I had that game on my Mega Drive when it was relevant, and my hat goes off to you. I thought it is the stand out FPS for the system, and disappointed it’s not talked about more on retro TH-cam channels. Especially in those hardware pusher episodes.
Oh hey Jim (I used to work with you at Climax!). Dude, Bloodshot is seriously impressive, I had no idea a 68K could manage anything like that back then. Lovely stuff sir.
*Non FX SNES game* Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was another 3D polygonal game that doesn't use the FX chip. It runs...ok, I enjoyed it back in the day, played it throe all the way to the end. Thought it is hard to play now. I think it managed to get away with it because it was mostly just rendering the ships against a basic blackness of space, with a few stars. Probably would have been a lot more playable today if it had the FX chip.
I like the weak hardware 16bit time. Programmers really use their brain to achieve the impossible goals. Some MD games are really amazing. I still remember the first time I saw the cotton girl game. Really shock me back in time. Still amazing today.
So did PS1. That system, because of its slow C graphics libraries Andorra limitations, it really wasn't more powerful than the 2 year older 3DO, but devs learned how to overcome its limitations and make it perform.
I think that on the FPS section you just missed one of the best examples: Zero Tolerance. The game didn't used just 90o angle walls like the other games and had animated wall textures and other nice stuff.
Panorama Cotton's graphics are mind blowing. i wouldn't say it looks as good as star fox, but it's really close. they're not going for the same look though, so Panorama Cotton is the king of sprite scaling shooters(like Space Harrier, After Burner, etc). i don't think the snes could even come remotely close to Panorama without a serious helper chip
Thank you for mentioning Gunstar Heroes and Batman and Robin, because these are the games that come to mind when I think of the Mega Drive going to the next level.
@@kasjamm Genesis games are slow. Do you see the problem with that statement? Not only is it ridiculous to claim that every game on a system is a particular speed, but what metric do you use to define what makes a game slow or fast? Is it the speed of the player controlled character and enemies? Is it the amount of enemies and bullets being thrown at you all at once? Is it how quickly the player has to react to what is happening on screen? Is it how frequently they have to react? What are you using to base such a claim on? I've played hundreds of games on the NES, SNES, Genesis, Turbo Grafx 16, etc. and I can honestly say your statement makes absolutely no sense based on plenty of games I've played. Based on the metrics I already mentioned I think some of the "fastest" games I've played from that era actually are on the SNES. Everything from the high speed racing of F-Zero to the relentless barrage of enemies in shooters like Super Smash TV and Space Megaforce.
graphics and sound is awesome in Adventures of B+robin, but omg the gamepay is sooooooooo repetitive and the levels just go on and on and seem to never end. Im a noob and played through a unlimited continous version. Levels are ridiculously long and hard to beat. Somewhat ruins the fun of it.
It was my first game on Genesis. Just imagine the sheer speed the game had in comparison to stupidly slow NES. That techno music (sure SNES had more realistic sound and better visuals, but fuck that crap it was 90s, techno and rave is all we needed in our teens and genesis was so fucking fast, everything was RADICAL lol). Genesis was peak 90s, that's for sure.
I am a programmer. The thing is, I can see how all effects on Contra Hard Corps are done. Lots of well thought stuff, but nothing that really "pushes" the hardware. And yeah, very good pixel art. Red Zone is doing some insanely smart stuff, as it is Toy Story, DN3D , Batman & Robin and Bloodshot. But hell, first time I saw Panorama Cotton, I was like "HOW THE FUCK THEY PULLED THAT OFF?" There are stuff on that game that I still don't know how it works.
@@rafaellima83 I think Panorama Cotton is using pretty much every pseudo 3D optical illusion in the book. Everything from the checkerboard tiles to the waving effect from different horizontal lines being offset from one another to make it look like the tunnel you are in is curving. Many of these effects are used on games dating back to even the 8-bit systems.
The thing that bugs me when I see how they did Red Zone on Genesis--extremely cool by the way--was the fact the main background rotation effect is done by default on SNES relatively easily and with far, far more detail and colour being possible, so all the SNES had to do on top to achieve a similar but presumably even more impressive effect would be to use all it's sprites for the fake 3D objects in the same way the Genesis did. I mean, the SNES would likely struggle to throw quite as many sprites around like this without slowdown, but if some designer/programmer had maybe combined slightly less sprites with a far, far more detailed Mode 7 image that maybe even baked some shadows and the like into it too, then surely the SNES could have done something like this that actually looked even more striking. A lot of the details of those 3D objects done with sprites on Genesis could have been baked into the Mode 7 background on SNES, such as some of the bushes, or other basically flat objects like ditches and roads/tracks and mud and grass details could be added too, and even the first layer of all the 3D objects as well, saving quite a few sprites right there alone. And the SNES could have even used some transparency on some of the sprites for whatever potentially cool effects too. But, alas, I don't think I've seen many if any Mode 7 levels on SNES that go for this kind of optical illusion 3D approach. What a shame, because the flat Mode 7 can be impressive enough even as is, but with a bunch of sprites used to build up some of the geometry to look pseudo 3D, it could have been something very special for its time. The same is surely true of the inside sections too, where the SNES having up to 4 independently scrolling and overlapping background layers probably could have really helped with the effect alongside some sprites to clean the edges. And, again, the SNES having more colours [certainly if less layers were used] and proper transparency could have added even more visual flair if used properly too.
Also: Vectorman Vectorman 2 Adventures of Batman and Robin Sonic 3D Blast All these four together with Toy Story are my Top 5 that really push the limits of Mega Drive..
Sega really should have picked up the rights to the F1 Challenge game and released it as a third Super Monaco game. But no Jimmy White's Snooker Sharpie??? Blasphemy!
It does a lot of incredible stuff. But Panorama Cotton really dropped my jaw when I first saw it. And it's paired with a game that's actually fun to play (Unlike Batman and Robin which, like you said, it's just too stupidly hard to be any fun).
Batman and Robin isn't that hard, in fact once you understand how you have to play (and this mean learning the ennemies patterns, when and how to collect life) it becomes a lot of more doable. You just have to learn. And the crazy pace it has makes it easily in my top 3 games on the console (in fact, it may be the one I play the most if I don't count Virtua Fighter/Racing 32X).
To this day, I'm still very overwhelmed by what the Megadrive is towards the end. Partially out of the Sega box. Comic Zone, Sonic 3 and Nuggels, Turtels Hyperstone, Probotector and Castel Vaniar. Class Console. I had a nice time with the Megadrive and the SNES. Both damn good systems with before and disadvantages
I really think some really outstanding programming went into those consoles to get much more out of them than was ever initially intended, even before the Super FX and the 32x.
Yeah! I think the Sega Mega Drive was a great and versatile system for its time. I happened to find one for $5AU at a local Charity Shop, and it's worth every cent, especially for technology that's around three decades old.
They produced the game first and then got the IP And, iirc, then it was discovered that the who gave license to TecToy for Duke Nukem 3D lost part of the rights to Duke Nukem, so it's debatable if it's official
Yes, it's true that "Mega Drive" was already a taken name in the States, but it wasn't a laxative; it was held by Mega Drive Systems, Inc., a storage media manufacturer. So, SEGA went with "Genesis" as a way of suggesting that the new console would mark the real dawn of home video gaming.
Bwa, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You're hilarious. Panorama Cotton uses a host of "optical illusions" that have been used in countless games including some for the Turbo Grafx 16 and even the original NES. While it is certainly cool how it switches them up so frequently nothing it is doing is as graphically impressive as the smooth scaling, rich colors, visual design, and color gradients that give a sense of depth found in F-Zero. Where do people like you come up with such ridiculous claims?
@@davidaitken8503 Doesn't matter how they did it... that it's just "illusions", etc. The game looks more impressive, busy and varied in its "3D" effects than the flat background rotation of F-Zero. Show any person the two games side by side for a minute and see what they think.
@@Prizrak-hv6qk You show anyone Panorama Cotton and they will say, "Cool. This is definitely an impressive step up from Space Harrier and 3D World Runner". You show someone F-Zero though, and their jaws would drop to the floor as they had never seen anything, and I mean anything like it before. A silky smooth "3D" looking futuristic racer where you traveled at speeds that no game had ever let you travel before. It really was like peering into the future. I know this was the reaction people had because I was gaming back then and people were absolutely floored when they actually saw the game in motion. Remember, there was no internet back then so many of us had only seen screen shots in magazines. When footage started appearing in TV ads it really made an impact. You also have to remember that Panorama Cotton not only never made it out of Japan back when it was cutting edge console technology, but it came out after more genuinely 3D games like Star Fox as well. I will personally always love good Japanese sprite work over chunky polygons but Star Fox definitely looked more high tech at the time too.
It's a time-honoured tradition in UK video gaming journalism, back to the days of Zzap!64 and Computer and Video Games (and possibly before that!). The Beige Breadbin will always be my favourite computer.
Amiga and C64 scene coders for sure where the masters of optimization and innovation. If today's average game developer had just half their skill and motivation, games would already look like as being played on the Playstation 7 right now!
Loved the Genesis stuff at the end but what's really funny/cool is that because it was the Genesis, when Mortal Kombat 1 came out and a code was needed to turn on the gore, because the peeps at Midway were Genesis (the band) fans, they decided to make the blood code A, B, A, C , A, B, B because ABACABB (pronounced Aaah-buh-cab) was also the name of an album that was released by....you guessed it, Genesis (the band).
The SVP is way more powerful than the SuperFX for sure, Virtua Racing runs at double the framerate of Stunt Race FX and has far more polygons on screen. The SVP in Virtua Racing typically renders 600 polygons per second, although I’ve read that the chip could render up to 1200 per second in certain conditions. I don’t know exact numbers for the Super FX but even the Super FX GSU-2, the strongest version, ran at a lower clock speed and was generally just a less powerful chip. It’s a real shame Sega never used the SVP more but the high cost is most likely why, they eventually decided to launch the 32X to give it a big boost of power.
It’s smoother for two reasons. It’s pushing a lot less polygons and also you can’t turn around in it. It just slides left and right like the other outrun style games. Even though it had a chip, Virtua racing is doing a lot more than Kawasaki or F1 did.
@@sloppynyuszi I didnt play a Lot of Kawasaki Superbike, but my First impression of It was "Oh, its vroom with motorbikes." If its indeed like Vroom its mixing 2D sprites with vector graphics. Thats why It feels theres more stuff than VR and also why you cant turn around.
@@rafaellima83 Vector graphics, are you sure? Those look like polygons to me. Vector graphics are basically just lines that are lengthened and shortened to give a pseudo 3D effect. Old arcade games like Battle Zone and Star Wars used vector graphics.
@@davidaitken8503If you want to be technical, vector graphics *are* polygons. It’s just that the term is typically used for polygon rendering with no z-depth or 3D math involved, like Another World.
There's a bunch of videos that claim to list games that "Push the limits of the Mega Drive" but this is the only one that actually explains what's impressive about each one.
Simply incredible! It's stuff like this that made me appreciate the older consoles like the Sega Genesis and turned me into a retro gamer. Great list! Glad to say I have most of these games but this time, unlike my less knowledgeable younger self, I will not be selling my collection this time around to "upgrade" to the newer hardware. Plus, you will never need an internet connection to play these games.
Malcolmmar Tbf 95% of todays games don't need a Internet connection to be played. Obviously you need 1 to be able to play online multiplayer but that goes without saying.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 I hope you are right. Every time I power up my Xbox One X it goes online to check to see if my account is valid even before I play my game. When games were complete on cart with no internet you just power on and play. Even disc games are not played on disc but have to be downloaded to play. I miss the days of true physical media.
Thanks for the explanation on the Ranger X fake 3D effect, it's so well done. For the real 3D polygon animations, weren't they quite easily doable for the console, simply because wireframe is less power-hungry than flat shading to start with?
Panorama Cotton looks like Space Harrier on steroids. There are affordable repros for this game, as well as the Duke Nukem 3D game. Ranger X looks fantastic. Virtua Racing on the Genesis is a technical marvel, IMO. It seems the SVP chip is prone to malfunctioning. My copy freezes up right at the start of a race.
Great video as always! I'd nominate The Lost World game - its deceptively simple to begin with when you first start playing, with a similar top down perspective to the SNES JP game... but there are multiple 3D sprite scaled showpiece levels as the game progresses which are truly impressive - I'd go so far as to say more impressive 3d effects potentially than even Panorama Cotton? They look more like an early 32 bit game than a Megasis title.
Glad to see bloodshot. I honestly think this has been quite the overlooked game when it comes to Mega Drive system pushers on these retro channels. I had this when it was out. Graphically impressive, but navigating out of. Level after you beat a boss practically kills it.
9:40 Sorry to be 'that guy' but SNES Mode 7 could *not* rotate sprites. That's one of the biggest misconceptions about it. Mode 7 only scaled/rotated background layers. Even in situations where it looks like a sprite rotating, like Bowser's clown-copter at the end of SMW, it's still just clever use of a background.
The Super Fx chip was certainly easier to use, the SNES had a pixel buss on the cartridge slot so it didn't have to generate tiles it just sent out the pixels from it's own bitmap framebuffer RAM on the cartridge and the SNES put that up as an additional graphics layer. The Megadrive didn't have anything like that so the SVP graphics had to be converted to tiles and then downloaded from tile ROM memory space and sent to the VDP.
Due to the cartridge expansion support in the snes while the genesis has none. The only issue with super fx and sega svp the rom sizes maximum is 2 MB instead of 8 MB.
The first level of Ranger X has a parallax effect not seen often. Most of the time we see lines being scrolled at different speed and that's it. But if you look closely, you will see that buildings overlap on the lines behind them. This is not seen often in games from that era.
1:48 Actually it is a pretty good analogy. Tiles in both cases are pre-defined, flat blocks with set dimensions that can be spread across a surface in a (usually rectangular) grid pattern. In fact, I always just assumed that analogy was what gave graphics tiles their name.
Changing the scroll registers during the h blank interrupts is probably how the cotton effects were done. It’s been a while tho so I could be misremembering. Great vid tho. Treasure did some gems too. Gun star had that reactor room boss. Even the rotating column effect in mcdonaldland Sonic also couldn’t be done in the snes. They tried with that unicycle game but had to sacrifice backgrounds. Hardware DMA FTW
Wow, I didn’t know about Kawasaki Superbike but I’m super impressed, it looks amazing and the framerate is really smooth even though it’s got loads of 3D, if looks like the framerate is even smoother than F1’s Turbo Mode despite being much more detailed.
knew i wasnt crazy but Red Zone and Ranger X blew my mind back then on Sega Channel, always wondered at the miraculous stuff those games were doing back then at least for me : D red zone and the real time smoke effects still impress
There's a lot of games that really seemed to push the Genesis beyond what the typical tech specs would suggest, and in some cases just far beyond. Sadly, while there's a whole bunch of the best games of all time on the SNES based on the quality of the overall gameplay experience, there's not so many games on that system that seem to do quite so much beyond what was expected of it based on the tech specs.
Saying that like it's some sort of disappointment, but it doesn't really matter. Breaking technical limitations is impressive, but at the end of the day the gameplay experience and fun factor are what make games worth it.
Without the Super FX chip I don't think the SNES could nearly do these effects as well without slow-downs and stutters due to the faster overall raw strength of the CPU.
Yeah. Mostly, the Genidrive hardware design is a masterpiece of smart minmaxing, but I do think they were wrong about the joystick ports. Because, sure, I can see why they'd want to stick with the old 9-pin D connectors. They'd been used for joysticks back to the Atari 2600 and were dirt cheap. But that limited the pad to 8 inputs, which could be really restrictive for game designers - a problem made MUCH worse when the SNES launched with its 12-input controller and could handle much more complicated controls.
@@jasonblalock4429 well, sharing some hardware parts with the old master system would squeeze down the manufacturing cost, so they thought "why not" obviously Also its got 3 action button while other systems of the era like the pc engine and amiga still got 2, and at least it fits much better in your hands than the snes controller does to compensate for the lack of buttons. The Dpad is better too. SNES was launched 2 years late.
@@aboriginalmang The SNES controller fits in my hands just fine AND it has more buttons. The 3 button controller was the single biggest limitation of the Genesis and the big reason SNES games had better play mechanics and more depth in general.
I would 100% watch a whole video on Cotton. Also I want to know more about how they did that Duke Nukem game. Never seen that vertical line thing. I’d love to know more details
Not strictly a "Nintendon't", but the homebrew port of Wolfenstein 3D for the MD is quite a bit more faithful than the SN version. gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1537 The same dev also created protos of Star Fox and F-Zero on the MD without any special chips.
While the other two are tech demos, I think they're going to complete Wolfenstein some day. It's actually quite damn good and a shame it's stuck on 2017 progress
Adding to list is Light Crusader, Toy story, vectorman 1 & 2, Mega Turrican, pocahontas, wrestlemania arcade (Best Digital Sprite based games and mk3 after) yuyu hakusho: battle to unite the demon plane and Dynamite Headdy.
True. Mega Drive/Genesis had more processing power than the SNES. However, the SNES could make up somewhat for that with custom chips on the game cartridges and superb 256 colors on screen. Though not as powerful as the Mega Drive/Genesis, the SNES hardware also allowed for jaw dropping graphics, back in the 1990's. Also, in my opinion, it had better sound. And this comes from someone who owned a Mega Drive. Two great game consoles.
Genesis also had some kind of advantage with sprite animation. I don't know the technical details but Earthworm Jim is a great example, it's much smoother than the SNES version. Come to think of it, this might be related to the perspective-shifting tiles in the Red Zone on-foot segments.
Whether the SVP was more powerful than the Super FX chip might be up in the air, but what isn't is it's cost. The SVP chip certainly cost a lot more to manufacture than it's Super FX cousin which is a shame considering Virtua Racing cost a cool 100 bucks at launch due to the high cost of the chip.
I remember the mom and pop video store where we rented games as kids had a special notice on the game something like "due to the high cost of this game, we must charge an additional fee."
Block Out, F-22 Interceptor (and LHX Attack Chopper i believe) all used the 68000 +Z80 processors to handle the maths on the Mega Drive. Coder confirmed it on first 2,not had it confirmed on LHX
Underrated Channel. Incase you ever run out of console, i will suggestl you cover 10+ yo PCs, which were so often sold, they could considered a benchmark and do Games That Push the limits series on those.
the genesis is technically the first multi-core system available as you could actually use the 3.4 MHZ z80 alongside the 7 MHZ 68000, Demosceners have recently built 3D engines that can achieve 60FPS displaying of polygons and 30 FPS displaying of complex geometry.
Yeah, all these games using ONLY the stock Genesis whereas on the SNES certain games needed the SA-1 or the SuperFX. I remember seeing a video comparing Hard Drivin' on the Genesis vs the SNES (also another video where they hacked the SNES version to take advantage of the SA-1 chip). I still say the stock Genesis performs pretty decently while the SA-1 version DOES have better performance (but again its hacked to take advantage of the SA-1 chip which has 4x the clock speed of the stock SNES which combined IS technically more powerful then the Genesis).
SA1 was perfect main CPU for the snes. I wish they were able to use it instead of their slow cpu. SNES would've been soght after console for consumers and developers.
Ranger X should have got a sequel, imagine what they could have done with it being developed for the Sega CD or Saturn, red-book audio all the way with some sprite-scaling included...
You started with Ranger X and I was thinking that you basically blew your load right at the start...then I saw the rest of the video. I was aware of the games you showed, but the breakdown was really incredible.
3:50 Actually each line of the Megadrive's screen can be given an offset, ie horizontally scrolled, without needing INTs or software. So no processing power needed.
Kawasaki Superbike Challenge also looks very similar to Super Monaco GP. I played that so much as a teenager. I recently revived my console setup, and bought Virtua Racer for only £25. It's cheap now, but apparently it retailed for £80 back when that was over a month's pocket money! That's probably why we didn't see any other SVP carts. That and the 32X was on it's way.
Star Cruiser was Starfox before Starfox, and it runs on the MegaDrive without any enhancement chips. Released in 1990 for the MegaDrive in Japan, fully polygonal too.
I actually own a prototype copy of the SEGA Second Epistle To The Thessalonians. Doesn't have a huge library as it was released just 6 months after the SEGA First Epistle To The Thessalonians console (SEGA always competing with themselves), but it was way ahead of its time.
I haven't finished the video but Ranger X I've never heard of. My jaw was on the floor when I saw that a game like that existed back then. It looks outstanding.
Res-Q's bonus sections are similar to Starfox, although more barebones since it's on the stock Genesis. Another good one is Star Cruiser, a really early 3D game from 1990 on the Genesis as well. Alien Soldier of course, with it's insane sprite manipulation. You missed an interesting detail too for Kawasaki Superbike Challenge. Check out the windshield on the bike. Genesis can't do transparency, but there it is being done.
at the start when i heard "i have no idea what to call the system in this video" i went "heh, what about the megasis" and then that was said a few moments later i am _shook_
The Sega Alan Parsons Project 😅 Another uniquely brilliant video, I don't quite have the brain to follow the technical bits but really enjoy the idea of uncovering how these genius programmers found ways to do things. I wish I'd seen these 3D racing games back then, I somehow missed them aside from Road Rash. Some of these look incredible, that last one is a work of art!
Panorama Cotton looks like the quintessential hardware-pushing game. It's doing all sorts of crazy trickery to achieve effects that should not be possible on the machine that is running it. And it also looks like it's a pain in the butthole to play. Hm, come to think of it "Pain in the butthole to play" is how I'd describe Red Zone, which I actually did play.
I remember a friend of mine bought DN3D when it was released and I got to play it. I was at the same time dissapointed and impressed. It looked incredible for a Mega Drive game, yet it wasn't very good to play. But still... I really find amazing that one of the most impressive Mega-Drive games ever released was done by a single brazilian coder. I mean, look at the other games Tec Toy made for the Mega-Drive, they are all rubbish - I am pretty sure they were trying the best, we just didn't have the proper resources and know-how. I am nearly sure the guy had never made any other Mega-Drive game before... probably not even made any single game before, he was probably just an engineer tasked with the port job or something. If you look at the credits of the game, IIRC , it's only his name and no one else. He did an *amazing* job.
He was a demo coder in the Brazilian scene. While he'd never made a mega drive game, he was super familiar with the CPU and knew basically every trick to get impressive things out of it.
Great times Great war was done there...even the Sega machine was 2 years old it fight till the end and in 2021 it still suprises us with more new creations The two machines in the right hands made great moments
Every games before 1998 were impressive, every games after that are just meh. Even if there were games released for SNES and Genesis after the year 2000, a majority of these games were made by amateur studios or studio that use modern hacking tools and media format to achieve the impossible so the impressive features that would had wow us aren't really coming from the consoles but instead from the modern tools it used which by this point in time are standard features in gaming. Games like the New Super Mario Land remake, Xeno Crisis, and Pier Solar are good games but not as impressive as those are games that couldn't be done pre-1998. In able to get those games to run on old hardware those games use modern tools that hack those same features onto a chip and then side load that inside an after market cartridge. The only thing these after market games really need from the old system in able to be play was for powers only, everything within the cartridge are modern techs and not really using the limited power of the old hardware. Even Paprium which just released for the Genesis had a microSD card slot inside its cartridge for firmware update and adding DLCs, a feature which couldn't be done pre-1998 as microSD card doesn't exist before then.
I wrote Bloodshot and can confirm you are 100% correct about the symmetry and palette trick. I was quite pleased with the idea at the time.
Great to hear from you! Bloodshot was amazing!
I had that game on my Mega Drive when it was relevant, and my hat goes off to you. I thought it is the stand out FPS for the system, and disappointed it’s not talked about more on retro TH-cam channels. Especially in those hardware pusher episodes.
Oh hey Jim (I used to work with you at Climax!). Dude, Bloodshot is seriously impressive, I had no idea a 68K could manage anything like that back then. Lovely stuff sir.
@Jim Blackler, I wonder if you and Sharopolis ever played Pier Solar and the Great Architects and Paprium?
You did a great job, JIM! From Russia with love. Back in my childhood it was so impressive for me
*Non FX SNES game*
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was another 3D polygonal game that doesn't use the FX chip. It runs...ok, I enjoyed it back in the day, played it throe all the way to the end. Thought it is hard to play now. I think it managed to get away with it because it was mostly just rendering the ships against a basic blackness of space, with a few stars. Probably would have been a lot more playable today if it had the FX chip.
I didn't know about that one thanks! It actually looks OK too, better than Race Drivin anyaway.
That Duke Nukem 3D port is both wonderfully brilliant and utterly horrifying at the same time.
Are there any videos explaining how it works?
I like the weak hardware 16bit time.
Programmers really use their brain to achieve the impossible goals.
Some MD games are really amazing. I still remember the first time I saw the cotton girl game. Really shock me back in time. Still amazing today.
Limitations breed inspirations.
So did PS1. That system, because of its slow C graphics libraries Andorra limitations, it really wasn't more powerful than the 2 year older 3DO, but devs learned how to overcome its limitations and make it perform.
I think that on the FPS section you just missed one of the best examples: Zero Tolerance. The game didn't used just 90o angle walls like the other games and had animated wall textures and other nice stuff.
Panorama Cotton makes me wonder if someone could make Panzer Dragoon for the Genesis today.
There is a Panzer Dragoon on the Game Gear, so it's not impossible.
It shows them how Space harrier should have looked
Anything can be ported to anything. You just need to use your imagination. Tweak Zaxxon a bit and you have Panzer Dragoon on the Atari 2600 :D
Space Harrier is more fun to be honest
Panorama Cotton's graphics are mind blowing. i wouldn't say it looks as good as star fox, but it's really close. they're not going for the same look though, so Panorama Cotton is the king of sprite scaling shooters(like Space Harrier, After Burner, etc). i don't think the snes could even come remotely close to Panorama without a serious helper chip
Panorama Cotton is sheer beauty. Never seen a more beautiful 16bit game, especially from Sega. Well done.
Thank you for mentioning Gunstar Heroes and Batman and Robin, because these are the games that come to mind when I think of the Mega Drive going to the next level.
That 2nd boss fight on Ranger X with the moving corridors in the background was one of the most impressive effects I'd ever seen on a 16-bit game
Game is badass the controls graphics music levels all great
Wow, you should really play some SNES games. The problem with that corridor effect is that it is extremely limiting to the level design.
@@davidaitken8503 Snes games are slow
@@kasjamm Genesis games are slow. Do you see the problem with that statement? Not only is it ridiculous to claim that every game on a system is a particular speed, but what metric do you use to define what makes a game slow or fast? Is it the speed of the player controlled character and enemies? Is it the amount of enemies and bullets being thrown at you all at once? Is it how quickly the player has to react to what is happening on screen? Is it how frequently they have to react? What are you using to base such a claim on?
I've played hundreds of games on the NES, SNES, Genesis, Turbo Grafx 16, etc. and I can honestly say your statement makes absolutely no sense based on plenty of games I've played. Based on the metrics I already mentioned I think some of the "fastest" games I've played from that era actually are on the SNES. Everything from the high speed racing of F-Zero to the relentless barrage of enemies in shooters like Super Smash TV and Space Megaforce.
@@davidaitken8503 The snes has a slow cpu compared to the genesis and can run games faster with more going on
Adventures of Batman and Robin was crazy advanced on the Genesis. Some really impressive stuff going on there
I expected it to be there.
And it's music was superb.
graphics and sound is awesome in Adventures of B+robin, but omg the gamepay is sooooooooo repetitive and the levels just go on and on and seem to never end.
Im a noob and played through a unlimited continous version. Levels are ridiculously long and hard to beat. Somewhat ruins the fun of it.
The first time I played Contra: Hard Corps. back in the day I was completely blown away by the graphics and the music.
It was my first game on Genesis. Just imagine the sheer speed the game had in comparison to stupidly slow NES. That techno music (sure SNES had more realistic sound and better visuals, but fuck that crap it was 90s, techno and rave is all we needed in our teens and genesis was so fucking fast, everything was RADICAL lol). Genesis was peak 90s, that's for sure.
I am a programmer.
The thing is, I can see how all effects on Contra Hard Corps are done. Lots of well thought stuff, but nothing that really "pushes" the hardware. And yeah, very good pixel art.
Red Zone is doing some insanely smart stuff, as it is Toy Story, DN3D , Batman & Robin and Bloodshot.
But hell, first time I saw Panorama Cotton, I was like "HOW THE FUCK THEY PULLED THAT OFF?" There are stuff on that game that I still don't know how it works.
@@rafaellima83 I think Panorama Cotton is using pretty much every pseudo 3D optical illusion in the book. Everything from the checkerboard tiles to the waving effect from different horizontal lines being offset from one another to make it look like the tunnel you are in is curving. Many of these effects are used on games dating back to even the 8-bit systems.
The thing that bugs me when I see how they did Red Zone on Genesis--extremely cool by the way--was the fact the main background rotation effect is done by default on SNES relatively easily and with far, far more detail and colour being possible, so all the SNES had to do on top to achieve a similar but presumably even more impressive effect would be to use all it's sprites for the fake 3D objects in the same way the Genesis did.
I mean, the SNES would likely struggle to throw quite as many sprites around like this without slowdown, but if some designer/programmer had maybe combined slightly less sprites with a far, far more detailed Mode 7 image that maybe even baked some shadows and the like into it too, then surely the SNES could have done something like this that actually looked even more striking. A lot of the details of those 3D objects done with sprites on Genesis could have been baked into the Mode 7 background on SNES, such as some of the bushes, or other basically flat objects like ditches and roads/tracks and mud and grass details could be added too, and even the first layer of all the 3D objects as well, saving quite a few sprites right there alone. And the SNES could have even used some transparency on some of the sprites for whatever potentially cool effects too.
But, alas, I don't think I've seen many if any Mode 7 levels on SNES that go for this kind of optical illusion 3D approach. What a shame, because the flat Mode 7 can be impressive enough even as is, but with a bunch of sprites used to build up some of the geometry to look pseudo 3D, it could have been something very special for its time.
The same is surely true of the inside sections too, where the SNES having up to 4 independently scrolling and overlapping background layers probably could have really helped with the effect alongside some sprites to clean the edges. And, again, the SNES having more colours [certainly if less layers were used] and proper transparency could have added even more visual flair if used properly too.
Also:
Vectorman
Vectorman 2
Adventures of Batman and Robin
Sonic 3D Blast
All these four together with Toy Story are my Top 5 that really push the limits of Mega Drive..
Jarrasic Park 1997 also
Sega really should have picked up the rights to the F1 Challenge game and released it as a third Super Monaco game.
But no Jimmy White's Snooker Sharpie??? Blasphemy!
Steve interestign Davis on the megadrive? Sure you aren't thinking of Jimmy White's titular Whirlwind title?
@@Idelacio thats the one!
Love your channel
Yea my friend had super monaco gp I used to borrow it all the time
@Erbkaiser Unfortunate isn't it
Batman and Robin is by far the most impressive game. Too difficult to be fun, but really really impressive
It does a lot of incredible stuff.
But Panorama Cotton really dropped my jaw when I first saw it. And it's paired with a game that's actually fun to play (Unlike Batman and Robin which, like you said, it's just too stupidly hard to be any fun).
Adventure of batman and Robin is one of my all time favorite games. My bro and I ace it once a yr.🤯🤟🏻💯
Batman and Robin isn't that hard, in fact once you understand how you have to play (and this mean learning the ennemies patterns, when and how to collect life) it becomes a lot of more doable. You just have to learn. And the crazy pace it has makes it easily in my top 3 games on the console (in fact, it may be the one I play the most if I don't count Virtua Fighter/Racing 32X).
To this day, I'm still very overwhelmed by what the Megadrive is towards the end. Partially out of the Sega box. Comic Zone, Sonic 3 and Nuggels, Turtels Hyperstone, Probotector and Castel Vaniar. Class Console. I had a nice time with the Megadrive and the SNES. Both damn good systems with before and disadvantages
I really think some really outstanding programming went into those consoles to get much more out of them than was ever initially intended, even before the Super FX and the 32x.
Love Sonic 3 and Nuggels.
Yeah! I think the Sega Mega Drive was a great and versatile system for its time. I happened to find one for $5AU at a local Charity Shop, and it's worth every cent, especially for technology that's around three decades old.
@@craigdavidson5613 You've made a damn good deal, usually you pay around 25 euros with cables and 1 controller. Only if you are lucky.
19:25 Yes, it was official. Tectoy were masters of getting IPs.
They produced the game first and then got the IP
And, iirc, then it was discovered that the who gave license to TecToy for Duke Nukem 3D lost part of the rights to Duke Nukem, so it's debatable if it's official
Awesome video. Panorama Cotton has always absolutely blown me away, honestly it's more impressive every time I see it. Great info!
Gunstar Hero's and Comix Zone. Nuff said.
Yes, it's true that "Mega Drive" was already a taken name in the States, but it wasn't a laxative; it was held by Mega Drive Systems, Inc., a storage media manufacturer. So, SEGA went with "Genesis" as a way of suggesting that the new console would mark the real dawn of home video gaming.
Panorama cotton blows many snes games out of the water, it simply puts games such as f zero into shame in the graphical department.
Bwa, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You're hilarious. Panorama Cotton uses a host of "optical illusions" that have been used in countless games including some for the Turbo Grafx 16 and even the original NES. While it is certainly cool how it switches them up so frequently nothing it is doing is as graphically impressive as the smooth scaling, rich colors, visual design, and color gradients that give a sense of depth found in F-Zero. Where do people like you come up with such ridiculous claims?
@@davidaitken8503 Doesn't matter how they did it... that it's just "illusions", etc. The game looks more impressive, busy and varied in its "3D" effects than the flat background rotation of F-Zero. Show any person the two games side by side for a minute and see what they think.
@@Prizrak-hv6qk You show anyone Panorama Cotton and they will say, "Cool. This is definitely an impressive step up from Space Harrier and 3D World Runner". You show someone F-Zero though, and their jaws would drop to the floor as they had never seen anything, and I mean anything like it before. A silky smooth "3D" looking futuristic racer where you traveled at speeds that no game had ever let you travel before. It really was like peering into the future. I know this was the reaction people had because I was gaming back then and people were absolutely floored when they actually saw the game in motion. Remember, there was no internet back then so many of us had only seen screen shots in magazines. When footage started appearing in TV ads it really made an impact.
You also have to remember that Panorama Cotton not only never made it out of Japan back when it was cutting edge console technology, but it came out after more genuinely 3D games like Star Fox as well. I will personally always love good Japanese sprite work over chunky polygons but Star Fox definitely looked more high tech at the time too.
Your console nicknames are some next-level stuff.
Sugared Gymnasium🤣
Welcome
It's a time-honoured tradition in UK video gaming journalism, back to the days of Zzap!64 and Computer and Video Games (and possibly before that!). The Beige Breadbin will always be my favourite computer.
As a Kid from the early 80's I was absolute fascinated from Parallax-Scrolling!
Amiga and C64 scene coders for sure where the masters of optimization and innovation. If today's average game developer had just half their skill and motivation, games would already look like as being played on the Playstation 7 right now!
Loved the Genesis stuff at the end but what's really funny/cool is that because it was the Genesis, when Mortal Kombat 1 came out and a code was needed to turn on the gore, because the peeps at Midway were Genesis (the band) fans, they decided to make the blood code A, B, A, C , A, B, B because ABACABB (pronounced Aaah-buh-cab) was also the name of an album that was released by....you guessed it, Genesis (the band).
Brilliant observation
Awesome video! Love the content you create. That Kawasaki game blew me away! Amazing the 3D is running that smooth without any special hardware.
The SVP is way more powerful than the SuperFX for sure, Virtua Racing runs at double the framerate of Stunt Race FX and has far more polygons on screen. The SVP in Virtua Racing typically renders 600 polygons per second, although I’ve read that the chip could render up to 1200 per second in certain conditions. I don’t know exact numbers for the Super FX but even the Super FX GSU-2, the strongest version, ran at a lower clock speed and was generally just a less powerful chip. It’s a real shame Sega never used the SVP more but the high cost is most likely why, they eventually decided to launch the 32X to give it a big boost of power.
And 32x doomed and out sega into deeper hole which led to their demise.
I'm blown away by Kawasaki Superbike Challenge! That looks better than Virtua Racing to me, or at least smoother...
It’s smoother for two reasons. It’s pushing a lot less polygons and also you can’t turn around in it. It just slides left and right like the other outrun style games.
Even though it had a chip, Virtua racing is doing a lot more than Kawasaki or F1 did.
@@sloppynyuszi I didnt play a Lot of Kawasaki Superbike, but my First impression of It was "Oh, its vroom with motorbikes."
If its indeed like Vroom its mixing 2D sprites with vector graphics. Thats why It feels theres more stuff than VR and also why you cant turn around.
@@rafaellima83 Vector graphics, are you sure? Those look like polygons to me. Vector graphics are basically just lines that are lengthened and shortened to give a pseudo 3D effect. Old arcade games like Battle Zone and Star Wars used vector graphics.
@@davidaitken8503 Yeah, sorry, you are right. Polygons , not vectors :D
@@davidaitken8503If you want to be technical, vector graphics *are* polygons. It’s just that the term is typically used for polygon rendering with no z-depth or 3D math involved, like Another World.
There's a bunch of videos that claim to list games that "Push the limits of the Mega Drive" but this is the only one that actually explains what's impressive about each one.
Simply incredible! It's stuff like this that made me appreciate the older consoles like the Sega Genesis and turned me into a retro gamer. Great list! Glad to say I have most of these games but this time, unlike my less knowledgeable younger self, I will not be selling my collection this time around to "upgrade" to the newer hardware. Plus, you will never need an internet connection to play these games.
Malcolmmar
Tbf 95% of todays games don't need a Internet connection to be played. Obviously you need 1 to be able to play online multiplayer but that goes without saying.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 I hope you are right. Every time I power up my Xbox One X it goes online to check to see if my account is valid even before I play my game. When games were complete on cart with no internet you just power on and play. Even disc games are not played on disc but have to be downloaded to play. I miss the days of true physical media.
@@malcolmar yeah I forgot about the whole Microsoft thing! Just turn your Internet off and try to play a game, then you'll know!
Thanks for the explanation on the Ranger X fake 3D effect, it's so well done. For the real 3D polygon animations, weren't they quite easily doable for the console, simply because wireframe is less power-hungry than flat shading to start with?
Panorama Cotton looks like Space Harrier on steroids. There are affordable repros for this game, as well as the Duke Nukem 3D game.
Ranger X looks fantastic.
Virtua Racing on the Genesis is a technical marvel, IMO. It seems the SVP chip is prone to malfunctioning. My copy freezes up right at the start of a race.
Great video as always! I'd nominate The Lost World game - its deceptively simple to begin with when you first start playing, with a similar top down perspective to the SNES JP game... but there are multiple 3D sprite scaled showpiece levels as the game progresses which are truly impressive - I'd go so far as to say more impressive 3d effects potentially than even Panorama Cotton? They look more like an early 32 bit game than a Megasis title.
What about that sweet, sweet scaling in Ranger X? That was said to be an impossible task on the Genesis and yet it did it through software.
Glad to see bloodshot. I honestly think this has been quite the overlooked game when it comes to Mega Drive system pushers on these retro channels. I had this when it was out. Graphically impressive, but navigating out of. Level after you beat a boss practically kills it.
The megadrive will always be my fav console of all time
Mine, too. I’ve still got my original plus games. Just love it.
Red Zone is one of those games that I love even though I suck at it. It is really tough, but it does impress.
9:40 Sorry to be 'that guy' but SNES Mode 7 could *not* rotate sprites. That's one of the biggest misconceptions about it. Mode 7 only scaled/rotated background layers. Even in situations where it looks like a sprite rotating, like Bowser's clown-copter at the end of SMW, it's still just clever use of a background.
The Super Fx chip was certainly easier to use, the SNES had a pixel buss on the cartridge slot so it didn't have to generate tiles it just sent out the pixels from it's own bitmap framebuffer RAM on the cartridge and the SNES put that up as an additional graphics layer. The Megadrive didn't have anything like that so the SVP graphics had to be converted to tiles and then downloaded from tile ROM memory space and sent to the VDP.
Due to the cartridge expansion support in the snes while the genesis has none. The only issue with super fx and sega svp the rom sizes maximum is 2 MB instead of 8 MB.
the Vectorman games always busted out a lot of flashy limit pushing tricks.
The first level of Ranger X has a parallax effect not seen often. Most of the time we see lines being scrolled at different speed and that's it. But if you look closely, you will see that buildings overlap on the lines behind them. This is not seen often in games from that era.
Wasn't expecting the random series of prog rock references and I loved every second of it
Thanks!
1:48 Actually it is a pretty good analogy. Tiles in both cases are pre-defined, flat blocks with set dimensions that can be spread across a surface in a (usually rectangular) grid pattern. In fact, I always just assumed that analogy was what gave graphics tiles their name.
In more cases than you realize the verbiage is correct and the failure is our education systems.
My favorite youtube series so far :)
Changing the scroll registers during the h blank interrupts is probably how the cotton effects were done. It’s been a while tho so I could be misremembering. Great vid tho.
Treasure did some gems too. Gun star had that reactor room boss. Even the rotating column effect in mcdonaldland
Sonic also couldn’t be done in the snes. They tried with that unicycle game but had to sacrifice backgrounds. Hardware DMA FTW
Wow, I didn’t know about Kawasaki Superbike but I’m super impressed, it looks amazing and the framerate is really smooth even though it’s got loads of 3D, if looks like the framerate is even smoother than F1’s Turbo Mode despite being much more detailed.
The end of this video was too funny!
knew i wasnt crazy but Red Zone and Ranger X blew my mind back then on Sega Channel, always wondered at the miraculous stuff those games were doing back then at least for me : D red zone and the real time smoke effects still impress
I've shown ranger x to people and they think it's a early Playstation One game 😂
For a 1990 game, Star Cruiser is a graphic beast with real 3D polygons, awesome music and colorful graphics.
And a whopping 5fps
Jokes aside it's marvelous and not very good at the same time
Lovely stuff, enjoyed it! There's something very magical about the MD and it's games, I think
Megasis is now a thing.
I approve.
I'm actually surprised no one had thought of it before, but this is brilliant.
It'll always be the Genedrive to me.
Megasis sounds....
Mega sissy 😅
Time to get a time machine for 1987-88 to tell Sega management. Don't forget the hairspray and Depeche Mode cassette before you go.
@@twiff3rino28 They're more into prog rock.
There's a lot of games that really seemed to push the Genesis beyond what the typical tech specs would suggest, and in some cases just far beyond. Sadly, while there's a whole bunch of the best games of all time on the SNES based on the quality of the overall gameplay experience, there's not so many games on that system that seem to do quite so much beyond what was expected of it based on the tech specs.
Saying that like it's some sort of disappointment, but it doesn't really matter. Breaking technical limitations is impressive, but at the end of the day the gameplay experience and fun factor are what make games worth it.
@@TKDBoy1889 That's true also.
Both is better though :)
Megesis? I like it! 🤣
Without the Super FX chip I don't think the SNES could nearly do these effects as well without slow-downs and stutters due to the faster overall raw strength of the CPU.
the Wolfenstein demo on the megadrive is really impressive.
virtua racer destroys anything the super fx could ever dream of accomplishing
Awesome overview of the technologies (and amazing ideas) contained within these games!
I think Jimmy White's Snooker 'Whirlwind' deserved an honorable mention on this list.
Love this series my guy, thanks for all of the awesome content.
Legend has it that Peter Gabriel quit due to the choice of releasing the game pad with only 3 action buttons
That’s not legend, but common knowledge
Yeah. Mostly, the Genidrive hardware design is a masterpiece of smart minmaxing, but I do think they were wrong about the joystick ports. Because, sure, I can see why they'd want to stick with the old 9-pin D connectors. They'd been used for joysticks back to the Atari 2600 and were dirt cheap. But that limited the pad to 8 inputs, which could be really restrictive for game designers - a problem made MUCH worse when the SNES launched with its 12-input controller and could handle much more complicated controls.
@@jasonblalock4429 well, sharing some hardware parts with the old master system would squeeze down the manufacturing cost, so they thought "why not" obviously
Also its got 3 action button while other systems of the era like the pc engine and amiga still got 2, and at least it fits much better in your hands than the snes controller does to compensate for the lack of buttons. The Dpad is better too. SNES was launched 2 years late.
It took me a minute to get the joke. Lol
@@aboriginalmang The SNES controller fits in my hands just fine AND it has more buttons. The 3 button controller was the single biggest limitation of the Genesis and the big reason SNES games had better play mechanics and more depth in general.
Playing Panorama Cotton on real Genesis is a real treat and so fun, I can attest to that! 😄
I would 100% watch a whole video on Cotton. Also I want to know more about how they did that Duke Nukem game. Never seen that vertical line thing. I’d love to know more details
@@themeangene How does it do a vertical interrupt? I know it's barely possible on the systems I know more about (NES & SNES)
Not strictly a "Nintendon't", but the homebrew port of Wolfenstein 3D for the MD is quite a bit more faithful than the SN version.
gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1537
The same dev also created protos of Star Fox and F-Zero on the MD without any special chips.
While the other two are tech demos, I think they're going to complete Wolfenstein some day.
It's actually quite damn good and a shame it's stuck on 2017 progress
I purchased Virtual Racer not long after it was released, paid nearly £70 for it, most expensive game I ever bought.
Adding to list is Light Crusader, Toy story, vectorman 1 & 2, Mega Turrican, pocahontas, wrestlemania arcade (Best Digital Sprite based games and mk3 after) yuyu hakusho: battle to unite the demon plane and Dynamite Headdy.
True. Mega Drive/Genesis had more processing power than the SNES. However, the SNES could make up somewhat for that with custom chips on the game cartridges and superb 256 colors on screen. Though not as powerful as the Mega Drive/Genesis, the SNES hardware also allowed for jaw dropping graphics, back in the 1990's. Also, in my opinion, it had better sound. And this comes from someone who owned a Mega Drive. Two great game consoles.
Genesis also had some kind of advantage with sprite animation. I don't know the technical details but Earthworm Jim is a great example, it's much smoother than the SNES version. Come to think of it, this might be related to the perspective-shifting tiles in the Red Zone on-foot segments.
Ranger X
Alien Soldier
Gunstar Heroes
Thunderforce IV they nailed it in the graphics and gameplay department
A game called 'GLOOM' on Amiga 1200 was very good for the time I thought, although when the screen got busy, the FPS did slow down a low.
Oh man..... Gloom 😁
Played that game to death on the 1200. Can hear the sound effects distinctly to this day lol
It was great :)
Whether the SVP was more powerful than the Super FX chip might be up in the air, but what isn't is it's cost. The SVP chip certainly cost a lot more to manufacture than it's Super FX cousin which is a shame considering Virtua Racing cost a cool 100 bucks at launch due to the high cost of the chip.
I remember the mom and pop video store where we rented games as kids had a special notice on the game something like "due to the high cost of this game, we must charge an additional fee."
@@infinity2z3r07 Lol that's some bs for them to do that.
I was more snes than Sega MD, (albeit a fan of the 8 bits GG and SM) but you really show off some good titles on.the Sega MD machine here.
Block Out, F-22 Interceptor (and LHX Attack Chopper i believe) all used the 68000 +Z80 processors to handle the maths on the Mega Drive.
Coder confirmed it on first 2,not had it confirmed on LHX
Underrated Channel. Incase you ever run out of console, i will suggestl you cover 10+ yo PCs, which were so often sold, they could considered a benchmark and do Games That Push the limits series on those.
the genesis is technically the first multi-core system available as you could actually use the 3.4 MHZ z80 alongside the 7 MHZ 68000, Demosceners have recently built 3D engines that can achieve 60FPS displaying of polygons and 30 FPS displaying of complex geometry.
Yeah, all these games using ONLY the stock Genesis whereas on the SNES certain games needed the SA-1 or the SuperFX. I remember seeing a video comparing Hard Drivin' on the Genesis vs the SNES (also another video where they hacked the SNES version to take advantage of the SA-1 chip). I still say the stock Genesis performs pretty decently while the SA-1 version DOES have better performance (but again its hacked to take advantage of the SA-1 chip which has 4x the clock speed of the stock SNES which combined IS technically more powerful then the Genesis).
SA1 was perfect main CPU for the snes. I wish they were able to use it instead of their slow cpu. SNES would've been soght after console for consumers and developers.
Fab video 👌 underrated channel!
Glad you think so!
You are legend
I’m Gonna Subscribe.
This Is Tight.
Ranger X should have got a sequel, imagine what they could have done with it being developed for the Sega CD or Saturn, red-book audio all the way with some sprite-scaling included...
You started with Ranger X and I was thinking that you basically blew your load right at the start...then I saw the rest of the video. I was aware of the games you showed, but the breakdown was really incredible.
3:50 Actually each line of the Megadrive's screen can be given an offset, ie horizontally scrolled, without needing INTs or software. So no processing power needed.
Kawasaki Superbike Challenge also looks very similar to Super Monaco GP. I played that so much as a teenager. I recently revived my console setup, and bought Virtua Racer for only £25. It's cheap now, but apparently it retailed for £80 back when that was over a month's pocket money! That's probably why we didn't see any other SVP carts. That and the 32X was on it's way.
zero tolerance was impressive also
3:58 The implementation is just STUNNING! Wow, what an excellent job!!!
Star Cruiser was Starfox before Starfox, and it runs on the MegaDrive without any enhancement chips.
Released in 1990 for the MegaDrive in Japan, fully polygonal too.
Amazing documentary, truly breathtaking channel. Thank you so much Sir.
Glad you enjoyed it!
It's strange that there is no Zero Tolerance in the video.
Agreed! Lovely game that's easily more impressive than Bloodshot.
I actually own a prototype copy of the SEGA Second Epistle To The Thessalonians. Doesn't have a huge library as it was released just 6 months after the SEGA First Epistle To The Thessalonians console (SEGA always competing with themselves), but it was way ahead of its time.
Its what killed them, to many bible heavy consoles in a short space of time.
I haven't finished the video but Ranger X I've never heard of. My jaw was on the floor when I saw that a game like that existed back then. It looks outstanding.
Mode 7 for me will always be teletext mode on the BBC Micro.
Res-Q's bonus sections are similar to Starfox, although more barebones since it's on the stock Genesis. Another good one is Star Cruiser, a really early 3D game from 1990 on the Genesis as well. Alien Soldier of course, with it's insane sprite manipulation.
You missed an interesting detail too for Kawasaki Superbike Challenge. Check out the windshield on the bike. Genesis can't do transparency, but there it is being done.
at the start when i heard "i have no idea what to call the system in this video" i went "heh, what about the megasis" and then that was said a few moments later i am _shook_
The idea of Ranger X reminds me of Hover Attack.
The Sega Alan Parsons Project 😅 Another uniquely brilliant video, I don't quite have the brain to follow the technical bits but really enjoy the idea of uncovering how these genius programmers found ways to do things. I wish I'd seen these 3D racing games back then, I somehow missed them aside from Road Rash. Some of these look incredible, that last one is a work of art!
Really enjoyable videos mate, i've been loving this series. Keep up the good work sir.
That "rainbow road" in Panorama Cotton is in fact a river....
Wonderful. Loved the shout-out to gamehut
So as far as 3D and "Nintendon't", the SNES got Wolfenstein 3D without a Super FX chip. Just had to point that out.
Sega does what Nintendont is before snes, Genesis was 3 years ahead.
Even Toy Story draws two strips at a time in the 3D section.
Panorama Cotton looks like the quintessential hardware-pushing game.
It's doing all sorts of crazy trickery to achieve effects that should not be possible on the machine that is running it.
And it also looks like it's a pain in the butthole to play.
Hm, come to think of it "Pain in the butthole to play" is how I'd describe Red Zone, which I actually did play.
I remember a friend of mine bought DN3D when it was released and I got to play it. I was at the same time dissapointed and impressed. It looked incredible for a Mega Drive game, yet it wasn't very good to play.
But still... I really find amazing that one of the most impressive Mega-Drive games ever released was done by a single brazilian coder. I mean, look at the other games Tec Toy made for the Mega-Drive, they are all rubbish - I am pretty sure they were trying the best, we just didn't have the proper resources and know-how.
I am nearly sure the guy had never made any other Mega-Drive game before... probably not even made any single game before, he was probably just an engineer tasked with the port job or something. If you look at the credits of the game, IIRC , it's only his name and no one else.
He did an *amazing* job.
He was a demo coder in the Brazilian scene. While he'd never made a mega drive game, he was super familiar with the CPU and knew basically every trick to get impressive things out of it.
@@medes5597 ooohh, very cool to know. I didn't even know we had a Mega-Drive demo scene around here, holy crap.
Great times
Great war was done there...even the Sega machine was 2 years old it fight till the end and in 2021 it still suprises us with more new creations
The two machines in the right hands made great moments
Every games before 1998 were impressive, every games after that are just meh. Even if there were games released for SNES and Genesis after the year 2000, a majority of these games were made by amateur studios or studio that use modern hacking tools and media format to achieve the impossible so the impressive features that would had wow us aren't really coming from the consoles but instead from the modern tools it used which by this point in time are standard features in gaming. Games like the New Super Mario Land remake, Xeno Crisis, and Pier Solar are good games but not as impressive as those are games that couldn't be done pre-1998.
In able to get those games to run on old hardware those games use modern tools that hack those same features onto a chip and then side load that inside an after market cartridge. The only thing these after market games really need from the old system in able to be play was for powers only, everything within the cartridge are modern techs and not really using the limited power of the old hardware. Even Paprium which just released for the Genesis had a microSD card slot inside its cartridge for firmware update and adding DLCs, a feature which couldn't be done pre-1998 as microSD card doesn't exist before then.