Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Color Hacks

[TrekMD]

[size=140]ROM hacker Pyron has been busily hacking games for the Genesis/Mega Drive by making improvements and changes in color.  One such example is Shadow of the Beast which has been hacked to have colors similar to the Amiga version of the game.  Below is an image comparing the original to the Amiga version. [/size]

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[size=140]Some additional titles that have been color hacked by Pyron include:  Golden Axe 2, Castlevania Bloodlines, Lion King, OutRun, Street Fighter II': SCE.  Binaries can be found here: 
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[align=center:2wz7qwq0][size=180]Pyron's Genesis/MD Hacks[/size][/align:2wz7qwq0]

[AmigaJay]

That looks so much better with the improved colour selection! Makes you wonder what the devs were smoking when they put these ports out!

[Ben]

That looks so much better with the improved colour selection! Makes you wonder what the devs were smoking when they put these ports out!

I have no idea if this could be it, but the trend I'm noticing is that the console ports were much brighter.  Well, that got me thinking:  Remember how fuzzy and dark the picture was on late 80's and early 90's tube TVs?  VGA CRTs had a much better (and brighter) picture at the time, maybe they were trying to offset the difference in the display mechanism?  Obviously now we have retro gaming enthusiasts using RGB with Sony WEGAs, but if you were using standard coax output on a floor model TV you bought at Woolworths in 1986, I think I understand the reasoning (not that I agree with it).

[AmigaJay]

Well it would be the same for the Amiga or Megadrive as both could be used via coaxial etc not sure i see the reasoning there!

[Ben]

Well it would be the same for the Amiga or Megadrive as both could be used via coaxial etc not sure i see the reasoning there!

Ah, I wasn't sure about the old Amigas vs. ports of DOS games like Doom.  I had an old Amiga growing up, but couldn't remember what type of connection it used.  Just a thought I had.

[zapiy]

Wow that looks amazing, as Amigajay aluded to, so much better and you have to ask why was there such a huge difference in the first place?

[Ben]

I just googled it, and funny enough the old amiga I had (that was using a VGA monitor) was indeed doing RGB to VGA with an adapter.  It really is puzzling that they would switch the colors when the MD had the same native output.

[AmigaJay]

It purely might be done to what they thought would be better for console users at the time, giving brighter more colourful graphics was quite common in console ports.

[TrekMD]

Well, he's certainly made changes to several games.  Definitely worth trying out.