Factor 5 is a studio with a long and proud history of technological achievement; it was founded in the super-competitive "demo scene" era of the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, and went as far as to create its own development hardware for the SNES and Mega Drive / Genesis in order to gain traction in that sector of the industry. Later, Factor 5 would work closely with Nintendo on its GameCube and Wii consoles, as well as producing technically stunning titles like Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader.
We got the opportunity to talk with Factor 5 co-founder Julian Eggebrecht recently, and the topic of the company's superb port of Contra 3 / Super Probtector for the Game Boy cropped up. According to Eggebrecht, this was just one of several pitches his studio made to Konami - another was to port Super Castlevania IV to the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, with Mode 7-style effects replicated entirely in software:
We did recreate one of the SNES Castlevania 4 levels, or at least part of one, that used Mode 7 in one part. I vaguely remember it might have been the huge swinging chandelier bit. They were quite impressed but Konami Osaka at the time decided to get into Genesis game creation in a bigger way and pulled all Genesis work internal.
The Game Boy work ended up being a lot of fun, though. It was so tough and constrained but that made us double-motivated.
Eggebrecht also expanded on Factor 5's Bomberman demo for the Genesis, which allowed for up to 8 players. Hudson instead commissioned Westone to port Bomberman '94 from PC Engine to the console instead:
We also did a fully playable 8-player Bomberman demo for Hudson Soft on Genesis, using two 4-Player multi-taps. Unfortunately Hudson [ported] the mediocre Bomberman '94 from the PC Engine to Genesis 1:1. But we did end up making BC Kid for them on the Amiga.
Another revelation is that Factor 5 also ported its SNES title Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures to Sega's console; again, all of the Mode 7 effects were present and correct:
We did a 1:1 port of Indiana Jones to the Genesis that was not released due to US Gold, who was financing it for LucasArts, going out of business. We were pretty proud that all the Mode 7 and transparency effects made it on the Genesis.
Eggebrecht is one of the many developers to be featured in the forthcoming SNES / Super Famicom: A Visual Compendium, which launches later this year.
Comments 20
Pretty fascinating what they could do back then.
Would be nice to see it in action.
Very impressive. At least the spirit of their technical mastery lives on through Shin'en. I miss F5...
Mentioning Castlevania, Indiana Jones and Genesis all at once makes me think of Earnest Evans, a game that wanted to be like both of those franchises. It's mostly known for its hilariously dumb physics. Factor 5 could've done better, needless to say, and I guess they almost did so twice.
Shame they didn't get a chance to finish and release these games.
I'm no expert on the series, but I've always heard Bomberman 94 was a strong entry. The MD version Mega Bomberman was a mediocre port.
It's interesting to hear such interviews. Factor 5 was a particularly skilled developer and could pull off some neat effects. Treasure was similar. Not every developer was capable or willing to get such things done on the Mega Drive/Genesis. But it's amazing what Sega's system was capable of without enhancement chips. As for Castlevania 4, I'm not fond of the game and I'm glad Konami made Bloodlines instead(would be great if they re-released it). It would be interesting to see the color and music differences, however. Factor 5 knew how to properly use the system's sound hardware, so I'm sure it would be good or interesting.
I always enjoyed Castlevania: Bloodlines more on the Genesis / mega Drive. It had a more gory / evil feel to it
There's a reason why I love and respect Konami back in the 8-Bit/16-Bit days. Almost every games they released on NES, Super NES, Turbo Grafx-16, and Sega Genesis were all original games and not just lazy direct ports of their other version. While some use the same graphical engine and similar gameplay, all are their own original game exclusive for that platform, a great examples are their TMNT games: while SNES had Turtles in Time, NES got the Manhattan Project and Sega Genesis got Hyperstone Heist, all which use similar gameplay and graphic style (though Manhattan Project is in 8-Bit), not only that but all platforms got Tournament Fighters which are not direct ports but are original game of their own.
Also while NES got Contra and Super C, SNES got Contra 3 and Genesis got Contra: Hard Corp which gives me reason to own all 3 consoles, same for Castlevania, while Turbo Grafx-CD got Rondo of Blood and NES got Dracula's Curse, SNES got Dracula X (which is more its own game than a port of Rondo) and Super Castlevania IV while Genesis got the gorily good Bloodline. Even their Game Boy offerings were original like the Ninja Turtle games, Operation C and Castlevania games.
Also the Rocket Knight games, while Genesis got the two Rocket Knight Adventures which starred Sparkster, the SNES got a new original game starring the awesome opossum as well. The only few games that did got ports like Contra 3 and Zombies Ate My Neighbors are the only exception but everything else were all exclusives. If only we can have this Konami back, gaming would be awesome again, it's too bad the industry had come to this.
Knowing Factor 5's skill level and hearing all of these stories on how their projects got scrapped, it makes me really wonder what the heck these publishers were thinking back then. How could you deny Factor 5??
Of course, I'm speaking as a gamer who knows their chops throughout the years, and not a developer at the time when Factor 5 was proving themselves.
What about Castlevania IV's soundtrack though? That's normally the first thing people praise about that game, and I struggle to imagine the Mega Drive doing it justice. Good to see that Mode 7 could be recreated in software on the Mega Drive though, just shows you what could have been possible on the SNES had Nintendo not cheaped out on its processor speed!
I'm just gonna leave this here...
Make sure you check his other works, you won't believe the Megadrive could sound this good, but it truly can. Plus if this game did happen I am sure Chris Huelsbeck would be on the case and I can assure he would make that Megadrive synth chip sing the tunes all correctly.
US Gold (who I'm still amazed to learn was actually a UK publisher) went out of business? I thought they just changed their name to Eidos (until they were turned into the EU branch of Square-Enix).
@KingMike Eidos actually bought the holding co. that owned US Gold and folded it into themselves, thus putting the co., effectively, out of business.
Factor 5 were ridiculously talented, Star Wars Rougue Leader was so far ahead of its time, that even today if you manage to get it running in HD it almost looks like a new game.
This would have been cool to see!
I would love to play Indiana Jones on the Sega genesis
"...Factor 5 would work closely with Nintendo on its GameCube and Wii consoles...". Do you mean "N64 and GameCube"?
@Shiryu I literally just made an account to post this exact mix. It's stunning, and yeah, all the other stuff on the channel is amazing too. ALL OF IT
how about this instead!
@GravyThief https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQCya6yn73o
Not IV, but X, but still gives a good impression of how great it can potentially sound.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...