II. In arcade After Burner II, Sega stripped the melody tracks from several versions of the songs, most notably Final Take Off. The PCE soundtrack is based on the music from the original After Burner release even though the game itself is based on AB II. The fact that you didn't know that is very suspect. The Genesis/MD has stereo. You can set a channel to play all right, all left or both sides. The PCE supports stereo with more subtelty between left and right, but also has fewer sound channels. Gen/MD has 10 between the FM (6) and PSG (4) chips, PCE has 6 total PSG channels only. The Genesis/MD didn't receive a port of the original Space Harrier until the release of the Genesis / Mega Drive Mini II a few years ago. Until then, it only ever had Space Harrier II which didn't use any music from the original Space Harrier. The port on the Gen/MD Mini II is also, of course, based partly on theoretical hardware since it includes hardware scaling similar to what would have been available at the time the MD was released in 1988 - Sega was famously originally going to include a sprite scaling chip and removed it from the design due to the physical size it added to the hardware, yield rates, and price. Again, you should have known there was no Gen?MD version of SH 1 if you were going to talk about the music "missing" from it.
@@InglebardGaming You tell me nothing I don't know. The fact that After Burner arcade does not contain the melody does not mean the song has to be like that. They just could not get it right in the mix on the machine, they ran out of ROM, no idea. All modern renditions include it, and they managed to get it sound right on the PC Engine, so thank god it is there. It has to be in there, it is the melody line demmit! Left+Right is NOT Stereo. It sounds annoying, try headphones you get nuts. A MD is better off with a mono-TV. Where a PC Engine just NEEDS a stereo TV and sounds amazing on headphones. Amigas and Mega Drives have fake stereo. Face it. Apparantly you don't know PC Engine Space Harrier, nor played it to the end. The staff roll track is asthonishing, and absent on any other version.
We need a UA-cam filter for "genenis". I want "Mega Drive" videos. Same with Turbo Grafx. So sad consoles got fubar on US import back in the day. That huge ugly black box.... Who came up with that nonsense in 1989? Then again with the US SNES. That looks like it is poured in concrete with some purple to make it a tad cuter. And TV's without SCART.... must have been tough in the US. Luckily this NA region adaptation is a thing of the past.
Afterburner and outrun are both much better to play on the pc engine; you would know it if you truly played these games; out run on the genesis there isn’t any motor sound it’s ridiculous; afterburner the PCE music is so much better compared to the genesis !
I did "truly" play them. The terrible engine sound in PCE Out Run does not make it a better game. The music in PCE After Burner isn't bad but it doesn't sound like the FM tracks of the arcade version, the Genesis version sounds much closer to the original. You prefer the PCE versions, that's fine, you're allowed. I showed both versions while making my points and you disagree, also fine. I don't feel the need to accuse you of not playing both versions of each, but personally, I don't get how anyone that played those arcade and home versions extensively could have the opinions that you do.
@@InglebardGaming Even the arcade rendition of After Burner is bad compared to the PC Engine. It all comes down to the lead guitar: it is ONLY present in the PC Engine version. Luckily Sega brought it back in full awesomeness with Sonic Racing Transformed, although a lot slower than on the PC Engine.
Actually, some of these use 4 megabits and the carts are the same size on both systems. Then you've also got the PCE/TG16 games that were on CD and hundreds of megabytes and were larger than every one of these Genesis games combined.
This was about Sega games only, stuff they originally developed and/or published. There's lots of games from other companies that appeared on both systems and I might cover them in the future.
That is unfair. Mega Bomberman is a very crappy port. Not the total junk status of SNES Super Bomberman 3-5 (somehow they split the game in 3 there), but it is a huge step back.
That it's biggest weakness, but not the only one. It also can only handle 64 sprites and the 6 channel PSG is a bit on the weak side even though some devs and musicians did a nice job with it.
The big thing this video forgets to mention is DF Retro and Digital Foundry in general established that N-O-T-H-I-N-G with a lower framerate can possibly be better in any way decades, or a decade ago at least. Therefore, all of these Genesis games lose. Just remember, on the internet, you're either 60FPS or you suck. Similarly, in PCE centric forums, more (or brighter) colors is better. Absolutely nothing else matters.
Ha, well even so most of the Genesis games featured in this video run at 60fps 😁 I think DF is pretty great overall, but I'm definitely not with them on everything. Which I have told them about a few specific issues in the past which they promptly ignored, lol. Oh well, that's life as a small UA-camr.
I was referring to some of the animated sprite transitions and ground rotations, but yeah the sprites move left to right at 60FPS in both versions for the most part. DF is amusing to be sure, even informative at times. But when they start using words like "unplayable" they cross the line to pretentious. Then the hoards copy their arrogant claims and start calling 20 FPS "Unplayable, much less 15 FPS and below. I enjoyed the hell out of my first LAN parties with Quake running at a variable 10-20FPS, I didn't even noitce. In fact, I'm very sure I've enjoyed 6FPS games, and while I noticed Virtua Racing SVP wasn't as smooth as Virtua Racing Deluxe I failed to notice that the gameplay was changed by that fact at all. Similarly, Star Fox was always fine to me. I've actually found more games get ruined for me, difficulty wise, in the jump from 30FPS to 60FPS, they become too easy in many cases.
Interesting. Personally, I've never been bothered by a game's framerate increasing, as long as the speed remains constant. These days I vastly prefer 60fps or higher, but I'm really enjoying Xenoblade Chronicles 3 which doesn't even manage to hit 30 a lot of the time. On the flipside, I loved playing Xeno 1 on Dolphin at 60fps and Xeno X on cEmu at 60 fps :) But yeah, I don't want to trash DF or anything, but if you want to be amused, do a google search for the CV&G review of Amiga E-Swat and see who did it. If you haven't seen Amiga E-Swat up and running, it's in my 'Every Sega Game on the Amiga" video! You'll be surprised at who did that glowing review after you see the game, lol.
Definitely since the Xbox 360 higher framerate doesn't seem to break gameplay mechanics or make games too easy. Earlier than that though, FPS online shooty shoot matches were dominated by the elitists with the 120+FPS top dollar PCs. Sonic Adventure broke in various ways (Speed Highway top track can't be reached by running up the building for example) and/or was too easy when it was allowed to run at 60FPS. Sonic Adventure 2 had entirely different level designs to compensate for double the framerate. That's another point about framerate that may not be all that apparent in comparison to today's games, polygon models were often times lower detail in 60FPS games than in 30 or 20FPS games. Often times, but not always of course, trackside detail, effects and other things tended to be toned down to maintain 60FPS. But I was mainly focusing on gameplay mechanics changing or becoming easier when original framerates were "improved" to 60FPS. Whereas games like Sega Rally on Saturn could be half the Arcade gameplay and hardly lose a thing in gameplay, if anything at all.
almost all US and Japan versions of 2D games were 60 FPS back then, its when they tried to get ambitious with psuedo 3D effects where sacrifices were made.
Sorry but those Wonderboy and Monster World SMS games really need to be fan remake remaster on the Sega MegaDrive hardware... I feel it's cringe to keep calling the Sega MegaDrive the "Genesis", that's exclusively a U.S. thing because some big shot above Sega of America didn't like the name "MegaDrive" and wanted to call it the "Tomahawk" especially when the "MegaDrive" term was not even trademarked at all in North America alone and it is just an unfortunate fact we have to live with that the U.S. name for Sega's system wad just weak compared to MegaDrive... especially when you mostly compare to the PCE/TG16 by using the term PC-Engine... another one that big shots who probably got a bonus check if they redesigned the FamiCom to a box, the Super FamiCom to a fisher price toy phone and the arcade MegaDrive into some weak sounding Genesis... which implies that the Sega Master System never existed.
I used "Genesis" more often because nearly all the games I covered were released in the US and I was sowing US versions. I used 'TurboGrafx" or "TG16" when mentioning games in the video that came out in the US, but most of these were Japan only,, so I used "PC Engine" since I couldn't accurately call them "TurboGrafx" games. Now, I may have slipped up a few times, but the above was the general reasoning behind the name use. And sure, it'd be great to see updated Wonder Boy games on the Genesis / Mega Drive 😁
aun asi, los juegos de Genesis se veian mejor porque sus fondos tenian mas detalles. Por ejemplo, Hellfire en Genesis se veia mejor graficamente (con menos colores) que Hellfire S en turbo grafx cd.
@@lancercncs1822 si, la debilidad de PC engine era que solo tenía 1 scroll, y a veces tenía parpadeo en algunos objetos, pero tiene una imagen muy nítida, cuando usan bien la paleta de colores veo esa diferencia , los juegos en CD están muy bien hechos
@@cristianramallo8042 Pues con "imagen nítida" quien sabe si te refieres a la calidad del video compuesto que si era de otro mundo, pero inferior al RGB del Genesis. Desde los juegos de Hucard ya se veía buen uso de paleta de colores, pero muchos de sus juegos tienen un arte cuestionable y de verdad hacían dudar si eran juegos Nextgen.
@@CEJOTA1800 había una técnica que se uso en sega cd pero consumía recursos, creo que consistía en ir cambiando la paleta de colores constantemente para que de la impresión que pone mas colores en pantalla, no creo que sea lo mismo que poner 482 colores, igual los juegos que vi de pc engine no superan los 128 colores la mayoria. en cuanto a la calidad de video es lo que decís, por compuesto muestra mejor imagen que snes y genesis, pero no es por el cable, es por los chips y como esta todo construido, lo mismo que el sonido, a pesar de ser mas primitiva la tecnología la calidad es mejor. los primeros juegos de pc engine, algunos parecen de 8bits pero es por la época, la consola recibía ports de las arcades de 8bits, hasta en genesis en menor medida aparecieron algunos juegos con ese nivel técnico
Castelvania, street Fighter, fatal fury, special, world heroes, winds of thunder, snatcher, dragon ball z(are very diferents but its better game on pc Engine), etc etc etc are better on pc engine. Only compare sega games is obiusly are better in his machine.
You kinda missed the point of the video. It was specifically to compare only Sega games on both platforms because of disagreement on which platform had the better Sega ports. It's not that no games are better on PCE/TG16.
It sure lacks something in its library to have made it really stand tall among the competition, but it was successful in Japan as it was released early and was a powerful hardware for its day, it came way too late overseas, but like I said, there's something about it that doesn't really appeal. Edit: I feel the draw in Bonanza Brothers could've been one more point to the Genesis, what's that weird resolution/aspect ratio of the PC Engine version? About Outrun being controversial, I will say that no matter public opinion, please keep giving your point of view and arguments out, the internet needs it. Some people will think art in general is subjective to tastes, but well, if people start eating poop, this should then be subjective to their taste too. Once you start explaining why something is objectively bad, subjectivity can't be used as an argument anymore.
Comparing certain ports like these maybe, but if we are talking about the better games in general on both platforms, the PCE / CD has better quality games overall.
It depends on your tastes, overall I strongly disagree. Even with the CD ROM titles, I'd still put it behind the Genesis and SNES overall. It just had too many technical disadvantages vs the other systems that came along later and could do a lot more.
@@InglebardGaming Not only that, we need to add games which appeal to the masses, in both SNES and Genesis, you have a lot of unique and really successful games which still look and plays great to this day. But I really would like to have owned a PC-Engine with CD back then, I have zero nostalgia for the system, but I do agree it was a nice piece of hardware for 1987, it just really needed that strong third party support and killer exclusive games the other systems got.
Actually it pretty much isn't 😁 I'm not saying its a bad system but it wasn't built to handle this specific stuff. It's got a faster than normal (for the time) 8-bit 6502 variant as its heart, a fairly simple PSG, and 16-bit graphics processing that's hampered by other system limitations. In the end, capability-wise it sits squarely between the major 8-bit systems like the NES/SMS and the 16-bit systems like the Genesis/SNES.
@@InglebardGaming Well.. I program for the system so I'm aware of the differences. But it's still a huge jump from NES level hardware even if it falls below some other 16-bits.
@@InglebardGaming Here's my "quick" breakdown. Fastest CPU of that generation, maybe a tie w/68000 if you're dealing with big numbers a lot. More tedious to program, but not as barebones as a standard 6502 (it's 65C02 based). Graphically , the Lack of a second bg layer hurts for sure (supergrafx >:] ). But a side effect is that it leaves vram wide open for the cpu to write to it any time it wants without artifacts, unlike snes and genesis. Huge number of palettes (16 for BG, 16 for sprites) :) Sound wise it has a pretty simple chip, but it was also very underutilized. Most games used basic square and saw waves. You can play pcm with less cpu overhead than the genesis, with full stereo panning. (the supergrafx and coregrafx were even better, allowing for much high sample rates and multi channel pcm streaming... obviously this was never used :( ). 5-bit volume per channel is a weakness, but you can pair channels for 10-bit pcm. Not sure if any commercial games did this. I think one big factor that some might miss is the lack of big cartridges. Lots of the SNES and Genesis's best games were 2MB and more, I believe. IIRC the only game over 1MB was SF2. 8KB of work RAM means HuCard games can't use as sophisticated compression.. making it even more dependent on rom size. The CD games had to deal with much less than that, only 256KB for SuperCD, minus the BIOS. Arcade card kind of evened that playing field, but very late and very expensively. I kind of see it as an 8-bit system but pushed (almost) as far as that paradigm could go.
NP, obviously I like all this stuff, too! The sound for me is probably the thing that's aged the worst. A lot of the tones just really hit me in a way that grates a bit. Some games sound great, like Dungeon Explorer, Legendary Axe II and most of what Namco produced. A lot of it is also a bit too samey among the HuCard titles. The 6 channels were a little light for the time it came out, which really hurt a lot of the later arcade ports. The finer stereo capability was nice, but not a substitute for more channels. Yeah, there were one or two 8 megabit cards, but SF2CE was the only card that exceeded 8 megabits. Large card games didn't make a lot of sense for Japan where the CD format was so popular so I get why they mostly went with CDs instead. I agree its the height of what could be achieved with an 8-bit processor from the late 80s. When it came out in Japan in 1987 it was a significant upgrade over the competition. They really hit at the right time over there and rode that wave for a long time. The PCE was definitely interesting for the approach it took and it's position as the most advanced 8-bit gaming system out there.
@@InglebardGaming Have you listened to magical chase? That's probably one of the best Hucard soundtracks.. Sakimoto and Iwata like usual.. Keep an eye out for new homebrew. Kulor recently upgraded his nes alter ego tunes for pc engine, that port should be coming out at some point.. And another guy who goes by the name touko has been grinding away at a supergrafx shooter for a few years..
The sad reality of comparisons is that many ports do not demonstrate a console limit, but the limit of the game developer. Many PC Engine ports demonstrated here are simply terribly created ports. I am not claiming that the PC Engine is more capable than the Genesis, but many Sega to PC Engine ports were limited due to poor development. I personally enjoy both consoles.
I like both consoles, too. They had their advantages and limitations. PCE has better color overall, for example. But the Gen/MD has more technical advantages overall, as one would expect from a newer system.
Still, in the case of this video, you'll find plenty of people who swear all the PCE ports are better. Which, hey, that's fine if that's their opinion, but I explained why I made the choices that I did in detail.
As a gamer since the early 1980's I will always say the 6th generation 1998-2004 was probably the most creative best era and also last true gaming era. PC games were amazing, portables, PS1 and N64 were peaking, Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube and Xbox had amazing games, fun games, system only games and the list goes on. Most games today are just better graphics of the creativity that came from that era. Having said all this if I was stuck alone for the rest of my life on an Island with one era I would pick 16 bit era. SNES, Genesis and Turbo/Pc Engine. The 3 systems have my young years/teenage years and the most joys. I never get bored of it.
3:50 Sound better on the Mega Drive? Did you eat magic mushrooms or what? They left out the lead guitar, that alone is worth skipping the MD version. Same mistake at 27:52. Space Harrier music is garbage on the MD, it is a quad amputated version of the arcade track. The PC Engine has the punch, the stereo imaging and the steroids a sound track for this game needs. You even get that bonus Staff Roll track, one of the greates pieces of game music ever conceived.
Uh, no. The melody track was removed from most arcade releases of After Burner II, so the Genesis port sounds a lot closer to the vast majority of AB II arcade cabinets. The biggest difference is in the FM instruments on the Genesis. The YM2612 FM instruments on Genesis sound WAY closer to the arcade's YM2151 FM instruments than the ones created by the PSG on the PCE. You can like the PCE version better if you want, personal preference is fine, but it sounds a lot less like the arcade original than the Genesis version does.
There are some great sounding PCE games, but overall I feel like it's aged way worse than most systems and there's a really abrasive, grating quality to a lot of the instruments used in many of the system's PSG music tracks.
I think the perception of the PC-Engine Sega games being better then the Mega Drive games comes from people who just look at screen shots.
I'm totally ok with all the comparisons here. While that doesn't mean it's "better" I prefer the PCE port. the better framerate and those fake scalling effects and the landing sequences really give the game a little visual push. Also I'm glad the tunes have the melody versions of After Burner and Final Take off. Nowdays I play the Saturn port with the flight stick tho :P
Yeah, I know a lot of people prefer the PCE version if After Burner. Definitely not me, though 😁 The choppiness of the ground kind of negates the higher frame rate for me since it actively affects gameplay and I find the significantly less precise controls frustrating. And I also find the music pretty grating in this one... it's good to have a version with the melodies, but I've come to prefer the harder edge of the rhythm only versions over the years. But some of the instruments they used in this one... Ugh, my ears, lol.
I've probably played it more on 3DS than anything else in recent years myself. The 3D in the super scalar games is amazing in most of them.
Yes, After Burner is much better on the PCE.
To be fair, in the video hes says thats AB on PCE looks better, but that's the MD play better, in this case I think is personal taste. Both games are good port, so maybe the better score could be a draw in this case.
I believe the turbografx-16 is the worst 8- bit system of all time. It has weak colors and also the sound is worse than
SEGA MASTER.
As long as you exclude Golden Axe on the Pce, all the other Sega ports on the Pce are pretty good. A lot of the "is one port better than another" comes down to a personal preference of gameplay and audio. For example - I don't like the way the background in Altered Beast for the Genesis constantly speeds up and slows down. So I actually prefer the PCE version even though it is more difficult. Outrun on the PCE just looks and sounds better to me but that's just a personal preference(engine sound can be turned off in the options menu).
Opinions definitely can and do differ. For me, I've never had a problem with the scrolling on Genesis Altered Beast, I vastly prefer it to the PCE version because it aside from the color on the sprites, it looks better and IMO plays and sounds a lot better. I know I'm in the internet minority when it comes to my Out Run preference. Also, yes, turning off the engine sound is a must in that version, lol. I had to show it to people that might not have seen/heard it before but I would never casually play with it on.
Still, appreciate hearing your perspective and thanks for watching and commenting!
PC engine is the worst 8 Bit system created it has terrible graphics and Weak tiny sound bits. SEGA MASTER has FM sounds and better colors.
No wonder it didn't sell well in the United States let's call It TERRIBLEGRAFX- 8
@@demonology2629 We all have opinions but "the worst 8-bit system created"?
Always had a soft spot for PCE Outrun because of the car sprite, but agree the MD version was superior overall. Glad you included the Shinobi MD homebrew port, its so close to the arcade in looks and feel of the game, would have been amazing to have got that back in the day compared to the awful ports on other systems around at the time. Hope they finish it some day. Great video!
Thanks, glad you liked it! As for the homebrew version of Shinobi... it's been three years since the last demo but a little birdie told me it's still being worked on (slowly) and in it's current unreleased state has some additions like... two bosses! Who knows if it'll ever get finished, but it's really impressive, either way.
@@InglebardGaming The homebrew Shinobi port looks very good. Hopefully it gets finished. There was a homebrew Golden Axe port being worked on for the PC Engine that looked pretty amazing but it looks like that project is dead.
Yeah, Shinobi is still being worked on, but the progress is very slow at this point. For the main dev (Tryphon) it's strictly a spare time project. But through someone that helps him, I've been assured recently its not abandoned and he's added a few significant things to it since the demo.
For an 8 bit system it look pretty awesome.
Agreed. I would be pretty embarrassed as a company if some of my games would look better on an 8 bit system than on my own 16 bit system...
It was definitely impressive compared to the competition when it originally released in Japan in 1987. Most of the games are considerably better than similar titles (especially action games) on say the NES or SMS. When it came out here in the fall of 1989, well, things had already changed significantly. It's still good, but you can tell it's a few steps behind the 16-bit consoles in most ways.
@Inglebard Gaming Oh yeah your right ! I researched PC-ENGINE it has weak colors compared SEGA MASTER even.
I'll delete my negative comments immediately 😬
Yeah, a lot of these Sega games really come off a bad ports on the PCE, but I think it speaks largely to the fact that the PCE really specialized in other genres. I play Megadrive for a very different vibe and type of game than I play the PCE for. I’ve also never heard anyone claim that Sega games are better on PCE in my 30-ish years in gaming. Would be curious to know where claims like that are being made and taken as fact.
As for the claims, they were all over news groups and forums for years, as far back as the late 90s. I don't see it as much in general terms these days, but as people discover the PCE has ports of some of these games for the first time, especially Out Run and After Burner, a lot of people jump right into saying they're better without having much experience with them.
For example, sure After Burner on PCE runs at roughly double the framerate of the Genesis version. But the horizon in the PCE game is a chunky, pixely mess and it doesn't animate smoothly when changing angles. The movement of the plane is much more rigid which also strongly effects the gameplay, making it impossible to use the subtle angles you can maneuver into in the Genesis (and arcade) game. But these days, some people see that it runs smoother on PCE and declare it the winner right away. There's lots of that on retro gaming UA-cam.
Loved outrun in the master system, I have no idea why I didn’t know it was on the Genesis
It didn't exactly arrive with a lot of fanfare when it came out. Which is a shame, because it's a pretty good version for the hardware.
As an owner of an OutRun arcade cabinet I can say with confidence the PC Engine version is the closest to it.
As someone who's been playing all of these versions and many more since they were new, I disagree. The PCE is missing a ton of roadside scenery that's present in the Genesis game. Stuff like the water and sailboats in the first stage, the roadside sand dunes in the desert and lots more. This gives it a much emptier look than the Genesis port.
@@InglebardGaming I can agree the PC Engine lacked a few iconic environment details which is likely due to hardware limitations. However, the sprite assets, color pallet and even the music more closely resembles the arcade in my opinion. I haven't played either so I couldn't give my opinion of what version plays better.
I feel like the PC Engine ports of these Sega arcade classics looked more authentic to arcade versions when compared to what Sega released on their own system. This was one of the biggest disappointments I had with Sega during the Genesis days.
The music in the Genesis version is WAY closer to the arcade game than on PCE, IMO, I just can't fathom how anyone could think the opposite. I think your opinion would change if you actually played these versions of the games, some things are hard to get across in a just a few minutes of video footage, particularly with the low volume of the music I used so the commentary could be heard.
@@InglebardGaming You're right, I just listened to it and it is..
Sorry if I was a tad harsh in that last reply, rereading it now, I realize I should have toned it down.
Anyway, appreciate you coming back with the update!
Cool vid dude! Getting back into playing some of these great games on the Genesis.
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Great video, man! You were even handed and I tend to agree with you on most of these ports. I love both of these consoles and I find it amazing how many Sega games actually released on the PCE. Have you done a Hudson ports video? I will have to go through your back catalog, cuz I've been really enjoying your content!
Thanks! No, I haven't done (and probably wouldn't do) a Hudson one. Maybe Taito, Konami or Capcom, though. Glad you're enjoying the videos, appreciate it!
opinion based comparison videos are hard to watch if you disagree with a view, which I do. But kudos to you for fine editing and a neat look at the thoughts of someone that had played and gotten used to Sega games on Sega hardware. I would imagine someone that played these Sega classics on PCE only in their youth would have a completely opposite view of these games. Like me!
Thanks, appreciate you watching it through and leaving the comment! I don't ever expect everyone to agree with me so I just tell it like it is from my perspective and let the chips fall where they may.
I did play many of these PCE games when they were brand new. We got our Genesis and TG16 about two weeks apart when they both launched in the late summer of 1989!
nice comparison. overall what i can tell from the video is that yes, PCE lacks visuals compared to Genesis but it seems smoother, at least for these games, especially for the platformers. but, in reallity, Genesis is indeed a better system overall and of course PCE was not meant to compete with 16bit systems of the era but it does ok.
PS: about the colour accuracy of genesis in outrun: i could be wrong, but i never remember the testarossa being hot-rod red in the arcade, but more like that orangy-red colour (i don;t know how it's called), that the real car had. of course that could have been the worn out crt's of the arcades themselfs or perhaps the genesis is more closely to the turbo outrun arcade?
I can talk about general color accuracy but that's a little too specific for me. I've mentioned in the past I'm color blind, but I can still tell which version's colors look more similar to another's. And that bluish tint in the road on the PCE version stands out from the gray of the arcade and Genesis versions.
Gain Ground plays fine on PC Engine and have beat it (I own both versions). I prefer it and you can pause and scroll up and down freely at anytime. I never found the need to do that though. Being zoomed out certainly isn't "essential". Your movement speed is faster... it actually the easier of the two versions.
Never understood the hate for the Genesis port of OutRun either. Been playing it since I was 5 years old (well before I was aware of the arcade version let alone being big enough to play it lol)
There is that color hack that makes the colors a little better and closer to the arcade, but whoever made it messed up by giving the Canyon stage the wrong sky color (sunset) which was only used in the overseas/international course map which is not in the Genesis version.
Yeah, some of the hate I see for the Genesis version mystifies me.
I think the only big advantage of TG-16 over SMD is the colors.
I think space harrier on PC engine is better.
This seemed rigged against the PCE. I've owned/own all 3 of these and sought out the Sega titles and I do not agree with some of the comments as it doesn't parallel reality. Altered Beast needed to be knocked, but Fantasy Zone and Shinobi was an unfair comparison and the PCE one is on point(for FZ), you can't call victory with differing titles, that's ridiculous. Reading the comments and talk about myth, this feels like a hit piece largely. The Genesis which I do own now (PCE I let go of recently) does not have the better releases in a majority of the cases, while for some like Shinobi it definitely does. This is clickbait.
I thought the same thing too. I also owned both back in the day, to include a couple imported consoles (my dad was stationed in Camp Hansen, Okinawa). The reasoning given by the channel narrator makes no sense to me.
You disagree, that's fine. That doesn't make it rigged or click bait. The games were shown right next to each other with an explanation of why one was chosen over the other and nothing was altered in any way, this was as fair a comparison as anyone could make it, and I've owned all of these games for decades now.
The rules were the same games were compared when possible and similar sequels when they weren't, I said that right upfront. Genesis Shadow Dancer uses the same exact play mechanics as arcade Shinobi (except adding the dog) and has the exact same controls. That was the main context of the comparison. If I wanted to be unfair I would have compared PCE Shinobi to Genesis Shinobi III.
Super Fantasy Zone vs Fantasy Zone was the same deal. The play mechanics and even most of the power-ups are identical. I didn't even show any power-ups exclusive to Super or discuss those.
Again, you can disagree with my results all you want. But everything was clearly explained at every stage of this. I've also done plenty of PCE videos over the years that were very favorable to the system.
L
Completely agree. This was a sham. Comparing completely different titles. Gimme a break...someone needs views.
I read this as "I disagree with you and your evidence based conclusions, therefore SHAM!!!"
Everyone's welcome to disagree and say why and make their points. I respond to just about every comment. The reasoning and methodology for everything was clearly explained at the start of the video. The same games were compared wherever possible and a similar sequel to an original when not. So now I just have to wonder, would you still feel it was a sham if the conclusions went in a way you agreed with instead of one you didn't?
@@InglebardGaming Yes, I don't care what console won...at all. It is the different games that discredit this. As JK said, SFZ and FZ isn't even a fair shake.
Why even compare those games then? "My reasoning" is a lame excuse. You shouldn't have even bothered with it at all...but you musta needed that filler.
The original Fantasy Zone is getting a Mega Drive port on the Mega Drive Mini 2.
Yes, I put this video out a few weeks before Sega announced that. I'll definitely see how it compares to the arcade and PCE/TG16 versions when it comes out.
Finally someone who speaks clearly and is not carried away by the fanaticism behind the PC Engine.
Thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed it!
Gotta say that with the a few exceptions (like Puyo Puyo) the PC Engine game did appear to have better graphics... as long as they weren't moving. Colors were often more vibrant and objects had more detail. But that seemed to have taken it's toll on the sound and in particular the animation. Once you see the games in action is clear that PC Engine lacked fluid motion and had less detailed animation. I imagine this is why many seemed to feel more sluggish than the Genesis as well.
The PCE color palette, while limited to 512 just like the Genesis, was definitely a little more pleasant. The Genesis palette was heavily focused on greens for some reason while the PCE seemed to have a wider variety of color - you can especially tell with greys.
It could also display way more colors on-screen than the Genesis... but it usually didn't. If you look at color counts, it's usually right in the same neighborhood, so it was all about the variety.
Personally, I think PCE sound has aged a bit badly compared to the Genesis and SNES. Some games sound great, but there are a lot that just have abrasive instruments. It's got finer stereo than the Genesis but much rougher volume control. People can definitely disagree on this but I vastly prefer the FM (+ dac and PSG) setup of the Genesis. When used right it's 10 channel sound (more like 14 these days with XGM) is great.
In the end, both systems are good and have their share of great games. The Genesis shares similar architecture to a lot of the contemporary arcade games, which led to games looking, sounding and feeling more like arcade games.
You must have never seen Legendary AXE for TURBOGRAPFX-16 It was one of the first real animated games in the late eighties.
Your profile picture looks almost identical to ashens’s profile picture, in fact the only reason I clicked is because I thought you was ashens, I’m not complaining I found something I like but still :/
Ha, well sorry about that and welcome! I had my friend make the logo and badge for me a few years ago from a real picture, personally I don't think the full size one (on the thumbnail) looks like Ashens', but having to clip just the head from that for the channel badge makes it a smidge similar I guess. I've been thinking about doing something to help it stand out a bit more anyway I'll probably update it soon.
@@InglebardGaming no I think it’s great honestly no harsh feelings, I’m just saying it’s what got me to click this video haha XD, also I think you should do as you wish but I like it, plus now I can see the differences
Ha, that's cool, I just don't want anyone to get the impression that I tricked them into clicking on the channel, since that's definitely away to NOT get subs.
Sadly, the PC Engine was meant to go up against its 8-bit competitors. Because of multiple case redesigns, the TurboGrafx was late to the North American market. Worse, because HudsonSoft took so much money per machine with those designs, that company made money while NEC lost their respective shirts.
If they'd instead built a true 16-bit 65816-based machine like SNES, but based it on a CD-ROM, NEC might have been able to contend with the tough console wars of the 1990s. Instead, they poured money into the weakest known player while charging a bit too much for what they were offering.
It would have been interesting to see what the system might have been like if NEC had gone with different components. It's tough to argue in support of using a modified 6502 in a system that came along as late as the PCE.
@@InglebardGaming Perhaps, but having programmed the system for a bit over a year now I'd say the CPU is probably a smaller weak point than it's sometimes thought to be. Working 8 bytes at a time does slow you down, but at least it's running fast (for the time) and has some pretty good custom instructions added by hudson.
128K of VRAM would definitely be the biggest upgrade you could make, and the system was designed for it (as was the genesis), but it was probably too expensive. The supergrafx a second 64KB, and it's too bad it never got any games. Not a single CD game even bothered adding any support. Would have been a waste of development time, but it would have been awesome.
The single background layer is another pretty obvious drawback, but it also had the awesome side effect in that it leaves video memory free to have data uploaded to it almost all of the time. On the genesis you have to be much more careful and vram upload windows are much tighter. And on snes you can't upload to vram at any time other than vblank.
i remember defending TG16 against my Sega Bredren And In Retrospec TG16 was great for imports but my Sega friends couldnt get it because sega did have both domestic and import games but TG16 felt really special then vs other systems
The PCE / TG16 was a good system and had it's share of good games. My brother bought one almost right after it came out here and I bought a Turbo CD for it cheap a few years later. Even in some cases where I awarded the win to the Genesis game, the PCE versions were still good. Only three of them were bad.
@@InglebardGaming Se nota que has jugado muy poco con la pc engine real. Te recomiendo una buena optica y un centro auditivo XD.
I wanted to wait until I'd seen the whole video for commenting first, but this was a great set of comparisons. I also wasn't aware that PCE ports of Sega games were considered better overall so this was a new one on me. Either way, your video proved that to be a myth! 😂
Ha, thanks! Yeah, that was all over newsgroups and forums from decades ago, now. You can still see some of it if you do a web search. I think it was mostly the 'exotic' factor - since most of these were only available in Japan.
I'll take Afterburner and Outrun on PC Engine over the Genesis. Your pro-Sega bias was pretty clear in that you failed to mention so many of the flaws of the Sega ports. Less detail, less color, no psuedo-scaling on Afterburner. Crappy palm tree effect, terrible HUD and the screen going black at the start of Outrun. Also, yes, Dynastic Hero lacks parallax but you gave Sega the nod on music? Also, I think it's important to remember how many of the PC Engine ports were done by crap developers like Asmik and Telenet rather than in house by Sega.
You have a different opinion, that's fine. I explained why I liked which version better. AB sounds, plays and feels way better on Genesis than PCE. The choppy ground rotation and way less precise aiming hurts that version, IMO. I brought that up in the video. Out Run, similarly, plays better, had much better sound and music, and feels more like the original than the PCE version.
And the music in PCE Dynastic Hero isn't good. It's generic and has zero character. Being redbook doesn't automatically make a soundtrack superior to a chiptune soundtrack. If they had done CD versions of the music from the original game, it would have been better. The new compositions just weren't good.
Again, you don't have to agree with me, I'm fine with anyone that doesn't. But I gave the exact specific reasons why I made my choices the way that I did. You can see lots of positive PCE coverage on this channel if you look at my whole catalog of videos.
@@InglebardGaming Afterburner plays fine on the PCE. Let's not forget that the Genesis port is missing the landing on the street scenes, no color gradient in the sky, smaller background objects even if there are a few more and a terrible ground texture that ruins the illusion of movement. The PCE may use a solid color but on the Genesis it looks like the bushes, rocks, waves etc are floating on a flat image. Plus there's no scaling for the carrier or refueling plane.
Zero of those things you mentioned affect the actual gameplay, which is what I was talking about. The angles for aiming and the fluidity of the control are considerably worse on PCE, in my opinion. On Genesis, it's way easier to position the plane and lock onto enemies at more oblique angles. The rotation of the landscape is also way more fluid and not locked to sharp angles. It's all likely a byproduct of the Genesis version having been designed to support analog control, but it results in much better digital only control, too.
Keep in mind I didn't say the PCE game is bad, just that because of the gameplay, control and sound, I think the Genesis version ends up being the better game overall. PCE AB II is still a good port and probably my second favorite one of the era.
@@InglebardGaming I have to disagree about the gameplay. The Genesis port is so slow compared to the PC Engine port. The PC Engine port feels closer to the arcade with it's speed and easy rolls. It's rough in some areas, particularly the canyon section, but it plays better and has more details as previously mentioned.
I completely disagree. Still, that's fine, I know a lot of people prefer the PCE version. But I stick to my reasoning on why I think the Genesis version is the better game.
Interesting video and agree with some of your judgements, but not on Gain Ground, After Burner 2, Space Harrier, Wonderboy5/Dynastic Hero which I think are better on PCE/TG-16. Columns, Puyo Puyo and Puyo Puyo Su, I would call a tie, not enough differences to pick one over another. Shadow Dancer is a way better game than PCE Shinobi, but they are not the same game, so not a fair comparison.
Disagreement is fine, I know some of my choices are against popular opinion, but I gave my reasoning behind them. After Burner II is a close call, but the choppy horizon movement, worse controls and less arcadey music make the PCE version much less appealing to me. Losing all the parallax in Wonderboy V and the flat out weird new soundtrack of the PCE CD version dropped that one below the Genesis original for me. For the puzzle games, the control and sound are all better in the Genesis versions, IMO.
Not trying to convert anyone else's opinion, just explaining my own! I may do another video on this topic soon with other company's games and that one will probably also elicit some strong opinions.
Afterburner TG16 looks way better than the Genesis! Afterburner needs some of that 🇧🇷 magic!
I'd love to see what modern devs could do with both Space Harrier and Afterburner II.
The genesis is the greatest console ever made! I still play mine
It is definitely not a preposterous question at all. Consoles were far, far different from what we see today. The Genesis and PC Engine have vastly different hardware from each. One has a stronger processor while the other was a mean color displaying machine (for their time). Further, both machines have more than one processor.
Devil's Crush vs Dragon's Fury..... that's a good comparison video right there, alone 😎👍
It'd definitely be interesting. People would probably yell at me when I told them the music is better in the Genesis version 😁
I was thinking of this video while recently playing most of these Sega conversions for the PCE I realize why I think I like them a little more in some ways graphically. Yes the Genesis does handle more screen effects like parallax and some other details. But subconsciously I think my mind is really having a hard time getting around the color limitation of the Genesis. I grew up playing a lot of these in the arcade before the Genesis was released. The PCE ports of games like space harrier outrun and afterburner all have colors that are more of a match to what the arcade had. In a very basic global glance they feel more accurate. I guess I would say subconsciously accurate.
Sorry, but After Burner is a total beast of a game on PCE, I really love it, it plays amazing, the MD version is poor. About Out Run, well, the MD version for this strange graphic style, on PCE the graphics look and feel like the arcade, and the snare drum sample on MD version could be the same as the arcade, but they choose to use the one from Sonic, terrible choice.
PCE Afterburner is a good port for the hardware and I like it. But for me, the rougher controls, super choppy horizon rotation and sometimes grating musical instruments take it down a notch below the Genesis version. But I know some people disagree with me on that stuff, and I'm fine with that.
I feel like Out Run is a less successful port to PCE than Afterburner was. It's still OK, but never got the live for that version, it's missing so much on the roadsides and the music is kinda bland. And don't get me started on the engine sound, lol. At least they let you turn that off.
@@InglebardGaming Man I love the music in afterburner on pc engine lol. Most of the rest of these ports I would agree.. not quite as great.
@@jc_dogen Yes, PCE Afterburner music (and game - clearly better than Gen/MD version - is fantastic, with great instruments, PLUS, very critically, it retains the lead melodies, which were removed from later versions of arcade machines (although it remains in the arcade ROM, unused).
great video! but where is Truxton / Tatsujin?
I was only looking at Sega developed games or ones that were closely associated with them. I didn't cover any games from other companies like Capcom, Toaplan, Kaneko etc. Those would be a topic for another time!
@@InglebardGaming understood! I believe that was a game that maybe got better on PCE. Thanks for the reply!
@@netoantonio I like the Genesis Truxton version better, not even getting into graphics or sound comparisons, it was just more fun to play as PCE Tatsujin owned me to the point I didn't have as much fun. Same with Air Buster vs Aeroblaster, not that I necessarily give the Genesis the advantage for graphics/sound, just the brutal difficulty of the PCE game.
Great job! I agree with most of your takes! Maybe you can do a follow up video on shmups which appeared on both systems, I think it will be a much tougher fight then!
I might do more down the road, but there's a lot of other stuff on the agenda first!
@@InglebardGaming Looking forward to see that too!
SHMUP is another huge mith in the internet abot PCE being superior on similar titles. Nice that's now we had shmup junkie that's makes some amazing comparisons being fair to both sides. SHMUP video follow up for great justice :D
I can only take so much hate, lol. But after I recover from the amazingly sharp and totally unbiased barbs to which I've been subjected, I might look at some of those, too.
Afterburner PC Engine is better it has more action on screen with more enemies and explosions closer to the arcade.
If you like it better that's fine, but it has less on-screen than the Genesis version. I talked about the specifics a bit in the video.
@@InglebardGaming your wrong bro PC Engine has better fps, better scaling, and more enemies on screen. PC Engine Afterburner port is closer to arcade, and Space Harrier is better on PC Engine.
Pc engine does what genesisucks at🤣
No bro, Inglebard is right, and he brought solid arguments, in fact just look at the screen in the comparative: everyone realizes that Genesis is better.
Dat guitar. Nuf said. PC Engine AB is the best!
Does Birkkuri World have a ROM hack that fixes the "reskin"
Not that I've ever seen. I'm kinda surprised no one's done it... maybe they have and it's just not in the usual places.
I have zero attachment to either machine and certainly didn't grow up with them or anything (I was firmly in the Commodore 64 and then Amiga fandom at the time), and for what I can tell I mostly agree with your assessment. I think it all boils down to SEGA tasking with the PCE ports some B grade developers that is some cases did Tiertex level jobs. Which might not have been completely unintentional on SEGA's side. I mean, there is still money to be made on competing consoles but you don't really want them to outshine your own machine. Still, I'm impressed that the PCE got a port of Power Drift, while neither the Mega Drive or the Master system did it.
My condolences for having to grow up w/ a Commodore.
@@DSzaks nah, it was mostly good experiences
Yeah, since they just licensed stuff they were hands off with the development and quality control. Still, most of the games are good. The only ones I'd say are bad are Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Shinobi.
It was weird that only the PCE got Power Drift. It's so-so on the machine. I imagine Sega passed it over on Genesis because of how cut back a port would have to be. They could have done a decent Sega CD version, though.
In the end, I don't think Sega intentionally wanted any games to be worse on the platform. They were way behind in Japan and needed whatever help they could get.
I loved my c64s and Amigas back then. After the crash here in 1983, the C64 was pretty much the only way to play good, new games until the NES came out. And the Amiga was super impressive when it hit in 1985.
not to mention these old home computers taught computing to a whole generation. It was not only about the games.
You just can't beat that sweet blast processing
Ha! Even for some of these that won, they could have been better 😁
Lots of reasonable takes here. I too don't know how the myth that the PCE Sega ports were generally superior endured, it's an interesting mystery.
I however don't personally consider Super Fantasy Zone a remake or port of the original game though, to me it's 100% it's own thing and stands alone in the series. And Wonder Boy has aged more gracefully than SMB for my tastes - I'll take the first two Wonder Boy games over any later entry (and Adventure Island) because 30 years later they're the ones that are a pleasure to relearn, re-master.
Would it be controversial to say that Thunder Blade and Galaxy Force were better videogames on the SMS than on MD? I've always thought this.
Anyway, you put out some meaty videos. Very enjoyable.
Thanks, glad you liked it!
With Super Fantasy Zone, I didn't include it as a remake, it's just the Genesis/MD equivalent to the arcade Fantasy Zone performance-wise and shows a nearly equivalent game running on the two platforms to really illustrate the differences between them.
For Galaxy Force and Thunder Blade, it could be pretty easily argued the SMS versions are better than the Genesis versions. Sega really dropped the ball on those 16-bit ports. They couldn't have been close to the arcade originals, but they could have been better than they were.
As for the myth, who knows how these things get started or why they persist? The PCE is a nice enough system and was the first to really up the ante power-wise. It's just maybe a half-step behind the fully 16-bit systems.
@@InglebardGaming
Only a step behind them until you deal with its final form. Add a CD drive and an arcade card, and even Sega of Japan would be in awe of all the wasted potential.
Anyways, I'll happily support the myth of Turbo superiority if we're talking about Afterburner. The clean aesthetics and user-friendly control are all great arguments for Sega's version, but Sega's version lost all the arcade spectacle.
The appeal of the game was narrowly weaving through scene stealing smoke trails and over the top arcade style explosions, not counting how many animation frames they're using to simulate smooth sprite scaling in the enemy jets.
We'll just have to disagree on After Burner II. The things that sealed the deal in favor of the Genesis version for me were the much better controls, much better ground/horizon rotation, and music that's a lot closer to the arcade version. The bonus rounds also look and play way better in the Genesis game, I should have shown those.
Anyway, I expected the two most people would disagree with were After Burner and Out Run. The PCE versions are both good and worth playing, I just think the Genesis versions of those are better for the reasons I stated in the video.
@@InglebardGaming
It's just a matter of priorities. The Genesis version sacrifices my favorite parts to avoid taxing the cpu or taking up too much ROM space, and the PC Engine sacrifices a bit of what you want in favor of a pure focus on what I'm looking for.
Realistically, we're just lucky to get two ports that split the difference.
I wonder how often that happened, back in the day? Only other example I can think of, off the top of my head, is Samurai Shodown.
Yeah, they're definitely both good and I appreciate what they did with the PC Engine version. It would have been interesting to see what the Genesis version would have been like if it came out a year or two later. Same for Space Harrier II.
For all the titles you picked, some of them are not the kinds of titles you can do cut and dry comparisons of, and this just comes off as very pick and choose to achieve a specific outcome as far as list goes. For one, Shinobi vs Shadow Dancer. Shinobi was a arcade port. Shadow Dancer was not a port of the arcade game. Neither was Super Fantasy Zone, which was a sequel, like Space Harrier II. Super Thunder Blade, like Shadow Dancer, was just reworked from the ground up and does not really resemble the original game. As far as Altered Beast goes, while I like both the Genesis and PCE-CD ports, I prefer the PCE-CD release though, as it uses more character assets from the arcade board sprite/animation wise. Having to use up as a jump button is not a disadvantage.
You have to use it in about every fighting game, so you should already be used to that. But, if its that much of a drawback, one could buy a NEC Avenue Pad 3 and mod it to swap button 3 over to up, so you can have a jump action button on the 3rd button. The Genesis port has many character sprites that were simply reworked for whatever reason, so they are not arcade accurate, and the zombies look cheap as hell on their death animations, along with other things being too watered down. The sound fx were also changed from the arcade, including the voices (there is a rom hack that restores some of the audio back to the arcade).
Then you have the whole other thing of just leaving many major titles off this comparison list that were released on the core systems and their cd-rom upgrades. Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury 2 and Special, Raiden, Air Buster, Sorcerian, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Dragon Slayer, Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition, Forgotten Worlds, Chiki Chiki Boys, Hellfire, Zero Wing, Tatsujin, Lords of Thunder, Bomberman 93, Devil's Crash, Twin Hawk, Exile, Cosmic Fantasy, Popful Mail, Snatcher, Rainbow Islands, Populous, Panza Kick Boxing/Best of the Best, Might and Magic III, Black Hole Assault, Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2, Todd's Adventures in Slime World, The Ninja Warriors, Shadow of the Beast, Twin Cobra, John Madden Football, the Valis games, Y's III, New Zealand Story, Cadash, Rastan Saga, Volfied, Strider, etc. There is a much larger picture to paint here, which you chose to ignore doing. And if you factor it all in and keep the inner Sega 90s fanboy in check, you will see in many major titles the PCE/TG wins, especially if the goal is to look closer to the arcade release of a game concerning the arcade ports. There is a few times there were NEC Avenue did fuck it up, like with Strider or the Altered Beast hucard release, but over all there are way more winners than losers in the complete lineup.
You fail to understand this was only a comparison of Sega games on the system. It's right in the title, the thumbnail and explained up front in the video, it only covers games that were developed or published by Sega and I literally covered every one of them where an original or sequel showed up on both systems.
You seem to put a huge emphasis on the lack of parallax.
It's pretty much THE visual feature the 16-bit era is known for - for both arcade and home systems.
One amusing thing is that on the Turbografx-16, Dragon's Curse has different names for your alternate forms... Lizard Man, Piranha Man, and so forth. Your first and final form is, drum roll please, Hu-Man.
I love them all, so that makes me a winner.
Castlevania on PCEngine CD is fantastic! Maybe better than on PSX.
I like plenty of PCE games, this video was just about specifically comparing Sega titles on each platform. I might do a similar video with other company's games on both platforms, too - maybe Taito or Capcom.
Altered Beast for the PC Engine, despite being total garbage does actually contain sprite scaling. Pay attention to the zombies when they die on the floor level...their arm that is facing the screen falls off and scales while it does. I know, I know it's barely noticeable but it's there.
Super Fantasy Zone for mega drive is one of my favourite love the music and Great video 👍
A good comparision. Since you asked opinion, for me: I could call Afterburner a Draw, and invalidate shinobi comparision cause the games aren't the same game. That said, for me it was always obvious that the Genesis ports, most arcade ports, are always better then the PCE Engine. In the end, I agree with most of your conclusions.
Thanks! I expected people to disagree on Afterburner and Out Run. Still, I had my reasons for those! For Shadow Dancer vs Shinobi... the play mechanics should have been basically identical (minus the dog) so I think it was as fair as looking at stuff like Space Harrier vs Space Harrier II.
@@InglebardGaming NO. You don't get the point. They are different games.
Just because you respond to all comments does not mean you are right. Your phrase "I think it was as fair" says it all. You only care about what you think.
I can only tell you what I think and why - I don't know what other people think. If someone disagrees with what I think, that's fine. I'm not shutting anyone down or shadow banning their comments. But I will offer other information that clarifies or supports an opinion I have... why wouldn't I?
People disagree on things. They have conversations about those things. Often, at the end, they still hold the same positions. Sometimes they change. It's how life works.
You don't like my opinions in this video or why I have them. Fine. I doubt anything I say will change that. That doesn't make either one of us 'right' or 'wrong.' But there's no reason to be surprised when I elaborate on what an opinion I have is or why I reached it.
I never heard that ever ha ha to be honest the PC Engine is a 8 bits and I remember that people tend to compare it to the Master System and the NES. The Megadrive came here in 1990 and the PC Engine in 1989 but in 1987 in Japan (and some distributor here tend to push the Japanese version back then). Basically that was 2/3 full years prior to the Megadrive.
Yeah, in Japan PCE was 1987 and the MD was 1988. Here in the US the systems both came out in 1989, less than a month apart, which is why they're so often directly compared here.
Now, to be fair, I'd say the PCE is a step between the other 8 and 16-bit consoles power-wise.
The PC Engine is only 256px wide resolution, like the SNES. This is because an 8bit external bus cpu is not capable of higher resolutions whereas the smd has a 320px horizontal resolution.
That is incorrect. The PC Engine could vary the display width from 256 pixels all the way to 512 pixels. It was programmable. Many games ran in lower resolutions, though.
Most Genssis/MD games ran in 320x224 mode, but the Genesis/MD also had a low res mode of 256x224 that was used in a fair amount of titles, including many ports from SNES (like the Street Fighter ports). This was often done so companies could reuse the same graphics built for SNES, they'd only have to tweak colors for the Genesis/MD's palette.
@@InglebardGaming yeah I know all that Inglebard.
But it wouldn't be all the way up, as in any number inbetween.
The 8bit cpu cannot count above 256 with a single byte, which is why the resolution is 256 wide.
You could double the load on the cpu to get exactly double that but not an arbitrary number.
Not with an 8bit cpu. Because an 8bit bus is delivering only 1 byte per transfer cpu cycle.
So to update a resolution above 256 wide is going to take an addition load on the cpu, just to make a number higher than 256.
@@InglebardGaming if that explanation half made sense it's because I half understand what I said and kind of guessed a bit... I think it must be right though.
@@iwanttocomplain The PCE's VDC takes care of the graphics, including resolution, and it's 16-bit. That's also really not how graphics are processed on this system, so it's kinda moot there. The CPU simply modifies a register in the VDC to alter the timings of the chip to achieve different resolutions, it's not responsible for drawing the lines in any way, so 8-bit's plenty for that. There are also 5 bits just for setting the horizontal resolution, so there are quite a few modes it can be set to. Once it's set, there's no penalty to the CPU, or the VDC for that matter. Unlike the Genesis, though, you don't get more sprites per line by cranking the resolution up.
@@gargonovich yeah I was just thinking that because they had 256 pixel h-res that was related to an 8bit number but they have overscan so duh.
In some interviews with the original Japanese game dev team in charge with making a Shinobi game for the Sega MegaDrive both for Japan's gaming market and abroad... the dev team mentioned that for whatever reason they could accomplish more or offer more for the home consumer hardware buyer if they instead made an original home experience not available in arcades...
While I respect that and the MegaDrive Super Shinobi games were excellent, there probably was some "port" fatigue going on and from their perspective they probably felt that too many early MD games were just offering the arcade at home experience and hardly the original experience... or something like that...
So finding out that a fan dev is working on the original arcade Shinobi for the Sega MegaDrive is great news since we already know the MegaDrive can handle it and make it better than the arcade version.
A pitty on that MegaDrive Phantasy Zone... Sega of America staff didn't bother to localize it.. what the hell were they thinking... a pixel crunching 60fps full color masterpiece is made by Sunsoft and SoA just lacked.. oh wait SoA is why we got stuck with live action FMV games and 32X... makes sense now...
Hey I would advise that since you have mentioned this before. Whenever you speak about the 80s and 90s videogames... yes even if you talk about Nintendo 64 and SNK NeoGeo MVS/AES ROM Cartridge sizes... it is more logical to use terms like Megabits...
Megabit does not equal a Megabyte but mentioning a 512kilobyte Cartridge size just comes off like someone measuring floppy diskette files...
We all know that current smartphones take some variable quality photos that can easily take up 1.5MB to 3MB plus in size or more and can add up quickly... plus the gamer magazines back then when they started to officially support home videogame systems actually did use the terms "Megs" even if EGM kind of abused the term by implying that larger ROM size meant a better game which wasn't always true buy did help many videogames and systems realize untapped power...
Sure the Nintendo 64 had the largest mass production ROM Cartridge size at 512 Megabits or 64 Megabyte but using kilobytes or bits is just confusing to magazine readers and even those of us with a background in computer terms because such terms were not really used on game systems.
Also as far as NEC PC-Engine hardware... the CPU is 8bit but the graphics chipset is full 16bit correct?
While Sega was able to splurge on a 16bit CPU... the problem with trying to say a system was just a souped up 8bit system is that years later Atari boldly claimed their Jaguar was "64bit" and accused the consumer of not doing the math... some type of insulting advertising similar to 3DO calling Nintendo and Sega's hardware kid's toys to get us to fork over money for their 3DO system that was a horrible design... especially when the Sega Saturn launched.
Even Sega in Japan initially tried playing that game and were going to actually use that the Sega Saturn was a "64bit system" so long as you added up the two 32bit CPUs and not the 32bit SH1, 32bit VDP1/VDP2 and 16bit 68k variant...
But later on Sega did claim that the "Dreamcast" was actually a 128bit system... but as a ploy to make the Nintendo 64 look old or bad... the Sony PS2 in Japanese press actually claimed that the PS2 EE+GS was actually 128bit also and note that these companies had marketing departments using these terms most likely in response to the 1988 Sega MegaDrive launch with boldly golden 16bit logo on the Japanese launch systems which got shrank down for worldwide release...
NEC PC-Engine was indeed a 16bit graphics system even if the CPU was 8bit... there is some controversy on the Super FamiCom CPU being a souped up 8bit CPU made to have 16bit features because originally Nintendo was planning on full backward compatability with the old FamiCom and FamiCom Disk Drive games where recently some fan hobbyists are trying to enable a type of software emulation of NES/FamiCom games on the Super FamiCom or Super Nintendo hardware by claiming to use a mode in the CPU.
OK, lot to discuss here!
First, when I do single game comparison videos, I show sizes in both megabits/megabytes and KB. I cover the megabits because people were used to that from that era and that's how carts were often labelled on the Sega side of things. I cover KB and MB because that's how people are more comfortable these days and understand those units more since they're more universal than megabits. You can see what I'm talking about here in most of my "Utterly Pointless Comparisons" episodes.
Yeah, it was a real shame they didn't bring Super Fantasy Zone over here. At least they included it as an official game on the Genesis / Mega Drive Minis, though.
With Shinobi, yes, the devs wanted to bring something new that better fit the home market, which is why we got Super Shinobi / Revenge of Shinobi. But Sega did plenty of ports of older arcade games after, there was no reason even at some point later they couldn't have done Shinobi. I mean, we got OutRun roughly two years after the Genesis launched here in the US.
Regarding the 'bitness' of the PC engine, I know there's debate, but really, it's an 8-bit system. The CPU can only handle 8 bit instructions which is what settles things, IMO at least. Yeah, the graphics chip(s) are 16-bit, but that doesn't change how the CPU handles processing,
For the SNES, its 65C816 (variant) is fully 16-bit, even though its an extended 65C02, basically. It may have been held back by its speed and backwards compatibility with the 6502, but it was unquestionably 16-bit. Technically, its faster than a Motorola 68000 at the same clock speeds. The only problem was, we didn't really ever see a 65C816 at clock speeds similar to the 68000 in any commercial computers or game systems, it was pretty much always slower - typically half the mhz (or even less) of 68000s.
Really, I think after we hit the 32-bit era, with stuff like the 3DO, Saturn and PlayStation measuring consoles in 'bits' became impractical because of the complete architectures they used. Computer components and processing changed a lot in that time. And of course today, game consoles have sort of come full circle... some really old ones had similar hardware to computers of the time (like the Colecovision, SG1000 and MSX) and today, the PS5 and Xbox Series are basically just PCs, from an architecture standpoint, with a few tweaks.
Also, I'll die on this hill: the Jaguar was not 64-bit, lol. I'm not commenting on it or its game quality, but it functionally did not have a 64-bit CPU. Two 32-bit graphics processors doesn't equal a 64 bit system. Not even with a 64-bit bus.
I don't get why you consider adding more voices to Puyo Puyo "baffling", when that greatly enhanced all the in-game cutscenes have their humor enhanced by it. I mean, voice acted cutscenes became as bog-standard as the Tsu's mechanics in later entries.
Not every CD game needs an all-arrange soundtrack. Even Sega knew this, as their CD version of Golden Axe used the original score.
Well,. you're only partially correct about Golden Axe. The Sega CD version uses a redbook recording of the arcade soundtrack, it's not the same as the cartridge version. The source is still the system16 board's ym2151, but its recorded in the case of GA, not generated.
As for priority given to the voices, if you like it better, that's fine. But you can't argue that was anything close to common. While there are a few PCE games that use PCE chiptunes, the vast majority use primarily redbook audio. On Sega CD, almost all the games have redbook soundtracks, a few use the Sega CD's PCM chip and only a compilation of cartridge games uses the Genesis FM and PSG chips and even then only for some games in the compilation.
Edit: fixed a few typos in the first paragraph
After burner on tg16 looks better
Fantastic video. Internet myths like these are hilarious. Equally as hilarious is when people claim the SNES had all the best games of the era, and had all the "peak" games lol. Anyone who's played beyond beginner level will know both the Genesis and PCE had bangers which were as good if not better. Chrono Trigger is the one which always makes me laugh, people bring that up as if Phantasy Star 4, Shining Force 2, and the Lunar games weren't just as good. In fact, out of all those, Phantasy Star 4 would be my pick.
While there were way fewer RPGs on Sega systems, they definitely had some great ones, no question about it. I love all the games you mentioned and Lunar: Eternal Blue on Sega CD is ny favorite RPG from the entire 16-bit era on any platform. I do still love some of the SNES RPGs, too, though. There's room for great games on any system in my crusty old gamer heart, lol.
@@InglebardGaming Great post
Still in the middle of watching the video... Just wanted to say as a Gain Ground fan I generally like all of its ports however because of being zoomed in another thing the pc engine version lacks is co-op. I mean the arcade was 3 players and even the master system port is 2 player, and a good variation of the game.
Yeah, that would have been a good point to bring up. The super complicated reason I didn't mention it was... I forgot!
Damn, never knew Wonderboy in Monster World was made to other consoles than Megadrive/Genesis... Luckily it looked like crap so I don't have to hunt that PCE version out and finish it :D Great video, cheers dude!
Thanks, glad you liked it!
There are bunch of pc engine games that mop the floor with Sega genesis, like super street fighter 2 ^ bomberman 94, just to name a few. depends who ports them. Sega gen does only 64 colors on screen & pc engine does 486 colors on screen.
Those are theoretical hardware limits for PCE colors. In actuality, most games show between 40 and 80 colors on screen. I've run MANY of them through color counting software.
Shadow dancer and Shinobi are different games not the same
Yes, but they're extremely similar when it comes to gameplay and all the technical aspects. I explained that's why I compared them, they're the closest equivalents and show the differences in the hardware.
I also showed the homebrew work-in-progress Shinobi for a more direct comparison, too.
How can you say the Genesis/Megadrive version of After Burner is better? The PC Engine version is clearly running at twice the framerate!
Well, I went over my reasons in the video but I'll elaborate here if you want.
The Genesis version's horizon rotation is WAY smoother than the PC Engine versions and has way more angles. The planes have more frames of animation on Genesis for their "scaling" (just redrawn sprites in both games). The control is way superior on the Genesis game, it's not even close - the control is MUCH smoother and it's easier to target enemies thanks in part to all those extra angles you can move within. The vulkan gun is also a lot more effective and easier to use on Genesis. Plus we get three action button for the controls instead of two plus the run button on PCE. The music and sound in the Genesis game is also much more similar to the arcade game than the PC engine game.
The higher framerate on the PCE in this case barely even matters because the horizon rotation is so choppy and it has significantly fewer animation frames and angles you can move within. Also visually, while the ground items are larger and more varied on PCE, there's way more on screen at a time on the Genesis port. For example, I never count more than 16 ground objects on PCE in any still screenshot, usually 12-14. In the Genesis version it's not uncommon for it to have 20 or 22 items on the ground in any still screenshot and sometimes more.
To be clear, I'm not saying the PC Engine version is bad. It's a good game and a good port. But between the two games, for all the reasons I said above, the Genesis version is the better game IMO.
I have been playing Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 games for over 30 years and I have never once heard anybody say this.
Say which thing? That the PCE Sega titles were better than the Genesis ones? Check out old gaming forums and newsgroups... old as in like 20-25 years ago. It became a super common thing that lots of people just glommed onto and perpetuated.
You'll even find really old posts (13+ years old) from people you may be familiar with from modern UA-cam on them.
Good video bro
The more I find out Sega had alot of games PCE.. makes me wonder why Sega and Nec didnt just join forces??
Is the PCE a 8bit or 16bit. I'm pretty new too the system.
The "bitness" of the PCE is the subject of debate to this day. But it uses an 8-bit 6502 variant as its CPU, so that makes it an 8-bit system
@@InglebardGaming thank you for the info somebody was telling me it's 16bit cos it has two 8 bit chips, I was telling them that's not how that work if the CPU is 8 bit then it 8bit system.
They didn't get it.
I told if you were too swap brains with and ape it doesn't change the brain it just in a different body they understood after that lol.
Technically the graphics processor was 16-bit, but we don't measure systems by that. For example, we consider modern computers 64-bit because if the CPUs instead if say 300+ bit because if the GPUs.
@@InglebardGaming thanks brother I get it now.
8bit CPU and 16bit GPU.
Did this put a strain the CPU??
@@shenglongisback4688 The CPU, despite being 8-bit, is actually really fast. 6502s are very efficient, and the clock speed of the PCE's 6502 is quite high. It gets a lot of work done (depending on the workload it can definitely be faster than the Genesis), and has some advantages like being able to do write to all areas of memory even while the screen is being drawn, which the SNES and Genesis can't do. Great for streaming in new data, doing weird stuff with raster effects, or just giving it more time to do calculations. It's a really good CPU for its time, actually, it's kind of a shame that people get so hung up on it being 8-bit.
To Inglebard's point, it's probably better to think of things in terms of generations than "X-bit" systems. The PCE uses an 8-bit CPU, but it's very clearly a generation ahead of what the Master System and NES could do, and the SNES and Genesis are close enough in power that they're definitely in the same generation.
TG16 better then the Genesis thats prepostourous !!! Haha jk I always wanted to play Bonk when i was a kid it looked so bright and colorful
I had both in the 90’s (& I still have them) and although I really like and enjoy my TG16, TurboExpress & TurboDuo(s) there is no doubt my Genesis had the better versions of almost all games that showed up on both systems mostly due to playability, sound and graphics so I spent my TG16 playing time on it’s exclusive titles
Same here, and generally yes, the Genesis versions are better, which should be expected. There are definitely some cases where thr Turbo/PCE version of a game wins out, though.
I never understand the praise for the sound from the Mega Drive. It had a impossible to program for 4-op FM chip, everyone struggled with the disaster sound generator. Even Sega itself. It is so hard to make any intrument not sound like a xylophone or a Maria Carey fake Rhodes 73. Sure it has more bass and sounds more high def, but most OSTs just sound crap on it. After Burner on the PC Engine has a lead sound that sounds like an electric guitar by some means. In the MD version they just skipped it. Space Harrier is also miles better on the PCE. Somehow the fake stereo of the MD is one major reason that it sounds so bad. On the average 14" kids TV back in the nineties nobody cared, but on a good stereo Trinitron you need the 16-step panning from left to right of the PC Engine. Same with Sonic. Sonic 1&2 on the Game Gear sound so much better than on the MD. The MD tracks sound like they have the handbrake on them. They sound very uninspired next to the high energy pumped tracks on the Game Gear.
Each to their own. I personally don't like the way the PCE sounds, sounds like a NES to me most of the time and I vastly prefer the genesis sound to PCE. There are difficulties in programming ANY retro machine. The lack of a second background layer on PCE was a huge short-coming that was present in nearly every other 16 bit system - meaning clever techniques had to be used to create impressions of parralax. It also had less sprites than the megadrive or snes and had a tonne more sprite flicker as bosses etc had to use sprites rather than a background layer. The impossible to program for system you talk about has the strongest 16bit dev scene around so missed the mark there a bit !
@@shannonbirt9267 I love both systems. They actually complement each other well with their relative strengths and weaknesses. This guy's Inglebaard is a total Genesis mark however. If i had to choose one it would be the PCE but that's because i like arcade conversions and shooters and the PCE is a bit better i would say for arcade ports and shooters mainly due to it's color pallete. I would say for just about every other genre the M.D has the better variety of quality games.
Also i can't help but respect how amazing the form factor for the PCE was., it was so small! ClassicJapanese tech miniaturizing like that.
The praise is because it has some of the best soundtracks of the 4th gen. Yeah, it took skill and talent to get right but many people wrote amazing drivers for it. Koshiro, Sakimoto, Technosoft Sound Team, Compile, Sonic Team, Toaplan, Factor 5, Jesper Kyd, etc, etc.
should've compared Dragon Slayer, and Popful Mail
This video was just looking at games that were originally created by Sega on both platforms. Popful Mail and Dragon Slayer were both Falcom games so they didn't fit in here. Sega did the Genesis ports but not the originals. I'll probably do similar episodes with other companies' games down the line sometime.
ah man no strider, or power drift as a bonus?
I've already done a complete game comparison of PCE CD Strider vs the arcade game with commentary if you want to check out!
@@InglebardGaming yeah, Strider on Genesis was really good and it was an early game, PCE did it on CD and did a half assed job for some reason.
And there are people out there that say the pc engine is superior.
1) I think most SEGA ports are very well done on the PC Engine. A lot better than this video tries to proof otherwise. The music is always excellent
2) Shmupwise the PC Engine is another class. Galaga 88 and Final Soldier ALONE are worth getting a PC Engine, where there is no single game to get a Mega Drive for.
3) There are a bunch unique or best on PC Engine games with the best chiptune music on any machine. Some absolute first league OST's are Neutopia II, Jackie Chan, Cross Wiber, Final Soldier, Bomberman 94....
4) The HuCard, compact case, multitap, expansion port, RGB out by default: the hardware is top notch: elegant, nice design, technically perfect, compact. Try that fugly US SNES completely turned yellow with its hollow bricks with stickers as carts....
5) It's still quite original to collect PC Engine. If you step into someones home with a SNES or Mega Drive collections, it is: ok, seen that, done that. Boring.
@@lovemadeinjapan
"Shmupwise the PC Engine is another class. Galaga 88 and Final Soldier ALONE are worth getting a PC Engine, where there is no single game to get a Mega Drive for."
Umm... MUSHA, Gaiares, Fire Shark, Elemental Master, Eliminate Down, Undead Line (hidden gem), Super Fantasy Zone, Battlemania 2 and Thunder Force III & IV? All are essential 16-bit shmup material, IMO.
@@lovemadeinjapan Damn, you've got some awfully shitty tastes
I don't think calling controls in a game sluggish is fair without testing on real hardware, as emulation can certainly introduce noticeable delay.
I've played all of these on real hardware.
@@InglebardGaming Never mind, disregard! Just seen other channels do so.
To be clear, for this specific video the footage is from emulation. But there isn't a game in it I haven't played extensively on real hardware. Generally if there's anything affected by emulation, if there's a delay or lag in controls vs real hardware, I'll point that out in videos so people know what they're seeing isn't representative of the real thing.
You can see examples of me calling out some differences between emulation and real hardware in some of the single board computer videos I've done in the past. Specifically, I did one comparing four SBCs and Genesis and 32X emulation had severe input lag with PicoDrive on those systems even though the games themselves ran at the right speed without frameskipping.
Maybe a small part of the reason that western retro gamers bought and accepted the idea that the PC engine sega ports were "always superior" is quite frankly the lingering hangover of the first great console war(GREAT console war, dont @ me atari bros)... i was there, while my family was on both sides due to the large age range between us, and it meant we had access to and loved both sega and nintendo, when the console war rolled hot it didnt matter, i was considered a sega kid by some no matter how many snes games i owned and loved... people that grew up with sega have a huge amount of love for it, but keep in mind there is a VERY LARGE segment of western gamers that grew up not just loving nintendo, but believing that sega was their worst enemy, something that in their eyes was possibly going to kill the gaming world as they knew it..even as they grew up and ostensibly left single console rigidity behind (particularly when tons of them ended up dumping nintendo 64 for playstation, maybe somewhat against their will) due to sony's dominance they still saw sega as nothing but a loser/ enemy thing, and that the failures of the game gear/32X/ saturn (which theyre wrong about, saturn rules) just reinforced these ideas ... so once they got into emulation and retro gaming and are told that even at sega's western height( the period they hated/feared them the most) a technically weaker console that failed in the west but did great in japan had even better versions of sega's own games, it probably validated alot of their beliefs so they just went along with it and spread it... p.s i agree that i never understood the hate against Outrun on the genesis, i played it so much as a 10 year old that i still hum its music... its controls feel great...
Good points. There could definitely have been some of that lingering. I also have older siblings, so we when I was younger we had pretty much all the systems of the time except the Neo Geo (almost had that, too, but that's a long story).
I fully admit I have my preferences, but I'm objective and have my opinions for a reason. Like I said in another reply, I don't default to Sega versions are always better, I wouldn't argue Wipeout is better on Saturn than Playstation. I go with what makes sense.
@@InglebardGaming sorry it was just a thought..... to be honest though i had a ps like most in the the US and only discovered how great the saturn was later, and its amazing how many games are better on it than ps... except symphony of the night, konami's nagoya branch must not have been up on the saturn yet...whoa maybe im like those i described previously..man, no one i knew got even close to owning a neo geo... just the arcades and the ports... but ive got most of those games now, shoddy emulation aside...
Great Video my Friend i hope you have more follower
Thanks, appreciate it!
Shinobi thats being made has bosses now I seen new videos of it
Yup, I mentioned it was still being worked on, just slowly. Ingot an update from Pyron shortly before I out this video up.
These games are also in higher resolution on Megadrive/Genesis compared to the PC Engine which runs almost all its games at the same lower res as the Snes does.
Street fighter 2 ce, mega twins????
Those are Capcom games. This video showed only Sega games on both platforms.
I do prefer the SEGA GENESIS version over the the SNES and PC-ENGINE version. But at the end of the day PC-ENGINE has the best 16-bit graphics!
It's a lot more closer to the arcade when it comes to the colors!
🎉🎛🔉🎵🎮🤘😃📺🎮🤩🎧🎚🔊🎶🎊
@@demonology2629 Genesis had Special Champion Edition which was conversions of two arcade versions (Champion Edition and Turbo Hyper Fighting) with options on which version to play, PCE was a straight up Champion Edition version (no Turbo version option). But I think the PCE version was a bit better, way more colorful, much better voices/sound effects. Genesis had one layer of scrolling PCE didn't have and a few sprites in Guile's stage missing from the PCE version though to nitpick.
"For best results view at 1080p60fps. If you've been into retrogaming and emulation for a while you've probably seen this said in a whole bunch of forums, newsgroups, reddit threads or whatever: Sega games are better on PC Engine than they are on the Genesis / Mega Drive". I'm sorry , but you are a 35 years latter and peoples from this era don't live this era so they can't feels or done any memories from this time . Specially because nearly all play this games on emulators. Also collect a lot of retro games and sell it 8x espenssive than original retail don't made any one a great gamer .
Well, I can bust out the Captain from MXC and the "Well you're wrong!" quote here, because according to UA-cam analytics, my audience is roughly 90% over the age of 40 which means they were indeed around when this stuff was new and did indeed see all those things I mentioned in the description.
I've seen a lot of retrogaming UA-camrs talk about the age of their audience, including before I started this channel, and yeah, they were right. It makes sense, because the people who take the time to watch videos on these topics are the ones who, like me, played all or most of this stuff when it was new.
In this case, that data speaks clearly.
For best results, learn how to film a CRT. Preferably a full flat Trinitron.
Some TG16 games look 16Bit to me
many looks incredible better than Snes & Genesis conversiones (with Super Card and CD. Check AOF or World Heroes 2).
C’mon. Shadow Dancer vs. Shinobi? They aren’t even the same game! You should have at least compared PC Engine Shinobi to Master System Shinobi running on the Power Base converter. PC Engine Shinobi wins.
The video is about comparing Sega games on the PC Engine and Genesis, not the SMS. Shadow Dancer on the Genesis (and the arcade version, even though its a different game) uses the exact same play style as arcade Shinobi which was ported to the PCE, so how is this a giant leap?
The only difference when it comes to play mechanics is the dog. Otherwise... you throw shuriken, you jump between multiple heights, have close quarter attacks, get a power up when picking up the required collectibles in the level, even the enemies in SD are basically just reskinned Shinobi enemies. The bigger problem were all the cuts to PCE Shinobi that removed stuff present in the original arcade version... all of mission 2, all the close quarters attacks, the power ups and the bonus rounds. PCE Shinobi looks good on first glance but it was chopped to ribbons and the gameplay was heavily affected.
It's no different that comparing stuff like Space Harrier I and II, Thunderblade and Super Thunderblade, etc. I said in the video multiple times that I compared the closest equivalents when the same title was not available on both systems and that's exactly what's in the video.
@@InglebardGaming If that was the kind of comparison you would want to make, then it would be like Shadow Dancer versus Ninja Spirit, or Shadow Dancer versus Kaze Kiri also, and throw Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III into the mix. Or hell, throw in Castlevania Bloodlines vs Dracula X. This is why it's best to stick with apples to apples comparisons via ports, unless you want to present yourself as ridiculously biased, which unfortunately you did. Both systems have highly regarded titles to offer in this genre. If you're going to approach it as a genre topic, you need to take an unbiased approach and be more transparent about what both platforms offered at the time.
@ConfusionDistortion Now you're going out of your way to be silly. Shinobi and Shadow Dancer have the same play mechanics, the same control scheme, the same level structure, the same multi-height platform gameplay, the same screen clearing ninja magic and more. You can't say that about Shadow Dancer and Ninja Spirit or your other examples.
You sound like a superfan of PCE that is upset you didn't see a confirmation bias video. There's plenty of positive PCE coverage on this channel including direct comparisons of the same title. If you want videos that just declare it the greatest system ever and ignore the technical limitations of the system or automatically say multiplatform games are better on it without actual reasons, you'll have to go someplace else for that.
@@InglebardGamingJust to be fair, Shinobi on the PCE was a tiny 3 megabit HuCard developed by Asmik, a company with a lackluster track record. That's one of the issues with these comparisons. Sega did their ports in-house while the PCE ports were licensed to some shoddy developers half the time.
Honestly, this just seems like you made a video to dunk on the pce
You obviously haven't seen most of my other PC Engine game videos.
I owned both the Genesis and the TG16 in the 90s... It wasn't even close. Overall, the Genesis had a MUCH better gaming library with better music, sound, gameplay, and graphics (especially more detailed backgrounds and sprites) than the TG16.. More colors on the TG16 doesn't matter when the sprites and background details are so lacking!
Yeah, I had both systems and the SNES each from wtihin a week or two of when they launched here in the US. I like the TG16 well enough, but I think its inarguable that in most ways its clearly a step below the Genesis and SNES. That's not an insult to it... it came out between the NES/SMS generation and the Genesis/SNES generation and it definitely feels like a bridge between those generations, having some of the limitations of the earlier systems with some of the improvements of the newer systems.
@@InglebardGaming Yeah, I know what you mean. Some of us during that time colloquially said TG16 felt like a "12-bit" rather than a true 16-bit system. That said, I must admit that I think Order of the Griffon on the TG16 was better than Warrior of the Eternal Sun on the Genesis. OotG remains my favorite western/computer-style RPG from the 16-bit era.
Man I really expected you to be more objective...disappointing.
I was objective. You just don't agree with my results, and that's fine. If I wasn't this would have been 16-0-0. I gave my reasoning for each decision and showed everything side by side to illustrate why and how I came to my conclusions.
@@InglebardGaming I get that but clearly Gain Ground on the PC Engine is clearly a superior game. Same goes for Bonanza Bros and Wonder Boy in Monster Land. The fact that you sided with the Genesis so much makes it all seem like a clear case of bias.
Gain Ground on PCE is super zoomed in and only 1 player. The Genesis game has an aspect ratio more like the arcade where you can see the whole play area and it's two players. And has extra levels. The arcade game was three players. I should have mentioned that in the video, didn't think about it.
Bonanza Bros I listed as a draw. The color is a little nicer on PCE, but its missing the parallax from the arcade and Genesis games and the two games play similiarly.
I *said* Wonderboy in Monsterland was better than the SMS game in the video! I didn't score that because it was a bonus look at the rest of the WB series. The video was about comparing Genesis and PCE, not Genesis and SMS. But I did say the PCE versions of WB in ML and Dragon's Trap are better on PCE in the video.
The only Wonderboy game that 'won' on Genesis was Wonderboy in Monsterworld, and that one IS better on Genesis, IMO.
@@InglebardGaming Sorry I meant Wonderboy in Monsterworld...you are def right about Golden Axe and Altered Beast being trash on the PCE though..
OK. And I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Like anyone, I'll advocate for my positions, but if you disagree, I'm fine with that. In what ways do you think WB in Monster World (Dynastic Hero) is better on PCE /TG 16 CD?
I have feeling that you are Brazilian
Your feeling couldn't be wrong. Born, raised and have lived in the US my whole life.
I found your opinions on the music very funny. The PC Engine always has the better renditions of classic SEGA arcade tunes. On the Mega Drive they either lack speed, some channels (After Burner hello!), always lack proper stereo (the MD simply does not do stereo) and often even complete tracks (the utterly amazing Space Harrier staff roll of the PC Engine).
You are factually wrong about almost everything you just said. The missing in channels in After Burner aren't "missing," the Genesis/MD conversion is based on arcade After Burner II. In arcade After Burner II, Sega stripped the melody tracks from several versions of the songs, most notably Final Take Off. The PCE soundtrack is based on the music from the original After Burner release even though the game itself is based on AB II. The fact that you didn't know that is very suspect.
The Genesis/MD has stereo. You can set a channel to play all right, all left or both sides. The PCE supports stereo with more subtelty between left and right, but also has fewer sound channels. Gen/MD has 10 between the FM (6) and PSG (4) chips, PCE has 6 total PSG channels only.
The Genesis/MD didn't receive a port of the original Space Harrier until the release of the Genesis / Mega Drive Mini II a few years ago. Until then, it only ever had Space Harrier II which didn't use any music from the original Space Harrier. The port on the Gen/MD Mini II is also, of course, based partly on theoretical hardware since it includes hardware scaling similar to what would have been available at the time the MD was released in 1988 - Sega was famously originally going to include a sprite scaling chip and removed it from the design due to the physical size it added to the hardware, yield rates, and price. Again, you should have known there was no Gen?MD version of SH 1 if you were going to talk about the music "missing" from it.
@@InglebardGaming You tell me nothing I don't know. The fact that After Burner arcade does not contain the melody does not mean the song has to be like that. They just could not get it right in the mix on the machine, they ran out of ROM, no idea. All modern renditions include it, and they managed to get it sound right on the PC Engine, so thank god it is there. It has to be in there, it is the melody line demmit!
Left+Right is NOT Stereo. It sounds annoying, try headphones you get nuts. A MD is better off with a mono-TV. Where a PC Engine just NEEDS a stereo TV and sounds amazing on headphones. Amigas and Mega Drives have fake stereo. Face it.
Apparantly you don't know PC Engine Space Harrier, nor played it to the end. The staff roll track is asthonishing, and absent on any other version.
@@lovemadeinjapan Dry your eyes mate.
Sega genesis wins.
We need a UA-cam filter for "genenis". I want "Mega Drive" videos. Same with Turbo Grafx. So sad consoles got fubar on US import back in the day. That huge ugly black box.... Who came up with that nonsense in 1989? Then again with the US SNES. That looks like it is poured in concrete with some purple to make it a tad cuter. And TV's without SCART.... must have been tough in the US. Luckily this NA region adaptation is a thing of the past.
Afterburner and outrun are both much better to play on the pc engine; you would know it if you truly played these games; out run on the genesis there isn’t any motor sound it’s ridiculous; afterburner the PCE music is so much better compared to the genesis !
I did "truly" play them. The terrible engine sound in PCE Out Run does not make it a better game. The music in PCE After Burner isn't bad but it doesn't sound like the FM tracks of the arcade version, the Genesis version sounds much closer to the original.
You prefer the PCE versions, that's fine, you're allowed. I showed both versions while making my points and you disagree, also fine. I don't feel the need to accuse you of not playing both versions of each, but personally, I don't get how anyone that played those arcade and home versions extensively could have the opinions that you do.
@@InglebardGaming Even the arcade rendition of After Burner is bad compared to the PC Engine. It all comes down to the lead guitar: it is ONLY present in the PC Engine version. Luckily Sega brought it back in full awesomeness with Sonic Racing Transformed, although a lot slower than on the PC Engine.
TurboGrafx-16 Turbochip games use 1 or 2 megabits if they use more megabits the games would have been better.
Actually, some of these use 4 megabits and the carts are the same size on both systems. Then you've also got the PCE/TG16 games that were on CD and hundreds of megabytes and were larger than every one of these Genesis games combined.
@@InglebardGaming They must had lazy programmers doing the PC Engine games because some of the games seem like they wasn't completely finish.
Most were 4 mb, with cheapo 2mb games.
Many Genesis games had the same size.
The smallest were 128kB = 1 Mbit. Great titles like Bomberman 94 were 1MB or 8Mbit. Street fighter was an exception and did 20Mbit.
mega bomberman vs bomberman 94 ?
This was about Sega games only, stuff they originally developed and/or published.
There's lots of games from other companies that appeared on both systems and I might cover them in the future.
That is unfair. Mega Bomberman is a very crappy port. Not the total junk status of SNES Super Bomberman 3-5 (somehow they split the game in 3 there), but it is a huge step back.
@@InglebardGaming great video , I know 68000x one best for Capcom games
Ultimately the PC Engine is an 8 bit console and it shows when compared to a full 16 bit console.
Yup, although say that around the wrong people and they'll jump down your throat over that one!
8bit CPU can only do so much.
@@InglebardGaming Reality and Truth can get you #Cancelled these days
PC Engine's only real weakness was a lack of background layers/paralax
That it's biggest weakness, but not the only one. It also can only handle 64 sprites and the 6 channel PSG is a bit on the weak side even though some devs and musicians did a nice job with it.
The big thing this video forgets to mention is DF Retro and Digital Foundry in general established that N-O-T-H-I-N-G with a lower framerate can possibly be better in any way decades, or a decade ago at least. Therefore, all of these Genesis games lose. Just remember, on the internet, you're either 60FPS or you suck.
Similarly, in PCE centric forums, more (or brighter) colors is better. Absolutely nothing else matters.
Ha, well even so most of the Genesis games featured in this video run at 60fps 😁
I think DF is pretty great overall, but I'm definitely not with them on everything. Which I have told them about a few specific issues in the past which they promptly ignored, lol. Oh well, that's life as a small UA-camr.
I was referring to some of the animated sprite transitions and ground rotations, but yeah the sprites move left to right at 60FPS in both versions for the most part.
DF is amusing to be sure, even informative at times. But when they start using words like "unplayable" they cross the line to pretentious. Then the hoards copy their arrogant claims and start calling 20 FPS "Unplayable, much less 15 FPS and below. I enjoyed the hell out of my first LAN parties with Quake running at a variable 10-20FPS, I didn't even noitce. In fact, I'm very sure I've enjoyed 6FPS games, and while I noticed Virtua Racing SVP wasn't as smooth as Virtua Racing Deluxe I failed to notice that the gameplay was changed by that fact at all. Similarly, Star Fox was always fine to me. I've actually found more games get ruined for me, difficulty wise, in the jump from 30FPS to 60FPS, they become too easy in many cases.
Interesting. Personally, I've never been bothered by a game's framerate increasing, as long as the speed remains constant. These days I vastly prefer 60fps or higher, but I'm really enjoying Xenoblade Chronicles 3 which doesn't even manage to hit 30 a lot of the time. On the flipside, I loved playing Xeno 1 on Dolphin at 60fps and Xeno X on cEmu at 60 fps :)
But yeah, I don't want to trash DF or anything, but if you want to be amused, do a google search for the CV&G review of Amiga E-Swat and see who did it. If you haven't seen Amiga E-Swat up and running, it's in my 'Every Sega Game on the Amiga" video! You'll be surprised at who did that glowing review after you see the game, lol.
Definitely since the Xbox 360 higher framerate doesn't seem to break gameplay mechanics or make games too easy. Earlier than that though, FPS online shooty shoot matches were dominated by the elitists with the 120+FPS top dollar PCs. Sonic Adventure broke in various ways (Speed Highway top track can't be reached by running up the building for example) and/or was too easy when it was allowed to run at 60FPS. Sonic Adventure 2 had entirely different level designs to compensate for double the framerate.
That's another point about framerate that may not be all that apparent in comparison to today's games, polygon models were often times lower detail in 60FPS games than in 30 or 20FPS games. Often times, but not always of course, trackside detail, effects and other things tended to be toned down to maintain 60FPS.
But I was mainly focusing on gameplay mechanics changing or becoming easier when original framerates were "improved" to 60FPS. Whereas games like Sega Rally on Saturn could be half the Arcade gameplay and hardly lose a thing in gameplay, if anything at all.
almost all US and Japan versions of 2D games were 60 FPS back then, its when they tried to get ambitious with psuedo 3D effects where sacrifices were made.
Sorry but those Wonderboy and Monster World SMS games really need to be fan remake remaster on the Sega MegaDrive hardware...
I feel it's cringe to keep calling the Sega MegaDrive the "Genesis", that's exclusively a U.S. thing because some big shot above Sega of America didn't like the name "MegaDrive" and wanted to call it the "Tomahawk" especially when the "MegaDrive" term was not even trademarked at all in North America alone and it is just an unfortunate fact we have to live with that the U.S. name for Sega's system wad just weak compared to MegaDrive... especially when you mostly compare to the PCE/TG16 by using the term PC-Engine... another one that big shots who probably got a bonus check if they redesigned the FamiCom to a box, the Super FamiCom to a fisher price toy phone and the arcade MegaDrive into some weak sounding Genesis... which implies that the Sega Master System never existed.
I used "Genesis" more often because nearly all the games I covered were released in the US and I was sowing US versions. I used 'TurboGrafx" or "TG16" when mentioning games in the video that came out in the US, but most of these were Japan only,, so I used "PC Engine" since I couldn't accurately call them "TurboGrafx" games.
Now, I may have slipped up a few times, but the above was the general reasoning behind the name use.
And sure, it'd be great to see updated Wonder Boy games on the Genesis / Mega Drive 😁
super fantasy zone should not vs fantasy zone pc engine should be the master systtem version it vs
I have teeth like yours, greetings brother!
My condolences!
Bonanza bros looks like a precursor to minions
cuando pc engine usa el cd es otra cosa, me gusta más la paleta de colores
aun asi, los juegos de Genesis se veian mejor porque sus fondos tenian mas detalles. Por ejemplo, Hellfire en Genesis se veia mejor graficamente (con menos colores) que Hellfire S en turbo grafx cd.
@@lancercncs1822 si, la debilidad de PC engine era que solo tenía 1 scroll, y a veces tenía parpadeo en algunos objetos, pero tiene una imagen muy nítida, cuando usan bien la paleta de colores veo esa diferencia , los juegos en CD están muy bien hechos
@@cristianramallo8042 Pues con "imagen nítida" quien sabe si te refieres a la calidad del video compuesto que si era de otro mundo, pero inferior al RGB del Genesis.
Desde los juegos de Hucard ya se veía buen uso de paleta de colores, pero muchos de sus juegos tienen un arte cuestionable y de verdad hacían dudar si eran juegos Nextgen.
@@cristianramallo8042 Agrego que con técnicas actuales el Genesis puede despliegar la misma cantidad de colores que PC Engine.
@@CEJOTA1800 había una técnica que se uso en sega cd pero consumía recursos, creo que consistía en ir cambiando la paleta de colores constantemente para que de la impresión que pone mas colores en pantalla, no creo que sea lo mismo que poner 482 colores, igual los juegos que vi de pc engine no superan los 128 colores la mayoria. en cuanto a la calidad de video es lo que decís, por compuesto muestra mejor imagen que snes y genesis, pero no es por el cable, es por los chips y como esta todo construido, lo mismo que el sonido, a pesar de ser mas primitiva la tecnología la calidad es mejor.
los primeros juegos de pc engine, algunos parecen de 8bits pero es por la época, la consola recibía ports de las arcades de 8bits, hasta en genesis en menor medida aparecieron algunos juegos con ese nivel técnico
Castelvania, street Fighter, fatal fury, special, world heroes, winds of thunder, snatcher, dragon ball z(are very diferents but its better game on pc Engine), etc etc etc are better on pc engine.
Only compare sega games is obiusly are better in his machine.
You kinda missed the point of the video. It was specifically to compare only Sega games on both platforms because of disagreement on which platform had the better Sega ports. It's not that no games are better on PCE/TG16.
Snatcher is better on Genesis and Street Fighter 2 is far better on Genesis.
Wait? The TurboGraphx was a Sega system??
No. Sega licensed some of their games to other developers and publishers, much like they did on NES/Famicom.
@@InglebardGaming ohhhh okay that makes more sense
pc engine was a great system but was no snes or mega drive beater
I think the PCE has definitely aged the worst of the three. I still like it and many of its games, but its 8-bit lineage is very clear these days.
It sure lacks something in its library to have made it really stand tall among the competition, but it was successful in Japan as it was released early and was a powerful hardware for its day, it came way too late overseas, but like I said, there's something about it that doesn't really appeal.
Edit: I feel the draw in Bonanza Brothers could've been one more point to the Genesis, what's that weird resolution/aspect ratio of the PC Engine version?
About Outrun being controversial, I will say that no matter public opinion, please keep giving your point of view and arguments out, the internet needs it.
Some people will think art in general is subjective to tastes, but well, if people start eating poop, this should then be subjective to their taste too. Once you start explaining why something is objectively bad, subjectivity can't be used as an argument anymore.
Comparing certain ports like these maybe, but if we are talking about the better games in general on both platforms, the PCE / CD has better quality games overall.
It depends on your tastes, overall I strongly disagree. Even with the CD ROM titles, I'd still put it behind the Genesis and SNES overall. It just had too many technical disadvantages vs the other systems that came along later and could do a lot more.
@@InglebardGaming Not only that, we need to add games which appeal to the masses, in both SNES and Genesis, you have a lot of unique and really successful games which still look and plays great to this day.
But I really would like to have owned a PC-Engine with CD back then, I have zero nostalgia for the system, but I do agree it was a nice piece of hardware for 1987, it just really needed that strong third party support and killer exclusive games the other systems got.
cmon pc engine is more than a slightly souped up 8-bit system lol
Actually it pretty much isn't 😁 I'm not saying its a bad system but it wasn't built to handle this specific stuff. It's got a faster than normal (for the time) 8-bit 6502 variant as its heart, a fairly simple PSG, and 16-bit graphics processing that's hampered by other system limitations.
In the end, capability-wise it sits squarely between the major 8-bit systems like the NES/SMS and the 16-bit systems like the Genesis/SNES.
@@InglebardGaming Well.. I program for the system so I'm aware of the differences.
But it's still a huge jump from NES level hardware even if it falls below some other 16-bits.
@@InglebardGaming Here's my "quick" breakdown.
Fastest CPU of that generation, maybe a tie w/68000 if you're dealing with big numbers a lot. More tedious to program, but not as barebones as a standard 6502 (it's 65C02 based).
Graphically , the Lack of a second bg layer hurts for sure (supergrafx >:] ). But a side effect is that it leaves vram wide open for the cpu to write to it any time it wants without artifacts, unlike snes and genesis.
Huge number of palettes (16 for BG, 16 for sprites) :)
Sound wise it has a pretty simple chip, but it was also very underutilized. Most games used basic square and saw waves. You can play pcm with less cpu overhead than the genesis, with full stereo panning. (the supergrafx and coregrafx were even better, allowing for much high sample rates and multi channel pcm streaming... obviously this was never used :( ).
5-bit volume per channel is a weakness, but you can pair channels for 10-bit pcm. Not sure if any commercial games did this.
I think one big factor that some might miss is the lack of big cartridges. Lots of the SNES and Genesis's best games were 2MB and more, I believe.
IIRC the only game over 1MB was SF2. 8KB of work RAM means HuCard games can't use as sophisticated compression.. making it even more dependent on rom size.
The CD games had to deal with much less than that, only 256KB for SuperCD, minus the BIOS. Arcade card kind of evened that playing field, but very late and very expensively.
I kind of see it as an 8-bit system but pushed (almost) as far as that paradigm could go.
NP, obviously I like all this stuff, too!
The sound for me is probably the thing that's aged the worst. A lot of the tones just really hit me in a way that grates a bit. Some games sound great, like Dungeon Explorer, Legendary Axe II and most of what Namco produced. A lot of it is also a bit too samey among the HuCard titles. The 6 channels were a little light for the time it came out, which really hurt a lot of the later arcade ports. The finer stereo capability was nice, but not a substitute for more channels.
Yeah, there were one or two 8 megabit cards, but SF2CE was the only card that exceeded 8 megabits. Large card games didn't make a lot of sense for Japan where the CD format was so popular so I get why they mostly went with CDs instead.
I agree its the height of what could be achieved with an 8-bit processor from the late 80s. When it came out in Japan in 1987 it was a significant upgrade over the competition. They really hit at the right time over there and rode that wave for a long time.
The PCE was definitely interesting for the approach it took and it's position as the most advanced 8-bit gaming system out there.
@@InglebardGaming Have you listened to magical chase? That's probably one of the best Hucard soundtracks.. Sakimoto and Iwata like usual.. Keep an eye out for new homebrew. Kulor recently upgraded his nes alter ego tunes for pc engine, that port should be coming out at some point.. And another guy who goes by the name touko has been grinding away at a supergrafx shooter for a few years..
God, look at how terrible PCE is.
Satan, look at how terrible Sega Genesis is.