Unsurprisingly, Treasure’s future Genesis games look even better. It’s like Treasure immediately understood the Genesis had certain weaknesses (like a limited color palette) but somehow turned those weaknesses into strengths. Gunstar Heroes is a lightning-fast shooter with bright graphics and tons of giant, chaotically animated enemies. It really is a technical marvel of its time. Even Gunstar Heroes, the company’s very first game, managed to make the most out of the Genesis hardware. On the Genesis, that developer was certainly Treasure. Gunstar HeroesĮvery console seems to breed one or two developers who quickly learn the ins and outs of the hardware and manage to pull things off that other studios couldn’t dream of. The Genesis version actually looks a bit crisper than its SNES counterpart, which arguably makes it the definitive version of this somewhat underrated gem. Hell, the game even looks pretty close to the movie, which is astounding for a 16-bit title released on hardware that was already showing its age at that time. Somehow, the Genesis version of Toy Story and its 3D rendered graphics manage to look pretty damn close to Donkey Kong Country. Well…at least Sega wasn’t able to develop such a game in-house. No matter how much they tried, Sega was never really able to mount a meaningful response to that game. When Donkey Kong Country’s prerendered 3D graphics were unveiled in 1994, gamers everywhere knew they were looking at the future of the medium. Though Ranger-X didn’t exactly set sales charts on fire, the quality of the game’s graphics immediately put those concerns to rest. The Genesis was still selling well in 1993, but that’s around the time that Sega fans started to worry that the console was falling far behind the SNES in terms of its hardware capabilities. Just imagine what that game could have looked like. Even worse, all efforts to develop Vectorman 3 in the late ‘90s and early 2000s quickly sputtered out. Sadly, a rushed development cycle led to the game’s levels being noticeably shorter than its predecessor’s stages, so it’s not quite as fondly remembered. The levels are more varied than the first, and it still looks beautiful in action. The graphics in Vectorman 2 are phenomenal. Vectorman was fairly well-received by fans and critics alike, so Sega went back to the well to produce a sequel for the following year. It got by on the gimmick of its “vector graphics” that resulted in unique and better-looking sprites than other games on the market. The first Vectormanwas a surprisingly fun run-and-gun platformer released late in the Genesis’ lifecycle. That makes today’s $100 deluxe editions look like a bargain by comparison. Virtua Racing cartridges required a special chip, and new copies of the game retailed for $100 (or roughly $200 in 2022 dollars) at the time of this title’s release. Pulling off that feat came at a steep price, though. Few suspected the console was capable of rendering a then eye-popping 9,0000 polygons a second. It’s a small miracle that Sega was able to get this game running on the Genesis at all. Yes, Virtua Racing looks like something made in a high school programming class now, but its use of 3D graphics was a landmark achievement that moved the entire industry forward. While that very quality initially scared away many gamers when this action title was first released, it’s a generally well-regarded entry in the Contra series these days. Hard Corps is widely considered to be one of the most difficult games in a series known for its high difficulty. Granted, many players may only ever see a small portion of this stunning game. Take a look at the 15 best-looking Sega Genesis games ever. Once you learn to view Sega Genesis games on their own merits and stop comparing them to titles running on vastly different hardware, it becomes much easier to appreciate just how impressive they really are.ĭon’t just take our word for it, though. No, that wasn’t really a thing (at least not in any shipped games), but even if the Genesis wasn’t the most powerful console on the market, developers were still able to use the hardware to create some truly beautiful titles. Of course, Sega’s marketing team at the time would have you believe that they also had “blast processing” on their side. Yes, the SNES had more RAM and could display more colors simultaneously, but the Genesis had a faster CPU that allowed it to produce the kind of smooth animations previously limited to arcade titles. As popular as the Sega Genesis was in the ‘90s, most gamers now view it as underpowered compared to its legendary rival, the SNES.
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