Great Visual Effects on the Sega Genesis

Parallax, line scrolling, animation, scaling, rotation, and many other visual effects often made 16-bit games stand out, particularly when a game system supposedly couldn't do them in hardware. Here, we look at some games that I personally find very impressive for the Sega Genesis.
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Opening 3D Logo By:
Jan Neves
KZbin Page - / jan3d
Opening 2D Animation By:
Kevin Bhall
Facebook - / kevin.bhall.14
Episode Notes:
1. All games caught via a Mega SG.
2. If you're in the market for physical games, some of these are still quite affordable.
3. You could always tell when a developer really had some skill. Not only do most of these look great, they also play and sound great too.
4. I had a list of about 30 games when I started. We could definitely do a part 2 and 3 to this if you guys enjoyed it.
5. I played my Genesis well into the life of the Sega Saturn. It's one of my favorite machines of all time, and its library is second to none in overall quality.
6. Like most of the best games, the majority here were system exclusive and appeared on no other hardware of the time.

[@frankdux6930]

Rocket knight adventures was a mecca of gorgeous sprites and effects.

[@lucianopanei]

my favorite Megadrive game. Just perfect

[@leatherface964]

I use to love this damn game

[@youisiaint]

Extremely catchy music too. That eerie boss theme is one of the best 16 bit tracks ever

[@crocodilow8017]

Sega Genesis will always be my favorite console of all time!

[@knowgo411]

Mine too!! 👌🏽👍🏽💯💯💯

[@neogenesis7706]

Neo geo and saturn come close

[@demonology2629]

NEO GEO AES IS MINE 😆SO HAAA BWHAHAAA I GOT THAT TOOO 🙏☯️🐲😎

[@Jasons_Arcade_PLUS]

Agreed

[@RetroGames4K]

Mega Drive was really capable of awesome graphics like in this video, and really capable of good voice effects too. Sometimes I think that developers were lazy sometimes with mega drive voices. Per example some music where better than snes, but not the voices. But games line strider, dynamite headdy, bart's nightmate, Mortal kombat... Had really good sound voices....

[@adayinforever]

08:43 I love how the gun blast goes with the song and sounds almost like double bass, lol

[@Lord_Deimos]

Ranger X is severely underrated.

[@knightshousegames]

One of the really impressive things about that game was the strange trickery they used to make the color palette seem much deeper than the Sega should have been capable of. That and it was just a cool game in general, with a great soundtrack. It really was ahead of it's time.

[@danmakuman]

@@knightshousegames It looks like there are more colors on screen just in some areas that use the Shadow and Highlight mode on the Genesis (Like in the cave or the Forest stage) but the whole game just use the regular 61 colors, the difference is that the color palettes are well implemented. Here's a video that does a color count on each screen in the game and you can tell it's always on the limits. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZCchGqqnMqYf9E

[@luciousthomas6141]

That game is unreal!

[@petercipriano936]

Look at the line up of games the developer ended up making, and it’s no surprise they were able to pull this off.

[@buzzclikverifyme]

Agreed. I champion its virtues any chance I get! Not only is it a good looker, but it's great to play as well; I've finished that game so many times, and I still love going back to it.

[@TheTrueSpyroManRemixes]

I love how almost all the games in this video not only had amazing visual effects but incredible soundtracks to accompany them

[@Sinn0100]

Oh yes, the Sega Genesis was a very capable machine. The first year that the Genesis was available it was doing things that we once thought were impossible for a home console. Ghouls N' Ghosts absolutely blew our collective minds when it dropped. Golden Axe was another stand out launch title that floored us. Strider was yet another launch window title that showed the Sega Genesis's chops. I became a proud Genesis owner in 1989 and it never failed to amaze me. Even when I got my Snes in 1991...I always preferred my Genesis. In my opinion, Thunder Force IV was the true pinnacle of 16-bit perfection. It showed what the Genesis was capable of. The massive amounts of sprites flying at you, the scaling effects of the incoming shots from the foreground, sound to die for, insane amounts of parallax scrolling, the extended playing field were just some of the things that made it a true stand out. Thunder Force IV would not look out of place on the Neo Geo MVS/AES and stands as a true tour de force for the generation.

[@dangunheadachron1603]

Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy deserved to be on that video too. They both look like SNES games right down to the colors and sprite effects.

[@billcook4768]

SLX: Thunder Force IV is one of the most impressive looking and sounding games in the entire library Sega Genesis Mini: Here, have Thunder Force III

[@danram7167]

LMAO, if anything its because TFIII is arguably the most popular entry of the series and one of the most accessible Genesis shmups. If it meant that Sega would be bringing over its inane "Lightening Force" translation of the game then I think it was for the best. Boneheaded decision even back in 1992. I never knew it was TFIV when I picked it up from Software Etc way back when for cheap until I turned on the game.

[@mrbig2648]

Sega had just released 4 on the Switch, so I was glad they went for a different game on the Mini. 3 is no slouch in the graphics department either.

[@GLPitt1]

3 is really good too. Probably more well known. Sold a ton of copies. I didn't even know there was a 4.

[@japanimationman4442]

@@GLPitt1 Then you'll be really surprised that there's a Thunder Force 6.

[@GLPitt1]

@@japanimationman4442 Lots of Thunder Force I guess.

[@blackflame4506]

Some of the games on the Sega Genesis were pretty impressive at the time and still impressive to this day. Castlevania Bloodlines, Contra Hard Corps, Gunstar Heroes, Thunder Force 4 to name a few with amazing 2D effects and audio. Thanks for the video Sega Lord X

[@AmbientMess]

Vectorman games? Sonic 3D Blast?

[@AmbientMess]

@@ErronBlack_Outlaw Sorry didn't wanna seem like I was forcing them down your throat. Besides it's all subjective anyway.

[@leonidaschryssinas1723]

@@AmbientMess aye, Vector Piece Animation

[@cheater00]

hey guys! what's the game at 0:43? I've never heard of it!

[@pauldavis5665]

The Genesis version of Aladdin had great looking animation as well.

[@morderknodel5281]

One more lesson about Sega. I'm really into that since I got my Mega Drive mini.

[@martymartin2894]

What are ure favourite games on the mini.

[@morderknodel5281]

@@martymartin2894 Gun Star Heroes. But I haven't played all games yet.

[@ren7a8ero]

Mega Drive was impressive! And really, kudos for Traveller's Tales in their Toy Story game, that thing was impressive

[@votran333]

You're definitely gonna need a part 2, 3, 4 etc. Of this series. Genesis had some great looking games.

[@sammymcfone8281]

No it didn't. 64 color is a quarter of 256. Hehe 2.5d Hello decent snes.

[@sammymcfone8281]

Member when true color images didn't matter? Me neither.😂

[@sammymcfone8281]

Like gradient? Vote Sintendo.

[@Lifesizemortal]

Man... I wish Panorama Cotton had an arcade version. Even the Genesis version looks like Space Harrier on steroids

[@maroon9273]

They did an amazing and better job scaling/rotating sprites than sega ever did with genesis including some of the sega cd games like sonic cd special stage.

[@BBfanfun]

Success made Cotton in '89, Cotton 2 in '97 & Cotton Boomerang in '98

[@opaljk4835]

I wish it was affordable

[@Lifesizemortal]

@@BBfanfun I had no idea about Cotton Boomerang, thanks for the heads up!

[@expectingbrainchild1707]

To this day Panorama Cotton still amazes me.

[@opaljk4835]

Ranger X not only looks great, it plays so incredibly tight and unlike any other game for the platform

[@lucasledesma2249]

Finally someone who gives some credit to that awesome game Mega Turrican was/is. I know this was about graphics but what Chris Huelsbeck did in terms of sound and music is also unbelievable. Those drums and baselines were miles ahead of anything I had listened on a home console at the time.

[@SegaLordX]

Indeed. Incredible work.

[@mattneilson1824]

The music in Mega Turrican was awesome. I wish they had used the same title track that was used in the Amiga version, though - it had such a catchy hook!

[@DEFkon001]

I'm weird. I still think that "The Revenge of Shinobi" looks too good to be an early release game for the system. (1989?)

[@FrangoTraidor]

@Ricardo Stefan all my friends have no qualms about divulging their social media passwords to one another. we trust each other like a family

[@Nathan-rb3qp]

Alien Soldier is one of my favorite games of all time. Vectorman and Toy Story were also awesome.

[@Cafeman_2D]

I was blown away by the first Sonic the Hedgehog! It was so colorful and fast and animated with great Tunes! Every game I would rent back then would blow me away all over again. Love the Sega Genesis. Thanks for another great show!

[@afriend9428]

*The Japanese copy of SONIC had 3D effects!* 💡

[@maddumass]

Thinking you left off the "2" at the end. Every time I bought Sonic 2 I got great deal and looks fantastic, noticably better than the first game.

[@LorenHelgeson]

Fantastic list. The only one I see missing is Shinobi 3, but bonus points for including its credits theme in your closing statements.

[@Rohaldos]

I would also add gunstar heroes

[@ThiagoCunha]

He'll probably show more in a part 2 video.

[@LorenHelgeson]

@@Rohaldos Indeed. But as he said, he could do a whole video on just Treasure games. As far as technical powerhouses go, Alien Storm looks amazing, and if he had to pick one from Treasure's catalog, that's the one I'd go with.

[@retrosoul8770]

@@LorenHelgeson Alien Soldier you mean friend, and imo, it's the greatest run n gun shooter ever made. At least the most creative

[@LorenHelgeson]

@@retrosoul8770 Yes, I meant Alien Soldier. And to be honest, I actually do not like Alien Storm at all, so that's a bad goof on my part.

[@AGwolf2097]

fun fact: half of these games would look even BETTER over a COMPOSITE video cable. The video output encoder chip on the Genesis/MD had a strange processing quirk where it would blend adjacent columns of pixels, and many developers/programmers in the latter half of the console's life-cycle deliberately took advantage of this for higher on-screen colors, pseudo-transparencies, and anti-aliasing effects. Earthworm Jim, Vectorman, Socket, and Comix Zone are quick examples, but plenty of other games, and even earlier titles which often employed a checkerboard mesh style of shading/transparency, benefit from this phenomenon. There are still caveats to the composite video output (most common are the "jailbars" and rainbow-banding effects, both of which are completely fixed when utilizing the composite output from a 32x), and simply blurring the RGB/SCART output will NOT reproduce the same effect... but if you have both a CRT and a Genesis that doesn't suffer from extreme rainbow-banding (or you also have a 32x connected), then you should grab your pack-in composite cable, adjust your TV's picture settings, and play some of the later Genesis' library the way it was intended to be seen.

[@johnsams1388]

its not a quirk at all, nothing crazy, its called dithering.

[@krazycharlie]

A second and third part about this topic should be great fun to cover, so yes please, looking forward to them :). Have a good one, Sega Lord X!

[@oleblue73]

I've owned or played every console of the 8, 16 and early 32-bit eras, and the Sega Genesis is still my favorite.

[@japanimationman4442]

I have always felt that Thunder Force 4 (I own it as Lightening Force) was one of the best looking, best sounding, and best playing games the Genesis ever had. I'm an RPG guy, but outside of that genre I would probably call Thunder Force 4 the best game on the system. Cool to see it showcased here.

[@mikeeone5649]

What always blew my mind was the fact that some of the later 16 bit titles visually blew me away more than most 32/64 bit games did both artistically and technically. Takes Vectorman 2 , Donkey Kong country 2 , Super Mario world 2 , and Sonic the hedgehog 3 and then go try and find some early 32/64 bit titles that are as impressive visually and it is honestly tough to do. I would even go so far as to say that looking back now , there are some impressive 16 bit titles from both the genesis and SNES libraries that are not only better games in general but also still hold up better today than many of the 32/64bit titles do. Don't get me wrong I love Final Fantasy 7 , Mario 64 is classic and still awesome. What I am saying is I feel I can find more 16 bit titles that I would rather play now verses some of the 32/64 bit titles. For instance Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.I think Chrono Trigger blows chrono cross out of the water. I would rather play final fantasy 6 than part 8 or 9.I would rather play Sonic the hedgehog 3 and knuckles than Sonic racing. There are some games from the 32/64 bit era that hold up well also but I think the 16 bit era was better and more innovative and they seemed to do more with less and that is also why the mini consoles continue to be popular.

[@MadPanicGaming]

The Genesis is like a Bob Ross painting. A relatively limited pallet but still able to produce some amazing things.

[@arnmrs1660]

And there is a Bob Ross game on the Genesis!

[@samfrito]

SLX these are the games that should be on all future Sega Genesis compilations for minis or disc/cart releases. I know licensing is a bunch of drama and everyone wants their cut, but dammit everyone should negotiate and have these games together showing future generations what the Megadrive or Genesis did better than all the competition. These are all solid titles that impressed the hell out of me then and do not disappoint today. Great job and great choice of Cotton Panorama. I wish Outrun on Genesis had been done by that studio.

[@maroon9273]

Imagine more genesis compilation made it to the sega cd with all of the games listed on the video and the comments.

[@tmacmc2984]

I never really began my gaming adventure until the 32bit machines (cue a long story about finding a Virtua Racing Twin Sit Down at a service station in the middle of the night after a Rave and me becoming a hero by throwing it into freeplay simply by following the power lead and switching it off then on again. About eight of us played that thing until the sun came up, an absolute storming night and an epiphany of what video games could be). Anyway, I tried a few games after that night, Indy 500 on my sister's Amiga for one, it didn't cut it. When I saw Starfox pushing flat shaded polys on the SNES I decided to get myself one. It was fun but still not the mind trip I wanted, that wouldn't be until I imported my JPN PS1 and a copy of Ridge Racer. Having owned the SNES for a short time and being new to gaming I took it as read that it kicked the MD's arse. Jump forward almost 30 years and watching channels such as SLX's and I'm getting schooled on just how incredible the MD was. Some of these games look beyond what even the SNES could do, to me anyway. I actually think it has the more attractive software over all. Something I'd have thought ridiculous back in the day. Still think the SNES is shit hot mind. I've gathered up several of these little retro mini consoles and I'm loading them up with some of the superb looking classics I'm being shown here etc and enjoying games I missed the first time round. Cheers SLX.

[@Momoka7]

Honestly, not only Super Fantasy Zone had fantastic colors ... that Wonder Boy 4 Monster World 3 was like that too. Crazy Colorful.

[@evilash570]

The Road Rash games had very impressive scaling for the time, also Ecco tides of time had a few nifty graphical effects with scaling etc

[@Lightblue2222]

Road Rash may be the only Genesis game that truly scales. The rest are just clever in throwing a bunch of individually drawn sprite sizes to give the effect. As where Road Rash actually scales, giving it the most depth. If you drive slow anyone can see there's way too many sizes of each sprite to have been re-drawn each frame. Thing is ppl would never know because of its choppy framerate. The other games "that don't actually scale" all have smooth framerates, but their animation is choppy. As where Road Rash the animation is smooth but the framerate is choppy. Trade off was worth it because once you get over the framerate, Road Rash has a fluid feel.

[@stephandolby]

@@Lightblue2222 Sonic 3 has some rather impressive scaling. Even if we ignore the blue spheres bonus level, the boss fight in Marble Garden Act 2 where Robotnik zooms off into the background is pretty neat. Even if none of this is real, it still uses a lot of frames to achieve a realistic effect, though the cartridge size is pretty large for the time.

[@stephandolby]

@Daishin no Dōro It's never jerky though, which is impressive - there's a stable frame rate.

[@CaptainCaveman1170]

Road rash is awesome. It's most certainly a 2D-programmed game that they incredibly managed to present to the player in a 3D perspective that worked surprisingly well. I'm not too sure that it is actually scaling though. I could be wrong.

[@CuriousPerson2206]

Ive grown alot of respect for the genesis after recently buying one and collecting games for it. I really admire its power and how it held up against the super nintendo. Very impressive console

[@uniqutilities2831]

I still can't explain it, but pseudo 3d/raster effects are just so darm charming! Nowadays, hardware is so powerful that near realtime photo realism has become common place. But, for me, I'll always love the effects ultra creative devs were able to pull off with hardware that was never designed to perform. Salute!

[@manuelink64]

I hate photorealism too, I want games with other worlds, i don't want a carbon copy of our world, this is the reason for play, isn't? this is the reason why I love the Indie Games or games likes Gravity Rush 1 & 2 on PS4.

[@iankempster7007]

Genesis was a boss system. Great video as always.

[@arcticridge]

I wish more people covered Vectorman, it's my favorite Genesis game, but I can't critique it myself because I've played it a million times and know where most things are, I would like to hear someone else's opinion on it

[@arcticridge]

@Ilja Permiakov yeah I felt the pacing was way worse in the sequel, and it didn't have the same graphical flare, you're just fighting generic bugs

[@mrlaidback83]

This video alone is one of the many reasons I loved the Sega Genesis way more than the Super Nintendo

[@kekeke8988]

@Dean Satan I had only played a handful of Genesis games back in the day, including Revenge of Shinobi, Ranger X, Batman and Robin (never made it past the first level), and the Sonic games, but I prefer the SNES by a mile even now that I've had a chance to try out more Genesis games. I'm so glad I had a SNES and not a Genesis back then. Most of the Genesis library is straight up arcade style action, while the SNES is the opposite, with more adventure elements. The SNES has more compelling games that you would want to marathon by yourself for days on end to see to completion while the genesis has more games that are only fun in 15 minute bursts if you have a friend watching.

[@Barney_rubble983]

I was hardcore snes I feel I missed out a lot. I’m looking forward to playing these games

[@48hourrecordsteam45]

The best games has the best visuals .! I mean there are exceptions.! But the visually Stunning games are remembered the most

[@mercster]

As an Amiga fan going back to the 90s, I think you're wrong about Euro developers. Maybe they didn't make as many good games for consoles, but they put out some impressive stuff on Amiga.

[@AaronStarks]

I'm glad you made this video. Videogame magazines of the day made such a huge deal of the SNES hardware mode 7 and scaling. I loved how great programmers did those effects the Genesis better than anything ever seen on the SNES. Gunstar Heroes is STILL a marvel to this day and Sonic 1's scaling effects in the special zone was done to perfection.

[@yeahyeahwowman8099]

The person talking has no idea about the Snes library. I see these comments all the time. Really time to take off the rose tinted nostalgia glasses.

[@retro_boy_advance]

Konami's efforts on the Megadrive towards the end of the generation really made me rethink what I considered then the superiority of the SNES. The graphical effects on Contra and Castlevania absolutely blew me away. To this day I prefer Castlevania Bloodlines to SCV4.

[@GLPitt1]

Super Castlevania 4 has better graphics and music. But Bloodlines is more interesting and harder gameplay. Some cool 3 D effects too.

[@willrobinson7599]

Travellers tales excelled on a systems from leander on the amiga. Toy story 3 on the megadrive and multi games on the Saturn. They pushed the systems hard and figured new ways to push what the hardware could do

[@mole28]

In Soleil (or Crusader of Centy) there is a bossfight with a dragon in heaven. The clouds on the background are still impressive to this day. The game is quite good in the graphical departement overal and one of my most favorite Megadrive games of all time!

[@dougr.8653]

The majority of its games used a resolution of 320x224. Much different from its competitor that used a resolution of 256x224 for most of the games. It means that Mega Drive used 14 thousand more pixels.

[@Tom-jw7ii]

The way I see it, multiplat games look better on snes thanks to the additional colors, but usually play better on genesis thanks to the higher resolution (more screen space) and faster processor.

[@sandroribeiro9491]

I grew up with Snes. Bought 2 mega drive this week. I love snes, but i start loving megadrive to. In my opinion snes have more beautiful games, but megadrive have impressive games to.

[@MIAMI_VIBES_]

@@sandroribeiro9491 I had both but the megadrive was always better in my opinion,as a matter of fact take a look at Earthworm Jim the better version is on the megadrive. People didn't realize how powerful the megadrive is! The only game I gave nintendo credibility in was starfox!

[@stephandolby]

@@eskanda3434 The Mega Drive used four palettes of 16 colours, however the first entry of each is transparent (with one being used as the background colour) and thus the same (so 15+15+15+15+1). Shadow/highlight can enhance the number significantly, increasing the palette threefold in theory, however this doesn't account for duplication, and some of the resulting shades might not be suitable for the output you're wanting to achieve. Additionally, depending on what palette is used for what task, the same colour can crop up multiple times, so your unique colour count is actually lower still.

[@kekeke8988]

@Dean Satan What a load of bull. Look at the genesis version of any multiplatform game available on both systems and you can clearly see how it suffers due to lack of color.

[@bonesjackson81]

Thunderforce 4 impresses me far more than 5 or 6. Love them all but 4 is jaw dropping imo. Something about seeing a system pushed to its absolute limits. Something I don't think we've seen in a long time. Idk that any Genesis effects episode can't include Zero Tolerance. Mazin Saga character animations too.

[@immortallegacy100]

Huh, I have never heard of "Panorama Cotton" until this very moment. Thanks for these videos. I've always been more of a Nintendo fanboy so a lot of these SEGA titles tend to be stuff I missed, especially during the Saturn and Dreamcast era.

[@DarDarBinks1986]

Vectorman was my shit as a kid. I loved playing the hell out of it. The graphics were amazing for a console released in the late '80s.

[@samghost13]

I recently testet my Sega Mega Drive on a Big HD TV and i must say that the picture quality is way better than SNES. Thank you for that great show

[@segat-800]

Interesting to hear that. How so?

[@scatalabad]

@@eskanda3434 probably to so with its internal resolution which scales better on modern TVs. The snes ran at a lower resolution. Dont get me wrong, I didnt own a genesis, I was snes and master system back then. In the uk we had scart cables. My ps1 with rgb scart cables gives pristine picture on my modern tv.

[@turbinegraphics16]

@@scatalabad Could be because of square pixels, a few games even look good streched to 16:9 such as earthworm jim.

[@Gambit771]

@@eskanda3434 He was saying the picture quality was better, not which could have more colours on screen. The MegaDrive could do 4096 on screen at the same time so you was saying...

[@DenkyManner]

One thing I liked about Mega Drive games is the ease with which the hardware seemed to handle things thanks to the CPU. SNES looked much nicer but often felt like it was at its limit, or pushed beyond it. Nintendo really crippled that thing with the weak cpu, if they hadn't skimped the SNES would have been truly unbelievable. It's still fantastic but what could have been.

[@waterheart95]

It wasn't the just the cpu that crippled the snes, it was the rom speed, which affected games performance. Games with the slower LoRom ran the cpu at a lower speed, while HiRom allowed the full cpu speed, plus fasted memory performance. Cpu wise if they clocked the snes cpu at 6 mhz, it would out do genesis, but nintendo wanted nes games to be able to run and that didn't pan out.

[@dijabreu]

@@waterheart95 It's not only the cpu speed, it's the bus depth too. The M68000 had an internal 32bit wide bus and an external true 16bit bus. The snes cpu had an internal 16bit bus and a 8bit external one. Even if their processors were evenly matched in raw power terms, the mega drive/genesis could move the same amount of data around twice as fast. Also, Sega could do with the same cheap rom chips as the LoROM ones in snes' cartridges because the 68k cpu always ran at full speed. In the end, the quality of the coding made the difference, but in the Sega's setup it was much easier to achieve far faster performance, not to mention the 68K cpu had a much more advanced instruction set than the WDC 65C816. Travelers Tales programmer even stated that toy story's "day-toy-na" stage had to be scrapped out of snes version, because it needed an additional DSP chip which would make the game more expensive. The 68k still lives to this day, as embedded microcontrolers (in elevators and other dedicated things) as it's instruction set as well, in IBM's Power ISA, since the the 90's when the AIM (apple, ibm, motorola) consortium was estabilished.

[@SammEater]

@@dijabreu So basically "Blast Processing" wasn't just a marketing tactic? The MegaDrive really was a little bit faster than the SNES?

[@dijabreu]

@@SammEater Apparently, the term was coined when the programmers tried to explain to the marketing department how the system could access and move around data quickly, due to the greater bus and extremely fast DMA mode.

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

That SNES cpu was an abomination. It's just an overclocked NES cpu. The Genesis/MegaDrive had a lightning fast CPU in comparison.

[@stormshadow75x]

Treasure games were awesome. I never got a chance to play any Cotton games. Thunder Force 4 was so good.

[@maniacsatwork]

This machine still surprises me to this day. Xeno Crisis is a great example of what can be done as a recent example, and many other fantastic games.

[@Binmaru]

THANK YOU for including Mega Turrican!! The music was so great too, wasn't it?? ;)

[@afriend9428]

*and surround sound if you had a unit in da living room!*

[@dijabreu]

You forgot the 3d wireframes at the beginning of each stage in Ranger-X

[@SegaLordX]

I genuinely did forget. I meant to add a piece in there about it.

[@dijabreu]

@@SegaLordX Waiting for a second part! I love your videos! Cheers from a sega fan from Brazil!

[@leonidaschryssinas1723]

@@dijabreu TecToy ruls forevermore

[@dijabreu]

@@leonidaschryssinas1723 Hey thanks mate! Tec Toy was a great Sega partner. But to tell you the truth, my mega drive is a japanese model 1, still in pristine condition, converted to pal and play north america games. I still have some of my games: Ecco, the immortal, chakan, Sword of Vermillion...

[@segat-800]

The SNES needed Super FX and DSP chips in the cartridges to pull off its tricks for its best games. Even Super Mario Kart used a DSP chip. Apart from the one SVP game, the MD relied solely on its base hardware.

[@segat-800]

@TrueSinister Yeah bad move imo, Nintendo's add on chips method was better it seems. If you were to compare MD vs SNES games, you wouldn't throw in Mega CD and 32X games as that wouldn't be a fair comparison but people do throw in Super FX games.

[@segat-800]

@Shawn Macdonald The Mega CD and 32X pulled off games that were nigh on impossible on the SNES in their short lifespans.

[@michaelp6786]

@Dean Satan only 75 snes games used extra chips. This was not a covert attempt to "cheat" on the part of the snes. Nintendo decided during design that rather then use a robust cpu like the Genesis, they would instead use a more basic cpu and focus on an immersive audio and visual presentation with their apu and vpu. If Nintendo included a similar processor as the Genesis, it would have put it's price up beyond the price point they were aiming at during launch. With the additional chips, nintendo was afforded the flexibility to increase the horsepower needed in order to run the latest and greatest as software evolved. That's part what made the 2 consoles great and unique to themselves and why many consider the 4th gen the golden age of 2d gaming.

[@MosesMedinaE]

Adventures of Batman and Robin was a all time fave of mine back then. I knew the gliding scene was gonna make it ha ha ha.

[@maroon9273]

Much better than the sega cd version. Had sega cd version had the scrolling gameplay and levels as the genesis. It would've been great game.

[@MosesMedinaE]

@@maroon9273 Wasnt aware there was a CD version. Curious now so I guess I know what Im looking up

[@MicaelSG23]

World of Ilusion with Mickey and Donald is an absolute masterpirce.

[@TheRealJPhillips]

Yea Thunder Force 4 is a masterpiece

[@Bob_Beaky]

One of the things I love about the Mega Drive is its purity (for want of a better term). Rarely do the games rely on custom chips and most sound is generated in hard ware rather than samples. For that, I'm happy to forgo an expanded colour palette. :)

[@Dre_aka_sleepysandman]

This shows you how good our childhood gaming was when developers went above and beyond what the system was capable of. I have many good memories of these games and more.

[@graemevaughey7432]

As soon as I saw the title, my brain immediately jumped to _The Adventures of Batman & Robin._ That game is an incredible visual achievement. Glad to see it on the list (of course, you couldn't possibly omit it -- the comment section would have never forgiven you!)

[@entertainmentwizard2703]

Surprised Ristar did not make your list! Panorama Cotton is very impressive and really showed what the Genesis could do, to bad it costs a fortune along with many of the Cotton games!

[@jamiecampbell8855]

Its quite amazing what they managed to get out of the snes, megadrive/genesis and pc engine/turbo grafx. Just shows what good programming can do. I also Ike the fact that each console was genuinely different in design which led to unique game libraries. Today, all consoles are basically streamlined pcs. Of course, developers love this but its less to a standardisation of games. We used to get games uniquely designed for a system.

[@KnowYourVideoGames]

Misadventures of Flink had some impressive software rotation and scaling. It was only released on cartridge in Europe. Ecco the Delphine 2 used a process called HAM (Hold and Modify) to display 128 onscreen colors. I believe it's the only game to display more then 64 colors on Genesis.

[@DirkDierickx]

thunder force, now that is probably the most impressive game on the system.

[@petercipriano936]

This is one of your best videos. I feel like every time you do one of these I need to update my wanted list!

[@jeromemccalla9520]

Need a part 2. Very entertaining.

[@SadisticFusion]

Great video X, Genesis will go down as my second favorite console of all time.

[@dimitrisbam5640]

Now I wanna know which is the first...

[@DOYLETWAT]

Amega CD 32

[@EliteGamersUnited]

@@DOYLETWAT either ur joking or ur serious. Saturn is my fav console of all time

[@mrlaidback83]

The Dreamcast is my personal favorite console of all time

[@EliteGamersUnited]

@@mrlaidback83 DC is also one of my favs, Saturn 1, DC 2

[@Rohaldos]

Ranger -X its probably the most technically impressive shump on the megadrive and one of my favorite game, also the devs managed also push the system to show more colours ( 1-2 colours of the average 60 colours). Thank you again for the video!

[@Sinn0100]

Thunder Force IV was a tour de force when it dropped. It has everything from jaw dropping graphics, mind blowing music, parallax scrolling everywhere, scaling, and gameplay to die for. Thunder Force IV gave Neo Geo games a run for their money.

[@DiRekt.EXE_Music]

My eyes really started glowing when I saw the parallax clouds on strite and the tubular space colony on ruin in thunder force 4. heck, the entire game is beautiful

[@bilrogar]

Growing up with the Nes and Super Nintendo, i never realized how good looking Genesis games were. The developers for the Genesis really created some interesting stages, special effects and boss battles. Something that the Snes couldnt do at speed very well. Im blown away at some of the games now that im 41. Im so glad emulation is an option these days. Im tearing through some of these classics today.

[@MuffinHop]

Hey, Can you make a video on Great Visual Effects on Sega Saturn? I've been recently programming homebrew stuff on Saturn and I'm curious to see what others think are cool effects on Saturn.

[@darthwisner47]

He did do something similar. kzbin.info/www/bejne/apLZd6BuaM-endE

[@SegaLordX]

It’s in the planning stages now.

[@mrbig2648]

That's interesting. What kind of things have you programmed for the Saturn so far?

[@FindecanorNotGmail]

Check out the channel GameHut. It's a game programmer who worked on Saturn games back in the day describing some of the tricks and limitations on the platform. He also programmed Toy Story, mentioned in this video.

[@fresnokila3]

RangerX was one of the first games I bought for the Genesis and I enjoyed it a lot. Bought it randomly too...the boxart was enough to win me over.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

Another two fantastic looking Traveller's Tales games are Puggsy and Mickey Mania. They really knew their way around that hardware.

[@Video-Games-Are-Fun]

terra?

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

@@Video-Games-Are-Fun 😄 no, but this is a sprite I drew myself of myself in 16 bit Final Fantasy style. I definitely used her ponytail as reference material but I didn't copy it.

[@Video-Games-Are-Fun]

@@DissociatedWomenIncorporated seems like it was just about 5-7 years ago when that game came out but wow, 30 years now. amazing really how much time has gone and the game has aged...it was an amazing game in its time period

[@kevinstrade2752]

Genesis was pushing polygons in 90..well before the SNES.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Low end microcomputers were beating them both to the punch in the 80s.

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@SomeOrangeCatHell, they were doing basic 3D in the early 70's - granted, it took a LOT of computer power at the time and was just academic experimentation, but computer imagery existed well before the mid to late 90's - kzbin.info/www/bejne/imbWlohjarpjo9U

[@kekeke8988]

Did it or was it just a convincing visual effect that mimicked polygons?

[@CaptainCaveman1170]

@@kekeke8988 Kawasaki Superbike Challenge by DoMark was a TRUE 3D POLYGON game that wasn't awful. It was a derivative of an Amiga/ST Game called Vroom.

[@SonofSethoitae]

@@kekeke8988 There's a game called Star Cruiser that uses actual polygons

[@hippaman2435]

Timestamps: 2:45 thunder force IV 4:02 panorama cotton 5:21 Alien soldier 6:33 Batman & Robin 7:51 Contra hard corps 9:02 super Fantasy zone 10:12 vector man 11:24 Red Zone 12:30 Toy Story 13:33 Bimini Run 14:54 Mega Turrican “I liked how this video showcased these games, I just need to rewatch it sometimes.”

[@lazarushernandez5827]

Great video! I always wonder how some of the earlier Genesis titles might have turned out if they were remastered at a later point in the consoles life, when developers were extracting a lot more out of it.

[@SegaLordX]

I always wanted a Streets of Rage 1 with part 2’s engine.

[@darkchild130]

I still have my original copies of all of those games, minus Cotton and Bimini run. So glad I kept my Megadrive for 30 years!

[@MrGlume]

I still have my SEGA console and lots of originel games too, after all these years. Kept it in a suitcase and still as new 😊👍

[@jontomustalent575]

Bro I love this episode people underestimated the genesis back in the day I wish we would’ve gotten more games like this in the beginning the argument about snes and genesis graphics would’ve been a closer battle! But even still Genesis held it’s own pretty well

[@yoyoyonasa]

omg when i finished alien soldier and batman and robin, all my class and upper ones looked at me like a boss at middle school. so damn hard but so cool. jesper kid ost on batman and robin was fucking nice. hard corps is hell. so many replay values.

[@robbelk1982]

Ja ja great I love alien soldier

[@personavisceration371]

I was always surprised that SubTerrania didn't get more love, everything it does is great. Swarms of well animated enemies, interacting backgrounds, clear sound, great gameplay. It may not be the best at anything, but it's an excellent and well rounded package.

[@4jcBel]

had so much fun playing this console when i was a kid. its so good to have emulator to play these again.

[@knightshousegames]

This episode was like a list of the games I had as a kid that I liked playing the most. Ranger X, Batman and Robin, Vectorman, and Toy Story were all my jam. Such great visuals, and it must be said, music as well in all of those games. It's wild to me that the teams who did Ranger X and Batman and Robin seem to have only done those games and never really did anything else after Genesis, even after having made such technological marvels.

[@danram7167]

There's a couple of interviews with former staff of Clockwork Tortoise (Batman & Robin). The consensus was that they were an ultra-talented bunch of programmers/artists that lacked organization as a company. Batman & Robin came out over a half-year later then it was supposed to (much to the chagrin of Sega of America) because Clockwork took its time with it. They were tasked with the canceled "X-Women" afterwards, but the lead talent of the studio left during its production, which led to a domino effect that shut down the company (and production of "X-Women").

[@legoeeer]

I bought a wireless Saturn controller because I heard you praising the Saturn controller so much. THANK YOU! It really is such a comfy controller and has the perfect button layout. I definitely would like to own a Saturn one day.

[@KaneRobot]

Christmas Day '90 after I opened up the console and the games I got for it, and running/jumping cartwheeling down the hill on Strider (level 2) seeing the way it scrolled is one of the few video game memories I have that I will never lose. My first real indication that this thing was more powerful than the Nintendo I had been playing on.

[@CodeStew]

It is amazing what the mighty Mega Drive can pull off despite the lack of additional chips. It would be astounding if they got Doom running on it but it would need to be built from the ground up and compromises will probably need to be made. At least we got a decent homebrew port of Wolfenstein 3D.

[@knowgo411]

U mention sum great games here..but u also lef out a few.."Ristar" should be added to this list aswell!!

[@thetribalist6923]

Ristar is incredible.

[@MorrisChannel4]

I kept thinking to myself how so many other games that got ported horribly on the genesis could have been with some ingenuity. Some of the games do still look impressive and creative artists pulled off some amazing stuff here

[@voxieart]

Proof that it’s about the artist, not the tool they use. So much imagination and technical artistic talent in these 16-bit games!

[@jeremygregorio7472]

There's a port of Wolfenstein on the Genisis. Stock hardware. No joke

[@thetribalist6923]

Do tell?

[@jeremygregorio7472]

@@thetribalist6923 Yeah, you can find the ROM easily enough. There's video here on KZbin. It's insane. If it was available back in the day I think it would have changed the course of the video game industry

[@legros731]

@@jeremygregorio7472 lol sure as hell no it just one port of a super basic game

[@taiyorenai7690]

I just wanna say how much I absolutely love this channel, there’s few things I enjoy more than showcases of Sega’s history, and all the cool and experimental things they’ve done with hardware and software in the past! I’ve even been introduced to some really good or interesting games through this channel, many I would never have heard of otherwise This channel is the perfect hub for all things retro Sega, and it’s so entertaining I can’t stop binging it~

[@victorsoul2328]

Panorama Cotton still amazes me and make me wish more games we're made on this engine.

[@JeffYPbPr]

Another reason why this channel is the best retro channel on YT. Just a quality video. Great job

[@kenshirootomo6993]

I have most of those games.. The others I still aiming to add them to my collection.

[@DeadlyGamingLV]

Several years back someone ported episode one of Wolfenstein 3D to the genesis. It runs at a smoother framerate than the SNES version. That shows that the Genesis can easily do scaling, rotation and zooming effects with ease.

[@ultor7654]

Amazing review here, some games look even like early 32 bits games. Thank you so much my Lord!

[@Wheeljack84]

Gunstar Heroes is another impressive one, also made by Treasure. It's bursting with color, moves fluidly, and has some impressive uses of 3D effects.

[@nuxetcrux]

Killing it with all the AAA content 💪

[@stephenprice8825]

I've watched a handful of videos from a Traveler's Tale dev that worked on the genesis and saturn, and the way he explains how they did all of the effects with those systems is mind blowing know the limitations of the hardware they worked with.

[@ManawatuFlyFishing]

Kawasaki super bike is a game I was impressed with the graphics.

[@playitwithvenga8169]

Lol... I thought I was the only one crazy one that go and back in the scenario to see the effects in that time !