Well this is a bit of a shocker and one I didn't think I'd be writing up on Christmas Eve. As that legendary game character Sonic from the Sonic the Hedgehog, which appeared on multiple systems, has appeared as a pretty impressive tech demo by RetroRic for the Commodore Amiga. An almost complete level 1 of Mega Drive Sonic the Hedgehog, in both 32 colour and 16 colour versions requiring any Amiga with 2 MB chipram! To find out more read on :)
And here's the full details from RetroRic. "I had the idea of trying to bring Sonic to the Amiga earlier this year, but with the current projects I had in the pipeline, I decided to put it on the back burner and revisit it sometime in the future. With news of Reassembler's new Sonic project for the Amiga, I realised that there wasn't much point in keeping this project alive, as I'm sure his version of Sonic on the Amiga will be built from the ground up and will have dedicated code to try and squeeze Sonic onto the platform. I couldn't quite let it die though, I really wanted to see what was possible with the Scorpion Engine regarding Sonic, so I decided just to make a tech demo for my own creative curiosity."
Furthermore he goes on to say "Initially it was only meant to be a graphical demo and I was finished after about a week of beavering away. Then one thing led to another and before I knew it, the project had ballooned beyond a graphical demo to an almost complete level 1 of Mega Drive Sonic the Hedgehog, in both 32 colour and 16 colour versions."
Minimum Requirements
- Any Amiga with 2 MB chipram
- PAL 50hz @ 288x224
Credits
- Created by RetroRic Presents for educational purposes only. For “Amiga Sonic” Scorpion Engine Project Files and other exclusive benefits and updates visit: www.patreon.com/RetroRic79
Links :1) Source
well that's amazing , please allow me to share some of my thoughts as an amiga fun but i also love the mega drive/genesis.
ReplyDeleteSega mega drive is a very powerful 2D platform and is very well designed around its strong sprite engine. So all these years people say that AMIGA 500 could not run it. So this demo proves them so wrong.
First of all using ECS with only 1MB of ram nowadays because this is how it was used to be.. its not very clever. All new amiga 500 games should be 2MB.
its so unfair because when you use a console its like having more that 1MB all the time due to cartridge instant access.
As the demo proves even with 16 colors it still amazing and without further optimizations and its also in the scorpion engine which still develops.
The Amiga 500 already proved that it could run a game like sonic 1,2 just check Kid chaos (which is better technically than sonic 1) and Mr. Nutz.
Archiving similar results on the Amiga seems to be more difficult but it is what it is.
Many thanks to the developer for this amazing effort.
Lets see how reassemble version would be.
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As I've commented before, resorting to a 2MB Chip RAM Requirement on ECS is generally not a great idea if you want people to be able to play your game on vintage hardware. A 2MB total RAM requirement (with 1 MB of that being Chip) makes perfect sense these days.
DeleteMost A500’s can cheaply & easily be upgraded to 1 MB Chip (very simple board mod), same goes for Fast RAM. Unless you have an A500+ or A600, a 2MB Chip RAM upgrade will cost you a small fortune & that's if you can find one! Even with the Chip RAM requirement it’s nice to see more Sonic news & I can always give the demo a try on my A1200.
That was just the requirement to get a 1:1 replication of Sonic on the Amiga. The 16 colour version almost gets into 1.5chip, but I would have had to cut some stuff down to get it there and that wasn't really the main aim of the project.
DeleteAt least for the Amiga 600, upgrading to a 2 MB chip plus a little Fastram isn't that expensive.
Delete@RetroRic
DeleteIf 2MB Chip RAM is needed then it is what it is, which is pretty cool for Sonic fans with the RAM. Hopefully in the not too distant future there will be cheaper Chip RAM upgrades for A500’s & A2000’s not all that long after “The Buffee Project” accelerator part of the project is sorted. It’s been progressing well lately from what I gather, so many more people will be able to enjoy your port on their vintage systems eventually.
This is pretty amazing! It also shows what the Scorpion engine is, already, capable of, but also pretty much guarantees that Reassembler's project will be successful. Hope RetroRic will continue his talents on other Amiga projects (Revenge of Shinobi please 😁)
ReplyDeleteRevenge of Shinobi.... Black Tiger / Black Dragon!!!!!! PLEASE! :) or Gun Smoke!
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