Castlevania Saturn port article. Legit?

http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/cv-sotn/documents/nocturne-port.htm

You guys are usually a pretty good source of hardware info. Never knew this about the PSX, if it's true. The whole "flat 3D" thing.

Would explain a lot about the crappy Saturn port as well.

 

The PSX part is true. The PSX cannot even draw a pixel to the screen. You have to create a quad with a texture.

His document is all speculation. About the only parts he said about the Saturn that were true were that the Saturn has some more RAM, and the issue with alpha blending.

I think anyone familar with the Saturn knows that there was no reason the Sega Saturn port couldn't have matched or exceeded the Playstation version. And even with the mentioned problems the game is still a great game to play on Saturn. The problems really aren't that big of a deal.

 

There's only one reason why the Saturn port isn't as good and that is lazy sods at Konami Nagoya doing a half arsed job. If anything it should have been better. There are many 2D mixed with 3D games on the saturn that prove it can be done.

Yakumo

 

I wonder if konami did it on purpose, since they were getting closer and closer to sony back then...

Wait, a quad? I thought only Saturn used quads, and PSX only triangles.

 

that's correct. The Saturn uses quads and the PSX uses triangles.

 

Doesn't the PSX have one 2-D layer? Used for score readouts and such simple things... At least that's the layer that I remember seeing an interpolation option for in a PSX emu.

 

I would ask the same thing.

PS: I disagree with Django, when he says the Saturn port is crappy. It could have been better, but is far off being crappy.

 

Two flat triangles make a quad which is a square or rectangle. Then you plaster your texture on it and you have a 2D graphic.

Maybe the PSX does have some simple 2D layer, I have no idea. If it does it must be rather simplistic.

I definitely agree with you Johnny, the Saturn Castlevania is far from crappy and is still a great game to play. The lack of alpha blending and the bits of slowdown are far from game breaking.

 

There's a more accurate reason: It was based off the PSX port. The games that are on both systems and not developed in tandem always lean one direction (the machine it was programmed for).

 

That's what I mean, lazy sods. The PSX game was developed by Konami's top guys at Tokyo while the Saturn port was given to the low level programmers at Konami Nagoya.

Yakumo

 

x

 

You could also equip potions and stuff to their own button (i.e. you didn't have to keep unequipping a weapon or something to use them), which made the Saturn version f'ing awesome to me.

 

Eh. Don't take my word for it. It's all subjective. There were loading problems, slowdown, the extras weren't really all that impressive, and graphics were downgraded.

It would still be a good game. I just played the PSX version first, that's all.

 

I can't imagine games like Hermie Hopperhead, The Adventures of Little Ralph or even Gunners Heaven (although the level bosses are 3d) not using a 2D layer. NBA JAM T.E and Rayman too.

But the way you explained seems a very simple work to do.

I understand your point of view. I just meant that there are so many crappy games out theres, that even those problems don't kill the enjoyment of the game.

 

Despite it being such a complex piece of hardware, everyone seems to know virtually all there is to know about the Saturn. However, this is the first I've heard of the PlayStation not having any dedicated sprite capabilities - surely this isn't true? On the other hand, if there is any truth to it I'm more amazed that Capcom even bothered to convert the likes of Marvel VS Capcom... never mind the fact their 2D games were more often than not so compromised!

 

Ok, let me explain again. With 3D hardware only, you can create a 2D game, no problem. First, you create two triangles that you put together to make a square or rectangle. You place that at a 0 distance from the camera. Then you apply a texture to it. And then you have a 2D image on screen. So there's no reason you can't do this to create large 2D backgrounds or score boards or sprites.

The Saturn port had issues because the people that did it, failed to work out certain issues. Primarily they didn't optimize the game and work out a way to handle translucency so it would look the same way.

 

Maybe this trick explains that some PS1 games on the PS2, using the smooth texture option, show a square trace on the sprites.

 

Yes, that is the reason. '2D' could have been much better on the PS1, but it was never optimized as well as it could have been, or rarely. Look at SFZ3 on the PS1 for an example. One of the few Capcom 2D games on the PS1 that really showed a good understanding of the techniques required to port a 2D game to the PS1 hardware.

 

Capcom did alot of 2D games on PS1. And so did other companies. The real problem is the lack of enough VRAM. 1 MegaByte was not enough for 2D games of the time. Sega Saturn was better designed since it had a way of expanding RAM via cartridges.

 

Well it was meant to be a 2D console (the Saturn)