Forgotten Worlds Arcade vs PC Engine TurboDuo | Utterly Pointless Comparisons

[@mortenera2294]

The PC Engine CD version of this timeless classic is very good, I'd argue even a little better than the Mega Drive. Sure it might lack the parallax scrolling, but it gets almost everything else right

[@InglebardGaming]

It's pretty well done overall. Each of them does some things better than the other. The PCE CD version overall has more detail (but not all of it) from the arcade game, but the Genesis version has the parallax, teo player mode and much better balanced difficulty. I think it's fair to call them about even.

[@tigheklory]

Why wasn't Black Tiger ever ported to any console? Crazy it wasn't.

[@InglebardGaming]

Yeah, it was one that fell through the cracks. The computer versions that came out weren't great, either.

[@BrickTamlandOfficial]

oh darn! my date with cleopatra is RUINED

[@InglebardGaming]

The most tragic line from the entire game!

[@piccolo1976]

Great comparison and nicely synced. Never played the PC E version but came away from your video impressed, despite some of the graphical omissions, it still manages to look quite faithful to the arcade. Shame about the missing 2 player mode, but then it would have been a slow down flickerfest, probably better they left it out. Thought the MD version was great at release, one of the many shining arcade ports that made the console so popular back then.

[@InglebardGaming]

Yeah, the Genesis version is great despite its limitations, namely being on an itty-bitty 4 megabit cart. But for 1989 at home, it was amazing despite the cuts. The PCE version is pretty good, but could have definitely been optimized.

[@celebrategout1008]

Been a while since I've seen one of these comparisons but the quality is there as always🎉

[@InglebardGaming]

Thanks, appreciate it!

[@fazares]

Fantastic comparison....i played this one on the switch..quite the hard quarter muncher indeed!

[@InglebardGaming]

Definitely. Ghouls n Ghosts and Strider are balanced much better.

[@Tempora158]

12:37 It's obvious these pics are the arcade assets untouched from the arcade game, because NEC are using these pictures at their original CPS1 resolution without correcting their aspect ratio to 4:3 when displayed using the PC Engine's resolution, while the redrawn sprites are drawn with the correct aspect ratio in respect to the PC Engine's resolution.

[@InglebardGaming]

Yes, that's what I was talking about with the different resolution and aspect ratio of the arcade game. One funny, but terrible, approach the devs of the Amiga version took was to just take pictures of the arcade game screen instead of importing or drawing anything. Western devs didn't usually have access to source code or assets, so that's why the computer versions did those sorts of things. One note on the PCE resolution, it could have been much closer to the arcade original since it can do up to 512 pixel width (maybe even slightly more), but almost nothing made for the system uses higher resolutions. I'm guessing it's due to the ram/vram requirements.

[@thetechn1que518]

@@InglebardGaming R-Type uses a higher horizontal resolution, right? Not 512, but maybe 320 instead of the normal 256?

[@JudgmentStorm]

@@thetechn1que518 R-Type's horizontal resolution is 384, similar to CPS-1.

[@mleolv426]

Pc Engine never ceases to amaze me. A bit of flicker and slow down is totally excusable considering what they have the machine doing.

[@InglebardGaming]

Eh, it's pretty well done, but when you look at some other stuff on the platform like Gradius II, it's clear NEC could have done more work to reduce the flicker and slowdown. It's still good, but there was room for improvement.

[@kdm7820]

I’m a bit perplexed by your disappointment in the PC Engine version. You constantly insinuate that you think that the “developers could have done more”. Why is that your assumption? Clearly the devs wanted to get as close to source as possible, and this belief that the devs were just being lazy or incompetent is pretty irritating…. Especially with the additional touches they put in some areas. Give them some benefit of the doubt that in most cases, it was a RAM or technical limitation. Memory was king back in the day, whether it was system RAM or ROM size. This is a phenomenal port of an arcade game that had no business being this good on the “8-bit” PCE. I trust that the devs worked within memory and system limits, and made cuts where and when they had to…. Not just because they were lazy.

[@InglebardGaming]

@kdm7820 I never said they were lazy. 'Could have done more' means it was possible to accomplish more based on what other devs did on the same hardware. There are plenty of shmups on the system with a similar amount of objects on the screen that did it with way less slowdown and flicker, and in some cases with raster effects to simulate parallax scrolling, too. There are lots of reasons decisions are made during game development. Games have schedules and budgets and human beings with different levels of skill working on them. So again, I'm not calling the devs lazy in this case, but yes, I do think it's more than fair to question why in 1992 this game had more issues than many similar games that came before it. Gradius II came out the same year on the same platform and is just one example of a game that had way fewer issues and was in many places visually more impressive.

[@mleolv426]

@@InglebardGaming I'm definitely would have liked to see the stars in the background included in the PC Engine version.

[@Mamiya645]

It's nice to check quality ports out. Looking as far back as ZX Spectrum the results were only sometimes playable, but the work they put in - wow! Now they run script upscale_textures_to_4k on a ten year old game that could only dream of having a tenth the respect and legacy of Forgotten Worlds and ask $10 extra.

[@InglebardGaming]

Yeah, the modern industry is kind of a cesspool outside of a few big hits right now. There are still some good games, but some things definitely have to change before the whole industry collapses on itself (I was only half joking when I said that in a recent video).

[@MarquisDeSang]

I had the arcade cabinet at home 20 years ago and played the pc engine cd version recently, they are both great.

[@shenglongisback4688]

I wonder why did Sega not port Side Arms ??

[@InglebardGaming]

I imagine there are a few reasons. First, NEC licensed it for the PCE. Second, it was already a bit old since Forgotten Worlds was out. In those days, older arcade games rarely got ported to newer systems. Any time a company strayed from the norm and did that, the company releasing the older game was slammed and the review scores were often pretty rough.

[@shenglongisback4688]

@@InglebardGaming Totally makes sense, Nintendo and that Choke hold didn't help. Would be Cool if someone could do a game hack, But change the characters too Transbot and Another bot could it Heavy Metal War.. Side arm Elite?? Do as a sequel to Transbot on Master System and Third entry on the MD, something I would do it if I was good at programming. Like Submarine attack, Black Belt, The Ninja... an actual Proper Alex Kidd sequel on both console would be something I would if I knew how too do it.

[@joesshows6793]

Loved this game on genesis

[@InglebardGaming]

I did an Arcade vs Genesis comparison, too. A few years ago. You can find it here on the channel if you're interested, it's my overall favorite home version!

[@BERNDSBG]

I guess that the controls should be in the focus much more. Which of the home ports comes closer to controlling a Robotron. I guess that this is the part, where both ports fall apart.

[@InglebardGaming]

The controls are definitely nicer in the Genesis version. You can also change rotation speed in that version but not in the PCE CD version.

[@LacyArango]

Pc engine has more detail in graphics then genesis. That stage with the dragon boss is just like the arcade. Don't get me wrong because I am a great genesis fan but the programmers did not use enough memory to put detail in the game.

[@InglebardGaming]

Sega didn't have much choice in 1989. The only game on a larger cart at the time was their other Capcom conversion, Ghouls n Ghosts, which was only slightly larger at 5 megabits. If the Genesis version had come out in 1992 instead, it would have likely been 16 megabits and probably very close to the cps1 version. Even an 8 mb version could have been close, considering what they did with half of that. Anyway, I think its fair to call it a draw between pce and Genesis for these games. They each fill pretty big gaps left by the other.