Best graphics on Sega Genesis?

[Icarus Moonsight]

I'm completely surprised this wasn't brought up yet (well, I missed it if it was)...

Comix Zone

[alexkidd2000]

Sword of Sodan.


We are talking about when the game is paused I hope. heh.

[Baloo]

Xperts is total shit, but it has decent graphics.

The graphics don't even look decent for the time compared to what Sonic 3D Blast was capable of graphics-wise. It's like controlling a clayimation video. The characters movements were jerky, they looked like unpolished clay figures. At least Sonic 3D Blast and Donkey Kong Country look good! Everything about X-Perts is just downright awful.

[RASK1904]

I'd say the best is Mickey Mouse and the Castle of Illusion. The colors are amazing. Granted they got to take them from fantasia. But That game looks very pleasing to the human eye.

[Alianger]

Gunstar Heroes.

Edit: It seems Baloo just beat me to it.

Edit 2: I might as well make this post have some purpose, here's a list of some games that push the graphics with the Genesis.

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/...ics-sound.html

Oh, and if we're allowing imports then consider Duke Nukem 3D for the Mega Drive, it doesn't play as good as the PC version but it looks pretty good for a Genesis game.

Great list. I would add Monster World IV and Ecco: Tides of Time.


Personally I've always liked Another World the best for its unique art style. But it looks pretty much the same in all older versions.

[The Old School Gamer]

I remember Disney's Aladdin having some of the best graphics on the Genesis.

[chrisbid]

Damn, it's hard to make as list. While there aren't many overly 'impressive' per se, the majority of games are above average compared to what the system is setup for color and subpalettes wise. That makes it difficult to separate them.

I think that sums up the Genesis library overall. People that dismiss the genny base that on the fact that the SNES had more 5-star games, and while that is true, the meat of the genesis library is chalk full of high-quality above-average action games with great stylized graphics and tight controls

[garagesaleking!!]

toejam and earl panic on funkotron had great graphics, also one of the baseball games from 98, i believe world series baseball, since it was late in the systems life, had amazing graphics.

[HappehLemons]

Sword of Sodan.


We are talking about when the game is paused I hope. heh.

Xperts is total shit, but it has decent graphics.

Awesome :]
Exactly the kind of games I was looking for.

[Black_Tiger]

If you care about real actual graphics, centered around artwork and not just "lots of stuff tossed around", Lunar EB and Snatcher have some of the very best Genesis graphics. Monster World IV is one of the nicest, most polished cart games I've seen and Beyond Oasis is very special. SSFII has amazing graphics, even if the sound doesn't match them.

[kedawa]

I was actually really dissappointed with the graphics in Super Street Fighter II. Like all SF games on genesis, it uses the goofy SNES resolution, presumably so capcom could reuse the sprites from the SNES games. I always hated the uneven letterboxing, too.
It's a shame they didn't tailor the game's shading more to the Genesis color palette, because there just aren't enough colors to reproduce the look of the arcade game.

[tomaitheous]

I was actually really dissappointed with the graphics in Super Street Fighter II. Like all SF games on genesis, it uses the goofy SNES resolution, presumably so capcom could reuse the sprites from the SNES games. I always hated the uneven letterboxing, too.
It's a shame they didn't tailor the game's shading more to the Genesis color palette, because there just aren't enough colors to reproduce the look of the arcade game.

The "goofy" res they used is used for a number of Genesis games. But disregarding that, high res is 125% more space required. The Genesis doesn't have 80k of vram and the cart would also be about 125% bigger. So something's gonna give when you use that res for SF2. As for the colors, there isn't much you can do. Native Genesis games look great because they are designed around the Genesis color limitation (the small number of subpalettes). Doing a port from an arcade system isn't as easy and the results vary - no matter how good you are of a pixel artist. Each player in SF2 is using 16(15) colors, so that only leaves 31 colors or two subpalettes left for the BG, back ground characters, and stat display. That isn't very much, especially considering it's 31 colors in tile mode - not bitmap mode (which would go a LOT farther).

I don't know why people bag on SF2 for the Genesis. The game itself is an awesome port and the graphics are pretty impressive considering the hardware. The pixel artist that optimized the graphics in that port needs to get more props.

[chrisbid]

i like the style of phantasy star ii and phantasy star iv. the tall, rail thin character sprites used on the overhead view were a nice deviation from the dragon quest/final fantasy 'take-up-the-entire-tile' fat sprites

[Arkhan]

If you care about real actual graphics, centered around artwork and not just "lots of stuff tossed around", Lunar EB and Snatcher have some of the very best Genesis graphics. Monster World IV is one of the nicest, most polished cart games I've seen and Beyond Oasis is very special. SSFII has amazing graphics, even if the sound doesn't match them.

Lunar II is great. Very scenic. Plus you get cutscenes, so its even better.


If were going cart games only, I think Ristar is the best looking game. Its got nice vibrant colors, and great style.

[Black_Tiger]

The "goofy" res they used is used for a number of Genesis games. But disregarding that, high res is 125% more space required. The Genesis doesn't have 80k of vram and the cart would also be about 125% bigger. So something's gonna give when you use that res for SF2. As for the colors, there isn't much you can do. Native Genesis games look great because they are designed around the Genesis color limitation (the small number of subpalettes). Doing a port from an arcade system isn't as easy and the results vary - no matter how good you are of a pixel artist. Each player in SF2 is using 16(15) colors, so that only leaves 31 colors or two subpalettes left for the BG, back ground characters, and stat display. That isn't very much, especially considering it's 31 colors in tile mode - not bitmap mode (which would go a LOT farther).

I don't know why people bag on SF2 for the Genesis. The game itself is an awesome port and the graphics are pretty impressive considering the hardware. The pixel artist that optimized the graphics in that port needs to get more props.

SFII is the ultimate anti-Genesis hardware game graphics/color/detail-wise. Instead of using repeating tiles spread across a stage, it packs a ton of unique art all in one tight area. I think that SFIISC was a mixed bag with some background sections that should've been done better, but SSFII is unbelievable.

I've found that Genesis fanboys are quick to trash any Genesis ports that are inferior to others as poorly developed. Yet no one complains about Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Strider even though they are complete garbage compared to the SFII ports. They coincidentally don't have better ports on rival consoles.

[BHvrd]

The Adventures of Batman & Robin. Some of the later stages are pretty impressive looking, the Mad Hatter boss stage stands out in particular.

Truly this game pushed the hardware to the limits. It was released between the 32x and the Saturn launches so at the time all the tricks of the Genesis were known and utilized in this game. Truly a testament to what the system could do.

I would also say Eternal Champions, it had cool animations and backgrounds and stands as the true technical showcase fighter on the Genesis imo.

[LiquidPolicenaut]

If you care about real actual graphics, centered around artwork and not just "lots of stuff tossed around", Lunar EB and Snatcher have some of the very best Genesis graphics.

Wait, are we including Sega CD's or no? If yes. then I agree 100% percent on Lunar:EB and Snatcher and would throw in Urusei Yatsura for the Mega CD...

If no, then I would agree on Mega Man:The Wily Wars, Panorama Cotton and Streets of Rage II

[j_factor]

I've found that Genesis fanboys are quick to trash any Genesis ports that are inferior to others as poorly developed. Yet no one complains about Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Strider even though they are complete garbage compared to the SFII ports. They coincidentally don't have better ports on rival consoles.

Ghouls n' Ghosts and Strider were both early in the lifespan of the system, and both on very small (comparatively speaking) cartridges. Considering what they worked with, they are both excellent ports. And in both cases, if you want better ports, you can get them on Playstation/Saturn or recent compilations. You'd think Strider would have been better on PC Engine, but that is one poorly developed port.

I always thought Street Fighter was a perfectly acceptable port on Genesis, just the voices were poor and it had some other small issues. It has better voices on SNES, but there are other problems. None of the three original home console versions of Turbo/Champion were arcade-perfect. Personally though, I don't really see any reason to care at this point. The game was rendered obsolete by Super, which you can get in relatively arcade-perfect form on several systems (just not Genesis or SNES). I see no reason to play the original Turbo today, and even if you really want to, it's in arcade-perfect form on Playstation and Saturn.

[tomaitheous]

Ghouls n' Ghosts and Strider were both early in the lifespan of the system, and both on very small (comparatively speaking) cartridges. Considering what they worked with, they are both excellent ports. And in both cases, if you want better ports, you can get them on Playstation/Saturn or recent compilations.

Doesn't change the fact that since there aren't "SNES" ports to compare them too, you don't see the bitching/complaining that X-company "hates" the Genesis or never puts in the effort on Genesis, doesn't care, etc. There's this mentality out there that if the Genesis port doesn't destroy a SNES port, then they kinda disown the game and rag on the company. I especially love the conspiracy theories that Nintendo secretly told/forced/paid/whatever a company to do an inferior port on the Genesis. I mean, there's absolutely no other explanation

You'd think Strider would have been better on PC Engine, but that is one poorly developed port.

You'd only think that if you didn't know NEC AVE's poor track recorded of ports

I see no reason to play the original Turbo today, and even if you really want to, it's in arcade-perfect form on Playstation and Saturn.

I still play it on the real system from time to time, even with having MAME on the computer (which is more arcade-perfect than either the PS or Saturn).

[j_factor]

Doesn't change the fact that since there aren't "SNES" ports to compare them too, you don't see the bitching/complaining that X-company "hates" the Genesis or never puts in the effort on Genesis, doesn't care, etc.

I'm pretty sure those ports were done by Sega. It'd be pretty hard to argue that Sega hated the Genesis, unless you were talking about Sega of Japan in 1995.

I think it's pretty fair, actually, to say that Capcom didn't really care about the Genesis. I mean, what did they put out for Genesis other that Street Fighter? There's The Punisher, but it's pretty ugly. It seemed like Capcom just phoned that one in.

You'd only think that if you didn't know NEC AVE's poor track recorded of ports

I'm not terribly familiar with NEC Avenue's stuff, but didn't they do the Turbo version of Fantasy Zone? That turned out pretty good. And I liked the Turbo CD version of Forgotten Worlds, despite the lack of 2-player.