Galaxy Force II arcade vs Genesis | Mega Drive 

Galaxy Force in 88 is so crazy. When i first saw it in the 2010s it really took the shine off Wolfenstein 3D that came out years later

You could get the arcade at home!!... IF you bought the arcade, that is...

ya know, I think the megadrive version looks good, yet I do agree I think the megadrive could've been a little better, hope someone does a remake for it today 👍

The arcade still looks amazing, such detail in those sprites. The FM Towns version looks pretty decent, but suffers from slow down quite a bit, I'd rather play the Megadrive version despite it's basic approach.

Well, they tried their best on the Genesis version within the ROM size and development schedule limits they were allowed, but I do wonder how much closer a Mega Drive port might be with modern ROM capacities and development tools. The Gennie could certainly do some horizon tilting with vertical column scrolling; TheRoboZ (aka, Andrea Baldiraghi) even figured out how to keep column 1 from glitching in his R-Type MD demo. Ray casting engines are pretty sophisticated now, so texturing the core approach tunnels might be feasible as well. The palette cycling done on Mickey Mania to show moving ground texture could also be applied to the lava field and other areas.

The music in the Genesis port is MUCH better than the Arcade original. But the Amiga port is even a disaster!

You need to do Galaxy Force II arcade vs Sega Saturn.

Genesis don´t have any chance to reproduce the arcade game, but some decisions on the port counst against it, like the bicollor square design inside the cave areas... But if you put this port on the side of Thunder Blade side, this here is marvelous

This game could have been much better, but i still like to play the Mega Drive version. I also play the arcade version regularly. Anyway look at Panorana Cotton that game is AWESOME then you see what the Megadrive can do!

Sega Scaler hardware was only simulated 1:1 by the time the Sega Saturn came around. Regarding the missile shooting timeout in the Genesis version, it occurs due to sprite limit. To work around and optimize change the control to type D (the one that has speed up on auto) and avoid using the bullet fire. If you miss, you may be able to get the missile button to register again if you "overwrite it" with a bullet shot instead. Timer is extremely unforgiving on both versions, I still can't reliably beat the Genesis version with energy timer on hard.

Yeah the 3ds version is nothing to sleep on, especially on a new 3ds with the super stable 3d...man. Probably harder to get since the eshop was closed earlier this year but it's worth seeking out

Never played the MD version, I thought it looked alright though... Until I saw the arcade version next to it! Thanks for this comparison.

At least a reminder to those that multi-CPU boards were used during the 80's, specially on SEGA arcade boards, many would think the Saturn's hardware was totally new to developers and that is a misinformed mass belief. As for the comparison, I still think the Mega Drive version isn't really that bad, somethings were nicely translated to it and above all, it has that early feel that changed forever from 1992 onwards, some Genesis games from '88 to '91 has that vibe to them. I wonder how well this and other super scaler games would fair had they been released on 1993/1994 and with a much bigger ROM cartridge, imagine Outrun too, would be really cool.

This has to be one of the most unfair comparisons on your channel lol, there’s no way the Mega Drive could ever hope to match the arcade original, but I will give them an e for effort for trying to bring their sprite scaling tour de force to the Mega Drive but the music is good due to the cube drive being used for the MD renditions of the arcade soundtrack.

You should play the Genesis version with the XE-1 AP analog controller. The game supports analog controls.

Yeah, the only thing I like of this port it's the music. It has a more rocking rythm compared to the jazzy arcade soundtrack, both cool. Also I think the console culd make a much better game but yeah, ROM size and programming tricks that could help weren't still a thing when it was released so I can understand it, also if they released it later on I suppose most people won't buy it because by 91 the arcade was still in the memory of people. My take on what they could have done at the time it was released, or at least in the time the console was still around instead of trying to recreate 1 to 1 the arcade they could went the adaptation route. Like with Shadow Dancer or ESWAT, recreating the game with the strengths of the console, if the complex layouts of the arcade were hard to do then simplify the concept, more mechanical stuff could have been easier to do but with a cool art direction to compensate, sure they could use corridors made of color cycling and animated tiles but also moving horizontally and vertically, even diagonal to add dynamic visuals and for those parts use row and line scrolling to give a sense of scale and depth. Thinking on set pieces to compensate. I know I'm kinda dreaming there haha but Panorama Cotton did and it worked. IIRC, the same person behind Final Fight MD it's working on a jetski racing game with scalling effects, he mentioned he was programming an engine capable of scalle sprites, I even asked if something like the Space Harrier from the MD Mini was possible on his engine and he said it totally was, but we will see in the future I guess.

The best version out there is the Japanese PS2 version part of the Sega Ages release. It offers two versions, the original arcade in 240p which is pixel perfect and unlike the Saturn version which runs at 30 fps. It also includes a 480i version and a polygon version which I think is also excellent.

They should have saved this for the SEGA CD or the 32X. I’m sure it still wouldn’t touch the arcade but it probably would have been better.

Next the SMS one...btw not even the SS port was arcade perfect!

I'm almost embarassed to say that I think that I mildly enjoyed the Commodore 64 port back in the day. Or at least I didn't hate it.

Damn did they even try? I know the comparison is one sided because of the hardware, but damn Genesis could've done better than this...wow