Doom fusion(uses the Sega CD and 32X together) to bring the definitive version of Doom to home consoles. more powerful than the PS1's version, would need an XBOX 1 or PS3 to do better.
The Sega Genesis, still one of the the best systems ever made. And even so many years later, great games are still being developed for it. But Super Castlevania 4 on the Genesis? Just plain awesome
I think were actually hearing the snes music in this demo. The genesis is FM and there is no way in hell it could sound like this out of the box. Maybe they're using mp3s or some kind of compression.
I'm absolutely AMAZED how great the music is. I'm a huge PC Engine fan and LOVED Ys 3 on it, then I played it on Genesis and was shocked how great it could sound. The Genesis is capable of incredible music, it's just most companies half assed it and used Sega's GEMS utility to make the music since the Yamaha sound chip was difficult to program for if you weren't familiar with it.
Remember how Pigsy's Mega Drive version of 'Symphony of the Night' looked in it's early stages. It's in a different league now, looking great (special thanks to Pyron for working on the colors there - his 'Bloodlines' color hack is also magnificent! Try it out!). I'm sure the same amount of progress can be made here with Castlevania IV. It's all about how much effort the author wants to put into it.
And now much Konami's lawyers decide to interfere. Konami do mostly pachinko machines and play rock paper scissors up their accountant's ass, but they released CV collections in the past, and hopefully they won't "Rockstar" style send out a cease and desist, Nintendo style-ee
You think that's bad, just wait until I finish my prototype console. I plan to utilize the expansion port on the Genesis. I'm making a custom bus controller, interface, CPU and GPU chips for it, to try and keep costs down. Sadly my CPU prototype came back from the foundry defective. It was all over the place. Back to the drawing board long story short. I'm planning expansions to keep it alive for at least two generations. Modder friendly as well. Gotta keep it alive at least for only a very long time 😂😂😂😂
@@felix-ve8jk well that's..... technically true. But I'm talking something more lit than Raedon, and more blast than the blast processing idea and the actual tegra combined. Well I am talking mad smack but I'm building it to technically be able to run that new dynasty warriors that's about to drop soon ( assuming it hadn't already. To be fair I've been working on this for about a year and a half with a faulty Risc-v CPU of my own creation.)
Im speechless. The music... How? How they got it SO CLOSE? SCV4 is among soem of the very best musics ever done on the SNES and this... is an amazing rendition!
Yea I wonder if they're "burning" PCM samples to make some of those instruments. Not a complaint the result is awesome. Like others have said hopefully that won't come at a cost of cutting out when more sound effects are in but maybe that's not as much an issue on the Genesis/MegaDrive. I'm guessing a bigger reason this wasn't done more in commercial games at the time is it would blow through the cartridge space and on segaCD it would take up too much working RAM? But today's homebrew doesn't have to be constrained by that so I hope they keep rocking this soundtrack out!
@@xrror It's EXACTLY what they are doing. This chiptune artist has LOTs of samples in their songs (you can see their other work does this as well). To the point where you'd need much larger than a 40megabit cart for it to complete this project.
@@TurboXray A lot less of the soundtrack is sampled than you'd think. Like, you'd have to use samples for the percssion and probably *some* of the string sound are sampled too, but very little isn't actually FM. Even the piano (as heard in the first stage theme) is being approximated (very carefully! If anyone's going to have opinions on this project it's going to be me, and I've been impressed by it) by a more horn-like FM sound. It's mixed very carefully so it doesn't stand out as an obviously different sound, though I'd have probably done it with a more clavichord-like sound were someone to ask me to do a near-1:1 replica. I think the strings in the miniboss are synth as well. Combine a brass voice with the sort of lead that you hear in, say, chinatown in revenge of shinobi, and maybe mix in a little detune and you can get something that sounds almost 1:1 with the original (I suspect many of the sounds in that sample pack some early SNES games have -- a lot of the instruments that CV4 uses show up in Soul Blazer, for example -- were all sampled from production FM synthesizers, which the YM2612 can typically replicate pretty effectively).
Incredible work. But man, when you got to the music part I was in denial (in a good way) about just how good it sounds. Seriously, how did they do it???? Best of luck to the devs on this project.
I always felt that the SNES game had one of the best soundtracks of all time and the one thing that could never be replicated on Sega Genesis. I am blown away by the music samples that you provided so far. I can't wait to see how this evolves. Thank you for the great content.
Dude... I am beyond impressed! If this was just a tech demo, I'd be more than happy. I never needed this to be on Genesis, but I'll be kee9ng an eye on it. The graphics are spot on, but that soundtrack has me floored, and I'll be thinking about it for days! Thank you, Sega Lord X!
@mxggo9046 all genesis rondo of blood demo been on youtube since 2021, c4 here, castlevania1986 etc...nobody found the 32x bloodletting and 32x is mostly 30fps anyway compare to genesis 60fps
There's actually a couple of things in this demo I like over the SNES game. It scrolls faster and the animation on Simon Belmont (including the whip mechanic) looks better. Good music too 🙂
Super Castlevania IV is one of my favorite games of all time. I have the original SNES game CIB. I’m actually playing it now on the Switch. I’m amazed at the music, it’s so close to the original. Very impressive for such an early build. Much love and respect to the people who make these games.
OMG I never knew the Genesis could do music so close to the SNES. I love Super Castlevania IV it would be awesome to play this Genesis version side by side with the SNES version once the Genesis one is fully available. Hats off to the developers who have started this version.
@@manoftherainshorts9075 I know the algo learns by hours you're watching content, like on Sunday Happy Console Gamer always shows up and SpawnWave shows up every weekday morning, but Sega Lord X was always a constant. IDK what happened
I recently saw something where someone is porting Bloodlines to the SNES. I don't remember much except it got rid of the backdrop on the HUD so the level now uses the entire screen which I appreciated since it's a pet peeve of mine for Genesis games. You should cover that too if you haven't already.
Definitely a cool concept and solid start. This was an early SNES title that I was obsessed with, my neighbor and I taking turns playing until we eventually finished it. Great childhood memory for sure.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, there have been plenty of these for a while now. I’m pretty sure the 2-Demake of Metroid Prime remains incomplete. Otherwise, great stuff, as always!
En mi utópico mundo la niebla sería transparente (viendo la última demo técnica de los fantasmas de super mario world en Genesis sería posible), y Konami debería apoyar el proyecto, y venderlo como DLC en el recopilatorio de Castlevania para consolas actuales.Muy buen video Lord X.
Developer here : Why the hell they used the H40 mode of the MegaDrive when the H32 mode exists on the system ? For those who are not familiar with the hardware, H40 mode is the 320x224 resolution mode and the H32 the 256x224 one... This is a really bad choice because the developers could have match the exact same resolution found on SNES... :/ Now, the music rendition IS INCREDIBLE ! What a banger !
Loving what I'm seeing so far. I'm impressed with the sound especially. When Genesis games sounded good, they sounded great. The color loss will be a small price to pay if the finished product plays as well as it looks like it does. Can't wait.
Its interesting some of the earliest games on snes had 2 planes on either side of fences and mode 7 graphics (super C4 and Mario World). The genesis needed more Capcom (and Konami).
Ya, for sure, although with clever programming techniques and good artistic vision, it has been possible to make approximations of what the SNES was capable of… or at least something the exceeds what people expected the Genesis was capable of. adventure of Batman and Robin comes to mind as an example.
The Genesis/Mega Drive can't do dynamic "Mode 7" effects like the rotating hallway easily (though it _can_ do them in software if you don't mind it being noticeably slower), but the coders have found a bit of a cheat that can replicate it rather closely. Using clever palette cycling tricks, you can simulate that rolling curvature look without needing Mode 7 hardware.
@ostiariusalpha I'm less concerned with the rotating hallway (I've seen Genny games approximate this rather well) and more concerned with the rotating room, chandeliers, and Rock Golem.
@@alexh2790 The swinging chandelier is pretty easy, several Genesis games have the same type of effect with vertical column manipulation. The rotating room before the spinning hallway isn't impossible to do in software either, thanks to there being no enemies during the rotation movement, the Genesis would have plenty of CPU resources to carry that out (scaling/rotation manipulating the BG layers is actually easier than with sprites). The Koranot might be trickier, because there are hitbox calculations that have to be taken care of, but it's probably doable. If not, then tile animations can replicate the shrinking during the fight, and the Genesis can zoom the golem in software after the creature is defeated.
SNES looks amazing, but it's professional. The fact the Mega Drive one is so close... I just wish some people would work on Mega CD versions too (I guess 32x too)... imagine the music and more colours
Pretty close! If these guys make the source code available, then perhaps someone will pick it up in the future, and make a 32X version with enhancements to take it the rest of the way!
I wish more commercially released Genesis games had this kind of audio quality. I really love what they did with the soundtrack here. It manages to sound more like a re-mix rather than just a pale imitation. Very impressive!
This is great, love it when people set out to do these retro ports for old consoles. Not to take away from anything done by these devs, music sounds great and once the controls are fine tuned it will be magnificent. There is another Castlevania port project for the Genesis that needs to get it's deserved exposure, that being the Symphony of the Night port made by Pigsy's Retro Game Dev, he and his colaborators have been at it for some time now and to be honest it's starting to look and sound impossible for a Genesis game. I mean porting 32-bit graphics and remaking CD audio and managing to get it looking and sounding so good as they have is a marvel. Please give it some well deserved exposure and love. Thanks for showing this, great vid!
yes! i been waiting on this. i saw a demo for rondo of blood for the genesis on youtube but it never moved past the intro stage with death. looking forward to seeing where this one goes
When I got my oled steam deck and put my Sega genesis emu on it, I learned how amazing castlevania bloodline's is. It’s the best 2d castlevania next to SOTN. The music especially level 4 is grand master
darn it, it is not done yet :( Sega Genesis and Snes are my two fav consoles to this day. I have an Snes with FX Pak Pro connected via HD Retrovision Component cable to my 32 inch Sony Trinitron sitting right next to me. guy who did the music must have made a deal with the devil. It is witchcraft and blood magic! 8:00 see, I KNEW the Genesis could play great music, its just that most game devs for the system took the easy and lazy route and used that program that made the games sound bad.
This is how I imagined what Castlevania 4 wouldve looked like if it were on the Gemesis. Definitely shows such difference in the graphics and music department here. SNES is definitely the superior version.
This is incredible to see. I have actually fallen in love with the dithering, reduced color palette, and GEMS sound driver of the mighty Sega Genesis as the years go by. The console has aged like a fine wine, it gets better with age.
Vector Orbit is currently in the top 3 chiptune MD makers around (first one is "god" Savaged Regime of course). Just check his Final Fight OST version: it's the BETTER version around, better than the one currently used in FF MD project (I also told him to propose his superiori version to Mauro Xavier), shame they didn't answered him...
Not to demolish your expectations but once sfx are added the music will be hit... Still, up to this point Batman was the game that first impressed you with the Mega Drive sound chip, perhaps this game did the same?
I always wondered what would castlevania 4 be like on the genesis, Super castlevania 4 is one of my favorites on the Snes, very cool and fantastic project i will definitely be picking this up as soon as it finished and available to buy. Thanks Sega lord X so all us old gamers can helps keeping this Hobbie alive
The music is definitely fm channels or maybe even uncompressed redbook audio because the genesis is not capable is this type of bit-rate sampling fidelity as far as the og specs are concerned.
It's a little bit funny that while everything looks slightly fat on SNES when viewed on a 4:3 TV, everything looks a little skinny on Genesis when viewed similarly. And you can see that really clearly here in the side by side comparison. Anyone playing this on a real Genesis and 4:3 TV is going to be stuck with those skinny visuals. But the majority of Genesis games when viewed on a 4:3 TV are actually in the same boat and also look a little skinny, while the rest look a little fat just like SNES, so I don't think most people will mind. Luckily, you can view both versions without any stretch or squash on modern systems by setting them to 1:1 square pixels, so that's nice to have as an option. In terms of the port, the copied and pasted visuals look largely the same in these examples just with less colours, a lack of some proper transparency, the missing full overlaid HUD, and a few other small details omitted here and there. There is more horizontal view on the Genesis port though. And the music on Genesis sounds very nice, although not quite as rich and orchestrated as in the brilliant SNES original. The controls and gameplay look like they could do with some work, but I'm sure that will get improved. Not sure how much of the game is ultimately going to get made, and there's definitely going to be quite a few areas where the Genesis isn't going to be able to match what was achieved in this early SNES title. Not just the Mode 7 areas, but also a few levels where the SNES is using three full overlapping backgrounds and some parts with extra coloured transparency too. Still, a decent snippet of one of SNES' greats so far. And on a similar note, I'm also very interested in seeing more of that SNES "port" of Castlevania: Bloodlines too, as it will be cool to see how close that looks to the original and indeed if anything more is added beyond what is currently there. I know in the current demo he's added some rain and semi-transparent fog and stuff like that, alongside a fully overlapping HUD and I think a bit more overlapping parallax in one section, so that's a nice start. Definitely want to see more of that for sure.
The Mega Drive seems to always surprise us some way or another, I mean, it's an affordable home console from 1988, a few weeks ago, we received Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and now listen to how nice this demo sounds, it's really great stuff.
Were you around back when castlevania 4 released on the snes? No matter how many 'unofficial ports' of this game is released decades later, nothing beats that particular moment in time. What a time to be alive!
There is truth to that, as I owned the game back in 1992 and played it a lot; I liked it so much I always wanted to ignore the password system and start from the beginning to see some of the mode 7 effects in the earlier levels and the lush colors of stage 2. That being said the best way to play this game now is with the fastrom patch (and restoration if preferred) applied. Playing through it completely optimized and without the slowdown; the way that it should have been in the first place.
@@shiningphantasy1393 Actually, i think the best way to play it is through an fpga! I loved mode 7 so much, I remember thinking "now Namco can release an arcade perfect port of Assult for the super nes.
Just another reason why owning the SNES was the best way to go during the early 90s. I was 11 in 1992 and Super Castlevania IV, Contra 3, SimCity, SMW, Street Fighter 2, ActRaiser... The titles from the launch window through the first year were godly. Genesis had great arcade style games but SNES had it all. Simulation, platformers, RPGs.
1992 is also when the Sega Genesis had Sonic the hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2, World of Illusion, Ecco the Dolphin, TMNT: Hyperstone Heist, Thunder Force 4, & Shining Force.
If you're looking for some new retro Video Game Music remixes, please check out: Bandcamp - Retro VGM 2023 Volume 1 / Retro VGM 2023 Volume 2 / Castlevania 2023. (All remixes are from the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit era of gaming.)
daaam!! i thought it was SNES music playing in the background, but then it got louder and it's practically one to one! very impressive.. also the lack of parallax in the unfinished levels reminds me of those less-than-polished Genesis games, haha! also also, because the port is more vertically stretched out, it could even scale better on wider screens, which could be handy!
