This was really interesting. A 2D powerhouse board, produced long after 2D was fashionable, implemented with a small cheap minimal board and chipset.
The board is tiny, and is far less advanced than e.g. the Sega Dreamcast that was released 5+ years earlier.
And yet, if you've seen any of these titles in action, there's nearly-unlimited 2D pixel-pushing power on tap. (And when there is slowdown, it's sort of a "bullet time" effect; the article discusses this)
> And yet, if you've seen any of these titles in action, there's nearly-unlimited 2D pixel-pushing power on tap.
I've only played Mushihimesama, but I have sort of the opposite impression. I'd be willing to bet a talented team could have pulled it off on the Sega Saturn[0]. Whether you want to think of that as the Saturn being strong or the CV1000 being weak is up to you, but it's probably a little of both.
Fantastic games, though. Must-plays for any shmup fan, unless you just can't stand bullet hell games. I'm glad that Cave has been slowly trickling out their library on Steam for us folks who don't want all the arcade boards, but I wish they'd hurry it up.
I'd be willing to bet a talented team could have
pulled it off on the Sega Saturn
That's a big claim and a very intriguing one.
Dodonpachi is probably the densest 2D bullet hell shooter on the Saturn and even there, the screen has nowhere near the bullet count of Mushihimesama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IrLTjRlvxY
Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that Dodonpachi represents the absolute possible limits. Could the Saturn have been pushed even harder? Hrrmrmrmrmrmrmrmrmrm.
Maybe. If each bullet was a single, textured polygon... that theoretically fits within the Saturn's claimed performance envelope of several hundred thousand textured polys per second.
Still, the gulf between the Saturn's theoretical performance and practical achievable performance is legendary and notorious. Also, the game is going to need to do more than draw the polys. That is a lot of collision checks to perform. Though probably 99% of them can be skipped/simplified on any given frame if the bullet is nowhere near the player.
Seems like a fun challenge. Wish I knew the first damn thing about writing for the Saturn.
Battle Garegga had a near arcade-perfect port
Mushihimesama has at least an order of magnitude more bullets/objects onscreen than Garegga. It wasn't much of a "feat" to get Garegga running on the Saturn. Its arcade hardware was a MC68000P10 (17mhz) that is not even as powerful as the one in the Saturn!
The board is tiny, and is far less advanced than e.g. the Sega Dreamcast that was released 5+ years earlier.
And yet, if you've seen any of these titles in action, there's nearly-unlimited 2D pixel-pushing power on tap. (And when there is slowdown, it's sort of a "bullet time" effect; the article discusses this)
One of my favorite authors!