The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

The Sega CD is my favorite console and I was fortunate enough to have one growing up. Silpheed was unlike anything else. Unlike most FMV games, Silpheed actually felt like controlling a movie. During the first level when laser blasts are tearing through the fleet gigantic ships filling the screen with debris, I could barely believe what I was seeing.

As the article points out, while it is an FMV game, it tries to fool you into thinking it’s a polygon based game. The Sega CD had no 3D capabilities at all (just 2D rotation and scale). But GameArts pulls off the FMV so convincingly, down to the aliasing, that it’s hard to understand (at least to my 12-year old self) how it could be anything other than 3D rendering.

It’s often panned as not the best shooter, but the gameplay was secondary to the experience. I don’t know how it would play for someone who didn’t experience it at the time, but it will always be one of my favorites on the system.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#5

Post by bantunes » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:26 PM UTC

This was submitted by a bot :D I subscribe to Fabien's RSS and he must have changed something in the server because I got this post on my RSS reader (again, as it's an old post), and here it is submitted to HN (again)

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#6

Post by toast0 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #3

Cool article, but Silpheed is a genuinely awful game. Just warning if you are tempted to play it after this lol

I mean, the gameplay isn't amazing. But I wouldn't call it awful. I've played games that are a lot worse... many of which are less fun while also being much less visually appealing. IIRC the sound design for silpheed is good too?

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#7

Post by actionfromafar » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

Using the ASIC meant for bitmap rotation and font rendering in an almost MPEG like fashion. Super clever.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#8

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #3

Cool article, but Silpheed is a genuinely awful game. Just warning if you are tempted to play it after this lol

Sounds like a great candidate to watch a LongPlay instead!

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#9

Post by cisophrene » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

possibilistic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

FYI, besides the obvious shilling, you’re being downvoted because Fabien Sanglard has been writing this kind of deep software RE analysis for the last 15 years, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on classic game-engine internals, and certainly did not involve AI in doing any of this.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#10

Post by jjk7 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

cisophrene wrote: post #9

possibilistic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

FYI, besides the obvious shilling, you’re being downvoted because Fabien Sanglard has been writing this kind of deep software RE analysis for the last 15 years, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on classic game-engine internals, and certainly did not involve AI in doing any of this.

If you read the article, he admits he used AI for this.