Yep, and Malaika is even smoother, at the expense of very simplistic backgrounds. In this case, I had to go for a tradeoff if I wanted to allow the same number of tiles of the Spectrum version (up to 32 tiles, 24x8 px each, any combination of tile+next tile should be allowed). I have not checked hit9918's engine, but Retaliot does not look like it has the same limitations.
The Genesis video shows that the game tries to update all pattern definitions at each step of the scrolling: this is a spectrum strategy that on msx simply cannot work.
The time needed for this huge amount of I/O causes a lag between sprite update and background update, background colors are very limited as well for the same reason and overall, the scrolling isn't smooth.
Sorry but no. The game updates 128 pattern definitions at each step. 64 of them are fixed, the remaining 64 have to be calculated and transferred in real time. Anyway it is slow, not as fast as I would have liked it to be (1 scroll step every 7 ints in PAL, 1 every 9 ints in NTSC), but in no way it is a Spectrum strategy. I could have tried to use a mixed mode and save half of the transfers, but in this case I would have been criticized for not being 100% compliant to the MSX standard. And the game was meant to take part in the MSXDev competition, so it was designed for MSX1. MSX2 features are just a plus.
Again: I took some decisions, and may be very wrong in some of them. Could we have redesigned all levels to make them fit into a faster, more MSX-friendly engine? Sure, but I'd screw the whole game artwork. I designed the game this way because I thought it was the best way I could code it, not because I was doing a direct Spectrum port.
About the background colors: just check the game tomorrow when it is released, and try to get to level 2. Level 1 has those colors by design. Oh, and BTW, you could also try to judge the game for its fun factor as well
Just few first glance impressions naturally....
PS
the spectrum version scrolls smoothly and without glitches with a nice star field with parallax
...where I can use the shadow screen in 128k models, create the star field because I can plot directly on the screen (on MSX I would have had to either reduce tiles or use sprites and have them overlap the background), etc. On the other hand, sprites do not move so smoothly (16.7 FPS vs 21.5) and I have colours on MSX.
