At long last, Silpheed v3.2...

[Cloudschatze]

Silpheed v3.2 Demonstration, w/PCM SFX [DOS/PC]

In 1990, Sierra released an "enhanced" DOS version of Silpheed, featuring digital sound-effects and English-language voice samples, that came bundled with IBM's PS/1 Audio Card. For reasons unknown, this version never saw a commercial release separate from the IBM bundle, and hence became an obscure rarity.

This PS/1 version remained ever elusive until late last year, when VOGONS forum member "Myloch" made his uploaded copy known to me. Shortly thereafter, NewRisingSun created a driver package that extends the digital sample playback to Sound Blaster (and compatible) cards, resolves the joystick interface incompatibility, and includes both stereo Ad Lib and UART MT-32 drivers.

With endless appreciation to both Myloch and NewRisingSun for making this possible, please enjoy what I consider to be the definitive PC edition of Silpheed...

http://www.symphoniae.com/misc/SILPHEED/silpps1.zip

http://www.symphoniae.com/misc/SILPHEED/sil32sb.zip

[endre1952]

Seems uncracked. In Hungary, you couldn't even legally buy any decent video games up until about 1993-1994, so no, I do not have the original manual...

Is the stereo FM support for OPL3? I don't suppose the SB Pro 1.0 with stereo OPL2 would be supported as well?

Very, very, cool find, but I haven't made it through the manual protection screen.

[jharris01]

PEW! PEW! PEW! PEW!
HOLY CRAP! The giant head talks! ^__^

I always wondered why the game had garbled moopla instead of digitized voice (like in other ports). Now when I hear "YOU HAVE DEFEATED ME!" "WHAT A PITY. IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?" I can't help to think how cheesy and out of place that sounds. I kinda prefer the quieter version of the game. LOL

BTW guys there was an excellent article on the series posted over at Hardcorde Gaming 101 where you can compare screenshots between ports (and see what other things you may have missed):

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/silpheed/silpheed1.htm

[Cloudschatze]

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/silpheed/silpheed1.htm

"...dialogue sounded garbled, but the Japanese original was almost audible."

Hrm. No mention of the CSM synthesis involved. Ah, well...

Here's the best resource for the original PC-88 version I've yet seen:
http://gyusyabu.ddo.jp/mp3/1986/SHL1.html

[Mau1wurf1977]

Works great!

I did a S-Video capture from my Time-machine PC last night:

Time-machine is a Super Socket 7 machine, Pentium 133, L1 and L2 Cache disabled and MS-DOS 6.22.

MT-32 (Old) and Sound Blaster AWE64 (non-Gold)

Silpheed with MT-32 music and Sound Blaster sound

[jharris01]

You can tell the devs went crazy adding sound clips and effects wherever possible. I remember you could have the PC speaker do the effects while rocking to the tunes in your SB, Tandy 3-voice or Game Blaster, but this is better.

Out of curiosity: What do you guys think about the other games in the series? (assuming you've played them of course).

[Cloudschatze]

You can tell the devs went crazy adding sound clips and effects wherever possible.

To some extent. While the digital sound effects are new additions, the (localized) spoken dialogue, including the taunts, is more of a carry-over from the PC-88 version.

[jharris01]

Interesting. Japan always have the coolest tech toys. Goes to show how forward thinking Sierra was to have brought these titles over. Good job.

[Ari]

Great vid, Mau1wurf1977, Thanks for the post Cloud.

It never ceases to amaze me how much more advanced the music hardware was at the time, compared to the graphics you could get on the PC. It was so unbalanced!