Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/21

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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Jonpachi »

Looks like Play-Asia copies of the Saturn Tribute pack are shipping soon. They just billed me for my copy.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by evil_ash_xero »

So, how are the ports? I'm wanting to get a couple of them, but I'm worried about input delay and whatnot.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by BulletMagnet »

I don't think it officially releases 'til the 30th, so it'll be a bit yet before most of us will get to try them out.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by evil_ash_xero »

BulletMagnet wrote:I don't think it officially releases 'til the 30th, so it'll be a bit yet before most of us will get to try them out.
Just noticed. :lol:
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

Just bought Cotton 2 off the Japanese eShop.

Checked the intellectual properties via the Switch home menu and a giant Unity logo was facing me, which unfortunately explains a lot:

- The input lag is really quite bad, noticably laggy in-game but much less so in the options menu. It feels like your standard Unity engine game rather than the exception to games running on the engine (e.g. Cruis'n Blast on Switch is Unity, but very responsive). But it also might be because of the Saturn emulation, not Unity.
- Audio emulation, at least to my ears, sounds a bit off. The final part of the title screen music sounded too low pitch. Might just be me though
- Visual options are bare bones. You can change between 'normal' (what looks like pixel doubling to 480p on Switch handheld) and 'max' (fills the screen), and activate a blur filter but that's about it

I'm disappointed, but this is just initial impressions. Honestly wasn't expecting Unity either given City Connection were touting the 'Zebra Engine' in their marketing materials, but maybe that's the name for their emulation solution and it's wrapped up in Unity (think Pac-Man on PS4, which is 1GB in size due to the Unity wrapper and associated libraries). The credits pages for these ports also state 'Made with Unity' in big letters. The use of Unity engine certainly explains the new Xbox version - makes it comparatively easier to port, much like Sisters Royale which was also Unity.
Last edited by harborline765 on Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by BrianC »

Hopefully, the PS4 version (which I have preordered) will fare better. At least I have Cotton 2 on Saturn and the 1MB ram pack. Unity doesn't get my hopes up, though.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

Yeah, Unity stuff seems to have consistent lag across all platforms (FF Crystal Chronicles Remastered is even slightly worse on PS4), but fingers crossed.

It could also be the Saturn emulation that's causing the lag, but the PS4 has a similarly weak CPU to the Switch. Not sure if PS4 BC on PS5 would help.

Edit: Given the input latency is much higher in the game itself rather than the options menu, I suspect it's the Saturn emulation that's laggy.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by lovecraft »

So, in the end, this compilation seems to be crappy :?: :cry:
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Ms. Tea »

Makes me wonder if it'll run better on PC with the Steam release. Maybe I should be cancelling my physical preorder...?
BrianC wrote:At least I have Cotton 2 on Saturn and the 1MB ram pack.
One of the things I was excited about here was a version where resolution switches aren't a problem anymore. Guess that's a sign I really need an RT5X (or one of the other new scalers).
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

People are jumping to some pretty huge assumptions right off the bat here when there hasn't been nearly enough testing and input to really tell for sure.

First of all, Switch is generally the worst of all versions for any multi-platform game, so impressions about that one are pretty irrelevant besides to other people who want to buy it on the Switch specifically.

PS4, PC, and Xbox will all need more testing in many different scenarios. If PS4 version also runs like crap, running on PS5 is unlikely to help, it's generally just a pretty 1 for 1 performance unless they release a patch that specifically targets higher performance on the PS5, which is very rare.

Xbox, however, the Series X does automatically improve performance when playing XB1 games, so there could possibly be some benefit there.

PC will need all kinds of testing with different hardware.

Beyond all this, there could be patches in the following days or weeks that could alleviate some issues, so patience is another virtue here. Also need to get results from people who are using wired controllers exclusively, using data from wireless controllers (especially JoyCons) is usually completely pointless.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by lovecraft »

MachineAres 1CC wrote:First of all, Switch is generally the worst of all versions for any multi-platform game, so impressions about that one are pretty irrelevant besides to other people who want to buy it on the Switch specifically.


Precisely, in my case, I don't have the PS4 but I have the Switch and I pre-ordered the physical edition. So when I read harborline765's first impressions, obviously it spoils my joy to learn that the emulation of a game running on a 1994 hardware remains imperfect on the NSW. We are talking about a product put on the market. If the folks at City Connection release a product before it's completely optimized, it's frustrating for anyone who pre-ordered it. Maybe they'll release a patch to fix it, but still it's frustrating.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Out of curiosity ran frame advance in Mednafen to see how much baked in latency the game has (EDIT: On the Saturn port). The lowest figure I saw was three frames pressing start to go from the intro to title screen but in play character movement and pausing have five frames before you see the animation come out on the sixth, shooting was even less responsive with the animation starting on the seventh frame.

Unlike 8 and 16 bit systems I have never seem people measure Mednafen against real hardware with frame advance so can't be sure these figures are completely accurate but given it's a much higher figure than the average game I have tested it's entirely possible that like Guardian Force this game was not the most responsive experience to begin with.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Jonpachi »

Damn, that's worse than the Psikyo ports. I have a physical on the way that shipped today... will pray for a patch to get us at least into sub-5 territory during gameplay.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

I should have specified that the input latency comments above were based on playing the game in handheld mode, joy-cons attached to the system.

I now played about two hours of it, docked, using a Pro Controller. Latency feels the same to me - fine (but not perfect) in the non-emulation, options menu, but definitely a lot laggier than Saturn in emulation. That's both when I play the Saturn game on my old 2007 Sony Bravia, and of course when I play on CRT itself.

The game is still largely playable, but certain segments are certainly a lot harder to play and that's why this latency is unacceptable. I'm used to holding down attack, and zipping all over the shop during tea time, but it's so difficult to move Cotton around in that state, both in tea time and during stages, because she's floaty here and the latency makes it feel like she's sliding on ice or something. The other things that get more difficult are, naturally, having to dodge tiny projectiles, especially during boss fights. While the game generally doesn't demand lots of small precise movements, it's during these moments where the added latency really hurts it.

---

I'm eagerly awaiting PS4 impressions. I suspect it's the Saturn emulation adding the latency here, it's really impressive what the programmers have achieved and how, aside from some minor audio quirks and longer load times, it's very accurate to the original game. If the issue is the Saturn emulation then PC, and potentially Xbox BC via Series S/X, may eliminate it because the CPU cores in the Switch, PS4 and Xbox One are so slow. I'm not sure about PS5's PS4 BC but from what I understand CPU-bound stuff doesn't receive any gains. The Unity wrapper is probably adding some lag as the options menu isn't as snappy as stuff like Mushihimesama, Aleste Collection or Cruis'n Blast. And as others have speculated, the Switch may be adding some extra lag as well, but it's not an inherent rule that Switch produces laggier ports - the reverse can be true as well (FF Crystal Chronicles Remaster, also on Unity engine, is laggier on PS4). But it does seem harder to get the lag down on Switch.

I removed the Fall Guys Unity engine PS4 video from my earlier post because it's simply misleading - Cotton does NOT have 14 frames of latency!!! It feels more like 7 to me.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

An unscientific video filmed at 240fps.

https://imgur.com/a/hymTcfS
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Ms. Tea »

Looks like Steam and Xbox are coming some time later: https://twitter.com/claricedisc/status/ ... 8125420553
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

tomwhite2004 wrote:Unlike 8 and 16 bit systems I have never seem people measure Mednafen against real hardware with frame advance so can't be sure these figures are completely accurate but given it's a much higher figure than the average game I have tested it's entirely possible that like Guardian Force this game was not the most responsive experience to begin with.
I never put much time into the 32bit Cottons, but I certainly got the impression that they were not as responsive as others (on actual Saturn). So your Mednafen tests sound plausible to me.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

Ms. Tea wrote:Looks like Steam and Xbox are coming some time later: https://twitter.com/claricedisc/status/ ... 8125420553
That explains why I couldn't find them on the coming soon section of the store on Xbox. Would have happily bought it again on Xbox Series X and PC.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Rastan78 »

but it's not an inherent rule that Switch produces laggier ports - the reverse can be true as well (FF Crystal Chronicles Remaster, also on Unity engine, is laggier on PS4). But it does seem harder to get the lag down on Switch.
This is spot on in my experience. A lot of people assume that the Switch is inherently laggy and the console itself adds extra lag to every single game on it, which I don't believe is the case due to several games being even faster than their PS4 counterpart ie Mega Man 11.

With M2 emulated ports for example games that require less power to emulate like Thunder Force IV or GG Aleste are extremely responsive on Switch. More than likely it just takes more effort to optimize these ports due to the slower CPU. There are plenty of laggy games on PS4 as well ie SFV which a lot of players prefer to play on PC where it can be played with less latency. There are plenty of games on Switch that have equal or less latency to SFV even on PC.

Probably early on the fact that the OS on the Switch when choosing a game etc isn't too snappy helped cement the idea in a lot of players' minds that the console is inherently laggy.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Sima Tuna »

Called it, fucking City Connection strikes again.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

Sima Tuna wrote:Called it, fucking City Connection strikes again.
Why is it the cool and trendy new thing to hate on them? Game Tengoku, Psyvariar and Cotton Reboot were really solid releases across the board, so what are people bitching about now? Don't blame their shitty Western partners who botched up all the releases here, I'm talking about the games themselves.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

Psyvariar Delta was alright - would have preferred them porting over the original engine instead of using Unity though. But that seems to be the norm for most modern rereleases of older games now, and about half of all new games are made with it.

Were City Connection involved much with Cotton Reboot? I always thought it was IP owner Success, developer Rocket Engine and Japanese publisher Beep?

Speaking of Cotton Reboot, I have that one on the Switch and it feels extremely responsive.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

No involvement at all with Reboot, maybe they just published the OST or something?

What was wrong with Game Tengoku Cruisin Mix? I think I remember even having some of the original staff as developers?
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

harborline765 wrote:Were City Connection involved much with Cotton Reboot? I always thought it was IP owner Success, developer Rocket Engine and Japanese publisher Beep?
Not sure how much they were involved with the Reboot actually, but the Success website lists their name in the same lines with Success and Beep, but it looks like Reboot was mostly in the hands of Beep, not sure how City Connection fits into it. It's kinda weird that Success is just licensing out the series to a bunch of different developers at once, but I guess it's just how they chose to approach the projects.

Curious who is supposed to be handling the Panorama and 100% ports soon too.

I didn't really find much issue with Psyvariar myself. Did you play it on Switch or PS4?

Even still, I don't see how one less-than-great release makes them all of a sudden "a shit company who fucks up everything they do" as Sima Tuna's post seems to imply

EDIT: Also forgot they handled the horrendous Psikyo ports on Switch, so that's definitely a big negative against them, but still they've had some good releases and some not-so-good.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

Yeah, I agree that it's taken out of proportion, much like Konami these days (with Konami it's almost as if they only ever made Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill).

I got Psyvariar Delta on Steam/PC, but it still had Unity quirks - you can get input latency down by launching it in window mode exclusive mode via the steam game properties. 60fps Unity games can also exhibit stutter due to poor garbage collection as well. Some devs write their own garbage collectors but it doesn't seem to eliminate the problem entirely, as seen in Genshin Impact, probably the highest budget and most graphically impressive Unity game around.

Interesting that you bring up Success' almost random licensing, I hope it works better than what they did with Umihara Kawase which literally ran the IP down into the ground. Then there was that weird cavern exploration metroidvania game which used the same engine.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Ms. Tea »

Yeah, like you say, City Connection have published some great stuff - Psyvariar ran great for me and I haven't heard a complaint about Game Paradise.
MachineAres 1CC wrote:EDIT: Also forgot they handled the horrendous Psikyo ports on Switch, so that's definitely a big negative against them, but still they've had some good releases and some not-so-good.
IIRC those started out at Zerodiv before City Connection bought them. If anything, I guess that just points to it being hard to tell which team at City Connection is handling something and what to expect based on that?

This doesn't look like Zerodiv, anyway. Someone posted the staff: https://twitter.com/pikuri_/status/1443233942619009027
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by BrianC »

The only possible Zerodiv connection I see is Naoki Shimasaku, who was involved with a couple of the Sol Divide ports for Psikyo.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by trap15 »

Input lag sounds to me less like an issue with the port and more like they did not adjust (hack? not sure why they would emulate unless they lost the source code) the games to reduce their already dramatically bad input lag issues. Pretty disappointing, I was hoping we might finally get a version of Guardian Force that doesn't have like a thousand frames of input lag. Maybe we'll get lucky with a patch...
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by Sumez »

Damn, I had this release in my shopping basket on Play-Asia last month when I randomly heard someone say it was handled by the Psikyo collection guys. Glad I backed out, but sorry to hear they didn't manage to improve anything.
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Re: Saturn Tribute: Cotton 2 + Boomerang, Guardian Force, 9/

Post by harborline765 »

Video comparison between Switch in handheld mode with Joy-Cons attached and Saturn hooked up to a CRT:

https://imgur.com/a/o0bjy6A

Yes, it's unscientific for now, but there's definitely extra latency on top of Saturn, and it's going to be due to a bunch of factors: Unity engine, the Saturn emulation, the Switch's display, how well optimised it is for Switch. Repeat the same for PS4 but replace "Switch" with "PS4".

The problem is the extra lag pushes it into uncomfortable to play territory for a bunch of sections in the game, like when you're making microadjustments to Cotton's position at a moment's notice, or during tea time where you need to accurately zip around the place. During my 2-3 hour session last night I adjusted to the input latency for everything else, including pulling off command-input attacks. And the quality of the emulation is very accurate. They even added in a Training mode to the game's front-end. But just be warned it's not as responsive as the original game - both running on CRT and an old mid-2000s era Sony Bravia.

Also: someone in Japan is going to do a scientific comparison between Switch and PS4. I'll post back when it's done.
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