Games that showcased the Genesis's power

Hi all,

Kind of new here to the forums and just recently got back into my retro-consoles. A little while ago I got the chance to pop in some Earthworm Jim, Primal Rage, and a few other little gems that I've held on to since the Genesis has came out.

Wondering what games you feel showcase the power of the Genesis.

Mine choices would be,

1. Earthworm Jim
2. Contra: hardcorps
3. Rocket Knight Adventures
4. Thunder Force 4
5. Streets of Rage 3

 

I'd say the two Vectorman games.
Jurassic park: Lost world probably following.

 

^ Completely forgot about the vectorman games. Good point.

 

Adventures of Batman & Robin
Contra Hard Corps / Probotector
Gunstar Heroes
Thunder Force IV
Vectorman 2

 

Gunstar Heroes
Zero Tolerance
Red Zone
Sonic 3

 

Well MD not Genesis, but Pulseman is a fantastic looking & playing game.

 

That mickey game which had the moose chase was pretty amazing ! And it looked like an SNES game ! (just had less colors but it had all the MODE7 stuff) Amazing coding do that with the 68000 horsepower instead of cheating with hardware acceleration ! :lol:

 

Sonic & Knuckles
Gunstar Heroes
Streets of Rage 3

 

That moose part was not Mode7 since there was no realtime horizontal scaling. It's just using line-scrolling for vertical scaling as most systems including the NES, Turbografx, GameBoy, etc can do. The horizontal "scaling" is basically a stored background pattern (ie, prerendered) being scrolled by the Gen's VDP. So basically you're not seeing 68000 horsepower so much as VDP scroll lists.

Look at V-Rally for the GB(C), or Street Racer for various systems for an identical scrolling effect. The CPU is not sweating very much to achieve this effect, believe me.

 

Pre-rendered ? That's interesting ! I didn't knew it worked that way...

 

Check Alien Soldier as well. Unfortunately, it had limited release, it was released only in Japan and Europe

 

Mickey Mania I believe. It was also released on the Playstation as I remember.. Very impressive graphically in many ways.

 

-Contra hard corps[BGM Music, H/V line scrolling and obj scale,great blow effect and sound fx]

-Gunstar Heroes[BGM Music and H line scrolling and level design]

-Yuu Yuu Hakusho - Makyou Toitsusen[Music,Multi-PCM mixing,H line scrolling in scene and H/V scrolling in option and menu BG]

-Red Zone[Too much,nice music and software full screen rotating/scaling is the highlight]

-Toy Story[One of the best sample game of H scrolling used,the emulation of toy car physics even better than Micro Machines.And the most important,one of the level features the full screen 3D graphic maze which is not implemented in any of the other 3D maze type games on genesis.]

-Zero Tolerance[3D fps with SYSTEM LINK feature,communicate two console through 2P port]

-Sonic 3 & Knuckles[Great BGM engine and Lock-on tech applied]

-Streets of Rage 2 and Shinobi III[Nice BGM]

-Micro Machine Serie[Great toy car physics simulation and the J-Cart system]

-Adventures of Batman & Robin[One of the best sample game of H scrolling used,and music is great,too.Zyrinx style.Super hard and super long game play =$ ]

-Thunder Force IV[H Scrolling and hard music]

-Gley Lancer[H Scrolling and hard music,too.Classic game of NCS]

-Langrisser II[BGM is great,and same to the character design.Another classic of NCS]

-Landstalker[2.5D view A RPG]

-Light Crusader[2.5D view A RPG with puzzle adventure]

-Monster World IV[Not much tech used but fantastic graphics and fullfilled story.]

-OutRunners[One of the best 2D depth in racing game.Great FM Music]

-Phantasy Star IV[Story is great,but less tech used]

-Ristar[Not much tech used.But graphics and level design makes the game play excellent]

-Rocket Knight Adventures[Just like Ristar]

-Romance of the Three Kingdoms III[If you know history of Chinese,this one would be the best Sangokushi game on Genesis/MD.Well balanced.]

-Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV 32X[Better than the RoT III on genesis,and even better,the graphics pallete may be the best one in 32X]

-Sonic 3D Blast[Almost full screen of title CG animation,2.5D action game]

-Super Street Fighter II - The New Challengers[Cart can be lager than 32Mbit on Genesis.This is the provement.By using Rom Banking,this game is 40MBit.The biggest one of the official genesis release.And this game is also one of the best in Street Fighter 2 serie]

-Surging Aura[Great 2D RPG game play and graphics]

-Tiny Toon Adventures - Acme All-Stars[Greatest cartoon sports game on genesis I think.Handling is perfect]

-Virtua Racing[S.V.P chip used for hardware assisted 3D graphic rendering.But personally I suggest playing Virtua Racing Deluxe on 32X]

-Xin Qi Gai Wang Zi(Begger Prince)[One of the best unlicensed RPG game by Chinese at mid-90s,featuring semi-realtime battling system and greate RPG story line.]

-Crusader of Centy[Excellent A-RPG,even better than Zelda]

-Beyond Oasis[Another Classic A-RPG legend]

-Cool Spot[Fun action game by CORE]

-Comix Zone[Comic style level design.]

-ECCO The Dolphin[New game play style and nice music]

-Flashback and Out of this World[Vector graphics design]

-Lost Vikings[yeah,an great action/adventure game by Blizzard]

-Dragon Ball Z - Buyuu Retsuden[Fighting game with split-screen]

-Dyna Brothers 2[Great RTS game on MD]

-Mercs[The original mode is totolly rocks,even better than arcade version]

 

Very intresting topic. ANd for the 32x Sega-CD ? For Sega-CD games use the Genesis.

- Sylpheed : mixed FM/PCM musics + good pre-rendered graphics (not too dithered)

- Dune : nice FMV + clear PCM voice + very good
FM music

- Popful Mail : one of the best technical use of Gen/scd hardware. Mixed FM/PCM music, nice H scroll, and one of the best tile based cut scenes.

- Lunar 2 : prety good streamed PCM music and like Popful Mail very nice cut scene.

- Sonic CD :good PCM music, nice H scroll and FMV.

 

i remember when it fisrst game out, and a lot of shops were showing it running Afterburner, which totally blew me away!

 

That would be my pick as well. You'll forget you're playing a Megadrive.

Last I checked it was still going for >£60 on ebay, unfortunately.

 

You could buy it on the Wii Virtual Console if you can't get it elsewhere.

 

I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet but Eternal Champions. Can't remember what trick it was but it had something like a doubled on screen palette? Looked amazing.

 

Yeah, the SEGA-CD version used a palette trick for 256 colours.