Is Metal Slug on Genesis possible?

[j_factor]

If size is the main problem, I wonder how well Sega CD could handle it.

[Kamahl]

If size is the main problem, I wonder how well Sega CD could handle it.

Not enough RAM.

[chessage]

^Title. If one had the time, skill and money, could one do a reasonably good port of Metal Slug on a stock Genesis?

Well, theelf seems to think so.

[j_factor]

Not enough RAM.

Wouldn't that make it just like the Playstation version but with more frequent stop-and-loads?

[Kamahl]

Wouldn't that make it just like the Playstation version but with more frequent stop-and-loads?

Unless you don't mind the game stopping every 10 seconds I'd say yes, but that's not what would happen.
If the game used CD audio the entire level had to fit in memory.
Even if it streamed stuff, the animation and detail would still take a massive hit since it's only a 1x drive.

Well, theelf seems to think so.

Great use of color, but it's not really metal slug. it's a picture with a sprite moving around.

[Drakon]

Wouldn't that make it just like the Playstation version but with more frequent stop-and-loads?

Cartridge based games don't have loading time. If anything either it would suffer a looooot of slowdown or just have less characters on the screen at one time than the neo geo version. A lot of ports of graphically beautiful games get the graphics majorly downsized so they take up less ram space and don't overkill the system. Atleast that's my theory....rom space is another reason.

Also I agree with everything kamahl says.

[sega16]

Cartridge based games don't have loading time. If anything either it would suffer a looooot of slowdown or just have less characters on the screen at one time than the neo geo version. A lot of ports of graphically beautiful games get the graphics majorly downsized so they take up less ram space and don't overkill the system. Atleast that's my theory....rom space is another reason.

Also I agree with everything kamahl says.

I don't understand why people think we need a super cart even the sprites can be compressed with http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...mpression-tool
with a good compression algorithms like packfire for static tiles and uftc for moving stuff and if a good composer remade the music for the genesis instead of pcm it would be possible to get a high quality metal slug on the genesis without cutting anything and remember Genesis does what Nintendon't and we got the blast processing to do it.
Also all the graphics are only 4bits per pixels instead of 16 or 24 so the graphics would take up less and packfire handles dithering real well (good compression ratio even with dithered tiles) so the tiles will still look good because of dithering.

[evilevoix]

Why not try the sega CD + Genesis like Pier solar? The color would take a hit but then you have the faster 6800 and the CD for music and maybe? Could the Sega CD CPU handle the onscreen animation of the NEO? What about a SEGA CD only with the backup ram cart.

[sega16]

Why not try the sega CD? The color would take a hit but then you have the faster 6800 and the CD for music and maybe? Could the Sega CD CPU handle the onscrean animation of the NEO?

But not many people who own the genesis also have a sega cd when I make a game I want as many people as possible to be able to play it. A better idea is to make a micro-controller lock-on cart now days micro-controllers are cheap as in less 10 dollars for a high performance 32bit micro-controller more than 256kb of ram so why not go that route is cpu is a problem. And come to think about a 32bit micro-controller may not be needed I bet if all it does is sprite decoding a cheaper 8bit micro-controller for less than a dollar would work. You can make a new lock cart a heck of alot easier than you can make a new sega cd.

[Chilly Willy]

Even with compression, you're still talking a HUGE cart to fit all of Metal Slug. Look at the size of the original NeoGeo game... watch the longrun video on youtube... it's a HUGE game. Unless you are will to cut levels and other things, it's simply going to be too big. Now I could see it being streamed off the CD if you made a SCD version. If you watch the youtube longrun, the game seems to move slow enough that some good pre-loading at key points should allow you to stream it with only minor pauses. The pauses or slow downs would be more due to how fast you can update the VDP ram on the Genesis than how fast you can get the data from the CD.

[sega16]

I think it would be a good idea use high capacity flash instead of the sega cd because there are not that many sega cds compared to the amount of sega genesis 32megabytes nor flash is about 5 dollars and gets cheaper when you order more than one also for it to be compatible with the genesis the cart would require a level shifter to got from 5v to 3.3v also there would be the need for the bank switching circuit. So the cart could cost anywhere from 10-20 dollars to make.

[Thunderblaze16]

If anyone can do it, it's Treasure or Technosoft.

[Black_Tiger]

If anyone can do it, it's Treasure or Technosoft.

Treasure basically did with Gunstar Heroes and Contra Hard Corps. Just swap out the artwork and you'd have a beautiful version of Metal Slug by 16-bit console standards.

[slobu]

I guess "possible" isn't the real question. How close you could get to arcade (NEO-GEO) perfect is where things get murky. The ROM space to store sprites and tiles isn't an issue. Things like hardware scaling are.

[Thenewguy]

Unless you are will to cut levels and other things, it's simply going to be too big.

You could release it on 3 cartridges as Metal Slug Part 1, Metal Slug Part 2, and Metal Slug Part 3, all three could slot into each other and allow you to play as Knuckles in Metal Slug.