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Post by spenoza on Nov 12, 2020 13:50:32 GMT
I read recently that the Spriggan team at Compile actually used the core engine of Gunhed. I hadn't considered the games very similar, but now that I know that, I do start to see the similarities in terms of feel and flow. I've also read conflicting things about Compile's time with the PCE. John Szczepaniak's hot mess Untold History books relate via interviews that apparently some in Compile were simply not impressed with the PCE and were very impressed with what the Gunhed engine could do for moving stuff around. The particular interviewee was much more a fan of the 68000 CPU. Their explanation of going with sampled explosions was that the tinny audio in the PCE didn't do well with bassy sounds. On the one hand, there's some truth to that, but on the other hand, other devs have made great non-sampled explosions on the PCE. The interviewee was very dismissive of the platform as a whole. I think just how smoothly the system handles those sampled explosions is actually to its credit, because Gunhed has a lot of shit going on at once in later levels. This really highlights the problem with interviewing people much later to capture their fading memories. You end up catching their thoughts in a bubble. They are unfiltered and possibly more honest, but they are also potentially misremembering lots of things or glossing over things because there's nobody to help put them in context and offer reminders.
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Post by dshadoff on Nov 12, 2020 13:54:27 GMT
...or perhaps they are interviiewing people who were on (or near) the team, but are representing their own personal views, rather than the views of the team as a whole.
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Post by spenoza on Nov 12, 2020 15:51:33 GMT
...or perhaps they are interviiewing people who were on (or near) the team, but are representing their own personal views, rather than the views of the team as a whole.
Oh, absolutely. And I was careful not to indicate otherwise. But it's also been a long time and Szczepaniak's interview style is pretty disorganized. He's not a top-grade interviewer, and Japanese devs of the era didn't give many, if any, interviews even back in the day. So it's great to capture those interviews, but everything in them needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
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Post by Black_Tiger on Nov 12, 2020 17:36:33 GMT
They're likely just talking about first impressions.
That same interviewee would have been disppointed by the Mega Drive's single sample channel when Compile would begin work on their first 68000 cpu game a year or two after beginning work on Gunhed.
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a
Deep Blooper
Posts: 40
Fave PCE Shooter: 1943 Kai
Fave PCE Platformer: what's a platformer?
Fave PCE RPG: No.
Currently Playing: Soldier Blade Special
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Post by a on Nov 13, 2020 0:40:48 GMT
man even if compile wasnt a fan of the PC engine's hardware, they sure hit it out of the park with Gunhed. Definitely one of my favorite Compile games.
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