No more PAL optimized info?

[ColdRoses]

Just wondering why it doesn't state if the game is PAL optimzed or not anymore on the VC reviews?
Can anyone help as I do like to know before purchasing if the game is optimized for PAL or not...
Many Thanks

[Dazza]

vc-reviews doesn't carry this info anymore because a lot of people in the EU are fed up of being told they have inferior PAL games. Most don't even care.

A simple rule is NES and Megadrive are always 50Hz and not optimised. It's the standard PAL games they always were for Europe.

TurboGrafx is always 60Hz, just like NTSC

It's only SNES and N64 which may have had some tweaks made, usually just minimised borders, just ask on the forum here and people will give their opinion on a particular game.

[ColdRoses]

Thats great, and answers my question. thank you...

[stuart]

Hmm - personally, I can't help thinking that that's a bad call...

It's very valuable to know when the developers of games, such as Donkey Kong Country (IIRC - and the sequels?), have gone the extra mile to make their games better for PAL gamers.

Without this information, surely the review isn't complete - and if it's going to be mentioned in the review, shouldn't it again be available in the side-bar summary information and on the overview pages?

Take, for example, Sonic the Hedgehog - the PAL version was generally seen as slow and glitchy compared to the NTSC version... just because this is equally a fault with the original doesn't mean that it's no longer relevant. Additionally, the text in the review on this site which discussed this now seems to have been removed - what gives?

If developers did a lazy PAL conversion or the game suffers when its speed is dropped by almost 20%, I think the VC-game buying public does want to know.

Given the choice, I reckon it should all be brought back... anyone else?

[ColdRoses]

I completely agree, I also notice the text removed from Mario 64 VC review too. Any review should be complete with all information whether it + or - that could be relevant to your decision to buy that product or not.

[ColdRoses]

Although it would be easier and less insulting to Europe if Nintendo would for once just treat us as equals with the rest of the world and give us the full 60hz conversions and allow us to finally play the games as they were originally intended. There is absolutely no reason for us to have to have the inferior 50hz versions of age old games. And we pay more for our Wii Points... Then VC Archive wouldn't have to alter reviews, people wouldn't have to get insulted by there inferior versions being pointed out to them and we could all just enjoy our games!!!

[Drake]

NES are all 50Hz with the exception of Super Mario Bros., which is 60Hz (It runs at the same speed as the SMB + Duck Hunt cartridge).

N64 are all 50Hz but borders are removed and the game is sped up to match the speed of the 60Hz version.

Mega Drive is all 50Hz, Sega frankly doesn't seem to care. I HAVE heard however that Sonic 2 does not feature slowness. I haven't downloaded it myself yet but it is plausible.

TurboGrafx was 60Hz in Europe to start with so it's still 60Hz now.

SNES is the only mixed bag: While all of the games are 50Hz, some are without borders and slowness (DKC1, DKC2), some have reduced borders only (Super Probotector, Street Fighter II, Super Mario World and some more) and others have both borders and slow gameplay (Final Fight, F-Zero and more).

The European VC list on Wikipedia keeps track of all this, check it out (I update it frequently): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_%28Europe%29

[ICEknight]

I actually found the optimizing info quite interesting. I mean, we can check the MegaDrive games on an emulator to see if the music will play painfully slowly in the Wii but, for example, the optimization in SNES games seem to depend more on each publisher.



We're lucky that the Turbografx games can be played in 60 or 50Hz mode since their PAL and NTSC versions were the same byte-per-byte. This might be the reason why these games are so popular among PAL users, and I hope the same will apply to the Neo-Geo.

If only Nintendo allowed us to choose between US/PAL/Japan versions, nobody would have any fears in downloading their favorite games.