What do you think of Sonic CD?

Yes sir, you ARE wrong. I'm not talking about specs, I'm talking about what you said, again:

The PC version is perfect. It runs without flaws. So, it's "perfect"!
You said about audio and video, they're all there. With the same or maybe better quality than a so called "setup". What? And old TV with RF? Maybe mono audio... =/

Try not to throw statements like "I didn't played, but I think is bad as an emulator! It should!"

 

Having played through them both, seriously, the PC one is just as good. Since proper RGB is unavailable to some people the PC one is probably a better bet then emulation since not many people have Sega CD's. There really is almost no difference between them, and he is right, you do have to be in 256 color mode, but seriously, the PC one is just as good if not better. The problem is getting it to run on anything past win 98 (theres patches but whatever). Honestly though, nobody is talking out there ass, lol.

 

I'm going to try to stay polite, though I don't know why, since my previous post answered all of your pertinent questions. If you want to play the game properly, in the way the game designers intended it, then you'll play it on the original hardware, via RGB, on a 15Khz TV/monitor. If you play it on a PC, in the resolutions that'll be available there, on the monitors you're likely to play it on, with the 256 colour mode you yourself claimed, you won't be playing the game as it was meant to be played. Ergo it is not "perfect".

Go read my previous post, absorb/research whatever you missed. I dislike it when "established" forum members act like dicks to new posters, and I'm not trying to belittle you, but when you ignore what I've already written and come back with arrogance, it's a little frustrating.

(edit: apologies, you're not a new member. My mistake.)

I've played many games on emulator, but honestly in terms of playing them, as in playing and enjoying them properly, to completion... there's just no issue any more, it's either the real hardware or nothing. Saying that, I have played/completed emulated games (VC or whatever) over friend's houses at times, sometimes you have to take what's there, so I appreciate what you're getting at. When it comes down to Me Time on my consoles, though, I feel like I've got to the point where I might as well get it right (when the possibility falls within my budget) or not bother.

 

That would kick so much ass. :crying:

 

Yep. Pretty much does. While I'm sitting here like a smug cunt, though, you can enjoy your release dates being a few months earlier than ours, and your hardware/games being considerably cheaper. Again, depends on what you care about.

 

If I was playing on a Mega CD it would be through RF which is hardly satisfactory for me. S-Video from my laptop makes a great image (I tested it with Mario All Stars. It was cool to see it 'pixelated' on the laptop whilst looking like a normal SNES on the TV.)

IMO, emulators replicate the game in a very satisfactory manner for me. I very much agree that they are not the best way to play the game - I really don't like emulating or playing games to completion on an emulator, like you, I'd rather have the real console and the real game. I am also passionate about playing games 'the way the designers intended', which is I really dislike buying retro PAL games - when money permits I want to import. Playing games at unoptimized 50hz stinks, and I strive to play the 'real' version.. hence why I bought an NTSC N64 and I can buy freely without worrying if it's a crap conversion.

I don't like sitting on my laptop to play a game, hence I don't have a vast collection of ROMs. I'd rather own and play the real deal. All I have on here is Sonic CD since I haven't bought the rest! I disagree that emulation is shit, though. It's practically perfect apart from a couple of oddities here and there but its so rare. Maybe some sound pitches will be incorrect, but the music is redbook so that isn't an issue. It can also improve games - faster framerate, sharper than composite from your console, save states if youre bit of a cheater and don't care about preserving the original difficulty.. they have their uses! I personally like the filters that make them look less pixellated, but I feel guilty for taking away the original intent of the art!

Back to the game anyway... I just played some more and I think it's totally unfair. I just jumped into a spring, to be sent flying through the air, only to land on an enemy placed right on the end of th ledge. I think thats crap level design, and I don't enjoy any of the stages in this game- they seem to be set up to annoy or confuse the player. They seem to be against you. I played a ROM hack (Sonic Megamix or something) based on Sonic CD and it was amazing. It seemed to predict what the player would do, and as a result was fun to play, because you could keep a flow, a rhythm, and the game supported this!

Rogue, I realise that the level designs chance according to the time period (Eg a spring that sends you into a wall in the present might send you into a tunnel in the past) but I feel it breaks the flow of action, and its also a pain keeping speed in order to time travel.


Now, if only I could type this much this easily for my assignments..

 

I bought the MK I Mega-CD on the day of release, purely on the fact that I could see from the press releases of the time, that SONIC-CD was gonna be the best thing to appear on the platform.

...Naturally I pre-ordered SONIC-CD and well, like they say, the rest is history...suffice to say that SONIC-CD was, and is still, the best game that ever appeared on the MD/MCD.

 

I like the enhanced versions on Sega CD, i.e. Earthworm Jim, etc. Some of them had great music. Lunar too.

 

I love Sonic CD. It's different from 1, 2, 3, etc, but it has it's own charm and I find it a great to play game.

 

I think you probably built it up a little too much in your head. The perception of something is almost always better than what it is in reality. Time tends to not help much either.

 

Well, I really like to play the games the way they were intended. But the PC version is not bad as an emulator. Just that.
And this way you say, via RGB. RGB is not a reality to non-european people. I believe when I read all the discusison about the benefits of this RGB, but "in the rest of the world", it doesn't exist. You can't buy a setup with that. And you know that. So, maybe the game wasn't really designed to play via rgb, but it was to be "played" with RF, composite, anything the people got in their houses... and, in 1996, in the PC. The multimedia PC market was growing, etc...

I try to maximize the experience too. But without RGB. =)

For me, the SEGA CD version is "better" than the PC, but the PC is not "bad", trash, etc... =/

Yeah, it's a fact. You say it's bad level design, but I don't. Looks like the connections was left to save on development. Maybe they were rushed to release... who knows.

 

Rogue, I think they're there to give you incentive you to use the time travel- they're hinting at you But intentionally thrusting the player into a badnik with no way of avoiding? That's just frustrating..

Arguably, to get the core experience, you should be playing with RF. No doubt the vast majority of gamers simply use the connection they get with their console and give this no further thought. I'd say retro games were designed with RF in mind - its common knowledge that developers sometimes relied on the inaccuracy of an RF signal to 'blend' colours together to create gradients etc etc. With a higher quality signal, you don't get this effect, so it is no longer 'as intended'. You could very well argue that by using a high quality output, you are no longer experiencing these games as they were envisoned to be played. Two sides to every argument.

People who played Sonic CD at or near it's release all seem to regard it highly, whilst those who played it more recently don't seem too impressed..

Does anyone have any thoughts on the soundtrack?

 

You know I'm going to nitpick at this

Your laptop will be outputting a 480i S-Video signal. The emulator will unquestionably be running at a higher resolution than the SNES (in fact, your laptop will likely not support a resolution even twice the original), so the colour balance of the game will be fucked - see the info on scanlines in the other thread. On top of this the driver may be applying filters to cover up the cheap video DAC hardware. If it's like my Radeon's S-Video, it may also inexplicably look like shit (colour bleeding and balance issues, very grainy), while my laptop looks much better on the same cable/set. Neither are particularly nice signals, though.

The worst S-Video I ever saw came from an EPIA Mini-ITX board (the 800 I think). Unimaginably washed out and the colour balance was beyond a joke - it was bad enough that I would've written it off as an issue with the unit I had, but apparently they were all like that. Considering the obvious use for such small, integrated boards is to act as media hubs, I was pretty disappointed. If I'd have paid for it (I think they used to cost £100 or so) I'd have been fuming.

And so you should! Again, I won't go into my disagreement regarding the visuals here, as I dealt with it in the other thread. Savestates, well, some copiers support real time saves if they mean that much to you. Honestly though, I can't think of a single aspect of emulators that I prefer to original games on original hardware. Certainly nothing that would balance out the problems that are introduced.

 

You just couldn't leave it be, could you I'll rephrase, then, "My laptop outputs an adequate picture for a quick gaming session, in my opinion." Better?:110:

It's nice to see someone so into their games being perfect, too often people just don't give a damn about preserve video quality nor do they wonder how these games were intended. But then there are.. how shall we say.. extremes ;-) We must accept that we all have different standards of what counts as 'Horrible' 'Tolerable' 'Good' and 'Perfect'. It's cool that you're so into getting nothing but the best, but for me it has to end somewhere!

Regarding my outputting to a TV- I felt I wanted a blast on Mario All Stars, and I also wanted to try the laptop's output.. I completely forget what res the emulator was set to- I was using a 14" portable (the lovely old Daewoo I mentioned before, somewhere..) and in all honesty you probably could have fooled me it was coming from a real SNES.

Personally I don't see any discrepancy between a real game, the emulated version, and the emulated version output to a TV in terms of colour or hue. I simply just don't see any real difference (obviously tones will always vary between TV to Monitor depending on settings..), perhaps because I am not looking for it, I'm sure if I was to actively look for it then I would be able to. But then it would just annoy me. In this such scenario I didn't play for longer than an hour, so it sufficed :thumbsup:

 

Well, let me say this: I don't think that Sonic CD, compared to other games, is a really beautiful 2D game, lol. It's pretty much Sonic 1 graphics with the occasional cool background.

Sonic CD has a cool replay value through getting the time stones and going back in time to destroy the projector things, letting you get good futures. Pretty cool. My favorite Sonic is still Sonic 3 + Knuckles. Game kicked ass.

 

I agree with you. I think the art direction is really quite uninspired, and somewhat erractic. It is not beautiful, inspiring or imaginative. I like Palmtree Panic, but past that, I feel colours clash and are too 'busy'. I do love the animé style FMVs though, they are very cool.

I think I need to have a major session playing Sonic CD again to see if I can reformulate my opinion..

 

Very good, sir.

For me it ends with a console and an RGB cable; some people get far more into this than me, honestly. Anyway, I'm mostly just pointing this stuff out for the fun of it, and on the off chance that others might be interested.

Yeah, and that's fine. I played emulators until about 5 years ago, when I finally started feeling that I didn't want to play on them for fun (I'll still fire one up if I want to quickly check something or try out a beta or whatever), but I'm not trying to say they're evil incarnate or anything - sometimes it's all you've got. As long as you're not telling me it's "perfect" then we've got no argument; if you say it looks like a real SNES, though, I'm going to call you on it every time

 

I don't see how people play a game start to finish on an emulator. I haven't ever done that, I just don't like them. Same with burning old games, etc. I thought it was kind of cool to find the actual game.

 

..but then you could argue that a real SNES doesn't look perfect, you could argue that by outputting it to a TV (and not a monitor) you aren't getting 'perfection' . It could go on forever, we could then start defining perfection and adequacy and so on.. You have some good points, all very well made, and they have given some excellent discussion!

PhreQuencYViii, I agree with you here too- Sonic CD is the only game I have played to (near) completion (I couldn't bear it any longer..). I don't enjoy gaming on the PC, and I can only do so in short bursts, just to sample. Some people have overwhelmingly huge collections of ROMs on their hard drive; a catalogue of piracy, it takes a lot of the fun away for sure. I only emulate rarely to try the occasional beta/hack/oddity, or if I fancy a quick blast on something I don't have in my collection yet. But I must emphasize, that is very rare, maybe twice a year..?

I'd like to still get a Mega CD/Sega CD someday. Sonic CD will still be at the top of my list to see if I can actually enjoy it. For now, it's just a disappointment.

So, does anyone at all have any feelings on the soundtrack? I like both, and have played with both.. The American one sure is fitting, if a bit too 'safe'. The Japanese one feels to fit very snugly; the music is imaginative and it just reeks horribly of quirky, cool 90s charm. I think it is genuinely fun to play/listen to, with its offbeat voice samples and huge variety of soundscapes!

 

The optimal output for a SNES, the output the developers worked on when testing, was RGB. The debate ends there in my books. There are a few cases where games made obvious use of RF/composite blurring, but these are few and far between, and I remain resolutely unconvinced that the overall image degradation is worth it. I'm prepared to call that a subjective preference; the high-res + interpolation thing, not so much - it's just wrong.

Anyway, I've banged on enough about this now. I might dig out the Sonic CD soundtracks and give them a listen later.