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DF Retro: The Making of Doom on Super NES - The Original 'Impossible Port'...?

jufonuk

not tag worthy
In my opinion DF Retro focuses too much on 16 bit era and not enough on PS1 and PS2 era games.
I think they will cover them once they get through the earlier era as those I feel had more technical limitations compared to the PS1/PS2 era. so any ports like doom to the SNES were more impressive I guess than ports to the saturn. maybe? who knows

but I like seeing what era they cover :)

Go Away Reaction GIF by Unpopular Cartoonist
 

nkarafo

Member
The tech was great but the game I found boring to play with levels that looked pretty much the same.
Are you sure you are not confusing it with Wolfwenstein 3D or any other FPS with orthogonal level design? Because that's how i felt with Wolfenstein 3D.

DOOM was literally the solution to this. It had an engine capable of rendering complex enough architecture so the levels don't look the same. It was one of the reasons i loved it so much. Because it's levels looked and felt completely different with each other, unlike Wolfenstein and any other FPS with a crappy, orthogonal level engine.

Even today, the community creates interesting enough maps that feel fresh and interesting.
 
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On the contrary, ambition isn’t really a measure of success. System Shock shouldn’t be overlooked because it’s awesome, but Doom was hugely successful likely in part because it wasn’t overly ambitious. It was easy enough for everyone and their dog to understand. Level 1: kill demons. Level 2: kill demons and find keys to progress.

That’s…about it, and there’s a value in keeping things simple. There’s a reason something like Mario got so popular, when you pretty much just run and jump. It’s also the reason most people seem to prefer 2016 to Eternal

I know, that's really the key to an approachable, wide appealing, "ageless" video game - simple in concept, simple to pick up 'n play. That's why good (emphasis on good) 2D games don't age. It's a god damn 2D plane, the countless designs that saw release out there have perfected the formula back in the 16bit generation.

But what makes it good in my opinion are layers of complexity that you unravel while playing the game to stimulate the brain and make the experience worthwile. And Doom has that. It eases you via the map design and the selectable difficulty setttings while getting progressively more complex and harder. Playing that shit on Ultra-Violence is an adrenaline pumping experience that still kicks off dopamine releases after dopamine releases even almost 20 years later.

never a truer word spoken, it's why with certain older games I can really be amazed by them. tempest for example and some of the older arcade games were simply amazing for them time, but as usual gameplay should always be the most important.

There are about a billion reasons and biases that go into forming an individual opinion, so i don't dwell on what other people think if i'm enjoying the product. For example, leniency comes into play as well - maybe you are lenient towards the fact that Road Rash on the Mega Drive runs at like 2 frames per second. So you can enjoy the product. That is fantastic and a fact for you. Now personally speaking for me - Hell No, i cannot stand that shit, haha. The frames per second are far to damn low making the game sluggish as hell and the visual feedback unappealing. I do acknowledge differing opinions obviously and sometimes respect them if they're well thought out to warrant respect.

But stupidly simple blanket dismissals like "not aged well" ? Haha, fuck off with that lazy brain fart if you're not elaborating.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
I know, that's really the key to an approachable, wide appealing, "ageless" video game - simple in concept, simple to pick up 'n play. That's why good (emphasis on good) 2D games don't age. It's a god damn 2D plane, the countless designs that saw release out there have perfected the formula back in the 16bit generation.

But what makes it good in my opinion are layers of complexity that you unravel while playing the game to stimulate the brain and make the experience worthwile. And Doom has that. It eases you via the map design and the selectable difficulty setttings while getting progressively more complex and harder. Playing that shit on Ultra-Violence is an adrenaline pumping experience that still kicks off dopamine releases after dopamine releases even almost 20 years later.



There are about a billion reasons and biases that go into forming an individual opinion, so i don't dwell on what other people think if i'm enjoying the product. For example, leniency comes into play as well - maybe you are lenient towards the fact that Road Rash on the Mega Drive runs at like 2 frames per second. So you can enjoy the product. That is fantastic and a fact for you. Now personally speaking for me - Hell No, i cannot stand that shit, haha. The frames per second are far to damn low making the game sluggish as hell and the visual feedback unappealing. I do acknowledge differing opinions obviously and sometimes respect them if they're well thought out to warrant respect.

But stupidly simple blanket dismissals like "not aged well" ? Haha, fuck off with that lazy brain fart if you're not elaborating.
I quite liked road rash at the time. hahahahah
toy story is one of the best movies ever. but if you watch it again the visuals haven't aged well at all, but everything else elevates it back to a classic.

I'm sure some 3D classic games would looke like absolute rubbish where compared to games nowaday but the onces with classic gameplay will always stand the test of time.

Tempest has basic graphics but great gameplay. the same with space invaders. to me it's nothing to do with how they have aged but the tricks they pulled at the time they were made,

I happen to think the games I qouted above have aged like fine wine, hell robotron is still a great game to play.
but tell me how dragons lair fairs compare to pac man? which one would you rather play ?
 
I quite liked road rash at the time. hahahahah
toy story is one of the best movies ever. but if you watch it again the visuals haven't aged well at all, but everything else elevates it back to a classic.

I'm sure some 3D classic games would looke like absolute rubbish where compared to games nowaday but the onces with classic gameplay will always stand the test of time.

Tempest has basic graphics but great gameplay. the same with space invaders. to me it's nothing to do with how they have aged but the tricks they pulled at the time they were made,

I happen to think the games I qouted above have aged like fine wine, hell robotron is still a great game to play.
but tell me how dragons lair fairs compare to pac man? which one would you rather play ?

Panzer Dragoon Zwei looks absolutely fantastic on the Sega Saturn, and the framerate is a miraculously consistent 30 FPS with great controls which are tight and responsive. What i'm saying is that i'd be a fucking idiot with no reasonable mindstate to actually compare a Sega Saturn game, which i am aware that it is such, to a game released in 2020+ that i modded to hell and back on my desktop machine a while ago to push the most orgasmic graphics that one's eye can see, and dismiss Panzer Dragoon Zwei for having "bAd gRaFix". I can play both, and enjoy both, if they're good games. I never really had a problem playing old games if they're stimulating for me.

Well i'm not interested in Dragon's Lair 🤷‍♂️ like at all. Damn, like 0 interest. I guess i'd play a quick 5 minute session of pac man.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
Panzer Dragoon Zwei looks absolutely fantastic on the Sega Saturn, and the framerate is a miraculously consistent 30 FPS with great controls which are tight and responsive. What i'm saying is that i'd be a fucking idiot with no reasonable mindstate to actually compare a Sega Saturn game, which i am aware that it is such, to a game released in 2020+ that i modded to hell and back on my desktop machine a while ago to push the most orgasmic graphics that one's eye can see, and dismiss Panzer Dragoon Zwei for having "bAd gRaFix". I can play both, and enjoy both, if they're good games. I never really had a problem playing old games if they're stimulating for me.

Well i'm not interested in Dragon's Lair 🤷‍♂️ like at all. Damn, like 0 interest. I guess i'd play a quick 5 minute session of pac man.
Panzer Dragoon despite it age is a great game. loved it back then love it now.
when I talk about the games not aging I am not comparing it to a game from now,
I'm talking about it from it's time, when I played it, hell golden eye 64 doesn't run so well on the n64 but I will still have a great time playing it and I can see the graphics aren't the best but that wont stop me enjoying myself. the same with Quake or old school Doom i am judging the game on the time period it came from. just certain games age gracefully and others do not. if the game play is great I do not care what the game looks or runs like, I will play road rash on the Megadrive and enjoy it :)

Super Metroid for example has aged really well.
 
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SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
How were the reviews at the time? I remember one article being pretty conscious of the hardware restrictions and being pretty impressed, but that's it

They weren't especially glowing. Everyone knew it was an admirable effort considering the limitations but that didn't make it great.
zLHF6OP.jpg
6J9jWc4.jpg
 
Are you sure you are not confusing it with Wolfwenstein 3D or any other FPS with orthogonal level design? Because that's how i felt with Wolfenstein 3D.

DOOM was literally the solution to this. It had an engine capable of rendering complex enough architecture so the levels don't look the same. It was one of the reasons i loved it so much. Because it's levels looked and felt completely different with each other, unlike Wolfenstein and any other FPS with a crappy, orthogonal level engine.

Even today, the community creates interesting enough maps that feel fresh and interesting.
I didn't like Wolfenstien for much the same reason. I get the impact the engine and graphics had, just never got the gameplay
. Duke Nukem 3D was such a better game, never mind Exhumed which I still consider to be the best FPS ever made
 
Well, yes, a game that comes along years later iterating off the earlier tech and a globally popular IP is probably going to do more…
Do you mean like Resident Evil?

Dark Forces came out in 1994 it was hardly years after. I get the impact the Doom engine had, but like I said the gameplay or level design did nothing for me.
 

bender

What time is it?
Do you mean like Resident Evil?

Dark Forces came out in 1994 it was hardly years after. I get the impact the Doom engine had, but like I said the gameplay or level design did nothing for me.

I believe Dark Forces was early 95 so a little over a year after Doom and a few months after its' sequel.
 
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bender

What time is it?
I knew it wasn't long after Doom. I just fond it to be a much better game.

I'm not trying to change your opinion of Doom. It was a formative game for me but I mostly just turned on god mode, infinite ammo, and turned my brain off. Quake is probably my favorite single player ID game and what I go back to when I want a trip down memory lane. Still, you can't undersell the foundation that Doom helped lay.
 
I'm not trying to change your opinion of Doom. It was a formative game for me but I mostly just turned on god mode, infinite ammo, and turned my brain off. Quake is probably my favorite single player ID game and what I go back to when I want a trip down memory lane. Still, you can't undersell the foundation that Doom helped lay.
I loved Quake too
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Do you mean like Resident Evil?

Dark Forces came out in 1994 it was hardly years after. I get the impact the Doom engine had, but like I said the gameplay or level design did nothing for me.
Dark Forces was like 14 months after Doom which was actually a really long time during a moment when the genre was evolving so rapidly. Remember that Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom were only about 18 months apart.

I also think that Doom is a masterpiece of level design, especially by the standards of the day. I think it completely changed the way people approached level design in first person games.
 

YCoCg

Member
In my opinion DF Retro focuses too much on 16 bit era and not enough on PS1 and PS2 era games.
The past few videos have been about the PlayStation 3's 1080p era, the Gran Turismo full break down between PS1, PS2 and PS3 and not that long ago we had the massive three parter on the PS1 launch. In fact, here's the past few recent DF videos...

- The Klonoa Saga Revisited - Every Game Reviewed From PS1 to PS5
- True Crime: New York City PC Time Capsule vs PS2
- DF Retro Play: N64 First-Person Shooters - Quake 2, Turok 3, South Park, The World Is Not Enough
- Turok Evolution PC Time Capsule vs OG Xbox
- DF Retro: Motorstorm - The Full Series Revisited - Amazing Arcade Mayhem on PS3, PS2, PSP, PS Vita
- DF Retro Play: Xbox Official Magazine March 2002 Demo Disc
- Soldier of Fortune 2000 Retro Time Capsule PC vs Dreamcast vs PlayStation 2!
 

ZehDon

Member
Incredible how close we were to almost doubling the performance of the port (SNES display hardware doing the pixel doubling, think pixel manipulation like what mode7 is famous for, instead of the FX2 chip)… so so close…
Yeah - that was a massive "holy shit" moment for me during this interview. It would've made the SNES port of Doom pretty much the best port of Doom.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
They weren't especially glowing. Everyone knew it was an admirable effort considering the limitations but that didn't make it great.
zLHF6OP.jpg
Rayman easy? What?
These people clearly didn't play Rayman, so I'll be forgiven if in retrospect I'll say they were full of shit and their criticism of SNES Doom is hardly worthwhile.
 
Dark Forces was like 14 months after Doom which was actually a really long time during a moment when the genre was evolving so rapidly. Remember that Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom were only about 18 months apart.

I also think that Doom is a masterpiece of level design, especially by the standards of the day. I think it completely changed the way people approached level design in first person games.
I don't think it was anywhere near that long, not unless you're counting the shareware version
 

SCB3

Member
The idea of Doom being impossible to port these days seems laughable but yea at the time was a real shock, especially as I’d played the original game on PC
 

SCB3

Member
I also think that Doom is a masterpiece of level design, especially by the standards of the day. I think it completely changed the way people approached level design in first person games.
It still is, I’ve always said that Doom and then the Marathon games being masterclasses on level design for adventure type FPS games
 
The dude who ported it should absolutely be considered as a peer to Carmack.
He didn't use the original game engine and instead did one from the ground.

This is the guy who eventually did the unreleased at the time (released since) but bonkers Quake on the GBA:




EDIT: I've seen the video yesterday, and just found they were stupid to mention 6 MB SNES cartridges. The cartridge pricing and options have been out for years along with the 2 MB limitation of the Super FX chip. It was never offered with more than 2 MB ROM. There are still discussions whether it's actually possible or not because SuperFX has a chip pin that is not used and could enable 4 MB total memory accessible, but as said in the video it could be disabled for a reasons other than cost. 2MB without battery was the limit for this project, 4 MB weren't available.

I think that the japanese level selection change was for the best considering the game lacks a battery save.

SNES itself can address up to 4 MB, sure, and 2 games from the same basic group of people (Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean) used 6 MB with two banks, one 4 MB, one 2 MB and switching them. But those were not exactly offered by Nintendo, if anything they were custom built for them after they played around with banks later on in the console cycle. Those carts were never on the market to be purchased by other devs and shouldn't be mentioned to a guy who did a SuperFX game in the west, it's of no consequence for him and good thing he didn't lose this focus with such unrelated remarks.

It's almost as if who brought it up just wanted to sound knowledgeable and instead sounded ignorant.
 
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Thaedolus

Member
He didn't use the original game engine and instead did one from the ground.

This is the guy who eventually did the unreleased at the time (released since) but bonkers Quake on the GBA:


Yeah, exactly. It’s astounding what he’s been able to do. He’s done amazing stuff. Maybe overlooked because he’s not pushing the cutting edge of tech but what he’s done to get the most out of hardware to run stuff it’s hardly capable of is incredible.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
As another tidbit:
  • Quake Advance has roots in Meat for the Symbian phones
  • Wouter ''Aardappel'' van Oortmerssen worked on these games
    • Aardappel would create the Cube Engine and Cube Engine 2 and did the Doom editor WadC.
 

nkarafo

Member

This video pisses me off. The guy is clearly playing the original first map of Quake at first. But this build is nowhere to be found online, i spend a whole day trying to find it on various forums. Instead, the only thing that exists is the newer build, the one with the crappy new map and weapons that isn't even remotely as complex as the original map. I tried asking for the source but no replies from anyone, anywhere. Guess he is hoarding that build for himself and that's ok by everyone or am i missing something?
 
This video pisses me off. The guy is clearly playing the original first map of Quake at first. But this build is nowhere to be found online, i spend a whole day trying to find it on various forums. Instead, the only thing that exists is the newer build, the one with the crappy new map and weapons that isn't even remotely as complex as the original map. I tried asking for the source but no replies from anyone, anywhere. Guess he is hoarding that build for himself and that's ok by everyone or am i missing something?
Not sure, but I'll take look at it.

Usually the guy is not a hoarder, but it might be unreleased for some reason. Of so it should be stated in the video why is that.
 

nkarafo

Member
Not sure, but I'll take look at it.

Usually the guy is not a hoarder, but it might be unreleased for some reason. Of so it should be stated in the video why is that.

He says it's an "unreleased prototype" but aren't all prototypes unreleased by default? The newer build (that can easily be found) also counts as an unreleased prototype.

If he means "unreleased" in that there is not even a file to download anywhere, then where/how did he find it? He doesn't say. Why can't he release it then? Doesn't say either. He is not allowed? We don't know.

He doesn't say anything in the video, nor in the comments or his Tweeter.
 
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