Viewpoint (Genesis) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
118A playthrough of American Sammy's 1994 shoot 'em up for the Sega Genesis, Viewpoint.
Played through on the default difficulty level.
Viewpoint was an awesome shooter on the Neo Geo, and it seems to be a game that, when ported, takes on all sorts of interesting changes. The PS1 version replaces all of the graphics with prerendered CGI sprites and a 90s club-style remix of the soundtrack. The Genesis version doesn't quite go that far, but it certain contains a fair amount of alterations. Whether they are for style choices or for system limitations, the game plays quite similarly, but looks and sounds quite different.
The graphics have all been redone in prerendered "polygons" (they all look like objects from early 16-bit and 32-bit 3D games given their low resolution and lack of texture mapping). I don't like the style as much as the other two versions, but I have to admit, it does look cool, and it plays to the strengths of the Genesis. Such low detail levels keeps the bitmap size small in memory, and stylized to such low color counts works around the obvious and ugly dithering issues that so many Genesis games fell victim to. The look grew on me, and I think that simplifying the graphics was probably a better choice than to sacrifice other gameplay elements. I do get a kick out of how the credits refer to someone as the "polygonizer".
The sound is... interesting. On one hand, the soundtrack is like nothing else on the Genesis. It has the techno feel to it that the original does, and it's got all sorts of vocal samples playing in it, which really makes it stand out from the normal 16-bit shooter crowd. On the other hand, many of the samples sound absolutely awful, and the translation to the Genesis's FM chip really shoots a lot of the stuffing out of the original music. I feel like I would like this soundtrack much more if I wasn't really familiar with the Neo Geo and PlayStation versions. It's novel and impressive, but it fails to stand-up at all to the soundtracks on the more powerful machines.
The gameplay has carried over quite well. The original was always a pretty slow-paced game, and though the Sega version suffers from a bit more slowdown than the others do, it usually works to your advantage. This is an extremely difficult game - easier than the other two, probably because it can't throw as many bullets across the screen - but it gets really hairy in a few spots, and you'll really appreciate any breathing room the technical hiccups can give you, I promise.
Back in the day, if you loved the arcade and wanted to play Viewpoint without a $650 console, this was absolutely a respectable way to experience the classic. Nowadays, I can really only recommend it if you want to see how hard it pushed the Genesis. Better ways to play it are too easily available to make this one the port of choice, but still - you could do a whole lot worse! :)
It was originally Sammy's game, so if anyone could do a fair port...
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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