Games That Pushed Older Systems to the Limit?

Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire for PC-Engine Arcade CD-ROM!

Others:
NES: Recca, Gimmick, Kirby's Adventure
SNES: Rendering Ranger (?), Donkey Kong Country 3
N64: Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Sim City
Saturn: Panzer Dragoon Saga, Street Fighter Zero 3 maybe?, Shenmue, Radiant Silvergun
Dreamcast: Shenmue 2, Under Defeat
Xbox: Doom 3, Half-Life 2

MSX: Space Manbow, Aleste 2

 

I m not making a list because I don't have the time to think every single game up for the platforms I ve played, but on the N64 I m surprised no one has mentioned Battle for Naboo by Factor 5 and of course, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine - a superior version to that found on the PC, quite a feat!

 

wrong, it did not even support expansion pack h:

 

x

 

If we're talking commercially released Saturn games that made better use of the console's many available co-processors, surely Burning Rangers or Panzer Dragoon Saga would be more suitable choices over VF2 any day?

 

Are you sure? What kind of pounds per square inch did it measure?

I think Kirby was pushing things more than SMB3. SMB3 is a great game but Kirby had alot of neat bosses and animation that make SMB3 look rather plain.

This whole topic is rather strange. How can you really define what is pushing the limit? What is the limit? Maybe games that really took full use of the hardware? Vectorman on Genesis, didn't that take advantage of some bug in the VDP to cause rotation of a background layer? That is pushing it I guess. Super Mario Kart was pushing the SNES using Mode 7 to make a 3D racer game. Sure it uses the DSP for calculation help but the rest is all SNES.

 

I agree that is difficult to judge, but "pushing the limit" would be something that was initially thought impossible to do on that particular hardware.

Nothing technically proven really, just something that got your attention.

 

Until consoles are fitted with some kind of performance meter (which is highly unlikely, if not impossible), there will always be potential for someone to code a game that pushes hardware more than anything that came before. The fact many take advantage of co-processing techniques, more recent programming tools and various exploits - some previously unknown while others get officially documented - only complicates the matter further, so maybe we'll never get a definite answer when it comes to measuring the limit of any chosen system? I'm looking forward to the day someone makes greater use of the Saturn's complex internals... and hopefully not just in the form of a tech demo, either!

P.S. Considering its maximum polygonal output was often listed as 3m per second, didn't Le Mans 24 Hour push the Dreamcast harder than any other game on that platform?

 

Wow, even more amazing then h:

 

x

 

I still consider AM2's effort the best Saturn high resolution fighter in terms of gameplay, but on a purely graphical level there were minor improvements seen in later titles such as Last Bronx and Dead Or Alive. Returning to the subject of Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers for a moment again, I'm sure it was mentioned somewhere before that Sonic Team used the DSP exploit to render transparency effects, which is why ADX had to be utilised instead of the more common Redbook or PCM alternatives. Team Andromeda made use of some kind of undocumented programming trick for handling water in PDS, though I've no idea whether or not the DSP was definitively involved since there's never been any official confirmation of how certain visual elements were realised on the Saturn. Apart from to reveal it ran on stock hardware, AM2 has yet to comment further on the Shenmue prototype - now that's one interview I'd kill to read...

Does anyone know for certain how or where Team Ninja made use of the DSP for Dead Or Alive? I'm not doubting this claim at all, yet it's the first I've heard of such a suggestion and I'd love to know more (admittedly, I neglected to follow much coverage of this game back in the day because most of my time was spent keeping an eye on the Saturn 2/Eclipse/Black Belt/Dural/Katana saga). Also, what do you all think of Anarchy In The Nippon in the context of pushing the Saturn's capabilities?

 

x

 

god of war 2 ?

 

Too true. Dead or Alive on the saturn is amazing. Fluid animation, rock solid polygon models, high quality textures and far better speech samples that VF2. Dead or Alive on the Saturn is so good that it was chosen over the original arcade and PlayStation version for the XBOX Dead or Alive compilation disc.

that game doesn't push the Saturn at all. Polygon models are big chunky efforts with awful polygon flicker. The areas are also no where near as detailed as those in last Bronx or Dead or Alive. Finally the floor is just a mode 7 style effort (so is Last Bronx) where as in Dead or Alive it's a polygon floor with ring outs.

If you ask me, Dead or Alive is the only 3D fighter on the saturn that pushes the hardware.

yakumo

 

almost any major games on the PC Engine post '91 like:

seirei senshi spriggan
gate of thunder
winds of thunder
akumajou dracula x
star parodia
ginga fukei densetsu sapphire
Gradius II - gofer no yabou
Street Fighter II'

but also very early hucard games like R-Type showed of how much the system was capable.

 

Panzer Dragoon Orta for XBox. Amazing water effects!

 

Super Ghost n' Ghouls on the SNES.

Only console game I remember that had slowdown

 

x

 

Ah, so that's why the floor on VF1 breaks up? So are the floors on the likes of Dead or Alive and VF2 floating backgrounds with polygon side plates? How about Tohshinden or D-Xird? Surely they must be using polygons for some of the floors? They seem to be real 3D, especially those used on D-Xird when you pan around and under them using the debug code.

yakumo

 

wasn't that because of lazy coding or something?:lol: