MODE 1 > MODE 0 wishlist

[Anthony Flack]

I don't think any home conversion of Black Tiger was any good. It's a great arcade game.

[ZorrO]

Strider 1 & 2, Street Fighter 2 old and new, they are good example how different can look the same game on the same computer but other MODE.

Paperboy - mode 1
https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=3629

Adios A La Casta - 1 & 2
https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=12680
https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=13113

[RedAngel]

many of those awful mode1 speccy sh**ts often also had terribad game engines beyond any redemption.

I mean, check for Black Tiger or WonderBoy Monsterland... and you'll know.

Bad use of rasters, small screen, many routines or engine code strategies unfit for CPC, tailored to run on a Speccy 48 with tape... or just coded by a poorly paid british student in 2 weeks.

Fantastic use of dithering in Black Tiger 

[lmimmfn]

many of those awful mode1 speccy sh**ts often also had terribad game engines beyond any redemption.

I mean, check for Black Tiger or WonderBoy Monsterland... and you'll know.

Bad use of rasters, small screen, many routines or engine code strategies unfit for CPC, tailored to run on a Speccy 48 with tape... or just coded by a poorly paid british student in 2 weeks.

Your Black Tiger looks brilliant, i think it could be improved just slightly by using a split raster for the upper scores(i.e. using red, white and more like the arcade font) etc.


I messed around with that blue part of the play area also adding white, not sure if it works and making it look too busy, i think the red in the scoreboard works though

[Egg Master]

I think a problem with Black Tiger is the too little game window.
The width can be 240 + 16 px (2 char columns) for the scrolling.

[MacDeath]

Your Black Tiger looks brilliant, i think it could be improved just slightly by using a split raster for the upper scores(i.e. using red, white and more like the arcade font) etc.

Thx you, yeah it's an old mockup I did a long time ago, certainly around 12-15 years ago.

Yeah you are right, we can add rasters to get more colours for the HUDs zones (Upper score zones, Lower inventory zone) as they actually did, but this would often mess with the game engine and provide those awesome typical CPC slowdowns we all loved and enjoyed.

"Imrpoving speccy ports" is an old debate we often already had here or in various other forums during at least the last 15 years. many issues for that : games engines are often beyound redemption due to dire limitations, because designed for speccy to begin with.

Black tiger : the Speccy game is "monocolour" to begin with, scenery tiles are in 1bpp (bit per pixels, Sprites are 1bpp + mask for transparency in 1bpp, so the CPC one is too. Also game designed for Speccy48, so limited to 64k on CPC.
Proper CPC engine should handle 2bpp tiles and 2bpp tiles using 1 ink for the transparency technic, hence limited to only 3 colours + transparency.
Also those rasters were often badly coded and could slow down more than needed, just for the benefit of saying "look, there are 6 colours on the screen" despite the game zone still being fuck**ing 2 colours only.
Must be very hard to implement this on a game engine without a well documented source code and it is actually bettetr to do a new game from scratch, and most people don't find Mode1 attractive for such game

When they felt fancy on their speccy ports, they would at least get the sprite displayed a different colours than the backgroun (see Xybot) which is actually a grerat upgrade as there are no colour clashes here... well we have a wiki page on the mater jsut read it.

 
And yes the backgropunds blue tiles could be slightly highlighted (looks good as you did) but at the time I did this, I was aiming at just a "proper mode1" without those often useless resters used on those poor speccyports, just as for the pacmania mockup too... and I botched/skipped a bit this part.

I did a few tries with tiles Studio at the time, like ages ago...

[MacDeath]

think a problem with Black Tiger is the too little game window.

The width can be 240 + 16 px (2 char columns) for the scrolling.

Tiertex also did Strider with exact same issue, game windows so small it activates bidirectional scrollings each time you jump... which wouldn't happen had the gamefield been bigger.
limiting the full screen to 256x192 was first a way to keep the speccy code, and reduce the theorical "VRAM" to 12ko (often it didn't even shown in the code and wasn't optimized, pure lazyness most often)
Smaller window was a suppsoed way to keep CPU ressources to allow smooth multidirectionnal scrolling and save some RAM somehow. But from a ZXspectrum48 perspective... laughable when you owned a CPC6128 that was reduced to litterally emulate Speccy48 (and did it badly).

Game like final fight is also Speccyported... the 192pix vertical limit gives a smaller screen so it needs some vertical scrolling when you're up on the screen and jump... uneeded animation as they could have run for bigger screen (use a bit more RAM, theorically) bu then you don't have to implement a vertical scrolling at all, which is certainly a juge gain too.

would need additional 4ko of RAM for screen, so count 8ko if dubble buffered... the game already uses 128ko RAM and may be a bit well stuffed, still I think if could have been done.

[MartinJSUK]

None of these games we're criticising look anywhere near as good as Mode 1 is capable of, and very few of them move as well as the CPC (in any mode) is capable of. Issues like the reduced window size but unchanged sprite size reducing visibility or enforcing excessive scrolling (on a system where scrolling is a weak point) isn't a matter of Mode 1 v Mode 0. Plenty of French games (especially adventures) look great in Mode 1, likewise isometric games like Strike Force Cobra or Head Over Heels where sacrificing colour to maximise detail is done effectively. And I still think monochromatic Last Ninja 2 looks great (though the Spectrum sound is another matter).

[MacDeath]

Last ninja 2 would have looked very much better had is used an extra ink or been in proper Mode2, though.

[isidoro]

Last ninja 2 would have looked very much better had is used an extra ink or been in proper Mode2, though.

I've reverse-engineered a good amount of Last Ninja 2 source code as a learning exercise (around 80% variables and functions with names, all 6 levels assemble ok), but I don't have the skills to make a good mode 0 conversion. Also there is a problem with System 3 is still an active company that owns and exploit the copyright of this game ...

[lmimmfn]

Last ninja 2 would have looked very much better had is used an extra ink or been in proper Mode2, though.

I've reverse-engineered a good amount of Last Ninja 2 source code as a learning exercise (around 80% variables and functions with names, all 6 levels assemble ok), but I don't have the skills to make a good mode 0 conversion. Also there is a problem with System 3 is still an active company that owns and exploit the copyright of this game ...

I doubt System 3 would care, Galahad on EAB might have System 3 contacts as he recovered Amiga Putty Squad from one of their hard drives back in 2013 and the game was released then( was reviewed back in the day but never released until then)

[Egg Master]

I've reverse-engineered a good amount of Last Ninja 2 source code as a learning exercise (around 80% variables and functions with names, all 6 levels assemble ok), but I don't have the skills to make a good mode 0 conversion. Also there is a problem with System 3 is still an active company that owns and exploit the copyright of this game ...

Congratulations! I think just using the C64 graphics is enough to start making a Mode 0 conversion.

[dodogildo]

I think just using the C64 graphics is enough to start making a Mode 0 conversion.

Exactly. Too bad System 3 won't let anybody touch their intellectual property. pfff!

[Egg Master]

People can do what they want. Nobody will complain if it is not for a commercial use.

[dodogildo]

I may be wrong but it seems to me that C64's Last Ninja 2 backgrounds are on double-wide pixel mode so basically they can be reproduced pixel-perfectly on CPC's 160x200 mode 0. So far so good.

On the other hand, character sprites seem to be on square-pixel mode (like they're on a 320x200 matrix, and yeah C64 gfx work in strange ways). So pls tell me how on earth a CPC last ninja sprite won't look (and move) ugly on mode 0?

[andycadley]

Well yes the C64 graphics are double wide pixels, but there also limited in colour selection so they'll also look uglier than they need to on a CPC.

As to the high res sprites, you could either redraw them (again the CPC is less limited here in terms of adding colours for detail) or just target the Plus machines (which can do high res sprites and still use yet more colour)

[rexbeng]

There's the BBC Micro version to source those wide pixel sprites if one needs to.

[isidoro]

Last ninja 2 would have looked very much better had is used an extra ink or been in proper Mode2, though.

I've reverse-engineered a good amount of Last Ninja 2 source code as a learning exercise (around 80% variables and functions with names, all 6 levels assemble ok), but I don't have the skills to make a good mode 0 conversion. Also there is a problem with System 3 is still an active company that owns and exploit the copyright of this game ...

I doubt System 3 would care, Galahad on EAB might have System 3 contacts as he recovered Amiga Putty Squad from one of their hard drives back in 2013 and the game was released then( was reviewed back in the day but never released until then)

System 3 is about to release "The Last Ninja Collection" for PS5, PS4, XBOX, PC and Switch through Kickstarter. They raised 213.000€, and it seems the release is mainly containing their old games running inside an emulator (C64, Amiga and Spectrum versions), so in this particular case I think they are not going to be happy with someone sharing their source code...

[isidoro]

Well yes the C64 graphics are double wide pixels, but there also limited in colour selection so they'll also look uglier than they need to on a CPC.

As to the high res sprites, you could either redraw them (again the CPC is less limited here in terms of adding colours for detail) or just target the Plus machines (which can do high res sprites and still use yet more colour)

Problems would be memory to store all tiles and gfx, double buffer, music, ...
Ninja and enemies sprites in mode 0 are not going to look good (maybe could make ninja sprite a bit taller to increase definition)
The source code maybe could be useful to make MSX1 port (Spectrum direct port), or redrawing sprites in hi-res to make Amstrad plus, MSX2 or Spectrum Next versions.
But all of these now are beyond my skills.

[isidoro]

This is a test with C64 screen resolution and changing some gfx, without double buffer (writting directly to vram)

[ZorrO]

In my opinion Last Ninja on BBC in 8 colors and pixels like in MODE 0, looks better than CPC version. C64 is even prettier and could be easily done on CPC, even if Ninja had bigger pixels than on C64 it would still be better than what we have now.

In the early 90s when I had my 6128, I had a lot of friends with Atari XE and C64, and I only had two things that made a bad impression on them. Talking programs and Last Ninja. I didn't know then how it sounds and looks on C64, but when I heard and saw, I understood.

[cwpab]

John Gage (the swearing British youtuber) gave The Last Ninja a 1/10, and CPC Game Reviews gave The Last Ninja 2 Remix a 9/10.

Both seem to use the same monochrome engine, and none of them seems to have sound.

I think the "black and white" graphics are kind of nice, less aggressive than the purples of games like Nosferatu. But yeah, mode 0 would have been much more immersive. This is not a game inspired by a noir film.

[andycadley]

I think the BBC version shows that you certainly can redraw the sprites and have them look ok, although I'm not sure everything on the BBC has quite the same proportions, so it might be more effort (although you can theoretically use more colours too, so there is scope for doing a better job).

I can't say I ever really enjoyed Last Ninja on any platform though, it always seemed too fiddly for my liking and not as enjoyable as other isometric titles (although it did look pretty I'll grant you)

[Egg Master]

This is a test with C64 screen resolution and changing some gfx, without double buffer (writting directly to vram)

It looks promising. It is a good way to do. I'm sure a CPC mode 0 will have his own identity like that.

[dodogildo]

System 3 is about to release "The Last Ninja Collection" for PS5, PS4, XBOX, PC and Switch through Kickstarter.

d'oh!