Here's Super Castlevania IV On The Sega Genesis / Mega Drive

Holy crucifix. That looks amazing - actually it looks and sounds almost too good for the Megadrive! The trade off is really minimal.
Bit hard to fully tell from this video recording but this looks and sounds better than New Generation/Vampire Killer, which for me always paled in comparison to the SNES game in these departments.
Amazing stuff.

That's really impressive, but I'm very curious as to how they'd handle the Mode 7 rooms in that game!

Looks and sounds impressive! I do have to say though, the gameplay looks much faster and more frantic than the SNES game, which I’m not sure I like. I’m so used to the way the SNES version plays.

May the Genesis live on forever. May my Genesis live on forever 🤞 lol

@NinChocolate Blast to infinity!!! 👍

@Nontendo_4DS haha it definitely looks like gameplay moves faster but I don’t mind the methodically slower movement speed in the early games. You have time to react to your inevitable death lol 😂 Tough but fair, usually.

The Genesis processor is faster than in the SNES hardware 👍 two amazing pieces of hardware

Well, you know what they say: [rough] imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The jump physics look way off. Seems to jump too high then drops like a stone. Definitely needs more time in the oven. Also, the enemy and platform placements are different.

its a 1991 snes game - try porting Dracula X or something like Yoshis Island and watch the sega fanboys cry

It needs work, of course. The jump is definitely not right and is likely preliminary. It's not surprising that the Genesis can handle the basic look and feel of the game. It's nothing special in that regard. There are better looking games on both systems. As for the music, I like what they did with the stage two music. Simon's Theme from stage one is in Castlevania Bloodlines so we can compare. The version in Bloodlines is excellent.

I think the Genesis got the better end of things when it came to Castlevania. I found CV4 to be very disappointing because I prefer the look and feel of the other games of that classic period. CV4 deviated too much for me, and I also didn't like about half the soundtrack. So my only interest in this port is seeing how they handle things. As far as potentially increased performance, there are speed hacks for the original.

Can we get a ban on users calling people names like "Sega fanboys" on every Mega Drive post? Does this not violate this site's own rules?

That kind of immature behavior really lowers the rest of the retro gaming community who know they can play on multiple platforms without devolving into petty tribalism. All of the games are here for all to enjoy, no one is attacking Nintendo or saying the MD is better.

We get enough of that kind of name calling on Reddit and Youtube. It should be left on a '90s playground.

This looks really impressive. Hopefully the dev working on it sees it through to the end.

@Hexapus I agree regarding childish name calling and console wars stuff, which there has been a lot of in recent times, especially initiated by one set of fans in particular in my experience. Although, calling someone a fanboy is about as tame as it gets and an actual dictionary term, so I'm not sure we should be banning its use or people who use it.

And to that point and to be completely fair, a port of this game to Genesis really only exists for one reason in my opinion. So, I guess certain reactions are just an expected response to these kinds of needless exercises trying to prove by demonstration some long-irrelevant system vs system argument. This is just what such motivations breed.

Imagine the reactions if, for example, someone started a port of Bloodlines to SNES right now, and maybe even added in more colours, proper transparency, additional background layers, Dolby Surround sound, improved SNES controller button mapping, a "move player faster [to the point of clunkiness]" option just because, etc. . . .

And, to be honest, I don't think he will see it through to the end, if the end is a complete port of the SNES game to Genesis with everything up to the same level of quality across the board as the original, with nothing missing and the only changes being things that literally had to be adapted to work on Genesis.

But, it's an interesting example showing you can basically port anything from one console onto the other, which is true of really any systems of that era when just quickly ripping assets and getting the core basics down while ignoring the finer details that are more specific to each system.

Very realistically, you could even port basically any Neo Geo fighter to PC Engine for example, if you don't mind losing some background layers and additional particle effects and seeing some sprite flicker and so on.

@bryce951 There's certainly some things in X that couldn't be done on Genesis, such as the lovely semi-transparent fire in the very first level that also uses three proper fully-overlapping background layers for example, at least not without some pretty big visual/aesthetic compromises there. I expect most of the game would be pretty standard to port across though.

But Yoshi's Island did use the FX2 chip on SNES, so I guess it would be fair of Genesis to use the SVP chip in that case if a port were ever to be attempted. I'm sure it could do a basic version of the game even without the SVP chip, but then quite a lot of the cool rotation and scaling sprite effects and such would definitely be compromised in that case. And there's still some cool transparency effects in that game that just wouldn't look anywhere near as good on Genesis, and some levels with three proper overlapping background layers, smooth backdrop colour gradients, use of the windows, and so on.

This is one of these things like I said above, where it's possible to port almost any game from one console to the other for the large part, if you're just going for the obvious core elements with maybe some compromises here and there to get an approximation of the original. So it doesn't really prove much as far as I'm concerned.

What would be far more interesting to me--if we're going down the whole port to prove a point route--would be to see whatever game ported across and then stuff added to it that actually wasn't/isn't even possible on the other system. I think then people would start to understand what makes each console unique and special.

If that's the aim, I would love to see some Genesis games ported to SNES like that for sure.

I can, for example, imagine Bloodlines getting ported across, and then someone going in and improving the colours throughout so it looks just orders of magnitude prettier, adding in proper transparency effects like on that level with the water reflecting the scenery and when it rises up through the level too, adding in more overlapping background layers and added parallax to every level, making the HUD properly overlaid rather than in an opaque bar, adding in Dolby Surround sound to every tune and sound fx, taking full advantage of the SNES' controller for some really cool mapping there, and so on.

Now that's something that would actually capture my imagination and impress me personally. Although, I imagine it would upset a whole lot of people if it ever did happen, because then it would be real and undeniable.

@sdelfin Colour is your main problem porting from snes onto megadrive. It gives me a cold shudder to think of Yoshis Island being imprisoned on a brown, greeny Sega landscape with fart noises for music. oh the humanity

@bryce951 please keep your Yoshi’s Island over in Nintendo land. No one needs to waste hundreds of hours porting that to any other system.

@bryce951 okay. I didn't say anything about Yoshi's Island. This article is about Castlevania 4. The palette wouldn't be a issue there. As for the music, I can't think of any Japanese games that had that issue you describe, so generalizing like that is rather silly.

@sdelfin The palette would definitely be an issue if you want it to actually look the same as the original. It could get a decent approximation to the casual observer though, just obviously with less colours, likely more dithering, and a slightly more contrasting and garish look due to the greatly reduced colour gamut.

But, get Pyron on it and I'm sure he'll do the best possible job.

Like I said though, if the goal is just to get a decent enough representation of a game from one system on the other, it's possible to do that with basically every console of that generation to varying degrees.

Even the humble PC Engine could do most of what you see in the typical Genesis and SNES game, if you are cool with less background layers and overlapping parallax in 99% of cases, no proper transparency effects, probably the most basic impersonation of any Mode 7 stuff, potentially increased sprite flicker, etc.

I think it would be a very interesting experience to port the main Castlevania game from each system to the others, making sure to actually do the best possible job and even push each port to get the most out of its new home in some of the ways that make sense and are pretty standard for that respective console, and see what results we'd get.

@RetroGames You're right, it is a pretty tame insult. You have always had well thought out arguments, whether I agree with them or not, I appreciate that kind of discourse. It's the repeated drive-by middle finger from some people that triggered me. That's on me though, I shouldn't read the comment section first thing.

I would like to see more cross platform ports and this is kind of a "what could have been" project. For example, the remake of Ghouls 'n Ghosts on the MD, it looks incredible so far.

I'm guessing Konami had their reasons like budget restraints, but SNES versions of their MD games would have been really great, not only for Nintendo but for the consumer as well. I'd love to see Castlevania Bloodlines on the SNES.

Capcom kind of went down that road with Strider, SF2, and Mega Man but I can understand why it might not have been in the company's best interest to make a version for every platform.

@Hexapus Yeah, what those remakes and updates and ports and so on show is that you can always do even more on these consoles with enough time, talent, and effort.

I have literally zero doubt almost every game on both Genesis and SNES could be made even better in modern times if both pushed to the max and polished to the max. Maybe not the best Treasure games, as I think they really are about as good as you could squeeze out of the Genesis and use pretty much every trick it's capable of to be honest, but almost every other game for either system.

And I'd love to see some of them, especially on SNES, as right now that system ain't getting anywhere near its fair share of indie/homebrew/hacker love (outside of a LOT of SMW ROM hacks mostly).