Best graphics on Sega Genesis?

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Castle of Illusion, Strider, and Thunderforce III

s-video makes them look great

[Black_Tiger]

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.

Capcom definitely didn't give a crap about Sega pre-Saturn. The SFII ports are still well done though, it's just that the SNES ports prove that Capcom was capable of overall more polished 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.

NEC Ave has a bad rep, but I think that most of their ports are either well done, or are not bad. Forgotten Worlds, Side Arms, Chiki Chiki Boys, Altered Beast, Tenchi Wo Kurau, Super Darius, Super Darius II, Bonanza Bros, After Burner II, Daisenpu, Out Run, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Horror Story, Operation Wolf, Rainbow Islands and Ghouls 'N Ghosts all turned out fine or great.

Strider however, really stands out because of the contrast of nice graphic art (separate from color usage) against messed up scrolling, excessive flicker, etc. If Strider had been done the same way as Forgotten Worlds, it would've been fantastic. Even without layered bgs and some flicker.

[acem77]

ECCO 2
Batman and Robin
Castlevania
Shinobi 3
Verctor man
Sonic 3
Bimini run lol love water
rocket Knight adventures
Road rash 3

[Ed Oscuro]

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.

j_factor speaks the wisdom.

G'n'G has some details that the PC-Engine - actually the SuperGrafx! - port didn't have, but it's also missing some. On the whole it's a good port.

Of course the best port of the game (barring computers, like the X68000, and non-contemporary machines like the PlayStation and Saturn) is on that other Sega console...the SMS. Just the keys and finding hidden areas to proceed makes it an interesting play.

[QUOTE=Black_Tiger;1610947]Capcom definitely didn't give a crap about Sega pre-Saturn. The SFII ports are still well done though, it's just that the SNES ports prove that Capcom was capable of overall more polished ports.[quote]
Part of the answer is in the second half of your post - which I omitted. Look at the title screens for early Capcom games - with a copyright notice of "reprogrammed by Sega." I think that Capcom just licensed some of their stuff out and let external developers do much of the work, probably with the idea it would be less trouble to let developers who knew the system develop for it, and Capcom kept making stuff for arcades until that business started to die off.

[tomaitheous]

NEC Ave has a bad rep, but I think that most of their ports are either well done, or are not bad.

Forgotten Worlds: Got bagged on heavily for the massive flicker and slow down. Sure, the graphics are beautiful - but sprite management is poor.

Side Arms: Actually nothing wrong with this port.

Chiki Chiki Boys: Graphics are decent, sounds effects are sketchy, control is sketchy. Just overall plays/feels unpolished. Looks great in stills though. Also has poor sprite management.

Altered Beast: Enemies/players look good - the rest of the game is just poor.

Tenchi Wo Kurau: Another game that doesn't play well. Loads of flicker and sprite management, poor audio/music, poor job on drawing the sprites (just look resized without touch up - choppy), 30fps, funny/awkward animations (like the horse. It doesn't even stop walking. It just walks in place), bad palette choices even in the BG layers.

Super Darius: Nothing negative to say here.

Super Darius II: Beautiful looking but the game play still feels a little "thin". Also poor management on sprite flicker.

Bonanza Bros: decent

After Burner II: Pretty good, I'll give them that.

Daisenpu: Don't know about the port part, but the game is pretty bad itself. Bland/dull/generic in every category.

Out Run: It's decent at best. A lot of corners cut though IMO.

Space Harrier: Crappy voice samples, crappy floor. IIRC, poor sprite management on sectioned bosses. Plays ok though.

Fantasy Zone: Never played this version.

Horror Story: Another game that looks/feels "thin". Graphics look simple/average at best. I never played the arcade version, so I don't know how bad off this is.

Operation Wolf, Rainbow Islands: can't comment.

Ghouls 'N Ghosts: At least the gameplay is great. But the game still flickers in spots even though the SGX has way more sprite pixel bandwidth than either the SNES or Genesis. NEC AVE's trade mark. Game employs crappy tile/sprite cell compression. Some tiles/sprites using 3bpp storage like old hucards even though the SGX sported 4 times more ram for buffering for better compression schemes.

Strider however, really stands out because of the contrast of nice graphic art (separate from color usage) against messed up scrolling, excessive flicker, etc. If Strider had been done the same way as Forgotten Worlds, it would've been fantastic. Even without layered bgs and some flicker.

Yeah, Strider is just totally broken. The game isn't a finished project IMO. Palettes are totally broken through out the game. The colors are there on the sprite pixels, but palette entries are duplicated for no reason. They've masked detail for no reason. Other times they're just completely wrong. Like some random palette got stuck in there. The first boss is a good example. I mean, the color gradients don't even make sense.

NEC AVE developed games never feel polished. There's always something major off, and usually in multiple categories, in their ports - minus a few exceptions I guess (probably different in house team. NEC HE is a different team than NEC AVE. I think there's a third team as well.). But I'm ranting on and getting off topic.

G'n'G has some details that the PC-Engine - actually the SuperGrafx! - port didn't have, but it's also missing some. On the whole it's a good port.

That's an understatement. The Genesis port is missing a lot of detail and frames. I only know of one minor spot where the Genesis one looks better. On the vertically scrolling elevator level, the far background layer. And it's minimal at that. Not that the SGX port is screaming with accurate detail (pathetic compression scheme I assume), it's just that the Genesis port being older and only 4megs is missing a good chunk.




(SGX left, Genesis right)

I also want to add Super Fantasy Zone to my list of impressive Genesis graphics. Really beautiful looking game.

[Darkman2K5]

Beyond Oaisis had some really good graphics, and good sound too. That game blew my brother and I away when we first played it. My father was very impressed too, (he was/is a big RPG gamer).

[allyourblood]

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

This is the first title that comes to mind, for me. The animation may very well be second to none, colors are excellent, and terrific backgrounds and detail. Not my favorite Genesis title, but certainly one of the better-looking ones.

I'd also add Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy to my short list. Also, while the animation was a little rough, the colors used in Decapattack were excellent; really vibrant and eye-catching.

[PC-ENGINE HELL]

I always considered these titles to showcase some of the best the system had to offer visually and audio wise:
Shinobi 3
Shadow Dancer
Castlevania Bloodlines
Alien Soldier
Sonic 2
Beyond Oasis
Streets of Rage 2
Lightning Force
Splatterhouse 3

[Baloo]

Noticed that Comix Zone has some really impressive graphics for the Genesis.

[Tron 2.0]

The Adventures of Batman&Robin:Realy difficult game but man it pushed the genesis.
Alien Soldier
Sonic 3
Castlevania Bloodlines
Gunstar Heroes
Crusader of the Centy
Aladdin:That game realy capture the look of the movie like a cartoon.
Ristar

[Wraith Storm]

Other than what has already been said I would have to vote for the homo erotic shooter Wings of War (Gynoug).

Not only is it one of the finest shooters for the Genny but the graphics and effects still impress to this day. The color pallet is a bit drab, but the HUGE boss sprites and the tilting and warping effects used in the levels are second to none.

[inkor]

1.vectorman 1
2.toy story
3.mortal kombat 3
4.mortal kombat 4
5.Spot Goes to Hollywood
6.Donald in Maui Mallard
7.Contra: Hard Corps
8.Adventures of Batman & Robin
9.Sonic 3D Blast
10.Sonic The Hedgehog
11.the lost world
12.Pinocchio
13.xpert
14.batman frover
15.international super star soccer

[inkor]

1.vectorman 1
2.toy story
3.mortal kombat 3
4.mortal kombat 4
5.Spot Goes to Hollywood
6.Donald in Maui Mallard
7.Contra: Hard Corps
8.Adventures of Batman & Robin
9.Sonic 3D Blast
10.Sonic The Hedgehog

11.the lost world

[Balloon Fight]

Going to jump on the Gunstar Heroes/Vectorman bandwagon for some of the best genny graphics. I also really enjoyed the Toe Jam and Earls graphics-wise.

[HappehLemons]

This thread is about 4 months old, lol.

[lagartija_nick]

Beyond Oasis. Played it recently and was pretty amazed that it was a Genesis game.

[runinruder]

I was most impressed by Lightening Force. Aladdin, Shinobi III, and Phantasy Star IV are up there.

[Wraith Storm]

I was always really impressed by Shadow Blasters. Sure, it's animation was not that great, but it was a unique platforming, shooter, RPG. It also had an awesome OST and all the Parallax in the last stage really impressed back in the day! Here is a video of the last two stages. Skip halfway through to the last stage for some awesome music and impressive parallax!

[Juganawt]

Virtua Racing (block as hell, but I love it)
Virtua Fighter 2 - crap game, but nicely drawn sprites
Vectorman 1 & 2 - great pre-rendering there
Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Probably the best looking 2D Sonic ever. Full of colour.
Streets of Rage 2 & 3
Street Racer
Road Rash 3
Toejam & Earl Panic on Funkatron
Mega Turrican
Gunstar Heroes / Alien Soldier / Dynamite Headdy / any Treasure game
Aladdin
Castle of Illusion
Pulseman
Panorama Cotton
Story of Thor / Beyond Oasis

To be honest, when you look at the Megadrive's back catalog of stuff, there are some truly beautiful pieces of graphic art on the system, and yet it always got shafted in favour of the Snes. While it may not be technically as powerful as the SNES was, art direction seems (at least, to me) much more original and interesting on the Megadrive.

[bacteria]

Aladdin
Psycho Pinball