Samurai Shodown (SNES vs. Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis vs. Sega Mega CD)

**OverDrone** · 07-15-2012, 10:28 PM

I've got most of the Neo Geo Online Collection releases and your right, they do vary in quality between releases. Some have filters, some don't. Garou Battle Archives and Fuun Super Tag Battle have 240p, others don't. World Heroes Gorgeous lacks the warping floors of the arcade (interesting because several emulators couldn't do this either).

Still overall they are pretty good representations of the games, and vastly superior to the ones done in the west. Some even added Vs modes for the fighters which didn't exist for the original Neo releases.

Anyway, OT: SS is the best Neo port for Genesis, hands down. It looks extremely similar, and a lot of the various sound FX made it across intact, unlike the Fatal Furies or AOF. I remember being very impressed with the port when I saw it.

All things considered, the MD wasn't really suited to arcade fighting games of the time - it seemed that in most cases an accurate conversion was just out of the machines reach.

The Sega Saturn would see to that though.

**Azathoth** · 07-16-2012, 02:20 AM

Originally Posted by OverDrone

World Heroes Gorgeous lacks the warping floors of the arcade (interesting because several emulators couldn't do this either).

Wow, I had never noticed that.

I did think it was pretty cool that they went through the trouble to do like you mentioned and add the extra modes, and also the arranged soundtracks for games that never had them before. FF & WH were fairly good, considering some of the sugary synth sounding stuff used in the mid-ninties.

**OverDrone** · 07-16-2012, 02:45 AM

Yeah, I haven't checked the current state of accuracy in Neo emulation for years, but I remember I think MAME doing the warping floors in WH, but not NeoRage, for example. It could be some trick the Neo does that isn't native to the hardware or something, But seeing the World Heroes Gorgeous compilation miss that out I just thought SNK you lazy bastards!

**tbp** · 07-16-2012, 05:56 AM

As for me, when I discovered this Genesis Samouraï Shodown port, I was impressed and surprised
in a very positive way (60 Hz mode is a must). A great and fun alternative to the Street Fighter titles.

**BrianC** · 07-17-2012, 02:43 AM

Originally Posted by Aarzak

Only the KOF: Orochi Saga, Metal Slug Anthology and SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 compilations were developed in the U.S. The rest were ports from the Japanese-developed SNK compilations, which varied in quality (supposedly the SS and Last Blade collections were the ones with the worst emulation of them all).

I read somewhere that the JP KOF: Orochi Saga PS2 is actually different from the US version and much better. I have no idea why the the US version was done by Terminal Reality.

**Aarzak** · 07-17-2012, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by BrianC

I read somewhere that the JP KOF: Orochi Saga PS2 is actually different from the US version and much better. I have no idea why the the US version was done by Terminal Reality.

Indeed, the Japanese "Orochi Hen" collection is better than the U.S developed one. It follows the same format as the rest of the Japanese compilations, most notably offering original and arranged soundtracks (the U.S didn't offer the latter), and no loading times other than when one chooses a game (the U.S Orochi Saga has annoying loading times in-game).

**OverDrone** · 07-17-2012, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by Aarzak

Indeed, the Japanese "Orochi Hen" collection is better than the U.S developed one. It follows the same format as the rest of the Japanese compilations, most notably offering original and arranged soundtracks (the U.S didn't offer the latter), and no loading times other than when one chooses a game (the U.S Orochi Saga has annoying loading times in-game).

The Orochi Hen collection for Neo Online is good except that it only displays in 480i, with no optional filters (This looks a bit flickery but acceptable on a CRT, but forget it on a HD set).

The display options for this series of re-releases was absolutely schizophrenic. By the time they got to doing Garou BA, we had 240p by default, but within a couple more releases they went back to 480i and started using blurry filters. Interestingly, the first release in the series, Mark of the Wolves, is the only one to offer a 480p option (as well as a filter).

Could be because they knew people were starting to use HD panels, and let me assure you that a Natively 240p game upscaled to 480i with no filter at all looks like dog's balls. They should have given the emulation duties to M2, who proved themselves with the later Sega Ages compilations, and Mushihimesama Futari on 360, by including a shed load of display options for the user to tinker with.

Oh, and SNK Arcade Classics Vol 1 has the worst emulation I've ever seen on console, up there with the performance of the latter two Midway packs. It's terrible, and drops frames like there's no tomorrow.

**Aarzak** · 07-18-2012, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by OverDrone

The Orochi Hen collection for Neo Online is good except that it only displays in 480i, with no optional filters (This looks a bit flickery but acceptable on a CRT, but forget it on a HD set).

The display options for this series of re-releases was absolutely schizophrenic. By the time they got to doing Garou BA, we had 240p by default, but within a couple more releases they went back to 480i and started using blurry filters. Interestingly, the first release in the series, Mark of the Wolves, is the only one to offer a 480p option (as well as a filter).

Could be because they knew people were starting to use HD panels, and let me assure you that a Natively 240p game upscaled to 480i with no filter at all looks like dog's balls. They should have given the emulation duties to M2, who proved themselves with the later Sega Ages compilations, and Mushihimesama Futari on 360, by including a shed load of display options for the user to tinker with.

Oh, and SNK Arcade Classics Vol 1 has the worst emulation I've ever seen on console, up there with the performance of the latter two Midway packs. It's terrible, and drops frames like there's no tomorrow.

"Sega Smash Pack" (Dreamcast)?

**Ecco** · 07-25-2012, 10:27 AM

Hey here are a couple random SS questions:

Earlier in the thread someone referred to the announcer and the referee, IIRC. Anyways I had always assumed that the referee was also the announcer! But do most folks think the announcer is a separate guy from the announcer???

--ALSO: I always wondered what that strange kind of howl is, in the background of a couple stages. You know that howl like, "Youuuuuuuuuuuuu!" (Not in Genesis version, but it is on Sega CD.) Anyways what is that supposed to be and who is saying it??? (It's on the stage for Ukyo, most noticeably, while fighting in front of Mt. Fuji! But also in the one for that actor Kyoshiro IIRC.)

**sheath** · 07-25-2012, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by Ecco

Hey here are a couple random SS questions:

Earlier in the thread someone referred to the announcer and the referee, IIRC. Anyways I had always assumed that the referee was also the announcer! But do most folks think the announcer is a separate guy from the announcer???

--ALSO: I always wondered what that strange kind of howl is, in the background of a couple stages. You know that howl like, "Youuuuuuuuuuuuu!" (Not in Genesis version, but is on Sega CD.) Anyways what is that supposed to be and who is saying it???

It's a common tenet in Japanese opera. That's all I know.

**Ecco** · 07-25-2012, 10:39 AM

^Interesting. Maybe it's like a battle cry or something. I'd love to read a proper explanation at some point...

And so I must have been the only one who thought the referee and announcer were the same guy???

EDIT: I can't find the original comments. But do you guys think the ref is also the announcer, or that he is a separate guy???

**Stef** · 07-30-2012, 07:02 AM

One of the funny thing is the MD version of SS is that the flags guy is not done of sprites but directly rendered in the background plan in software.
I believe they had to do that to avoid sprite flickering when you play tam tam vs tam tam for instance as sprites are really larges !
For sure this is a good port, just for this reason... and also this is something that it is impossible to do on SNES, big sprites with good animation + software sprite rendering is definitely too heavy for the weak VDP bandwish and CPU power of the SNES, it is probably one of the reason of the smaller sprites in this version.