U.N. SQUADRON GRAPHICS COMPARISON | Arcade VS Super NES

[@SNSTStrider]

Great comparison! I was curious how you'd breakdown each platform since they're so different. Your analysis is clean and easy to follow and the differences are entertaining to compare. loved the snes port in jr. high and it's great to see it compared with the og arcade. I look forward to more reviews!

[@sammylane21]

When I first encountered the final boss, I remember screaming "WHAT THE FUDGE IS THAT COLOSSAL THING!!", my plane looked like a fly compared to it. 😂🤣

[@StevenCusic]

the sound effects are much better in the snes version with the 16-bit PCM, with shooting slightly / and especially explosions being jarring on the arcade with it's 4-bit ADPCM also being one of the first cps1 games didn't help. it's not too bad if you play it on mame with sample rate at 11025 but than you also lose the juicy sounds of the YM2151 FM, I've talked to mame developers including HAZE about the option to change sample rates on channels but to no avail

[@playnalisis]

How would you rate the Super NES sound chip?

[@StevenCusic]

​@@playnalisis 10/10 really in it's own league. I'm saying that because of it's diversity, uniqueness and having a very clean sound on a well thought out chip, also there are some instruments that are really trifling when they reach higher pitches on less compressed sequencers but sound good on the SPC700 due to Gaussian interpolation on each channel, which removes the aliasing making everything less harsh. i know it only has 7 8- bit Music Macro Language sequencer (midi type) channels and 1 16-bit PCM compared to the 16/32 16-bit channels on pro sequencers - but honestly most of those channels are just there to giving the current instruments more dynamics for instance a distortion guitar sounds really good when you have 4 channels of it in stereo. so the SPC700 is the opposite of Dynamic which actually makes it really cool

[@PlasticCogLiquid]

@@StevenCusic I usually prefer the FM sounds on the Megadrive/Arcade. I like the squishy/squabbly sounds, they're satisfying as hell. I almost always prefer FM sound effects over samples. The SPC was awesome and gave us some killer stuff like the underrated Contra III soundtrack, Chrono Trigger, Metroid.....etc but overall I'll take FM anyday. The YM2151 does metallic sounds like bullet ricochets so well

[@Manobaru]

When comparing some assets, like the tank boss around 6:45, you can see that the SNES sprites seem horizontally squished, which suggest the game was made with the SNES native 8:7 aspect ratio, that is displayed on CRT screens, instead of 4:3 that most emulators default to - which means it would probably be better to adjust for that when doing a graphics comparison P.S. You can also see how the character portraits are in a different shaped rectangulars when comparing arcade to SNES. Displaying the game in 8:7 fixes that and makes them look almost the same. I hope you can make an addendum to this video, some time in the future, with that in mind :) Edit: It's probably other way around - 8:7 instead of 4:3, but still, it's the wrong aspect ratio nonetheless 😅

[@playnalisis]

You talking about adjusting the SNES to match the Arcade aspect ratio?

[@Manobaru]

@@playnalisis No no. I mean to display it in 8:7 instead of 4:3. This game wasn't made for 4:3. SNES signal is always displayed in 8:7 on CRT TVs and most SNES graphics were made pre-adjusted for that. Your footage is probably from an emulator, where default aspect ratio is 4:3, because that's how SNES graphics are displayed when not adjusted to how SNES graphics card would rendered that on TV. That's why on most of official SNES emulation (for example on 3DS) there's a "normal" and "pixel perfect" mode. That is also why some of the assets, like fire on the burning towers, appear smaller than on the arcade version. They're not supposed to :) If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, check out the "Super Nintendo Aspect Ratio" video, by the "Displaced Gamers", here on KZbin. They do a wonderful job in explaining all of that in few minutes, than what I'm able to in comments :D

[@Manobaru]

Or wait, maybe it's the other way - you're displaying it in 8:7, because the emulator displays it like that by default, instead of 4:3 that it was intended for. Monday morning lol, sorry. Either way the video I mentioned should explain everything :D

[@playnalisis]

@Manobaru the emulator I can display it at any resolution. I didn’t know about the 8:7

[@playnalisis]

@Manobaru wow bro that is good info

[@Sinn0100]

There should have been a port of UN Squadron on the Sega Genesis as well. We know the Sega Genesis had no issues running CPS-1 arcade games. Just look at Ghouls n' Ghosts in 1989 and Strider in 1990 for examples of this, but I digress.... Coincidentally, UN Squadron was one of the earlier Snes games I sought out. From my experience with Ghouls n' Ghosts and Strider, I knew not to miss UN Squadron. I wasn't wrong, and in no time, UN Squadron found its way into my regular rotation of games.

[@playnalisis]

All because of Nintendo horrible monopoly

[@Sinn0100]

@@playnalisis That is very true.

[@playnalisis]

@@Sinn0100 I am very surprised there wasn’t a anti-trust law suit of something type like what happened to Microsoft with its Windows OS

[@Sinn0100]

@playnalisis Atari sued Nintendo over their illegal, predatory licensing schemes in 1990. While Atari lost their case with Nintendo, they were able to show that the big N did not have the ability to continue to bar its competitors access to 3rd parties (the industry grew too fast for them). By the time the Snes was flooding US markets, Nintendo's 3rd party scheme just kind of stopped. What was really funny was the end results of the Snes vs. Sega Genesis shopping year of 1991. Nintendo was expected to be the clear industry leader, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. You had publications like Time Magazine declaring Nintendo the clear winner of the "16-bit War" long before anyone actually compared them. I heard it so much that I actually started believing Nintendo's win was all but a forgone conclusion. When the numbers were finally released, Sega, running a fair, and even marketing campaign kicked the ever loving ***** out of Nintendo. They humbled them and the industry at large was better for it.

[@outerspaceman7534]

Not gonna lie, Genesis Ghouls n Ghosts is perfect in every way. I think it has better graphics, music and sound effects than the SNES Super GnG.

[@davidvfx]

Every time I hear "the level boss (the tank) is identical to the SNES one" a fairy dies for such a lie, and it is not the only occasion, there are several times that they say that the graphics are identical and this is not true. The SNES managed a resolution of 256 x 224 pixels for this game (like almost all of their games); while the Arcade used 384x224 pixels, that is a lot of difference; so the argument that they are identical graphics is not true.

[@playnalisis]

When I say “identical graphics” I don’t mean resolution, I mean graphical detail. I know the arcades have more display resolution than the consoles.

[@jumbledb0798]

Snes was superior only because of my bias of owning the game as a kid and playing it too much. Great game either way

[@playnalisis]

Well it was a very good port. It had transparencies that the Arcade didn’t have.

[@jumbledb0798]

@@playnalisis Capcom made a lot of bangers during that time period.

[@mcwomble99]

2 player on the arcade is a much better experience

[@playnalisis]

The only bad thing about two players are the same time it sometimes I’ll get mixed up and Look at the wrong plane and get killed. Sometimes with two players you get mixed up and which player it is it happened to me a bunch of times

[@HAHb-zc2dp]

Arcade was soooo much better!!!

[@playnalisis]

Depends on the level