Battlemorph - Atari Jaguar

Battlemorph is the greatly improved sequel to the original cartridge game, Cybermorph.
This time it's brought to you on the Jaguar CD, which means it has better sound, FMV sequences and an all around better experience.
This is one of the Jaguar's gems and if you have a jag cd it's well worth purchasing.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• battlemorph
• battle
• morph
• atari
• jaguar
• jag
• cd

[AssociationAdmirer]

Now this is more like it! Hooray for colorful, varied, and interactive scenery! Hooray for background music! To say nothing of wonderful touches like flying underwater. And Skylar restricts herself to comments that are actually helpful, which is quite a sound for sore ears. Looks like the control is better, too.

If Atari had put this much effort into Cybermorph, it's a sure bet that they would have sold a lot more Jaguars.

How come you don't have a Memory Track for your Jaguar CD?

[viMasterJag]

It's not that they didn't put as much effort into Cybermorph. Cybermorph was obviously on cartridge and you are definitely limited in what you could do with the cost of manufacturing back then. Memory cost a lot more for a lot less than we think of these days.

The Jaguar CD did allow them to improve on the original, though, as you said.

I do have a memory track, but I haven't had time to really get in to battlemorph yet.

[AssociationAdmirer]

Hmm... I admit I'm not an expert in memory usage, but I find it hard to believe that a game with only six levels, one gameplay mode, a very limited color palette, little to no story sequences, and almost no music was pushing cartridge space to the limit. Are you honestly telling me that Cybermorph used as much or more memory as games like Wolfenstein 3D and Rayman?

[viMasterJag]

Rayman is a 2D side scroller. That's much less complicated than a full 3D polygon world.

Wolf 3D is awesome, but it's a pseudo-3D world like AvP.

There were 2 versions of Cybermorph.

The original that came with the Jaguar was a 2MB cart. Later on, in order to cut costs, they released a 1MB cart version, whose only major differences were the lack of "morphing" intro & endgame scenes as well as a few Skylar comments removed.

Simply put - 3D should/does take more space.

[AssociationAdmirer]

Again, I'm no expert in memory usage, but... 2 MB sounds about average for 1993. Sega released Phantasy Star: End of the Millennium, which is 3 MB, at the same time Cybermorph came out. And according to Wikipedia(couldn't find any better source), the Jaguar could handle carts up to 6 MB.

So maybe I'm totally wrong, but to me it still sounds like Atari rushed Cybermorph out the door.

[viMasterJag]

You're right, 2MB is about avg for the time period, but no one had attempted a full 3D free-roaming world like Cybermorph on a home console, either ;-)

The jag could handle 6MB carts, but none were ever made. The memory was just way too expensive. There are few 4MB carts, so that would tell you something.

They may have rushed it -- who knows. I don't have a problem believing it uses all 2MB, though.

If it didn't, Atari would have used 1MB carts, because then they could make more money.

[Adventurestud]

Excellent post. For all the lame games the Jaguar had there were some really exceptional ones too. Battle Morph was one of them. Thanks.

[RJTamm93]

I would've loved to see how history would've turned out of the Jaguar succeeded and they were still around today. (No, modern Atari isn't 70s,80s,90s Atari.)

[McZakke]

I'm so confused. Either Jaguar games have no music at all or the music is outstanding. Good sountrack would've helped make less fortunate games so much more "bearable". Btw I just got this game and I just cant believe its roots are from Cybermorph =D

[bigtruckseriesreview]

This is what Cybermorph should have been. Jaguar CD and this game were way overpriced in hindsight.

[Camargsen]

Din't know this game. Looks a lot better than Cybermorph, indeed.

Nice vid.

[dave4shmups]

Beautiful game!! I love the graphics and the music is simply outstanding!! I plan on getting a Jaguar, and Jaguar CD and your channel is great!!!

[HerecomestheCalavera]

Where did you learn to fly?

[SuperCommentDude]

PLEASE SOMEONE! I am desprite to know how to get the loot behind the pillers on mission 4 floor 2 for wolfenstein 3d on jaguar. I searched high and low for anything I could find on google and youtube, and there are absolutly no, and i meen ABSOLUTLY no walkthrows or hints or maps of this game anywere. Not even on gamefaqs or IGN. help?

[kakoroto]

gonna have to find this and buy it looks alot better than the original