Consoles/Handhelds, and the games that pushed them to their absolute limits?

Bonkers225

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NES - Recca Summer Carnival 92, Kirby Adventure. Castlevania III pushed the console's audio capability passed it's limits thx to the special sound chip the game's cartridge had. Journey to Sillus.

Gameboy - Donkey Kong Land(The handheld's port of DKC), Killer Instinct, Final Fantasy Legends III.

SNES - Lots of Squaresoft's and Enix JRPG's from the mid-90's(Star Ocean, FFVI, Chrono Trigger, DQ V, and VI, Rudra, Trials of Mana, etc), DKC trilogy and Killer Instinct.

PS2- Quite a few here with Black, Shadow of the Colossus, MGS 2 and 3, GT4, Jak, and Daxter, FFXII, Ratchet and Clank, and the Sly Cooper trilogies, Ace Combat 5, Mercenaries 1, and 2, GTA 3, San Andreas, Zone of Enders 2, Tekken 5, and Soul Calibur 3.

Please list your own!
 
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NES - anything composed by Tim Follin. Holy shit.
SNES - same as the NES
Game Boy - Pokemon gen 1 and 2 (both were playable to the end on GB, even post game stuff)
N64 - Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo Tooie, DK64, Dinosaur Planet
Gamecube - Smash Melee, Metroid Prime, Pikmin, Paper Mario TTYD, Soul Calibur 2, StarFox Adventures, F-Zero GX
PS-One - FFVII, VIII, and IX, Vagrant Story, MGS, and Soul Reaver
PS2 - FFX, FFX-2, FFXII, Dirge of Cerberus, Dragon Quest VIII, KH1 and 2, KH RECOM, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution and Tekken Tag, GTA series, Shadow of The Colossus
Master System - Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, Phantasy Star, Golvellius
Game Gear - GG Shinobi 1 and 2, Shining Force Gaiden trilogy, GG Aleste 1-3
Genesis - Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force II, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, Streets of Rage 1-3, Pulseman, Monster World IV, Panorama Cotton (like Space Harrier but better), Burning Force (also like Space Harrier but better) Vectorman 1 and 2, Comix Zone
Saturn - Panzer Dragoon Saga. It's just so freaking beautiful!
Dreamcast - Shenmue 1 and 2, Skies of Arcadia, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Soul Calibur
Game Boy Advance - Asterix and Obelix XXL (a full 3D platformer/beat em up), Iridion 3D and Iridion 2, Star X
Nintendo DS - Golden Sun Dark Dawn, Kingdom Hearts 358 Days/2, Yellow Brick Road, Nostalgia, Metroid Prime Hunters
PSP - Crisis Core, Birth By Sleep, Dissidia and 012, anything by Square Enix during this era still blows my mind graphically speaking
 
Shantae on the gameboy color is extremely impressive for its time in terms of animation and color.

Look at how smooth she moves, not every single Gameboy Color game was this smooth.
Videogame-Shantae-gif.gif

TM2M9IZ.gif
 
Sega Saturn - Radiant Silvergun, Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Saga, Fighting Vipers, Quake and Burning Rangers
Gamecube - Biohazard 4, Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Killer7 and Star Wars Rebel Strike
PS2 - Digital Devil Saga 2, Xenosaga 3, Silent Hill 3, Dragon Quest VIII and Matrix Path of Neo(Normal Maps on PS2!)
DS - SMT Strange Journey, Dragon Quest IX, Solatorobo, Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks and Dementium duology
 
-Nes-


This is peak in pseudo-3D moment here!!!

-SNES-


I like the way the game using 2D and pseudo-3D sections without an additional chip. Thus I think it's a great example of a game really used SNES itself well.

-Sega Genesis-


This is a great example of a game that's filled with lots of stuff despite detailed graphics and it runs okay. Sometimes the console cannot handle it so FPS drops but still it does a good job trying to handle this game lol.

-PlayStation 1-

Racing Lagoon

The graphics are very detailed in the context of PS1 games, offers a 3D open world map to drive around despite how box-like the city is, offers great amount of visual customisation for your car. From outside it may seem like "what's big deal about it" when especially the way you can visually change how your car is and all causes optimization hardship. It mean whole game was fine tuned in a way PS1 can handle rendering your car despite all possible visual choices for your car without crashing the game due to out of RAM and/or CPU is not fast enough to process these. That's why visual customization is rare in PS1 games.

Regarding open world aspect of city and how it differs from other games: Usually PS1 games naturally using vertical 2D textures that player comprehend as "wall". They are not even a box. For example this is the way whole city in Driver games are. However in Racing Lagoon city is not a simple "2D wall" but detailed boxes and city is filled with detail. Developers had to use LOD system to the limit and probably pushed PS1's hardware to its limit by cleverly optimizing the shit out of it so it won't crash.

-PlayStation 2-

Metal Gear Solid 3

Developers cleverly used PS2's hardware to their advantage so hard PS2 can process all the visual effects for post-processing, all the grasses around and also particle effects like produced by guns, bullets and explosions.

If you wanna read why it's a big deal and why it's "what a thrill" moment lol, to understand the real power of PS2 read this:

PS2's bus width is 2560 bit!!! Amen to 4 MB eDRAM!!! lolol

The PS2's eDRAM worked as VRAM (as people can understand due to PC gaming) and it wasn't just for framebuffers (the stored data that'll be what humans can see on screen as meaningful colors like a picture), it's also for texture cache (storing most frequently used framebuffers) which allowed PS2 to display more particles and process so fast graphics data. which Metal Gear Solid 3 benefited from it a lot. The way eDRAM worked so fast covered the 4 MB weakness of the PS2. Using eDRAM was smart choice. However due to 4 MB size PS2 couldn't have much detailed texture but at the time it wouldn't matter anyway. In comparison PS3 has slower "VRAM" but a bigger size. PS3 cannot beat PS2 in graphical process speed and data size but PS3 beats PS2 on displaying higher quality textures and models. Because of it MGS3 HD on PS3 has framedrops for cannot process all the grass and particles fast enough, they even had to reduce post-processing effect to prevent total slowdown. As a result even PC version of the game works bad because PCs don't use eDRAM which the game was designed for (because of it MGS3 runs great on XBOX 360 for it partly uses eDRAM).

eDRAM is so wide and fast can manipulate data while they are on their way between memory to the processing unit which benefit from framebuffer manipulation making PS2 very great at particles and postprocessing, anything about displaying lots of stuff like grasses around which because of it 4 MB was enough. However in modern GPUs, it's not so wide and fast so better to manipulate the data before or after they are stored to memory, so cannot make GPU work like how it worked for PS2's eDRAM. Because of it new GPUs requires additional stuff to cover this weakness.

Now modern video game consoles sacrifice speed and size over VRAM size. It's slower, more limited but can hold bigger texture size. does it worth it? If you wanna see the 4K sweat on people yeah, otherwise nope lol.

-Gameboy-

Legends say even Nintendo was like "Naniii???" being amazed their rubbish can handle a FPS game!!! lolol:


-Gameboy Color-

My guys managed to release PS1-like game on GBC lol:


-Gameboy Advanced-

I'm surprised it can run this game!!!! lol:


-NDS-

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

The game TBH used whatever NDS had to offer and they really developed the game well for it.

-PSP-

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

It can even handle epic monster vs Big Boss fight out of Monster Hunter fantasy!!!! lol

-PS Vita-

Freedom Wars

Among many rubbish visual novels and 2D games this game actually cared to use PS Vita's hardware for real and it used it well. The game manages to look good despite how big, detailed and filled game map is and it requires fast gameplay yet the console can handle all of these. However if Freedom Wars had no exist on PS Vita I would say Killzone: Mercenary because it's like PS2's Black on PS Vita lol.
 
-Nes-


This is peak in pseudo-3D moment here!!!

-SNES-


I like the way the game using 2D and pseudo-3D sections without an additional chip. Thus I think it's a great example of a game really used SNES itself well.

-Sega Genesis-


This is a great example of a game that's filled with lots of stuff despite detailed graphics and it runs okay. Sometimes the console cannot handle it so FPS drops but still it does a good job trying to handle this game lol.

-PlayStation 1-

Racing Lagoon

The graphics are very detailed in the context of PS1 games, offers a 3D open world map to drive around despite how box-like the city is, offers great amount of visual customisation for your car. From outside it may seem like "what's big deal about it" when especially the way you can visually change how your car is and all causes optimization hardship. It mean whole game was fine tuned in a way PS1 can handle rendering your car despite all possible visual choices for your car without crashing the game due to out of RAM and/or CPU is not fast enough to process these. That's why visual customization is rare in PS1 games.

Regarding open world aspect of city and how it differs from other games: Usually PS1 games naturally using vertical 2D textures that player comprehend as "wall". They are not even a box. For example this is the way whole city in Driver games are. However in Racing Lagoon city is not a simple "2D wall" but detailed boxes and city is filled with detail. Developers had to use LOD system to the limit and probably pushed PS1's hardware to its limit by cleverly optimizing the shit out of it so it won't crash.

-PlayStation 2-

Metal Gear Solid 3

Developers cleverly used PS2's hardware to their advantage so hard PS2 can process all the visual effects for post-processing, all the grasses around and also particle effects like produced by guns, bullets and explosions.

If you wanna read why it's a big deal and why it's "what a thrill" moment lol, to understand the real power of PS2 read this:

PS2's bus width is 2560 bit!!! Amen to 4 MB eDRAM!!! lolol

The PS2's eDRAM worked as VRAM (as people can understand due to PC gaming) and it wasn't just for framebuffers (the stored data that'll be what humans can see on screen as meaningful colors like a picture), it's also for texture cache (storing most frequently used framebuffers) which allowed PS2 to display more particles and process so fast graphics data. which Metal Gear Solid 3 benefited from it a lot. The way eDRAM worked so fast covered the 4 MB weakness of the PS2. Using eDRAM was smart choice. However due to 4 MB size PS2 couldn't have much detailed texture but at the time it wouldn't matter anyway. In comparison PS3 has slower "VRAM" but a bigger size. PS3 cannot beat PS2 in graphical process speed and data size but PS3 beats PS2 on displaying higher quality textures and models. Because of it MGS3 HD on PS3 has framedrops for cannot process all the grass and particles fast enough, they even had to reduce post-processing effect to prevent total slowdown. As a result even PC version of the game works bad because PCs don't use eDRAM which the game was designed for (because of it MGS3 runs great on XBOX 360 for it partly uses eDRAM).

eDRAM is so wide and fast can manipulate data while they are on their way between memory to the processing unit which benefit from framebuffer manipulation making PS2 very great at particles and postprocessing, anything about displaying lots of stuff like grasses around which because of it 4 MB was enough. However in modern GPUs, it's not so wide and fast so better to manipulate the data before or after they are stored to memory, so cannot make GPU work like how it worked for PS2's eDRAM. Because of it new GPUs requires additional stuff to cover this weakness.

Now modern video game consoles sacrifice speed and size over VRAM size. It's slower, more limited but can hold bigger texture size. does it worth it? If you wanna see the 4K sweat on people yeah, otherwise nope lol.

-Gameboy-

Legends say even Nintendo was like "Naniii???" being amazed their rubbish can handle a FPS game!!! lolol:


-Gameboy Color-

My guys managed to release PS1-like game on GBC lol:


-Gameboy Advanced-

I'm surprised it can run this game!!!! lol:


-NDS-

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

The game TBH used whatever NDS had to offer and they really developed the game well for it.

-PSP-

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

It can even handle epic monster vs Big Boss fight out of Monster Hunter fantasy!!!! lol

-PS Vita-

Freedom Wars

Among many rubbish visual novels and 2D games this game actually cared to use PS Vita's hardware for real and it used it well. The game manages to look good despite how big, detailed and filled game map is and it requires fast gameplay yet the console can handle all of these. However if Freedom Wars had no exist on PS Vita I would say Killzone: Mercenary because it's like PS2's Black on PS Vita lol.
"Demolition Man" on Genesis is underrated. Easily one of the better movie licensed games.
 
It still astounds me that Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 don't use any expansion chips on the SNES given that both Kirby platformers needed the SA-1 accelerator, and Mega Man X2 and X3 both needed the CX-4 to handle sprites.

Just extremely smart use of interrupts and pallet shifting alongside well optimized digitized models.
 
It still astounds me that Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 don't use any expansion chips on the SNES given that both Kirby platformers needed the SA-1 accelerator, and Mega Man X2 and X3 both needed the CX-4 to handle sprites.

Just extremely smart use of interrupts and pallet shifting alongside well optimized digitized models.
Although the CX-4 not only drew/handle Normal Sprites but also Vector Sprites, and that is evident.
 
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black on the xbox 360.

There's this fight up a stair case that spawns in so many enemies that the frame rate drops in half which causes the game speed to drop which led a lot of people to think it was just supposed to be cinematic.
Video of what I'm talking about below!
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black video
 
Racing Lagoon
Such a interesting game. Looks great, awesome dialogue, very unique style, and a really interesting RPG twist to the racing genre. But controls worse than almost every other PSX racing game, which is strange because Square i believed started off making racing games before RPG's?
 
According to me:
Any N64 Games which had 64MB of storage.
Biohazard 4/Resident Evil 4 (GC)
Bloody Roar 2: Bringer of the New Age/Bloody Roar II (PS1) And that's because it's a nailed port of the arcade.

God of War I & II (PS2)
God of War: Chains of Olympus & Ghost of Sparta (PSP)
Gran Turismo 4 (PS2)
Killer Instinct (SFC/SNES) Despite being a port reprogrammed from scratch.
Metroid Prime 1 & 2 (GC)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (WII)
Need for Speed: Carbon (PS2)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (MD/GEN)
Super Donkey Kong Trilogy/Donkey Kong Country Trilogy (SFC/SNES)
Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (WII)
Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Makyou Toitsusen/Yu Yu Hakusho: Sunset Fighters (MD/GEN)
Zelda no Densetsu: Twilight Princess/The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GC)
and a few others.
 
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According to me:
Any N64 Games which had 64MB of storage.
Biohazard 4/Resident Evil 4 (GC)
Bloody Roar 2: Bringer of the New Age/Bloody Roar II (PS1) And that's because it's a nailed port of the arcade.

God of War I & II (PS2)
God of War: Chains of Olympus & Ghost of Sparta (PSP)
Gran Turismo 4 (PS2)
Killer Instinct (SFC/SNES) Despite being a port reprogrammed from scratch.
Metroid Prime 1 & 2 (GC)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (WII)
Need for Speed: Carbon (PS2)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (MD/GEN)
Super Donkey Kong Trilogy/Donkey Kong Country Trilogy (SFC/SNES)
Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (WII)
Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Makyou Toitsusen/Yu Yu Hakusho: Sunset Fighters (MD/GEN)
Zelda no Densetsu: Twilight Princess/The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GC)
and a few others.
N64 games rarely took full advantage of the cartridge space unless it was a later release.
 
NES - Recca Summer Carnival 92, Kirby Adventure. Castlevania III pushed the console's audio capability passed it's limits thx to the special sound chip the game's cartridge had. Journey to Sillus.

Gameboy - Donkey Kong Land(The handheld's port of DKC), Killer Instinct, Final Fantasy Legends III.

SNES - Lots of Squaresoft's and Enix JRPG's from the mid-90's(Star Ocean, FFVI, Chrono Trigger, DQ V, and VI, Rudra, Trials of Mana, etc), DKC trilogy and Killer Instinct.

PS2- Quite a few here with Black, Shadow of the Colossus, MGS 2 and 3, GT4, Jak, and Daxter, FFXII, Ratchet and Clank, and the Sly Cooper trilogies, Ace Combat 5, Mercenaries 1, and 2, GTA 3, San Andreas, Zone of Enders 2, Tekken 5, and Soul Calibur 3.

Please list your own!
The PC-98 was capable of some WILD shit, just listen to a couple of Ryu Umemoto’s original tracks. 4 minute long experimental d&b track on one game. Or how about Kenichi Arakawa’s acid pop album (Ace of Spades)


NES has Recca, but SEGA has Battle Mania and Thunder Force. Fun fact about the former, there’s a hidden scene where one character stomps on a Super Famicom
1753929691382.gif


There’s also Pier Solar, but you know, that game was kinda MADE to break the limits of SEGA hardware.

I think Raiden III on Arcade can be mentioned as well. Just look up a rom of that game and you’ll see that it’s two gigabytes large, way bigger than any other arcade game you can think of.
 
NES: Rainbow Island (four endings), Super Mario Bros 3
SNES: Star Ocean, Tales of Phantasia Terraigma, Chrono Trigger, FFVI
PS1: Vagrant Story Threads of Fate, FFXI, MGS Nightmare Creatures
Ps2: Dark Cloud 2, Radiata Stories, DQVIII Rogue Galaxy
 
Some later era Genesis games had software tricks to do things the hardware couldn't do itself. Dungeon Explorer on TG-16 has a parallax intro that was also done in software because the hardware couldn't. Not sure if either of these count, though.
 
Wow, no one is gonna say Banjo Tooie for N64? I don't understand how Shadow of the Colossus is on the list seeing theres barely anything in it with a muted color palette.
 
Wow, no one is gonna say Banjo Tooie for N64?
I understand that it was a game that also got the most out of the N64 graphically but suffered from slowdowns when there were a lot of 3D models on the screen especially in exploration areas and also that it was a 32MB game.
 

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