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Best Graphic Games on Classic Systems


Zathras

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I was recently playing some Aladdin on the Genesis and was very impressed with the graphics and that got me thinking about the tops of graphicdom for each of the systems.

 

 

So what are considered the best looking games for each of the classic systems? Present day systems not included.

 

So what do you guys think?

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I remember being completely in awe of the graphics of Donkey Kong Country for SNES.

You beat me too it!

 

Super Star Wars (and the rest of the trilogy) and Earthworm Jim on SNES

 

How about sound effects too? I give that to Super Metroid and Super Star Wars' games.

 

On Genesis, I remember the Looney Tunes games had some great graphics, the Taz game and the Road Runner game (forget actual title names).

 

Sega Master System, I'd go with Kensideon (sp?) & Maze Hunter 3D

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I remember a lot of the reason people liked Battletoads when it came out, besides the hype, was the awesome graphics. They were tres nice for the old NES.

 

My other choice would be Earthworm Jim, I remember being way impressed with that when it came out though the controls were a smidge daft.

 

And talk about style over substance, but I remember seeing the ads for Sword of Vermillion in the old Game Player's magazines and thinking it was the coolest damn thing ever :). I'm still not sure why though :P.

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Well, going back further than that - we had K.C. Munchkin for the Odyssey 2 - a better Pac-Man game then the original 2600 version.

 

Star Strike & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons:Treasure of Tarmin are good Intellivision examples. Also NFL Football & MLB Baseball

 

Donkey Kong & Venture for the Colecovision were as close to arcade perfect as you could get at the time.

 

And as for that venerable 2600 - Most of Activision's titles blew away anything that Big A did. - Pitfall, Grand Prix, Starmaster to name a few.

 

And lastly - if you wanted the arcade experience of the early 80's - you needed a Vectrex. Period.

 

And that Vectrex is still good even today :mrgreen:

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The first Street Fighter II game on the SNES. I remember everyone making such a big deal over how Capcom managed to animate the backgrounds, "we didn't think the system could handle all that".

 

Actraiser for SNES was also a nice game graphically. Especially in the 2D fighting modes.

 

I'd also add Yoshi's Island (SNES) though it's graphics are more of an artistic style than a technical feat. Then again, some of the bosses used Mode 7 nicely.

 

Do the 3DO & Jaguar count as "classic systems" now?

 

If so, Shockwave (EA for 3DO) had really impressive graphics at the time. It used the Sega CD technique of photos as the background so the machine only had to draw the cockpit and the enemy ships. Still, the photo real landscapes were impressive. The game was impossibly hard on later levels and kind of dull but it sure looked nice.

 

FIFA for the 3DO was a graphical knockout at the time. It should be considered a watershed game as it brought sports into 3D. It outperformed Madden by a long shot.

 

Aliens vs. Predator on the Jaguar was just phenomenal. Sure the hallways got repetative but the gameplay was cool and the graphics stunning.

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Treasure of Tarmin had the Minotaur.

 

Ah, that game was absolutely fascinating, if a bit daft.

 

If you played long enough on the beginner level you could easily rack up scads of those sweet books that had magic abilities and then start turning everything platinum. What was even better was if you then got the book that let you see through walls and the other that let you woosh through them.

 

If you kept going deep enough, the game eventually got so pissed that it literally put the minotaur behind nearly every door in an attempt to force you to fight it and thus claim the treasure. We used to play for hours just ignoring him and racking up loot :P. It was amusing to use the x-ray book and see four or five minotaurs scattered around.

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The first Street Fighter II game on the SNES.

 

I'd agree with that. Then I remember when SF II Turbo came out and was even better and faster.

 

For the NES, I was always impressed with the Mega Man games. Numbers 2 and 3 had great graphics, albeit with some slowdown, for the system.

 

On the SNES Zelda: A Link to the Past had the total package. Great graphics that really fit the game as well as great sound effects. The start of the game in the thunderstorm knocked my socks off when I had the SNES hooked up to an old 2-channel receiver.

 

And while not the most technically impressive game, Splatterhouse 2 on the Genesis had a decent amount of creative gore for its time. Specifically, the mutant babies you had to kill with a chainsaw - until they exploded and blood splattered the TV screen. Good stuff.

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I remember Final Fantasy IV (nee II) really knocked my socks off too when it came out, mostly because it was the beginning of the SNES' life cycle and it was my first extensive experience with Mode 7 and scaling and such.

 

Getting new spells was always a blast because they had such neat graphic effects to try out. And summons looked great and didn't take six minutes to use :P. I'm a big fan of the cute anime/manga style they used too, which was icing on the cake for me, plus the storyline.

 

Final Fantasy VI I remember for being artistically neat, it had graphics but it actually did things with them. It was cool watching the opening credits on the snowfall, and the opera scene may be the most popular single event in Final Fantasy history.

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The first game that blew me away with graphics was Shadow of the Beast from Psygnosis on the Amiga. The animation, and levels of scrolling while running was amazing. It was ported to the Genesis, wasn't it? But I never played that version, so I can't say how well it played on it. I was a big fan of Psygnosis back in the day. Lost Vikings and Killing Game Show, anyone?

 

I'm also putting in a vote for DK Country on the SNES. I ran out and bought it as soon as I played it a friend's house.

 

-Erik

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Lost Vikings

 

Whoa up now, this ain't no Psygnosis game, pardner ;). The excellent Lost Vikings game was a production of Silicon & Synapse Software, before they changed their name to Blizzard Entertainment. :)

 

I think Psygnosis has some great moments, and they deserve to exist solely for the first two Lemmings games, but they can't have Lost Vikings :P.

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Really, really old school:

 

Forbidden Forest for the C64. First home game that ever had graphics good enough to be called 'modern'. And it was in quasi-3D! I remember my friend and I would start loading on the tape drive (yes, tape drive!) and then walk to Kmart for a Cherry Icee. About 40 minutes later we would return and the game was done loading :green:

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Lot of work to just load up, walk a few steps and get wailed on by spiders while you tried to aim that damned bow. Give me Temple of Apshai any day

 

Nah man, you had to work up your skillz! We could shame just about anything in Forbidden Forest for at least a half hour straight. Bees, spiders, that dragon thing, whatever, bring it on!

 

Temple of Apshai was damn sweet though too, good call.

 

Thinking back to classic graphics, the crown prince has to be the Amiga 500. Any of the better games out for that system were insanely advanced for the time. I think PCs really just started to catch up to that level about the time Quake hit shelves (what, 5 years later?) Anyway, I cast my vote for the Commodore Amiga all the way. I wish Commodore was still making game machines, their consoles would 0\/\/n3D j00z s0x0r6!

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