Some of you focus too much on the technical side of things (not that anything is wrong with that, as they do affect interest in graphics too), whereas me I'm more interested in the art style and colours.
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Some of you focus too much on the technical side of things (not that anything is wrong with that, as they do affect interest in graphics too), whereas me I'm more interested in the art style and colours.
What would be your SNES pick Thief? There isn't really anything with an art/animation combo on the level of Aladdin (EWJ2 is close I guess but the backgrounds are too boring).
Castle of Illusion on the Genesis blew me away back in the day.
EWJ2 is still a Genesis/MD game and i think it looks better there too, if you exclude some cool exclusive background effects the SNES has.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
When i think of hand drawn animation, my mind goes to Genesis/Mega Drive. Just about every game that has the "professional cartoonist animation" style looks better there. Is it because it's the target platform for all these games for some reason? Is it because of the faster CPU? I don't know.
SNES gives me a more chunky "fat sprite work" vibe, with loads of shading and detail that gives everything more depth but Genesis/MD gives me a more "graceful movement" vibe, with sprites that feel lighter and more responsive to move around (probably why cartoon animation feels better, i still can't put my finger on it).
More SNES vs Genesis specs talk,gah
Speculation but I can think of an issue: SNES limits sprite graphics to only 1/4 of video memory, while Mega Drive lets you decide the trade-off between backgrounds and sprites. For many games this is not an issue, but when you could benefit from having more sprite graphics over detailed backgrounds (e.g. in beat'em-ups), the SNES becomes a showstopper.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soulis
The above is made worse by another factor: most games only load graphics in video memory once, only streaming on the fly a few important ones (like the player sprites and often some small items). Generally this is done to keep as many graphics as possible compressed in ROM, and decompression is slow so generally you only want to do it once when the stage loads. Also you can only load so much data in a single frame. This limits how good the animation can be for most things (this is why enemies usually only have limited animation in games). You could decide to sacrifice background detail to get more animation... but that's a no-go on the SNES due to the limit imposed by hardware.
Why does the SNES impose that limit? Because (compared to Mega Drive) the extra palettes and need for more specific layer priority ends up eating bits from the tile ID, reducing the amount of tiles that can be addressed. PC Engine does a similar trade-off to cram in more palettes, except that instead of reducing the tile count, it gets rid of the ability to flip background graphics (sprites store the flipping separately).
^ Can you explain layer priority?
Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head. For Aladdin it was something I always knew since '94.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Mega Drive doesn't have many layers going on so there's just "low" and "high" priority, which only needs one bit to store (and things with the same priority are sorted in background < plane B < plane A < sprites order).Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief
SNES however can have up to four tilemap layers and you may want to sit sprites between any of them, so just low/high won't do for them - instead they have a layer priority between 0-3 (which needs two bits instead of one), allowing you to sit sprites between any of them except at the backgroundmost. The extra bit is taken from the same word storing the tile ID, so that's one bit less to address tiles (halving the available tile count).
Similar issue with the palettes: Mega Drive only needs two bits to specify the palette, but SNES needs three, and that bit is also taken from the tile ID. So that halves the available tile count again. Now you're down to 1/4 the memory.
In other words: the SNES' better capabilities come at the expense of flexibility in less obvious areas (Nintendo could have tried to be less stingy with the OAM table, but it's stored on-die so I suppose there wasn't room for more memory there... they could have also tried to require sprites to be aligned to 4 tiles which hopefully shouldn't be an issue since many of them would be 16×16 (i.e. 4 tiles) anyway, but eh, we're arguing about decisions made almost three decades ago)
So Genesis has 64KB work RAM and 64KB video RAM, meanwhile SNES 128KB and 64KB. What's work RAM again?
PC EGA: Loom, Conquests of Camelot, Quest for Glory 1-2, Monkey Island, Space Quest Remake, Catacomb Abyss 3D & Armageddon & Apocalypse, King's Quest IV, King's Quest SCI Remake, Vette!, Monster Bash 3, Metal Mutant,
California Games 2 (in-game), Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest, Super Solvers: Treasure Mountain & Super Solvers: Midnight Rescue!, Champions of Krynn, Commander Keen 4-6, Wizardry VI, Castle Master 1-2, Arachnophobia,
Bio Menace, Space Quest 3, King's Quest V, Gods, Popeye 2, Leisure Suit Larry 5, Leisure Suit Larry 3, Stunt Car Racer, Codename: Iceman, Test Drive 2, Grand Prix: The Cycles, Deathtrack, Knights of Legend, Duke Nukem II (in-game),
Ultima V, Rings of Medusa, MechWarrior, Roger Rabbit in Hare Raising Havoc (in-game), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, It Came from the Desert, Manhunter 2, Die Hard, Dragon Wars, Emmanuelle, Nightmare on Elmstreet,
STUN Runner, 007: License to Kill, Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess, Dangerous Dave 2-3, Stunts, SimCity, Zeliard, Eye of the Beholder, Pirates!, Budokan, Battle Chess
No order.
Final Fantasy VI-Snes
Chrono Trigger-Snes
GunStar Heroes-Genny
Contra III-Snes
Alien Soldier-Genny
Sonic 3-Genny
Super Metroid-Snes
Super Mario RPG
Ranger X-Genny
Gaiares-Genny
MUSHA-Genny
Wonder Boy in Monster World-Genny
Mazin Saga Mutant Fighter-Genny
Cutscenes in Metal Warriors. Snes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kVPStKzLes
Work RAM is just normal RAM (as opposed to VRAM in the graphics card).Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief
On Topic: A game with 11/10 in presentation, Front Mission Gun Hazard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcgsEd1hfvo
Games like this are something I wish the Mega Drive had.
To be fair, Aladdin's backgrounds are only good in the first half of the game. Later on they get pretty cheap, color use gets far worse, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
I'd say only the palace (outside and inside) looks bad. The inner part in particular looks really bad and was obviously rushed. The rest is ok, though it is a slow descent in quality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barone
I prefer say what I consider the best looking game(s) for each 16 bit console.
SNES: Seiken Densetsu 3 or Yoshi's Island.
Special mention for Wonder Project J: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_iE14L6PDw
Mega Drive: Thunder Force IV or Aladdin
Special mention for Flink
PC Engine (hucard): Soldier Blade or Street Fighter 2
PC Engine (CD): Castlevania Rondo of blood or The legend of Xanadu II or Beyond Shadowgate
Amiga: Darkmere: The Nightmare's Begun or Lionheart
Neo Geo: Art of Fighting 3 (yeah yeah there are many other impressive Neo Geo games but AoF3 is one of the earliest among the very best looking ones. Really stunning for 1996)
Speaking of Squaresoft, it's fascinating their output graphics progression on SNES (in between the last FF on NES and the first FF on PS1):
https://i.imgur.com/DY7MqBs.png
EDIT:
I meant for a cart based console.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Actraiser 2 may have been a disappointing sequel but Ayano Koshiro sprite work was superb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Orchid87
Wonder Project J has really good art and animation inspired by japanese anime though it's in a different kind of genre compared to Aladdin (it's a breeding simulator).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
The Donkey Kong Country trilogy also sports great animation though the '90s CGI artistic merit can't be compared to hand cell animation.
Am I the only one who thinks that those games play like shit? I mean Aladdin and EWJ series. Sure, they look great and all those silly animations are fun to look at, but IMO they feel too loose and lack the crispy controls of many traditional sprite games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soulis
Are you talking about the Genesis version? Cuz no. Just no. Go back and check the last two levels again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barone
I have to say it doesn't get any credit, but the Wonderdog on the Mega CD looked amazing, even if it didn't make any real use of the MD Hardware. Tons of line scrolling along with lovely Parallax and some stunning (and wired backdrops) and simply HUGE bosses. Chuck Rock II (son of Chuck) also made fab use of the MD 2D hardware
Dave Perry games do suffer a bit from this, it's basically animation vs responsiveness. Animation frames get the priority and you have to wait for them to complete, or something along these lines. However, similar games from other developers don't have this problem. Mickey Mania is just as tight as any good traditional sprite game and it still has the smooth cartoon like animation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Orchid87
the dungeon level also has excellent backgrounds imo.Quote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
Ah yes, I mean games from this developer exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soulis
Aladdin for Sega Genesis have atrocious colors choice for the first stage. :mad:
Tbh, I found both Flink and Quackshot better looking than Aladdin on either the MD or SNES. I have to say the visuals in SOR II are some of the best ever and up there to Neo Geo levels.
Genesis games - Dynamite Headdy, and Adventures of Batman and Robin, both have very good looking visuals and impressive FX. The art direction of Ecco the Dolphin is very pleasing to the eye, and the CD version even better due to its new sunken ship levels.
I have no comments on how Aladdin compares to it but yes I'll agree that Quackshot looks great (・・ )
Have to say Final Fight on the Mega CD looks utterly amazing too
Indeed. I'm also a fan of it's more cyberpunkish colours (aka, not a fan of the more Arcade accurate Pyron colour hack).
The colours and dithering are bad in FFCD though. Streets of Rage series are better in this regard, althought I prefer arcade FF to any of them. Speaking of working with Genesis color palette, IMO Travelers Tales did it best.
I don't play my games with dithering.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Orchid87
SOR was made with the MD poor colour pallet in mind and to me SOR and SOR III colour use wasn't that great. Final Fight looked so good and had wonderful animation on the main characters even down to the animation on their walking patterns and then you had the huge sprites. It really was like having a Arcade game in your home.
Compared to SNES version, it was.Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
http://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/re...02(tt4809).pngQuote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
It looks like shit.
You must hate the SaturnQuote:
Originally Posted by Thief
PS1 has way more dithering, it's just not transparency related.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlecRob
Flink looks really good, no wonder Thalion members were behind it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
I also love how World of Illusion looks, I actually prefer it over Aladdin overall (though it can't match Aladdin' animations).
I disagree that SOR II graphics is "up there to Neo Geo levels", Robo Army that was released earlier than SOR II looks markedly better IMO.
Best console ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlecRob
I disagree for the most part but it depends on what you're looking for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Folco
SOR2 has better use of lighting (especially considering CRT bloom) than most games, Neo Geo's whole library included.
SOR2 animation is superior too, mostly thanks to far better key frames.
Robo Army doesn't look all that fluid but it has sprite scaling (actually shrinking) effects going on. It also use huge sprites for almost everything and has some neat background animation here and there. Bosses are giant.
SOR2 is also full screen and has stages with lots of vertical and diagonal scrolling, while Robo Army has a huge black border and its scrolling is far more limited being basically a side scrolling game with some Z-axis movement like Final Fight was.
I agree with anything bar SOR II. That game looked like a Neo Geo game and was amazing, not better than Neo Geo but up to its levelsQuote:
Originally Posted by Folco
PC (1989-1993):
Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island 1-2, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Doom, Gabriel Knight: SotF, King's Quest VI, Loom, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Flashback, Quest for Glory 4, Leisure Suit Larry 5,
King's Quest V, Turrican II, Quest for Glory VGA & Quest for Glory 3, Stunts, Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, Alpha Waves, Cruise for a Corpse, Another World, Eye of the Beholder 1-3, Simon the Sorcerer,
Dune II, TFX, Rise of the Dragon, Red Baron, Leisure Suit Larry VGA, Space Quest VGA & Space Quest 4-5, Wolfenstein 3D, Moonstone, Dragon's Lair II, Powermonger, Castle of Dr. Brain & The Island of Dr. Brain,
Hard Drivin' II, The Adventures of Willy Beamish, Maupiti Island, Conquests of the Longbow, Battle Chess II, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars: X-Wing, Myst, Leisure Suit Larry 6, Indycar Racing,
Laura Bow 2: the Dagger of Amon Ra, Test Drive 3, Wing Commander 2 & Academy, SimCity 2000, The Settlers, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary & Judgment Rites, BAT II: The Koshan Conspiracy,
Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Litil Divil, KGB, Gobliiins 1-3, Ultima VII, Treasure Trap, Stellar 7, Nova 9, Ishar 2, Infestation, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, Protostar, Ecoquest 2: Lost Secret of the Rainforest,
Mega Lo Mania, Alone in the Dark 1-2, Jack in the Dark, Companions of Xanth, Seek and Destroy, Space Hulk, Battle Chess (MPC version), Shadowcaster, Formula 1 Grand Prix, F1/Vroom, Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker,
Fascination, The Legend of Kyrandia: Books 1 & 2, Prince of Persia 1-2, The Rocketeer, Wizardry VII, Heart of China, Elvira 1-3 & Elvira Arcade Game, Curse of Enchantia, Dune, Ultima Underworld 2,
The Games: Winter Challenge, Comanche, The Patrician, Midwinter 1-2, Ashes of Empire, MiG-29, Rex Nebular, Wing Commander: Privateer
:D