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The big deal with Sapphire.
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Specineff
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 4:26 am    Post subject: The big deal with Sapphire. Reply with quote

Finally, I got a copy of Sapphire to play. While this may look more like a review here, I think it's a good idea to start a healthy discussion regarding this game.

First and foremost, what you notice about Sapphire is the graphics. Some are CGI sprites, and look great. Well animated and sharp. The only other system where I have seen these graphics is on the venerable Neo Geo. And that's with Pulstar and Blazing Star.. games that were released a few years later. There is no way in hell that the Genesis or the SNES could handle this game the way the PCE does. Not even with the Sega CD, or SFX chip. No way! (Maybe Donkey Kong Country could match the graphics.. but.. it's not the same kind of game.)

The music is good. Anime-style rock. Nothing that had me thumping my foot to the ground, but good nonetheless. Me likes.

Now this is where all the trouble will begin. Some of you will toss me copies of Toilet Kids on the face, some will not... the gameplay is not that great. It's not boring, just.. standard... Three upgradable weapons, four different ships with different speeds... a super bomb and two options... I guess the comparisons made between this game and the great Radiant Silvergun are because of the fact that you can fire your options forward once they charge and block bullets with them. That's it. The Radiant Sword on RSG was, however THE mother of all special attacks on an already wonderful shooter. It's a shame people who try to sell this game on ebay make empty promises to buyers by saying it's similar, because it's not.

However, Sapphire is an ambitious attempt at creating an arcade-style shooter.. The city on level one has some interesting holo-ads, which morph and move making you take your eyes off your ship, risking getting shot. The music fits the game well, though you won't be humming it on the shower, like Lords of Thunder's. Wink

Rarely you will see slowdown on the game, and some scaling and zooming will greet you from time to time. There are even some lighting effects on one of the later levels. Again, this game reminds me more of a good Neo Geo shooter than anything else. Behold the power of the "humble" 8-bit PCE when coupled with an arcade card! Behold and tremble, SNES lovers who drooled when your system did that fancy rotation and scaling, but only on the title screen of a game.. to not use it again until the credits roll! (Space Megaforce/Super Aleste and Super Nova/ Darius force are some exceptions.) Run in fear, Genesis and your blast processing! (that is, until you pit Virtua Racing against it... I want to see the PCE handle a polygon racer... ^_^ )

Yes, it feels generic.. no, it's not worth the 400-plus US dollars some unscrupulous sellers ask for it... yes.. it will make you wonder how the PCE when coupled with 2 extra megabits of RAM could handle a shooter that looks closer to the creations of Psykio, Cave, Aicom, and SNK on their respective dedicated arcade hardware, than a household videogame.

It is indeed a wonderful display of the Duo and Arcade Card capabilities, though the hype it received will cause you to feel like something's missing when you finally play it. If you ever do, forget the hype and comparisons with the Great RSG. Play it like the PCE fan you are, knowing your system is the little white 8-bit engine that could (and did) amaze his loyal followers during his struggle with the big guys. Did I mention it's for two players? I want to see the Genesis/MD with its Mega CD or the SNES with its SFX chip pull that one off!

Sapphire... love it or hate it, it's a gem on the crown of the PCE, the last refuge for stray cadets of the Space Herald Macronian United Pilot Society (S.H.M.U.P.S.) Razz

Thank you for your time. Let the flames begin... I shall have my Radiant Sword ready.

A happy shooter fan,

Specineff.
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Danjuro
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I didn't like it much either.
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Kaminari
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 2:33 pm    Post subject: Re: The big deal with Sapphire. Reply with quote

Specineff wrote:
Behold the power of the "humble" 8-bit PCE when coupled with an arcade card!


Sadly, that's the kind of marketing argument that artificially boosts the price of NEC games. The PC Engine is more a 16-bit system than anything else, and it's not that humble. No one dubs the Super Famicom as an 8-bit console, yet its architecture is very similar - if not inferior, as far as the CPU is concerned.

Quote:
Yes.. it will make you wonder how the PCE when coupled with 2 extra megabits of RAM could handle a shooter that looks closer to the creations of Psykio, Cave, Aicom, and SNK on their respective dedicated arcade hardware, than a household videogame.


You mean 2 megabytes Smile

Quote:
It is indeed a wonderful display of the Duo and Arcade Card capabilities, though the hype it received will cause you to feel like something's missing when you finally play it.


True indeed. You resume it nicely. Sapphire was made in late 1995 by a bunch of retired otakus who were asked by Hudson to bring out some old leftovers of terrific pieces of code and toss them together into one single average shooter Wink

Certainly worth the sight, definitely not the price.
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Specineff
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 10:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's why I used the quotation marks on it. A system wich has a better version of Fatal Fury Special than that of the Mega CD surely is not that "humble".

And I was referring to it as an 8 bit system because of the main processor. However, I want to see a 16 bit system capable of replicating Dracula X and Sapphire and play them the way the PCE does.


TTYL.
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Jabberwok
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 4:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shooters. On the PCE they are a dime a dozen. We usually talk about Saphire, R-Type, Gate/lords of thunder. But, we rarely talk about some other great shooters. Some that spring to mind are ( in no particular order ):

Gradius II gofer
Psychosis
Super star soldier
Aero blasters
Raiden
Blazing lazers
Soldier blade

And im sure im missing some others. R-type is in my opinion THE best, the Thunder series is no slouch & Saphire is a pure button masher... but don't stop the list on those 4!!!
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Specineff
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 6:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't forget the incredibly hard but hilarious Parodius. Also Detana Twin Bee is good, IMHO.
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Danjuro
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 9:34 am    Post subject: No words can describe it ;) Reply with quote

Spriggan...



I'm no big fan of shooters (I actually pretty much suck at anything that relies on not putting my fingers accross each others or won't let me scratch my itches), but this one, especially the score attack mode... I was caring about my score actually ! Didn't happen again till Ikaruga showed up a month ago.
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Kaminari
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dan is right on the money.

Spriggan's story mode has nothing to envy from Dennin Aleste on MCD; and as far as the Score Attack is concerned, it's the best vertical shooter ever made along with Ikaruga. Fast, furious and awfully addictive.

Spriggan Mark 2 is no slouch either, though in a very different way Smile
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Ethane
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 10:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have to disagree, I think Sapphire is one of the single best shooters I've ever played. It had the "fast and furious" appeal of Radiant Silvergun without the "throw entire console at TV and revel in the shower of sparks caused by the subsequent explosion" frustration you get from games like Gaiares (which I love too).

Come on, you have to give props to a game that is usually compared to Radiant Silvergun, instead of the other way around. My only complaint is the game is too short, but hey.

However, what I consider funny (and at the same time somewhat annoying) are people who are convinced the PC-Engine is actually pumping polys or doing real-time lighting in Sapphire, despite the presence of the 2MB Arcade Card. Just getting into PC-Engine programming myself, I'm shocked at how much graphics you can stuff into even the 64k the System 2.0 card gives you. Having 2MB at your disposal must have been really heady to the PC-Engine programmers back in the day when it was announced.

Moving on, Specineff wrote:

Quote:
And I was referring to it as an 8 bit system because of the main processor. However, I want to see a 16 bit system capable of replicating Dracula X and Sapphire and play them the way the PCE does.


The other three (SFC, Megadrive CD, NEO) could handle Dracula X and Sapphire, quite easily I might add. In fact, they'd undoubtedly improve on the games, mainly because they have more than one background plane (something the PC-Engine lacked and suffered for). As for the Megadrive with its colour limitations, it probably wouldn't be immediately evident in the final product (you can do A LOT with 64 colours, keep in mind them flashy popular hentai games for computers them days worked with only 16 colours at a time.) I remember reading about a rumour that Konami was going to port Dracula X to the Sega CD but canceled it; not surprisingly because the Mega CD was already a flop in Japan by then. I'm willing to bet Konami could have fit the entire game into a cart for a SNES, voice included; why they made the double-X version the way they did is beyond me.

You said you wanted a healthy discussion about Sapphire, now we get to go off the subject a bit! How about some opinions on Steam Hearts?

Ethane
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Azazel
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 24, 2002 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Steam Hearts is really only a somewhat average shooter at best. If your not very good at shooters you might like it as it's not really very hard plus you have a energy bar instead of one hit deaths. THe only thing I really did like about Steam Hearts was in the saturn version tey added either a time attack or hi score challenge, I forgot which one.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 2:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Suprisingly I managed to pick up a copy of Sapphire. I have yet to play it on my Duo since I don't have a Arcade Card. Of course Magic Engine runs it fine. but usually most games I play on Magic Engine don't have the same experience as running it on my Duo. I don't know what it is. It just lacks a certain kind of appeal, holding the Duo Controller in my hands and playing on an actual Television. It's like the Novelty is lost.

Oh well I guess I really can't complain really. Since Magic Engine is the 2nd closest thing to having the actual console in software form on my PC, which actually what it is.
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Black_Tiger
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 3:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ya, I don't like it that much compared to other great PCE shooters(a high standard).

It looks like it could've been done on Super CD no problem(maybe drop a few frames of ugly CGI animation).

If DKC hadn't come out, it'd be more impressive.

I still can't believe that anyone actually thought that they were looking at real 3D graphics rendered on the fly.

Both Gates & Lords are far more impressive overall(graphics, gameplay & music).

Technical specs don't mean shit if you're displaying mediocre art.
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tg_drifter
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I believe Sapphire has some real-time rendering in it combined with prerendering (for example, the vector enemy in stage 1). I don't think it's all frames.
But even if it was, who cares? What really matters is that it looks good.
But how could you compare Donkey Kong Country with Sapphire?
Sapphire displays tons of sprites on the screen with complicated patterns (certainly much more complicated than DKC) and supports a two player mode with hardly any slowdown despite the high intensity.
DKC has slowdown at various points in the game despite the fact that it handles way fewer sprites and despite the fact that their artificial intelligence is very low.
The only advantage that DKC has is the nice transparent fog effect which would be difficult to emulate on the PC-Engine.
Also I believe that Sapphire holds its own when compared to the Gate/Lords Of Thunder games. Both those shooters are awesome but Sapphire has a couple of advantages over them:
1) It has some nice effects never before seen on the PC-Engine such as the prerendered animation and the morphing effects and I believe that the artwork is good, so I disagree with you as far as graphics are concerned.
2) It has a 2 player option - double the fun, double the intensity!
I disagree with you about the music - it's at least as good as that of Gate Of Thunder. Comparing the music with Lords Of Thunder's is a little unfair since Lords has a pure Heavy Metal soundtrack as opposed to Sapphire's which spans more hard music genres.
The gameplay could have been a bit better (for example the ability to shoot when you drop a bomb) but I think it's great the way it is. It's much better than many other shooters anyway.
On the other hand, the two other shooters have their own set of advantages (such as the fantastic epic environment in Lords Of Thunder and innovative gameplay) but I believe that ALL of them must exist in every PC-Engine shooter fan's collection.
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Kaminari
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For a reasonable price, that is.
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Black_Tiger
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 4:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

tg_drifter wrote:
I believe Sapphire has some real-time rendering in it combined with prerendering (for example, the vector enemy in stage 1). I don't think it's all frames.
But even if it was, who cares? What really matters is that it looks good.
But how could you compare Donkey Kong Country with Sapphire?
Sapphire displays tons of sprites on the screen with complicated patterns (certainly much more complicated than DKC) and supports a two player mode with hardly any slowdown despite the high intensity.
DKC has slowdown at various points in the game despite the fact that it handles way fewer sprites and despite the fact that their artificial intelligence is very low.
The only advantage that DKC has is the nice transparent fog effect which would be difficult to emulate on the PC-Engine.
Also I believe that Sapphire holds its own when compared to the Gate/Lords Of Thunder games. Both those shooters are awesome but Sapphire has a couple of advantages over them:
1) It has some nice effects never before seen on the PC-Engine such as the prerendered animation and the morphing effects and I believe that the artwork is good, so I disagree with you as far as graphics are concerned.
2) It has a 2 player option - double the fun, double the intensity!
I disagree with you about the music - it's at least as good as that of Gate Of Thunder. Comparing the music with Lords Of Thunder's is a little unfair since Lords has a pure Heavy Metal soundtrack as opposed to Sapphire's which spans more hard music genres.
The gameplay could have been a bit better (for example the ability to shoot when you drop a bomb) but I think it's great the way it is. It's much better than many other shooters anyway.
On the other hand, the two other shooters have their own set of advantages (such as the fantastic epic environment in Lords Of Thunder and innovative gameplay) but I believe that ALL of them must exist in every PC-Engine shooter fan's collection.



I wasn't comparing Sapphire as a game to DKC, I was just comparing the CGI animation.

Although I don't like the art style, DKC has smoother, more colorful sprites. And its full fledged computer animation(texture maps & effects), not just some chunky flat shaded polys.

I was more impressed by hand drawn art like the dragon than the polygonal skull.

Effects wise, get your hands on Vasteel if you want to see full screen Mode 7-ish warping transparencies(and other cool effects) rarely seen on SFC.

And I don't think that Sapphire has very much AI, it's been a while since I played through it but I remember it being more pattern based.

I don't know if I mentioned it in my previous post, but it doesn't matter how well a prerendered or otherwise animation is incorporated into a game if the original art is lacking.

Visually, I don't prefer the overall aesthetic of Sapphire to some other games.

Just like Shadow Of The Beast, Shape Shifter, Cotton, Terraforming, Download and others... no matter what's technically being achieved it's just not my personal taste.

The main reason Sapphire isn't my fav PCE shooter is because of the overall gameplay(layout, pacing, system,etc..).

It just wasn't that much fun for me(admittedly played each time inbetween other greats during PCE marathons).

That's why I rarely play it(as opposed to Gate & Lords).

If there weren't so many other great shooters for the system, It'd impress me more.

I was wowed by Sylphia the way I expected to be by Sapphire. Its got true arcade quality graphics and nice Strikers-like gameplay.

But like I said, Sapphire isn't bad, its good. It's just not the cutting edge genre defining game to me that it's been made out to be by others.

And, although it's not a bad thing, it feels more like a Super CD to me than an Arcade Card game.

When I play Itouryoden or World Heroes 2 I say "wow". The arcade card lets the PCE loose in games like those.

When I play Sapphire it just feels like yet another cool PCE shooter.

Which is good.
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