Retro Review Recalls Wing Commander on Sega CD (April 21, 2010)

The links to the last two Sega CD images are broken. But otherwise, the comparison is nice. I can see plenty of subtle differences that one probably wouldn't otherwise notice.

Oh my god! They replaced Iceman and Knight with Angel and Paladin .

There is something awkward about either the review or my copy.

Wing Commander SegaCD has 8 save slots. I believe the NES and the secret missions for NES had only 4 or 6.

And there definetely is an irritating slowdown when there is a lot of action on the screen. I play it through the Neogenesis Emulator, and overclocking the Sega CPU doesn't help because the game then locks up.

I never noticed some details like the VDU displays though.

It would be nice if nintendo would put some of these games up for download on the wiiware service. I noticed that they not only have old nintendo games but also games for some of the Sega systems and the Turbografix16.

That's odd, I'll admit I've only played this from an iso but it only has 4 save slots here too.

It features five redbook audio tracks. It is a multisession CD so when you want to Image it to an ISO you'll need to rip the audiotracks seperatly.

I just fired Neogenesis up and I really, really have 8 bunks/save slots.
Super nintendo version has six bunks, Secret missions has no bunks.

You are correct(as usual), it's the opening tune, the three possible endings(win/lose/claw destroyed with narration), end the closing credits. However I can't imagine the Sega being capable of generating the game music using it's own internal soundchips, it simply sounds to good.

Possibly the music is played back digitally and stored in files(like the music in Wing4). The music and the speech are seperate files, but I can't make heads or tales of it. I used to have a tool a long time ago that could scan any file for PCM audio or Midi/mod/whatever(It even worked on wing1 through 4 .TRE files), does anyone here still have such a utility?

What puts me off the most is that they seem to have completely changed the music from the awesome Wing Commander theme to some rather generic sounding tune. Yes, I can understand they wanted to include "better" music, being of higher technical quality. But then why didn't they put in a high quality rendition of the original soundtrack instead of that? However, it's nice to learn the in-game music remained unchanged.

Changing the "Weapon" in some cockpits to "Blaster" could be considered an improvemend, as it makes it more consistent - ín the PC version depending on the ship some cockpits read "blaster", others "weapon".

It's completely different music, from the enviroments on the claw to the inflight. It does not even have the familiar tune segment you hear when blair get's an emotional scene in Wing3/4 and prophecy.

Ah, now I see what's happening: if you have or emulate a SegaCD RAM cart you get 8 slots, otherwise you get 4. Mystery solved.

Let's see:
I'm using the X-port version of Neogenesis, still the graphics of the bunks are unique. There is actually very little details given on this specific port when I look it up through the internet.

This is the game that got me into Wing Commander! I knew it wasn't perfect, but it beat the awful SNES version, and I didn't have a PC until about the time WC4 was released. I haven't played it since probably about '97 though.

I still punch in the handle "Hotshot" in most WC games.

Didn't they get the rights or something?

Huh? Why should WC1 have that?

If I were to guess I'd think that perhaps the Japanese team responsible for the port simply decided to for more "consoley" music. It's a shame too as it's a pretty solid port except for that.

How odd. Would paying him really have cost more than having to write completely new music? It's made all the more weird by the fact that Super Wing Commander, which was released the same year used remixes of the original music (as did the SNES version, although it had a different publisher). I still wonder if being converted by Game Arts had something to do with it (did EA publish it in Japan?)