We've certainly played our fare share of Castlevania inspired games over the years, especially the most impressive Castlevania Spectral Interlude by Sanchez on the ZX Spectrum. But today news is super special and well worth a mention, as thanks to another heads up by the Scorpion Facebook page, we've been shown some brand new footage of the upcoming Castlevania demo of 'Akumajou Dracula AGA'; An in development AGA Amiga version which is in the works by Dante Retro Dev!
Castlevania was and still is an incredible action platformer, that even today can be played via emulation or through an NES and give you hours worth of enjoyment. Now however thanks to Dante 3D dev, not only can you still play the playable prototype featuring the whole first level which is playable with its sections (1-1, 1-2 etc) right up to the boss, and the basic "framework" for the game is set. But the latest Facebook footage shows progress on some of the levels in the game as well as massive AGA sprites (64x256) wrapping in 2 back layers (SSCAN2) for columns (new).
Links :1) Website ( New Demo Soon! )
Great work. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous visuals and music, only the SFX seem a bit too lo-fi. But I think I may get used to that if it can't be done any better. I guess the chip ram is setting the limit here. Nice work so far and I'm looking forward to the release!
ReplyDeleteI don't know that chip ram has to be a hard limit? OctaMED got around that by some way or another. Though to be fair there wasn't also a game running alongside it. It would be something the developers of the Scorpion Engine would have to investigate if they are so inclined or haven't already.
DeleteYou can swap music or sound samples back and forth between chip and fast ram. Some games did it just as Octamed.
DeleteOutstanding!!!
ReplyDeleteSehr sehr geil
ReplyDeleteLooks great so far!
ReplyDeleteThe Best Castlevania on 16 bit.
ReplyDeleteThis seems as good as a Pc Engine conversion, and it is made with an editor. I cannot imagone what skilled coders could do in Assembly on a normal A500.
ReplyDeleteThat’s a huge compliment. Especially since one of the best Castlevania games was Rondo of Blood. And because the color palette of the TG-16 is the most memorable part of the system and what makes its games look great to this day.
DeleteSo if AGA supports a palette of 256 colors, how come this looks like a standard OCS game with just 32 colors..?
ReplyDeleteNot all A500 games had 32 colors, genius...
Delete256 color mode is seldom used because (1) chip RAM is limited and (2) moving that much data would slow things down horribly.
Delete8bit planes doesnt always mean 256 colors. This appears to be using more than 1 playfield, ergo 256 colors aren't an option even if it is 8bitplanes.
DeleteIm sure we'd all love to see the games you've made to show us these 256 color games you're advocating.
Many OCS games already used 256 or even more colors by way of copper tricks. It also depends on how well the artist uses color, if they are really good they can make an OCS game look like an AGA game, or an AGA game look like an OCS game if they're mediocre.
Delete256 colors via copper.. is NOT the same thing as 8bit color pixel mode. There's a huge difference between making a game look like a rainbow with copper and BG row updates, and the freedom of pure color fidelity of 8bit color. Stop trying to equate them.
DeleteReally exciting stuff. Impressed by the capabilities of the Scorpion Engine and the homebrew games that have been developed for Amiga.
ReplyDeleteThe music is clearly based on the X68000 version.
ReplyDelete