Look Who it Was Random video

1. (60 FPS Genesis) Magical Forest - McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure

481 views · Published 14 August 2015 · 23:23 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: WhiteKhakis · 2015 · Gaming

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Do you believe in magic?

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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So... maybe you heard of this crazy corporate-driven game? How it's supposed to be psychotic and bad? Well~ It may be psychotic, but it certainly isn't bad! It's made by Treasure! The same folks that created Gunstar Heroes, Ikaruga, Wario World, and more! It's in good hands, no clowning!

THAT said... this game is all kinds of disturbing. You have a pretty solid platformer with a kinda Bionic Commando gimmick through Ronald's scarves he shoots out from his sleeve to hang on things and such. He also can muster up some dark magicks and dispell his enemies with a burst of children's tears! Or whatever it is. Using these abilities you must make your way through Treasure Land™ to find the Treasure Map™ to find the Hidden Treasure™!

And boy, are you in for some stuffs! I still don't understand half the things I've seen here, but the imagination at Treasure really shines through to make this an interesting adventure! Big well animated baddies, shiny crazy backgrounds,  and lots of neat effects! It's also just tricky enough for the "pretty much blind" run I'm pulling off here, too!
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First level is the Magical Forest. I take it a bit slow here as I get used to Ronald's antics and the madness that surrounds him. Oh, let me quickly explain the health system: 

You have Gems. They are your health. Then you have flowers, they act as "reserve" gems IF you have a full row of them. Either orange or white suffices. If you have an empty gem slot, a full row of flowers will fill it. Basically you have a lot of hit points in this game!

There are also panels with gems on them that give you another gem/hit point slot, "magic" that gives you stronger magic (up to level 3), and balloons that let you rise from the dead! Well, from falling off-screen, at least. Ronald heads = lives and Arches = continues. "Golds" is the currency you can use here.

There was also an attempt at a "Columns" type game here that... kinda is lame. So I skipped it in the video. I'll add an Extra featuring it later.

See you in the next Magical Level~!
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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/comparisons%20-%20differing.html
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.

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