If you don't want to play them on an emulator I suppose so. I am surprised that somebody bothered to update them to run on modern PCs. IIRC, they were DOS/Win3.1 releases.
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Mortal Kombat & Street Fighter -- were these games better on the SNES or Genesis?
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MrCunningham
Member
I wouldn't be surprised if these ones were just packaged with DOSBox, like so many classic PC game releases on GOG. Nut I am just curious if these are only worth owning for the novelty factor, or if they are worth playing? There was also a port of Arcade Kollection on Steam, which I believe were emulated versions of the arcade game, but that was removed because it was a really awful port. I also remember reading that the original DOS games were capped at 30FPS. Is that true?
Carnby
Member
I'm glad others are backing up the truth that MK1 on SNES was broken. I just remembered another example. ...if you cornered an opponent you could jab until their energy ran out. There was no stumble backwards animation (which MD had). This animation kicked in if an opponent blocked to many of your jabs, casuing you to back up.
MrCunningham
Member
Probably because Sculptured Software did the SNES version of MK2, all other version were done by Probe Entertainment, which is rather odd.....but turned out brilliantly for SNES owners
Oh yeah, that's right.
baudelinog
Member
Genius!
MrCunningham
Member
From what I remember, the Sega CD port of Mortal Kombat was essentially just the Genesis game with a redbook audio soundtrack that uses music from the arcade game, additional voices and sound samples, as well as a couple FMV intros. Actually, one of the videos is the "Mortal Monday" commercial that appeared on TV back in the day, and it featured clips from the SNES version of the game. The Sega CD version features grainy SNES video clips in the game. It didn't offer any enhancements in sprite animation or enhanced backgrounds. It actually was slightly worse in some respects, with Shang Tsung's morphs taking 1-2 seconds to load and longer loading times in general.
Douche McBaggins The 3rd
Junior Member
Fuck that. Fergality man
It actually offered *far* better animations than the cartridge version. Sub-Zero has his own stance, player animations/loops are far more fluid. Backgrounds could well have been enhanced as well, but I don't remember those being any better. It's a shame it's marred by the typical downfalls of the Mega CD like loading, especially when fighting Tsung, but I think it's kinda tolerable considering the improvement over the cartridge version.
The 32X version of Mortal Kombat 2 always struck me as weird since I have real issues pointing out any notable differences from the Genesis version. Perhaps the character sprites are a bit larger(?) and use more animation frames. Maybe the life bars and stuff look a bit fancier. But the backgrounds being the same low color ones as the Genesis version really sticks out as a sore thumb (I take it this is an element being rendered using the Genesis hardware instead of the 32X itself). The sound is exactly the same as well from what I can tell. There barely seems to be anything at all to really warrant its existence (and I guess that summary aptly describes the 32X as a whole, lol).
The 32X version of Mortal Kombat 2 always struck me as weird since I have real issues pointing out any notable differences from the Genesis version. Perhaps the character sprites are a bit larger(?) and use more animation frames. Maybe the life bars and stuff look a bit fancier. But the backgrounds being the same low color ones as the Genesis version really sticks out as a sore thumb (I take it this is an element being rendered using the Genesis hardware instead of the 32X itself). The sound is exactly the same as well from what I can tell. There barely seems to be anything at all to really warrant its existence.
Hmmm, i did have the 32X version when i was a kid, and just something about it felt much better than the SNES version, i dont know what it was it just....felt.....right and i cant pin point or remember why
SkylineRKR
Member
Mortal Kombat has been awful on every system, perhaps until MK4 hit on N64 which we actually enjoyed. Or perhaps even UMK3 on XBLA which was the first arcade perfect port on a console.
SNES versions of 1-3 were better than MD.
MK3 on PSX was a fraud, I was so disappointed when I got it. Small sprites, load times, sound cut off (?). Shang Tsung essentially useless. It was less fun than the SNES version.
UMK3 on Saturn was trash as well, when I loaded it up and saw the PSX MK3 title screen I was like 'wtf?'. It was exactly the same crap, nothing close to the arcade.
MKT was terrible overall.
SNES versions of 1-3 were better than MD.
MK3 on PSX was a fraud, I was so disappointed when I got it. Small sprites, load times, sound cut off (?). Shang Tsung essentially useless. It was less fun than the SNES version.
UMK3 on Saturn was trash as well, when I loaded it up and saw the PSX MK3 title screen I was like 'wtf?'. It was exactly the same crap, nothing close to the arcade.
MKT was terrible overall.
MrCunningham
Member
Oh, I guess there are more differences than I remember. Even Shang Tsung is animated in the background of the thrown room stage, where he is completely static in the Genesis version. He has his clap animation. There does also seem to be more sprite animation in the Sega CD version as well. Shang Tsung has always been broken in the early CD based consoles though, even in the Playstation/ Saturn versions there were loading in between morphs. Also, looking at that video more, Goro's Lair is actually better on the Sega CD as well, the stage is recoloured and there are objects in the foreground that are missing in the Genesis game.
Trilogy was never released in arcades, so the console versions can't be bad arcade ports, unless you mean the game sucks in general.
1 no. 2/3 yes.
For reasons stated multiple times in this thread. Visually it was far superior, but gameplay-wise it's absolutely horrible.
Good pickup on the locations, I didn't watch the whole video of that I just used it as an example. I did own an MCD around 10 years ago and one of the games I bought specifically for it was MK, which is how I knew there was some stuff different. Can't help but think that if the MCD came with some sort of memory, it would alleviate the issues with ST morphs and the endurance matches. Audio changes are jolting as well, I'd think given the arcade uses similar hardware to the MD they'd find some way to kind of hybrid the sound samples with it rather than just stream CD audio the entire time.
Curious to see what the actual game size difference (sans redbook, obv) between the cart and CD versions are. I suspect it's not all that much. Hell, the extra animations probably could've been done on an SF2SCE-sized cart. Maybe someone could do a hack of the MCD game onto a cart-sized ROM for us
Douche McBaggins The 3rd
Junior Member
Genesis had better versions of BOTH games. The Super Nintendo versions of Mortal Kombat were terrible. Combos didn't work. Animation missing, the game itself was slower. The genesis version was faster, but it was the Sega CD that had actual arcade perfect walking speed. The loading time blew, the graphics were still the same color wise, but added improved frames and I think slightly taller? The fatalities looked a bit better too.
Street Fighter on the Genesis played better. It was faster, more frames, combos worked properly, six button controller with a Dpad that wasn't stiff as hell. The genesis one also felt more right, but the graphics did look better on the super nintendo. Better color and sound, or more accurate gameplay? That's the question for most games.
But Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on the snes demolished the genesis version.
Street Fighter on the Genesis played better. It was faster, more frames, combos worked properly, six button controller with a Dpad that wasn't stiff as hell. The genesis one also felt more right, but the graphics did look better on the super nintendo. Better color and sound, or more accurate gameplay? That's the question for most games.
But Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on the snes demolished the genesis version.
Yes, it should happen, that would be even better IMO.
How Street Fighter 2 on SNES would sound like if the heavy damage music was left in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZw8G5cDuK4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZw8G5cDuK4
A Black Falcon
Member
Perhaps the most obvious difference is that on SCD you don't need to enter a code to have blood, it's just always there. But yeah, beyond that there are a lot of other little improvements.
It played quite worse than the Genesis version as well.
My words exactly!
Member
Man what if PC Engine did get MK exclusivity?
People should definely check out UMK Trilogy romhack for the Mega Drive/Genesis. It's loaded with content (biggest md rom iirc, 10MB) and well worth a look
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dx9GF3JWmNk
Anyway, as far as MK games go:
MK1 Sega CD, MK2 SNES, MK3 SNES, UMK3 SNES (but it looked and sounded worse than MK3 SNES), MK Trilogy PS1 (better than N64 version imho), MK4 N64 (tthough DC Gold edition was great).
People should definely check out UMK Trilogy romhack for the Mega Drive/Genesis. It's loaded with content (biggest md rom iirc, 10MB) and well worth a look
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dx9GF3JWmNk
Anyway, as far as MK games go:
MK1 Sega CD, MK2 SNES, MK3 SNES, UMK3 SNES (but it looked and sounded worse than MK3 SNES), MK Trilogy PS1 (better than N64 version imho), MK4 N64 (tthough DC Gold edition was great).
MiguelItUp
Member
- SF2 and its versions (Vanilla / Turbo / Super / etc) were better on SNES
- MK1 was better on Genesis
- MK2 was better on SNES
- I can't give a solid answer on MK3 since I primarily played it on PSOne, but I think the SNES version is better as well.
I remember playing Alpha 2 on a friend's SNES and was like "Wtf is going on with the FPS?!" Lol.
Douche McBaggins The 3rd
Junior Member
1. Wrong. Genesis version had slightly taller more animated sprites while super nes had more colorful and somewhat more detailed sprites. Genesis version played more true to the arcade.
2. Yes.
3. Not quite. But the gameplay was more comparable this time around. Plus The Snes didn't have this.
4. The Snes version is better here.
MrCunningham
Member
The sprites weren't taller at all in the Genesis game. They only looked taller because of each console's native resolution.
For Mortal Kombat 1, the sprites for both games are drawn at roughly the same pixel resolution:
But because the Genesis native resolution is at 320x240 and the SNES's native resolution is 256x224. The SNES sprites look much wider and shorter when displayed at 4:3 on an oldschool TV.
SNES:
Genesis/ Mega Drive:
For Mortal Kombat II Sculptured Software tried to correct the wideness of the sprites at the 4:3 aspect ratio by making the sprites skinner.
Genesis sprite on the left, SNES sprite on the right:
SNES:
Genesis/ Mega Drive:
The SNES sprites in MKII actually lose pixel detail horizontally. But it was done to make the sprites look proper when viewed on a TV.
I posted in it recently, nice comparisons!
Genesis/ Mega Drive:
.
This is a 32X shot, though (can tell it from the lifebars' art). Not sure how different the models are in 32X and Genesis versions.
MrCunningham
Member
Whoops you're right. I used the wrong image and didn't notice.
I corrected the images. Thanks for pointing that out. The 32X sprites are still drawn at the same resolution as the Genesis sprites, but everything is higher colour. And yeah, the life bars look closer to the arcade version.
Genesis:
32x:
Thanks for the thorough comparisons. It's weird, but you can tell that there are some differences between the backgrounds in the Gen and 32X versions so it wasn't just lifted straight out of it. The dithering patterns are different, no shadow under the bridge, and the acid pool has a few more shades, but as a whole it really doesn't look any better at all.
In fact I don't really notice that much of a color improvement for 32X games in general. There must be some bottlenecks in place on how it was utilized (since some elements are handled by the 32X and others by the Genesis in parallel)
In fact I don't really notice that much of a color improvement for 32X games in general. There must be some bottlenecks in place on how it was utilized (since some elements are handled by the 32X and others by the Genesis in parallel)
For the record, regarding MK1, Ed Boon has voiced his opinion on this:
"The Super Nintendo looked better, but the Genesis version was more realistic and played better too"
Source: skip to 9:00
"The Super Nintendo looked better, but the Genesis version was more realistic and played better too"
Source: skip to 9:00
MrCunningham
Member
There is more colours in the 32x version. Those two images were taken from RAW format from an emulator and saved as .PNG's, so they are accurate. The Genesis image has 32 colours total. The 32X image has 153 colours total. The SNES screenshot actually has 105 colours, though it has Rayden instead of Baraka in the screenshot which may affect the colour palliate a little but not by much.
Even though the image looks dithered in the 32x game, it is displaying more colours on screen than the SNES version. Which is interesting, because it doesn't look like it. Maybe Sculptured Software made better use of the SNES colour palette than Probe did?
Douche McBaggins The 3rd
Junior Member
The sprites weren't taller at all in the Genesis game. They only looked taller because of each console's native resolution.
For Mortal Kombat 1, the sprites for both games are draws at roughly the same pixel resolution:
But because the Genesis native resolution is at 320x240 and the SNES's native resolution is 256x224. The SNES sprites look much wider and shorter when displayed at 4:3 on an oldschool TV.
SNES:
Genesis/ Mega Drive:
For Mortal Kombat II Sculptured Software tried to correct the wideness of the sprites at the 4:3 aspect ratio by making the sprites skinner.
Genesis sprite on the left, SNES sprite on the right:
SNES:
Genesis/ Mega Drive:
The SNES sprites in MKII actually lose pixel detail horizontally. But it was done to make the sprites look proper when viewed on a TV.
Interesting. Looking at those sprites kind of gave me a mindfuck. I do recall the Snes having a higher resolution mode than the genesis, but it only being available on a few games. The genesis has a higher standard resolution which explains the height thing, but does this apply to street fighter as well?
SNES standard resolution is 256x224. Genesis can do 320x224 (it also has a lower res mode equivalent to the SNES and the usage of the two seems sprit pretty evenly). SNES has a double 512x448 mode, but it has significant restrictions like only applying to the background layer and max 16 colors.
It's hard to compare the MK games on the systems as they were developed by different studios. It would be interesting if sculptured software did the sega version as well.
Sega wins hands down the Street Fighter, aside from voice samples, which I blame capcom for. The music is way better on Genesis.
Sega wins hands down the Street Fighter, aside from voice samples, which I blame capcom for. The music is way better on Genesis.
s_mirage
Member
Here's my not very well written opinion on this:
Anything rendered by the 16-bit part of the system was still limited to using the four 16-colour sub-palettes. For MK2 the sprites were offloaded to the 32x, leaving extra sub-palettes for the backgrounds, which were handled by the 16-bit VDP.
Sounds great, but it's not too ideal when you think about it. The backgrounds are made up of 8x8 tiles, with each tile having to use a single sub-palette. For realistic looking backgrounds where tiles would have to seamlessly blend, either there would likely have to be lots of shared colours between sub-palettes, or each sub-palette would have to be used on distinct areas of background (like those chains). Probably a mix of the two.
Whatever the case, the end result of the palettized tile based system is that the artists were still quite limited in how they could use colour in parts not rendered by the 32x. They couldn't just pick a total of 64 unique colours and put them wherever they wanted. That would be my guess as to why the enhanced 32x ports looked a little underwhelming.
EDIT: All that being said, I'd like to take a closer look at the 32x backgrounds. Judging from that dead pool example they might be worse than I thought. I'm not convinced that background is using any more colours than the 16-bit version (I'm assuming the foreground chain is a 32x generated sprite so it doesn't count), rather it was just tweaked. Were Probe actually taking advantage of the extra available colours?
TreasureHunterG
Banned
SF was better on SNES, hands down. Every single version of it.
MK1 was better on Genesis, SNES version was very fucked up, censored fatalities, no blood, clunky controls, etc. MK2 onward then SNES got the upper hand. SNES version of MK2 may had the stage fatalities removed, but overall it was better looking and sound was definitively better. MK3 and UMK3 got better by default on SNES.
MK1 was better on Genesis, SNES version was very fucked up, censored fatalities, no blood, clunky controls, etc. MK2 onward then SNES got the upper hand. SNES version of MK2 may had the stage fatalities removed, but overall it was better looking and sound was definitively better. MK3 and UMK3 got better by default on SNES.
I think MK and SF were best on SNES. The graphics in MK1 SNES were the best and so was the sound. The gameplay wasn't that important in MK1 as it wasn't terribly deep so I think it was the best all around. The censored fatalities don't bother me cause the new ones are pretty good. MK 2 was best and had the best of everything. MK 3 and UMK3 was pretty close but I prefer the colors of the SNES version.
SF2 Turbo is better on SNES than the Genesis version I think. I don't care that 10 star speed is unlocked by default in the Genesis version cause I never play it set very high. The voices are really bad in SF 2 SCE. I know the colors are better in Super SF 2 also.
SF2 Turbo is better on SNES than the Genesis version I think. I don't care that 10 star speed is unlocked by default in the Genesis version cause I never play it set very high. The voices are really bad in SF 2 SCE. I know the colors are better in Super SF 2 also.
The one thing that completely turned me off from the Genesis version was that the announcer didn't say the fighter's name when selected. I know this is a small detail, but when I was a kid that was a big deal to me. I loved how the announcer would say the name of the fighter when you selected him/her in the aracde/SNES version.
As for censorship, I may be alone in this, but I found some of the SNES MK1 fatalities to be better than the Genesis/arcade versions. Yes, SNES changed them to avoid the blood/decapitations, but as a result they were kind of original.
Take Rayden for example. In the arcade/Genesis version he zapped his opponent's head off (most fatalities were a form of decapitation). In the SNES version, Rayden electrocuted his opponent's body that left nothing but a skull atop a pile of ashes. It wasn't bloody but just as cool in my opinion.
In the arcade version Sub-Zero decapitated his opponent, but in the SNES version he froze the body and shattered it with an uppercut. Again I found this to be an improvement over the original.
As for the sweat, it could be turned to blood with a Game Genie code. That was good enough for me. Then MK II came out and the blood issue was no longer a problem.
As for censorship, I may be alone in this, but I found some of the SNES MK1 fatalities to be better than the Genesis/arcade versions. Yes, SNES changed them to avoid the blood/decapitations, but as a result they were kind of original.
Take Rayden for example. In the arcade/Genesis version he zapped his opponent's head off (most fatalities were a form of decapitation). In the SNES version, Rayden electrocuted his opponent's body that left nothing but a skull atop a pile of ashes. It wasn't bloody but just as cool in my opinion.
In the arcade version Sub-Zero decapitated his opponent, but in the SNES version he froze the body and shattered it with an uppercut. Again I found this to be an improvement over the original.
As for the sweat, it could be turned to blood with a Game Genie code. That was good enough for me. Then MK II came out and the blood issue was no longer a problem.
Yeah, I also found those two SNES fatalities to be an improvement.
MrCunningham
Member
It's actually different for Street Fighter II. Capcom didn't use the Genesis's standard 320x240 resolution so they could match up the character sprites closer to the SNES version.
Genesis version of Street Fighter II: SCE displays at 256x240
SNES Street Fighter II: Turbo at 256x224
I would imagine that the Genesis game has a slightly higher vertical resolution because this is the closest video mode they could get to the SNES game. Though there is a little more vertical visible space in the playing field in the Genesis version as well. But it is not hugely noticeable.
Genesis:
SNES:
The SNES sprites do look a little taller when stretched to 4:3, but the Genesis sprites still retain the same width.
Douche McBaggins The 3rd
Junior Member
Gameplay wise? Hell no. The Genesis stomps the snes gameplay wise when it comes to speed of the fighters, combos, and how the game actually plays This is for Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 for the genesis.
Street Fighter 2, played better on the genesis, and when you got to Super Street Fighter 2, the genesis version stomped the snes version. More animation, more voice clips, more accuracy to the arcade gameplay and combo wise. Plus the Genesis version was a 40mb cart while the snes was a 32mb cart.
20 years later and we're all still arguing about this.