Joined: 08 Jan 2011 Posts: 18 Location: Spaced Out in Binary Land
Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 6:17 am Post subject: A Sunsoft Curiosity
Hi All,
I'm well versed with Sunsoft's policies of developing games before obtaining the license for the characters they intended to include We need look no further than 'Sunman/Superman' and 'Journey to Silius/The Terminator' to recall that they had no issues in making a great game with the hopes of branding it, and when licensing a character or motif failed, releasing it anyway.
My curiosity, which may have passed between the ears of others than myself, concerns the bizarre 'Dynamite Batman/Batman: Return of the Joker'. With gameplay the is in no way reminiscent of the Dark Knight; enemies, powerups and bosses that have no continuity with either the comics or the films, it stands out as unusual.
Honestly I suspect that the reverse happened here: Sunsoft planned this to use a character other than Batman, but failed to obtain the rights to do that, and decided to use their Batman franchise license for the NES/FC to bolster its sales: Essentially slapping batman imagery allover the game that had once been planned to be something entirely different...
Do I have any proof? Heck, no. That's why I'm writing this here: I'm curious, if withing any of the Sunsoft proto and unreleased stuff floating around there is any game that resembles 'Dynamite Batman/ROTJ', but uses different sprites or lacks the Batman animations . I'm not asking for a dump of it either: Just any factual datum that exist for such a beastie, as I cant find evidence to either support by belief, or to quash it anywhere else.
As a side note, I'm a bit shocked that nobody has seemingly done a restoration patch for 'Sunman' with the original 'Superman' graphic tiles/sprites, unless it happened while I was comatose.. Thanks to the regular crew for all the amazing releases especially the latest 'Zelda no Densetsu' FDS image! I'm still musing over paying for the dump of the cart proto, bust to see what's leftover from the FDS version within its code that shouldn't be there, but this was a simply amazing and coincidental publication. (I was pondering about the cart proto very deeply the day before the release of the FDS image.)
Perhaps that's the 'law of attraction in action, or just pure chaotic chance; either way, I still need to write it to disk for the enhanced sound, as despite its abilities, my PPK can't emulate the FM channels of the FDS. I may even have an appropriate white disk somewhere (that contains nothing) to use for it Whichever the situation, again, my greatest thanks for it, and for any relevant answers to my now lengthy initial post.
I highly doubt that Sunsoft never had the rights to the Terminator. They showed the game and NES Terminator package/ poster off at the CES show! If they had never had the license, Carolco (Hemdale?) would have surely sued their pants off the same day as the show. I think it's more likely that they let the license lapse or it was pulled by Carolco.
Interesting theory, though Return of the Joker isn't the only Sunsoft game that plays fast and loose with Batman. The GameBoy game has him mowing down thugs with a gun.
Joined: 08 Jan 2011 Posts: 18 Location: Spaced Out in Binary Land
Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 10:14 am Post subject:
Kid Fenris wrote:
Interesting theory, though Return of the Joker isn't the only Sunsoft game that plays fast and loose with Batman. The GameBoy game has him mowing down thugs with a gun.
True, but it may be a game along the same lines. Milk that DC license for as long as you can. There isn't much factual info on their 'Terminator' deal but it's more likely that it fell through prematurely: 'Twouldn't be the first time something was shown at CES before it was legal---or real. The GB title may have been tougher as well due to working within the limits of the platform and essentially being a demi-port of the FC version of 'Dynamite Batman', so it's sharing the same crap-factor of non-cannon elements because it's basically a dwarfed cousin of the FC game.
I don't think Sunsoft ever got as well versed with the GB hardware as they did with the 65XX code of the FC/SFC. Although I'vd only played a couple Sun titles for Gameboy, I never felt impressed by any of them. (If you can suggest something to change my mind on this subject please..suggest away...)
The late FC stuff is where they really shine the most, coming quite close to 16-bit arcade elements on 1983 8-bit hardware. I really prefer their late FC stuff even compared to SFC titles, as I like the darker colour palette choices of the FC/NES to the extremely vibrant 'pastelle' look of SFC games. I also don't care for the giant sprites on many Mega Drive games, as it just feels constrained. Try the MD 'Barman: Revenge of the Joker' game sometime, compare it to the FC version and you'll see what I mean. Better graphical capabilities doesn't equal a better game: the FC Dynamite game is clearly the superior choice.
May a deal does fall to pieces after a product is shown, that is, before negotiations are complete. Look no further than Nintendo - Atari in 1983/4 and the Coleco+Sam Tramiel fiasco. If not for that one deal-breaking problem, we'd e playing Atari Family Computer systems with joypads that have little knobs and came with a built-in keyboard (probably never surviving past 1988/9 or ever realizing the amazing mapper packages that companies like Konami produced because of it).
I guess, as much as I love Atari systems, the FC would have been a tragedy in 1984 Tramiel control and probably would have been either delayed or mis-marketed and flopped in the end. (i.e. Be thankful that Coleco messed that up.)
Anyhow, in normal business, if you develop and market a game while your license is in effect, even if it expires, normally you can release the product, unless the license specifically provisions this out. Yes, sometimes this isn't the case, but most SW companies ensure that they protect their investments (time to develop), and more often work on speculation of acquiring a license than complete something under license and have to toss it.
If it was under license, but never finished for some reason, well, that's another matter' Interplay's 'Return of the King' falls into this bracket. For any interested--considering the other Interplay thread--according on a guy I used to talk to at Interplay, the game never reached a playable state, and the source for it was essentially just patches of reworked 'TT' code, and not interesting. (I tried to squeeze a beta of it out of them, back around 1993/4 when I had more contacts in the industry, and that was all I could learn.) Going back to 'Sunman'--is there a 'Superman' graphic IPS for this, by the way?--, they went through the effort to do the same there, first designing it with a Superman theme and seemingly were unable to retain the rights and switched the game over to a different character.
I suspect their main process was to design a variety of game engines ; let's call these B-Reel Games'. On the other hand, they designed games purposely for a topic so let's call those 'A-Reel Games'. They gave the A-reel stuff top-notch treatment and really designed it from the ground up to fit a mould, whereas the B-reel titles were designed to 'skin' as needed.
This would allow them to fulfill licensing deals on the fly, but when anticipating a license, they could get something special ready, and if it didn't pan out, just re-badge it under a generic heading.
Yet, the 'Dynamite Batman' (I'm going to simply use its JP-FC title for my own sanity and simplicity) ideas are all speculation on my part. It just doesn't feel right at all, and even the end boss looks nothing like the Joker!
Honestly, he looks like a steampunk guy with goggles, and if it wasn't for the colour choices you wouldn't even suspect he was the end boss: On my first play-through to completion I thought that he was a really beefy mid-boss... I think he was a generic character (like all of the others) that was retouched. In the end the proof is in the pudding and only an early proto find will prove or disprove any speculative theories. If the PC has a different sprite, that's all you'd need to know, and it would offer a great insight into Sun's development process.
On a curious side-track: Aren't there some good candidates for Sunsoft/Sun SW USA programmers to interview on these topics? You could probably get some good comments on the ''Batman' 'Super/Sunman' and other games like 'Gimmick!'. I'm curious if they had other ideas in mind for that one as well as 'Gimmick!' seems a very odd choice of titles for a very under-rated and often unknown title of superb quality. They put a lot of work into their later (post-1987) titles and from say, the 'Batman' era onward you could expect a mind-blowingly fantastic game that pushed the FC/NES to its knees, begging for mercy--alongside yourself, as like Konami, their games were often also relentlessly difficult.
The early Sunsoft titles were real stinkers though.:'Super Arabian' and 'Atlantis no Nazo' come to mind, but they were just gettin started on the HW in those days, and I can forgive them for 'Fester's Quest' as it was an experimental idea that just didn't work out very well. 'Ikki' on the same lines is a perfect example of an onomatopoeic title. It has its points like trying to be an adventurish setting, being ambitious enough to attempt to replicate a multi-screen arcade game, but is overall just messy-looking+feeling and generally incoherent with horrible gameplay: Truly earning its place as 'kuso-ge', but far from the worst on the system...
Nonetheless, Sunsot, alongside Konami and Techmo really were the superstar third-party developers and IMHO, Konami the best of the three, as they caught on to getting the most out of every game right from the get-go and never stopped pushing the bar on how much they could expect of the platform. It makes me wonder what they could have achieved if they went on to produce a VRC8.
I don't think Sunsoft ever got as well versed with the GB hardware as they did with the 65XX code of the FC/SFC. Although I'vd only played a couple Sun titles for Gameboy, I never felt impressed by any of them. (If you can suggest something to change my mind on this subject please..suggest away...)
At least musically, Sunsoft was shining early on on the GB, with Batman, Gremlins 2, and Blaster Master Boy. As far as skill/ game design on the GB, check out their game Trip World, absolutely!
Anyway, the Genesis conversion of ROTJ was not done by Sunsoft (clearly) but by Ringler Studios, obviously fans of the NES game but talentless hacks themselves. (Sorry!)
Sunsoft really lost the plot in the 16-bit age, chasing down Looney Tunes avenue in the US, and making Hebereke derivatives in Japan. Nothing that they made in that era interested me.
Joined: 08 Jan 2011 Posts: 18 Location: Spaced Out in Binary Land
Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:57 am Post subject:
You're right mate: I should pay more attention to the developer tags and less to the publisher, but honestly it's been a very long time since I bothered booting ROTJ on my MD, and (Can you blame me?) I didn't recall that it was a subcontract of the original game; unlikely even based on the original code, especially going from 65xx to M68K. That does indeed clarify a great deal about why the game is so terribly awful. At least it wasn't an LJN contract botch-job; I hate to guess who were responsible for those terrible mess-terpieces... (Usually the lowest bidder, I presume, although that doesn't explain how Rare mangled some of their stuff so badly.) I would still love to play the original 'Night are on Elm Street' game that they announced, where you play as ... Freddie.
Anyhow, I'm pretty sure Sunsoft did code the MD 'Superman', and that was pretty pathetic, and generally hated by the fans. A Kryptonian taken out by a ninja in a green cat suit with a hand claw: Priceless. I get that the Braniac devices could give him some trouble, but the game lacks that epic feel that even their FC/NES 'Batman' games had, which is sad, as it could have been amazing if it was properly executed, and a bit darker in parts. It's just...wimpy...although it improved bit in later levels...but it hadn't Perry White either, as I remember! Must have The Chief for it to be Superman.
Insofar as SNES/SFC gmes, 'Pirates of Dark Water' is a pretty interesting release, and they had a nice translation of 'Lemmings'.
Certainly nothing of the caliber seen in their mid to late FC releases but good titles that have unique atmosphere nonetheless.
[EDIT: This belongs here, not on the intersection of the previous two lines.] I'll have to grab a JP version of 'Trip World' sometime.
Tongueman wrote:
gamegeezer wrote:
I don't think Sunsoft ever got as well versed with the GB hardware as they did with the 65XX code of the FC/SFC. Although I'vd only played a couple Sun titles for Gameboy, I never felt impressed by any of them. (If you can suggest something to change my mind on this subject please..suggest away...)
At least musically, Sunsoft was shining early on on the GB, with Batman, Gremlins 2, and Blaster Master Boy. As far as skill/ game design on the GB, check out their game Trip World, absolutely!
Anyway, the Genesis conversion of ROTJ was not done by Sunsoft (clearly) but by Ringler Studios, obviously fans of the NES game but talentless hacks themselves. (Sorry!)
Sunsoft really lost the plot in the 16-bit age, chasing down Looney Tunes avenue in the US, and making Hebereke derivatives in Japan. Nothing that they made in that era interested me.
Last edited by gamegeezer on Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:11 am; edited 1 time in total
Anyhow, I'm pretty sure Sunsoft did code the MD 'Superman', and that was pretty pathetic, and generally hated by the fans. A Kryptonian taken out by a ninja in a green cat suit with a hand claw: Priceless. I get that the Braniac devices could give him some trouble, but the game lacks that epic feel that even their FC/NES 'Batman' games had, which is sad, as it could have been amazing if it was properly executed, and a bit darker in parts. It's just...wimpy...although it improved bit in later levels...but it hadn't Perry White either, as I remember! Must have The Chief for it to be Superman.
It was designed by Michael Mendheim, who also designed Fester's Quest and created and co-designed the Mutant League series. That same design was used for the Master System and Game Gear versions.
Development was done in Japan. The programmers and some of the graphic designers were from outside Sunsoft. Not that any of this makes much of a difference, but there you go.
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Whichever the situation, again, my greatest thanks for it, and for any relevant answers to my now lengthy initial post.
