Saturn Shen-Mue & other unreleased Saturn talk

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There's a video on youtube of the saturn version.

 

Give me time. My host is screwing around.

EDIT: Ok, eventually I sorted the problem out on my own. Bloody amateurs. Images are here, credit goes to Anthaemia, of course. Some pretty interesting shots there.

 

Sounds strange, considering Sega Direct often sells Zippo lighters, with logos of their games on them.

 

Last two screens of Virtua Fighter 3 that Alchy posted are the exact same screens I have. I just have them in a nice 640 x 480 jpeg form and they look sharp. You can see clearly that textures are not smoothened in any way.

Anyways, looks like we won't be playing Virtua Fighter 3 in its original form anytime soon. Sega sure as hell won't release it onto a new platform and emulation is, well, take a look at this. This is the best you can get out of MAME and believe me, that's all you can get.

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/452/namnls2oi0.jpg

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/5239/namnls3ti7.jpg

Believe it or not, but Virtua Fighter 3 emulation is working better than the non existant emulation of Virtua Fighter 2. Another one that didn't quite make it as a port.

I've had my eye on original Virtua Fighter 3 machine. I could get it for $900. The whole thing. Cab, board inside. All in working order.

 

If i had the money id go for that deal. You know i wonder what source the mame team got of the model 3 emu. The people working on it had gotten much farther with virtua fighter 3 before they scrapped the project. I also find it odd that virtua fighter 2 is much more difficult to emulate then 3.

 

Supposedly, the MAME team was supplied the research data of Supermodel emulator team. The Model 3 emulator that never got finished.

As for MAME and its poor emulation of Model boards, go figure. It's a driver based emulator after all. A dedicated Model 2 / 3 emulator will always run the games better than a program that emulates hundreds of titles. So many in fact, that they no longer bother with the compatibility list.

 

Trust me, don't believe for a second that footage is from the alleged Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 3 - it's really a late pre-release Model 3 build, though many people get confused since it was featured on a Saturn demo disc (Sega Flash Vol. 4, to be precise). You'd think naming the clip "Arcade Hits" would give away the contents, but some will never learn. If anything, that same video is of importance due to the appearance of very early Last Bronx arcade code, which includes the original wireframe tech demo shown when AM3 first revealed the game.

As for the current status of Model 3 emulation, it's unfair Supermodel was dissolved into MAME as the group behind that project had managed to reproduce Virtua Fighter 3 to a much higher level of accuracy - maybe even to a playable level - while now it's taken quite a radical step backwards. Also, does anybody else feel the reason no recent PC or console versions of VF3 have been attempted is because Sega might have been upset with how the arcade game turned out? How else can you explain the removal of Taka Arashi and undulating terrain - both advertised as key features at the time - in later installments of the series? Finally, notice the gradual disappearance of Yu Suzuki's influence on everything after VF3? Did he really leave AM2 because of the backlash to this game, and is VF4/5 more the vision of his replacement, Hiroshi Kataoka? There's definitely plenty of evidence there for conspiracy theorists, even if VF3 was a massive success on its release!

P.S. Any chance of sharing those 640x480 prototype images? I'd love to add them to my collection, as it's great to compare any differences between early builds and the final versions of games with a complex history like VF3. Also, does anybody know if the TGS '98 video of Sega Rally 2 (prototype Dreamcast version) has ever been uploaded anywhere? Now that is something I'd like to see...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyJfiO3INrc

If you mean this video, it's a part of Model 3 showcase. This whole Virtua Fighter 3 beta footage can be seen on Virtua Fighter 3 TB for DreamCast. It's on the disc. Labeled as History.

And it actually looks better than the DreamCast version. You can clearly see the high polygon count. More detail went into clothing. Jacky's jacket moves in a realistic way, instead of being stiff like in the DreamCast version.

This is Model 3. There's no way someone with a pair of eyes and a brain could take this as a Saturn version. Look at Lau's face in that clip. The lighting.

The Pai vs Jacky sequence is just amazing. The music is remixed and sounds so much better than DreamCast midi like soundtrack. Plus the models have more details on them. No missing armpits on Pai for one.

Here's how accurate the Supermodel emulation was, compared to the MAME. You can see clearly, that on the same stage difference is massive. Whatever was left of Supermodel emu, they should have made it open source instead of integrating it into MAME, the evil Borg sons of &%#!

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/888/040101vf31fl9.jpg

P.S. - I upload my images as soon as I will find some time to dig them up. This weekend was quite busy. And I still found a minute to make the new Extreme Sports videos!

 

I don't think that would factor into the decision at all. The question would be whether or not there was money to be made, and given the number of fighting games that get released these days for PC, I'd guess they thought not. As for other console ports, there's VF4 and 5 out now, so why would they bother with 3? It's not old enough to be retro and not young enough to be sold full price.

 

By the way, I thought the evade button, uneven terrain and all those Virtua Fighter 3 features kicked ass and I'm really bummed out they went back to the plain old even surface. Taka Arashi was a fat bastard, but hey. There are people who play Zangief in Street Fighter II, and he sucks ass, so?

Virtua Fighter 3 was a major hit and it wiped the floor with Tekken 3. What more could be asked for? People played it like crazy and Sega had another brilliant title, untill they fucked up the DreamCast port.

Uneven arenas add even more complexity, don't they. And isn't that what Virtua Fighter is all about? Fine tuning, adding more moves, fixing the collisions and range. It's all good. But the uneven arenas kicked ass and I really miss them.

 

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/888/040101vf31fl9.jpg

Apart from the polygon count, that's probably a close representation of what everyone should have expected from the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 3. Also, I've checked that video again and yes it's from the "history" clip on the Dreamcast game - this was sourced from the video footage shown at the 1996 E3, and is of the first public build of VF3 (the clip I mentioned earlier was released closer to the final release, and can be uploaded if anyone can once again provide space). Finally, I can understand your view (Alchy) that VF3 is caught somewhere between old and new, therefore becoming difficult for Sega to market as a retro title. Was the average PC even powerful enough to handle VF3 back in 1996/1997? Probably not, though since we've not seen a VF conversion for the PC since the awful second game I doubt Sega feels any later titles would be financially worthwhile. Perhaps it's better if VF remains arcade and console exclusive...

Even if the Saturn version of VF3 looked a mess (which I doubt anyway), there's no way AM2 would have let the gameplay suffer too much - despite the final build supposedly running at half the frame rate of the Model 3 original. Any minor graphical problems could be forgiven, and providing all the main background and character features were intact (surely basic 3D undulation wouldn't have been impossible?) it's hard to see why anybody would criticise Saturn VF3 more than Namco's PS conversion of Tekken 3. If something like VF2 could shift over a million units in Japan on the Saturn then I've no doubt its sequel could have done the same with ease.

P.S. For comparison, does anybody know the sales figures of Fighters Megamix?

 

If you don't have any space on an ftp server or something like that and you have some nice videos to show you can always upload them to YouTube.com or Google Video. They're both free and you can upload up to 10 minutes long videos. That's what I do nowdays.

If for some reason you don't want to use YouTube or Google Video, you can always rar it / zip it, and upload it on RapidShare or something similar.

 

I've got plenty of videos I'd like to upload, but the problem is that I'm currently using the computer at my library and therefore unable to do anything with FTP software. Hopefully in the near future I'll remember to copy everything to my pen drive and share files through one of the many online services you've mentioned - unless someone wants me to send them exclusively via e-mail, that is...

 

On the subject of Virtua Fighter 3 once again, did you know the prototype arcade version shown at E3 1996 lacked any sort of texture mapping on the characters? According to a feature in the UK official Sega Saturn Magazine, at this point in its development AM2 had yet to produce final skin textures, and was still using various forms of advanced lighting and shading to create the fighters' features - further proof of the Model 3 board's incredible power, and possibly why everyone in the game looks so... well... zombie-like!

P.S. Expect video footage of Virtua Fighter 3 (arcade prototype), more early Dreamcast screenshots and plenty of other great stuff from my archive in the next day or two - sorry for being a little vague with my description, but even I don't really know for sure what I've got until I look through my old discs when I get home.

 

You can always send it to my email, borman18@gmail.com , and Ill host em for you

 

I've uploaded a few of the videos in my collection that may be of worth, including the Sega Flash Vol. 4 footage of Virtua Fighter 3 (arcade prototype - not Saturn version!), several Japanese and US commercials that can't yet be found elsewhere (from what I can tell, anyway) and a mysterious homebrew Saturn game I'd like your help to identify. The links are as follows:

http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast1.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast2.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast3.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast4.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast5.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast6.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast7.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/segadreamcast8.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/sonicr.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/sonicsaturday.mov
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/rally.avi
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/sonicadventure.avi
http://www.loadsavedelete.com/assembler/vf3.avi

P.S. Expect more files in the future, once I can properly go through all my old backup discs...

 

Bloody quick time :crying: I'll now HAVE to install the codec. Trying to find one without bloody i-tunes attached though isn't easy.

Yakumo

EDIT - Never mind, just got QuickTime Alternative 1.73

 

Just use VLC player. Small download and i almost never install any codecs.

 

Paulo meant the VLC Videolan Player. You can download it here for a wide variety of systems. I use it at work since it doesn't even require administrative privilages. And it plays virtually anything. Just give it a go. It even plays the PlayStation 2 mpeg2 variations and SofDec. DivX, XviD, Windows Media, Mpeg 4, Mpeg 2 [Now with DVD menu support!]. It's a great piece of software. I highly recommend it.