Time Gal Mega CD vs Sega CD

[David J.]

Got a few JPN Mega CD games this weekend, and I know the Japanese version of Timegal has a intro with lyrics and was censored in a few places in the US/PAL version...is it just me or do both versions look like they have different video like the Mega CD one has more faithful to the arcade, while the Sega CD looks much worse?

Hey, I only bought it because I bought some Laseractive games from the guy and he was like I don't have timegal, but I bought the Mega CD version from him anyway. Haha

[xelement5x]

I'm sure there were were changes between the two, I believe it was some of the death scenes that were omitted or slightly altered for the US version.

I love the SegaCD version, but there's no way I could pull the trigger for the Mega-LD unless it was extremely discounted. The cost for the Mega-LD version trends about $1000, and that's a lot of cash for a single game. You could buy like 2 CIB Earthbound with that kind of cash

[Sik]

I'm sure there were were changes between the two, I believe it was some of the death scenes that were omitted or slightly altered for the US version.

I have absolutely no idea about the changes but I can imagine it. There are a couple of scenes where her clothes are torn apart (though she covers anything that shouldn't be shown so don't start drooling =P).

Well, there's also the obvious one that multiple choice scenes are in English instead of Japanese (and if you don't want trial and error you better off get the English version, especially since the order of the options changes every time).

[kool kitty89]

I haven't seen the JP version (haven't found a download for it either), but is the in-game video more like the intro video in the US version? (the in-game portions are all extremely posterized and appear to be touched-up by hand with a characteristic pixel-art look and very little dithering, while the intro seems to be a direct conversion of the video with heavy -buttasteful- dithering to preserve more detail from the source material -similar dithering to Tenbu MCD Special- -Road Avenger does that too, along with a higher framerat, though the dithering threshold is a bit less than Tenbu or Time Gal's intro -it also seems to use conventional floyd-steinberg dithering, while Tenbu's dithering seems to be some custom algorithm with an emphasis on checkerboard dithering -mote like Keio Flying Squadron, and rather like some PCE demo images posted by Tomaitheous which were posterized to 12-bit RGB and then checkerboard dithered with an optimized 16 color 9-bit palette; good results for animated stuff, not sure how it would do for live action though)

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

Fun factoid: Did you know that the Wii game shooter "Castle of Shikigami III" features the SEGA CD character ""Time Gal"? Yes, you probably did but I just found this information out yesterday.

[kool kitty89]

OK, I took a look at the Japanese version.
The in-game graphics seem to be pretty much identical, but the intro is all re-drawn and pixel-arty (like the rest of the game) in that case. It looks clean (not grainy), but also very low detail and posterized . . . so I can see why some would feel it looked better, but I definitely prefer the dithered digitized conversion of the US release in the intro. (again, it retains more detail from the arcade original . . . I don't really care for that low-color pixel art look they converted it too -Sonic CD took that route too . . . Road Avenger didn't, but it did use less dithering -seems like a more direct digitized approach -probably with manual touch-up- but a much lower threshold on the dithering -so more posterized shading, but less graininess)

Honestly, it's a bit like comparing the Amiga version of Dragon's Lair to the Sega CD one (aside form the smoother animation of the CD version) in terms of dithered detail vs redrawn pixel art animation.

It's interesting to note that the Wolf Team logo also changed. (the animation is shaded/dithered in the US release, much like their Logo in Tenbu or Road Avenger)

[Team Andromeda]

The in-game graphics seem to be pretty much identical, but the intro is all re-drawn and pixel-arty (like the rest of the game) in that case. It looks clean (not grainy), but also very low detail and posterized . . . so I can see why some would feel it looked better, but I definitely prefer the dithered digitized conversion of the US release in the intro

I have both versions of the game and they're identical in-game bar the sound effects and speech . The intro in the Japanese version is taking footage direct from the Mega CD port, unlike the Sega CD version which is streaming in the intro from the Arcade version but in game both are using the buffered route to help with colours (like Popful Mail ect) Speaking of the 2 versions its amazing to see how Tim-Gal went from having one of the best covers to any game ever , to the horrible artwork used on the USA/Pal versions .

[kool kitty89]

I have both versions of the game and they're identical in-game bar the sound effects and speech . The intro in the Japanese version is taking footage direct from the Mega CD port, unlike the Sega CD version which is streaming in the intro from the Arcade version

Umm, this really doesn't make sense . . . neither case would be "streaming from the Sega CD port" nor "from the arcade version", but both are "ports" of the arcade intro cutscene/demo, just converted differently. (JP version uses the same stylized/posterized redrawn/recolored pixel art style as the rest of the game, while the US version seems to have taken a more direct digitized conversion of the arcade FMV with optimized dithering to retain more detail within the 16 color limit, and also with more visible digitization style artifacts rather than by-hand redrawn frames -albeit I still much prefer the greater detail in spite of the artifacts -dithering errors and flickering shaded areas -it's very similar to the conversion format used for Tenka Fubu . . . probably the exact same given they're both Wolf Team)

but in game both are using the buffered route to help with colours (like Popful Mail ect) Speaking of the 2 versions its amazing to see how Tim-Gal went from having one of the best covers to any game ever , to the horrible artwork used on the USA/Pal versions .

Not sure how/why buffering would come into play (beyond what basically ALL FMV does on the system -buffering chunks of streaming data to avoid stuttering/lag/tearing/etc -albeit the tearing issue is specific to MD VRAM/VDP bandwidth and not MCD RAM).

It's certainly not using pre-loaded buffer animation. (the video is WAY, WAY too long for that to work in the MCD's limited RAM; it's definitely streaming . . . and simple 16 color bitmap -or tilemap- frames without compression at that -at the resolution, framerates, and sound quality used, they could easily manage that with 1x CD bandwidth -similar to Road Avenger, Cobra Command, Tenka Fubu, Keio Flying Squadron, etc)

There is also no "extra" color used at all. It's all just single-palette 16 color bitmap/tile frames (like Keio, Cobra Command, Road Avenger, etc), not using added palette optimization like most western FMV (including all SoA developed/supported formats) and Tenka Fubu for that matter. (in fact, both the color optimization and dithering algorthm used appear very similar to the early -pre-cinepak- Sega Film formats)

[Team Andromeda]

Umm, this really doesn't make sense

Time Gal liked a few mega CD games used buffered in FMV like the sort of way Chuck Rock II, Popfulmail and what not and that was reflected in the better colour pallet , other games just used the standard FMV route and that always resulted in grainy footage but with far smoother footage as one will see by playing Road Adv, Revenge of the Ninja and then playing Time Gal it So the Japanese/Pal version is just playing back the intro directly taken from the Arcade version, while the USA isn't I would have thought

[xelement5x]

Fun factoid: Did you know that the Wii game shooter "Castle of Shikigami III" features the SEGA CD character ""Time Gal"? Yes, you probably did but I just found this information out yesterday.

I learned this relatively recently too, but I've yet to see a copy of this ever show up used near me. The wait continues!

[kool kitty89]

Time Gal liked a few mega CD games used buffered in FMV like the sort of way Chuck Rock II, Popfulmail and what not and that was reflected in the better colour pallet , other games just used the standard FMV route and that always resulted in grainy footage but with far smoother footage as one will see by playing Road Adv, Revenge of the Ninja and then playing Time Gal it So the Japanese/Pal version is just playing back the intro directly taken from the Arcade version, while the USA isn't I would have thought

What better color palette??? It's 16 colors, so worse than anything done by SoA (including Night Trap and Sewer Shark) in that respect. Also, buffering would have little/nothing to do with better use of color.

Again, with the screen size, color, and framerate limitations, it's definitely just streaming uncompressed bitmap/tile frames. (like Sonic CD, Road Avenger, Keio Flying Squadron, Tenbu, Cobra Command, etc)
And of those uncompressed examples, Keio and Road Avenger probably had the best optimization. (in terms of color, dithering, framerate, screen size etc -though given the screen size and framerate, Road Avenger probably makes better use of the bandwidth than Keio -assuming the audio is the same quality)

Chuck Rock II, Popful Mail, and Lunar II, do appear to be doing something else though. (looks like a mix of streaming animation and realtime sprite/BG scrolling/positioning, need to double check on the color usage)



OK, I looked at Chuck Rock II (and BC Racers), and Popful Mail, and found this:
There's definitely optimization for multi-layer sprite/BG animation, but in the case of the CORE games, it's limited to 2 bitmap-style planes that don't scroll (so more like Dragon's lair), and there is multi-palette color use. (didn't look further into that . . . not sure if it's a fixed palette set or not -though it seems more like a fixed palette, unlike Dragon's Lair)
However, Popful Mail does make some use of scrolling on the 2 separate planes, though only uses sprites to cover up garbage tiles in the boarder, and also appears to use tilemap-style animation (animation updates on a per-tile basis rather than pre-frame), but it also appears to be limited to only 16 colors for the entire screen, and a fixed 16 color palette at that. (I took screenshots of several frames at different sections of the intro and the combined unique color count was still only 16)

So, while animation quality (for certain things) may benefit from Popful Mail's cutscene engine, color most definitely does not. (color is actually considerably more limited than in most uncompressed 16 color FMV examples -since most of those do per-frame palette optimization- and even more limited compared to multi-palette FMV examples -vs CORE's animation, which uses more color per-frame, but may still be limited by a fixed palette, so still worse than optimized multi-palette FMV formats, especially Dragon's Lair/Space Ace -which also use compositing)

[Team Andromeda]

What better color palette??? It's 16 colors, so worse than anything done by SoA (including Night Trap and Sewer Shark) in that respect.

Sigh ..

Do you play the games or just have a little look on You Tube. Now go back and play the game and In-Game you'll see far less grainy imagine being used compared to nearly every other FMV game including every single Wolf Team game . In game it's quite clear to see the difference, you can even see it on Youtube







Even Spiderman is using a similar trick

[kool kitty89]

Sigh ..

Do you play the games or just have a little look on You Tube. Now go back and play the game and In-Game you'll see far less grainy imagine being used compared to nearly every other FMV game including every single Wolf Team game . In game it's quite clear to see the difference, you can even see it on Youtube

None of my comparisons are based on YT videos . . . and you can't simply judge things by looking at them. After taking screen caps from emulators, it's obvious that the games mentioned are NOT doing any additional color optimization (in terms of getting higher color counts) and are simple 16 color images. (how well the games were converted with omptimized color palettes and/or dithering -and or by-hand redrawing- are different issues than the technical abilities for more color)

And none of those wolf team games are doing anything special color wise (and use a variety of different conversion techniques in terms of color/dithering/touch-up -I personally don't care for the re-drawn pixel-art look though), and none of these cases would need added buffering in any ways that many other frame-by-frame FMV formats wouldn't also need. (certainly not like what some Game Arts stuff uses -not sure about BC Racers, that might be 100% streaming too but using dual-layers more like Dragon's lair -and, again, Popful Mail has no better color than any wolf team games or Sonic CD -actually worse than many wolf team games since those use per-frame palettes rather than a fixed 16 color palette, but the advantage comes from the use of scrolling and compositing beyond simple frame by frame animation -nothing to do with color though -and, using emulation with layer priority control, you can separate how the animation is being done -mostly with 2 scrolling tile layers with streaming tile animation updates on both planes, no use of sprites aside of hiding artifacts in the boarder)

Anything "impressive" on the wolf team games is done on the encoding end, not the decoding end . . . they're just uncompressed 16 color frames being streamed from CD along with uncompressed 8-bit PCM. (and not even implementing multi-palette optimization like Night Trap, Sewer Shark, or Tenka Fubu -all of which are uncompressed or virtually uncompressed -iirc Sewer Shark technically uses some lossless compression, but it's so minor that it's almost not worth mentioning -Night Trap uses the same framerate and resolution and similar multiple palettes and sound quality, so I'm not sure anything was gained in Sewer Shark's case -the color clash issues are less, but that's nothing to do with compression and more to do with encoding or just the source video itself catering to fewer artifacts)

And any of the plain 16-color examples would thus be similar to what an Atari ST/MST could achieve color-wise (less than an STe -only 9-bit RGB, and obviously not using any palette swapping raster effects to boost color).



And, obviously, the end results depend both on technical limitations of the format and the specific visual quality achieved with the encoding/optimization of conversion to that format. (and how well the source material caters to the format's limitations -and how it caters to the encoding/conversion techniques for that matter)

[Team Andromeda]

Why the need for the 500 world plus replay in almost every thread ?

Playing Time Gal it's quite clear is suffering none of the trade mark grain that was a trademark of most SEGA Mega CD FMV games quite like Chuck Rock II, Lunar II FMV , Pop Full Mail FMV compared to all other FMV games which have the grain them

[kool kitty89]

Why the need for the 500 world plus replay in almost every thread ?

Playing Time Gal it's quite clear is suffering none of the trade mark grain that was a trademark of most SEGA Mega CD FMV games quite like Chuck Rock II, Lunar II FMV , Pop Full Mail FMV compared to all other FMV games which have the grain them

Umm, graininess (dithering) has absolutely nothing to do with overall video quality. Simple posterization (thresholding) is the simplest/laziest approach to low-color graphics, and usually looks the worst by far (save for extremely stylized examples -and even those have trade-offs).

Live action stuff in particular tends to look truly horrible (like in Microcosm and Novastorm), but cartoon/animated (and CGI) stuff can be pretty nasty too. (pretty much any case where there's lots of color and shading gradients -simple, low-color, high-contrast graphics cater well to posterization though)

Dithering takes much more work to optimize for, especially to work well with given source material, and IMO the best dithered examples look miles better than the best stylized/low-color examples. (and is why I much prefer the US intro for Time Gal -with the added dithering, but much greater retention of detail/shading- though it's certainly less optimized than some examples -especially Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, and to lesser extent Batman and Robbin- but not much worse than Keio)

And, again, Road Avenger is an interesting example due to it using a very modest amount of dithering to retain some detail/shading while still taking advantage of the relatively simple color/shading of the animation to reduce graininess without massive loss of detail over the original. (it also doesn't have that odd, re-drawn pixel-art look of Time Gal or Sonic CD on the MCD)


There's a reason that dithering is almost always preferred by default over posterization when it comes to low-color digital images . . . graininess doesn't look great, but it usually looks far better than posterization. (including gif images)
See wiki's comparison of posterized and dithered images: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither#Examples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither#Algorithms (threshold is the same as posterization -not dither is added, just hard rounding/truncation to the limited color depth -in that case, 1-bit monochrome)




The only other issue is that posterization favors some types of compression algorithms (especially lossless stuff -including simple RLE and LZ based stuff), so higher framerates and/or resolution could be facilitated by avoiding dithering too. (not the case with any of the games in question -all that Japanese stuff is uncompressed; though the couple Psygnosis games I mentioned did that and Dune did as well)