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Games that should have been on Jaguar


awbacon

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5 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Use the hardware to its strength - that is the secret of good games you are mentioned. You can think/complain of missing hardware feats the whole day - ANY hardware has shortcomings and missing some cool feats a coder or artist would like to have. Regarding the Jag: you can do a LOT of things which are absoletely impossible to do on the SNES or Genesis. The Jag can do better 2D games than both 32X and 3DO and it actually DID - Ubi chose Jaguar as the leading platform for Rayman for some reason ;-) - not other game had that level of color, art quality and fluid animation before, not even NEOGEO.

The SNES had to use extra chips on a cartridge to even remotely come close to what Rayman pulled off on the Jaguar... Street Fighter Alpha 2 is a good example of coming close to doing what Rayman did on the Jag and it's still not as colorful or as detailed. I think as far as "Metal Slug" style animation, using low resolution like the SNES or a slightly higher res like the kind used on the Neo Geo, it's possible to get good animation if the sprites are reasonably small, but considerably a good size for visual impact. I think Street Fighter Alpha sets a good example for a good resolution to use for the Jaguar where you can put a lot of good animation in sprites without it breaking the cartridge size. I think Primal Rage for the Jaguar did a good job with sprites, but the background image seemed large and a little out of proportion compared the sprites; it seemed rushed.

 

 

 

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Rayman life cycle:

 

Basic animation demo on the Atari ST-Full blown game development for planned SNES CD-Then Jaguar choosen as lead platform before decision made to make it avaiable on Playstation and Saturn.

 

 

Quote:

Rayman’s origins are reported to have started on the Super Nintendo, and while there’s some truth in that, its actual birth was on a 16-bit computer, not console. “To tell you the truth, I actually started working alone on Rayman using an Atari ST,” begins Ancel. “I was doing the sound, the art, the programming and the animation. Then with Frédéric Houde, a programming friend, we decided to make a Super Nintendo CD version, but the hardware was never released! So we decided to move on to different hardware. By this time there was a big console war brewing between the likes of NEC, Nintendo, Sega, Atari, 3DO and others.”

Ancel saw the interest in the upcoming machines as a prime opportunity to get the best out of his new project. The hardware offerings gave him plenty of options, especially as he realised that interest in the Atari ST was beginning to wane and that a standalone Super Nintendo might struggle with the huge amounts of information that he wanted to put into the game.

After a great deal of thought, Ancel eventually decided that the Atari Jaguar would become the final home for his new creation (although this later changed to the PlayStation). In hindsight it seems like utter madness to launch a new IP on such an unproven system, but there was reasoning behind Ancel’s decision. Atari’s machine had amazing raw power that the other systems he had been tinkering with just didn’t possess. “When the Atari Jaguar was released, I felt it was the first console that was capable of displaying our graphics,” he says.

 

https://www.retrogamer.net/retro_games90/the-making-of-rayman/

 

Edited by Lost Dragon
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8 hours ago, sd32 said:

Maybe if they made the level shorter to save some RAM? That level is about twice as long as the original R Type first level, and has more enemy variety. I dont like very long levels on shooters, i prefer to have shorter ones, but more of them.

 

You would need the extra memory just for the sound FXs, since it would play CD music, right?

I don't think it's that dramatic. You basically shave off some bytes  and bits here and there until it works - don't underestimate the power of optimization! I was testing graphics on the Lynx (with a nice tool a friendly dev did for me) recently and overtaxing the hardware just by some hundreds of bytes which resulted in some really nasty glitches. So you shave off some bits here and there, finetuning and tweaking pixels and details until it runs flawlessly - without comprimising the look and quality of the artwork. Duranik are sound developers, look at their track record, the engine looks super capable and the artwork/assets are top notch. It's not a "smokes and mirrors" demo, , I'm sure the finished game would have been fantastic and retain the high production quality look and feel of the demo.

Edited by agradeneu
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21 hours ago, agradeneu said:

If someone could port this ST game to the Jaguar please and allow a complete redesign of all graphics playing to the systems strengths (16x16 tiles, 16 bit) - I would love to do the artwork for that ;-) 

 

https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/dynabusters_

Something like this but a bit more polished?

 

I like the graphics like in this version, they are a bit bigger than 16x16 (16x24?) and have a bit of overlapping.

 

bomberman.zip

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9 hours ago, JagChris said:

Look better than what? What are we comparing?

 

As for higher number not meaning better, the point of this was swap complaining about the OP supposedly being limited.

Maybe that?: 

13 hours ago, JagChris said:

My point is that 1000 8 bit sprites with little animation are not "better"  than 100 fully animated (5-10 frames btw) sprites in 16 bit color. The sprite count is meaningless without the context of color quality and animation in the game. Of course there will be limits, but it's about finding the balance between quality vs quantity.

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Beyond owning and loving Sturminster on Dreamcast and having read a single interview with  Duranik talking about Jaguar Native, i know very, very little about them.

 

But in terms of their part in the gigantic jigsaw that is the history of the Jaguar, sometimes nothing seems to sum up what went wrong with the Jaguar when it recieved things like Raiden (nice game, but NOT the advert for your new 64 bit system) and Crescent Galaxy..

 

Native and ZzyroxxII  floundered. .

 

Atari supposedly told Eclipse they didn't want them doing games like Wings Of Death on the Jaguar...

 

Just so tragic.

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1 hour ago, swapd0 said:

Something like this but a bit more polished?

 

I like the graphics like in this version, they are a bit bigger than 16x16 (16x24?) and have a bit of overlapping.

 

bomberman.zip 24.97 kB · 1 download

Yes looks like it, but 16x16 without overlapping would be easier. ;-)

Edited by agradeneu
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On 10/22/2019 at 5:25 PM, VintageGamer74 said:

 

 

On 10/23/2019 at 12:14 AM, agradeneu said:

Thanks. To me Jaguar seems to be the only console on earth where izts fans  regard it as trash and dont value it asthe capable gaming machine it is. If my artwork was trash I could easily blame the hardware - its basically a freepass for almost anything.  Seriously if you think the Jaguar is lacking, move on and try to develope for Dreamcast. But then yu would deal with a demanding audience hoilding their console in high regard, so no freepass for blame shifting and self confirming bias. The quality of looks and graphics is irrelevant to hardware power, a ugly as sin bitmap is the same byte size as a beautiful one, so use your bytes wisely!

I learned a lot of optimization doing some graphics for the morelimited Lynx. I was like some 500 bytes over the limit and everything glitched out. I spent 3 hours to optimize the graphics to hit the sweet spot, without sacrificing visual quality. Since the Lynx is held in high regard bitching and moaning about its limits was not an option ;)

  

Seems like years ago most folks had a "it could've been great if only companies would've supported it" attitude towards the Jaguar. Then they tried to program it & realized why few companies actually completed their planned games.

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mmm, all floor tiles can be 16x16, walls/boxes tiles 16x24. Each level has a layer for the floor and another one for walls/boxes. It will take a bit more memory but it'll look better. You don't need to create different tiles for each wall/floor combination. 

 

Just my opinion.

 

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17 minutes ago, pacman000 said:

 

Seems like years ago most folks had a "it could've been great if only companies would've supported it" attitude towards the Jaguar. Then they tried to program it & realized why few companies actually completed their planned games.

Jaguar is Assembly, not the most common language anymore. Do you mean the early 2000s vapourware stuff? Sure beginners with no expierence can't just realize a proper game, even with all the right intentions. But thats really comparing apples with oranges - companies with professional devs, artist and sufficient budget would have made a difference, you just can't put them in the same bag with hombrew starters with zero exp.  That being said, I'm not just about theory and "what if scenarios", I do things. ;-) Needless to say, developing and completing a game in your freetime is not an easy task, no matter what system you choose. 

Edited by agradeneu
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Ok... Here's a YouTube I just finish watching that seems very appropriate for this topic. It's a great documentary on the game company "RARE" and the two games that they're best known for "Donkey Country & Killer Instinct". Not that I'm implying I want to see these two games on the Jaguar (Although the Jag is very well capable), it's a great viewing for learning and brainstorming ideas whatever game concepts that might still be floating around out there in the wild not really seeing the light of day so to speak. It's a great view of how the games were made from scratch for the arcades and the consoles.

 

 

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On 10/23/2019 at 5:17 PM, swapd0 said:

Something like this but a bit more polished?

 

I like the graphics like in this version, they are a bit bigger than 16x16 (16x24?) and have a bit of overlapping.

 

bomberman.zip 24.97 kB · 1 download

Bomberman is a technically "simple" (tile based) game but the NEOGEO artists are generally utterly brilliant. Now imagine they had the color space and the 2MB RAM of the Jaguar at their disposal ;-)  I think a very nice looking Jaguar game could be done, perfect for a homebrew/indie project.  

Edited by agradeneu
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On 10/23/2019 at 1:45 AM, sd32 said:

Wouldnt loading at the start and at mid level and once again when you reach the boss help? The PS1 version did that, and it didnt ruin the game. Plus, loading times for a cartridge wouldnt be that long, right? I really dont know how that works. But even then, they had to cut some animation on the PS1 version, but was still pretty darn good.

 

And then you would have the issue of cart sizes. But now we have flash carts!

 

I had such big hope for Legion Force Jidai to turn into a reality...

You can load/unpack data from ROM, even on the fly. Generally (for all systems) the game data on ROM is much bigger than system RAM - later SNES carts were 24 Mbits and more (3 MB) and the system has around 128 kbyte RAM. So actually the Jaguar is well equipped with 2MB, because 16 bit bitmaps need more space. But with 8 bit or 4 bit sprites it's really HUGE. (I'm not exaggerating). Like I said, if you fully use the  Jags sytem RAM for a level, you will end up with merely 2 levels (!)for a 4 MB ROM cart if all data on ROM is not packed.  

Edited by agradeneu
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Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (the Capcom Arcade version.)

Shadow of the Beast III

Lemmings, Oh No, More Lemmings, Lemmings 2: The Tribes, and Lemmings 3: The Lemmings Chronicles.

Gun Force and Geo Storm

Outlander

The King of Dragons (Would make excellent use of the Team Tap)

X-Men (Konami Arcade)

Magical Drop/Chain Reaction

Osman/Cannon Dancer

Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III

Shin Megami Tensei (Sega CD), II, and if...

Baraduke/Alien Sector and Baraduke 2: Bakutotsu Kijuutei

Cadash (also would make great use of the Team Tap)

Gradius II: Gofer's Ambition/Vulcan Venture

Image Fight I and II

Rayxanber I, II, and III

Darkstalkers

Dragon Buster

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This is what Trevor McFur should have been. Outside of Raiden, the Jaguar needed more good shmups. It was such a huge genre on the SNES / Genesis, yet we never really got anything amazing on the system. Since Eco Fighters came out in 1993, it was right in the Jaguar's wheelhouse. I don't know why Capcom didn't just cheaply license these games out for conversion. I get they might not want to heavily invest in Jaguar, but a straight port could have potentially been a money maker around the Jaguar's first year on the market

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To me I think "Defender 2000" sets a better example of what "Trevor McFur" could've been only with the CGI style they were using with some nice parallax effects and psuedo 3D here and there with better music. The box art on Trevor was phenomenal if you didn't know the game play; even though it's got the CGI, the game itself feels flat with no substantial presentation to really make that game pop like it should've. I think Defender 2000 sets a good example of what could've been for Trevor to help drive the story with better sound and music, but I think Atari was to blame for the game winding up the way it did.

 

 

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1 hour ago, awbacon said:

 

Two parter ; 1) its my bday so I dumped a newly acquired 3DO beta for fun and 2) if Jag could handle AvP than it could do Killing Time. Jag CD only though, as losing the soundtrack to Killing Time would really ruin the game

Happy Birthday!

 

Out of all things, Killing Time is the only game I've ever played in my entire life that has made me physically sick after roughly 25-minutes. Something is super wonky with the skipping of frames or jerkiness when turning left/right that just makes me incredibly nauseous. I had to watch a video again to remind me but now remembering the serious framerate drop issue.

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