Jump to content
IGNORED

Does anyone find this annoying?


Recommended Posts

They probably could have good animation with big sprites, but they didn't since it would take a huge amount of ROM space.

Games designed that way were probably just designed to look good in screenshots. Any game that achieved huge sprites without a bigger ROM was cheating somewhere to make up for it.

 

There was some game on the PCEngine I saw reviewed once which looked like an extreme example of this. All the enemies pretty much used the same huge sprite, with almost no animation. I think they even slid off the screen when they died (no real death animation). But hey, the sprites were almost as tall as the screen so it must be awesome, right?

 

Sword of Sodan is a good example on the Genesis. I think that's a 512KB game. Big sprites, but few of them and badly animated.

Compare that with Streets of Rage, also 512KB, which used smaller sprites but were well animated, and it was actually a good game. Same story also for Golden Axe.

 

Then on the Sega CD you have Final Fight, which is back to big sprites but ALSO good animation. That only became possible because the ROM size wasn't such a limitation anymore. Active graphics still had to fit in the onboard RAM, which I think was a bit over 512KB, but the background and other "regional" graphics could be swapped out between levels.

Edited by gdement
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There was some game on the PCEngine I saw reviewed once which looked like an extreme example of this. All the enemies pretty much used the same huge sprite, with almost no animation. I think they even slid off the screen when they died (no real death animation). But hey, the sprites were almost as tall as the screen so it must be awesome, right?

 

 

 

 

China Warrior... and no, it's not awesome.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another question, in most fighting games of the time, why did punches and kicks only use one frame? There could've had been at least 3 frames if they recycled the first two frames for every different type of punch, and only have the last frame differentiate between punches.

Edited by Multijointed Monster Maker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There was some game on the PCEngine I saw reviewed once which looked like an extreme example of this. All the enemies pretty much used the same huge sprite, with almost no animation. I think they even slid off the screen when they died (no real death animation). But hey, the sprites were almost as tall as the screen so it must be awesome, right?

 

 

 

 

China Warrior... and no, it's not awesome.

 

 

Yeah, that's the one. I thought it was Japan only, but I see they exported it to the TG16 also. How kind of them. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hate huge ass sprites, I mean, sure their pretty, but I'd rather tone that down a bit and have it smooth. Remember, photo realistic, and a jittery framerate kinda kills the effect :lol: I don't mind large sprites, if their well animated, or at least smooth, but take a fighting game, where you have like three frames of animation for a punch, for a little sprite, that's fine, but for a big sprite, you really see the jump between the different frames.

 

Add to that, some systems can only do a certain size sprite (like many 8 bits did 8x8 sprites, or maybe up to 24x24, I seem to remember C64 doing 24x sprites) but if you use a bigger sprite, you're just using multiple sprites to make one big one, and if it's done wrong, you can have all kinds of tearing and alignment issues added to the mix....but then, sometimes, I like to see my ass above my head in a game :lol:

Edited by Video
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not only ROM space but DMA time limitations of the VDP. (limiting how much data can be updated to VRAM per frame) I know in the genesis's case it's a lot worse in 60 Hz than in 50 Hz where there's way more DMA time (more vblank lines per frame), unless you clip the screen a whole lot. (so it's letter boxed)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not only ROM space but DMA time limitations of the VDP. (limiting how much data can be updated to VRAM per frame) I know in the genesis's case it's a lot worse in 60 Hz than in 50 Hz where there's way more DMA time (more vblank lines per frame), unless you clip the screen a whole lot. (so it's letter boxed)

 

And the size of the vram.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...