Metal Slug is (maybe) being ported to Mega Drive

[donluca]

Just came across this today:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1448771587679850510

It's a demo and, of course, it's pretty whack, but hey! It looks nice!

It is being done with SGDK, I'm really curious to see what they'll manage to do with it.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

A port of a sizable Neo game to a 16 bit system always seem in the realm of possibility by the untrained eye but there's a shit ton of art assets for BG and sprites, much more than any retail genny game, and that alone combined with the fact that you usually need a lot of those unique assets displayed at once makes an easy Metal Slug port possible, but compromised. Then you start looking at enemy patterns, AI processing time and average number of objects in the same horizontal line and all hope is lost. It's not just muh colors and muh sample that will be lost in translation.

It's easy to underestimate shit and end up hitting VRAM space limitations, processing more than the console can chew and having frame drops... so yeah, fun single screen demo but the full game isn't happening unless the dude has fucking GRIT for it and is serious about the port. Not trying to be negative about it as it certainly would be cool to see a port actually running on the genesis just for the love of the work put into it, but it's not an easy job.

 

[donluca]

That's why I put the "maybe" in the title.

I've seen such demos for quite some time and they seldom went behind some proof of concept or a single playable level.

They could always cheat and use the MegaCD if ROM space became a problem, but other limitations are still at play.

 

[Lach]

Wasn't there an SF2 demo for the Neo that also went nowhere? Interesting to see this stuff anyway though.

 

[donluca]

Looks like they implemented scrolling as well

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1449700521347010695

This is shaping up nicely, the scrolling is nice and smooth even with several sprites on screen.

 

[Tarma]

It's a nice technical demo, but I really don't see the point in porting the whole game to the MD. Might be interesting to see an exclusive version of the game on the system, but not a port of the original. Would also be better utilising the Mega CD rather than the ROM carts imo.

 

[Neo_Mike_81]

That's great to hear, someone should try and port KOF 94 on Mega/Sega CD or 32X.

 

[Mr.Bojangles]

Gameplay looks slowed down quite a bit.

 

[sylvie]

Gameplay looks slowed down quite a bit.

Good observation you fucking turd. War room lock this cocksucker.

 

[Lach]

That's great to hear, someone should try and port KOF 94 on Mega/Sega CD or 32X.

Yeah that'd be more realistic, actually scrap that just do LOSJ.

 

[SignOfGoob]

I want Garou on PC Engine. Better on CD than HuCARD.

(As a joke, each character would have two frames for every move and no room for voice samples because it would take that RAM for super move animations this sort of shit is impossible the Neo rules 16-bit forever get real you’re better off porting BSD to Apple Watch shut up.)

 

[SignOfGoob]

That's great to hear, someone should try and port KOF 94 on Mega/Sega CD or 32X.

IIRC Fatal Fury Special worked *OK* on the MegaCD but had noticeable animation cuts and wasn’t the sound also rough? KOF 94 as delivered on MVS is about %50 bigger (150 vs 196 mega) and it requires more assets at once (six fighters) meaning it would at the very least torture you with loading like the Neo CD and then just give you way less once it’s loaded. You’d only actually ever play it if you lived in a North Korean prison cell that for some reason had a working Mega CD setup but not a PC.

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

It's a nice technical demo, but I really don't see the point in porting the whole game to the MD. Might be interesting to see an exclusive version of the game on the system, but not a port of the original. Would also be better utilising the Mega CD rather than the ROM carts imo.

Not really, the slow loading of the CD means your game has to always work within the constraints of system RAM between the Mega Drive and Mega CD which is barely anything. A MD cartridge, because it's so much faster thanks to DMA, means it's possible to load in more data as the mission level scrolls forward. Given Metal Slug on the Neo Geo doesn't really scroll that fast, having it scroll that slow or even slower on the MD likely wouldn't be noticed, making "data streaming" possible.

 

[oliverclaude]

Seems to be 60fps, which would be an improvement. Despite its loading times, I'd also prefer a Sega-CD version. Sengoku was really good, once you got used to wait during time switches. Besides, the Genny already has a lot of top notch action jump'n runs (Contra, Gunstar, etc.) and doesn't really need another, the CD however has what? Earthworm Jim SE, Cyborg 009 and with a lot of good will you could add Pitfall. A good MS port could outshine all of those titles and if it goes crap, it'll clearly fit the platform, too.

 

[ggallegos1]

I would hate to hear the Metal Slug soundtrack remade in fucking GEMS.

 

[Neo_Mike_81]

KOF 98 is being ported on Genesis aswell.

 

[Atro]

Tech demos and "being ported" are two completely different worlds.

When AI is put into equation, as said earlier above, all hope is lost.

 

[donluca]

Indeed.
If you look hard enough, you'll find that there are tons of "tech demos" floating around with very few of them becoming actual fully working games.

Metal Slug at least is looking promising, they are making progress and released a playable demo.

 

[Gremlin]

Tech demos and "being ported" are two completely different worlds.

When AI is put into equation, as said earlier above, all hope is lost.

100%, always bothers me when people throw the word "port" around, if you don't have the source code or even a disassembly of the original game then you're not really porting anything, you're trying to recreate it from scratch on different hardware. If you're analyzing the game at runtime and trying to match the original control, physics and logic as close as possible then the lines get blurred a bit, but unless the dev is extremely detailed it's probably going to be its own weird, different compromised thing, like that Final Fight PC "port" posted on the forums earlier that changed the combat mechanics entirely lol

That being said, I'm impressed how well the sprites translate to the hardware, everyone always bitched about the Mega Drive's limited color palette but indie devs have been showing off some gorgeous work lately

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Looks like they implemented scrolling as well

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1449700521347010695

This is shaping up nicely, the scrolling is nice and smooth even with several sprites on screen.

It very much looks like an amiga game. Not crazy about it

 

[Atro]

That being said, I'm impressed how well the sprites translate to the hardware, everyone always bitched about the Mega Drive's limited color palette but indie devs have been showing off some gorgeous work lately

Well, there isnt that much of color palette in the first stage tho. But I'm with ya. It does the job quite well for what it is.

 

[SignOfGoob]

Today I was playing League Bowling, IMO an underrated game, but that’s not the point. It doesn’t do a lot technically and the mega count is super low for a Neo game, 26, lower than many (most?) Genesis games…but as I was playing it today I saw at least a half dozen things the Genesis would absolutely suck at. There really is no 16 bit console that comes close because the Neo is, after all, really an arcade system.

 

[KGRAMR]

I gave the very first demo release a go. Fun diversion... for just 30 seconds. Although, I must say that the SGDK tool has been a true blessing for the Genesis/Mega Drive scene. I mean, people have been pulling out some truly sick stuff such as the SOTN demo.

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Yeah that sotn stuff is inspired.
I tend to really dig the quality of life enhancements and tweaks they make for 16bit systems that can be played on real hardware. Some of the early SNES games without slowdown is mindblowing to me

 

[KGRAMR]

Yeah that sotn stuff is inspired.
I tend to really dig the quality of life enhancements and tweaks they make for 16bit systems that can be played on real hardware. Some of the early SNES games without slowdown is mindblowing to me

Yeah, no kidding! Victor Vitela has been a revelation for SNES shoot 'em ups with his SA-1 hacks.