Battle of the Ports - Mercs (戦場の狼 II) Show #75 - 60fps
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
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Following on from last weeks Commando comes it's direct sequel, MERCS! This time the action is hotter than ever and even features so redrawn Arnold Schwarzenegger posses for the main character images!
Let's take a look at 9 different versions of MERCS. Which do you think is the best?
Time Code
00:28 - Arcade
04:27 - Mega Drive
07:57 - Master System
10:07 - Commodore 64
12:08 - Amstrad CPC
13:52 - ZX Spectrum
15:43 - Amiga
18:24 - Atari ST
21:39 - Sega Saturn
24:10 - All versions
Enjoy!
Tiertex did the Amiga version before the ST version, but kept the same graphics.
They had the coin op, but no source code or artwork.
One of the coin ops later levels into 2 huge levels, due to having to fit into the ST memory, if they wanted it to scroll smoothly.
The ST version was coded in a couple of weeks after the Amiga version.
If Anthony Ball had been given more time, he'd of used a barrel scroll and used more colours.
Your video inspired me to look into the press reaction to the C64 version at the time, scores seem in the 50-60% range, with Zzap 64 pointing out game clearly inspired by Commando 😂
Lol, obviously the Zapp reviewer had no idea about the game's history 😂
@@RetroCore worrying isn't it?
These people were paid to write about games for a living
I'm pretty sure that "nyarlathot-tiertex" is a code word to opening the gates of hell.
As an owner of the Saturn version, I can confirm that it looks exactly like the arcade, it's no where near that bright. Clearly something went wrong when capturing footage.
my Saturn RGB cables always produce a duller image when capturing video (Looks fine on the TV) so I boosted the brightness and contrast in post but looks like I may have upped it a little too much. The Saturn version does indeed look identical to the arcade version.
The original mode on the MD is so good...but damn hard!
I used to love the original mode. It really added a lot to the game. It was also quite an unusual addition for back then.
I've never actually played this despite knowing of it. This has inspired me to fire up Coin-Ops and give it a go. Obviously the MD port is the best and the Amiga even gets a decent arcade conversion for a change too!
Mega Drive port is great. Sure, it lacks co-op, but the arcade mode is really faithful and the Original mode is just a great addition.
+Marcel Weber That's right, Even without the Co-Op mode the Mega Drive release is excelent. Plus it does have that extra RPG style mode.
Mega Drive and Saturn versions is all you need :D
Agreed. Both are excellent.
"He was a Green Beret. Now he is a Merc."
Sounds like a tagline for a cheese 80-s movie, which is very appropriate for this game.
Looks quite like overhead levels of Super Contra, just with better graphics.
Sega MD version looks rather good and RPG mode sounds quite similar to the Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops and later games in that series.
Other version look predictably from poor to worse, with notable exception for Amiga and Saturn.
P.S.
What with horrible scanlines in the Saturn footage?
Those scanlines are not horrible :p actually, the Saturn footage is played on real hardware which was running through my Framemeisters while capturing the footage. I forgot to switch off the scanlines.
Retro Core Yes. they are, (for me). =)
I hate scanlines in any shape or form, especially on emulator. They look ugly as sin.
The megadrive version was the best, because it added the "original" mode with several characters who could be improved!
That C64 tune is weirdly seductive
An amiga conversion and a ST one handled indepedently? now thats surprise... A good one! Good game and port...
Tiertex port good on the Amiga - times were changing?!...
It sure is a surprise. They must have had a long time to develop this port.
They outsourced it, like they also outsourced Bonanza Bros. That's why those games have the Tiertex name on title screen but they don't completely suck.
The guy who coded the Amiga version (and I'd guess the ST also) was the same guy who coded Globdule on Amiga, and had never worked with Tiertex before or after again.
the Megadrive was always pretty much spot-on with all Capcom music back then
Sure was. The conversions were handled by Sega which is probably why. Capcom only started developing for the Mega Drive once Street Figher II came about.
Does the PS1/Saturn port have TATE? it would be pretty cool.
Also props for the Genesis port, while missing 2P it's a really good port and the Original mode is great.
The Saturn port does for sure so I'm guessing the PlayStation should have too although I've not checked that version.
I played the Sega Genesis version of MERCS & it was a very challenging game.
It sure is but I find it to be one of those game you can progress a little more each time you play.
Such a great overhead run and gun game and pretty tough. The Genesis port is really good. Not to mention the game is also available on PlayStation.
My first exposure to Mercs was on the Mega Drive. I loved the game on that system. The original mode was a great addition too.
And the music is just AWESOME. It's very similar to the arcade version in my opinion.
Sweet, I loved Mercs in the arcade. I thought the Mega Drive conversion was pretty solid as well. I never got the chance to play this 3 players however, I'll have to find a couple of friends and try this in MAME.
RoryDropkick I've played 3 players on the Saturn port once with the use of a multitap but never actually played it in the arcades.
The music of the arcade version almost sounds like a Mega drive game
I'd say the Mega Drive version sounds better in some areas.
I played the MD version a year ago; very good version. and I really think the game would have been more memorable if it had been called Commando II.
davidvfx In Japan it was but I wonder why they did change the western name?
Subbing cause this is a good game to show the ports of.
Cheers man! Hope you enjoy all the past and upcoming shows.
Beautiful - I play this on my flashed Xbox (the first one), in TATE - lovely..
You played the emulated version on the Xbox which he don't do.
You played the emulated version on the Xbox (Which he's not covering).
Great vid, great game! :) Looking at the Saturn version it seems to be too bright. Maybe some resistors are needed on the RGB lines? If you look at the game fading in at 21:56 you can see background detail then it's all washed out. Same scene on the Arcade at 1:35
SLaCK Gaming Yes, the Saturn footage is too bright. I have two games which suffer this problem. One is Super EDF on the Super famicom and the other is Mercs on the Saturn. Commando featured in the last show was recorded using the same hardware and software but that has no issues. Hmm, maybe an issue with the Framemeister settings?
I played the emulated version of it on the PS2 as part of Capcom Classics Collection, and on the PSP as part of Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded.
Vests are overrated
"I got no time to bleed!"
"Nothing is over! NOTHING!"
Retro Core
Hey, recently there have been some games coming out in Japan I'm interested in, as well as some older games that don't have any fan translations, I was wondering, when and how did you learn japanese? Did you learn it at a young age or later in life? Any good sources for someone wanting to learn? I "studied" it breifly last year but fell off the wagon.
deadluiga Hi deadluiga, I started to learn Japanese when I was around 20 years old. In November 1998 I came to Japan to stay for good. I've been here ever since. Being surrounded by Japanese really helps and to be honest I never really studied that much. I've spent almost half of my life in Japan so I guess I just picked it up. When I was in the UK I used books such as Japanese for Busy people and something by Gakken.
Can you listen to the soundtracks from the saturn like a regular cd music? I thought about getting the ps1 but I don't think you can play japan ports on the US system.
Hmm, I think you can. The game also has a sound test though so it's easy to copy the music
Well I do hope it can.
The Amiga version is surprisingly not bad for something by Tiertex, but sadly most of the BGM is gone. All you get there are the stage 1 and first boss themes. They should've gone with 2 disks for this one.
Two discs would have been a sensible idea.
I own the MD port of Mercs and it’s a very good port the same they had to lose the free player mode due to the 8 Mb Rize limitation but they made up for it with the original mode which is pretty fun other than the Saturn version which is pretty much the arcade game there isn’t any other version that’s worth playing, especially as they were all programmed by the dreaded Tiertex.
"Being such a popular game saw Commando being ported to many systems of the time. Let's check them out." This was in the description, was it an error?
***** Well spotted. I'm going to change that now.
Is it just me or does the first level bgm, sound a lot like the first level bgm of Final Fight.
+gingataisen Well, they are both Capcom games and do use the same sound engine so in that respect I guess they do a little.
Any chance that you could enable bilinear filtering on your console sections of your videos (megadrive, snes, nes etc) so you have a comparable video effect across all the system you show, as your arcade games alway have bilinear filtering enabled but the your console sections don't and they look worse for it, being all sharp and pixelated etc??
BlockABoots I could. I'll see if all the emulators have a good enough feature. I think the Mega Drive stuff looks the worst without it. The next video is already filmed so I'll think about it for the following one.
Retro Core Yuck, please don't do this! Bilinear filtering is horrible, show us those pixels.
Each to their i own i guess, i was looking more a parity across all clips for each system, so either have all systems with bilinear filtering enabled or all with it disabled
Yes, would prefer it to be consistent too, as long as it's off :-)
hmm, I'd rather have scanlines :) still, I think it's maybe better to have the filters off since some system emulators don't suport them.
I like the Mega Drive Version
Same here. The extra mode was a very nice touch.
I used to play this in the arcade a lot.
Tyrone L. Warbasse Yep, it''s a real classic. I actually came to know this game from the japanese import on the Mega Drive before even knowing anything about the arcade.
Yeah. I had the MD version, not the American Genesis version. $5 at a Chinese store. Thought it was weird that lady had MD games and sold pots and pans.
Mercs just unlocked many old memories. Thanks for the video!
Tyrone L. Warbasse
No worries, man. Glad you enjoed the show.
Commando was good, but Mercs was even better. Next to the Saturn port, the Mega Drive version is fantastic in its own right. As for the other ports? Tiertex: The Cream of the CRAP!
***** The cream of CRAP is right but I do have to say that the Amiga version isn't actually too bad. Maybe Tiertex got some outside help for that one?
About Mercs, 2 things to say : 1) the amiga version looks like ST graphics, but it displays around 60 colors on screen. The coder of this game, explained that Tiertex sent a preview version of the ST release in duplication factory lol The Final master disk never made it there !
But here is the worse, he also explained that his bosses never allowed him to use the Amiga superior abilities, he had to code it exactly like the ST !
God, why did US Gold have to get all the arcade licenses! :(
It's such a sad past for home computer gamers.
@@RetroCore No joke. After seeing what the Amiga 500 could do with decent developers and/or publishers it's even more sad lol. The Amiga 500 port of SFII could have been non-shit if say the guys who did Elfmania handled the technical side of things and someone else handled the gameplay. But no, both SFII and Final Fight get god awful US Gold bodge jobs... :(
Odd that Capcom didn't decided to got for a dual joystick setup for this sequel after the popularity of Smash TV and its control method rather than this difficult and outdated point and shot method!?
BlockABoots You forget that Mercs is a Japanese designed game while all the twin stick shooters like Smash TV are American.
For some reason, native Japanese players did not (and still don't have) the motor skill to use two control sticks simultaneously to control a game, and Japanese games reflect this by avoiding the use of the right stick when it makes all the sense in the world to use it. For example, Resident Evil 4 and all the Metal Gear Solid games have moving and aiming all on the left stick when it should have adopted the third-person shooter control standardized by Western games by having the left stick be exclusively for movement and the right stick be exclusively for aiming.
This is why genres that requires simultaneous twin stick use like First-Person-anything and third-person-shooters with manual aim aren't popular and Japanese-designed third-person-anything games rely solely on the game's auto camera to follow the character while providing terrible camera control on the second stick for any Japanese gamer that actually put their thumb on the second stick for some reason.
BlockABoots I'm sort of glad they didn't because I find the dual joystock controls confusing :(
Retro Core I was like that when FPS transitioned from DOOM to Quake.
It was hard to go from playing with the keyboard only in DOOM to requiring me to use the keyboard and manage a second movement, the mouselook, simultaneously in Quake.
But now, this control scheme is second nature, as evidenced by the success of Call of Duty.
Sorry, I was actually talking about dual sticks for 2D games such as Smash TV. 3D games I have no problem with at all. I'm very comfortable playing modern FPS games :) odd that I still have an issue with 2D dual stick games though.
Using those smart bombs very early Mark............
Lol, I'm a very impatient guy 😁
Please fix the "direct squeal" typo in video description
Fixed :)
Retro Core Thank you!
14:55 - Just noticed... are those dildos lying on the ground in the ZX version?! ;)
Richard Craig hahaha, I think you're right.
Wow I thought this only came out on the genisis
It's surprising to know that a game you once loved and thought was only on one system ended up being on many different systems.
Had this for my imported Japanese Megadrive - loved it! A great port apart from some slowdown now and again. My only problem was that everything was in Japanese!
Even with the story being in Japanese it was very easy to play I thought. I also had this back in the early 90s on import. Such a great game.
All versions that isn't Saturn , Amiga , Genesis or Arcade are a total crap.
Only Genesis , Amiga , Saturn and Arcade are worth playing.
The MD version is a true Masterpiece , because of original mode . "Original Mode" makes MD version a 2-in-1 game.
Wouldn't even say the Amiga version is worth playing when you have the Mega Drive version around at the same time period. Of course, that Saturn is a very close port of the Arcade game but those extras in the Mega Drive version really add a lot. Fantastic soundtrack too.
Retro Core Yes , Amiga version is a much worse than Mega Drive .
But for Amiga arcade port and a Tirtex game it's really good.
That is true. Normally a Tiertex game would be unplayable.
I really liked the Megadrive version back in the day, glad that I avoided Teirtex's "awesome" efforts
Again the C64 version has only a good music. In the beginning of the 90s they didn't want to spent time and money in programming for the 8-bit home computers. Only for the 16 bit home computers. What a shame! I had really problems to get new quality games in 1991. Then in 1992 i bought the Super Nintendo. At Christmas 1992 i had 4 games. Super Mario World, F-Zero, Super Castlevania 4 and Street Fighter 2.