EXTRA 3. [HDMI] Sonic Spinball - Multiball Bonus Stage!

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No Commentary / Skilled Play / 60fps* / "Pixel Perfect" x3 Integer Upscale

Heyo, this is a capture using the FPGA based "Mega SG" game console. It's essentially a Sega Genesis that works with your HDTV and delivers a clean image and sound. Check the "CRT" playlist above if you'd rather go with a more old-school look!

*Most of Sonic Spinball isn't 60fps. The bonus level arcade machines are and possibly other elements.
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This is unlocked by getting all the rings in a level and jumping through the hoops. It's harder than it looks! I have a quick initial losing attempt at the end.
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***Descriptions lifted from older video***

This game's way past cool, man! You like those bouncy pinball-casino levels in the regular games? Good! 'cause this game is all about that! Though, there's not a single casino-type place to be found, come to think of it... Anyway! It's Sonic Spinball! I'm pretty sure this was developed by Sega's American branch which explains why you see some of the Sonic cartoon stuffs in it like those "Cluck" birds and even Princess Sally, Rotor, Bunnie Rabbot, and uh... Muttski? (I think?) Scratch from the goofier cartoon appears too.

Anyhoo, the gameplay is basically like any other pinball game though you have IMMENSE control over the "ball". You can influence Sonic's midair trajectory, which pretty much guarantees you're not going down the drain any time soon. Which is a good thing! This game's meant to be beatable! As you make your way through the fortress you'll also play through some "real" pinball tables with some fun gimmicks, as well.

My playthrough has me use the ball speed setting "FAST". This is because on SLOW Sonic moves like molasses and it hardly feels like pinball at all. His air drag is ridiculous! Also this is not my first try, this run. I played on SLOW first and found it "blah". Also I lost. So here's this one!

One final note: From what I've checked, it appears this game isn't truly 60fps. At least, the main stuff like Sonic moving around isn't. There are many special effects which are 60fps, though, as well as the "real" pinball tables.
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***End lifted descriptions***

Some additional notes for those technically inclined:

So... if you've seen my older Genesis videos and read this far down you might remember me talking about how a clean image can change the way the picture looks due to the dithering effect not working:

I still acknowledge this reality and will often have a "CRT" copy available for viewing a more old-school look at how the game appears. Unfortunately the capture device I use makes it look, uh... "extra" old-school. But it suffices.

Anyway, I'm using a Mega SG game console for this capture with an integer upscale of x3 the original resolution to maintain pixel clarity. It's in 720p because x3 fills that out more than x5 in 1080p. Granted, most people now are watching in at least 1080p so it's gonna be upscaled a bit, regardless...

The idea is that the SOURCE is Pixel Perfect. The less conversions you have in your workchain, the better, yeah? It's also worth noting that this is NOT going to be as "perfect" as my GBA videos. Those are captured 100% losslessly.

Point is that these are pretty danged clear captures of Sega Genesis games!

Oh, the Mega SG. It's a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based game system which to explain in layman's terms (BY a layman): It's a "chip" dense with circuits and stuff that can be programmed to use so only so many in whatever ways that is necessary to replicate another "chip". Basically, if you can reverse engineer a genesis exactly, you can pretty much program this "chip" to behave like a genesis exactly.

I'm playing in "Fully Buffered" mode so that the game is running at the original speed. I've also cropped out the colored border Genesis games tend to have.