HyperZone retrospective: F-Zero times two is still zero | Super NES Works

[@ArcaneAzmadi]

I don't think I've ever seen another shooter where your character just blatantly gets out of one ship and gets into another totally different one as the game progresses, so that's unique at least. Also I gotta say that Galaxy Force II looks amazing.

[@HellOnWheel]

I just randomly remembered this game and found this video. My sister and I were obsessed with it in the early 9Os. I think we got it from a bargain bin at TJ Maxx. We made up names for some of the enemies, and memorized the sequence and patterns of their movements. Good times.

[@gargonovich]

I actually love this game. I'm a huge Space Harrier fan and this scratches that itch, and the soundtrack is great. It's a great game to pick up and play for an hour every once in a while. Probably not worth the asking price back in the day, though.

[@catsaregovernmentspies]

I had it and loved it, too. It was oddly calming to play, probably because of the cool music and vibrant colors.

[@Bob_Beaky]

I feel like this was a deliberate companion to F-Zero and a progenitor to Star Fox. In a time when most sci-fi racing games involved weaponry in some form or other F-Zero was a pure racer. HyperZone compliments F-Zero by focusing on the shooting. If Star Fox had been pure Mode 7 it probably would've looked very similar to HyperZone and it's no secret that F-Zero and Star Fox have an in-universe link... Just my tuppence worth. :)

[@XISMZERO]

You pretty much nailed Hyperzone, Mr. Parish. I enjoyed this game much as a kid, remember picking it up on sale even in 1992 for $30 as a 2nd grade graduation present. I, too, drew so many parallels to F-ZERO and I think that's what HAL was going for as many of us were yearning for a (2P) sequel. Also amazed to see those later stages presented here: this game was tough as nails, most times was a challenge to get to Grass Land (and a ship with a charge shot). Later on, I ended up playing just to hear the jazz-fusion soundtrack... oh that Ripple Zone music is just butter to my ears.

[@benjaminkellog7311]

This was one of those games that always looked impressive on "Nick Arcade," but turned out to be much less satisfying upon closer inspection. I've only ever seen it on that show, but even in those 30-second windows, I always suspected it was probably a bit too shallow. Kinda weird how a lot of the games on "Arcade" became cult hits years later; "Actraiser," "Monster in My Pocket," "Addams Family," "Fester's Quest," "King of the Monsters." Heck, they even had an early prototype for "Sonic 2" that became fodder for endless rumors in the Internet's early days.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Benjamin Kellog Yeah, I loved watching Nick Arcade but I never thought of these games becoming a cult thing.

[@DrumMan423]

I loved Nick Arcade!!

[@zdp-189]

YES HYPERZONE! One of my 10 original SNES legendary games I owned and loved that no one else liked (Faceball 2000, Strike Gunner STG, Earth Defense Force 2017, Gradius III, Firepower 2000, Joe and Mac, Illusion of Gaia, this, well Super Mario Land/Kart were hugely popular). I got SNES later unfortunately since I was so dam young and had to wait a Christmas or 2.

[@BigDrahma]

Someone recently figured out the 3D active shutter signal was being pushed to the controller port: forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16968

[@IamMarkSmith]

I own this rare blip on the SNES radar and I have always enjoyed it. Thank you fo this video.

[@ShdwHg]

Huh, June 16, 2035 snuck up on us awfully fast, didn't it?

[@JeremyParish]

It was a long weekend for me... I had to review Sonic Forces. I aged decades in five hours.

[@lucasm.thomas5976]

Never knew anything about this one! Thanks for the continued insight into the past, Jeremy. :)

[@gfhrtshergheghegewgewgew1730]

here's some related trivia for you: a space harrier clone on the famicom published by asmik called cosmic epsilon also featured a hidden input-based 3d shutter rendering mode for use with 3d glasses, so maybe that's where hal got the inspiration to put it in the game cosmic epsilon is a much more solid space harrier-like than hyper zone, and while hyper zone comes out on top musically, cosmic epsilon also has a great soundtrack in its own right

[@hikaruk.981]

HyperZone always felt to me like it owed most of its design debt to Namco's old arcade game "Thunder Ceptor".

[@hombregatoooo]

Thunder Ceptor also had a stereoscopic 3D version

[@kevinbowyer7205]

I had to take a few breaths after "Oh Hal no" Funny stuff

[@AltimaNEO]

Interesting that you didn't mention the similarly in sound effects the ships engines seem to make between Fzero and HyperZone. Its pretty much identical!

[@PositronRobo]

"The chalcedony of 16-bit racers." I love it

[@Mercuriusfm]

I donated a SFC copy of this game to the guy who used to have the Sony/Nintendo PlayStation prototype console.

[@zackschilling4376]

This game always reminded me of the Jay Z video "Sunshine", with the flashing color background

[@bryanna72]

I can't get the level select code to work. Wish I could find some 3d glasses, I wonder if it would really work with the 3d mode code?

[@Zeomantic]

I liked Hyperzone!

[@jamesmoss3424]

I play it before and it was pretty good and the music is a work of art. 😀👍🎮

[@LunaticEdit]

I remember playing this game at a friend's house when it was new. My little mind was blown. I get it looks like a cheap ripoff game now, but I remember how excited I was about this game back then.

[@TheLastLineLive]

Ive never even seen this game, looks like a cross between f zero and Space Harrier.

[@johnsimon8457]

Oh MAN! I don’t think an undocumented feature like shutter glasses mode would have been released in a first party game.

[@barry-allenthe-flash8396]

The flat illusion limitation you mentioned (4:14) is so strange in retrospect. Turns out, the SNES could do voxel environments, apparently. *Actual* voxels, not the dumb polygonal cubes of games like Minecraft that have ruined the term nowadays - "Vertical Pixel" environments (like those in Outcast, Amok or Banjo Pilot's early version). Like Mode 7 Bitmaps, but with height data for each pixel letting it know to stretch upwards a certain amount? I found this out a few years ago when I was looking for *true* voxel games - there's a video here on KZbin that shows it in action via the Super FX chip: kzbin.info/www/bejne/noG1XpyJo8Z2q8U . Now, I know why pre-Super FX games like Hyperzone here didn't do it, but for the life of me, I have no idea why no SNES games (to my knowledge) actually use voxels LATER ON in the system's life. I just find the issue vexing. Voxels were (rarely) used in those early 3D days specifically because it was an alternative to polygonal graphics that didn't hit CPU's so hard. Stuff like Outcast and Amok genuinely look pretty amazing for the time. A SNES game that used Mode 7 and Voxels together likely could've looked pretty amazing and jazzed up a design like this quite a bit. Hyperzone is an interesting technical feat regardless though, and while it's a pretty one-note experience, I kinda still like it simply because it's the closest the SNES ever got to those Sega games you mentioned like Space Harrier and Galaxy Force (and Panorama Cotton, a personal fave of mine :P )

[@eddievhfan1984]

That tech demo does look impressive. Although its frame rate was still kinda low and it apparently does split processing on each half of the screen, based on the screen tear. What would've been great would've been implementing some kind of RTS or turn-based strategy/RPG that used voxels to do ground terrain for environmental combat. But it would have to be static or low-FPS images, as I can't imagine running voxel rendering, sound processing, and game logic all at the same time.

[@KuraIthys]

Yeah, and meanwhile 'A Link to the Past' manages to show off actual polygons (according to the programmer), and that fact completely passed me by. The Triforce in the Intro and ending is realtime 3d rendering. On the SNES. With no supporting chips. OK, sure it won't win any awards for complexity, but still.... As to voxels, (That means 'volumetric pixel' by the way, not 'vertical pixel' ) from what I know of SNES technology, I'm not really sure how that would work on a base system. I mean, it COULD work, but that's kind of stating the obvious. ANYTHING could work with enough processing power behind it. Hell, that's the story of every major PC game prior to 3d accelerators. Doom, Quake, Descent, Duke 3d, even stuff like Sim City 2000, Transport Tycoon and so on, is the result of a really powerful CPU coupled to exceptionally dumb and slow video hardware. This combo encourages doing as much work as possible on the CPU and in main RAM then transferring the result to the video card. In that sense, any hardware can do anything, if you're willing to accept how slow it is. However, what I do think mode 7 can do that isn't obvious... It would allow very fast textured and lit raycasting routines. EXCEPT, and this is probably why it was never done, the rays have to be cast along horizontal lines, where almost every raycaster in existence casts vertical lines. (but you'd lose any and all performance gains if you tried to use vertical line raycasting on the SNES.) We also know that mode 7 can produce effects other than flat planes. We see rotating cylinders in Castlevania, an even more warped floor and ceiling with curvature effect in Terranigma, and even an attempt to create hills and valleys in a mode 7 racer (Speed Racer), though that may have been a bridge too far given how clunky that game was, it did show it's possible in theory. And certainly there's no reason why it HAS to be a flat plane. Mode 7 really only does rotation and scaling on it's own. (and translation. But all scrolling background types do that) Perspective is a trick that relies on changing the scaling on a per scanline basis. And if you can do that in a regular fashion, (a predictable scale reduction each line, which creates planar perspective) it is of course also possible to do it in irregular fashion, creating much more complex effects. You could do it nonlinearly, which creates the effect of curved surfaces (primarily cylinders), you can split it, as seen here, but into many more sections. You can split it and create entirely independent views (aka mario kart) You can mimic variable heights at least in one axis, by more complex schemes, You can create rotating polygonal cylinders too, 3 sided, 4 sided or more, though only oriented horizontally. (but you can show more than one of them) And, you can do things where you rotate the image every scanline, though don't ask me what that looks like or what the point would be. You can also scroll each and every scanline an arbitrary amount, which is akin to the effect of having a texture coordinate for each scanline, which means you can do effects akin to texture mapping of surfaces, where say, one of those 4-sided cylinders has one of it's sides that keeps cycling through different textures. And of course a whole bunch of other geometry is possible as long as you stick to having it oriented horizontally, and never vertically. If you use the hardware window features you can create even more complex shapes by cutting out bits and pieces, and placing 'ground' and 'ceiling' planes at various 'heights' (though again this all oriented sideways, so technically these are walls). Because this is also a per-scanline effect, you can create the appearance of jagged columns - either broken, or like a piece of rock, and while the solid sides would be a single colour (though you could colour cycle per scanline too), they could have arbitrary heights, creating even more complex shapes. There's no end of things you can attempt with mode 7 when you realise it's functionally an affine texture mapping engine, albeit operating in screen space with some inflexible mapping, rather than on top of actual polygons. (for that matter, if you use the 'window' feature to cut out a shape and stick a mode 7 section in the middle you have quite literally created a textured polygon. Only one, mind you, but still.) As long as you observe the limitation that things can only reasonably vary along the vertical axis, and never along the horizontal (which means any shapes you create will be horizontally oriented. That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but it really isn't) Anyway, as long as you keep that in mind, you can take this idea really far, and do some exceptionally complex things. If you feel like it. But, you'd have to accept an orientation for these things that's rotated 90 degrees to how most people expect such effects to get used.

[@hugos1983]

Hi Jeremy.. great video... quick question... Is that music at the end when you announce the next game on the series taken out from sailor moon by any chance?

[@WrathOfNolla]

And that soundtrack isn't bad at all

[@SatoshiMatrix1]

Hyperzone... I remember renting this game when I was a kid, and didn't understand it, so I took it back and got something else. Sure, it wasn't as obtuse as a Koei game, but this game confused me when I was growing up.

[@zackschilling4376]

Id love a remake of Super R-Type with the slow down fixed, or even a new SNES (like a retron or the analogue one coming out soon) that could do away with the slow down. Im not sure if thats even possible, but it would be cool. Id also like an R-Type collection for 3DS/PS4/Switch/Steam. Who owns Irem at the moment? Hope its not Konami...

[@81Mendel]

Actually, that stereoscopic feature might now be usable on some modern tvs. Some tvs actually auto detect 3d content like this and you might be able to play this game in stereoscopic 3d with the standard 3d glasses that are compatible with your tv. I might give it a try on my tv.

[@defunctchannel942]

Why did they choose to reflect the bottom scrolling layer onto the ceiling? What illusion is it supposed to represent. Are you flying sideways through a canyon, or are you on some sandwiched planet?

[@defunctchannel942]

also, does anyone know where the music from the “next time” segment comes from? I hum it all the time

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Stephen Perteet It's from Neon Genesis Evangelion (the TV series).

[@KingMcvert]

I was already thinking about how much this game reminded me of 3D Worldrunner before the 3D was even mentioned. Quick question, would the Master System glasses work to see the 3D with some sort of workaround?

[@JeremyParish]

I wonder the same thing myself, but I don't have glasses to experiment with. I do upload these videos at 60fps, so active shutter glasses should theoretically work. I was hoping my mention of the tech might inspire someone to test it out and report back…

[@zdp-189]

BTW you have a great voice made for radio, relaxing factual and have me always shaking my head saying "yup, hes right, well said" Subscribing now.

[@xyklapse]

i'm disappointed you didn't talk much about the soundtrack. given how Jun Ishikawa managed to basically recycle every leitmotif from it throughout his career. its indisputably one of the game's (& the console's) most enduring features.

[@LiquidCruelty]

“Sir USGamer” ;_;

[@nimaiiikun]

random question but what program do you use to make your videos?

[@JeremyParish]

Adobe Premiere.

[@niespeludo]

Weren't you recording this on the Livestream a few days ago? Love the quality of your videos. Another great video.

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah, that footage became this material. I want to do more of those live streams - i just need to figure out how to keep live voice from recording and I can make this a regular thing.

[@Dryboneszero]

Probably get asked this a lot, whats the song at the end?

[@Desmaad]

It's a maybe a mediocre shmup that (probably unkowingly) rips off Namco's Thunder Ceptor, but I have a soft sport for it out of nostalgia, if anything.

[@nekononiaow]

I am coming back to this video almost one year after watching it for the first time but after watching another video which mentioned Hyperzone it struck me that you never mentioned the game similarity with Namco's arcade game Thunder Ceptor ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5a3dGymi8mnapY). Both have essentially the same gameplay despite some minor differences in terms of visual. Given that Thunder Ceptor dates from 1986 it seems likely that HAL was well aware of its existence and likely integrated as many of its gameplay as it could while still avoiding direct infringement.

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah, I learned about Thunder Ceptor while researching Namco a few months after producing this video. I've rewritten this script to include info about Thunder Ceptor for the upcoming print version of this series, though.

[@gunma747j]

Is this supposed to be a port of thunder cepter?

[@brady9592]

Shooters, these days mostly in 3-D 3rd or 1st person, are forever an ubiquitous and probably oversaturated genre.

[@redandblue323]

"DiaperZone"

[@littleterr0r]

"Oh HAL no"?! Stop the video, nothing can top that!

[@josephattwell1006]

I think you should put an epilsey warning on this video. The "3D" sections made my eyes hurt looking at them.

[@katt-the-pig]

9:04 Bet you love knowing that you'll have to cover games like that, all for the sake of retaining continuity.

[@JeremyParish]

It's not so bad. I've been editing the next video this morning and am doing my best to make an interesting go of it, despite it being the most bare-bones take on an ancient board game imaginable.

[@Poever]

Timely George Bush Sr. joke, sir

[@JeremyParish]

Thanks… I'm going to be keeping a running count of all the YOU MUST NEVER REFERENCE NEWS OR EVENTS BECAUSE VIDEO GAMES EXIST IN A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL VACUUM whinges that show up here.

[@JeremyParish]

There'll be more!

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

There is such a thing as relevance, though. I'm all for political commentary when it comes up naturally as a result of discussing a game's content, but neither this game nor the shooter genre has any connection to people in power abusing their privilege. It seems like a non sequitur that you brought up just because it happened to be on your mind, and that clashes pretty hard with the usual focused approach of your videos. I also never thought you were the kind of person to dismiss criticism as "whinging". Someone could think your comment was misguided without adhering to the strawman position you've cited in all caps.

[@JeremyParish]

That's two!