Check out Part 1 of my new series:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/2006/02/ ... art-1.html
What do you guys think?
Am I missing anything?
If you have any recommendations for later systems, go ahead and share. I might not have them on my list yet.
Games That Pushed the Limits of Consoles
Playstation:
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Parasite Eve II
Chrono Cross
Vagrant Story
Gran Turismo 2
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 3
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Saturn:
NiGHTS Into Dreams...
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Burning Rangers
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter
Street Fighter Zero 3
Sonic Jam (Sonic World)
Panzer Dragoon II Zwei
Die Hard Arcade
Virtua Fighter 2
Fighters Megamix
Nintendo 64:
Zelda - Ocarina of Time
Zelda - Majora's Mask
Super Mario 64
Super Smash Brothers
Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion
Resident Evil 2
Perfect Dark
Goldeneye
Conker's Bad Fur Day
F Zero X
Jaguar/CD:
Alien vs. Predator
Primal Rage
Myst
Space Ace
Brain Dead 13
Dragon's Lair
Dreamcast:
Sonic Adventure 2
Resident Evil Code: Veronica
Skies of Arcadia
Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2
Dead or Alive 2
Shenmue II
Soul Calibur
Jet Grind Radio
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
That's my two cents. I have my reasons why I picked certain games on that list. Some of you may not agree with me because they look so generic, but trust me, they push the limits in one form or another.
Another nice example of pushing the SNES to it's limit's would have been Street Fighter Alpha 2. That's just my opinion though...
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Parasite Eve II
Chrono Cross
Vagrant Story
Gran Turismo 2
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 3
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Saturn:
NiGHTS Into Dreams...
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Burning Rangers
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter
Street Fighter Zero 3
Sonic Jam (Sonic World)
Panzer Dragoon II Zwei
Die Hard Arcade
Virtua Fighter 2
Fighters Megamix
Nintendo 64:
Zelda - Ocarina of Time
Zelda - Majora's Mask
Super Mario 64
Super Smash Brothers
Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion
Resident Evil 2
Perfect Dark
Goldeneye
Conker's Bad Fur Day
F Zero X
Jaguar/CD:
Alien vs. Predator
Primal Rage
Myst
Space Ace
Brain Dead 13
Dragon's Lair
Dreamcast:
Sonic Adventure 2
Resident Evil Code: Veronica
Skies of Arcadia
Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2
Dead or Alive 2
Shenmue II
Soul Calibur
Jet Grind Radio
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
That's my two cents. I have my reasons why I picked certain games on that list. Some of you may not agree with me because they look so generic, but trust me, they push the limits in one form or another.
Another nice example of pushing the SNES to it's limit's would have been Street Fighter Alpha 2. That's just my opinion though...
Did FFVII really push it that much, or was it just great for its time?
What did Parasite Eve offer? I'm not that familiar with it.
Sonic Jam? Just because of emulation or something?
I'm not familiar with Brain Dead 13 at all, not to mentioned most of the Jaguar games. Explaination would be great on those.
skies of Arcadia was a great game, but there wasn't much technical about it...
And I forgot about Alpha 2 on the SNES
What did Parasite Eve offer? I'm not that familiar with it.
Sonic Jam? Just because of emulation or something?
I'm not familiar with Brain Dead 13 at all, not to mentioned most of the Jaguar games. Explaination would be great on those.
skies of Arcadia was a great game, but there wasn't much technical about it...
And I forgot about Alpha 2 on the SNES
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Skies of Arcadia made the hardware wheeze on many spots. It definitely pushed the hardware's limitations. There's slowdown in half of the game's special moves that aren't apparent until you play the GameCube version, which results in mistiming of sound effects since they were designed with the Dreamcast's slowdown in mind, but the GameCube renders the graphics with no slowdown at all. The sound effect problem is very apparent with special moves like Ramirez's Destruction attack.
I don't understand Final Fantasy VII though. It was a breakthrough for the genre, sure... but it didn't push the hardware to its limits.
Shining Force 3 is a definite yes on the list of Saturn games. Camelot Software Planning pulled off software-based transparency effects for polygons which was originally thought to be impossible on the Saturn. It's part of the reason why the SSF emulator still isn't rendering spell effects and such properly. There's also the fact that Camelot not only utilized both video processors for the game, but they also made use of the audio chip to help with the graphics as well. In order to cut load times, as you're moving your character around and targetting enemies, the Saturn is already streaming the data for the character models before you even confirm your selection. Shining Force 3 was an amazing piece of software, especially given that Camelot Software Planning wasn't exactly some gigantic development team.
I don't understand Final Fantasy VII though. It was a breakthrough for the genre, sure... but it didn't push the hardware to its limits.
Shining Force 3 is a definite yes on the list of Saturn games. Camelot Software Planning pulled off software-based transparency effects for polygons which was originally thought to be impossible on the Saturn. It's part of the reason why the SSF emulator still isn't rendering spell effects and such properly. There's also the fact that Camelot not only utilized both video processors for the game, but they also made use of the audio chip to help with the graphics as well. In order to cut load times, as you're moving your character around and targetting enemies, the Saturn is already streaming the data for the character models before you even confirm your selection. Shining Force 3 was an amazing piece of software, especially given that Camelot Software Planning wasn't exactly some gigantic development team.
very cool 
You mind if I use that info in part 2?
You mind if I use that info in part 2?
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Perfect dark, donkey kong 64 and Conker's bad fur day, or any Rareware game released for n64 pushed the console to the limits.
As for newer consoles, I'd say Metal Gear Solid 3, GT4 for PS2. Chronicles of riddick for Xbox, very impresive and ultra immersive graphics that challenged today's top FPS for PC for a while!!
Also Resident evil 4 for gamecube pushes that system to the limits. The PS2 port is nowhere near as impressive graphics wise. Upcoming twilight princess is gonna blow everyone away when it's released.
As for newer consoles, I'd say Metal Gear Solid 3, GT4 for PS2. Chronicles of riddick for Xbox, very impresive and ultra immersive graphics that challenged today's top FPS for PC for a while!!
Also Resident evil 4 for gamecube pushes that system to the limits. The PS2 port is nowhere near as impressive graphics wise. Upcoming twilight princess is gonna blow everyone away when it's released.
racketboy wrote:Did FFVII really push it that much, or was it just great for its time?
What did Parasite Eve offer? I'm not that familiar with it.
Sonic Jam? Just because of emulation or something?
I'm not familiar with Brain Dead 13 at all, not to mentioned most of the Jaguar games. Explaination would be great on those.
skies of Arcadia was a great game, but there wasn't much technical about it...
And I forgot about Alpha 2 on the SNES
Final Fantasy VII pushed FMV integration, thats the process in which an FMV run's simultaniously with real time gameplay. Also, Knights Of The Round was such a huge summon it had to push the limits of the Playstations memory.
Parasite Eve 2 pretty much did the same thing, but I'd say the scale the bosses were are fairly taxing on the processor.
Sonic Jam did great emulation, but I'm thinking of how well Sonic World looked when running around. If only a full sonic game could've been made around that...
Skies totally filled the system memory. There was never a 20 min window without slowdown in the game because of objects being rendered on the fly.
I would say FFVIII was better at FMV integration that looks 10x better than FFVII. As far as technicality goes FFVII wasn't that good.
Here's a comparison:
FFVII
FFVIII
Looks much better, especially in motion! Such as the intro to balamb garden for the Seed training. It's FMV and it's interactive, that blew me away when i first played it!
Here's a comparison:
FFVII
FFVIII
Looks much better, especially in motion! Such as the intro to balamb garden for the Seed training. It's FMV and it's interactive, that blew me away when i first played it!
I agree with most of your stuff, I think you did a really great job mentioning just about every game that could be considered. I think Mega Man 6 should be some where on the NES and Donkey Kong Country should be number two on the nes under starfox.
The only area I REALLY disagrees with is the NeoGeo. Mark of the Wolves is a great looking game but newer neo fighters are better. Metal Slug 3 was a great game, but it was a great game do to level design, not graphic fire power. The most graphically demanding games on the Neo have to be Sengoku 3, Last Blade 2 and SVC Chaos. SVC Chaos is a over all horrible game, but it defiantly pushed the system to the edge. Last Blade 2 and Sengoku were both hitting CPS3 levels of frames of animation and level detail.
Final Fantasy 7 was a great game, I love it, has to be one of my top 3 favorite games ever. Others being KOTR and Resident Evil. But it definatlly did not push the system in any way.
The only area I REALLY disagrees with is the NeoGeo. Mark of the Wolves is a great looking game but newer neo fighters are better. Metal Slug 3 was a great game, but it was a great game do to level design, not graphic fire power. The most graphically demanding games on the Neo have to be Sengoku 3, Last Blade 2 and SVC Chaos. SVC Chaos is a over all horrible game, but it defiantly pushed the system to the edge. Last Blade 2 and Sengoku were both hitting CPS3 levels of frames of animation and level detail.
Final Fantasy 7 was a great game, I love it, has to be one of my top 3 favorite games ever. Others being KOTR and Resident Evil. But it definatlly did not push the system in any way.