Rate my playthrough of Thunder Blade

[bombman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDuN5ITn0jw

There's annotations all over the place, let me know if you like this kind of thing.

[bombman]

that bad, huh.... lol

[ShinobiMan]

Very impressive actually. It's interesting to see the arcade version. All these years and I never was able to check it out. Kudos for that. Seems as though the controls and game play are much better.

[parallaxscroll]

Arcade version was impressive for the time. It was driven by the same hardware that powered After Burner, the 'X Board' with Sega's Super-Scaler technology.

[parallaxscroll]

Here is the closest, most-accurate home version of Thunder Blade that exists: the one for the Sharp X68000.

video
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm5750390

Although it is definitely *not* as good as the arcade, it's not an exact port since there's significant amount of missing and downgraded graphics, and it's only about 50% as smooth since X68000 lacks true hardware scaling, and only has a single 68000 CPU unlike Sega's X-Board which has two 68000s plus more powerful graphics hardware, including true scaling, the X68000 version is still far, FAR superior to the PC-Engine & Amiga versions.

Also, unlike the Genesis Super Thunder Blade which is not even a port of the arcade, but more like a sequel, the X68000 version is based directly off the arcade.

comparison screens:

Arcade - 1987
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-arcade1.pnghttp://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-arcade2.png

X68000 - 1990
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-x681.png
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-x682.png

Megadrive-Genesis -1988,1989
(Super Thunder Blade is not based on the arcade)
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-genesis2.png

PC-Engine - 1990
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-tg161.png
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-tg162.png

Amiga -1989
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-amiga1.png
http://hg101.kontek.net/thunderblade/compare-amiga2.png