best looking games from each system?

[Dashopepper]

So a question I get a lot when showing people my collection is where does a system fit in among others graphically. My brother-in-law yesterday asked about the Master System so I put in Phantasy Star which I think shows off its capabilities. So my question is, if just for demonstration purposes, which game for each system would you show off as the best "looking"?

I'll start with 3

Gamecube - F Zero GX, this game I remember showing off. Silky smooth frame rate and crisp visuals and speed that is still impressive. I remember showing someone one of the unlocked AC tracks that was set in space with planets in the background. Gorgeous.

SNES - Yoshi's Island, pretty safe pick here. Late release with a special chip and all that. Yes, a lot of people don't care for it or at least say they don't, but some of the levels in the swamp definitely have a lot going on for them.

Atari - California Games, I really don't know much about California Games except that it has a different looking white label cartridge and that it was really pretty. It had 3 or so games on it and each of them I remember thinking looked better than whole other games for the system.

[wiggyx]

I think that F-Zero is an absolute eyesore. A fun game, no doubt, but a silky smooth frame-rate does not make a pretty game in my opinion :(

[The Adventurer]

Best looking Gamecube game is Wind Waker, hands down.

[wiggyx]

I'd say Prime 2 for the 'cube, Gran Turismo 2 for the PS, Majora's Mask for the N64, God of War 2 on the PS2, Panzer Saga on the Saturn, Shenmue on the Dreamcast, it's a tough call on the SNES for me, but I won't argue with Yoshi's Island as a contender. The NES is sorta tough. Little Nemo looked great, as did Mario 3, Crystalis, all the Megaman games, and so on. I don't know if I could get it down to a single "best". Legendary Axe 1 & 2 looked pretty amazing on the TG-16.

I'm not sure about the Genesis. Drawing a blank for some reason. I haven't played enough Xbox games to make a choice.

[Immutable]

A good contender for the NES would be "Little Samson". Some of the giant creatures/bosses are incredibly detailed.

[JakeM]

NES- Mario 3, Mr. Gimmick, Kirby
SNES- Chrono Trigger, Yoshis Island, Star Ocean
PS1- Symphony of The Night, Vagrant Story, Spyro

[Doonzmore]

Nes - Batman: Return of the Joker
N64 - Conker's Bad Fur Day or Sin and Punishment

[Captain_N77]

Here are some that came to mind.

NES: I agree on the Mega Man games. They didn't try to do too much, and they did what they did very well. It's a testament to their quality that Mega Man 9 &10 basically copied their look without the need to do much of an upgrade.

SNES: ActRaiser. The sidescrolling levels still look amazing to me.

N64: It's been a while, but Rayman 2 really floored me. Great use of color. I could agree on Majora's Mask as well.

GC: F-Zero GX is indeed a feast for the eyes, as is Wind Waker. I'd throw in the Viewtiful Joe and the Pikmin games too.

DC: Shenmue all the way for me.

[Bloodreign]

Two contenders for the Genesis, Ristar and Dynamite Headdy, Headdy has a ton of little animation touches in the stages that just make the game look awesome. Ristar has some nice detailed backgrounds, great looking sprites, and quite colorful for a Genesis title.

[CastlevaniaDude]

I'm gonna go with Metal Storm for NES.

[FrankSerpico]

Maui Mallard deserves mention for the SNES. The animation in that game is great. Also even though it's a crap game I'd have to give The Lost World the nod for Genesis. Kind of makes sense as it was the last first party game for the console, and would have been the last official release if not for Majesco's Frogger port that came out a few months later. Edit: Also Headhunter looks just as good as Shenmue imo.

[Mr Mort]

I'll throw my 2 cents in and say that Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES was about as close to a 16-bit game as you could get on that console. The sprites are large, detailed, and well-animated, the backgrounds were also very detailed & animated and had lots of parallax.

[buzz_n64]

My list for best visuals-

Atari 2600
Pitfall II

Atari 5200
Pitfall II

NES/Famicom
Crisis Force
Gradius II
Blaster Master
Mighty Final Fight

Genesis
X-Perts
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Vectorman
Virtua Racing

SNES
Donkey Kong County 2
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Starfox 2
Super Mario RPG
Super Metroid
F-Zero

Sega Saturn
Nights
Tomb Raider
Quake

Playstation
Gran Turismo 2
Spyro 3
Final Fantasy VII

Nintendo 64
Perfect Dark
Turok 2
Conker's Bad Fur Day

Dreamcast
Shenmue
Sonic Adventure 2

[kupomogli]

Best graphics are debatable because you might have your gritty looking high detail game, your clean looking lesser detailed game, or a game that has a few 3D models here and there but 99% of the game is prerendered 3D. Example below.

PSX - Parasite Eve 2. Best looking game on the PSX in my opinion, but the game is almost entirely prerendered except for character and enemy models.

Nightmare Creatures. The character models are fairly good, Tekken 3 or Tomb Raider graphics, but not as good as games like Resident Evil 2 or 3, Parasite Eve 2, etc. The environments are easily the best looking on the system outside of prerendered games.

Threads of Fate. Best looking lesser detailed game. Textures are better because so few are actually used.

*edit*

I was thinking of using Vagrant Story instead of Nightmare Creatures as the grittier high detail type game, but I feel that Nightmare Creatures environments look overall better because the environments look much better, even though I will say that Vagrant Story has a better balance between 3D character models and environments.

[bigbacon]

My list for best visuals-

Atari 2600
Pitfall II


this gets my vote for 2600 also...

music is my ringtone.

[Guyra]

Best graphics are debatable because you might have your gritty looking high detail game, your clean looking lesser detailed game, or a game that has a few 3D models here and there but 99% of the game is prerendered 3D.

This is very true. One of my favourite games for the NGC, and the one I will post as the best looking game on the system, is the Resident Evil remake, which is absolutely stunning:

http://sfx.thelazy.net/static/media/medthumb/Dolphin_2013-04-29_14-34-09-12.jpg

Of course, that game uses prerendered graphics. But for any game that uses fixed camera angles, using prerendered 3D is a good idea. As you can see. :)

[PreZZ]

Dreamcast:Ferrari F-355 challenge. No game can rival those visuals on DC, Shenmue did look good but it has a lot of bad textures too.
Saturn: Astal and 2d capcom fighting games. 3D is just plain bad for all games.
ps1: Symphony of the night, still looks great today. 3d is bad also on all games on ps1
n64:yoshi story?
genesis: Sonic 3
snes:yoshis island.

[kupomogli]

Of course, that game uses prerendered graphics. But for any game that uses fixed camera angles, using prerendered 3D is a good idea. As you can see. :)

I meant that people see it in a different way. I have no issue with prerendered graphics, but there are people who don't think the graphics to those games count.

[Guyra]

I meant that people see it in a different way. I have no issue with prerendered graphics, but there are people who don't think the graphics to those games count.

Ah, sorry, that was just a general comment, and not really directed at you in any way. :) But yeah, some people actually don't consider it "real graphics" ... which is stupid, because in the end we just want it to look as good as possible, and this is just one smart way of doing that. :)

[JSoup]

People have been saying for years that Final Fantasy 6 pushed the SNES to it's technical limit and that it's one of the most amazing looking games the system had due to said pushing. Not sure how much of that is actually true and while FF6 is a beautiful game, there are other games that I think look better. Or maybe a better way to phrase that is more captured the feel of the 16-bit era, whichever word salad floats your boat, I guess.

[FoxNtd]

I can already tell my responses won't be very popular.

FC: Crisis Force, FF3, Just Breed
FDS: Zanac
MD: S3&K, Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy
PCE: Spriggan, Snatcher (I'd have better picks if I played/saw more games)
SFC: Tales of Phantasia, StarOcean, Tactics Ogre, Front Mission, 聖剣伝説3
SS: Radiant Silvergun, Silhouette Mirage
N64: Doom 64
PS: Parasite Eve 2
DC: Bangai-O
GC: Biohazard, Rogue Squadron II, Metroid Prime
PS2: GT4

It's not a coincidence I have a lot of Treasure picks. They were very good at pushing systems to their limit and staying within the boundaries.

[BricatSegaFan]

Batman and robin was pretty on the genesis.

Thunderforce 4 was also a contender.

Saturn would be Virtua fighter 2.

[Lictalon]

From my personal collection:

SNES - Castlevania IV

NES - LifeForce

Atari - Solaris

[buzz_n64]

I've seen a couple people post about game systems on here, mostly newer users referring to their system as an "Atari" and it bothers me. Same thing when people say they owned an original Sega with Sonic. o_O To the OP, I assume he was talking about the 2600 port of California Games, but it was also on the Atari Lynx. Since, in this case we're talking about specific systems, then be more specific.

[meggo]

SNES - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, F-Zero, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Super Metroid, Starfox, Street Fighter Alpha 2

Sega Dreamcast - Jet Set Radio, Sonic Adventure 2, Shenmue

GC - Resident Evil remake, Metroid Prime 1 & 2, F-Zero GX, Windwaker

PS1 - Metal Gear Solid, Tekken 3, Silent Hill, FFVII, FFVIII

Nintendo 64 - Majora's Mask, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Kirby 64, Starfox 64, Banjo Kazooie

Drawing a blank on literally everything else right now...

[CatTehBus]

SNES - Final Fantasy III
NGC- Resident Evil remake
Dreamcast - Jet Grind Radio
N64 - Conker's Bad Fur Day

[rmaerz]

Atari 2600: Stargate
Atari 5200: Buck Rogers
Atari 7800: Scramble
ColecoVision: Mr. Do's Castle
Vectrex: Vector Pilot

[StoneAgeGamer]

I think technically speaking Comix Zone on Genesis is pretty damn impressive locking game IMO. Not sure if its best looking game on Genesis, but still impressive graphically I think.

[biggzy]

Another perhaps unpopular opinion:

I always thought the prettiest PS2 game was Dragon Quest 8. Granted it's done in anime style instead of a realistic style, but the environments and characters have lots of detail and the use of color is amazing. The graphics just "pop" in so many ways. Granted I was rocking a standard def CRT back then, so maybe it looks like crap upscaled. Dunno. I contend it still deserves props for the great art, though.

[Player_01]

I think technically speaking Comix Zone on Genesis is pretty damn impressive locking game IMO. Not sure if its best looking game on Genesis, but still impressive graphically I think.

I completely agree about Comix Zone. I was going to log in and mention it when I saw your post. That and Vectorman are my 2 votes for Genesis.

[Kiddo]

I'm gonna try to think of some good picks that no one has suggested yet.

Off the top of my head, the Gamecube had "Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader" which from what I recall is right up there with the Metroid Prime games for graphics, and supposedly was so well made that Lucas actually demanded graphical downgrades so as not to look better than the actual movies.

I also thought Super Smash Bros. Melee for Gamecube was really good looking. A huge jump from Smash 64 and pulled off things which wowed me at the time. Brawl didn't feel like that much of a graphical upgrade in comparison.

SNES/SFC games that haven't been mentioned yet that look really great graphically: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu/Thracia 776 (great battle animations that IntSys didn't even try to compete with in the following GBA games), Magical Pop'n (nice, colorful, big sprites on a neat platformer), Squaresoft's Satellaview originals (especially Radical Dreamers), Do-Re-Mi Fantasy (for similar reasons to Pop'n), Gundam Wing: Endless Duel (Graphically smoother and flashier than any other SFC fighting game, it looked more like a CPS2 arcade title than the actual port of Street Fighter Alpha 2!)

Dreamcast suggestions? Rez (for an interesting artstyle), Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram (a great arcade port), and obviously Soul Calibur.

N64... tough for me to think of a pick since the graphical masterpieces are all well-known Nintendo 1st party faire. For something a bit different how about Wonder Project J2? You don't see too many anime-sprite-based adventure games on the N64, so it stands out among the pack.

PSOne... I feel like most of it's 3D games aged really poorly, so I'd have to go with the likes of Parappa the Rapper, Tomba, and SaGa Frontier 2.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Burning Rangers for Sega Saturn yet, considering how it allegedly did things people thought the Saturn couldn't do graphics-wise. I also thought Guardian Heroes was a really good showing of Sega Saturn's 2D sprite abilities.

[kupomogli]

Another perhaps unpopular opinion:

I always thought the prettiest PS2 game was Dragon Quest 8. Granted it's done in anime style instead of a realistic style, but the environments and characters have lots of detail and the use of color is amazing. The graphics just "pop" in so many ways. Granted I was rocking a standard def CRT back then, so maybe it looks like crap upscaled. Dunno. I contend it still deserves props for the great art, though.

That's not really an unpopular opinion. I hear Dragon Quest 8 referenced atleast a few times every time something like this is brought up by various people. I think Dragon Quest 8 and Final Fantasy 12 are the best looking PS2 games but they're different styles. Final Fantasy 12 is that gritty looking extremely detailed style, while Dragon Quest 8 is lesser detailed, although it still delivers a lot of detail and looks beautiful.

[Vectorman0]

For the original Xbox, Splinter Cell Double Agent is by far the best looking game I have seen. It's on par with early Xbox 360 games.

[FieryReign]

Lynx- Blue Lightning, Warbirds

GBC- Shantae, Dragon's Lair

GBA- Iridion, Top Gear Rally

[Gamevet]

NES: Super Mario Bros. 3

SNES: Starfox

N64: Rogue Squadron (RAM Pack)

Gamecube: Rogue Squadron 2

Genesis: Herzog Zwei

Saturn: Sega Rally Championship

Dreamcast: Shenmue 2

Playstation: Fear Effect

PS2: Virtua Fighter 4

Xbox: Panzer Dragoon Orta

[goob47]

Not sure if anyone said this one yet, but Flashback for the Sega Genesis looked amazing, and ran really smooth. Plus the "cutscenes" were revolutionary and way ahead of their time.

[Tron 2.0]

PC-Engine/Dracula X Rondo of Blood,Sapphire,Lords of Thunder

Famicom/Crisis Force,Mr.Gimmick,Batman Return of the Joker

Genesis/Monster World IV,Comix Zone,Rocket Knight Adventure,Batman and Robin

Sega Saturn/Astal,Radiant Silvergun beside any capcom fighter.

Neo-Geo/Garou MOTW,Last Blade,Pulstar,Prehistoric Isle 2

[brysonclay]

I also want to go with Metal Storm for NES.

[fergojisan]

Solaris and Stargate were both mentioned for the 2600, those are great picks. For the 5200, I would have to go with Defender. I hadn't played it in awhile when I tested it out before I sold my 5200 collection. Defender looked breathtaking and gave me pause, but I unfortunately sold it anyway. My favorite looking 7800 game is Galaga.

[sloan]

VCS: Laser Gates
Intellivision: Safecracker
5200: Ballblazer
7800: Desert Falcon
NES: Arkanoid
TG-16: Deep Blue
Genesis: Comix Zone
SNES: Donkey Kong Country
32X: Kolibri
Saturn: A Clockwork Knight
PSX: Jet Moto
Jaguar: Cybermorph
Gamecube: Auto Modellista
Xbox: Crimson Skies

[Tupin]

Gonna go with an incredibly obscure one here, but was there anything else on the GBA that came close to Asterix and Obelix XXL?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWBUdgIa0oE

Also, anyone have an idea what the best looking DS/PSP games are?

[FFStudios]

Myst for PC.

Sure, it was a point and click that essentially gave you a series of clickable images, but the game was stunning and beautifully designed.

[FieryReign]

Gonna go with an incredibly obscure one here, but was there anything else on the GBA that came close to Asterix and Obelix XXL?

Yeah, there were a few games on the GBA that approached early-PS1 like quality in graphics. Thats the only 3d platformer for the system as far as I know. It just seemed a bit buggy the way I was playing it. A few of the racing games came close in terms of smoothness and (blocky)detail.

[Koa Zo]

[...] which game for each system would you show off as the best "looking"?
[...]


Atari - California Games, I really don't know much about California Games except that it has a different looking white label cartridge and that it was really pretty. It had 3 or so games on it and each of them I remember thinking looked better than whole other games for the system.

I did not know there was a system called "Atari"
California Games? You must mean the Lynx?

[LiquidPolicenaut]

Lots of great games listed but none so far for Sega CD so, in my opinion::

Sega CD: Snatcher, Lunar:Eternal Blue

[Panzerfuzion]

Star Fox Adventures for the gamecube to this day blows me away I think it's one of the best looking games from the 6th gen ironically enough Conkers live and reloaded IMO is a other one of the best looking games of last gen both by rare both for different systems. Primal for the ps2 at the time looked amzing to me.

[JohnHall]

Let's see, Dreamcast I'd say, Shenmue 1 and 2, Dead or Alive 2, Jet Set Radio, MSR, F355, Test Drive Lemans

[Neb6]

AMIGA:
- Vital Light (hundreds on on-screen colors, even on the Amiga 500, going beyond the hardware reference manual's official display modes).
- Star Dust (again, the tunnel level on the original Amigas was awesome, let alone on the later AGA machines).

SNES:
- Operation Logic Bomb

Dreamcast:
- Soul Calibur
- Ikaruga
- Bangai-O

PS2:
- Flipnic

PC:
- Homeworld was impressive for its time.

XBOX (original):
- Riddick : Escape from Butcher Bay (pushed the engine about as hard as you can with some intense custom mapping and lighting procedures).