GB/GB/NES style Ultimate MK3 8-bit demake

[psc]

Ultimate MK3 was never released in 8-bit form (the NES pirates only touched regular MK3), but this is how it could look for the GameBoy, GB Color or NES:

http://z80artist.deviantart.com/art/Ultimate-MK3-8-bit-demake-450501969

http://z80artist.deviantart.com/art/Ultimate-MK3-8-bit-demake-Game-Boy-Color-450781238

Comments and critiques welcome

 

[Patrick McCarron]

FYI I've added the thumbnails into your post for you.

This looks REALLY good, way better than the MK3 Gameboy port. Especially the Desert background you show there. You seemed to really get the contrast between characters and backgrounds perfect, which in looking at the existing MK3 port seems to make the game look worse.

Which for those who haven't played MK3 on GB you can see it here:


Since you have a bit of Z80 knowledge, what do you think were the reasonings of their much reduced visuals compared to what you have done so far? Did they sacrifice it all for gameplay speed and cartridge size? Or just simply are there better tricks now that homebrew Z80 development has been progressing so far since then?

Do you think you can get all the characters into the game in some form? Or will the system's limitations hinder you? (I assume you are using a flash cart for testing on the device so less of a memory chip problem but more of a system addressing limitation)

Have you done any other backgrounds yet?

Can't wait to see more.

 

[psc]

The original developers were likely working with tight deadlines, and in that situation it makes sense to aim for what works, rather than what works well. The slow frame rates can be attributed to un-optimized routines and the sparse backgrounds to poor planing and not utilizing all the available graphic tiles in VRAM.

As time goes on, ROM and RAM become more affordable, and companies are able to increase the size of their games. Around 1995 the typical size seemed to be 512KByte, as that is what Street Fight II, Killer Instinct, and MK3 on GB all are. Had UMK3 been released in that era, it would likely have been the same size. So the character roster in the UMK3 pictures is what could realistically fit on a 512KByte cart. Expanding the cart won't make things play faster, it just affords more room for extra graphics such as characters and backgrounds. Graphics and sound samples make up the majority of most games. You can see this by viewing games in tile editors such as YY-CHR.

There aren't really any new technical tricks; it's mostly a matter of careful planning and efficient routines. The biggest obstacles is probably the time element of how long it takes to design custom sprites and then chop them up into tiles. I've noticed several GB fighters credit three artists, one programmer, and one sound person. So logistically it would take too long to create the entire fighter roster.

Graphically, the UMK3 project was designed with both the original GB and the GB Color in mind. Black outlines make the characters easy to see on the original GB, and the separation of greys allow colorization of the skin and suits of the fighters. The "shading" in this case is all done by the black areas.

Games that looked the best on the original GB tended to have clean black outlines to contrast against the backgrounds. Street Fighter II, Kirby, Super Mario Land 2 and 3 all used black outlined characters that were easy to see. The black contrast also helps the low refresh rate of the GB screen keep the characters in focus, since motion causes the characters to turn lighter from the LCD ghosting effect.

I think many of the developers probably did most of their designing and testing on computer screens and not actual GB systems, which is why they didn't seem to grasp the importance of high contrast between characters and backgrounds. Playing GB MK3 on the Super GB on a TV screen it's not too terrible, but on the original GB screen it's too hard to see.

There are indeed a few more backgrounds for this project. Here's the PIT 3, for example:



http://z80artist.deviantart.com/art/Jax-VS-Shao-Kahn-at-the-PIT-3-GameBoy-UMK3-452358056

 

[psc]

A video is now online:

 

[vetalfox]

Controls:
I would suggest the following controls:
select=block
start=pause/in pause movelist
A+B (if close)=throw
B=low punch
forward+B=high punch
down+B=uppercut
A=low kick
forward+A=high kick
back+A=round house kick
down+A=sweep
forward,forward (hold)=run

Roster:
2 Sub-Zeros? Why make 2 of them, when you have such a limited roster, especially when there is a space for 1 more non clone character. Nightwolf, Kabal, Sonya, Kano all could be better choice. Make ninja Sub-Zero use ice clone and unmasked Sub-Zero's story & fatalities and replace him with some other character ( i vote for Wolf).
Will also replace Shang Tsung with Sindel, because she is way more important to MK3 story.

How many colors exactly this hack can produce on the screen at the same time? 16?

Maybe it can produce something like this?

 

[psc]

Hey, thanks for the feedback and thoughts.

On the controls:
Since the video doesn't explain this, I'll try to list how they are set up currently:

High Punch: B
Low Punch: (doesn't exist)
High Kick: A
Low Kick: Forward+A
RoundHouse: Back+A
Sweep: Down+Back+A
Uppercut: Down+B
Crouch Punch: Down+Forward+B
Crouch Kick: Down+A (arcade has both High and Low crouch Kicks, but only one is here)
Throw: Back+B (works really well)
Run: Forward+A+B (works really well)
Block: A+B (also easy to do)
The running and blocking is very easy to do on the real hardware. Trying to reach the Select button to Block would be similar to GB MKII which had Start be Block... it's hard to reach on the real system.

For the fighter roster:
SubZero and Scorpion are the most popular characters, so to leave out unmasked MK3 SubZero wouldn't be something that an official MK game would do. The idea here is to make a version of UMK3 that could have been an official release.
Your thought process is great though. The roster was chosen to include fighters not seen in the original GB MK3. Since Sindel was already seen in regular GB MK3, she wouldn't be new or fresh. The roster size was chosen based on what could fit into the typical size GB cartridge of the era around 1996/7. Nightwolf could definitely replace Tsung, as I think Tsung's morphing could cause gameplay problems. But Nightwolf was in the Tiger Game.com version of MK Trilogy, so he has already had his day in 8-bit form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oty_trGqNT0

On the title screen colors:
The colors are blocked on a tile grid, and each tile is 8x8 pixels. The dragon logo on the title screen is a sprite overlaying the background layer (so it's independent), but the words "Mortal Kombat" would be hard to fit on the grid (hard to color them independently). Your color mockup is good, and fairly accurate and possible. I think the video on YouTube had de-saturated colors because of the emulator, so the real game isn't as muted as you saw. It could definitely be made more "purple".

Also, just so people know, this game isn't a "hack". It's a 100% original homebrew developed from the ground up. Let me know if you have any other ideas or thoughts for things you'd like to see.

 

[vetalfox]

I see, but if you plan on doing story/bios/endings, Sindel is a major part of it, in my view she is clearly needed. Kitana & Jade's ending, main story all have Sindel in it, this is not like i'am a big fan of her, but for the story to feel complete, she is needed. Crouch kicks/punches only created problems in original MK3 (corner infinites), and barely were used for anything else, so in my opinion it better to leave them out.

As for Sub-Zero, they totally didn't include his unmasked version in MKT 64 (and this version was done by Midway), so i don't see a problem here. If you go by characters who wasn't included in 8 bit iterations, was Motaro ever included in them?

What about Human Smoke transformation & how many stages & finishers this version will have?

What if make Select Screen more Primal Rage like - grey stone as background, grey ("inside a stone") portraits in it, but when you highlight someone, his/her portrait become colorfull. Is this possible?