4. (60 FPS Genesis) The Lonesome Ghosts - Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse

Описание: Playlist:    • (60 FPS Genesis) Mickey Mania: The Timeles...  

Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialiiiiiize~!

Hey, there! This is a series that'll be featuring the Sega Genesis at 60 frames per second captured on the original system! Why? Well... have you ever watched an older game on YouTube and noticed the main character turn invisible when hit, or some other such nonsense? That's because some older games use some ridiculously high speed flicker effects to achieve those crazy hitflashes on bosses or that "ouch I'm hurt!" flicker! These are not displayed properly at 30 fps, but now that we're able to upload at 60 fps we can see all the special effects that older games would use! (They'll be smoother, too!)
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If you weren't aware as of yet, each of these levels are based off of an old Disney cartoon - all good stuffs! This one is interesting because Donald and Goofy featured prominently in it but they are nowhere to be seen! Which is alright, I guess, since we're focusing on modern mickey. Maybe Goofy and Donald are freaking out in some other room!

This level features many contraptions to figure out and deal with. One of the oddest being the popping lids near the end of the basement section! (Dig the 3D sprite action, yo!) If you want to ride them up without getting hurt, you have to mash the jump button. Or hold it? One of the two. Also those tilting platforms will drop you off if you let them go too far! The barrel in the flooded section saves you from getting hurt from the water, but you'll run right off'a it if you don't let it back up, first! There are other tricks to be found, and with the ghosts being intangible you've got to take advantage of everything at hand!

(Did you see the nod to the haunted mansion in the unfolding paintings? Those are from the elevator room!)
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Let's see, Mickey Mania... This game was released on a ton of systems back in the day. Including some of the "next-gen" ones like the Playstation. The one I know, though, was on the Sega Genesis! And being a 2-D platformer at heart, it doesn't hurt any for it! It does try to pull some funky 3Dish tricks at times, though!

Anyway, you play as Mickey Mouse and must travel through cartoons you've starred in to, uh, rescue the Mickeys of those eras to beat Pete. Or something. Basically, it's an excuse to travel through these cartoons! They are depicted fairly well, and the animations hold up well enough, though the music leaves a bit to be desired. It's very muffled and weird sounding.

The gameplay itself is fairly simple in that you jump on enemies or throw marbles to defeat them. There's platforming elements, and some rudimentary puzzles. Really, the selling point is just checking out the imaginings of these cartoons in video-game form! And it was pretty danged cool seeing it animated on your game cart, back in the day!
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Some additional notes for those technically inclined:

This was captured from an original Sega Genesis system via composite output along with stereo sound to get as authentic a recording as possible. The Genesis used is one of the "good" models with proper sound and video output. Genesis can also output an RGB signal which is clearer, but I vetoed the idea because it breaks the dithering effect (color blending and transparencies) as seen here:
http://retro-sanctuary.com/comparison...
Also, the vast majority of people could not use the RGB signal even if they wanted to, so the experience they remember would be the composite signal as shown in this video.

There are a couple things to note about the quality of the video, however. Sega Genesis has a very dirty video signal that often "breaks" attempts to capture it with a capture device. The capture device I use is considered one of the most capable when it comes to older systems, but the Genesis' video signal still introduces some inconsistencies. These usually manifest where there are extremely thin lines in game, mostly the text, and in some other places as well. As a whole, it is more than manageable, but it is worth noting.

Also, the original sega genesis resolution is, in essence, 240p at 60 frames per second. To take advantage of YouTube's higher bitrate offerings and to enable 60 fps I need to upscale that resolution to 1080p. There is also a step of video deinterlacing before that to create crisp video. That is a significant amount of video processing to the image, so I want to note that here as well.