My Thoughts on Xeno Crisis for SNES

Since the game has now started shipping to Kickstarter backers and is also available on the Bitmap Bureau online store too, I figured I’d share my thoughts.

Now, I don’t have an original SNES console anymore, which is currently the only way to play the game for this particular system (no digital version), so I can’t play it directly myself, but it certainly looks and sounds great from everything I’ve seen and heard with my own eyes and ears. And the controls in particular seem to be a real highlight in this version too according to all the previews/reviews thus far from people who actually own it, which makes sense, as the SNES’ controller is particularly well-suited to this type of dual 8-way moving and 8-way shooting gameplay.

What is Colour Blasting on SNES?

Yes, this image has been Colour Blasted

Colour Blasting is a term I coined on New Year’s Day 2024 that I like to use to describe all the awesome things you can do on SNES due in part to its amazing colour capabilities, especially for a console of its time. My original idea was to use it as a “cool” back-of-box marketing name for the feature otherwise known as direct colour (bit of a boring name for a feature that allows the SNES to display a massive 2040+1 visible colours on background 1 alone), which I didn’t think would really excite people and capture their imaginations if they saw “uses direct colour” on the back of a new SNES game box. Thus, Colour Blasting was born.

Using SNES offset change per column horizontally

Note how it says that each column can be controlled separately and can be scrolled horizontally in 8 pixel increments. . . .

How my eye-melting SNES mockup could be done

Here’s how I would probably do all the elements found in the mockup, which would run in Mode 0 on SNES:

Background 4, 2bpp, about 16 colours in total. The coloured stripes are made to look like they are scrolling vertically using palette cycling and/or HDMA to change palettes as required. The line scrolling effect might look slightly different to the clip above, as I’ve changed how I’m now doing this, but it will basically be the same.

The completely underappreciated possibilities of Mode 0 on SNES. . . .

So, I was [very roughly] messing about and trying to see how close I could get to matching one of the boss battles from Shinobi III on Genesis by using only two of the four available background layers in SNES’ Mode 0 (it’s actually the underground boss at the end of Round 3, which the video should automatically jump to), and it turns out that the SNES can get pretty dang close indeed:

Is Gunstar Heroes Possible on SNES?

Continuing with my idea for a series of articles looking at both old and new Sega Genesis games and analysing whether they could run on SNES or not–I’m here to prove they can by providing examples of similar feats being achieved in actual SNES games, both old and new titles, plus any modern demos and the like where necessary–the next game I want to look at is Gunstar Heroes.

Is Xeno Crisis Possible on SNES?

Continuing with my idea for a series of articles looking at both old and new Sega Genesis games and analysing whether they could run on SNES or not–I’m here to prove they can by providing examples of similar feats being achieved in actual SNES games, both old and new titles, plus any modern demos and the like where necessary–the next game I want to look at is Xeno Crisis.

Sonic on SNES

So, just a quick thought and a simple example demonstrating how a SNES version of Sonic the Hedgehog could improve the visuals of the game in some areas to give the SNES version a very nice look of its own, despite it not having as wide a view of the level as the Genesis version:

A little bit of  Colour Blasting does the trick

The image above shows how, along with adding a little more colour into the GUI, a nice gradient on the background sky, and making the clouds look a little softer using some more colours, the SNES version could also use that extra third background layer along with a bit of colour math to have a really nice reflection and semi-transparency effect on the water. And, it’s important to point out that not only does it look like its reflecting the scenery there, but the actual shimmering water would be on a seperate layer from the reflection of the hills and would be scrolling at a different speed too, which would add some really nice extra depth to the parallax also. Oh, I also used the Sonic Mania character design and GUI icon for him too, just because.

Is Castlevania: Bloodlines Possible on SNES?

Continuing with my idea for a series of articles looking at both old and new Sega Genesis games and analysing whether they could run on SNES or not–I’m here to prove they can by providing examples of similar feats being achieved in actual SNES games, both old and new titles, plus any modern demos and the like where necessary–the next game I want to look at is Castlevania: Bloodlines.

Is The Cursed Knight possible on SNES?

I’ve heard a lot of people claim in recent times that the SNES couldn’t run this Genesis game or that Genesis game because it’s too complex for the system or it would just suffer slowdown on SNES because of its “slow” CPU, etc, which simply isn’t true in 99% of cases. And, not only are these assertions coming from hadcore Genesis fans, they’re even coming from SNES fans at times too, which is just very disappointing.

So, here’s an idea for a series of articles looking at both old and new Sega Genesis games and analysing whether they could run on SNES or not–I’m here to prove they can–by providing examples of similar feats being achieved in actual SNES games, both old and new titles, plus any modern demos and the like where necessary.

The first game I want to try this with is The Cursed Knight, just because I was watching a playthrough of it when this idea popped into my head.