Games That Push The Limits of the Sega Mega Drive

[@jimbo573]

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.

[@Sharopolis]

Great to hear from you! Bloodshot was amazing!

[@sloppynyuszi]

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 KZbin channels. Especially in those hardware pusher episodes.

[@slinkyninja]

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.

[@paxhumana2015]

@Jim Blackler, I wonder if you and Sharopolis ever played Pier Solar and the Great Architects and Paprium?

[@SketchTurnerZero]

You did a great job, JIM! From Russia with love. Back in my childhood it was so impressive for me

[@whoaitstiger]

That Duke Nukem 3D port is both wonderfully brilliant and utterly horrifying at the same time.

[@MaxOakland]

Are there any videos explaining how it works?

[@mercster]

Panorama Cotton is sheer beauty. Never seen a more beautiful 16bit game, especially from Sega. Well done.

[@Disthron]

*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.

[@Sharopolis]

I didn't know about that one thanks! It actually looks OK too, better than Race Drivin anyaway.

[@Samtagri]

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.

[@strategicfooyouagencyfirst8197]

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.

[@Rokabur]

Limitations breed inspirations.

[@MaxAbramson3]

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.

[@thebeardofpepe]

Adventures of Batman and Robin was crazy advanced on the Genesis. Some really impressive stuff going on there

[@craigix]

I expected it to be there.

[@samfrito]

And it's music was superb.

[@crazyjake536]

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.

[@youisiaint]

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

[@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter]

Game is badass the controls graphics music levels all great

[@davidaitken8503]

Wow, you should really play some SNES games. The problem with that corridor effect is that it is extremely limiting to the level design.

[@kasjamm]

@@davidaitken8503 Snes games are slow

[@davidaitken8503]

@@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.

[@kasjamm]

@@davidaitken8503 The snes has a slow cpu compared to the genesis and can run games faster with more going on

[@Schraiber]

Awesome video. Panorama Cotton has always absolutely blown me away, honestly it's more impressive every time I see it. Great info!

[@acecarrera1]

Panorama Cotton makes me wonder if someone could make Panzer Dragoon for the Genesis today.

[@rodrigogirao8344]

There is a Panzer Dragoon on the Game Gear, so it's not impossible.

[@sloppynyuszi]

It shows them how Space harrier should have looked

[@rafaellima83]

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

[@magicjohnson3121]

Space Harrier is more fun to be honest

[@Rodzilla97]

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

[@FloatingDogs]

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.

[@dioseolo]

The first time I played Contra: Hard Corps. back in the day I was completely blown away by the graphics and the music.

[@orchid9]

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.

[@rafaellima83]

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.

[@davidaitken8503]

@@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.

[@DoggoneNexus]

Your console nicknames are some next-level stuff.

[@boddha10]

Sugared Gymnasium🤣

[@brayden6449]

Welcome

[@FrankEBailey]

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.

[@laynestrong4933]

Gunstar Hero's and Comix Zone. Nuff said.

[@nknicolas]

Batman and Robin is by far the most impressive game. Too difficult to be fun, but really really impressive

[@rafaellima83]

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).

[@gjergjaurelius9798]

Adventure of batman and Robin is one of my all time favorite games. My bro and I ace it once a yr.🤯🤟🏻💯

[@nathleflutiste]

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).

[@greensun1334]

As a Kid from the early 80's I was absolute fascinated from Parallax-Scrolling!

[@lustechsource5197]

Awesome video! Love the content you create. That Kawasaki game blew me away! Amazing the 3D is running that smooth without any special hardware.

[@BLUESPOSER]

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..

[@gumpyflyale2542]

Jarrasic Park 1997 also

[@kourii]

Wasn't expecting the random series of prog rock references and I loved every second of it

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@inceptional]

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.

[@chrism2027]

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

[@PeteOliva]

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.

[@voutespancar]

Love Sonic 3 and Nuggels.

[@craigdavidson5613]

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.

[@chrism2027]

@@craigdavidson5613 You've made a damn good deal, usually you pay around 25 euros with cables and 1 controller. Only if you are lucky.

[@LNSLateNightSaturday]

I'm blown away by Kawasaki Superbike Challenge! That looks better than Virtua Racing to me, or at least smoother...

[@sloppynyuszi]

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.

[@rafaellima83]

@@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.

[@davidaitken8503]

@@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.

[@rafaellima83]

@@davidaitken8503 Yeah, sorry, you are right. Polygons , not vectors :D

[@theblah12]

@@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.

[@YouOpaOpa]

19:25 Yes, it was official. Tectoy were masters of getting IPs.

[@ultralowspekken]

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

[@myownfriend23]

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.

[@malcolmar]

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.

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

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.

[@malcolmar]

@@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.

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

@@malcolmar yeah I forgot about the whole Microsoft thing! Just turn your Internet off and try to play a game, then you'll know!

[@PixelsLtd]

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.

[@Larry]

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!

[@Idelacio]

Steve interestign Davis on the megadrive? Sure you aren't thinking of Jimmy White's titular Whirlwind title?

[@Larry]

@@Idelacio thats the one!

[@JesseSwaney]

Love your channel

[@cr-nd8qh]

Yea my friend had super monaco gp I used to borrow it all the time

[@mrtea7562]

@Erbkaiser Unfortunate isn't it

[@ChozoSR388]

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.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

My favorite youtube series so far :)

[@elmariachi5133]

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!

[@DuckAlertBeats]

Lovely stuff, enjoyed it! There's something very magical about the MD and it's games, I think

[@pinkpools]

Love this series my guy, thanks for all of the awesome content.

[@Rationalific]

Awesome overview of the technologies (and amazing ideas) contained within these games!

[@jbmaru]

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?

[@jakubkrcma]

3:58 The implementation is just STUNNING! Wow, what an excellent job!!!

[@CONSOLETRUTH2]

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).

[@notsure4648]

Brilliant observation

[@MrKeech666]

Megesis? I like it! 🤣

[@sloppynyuszi]

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.

[@cornchipz]

Red Zone is one of those games that I love even though I suck at it. It is really tough, but it does impress.

[@masterspartanchief33]

Playing Panorama Cotton on real Genesis is a real treat and so fun, I can attest to that! 😄

[@johneygd]

Panorama cotton blows many snes games out of the water, it simply puts games such as f zero into shame in the graphical department.

[@davidaitken8503]

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?

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

​@@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.

[@davidaitken8503]

@@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.

[@krono5el]

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

[@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter]

I've shown ranger x to people and they think it's a early Playstation One game 😂

[@Sinn0100]

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.

[@DanielMonteiroNit]

Legend has it that Peter Gabriel quit due to the choice of releasing the game pad with only 3 action buttons

[@sloppynyuszi]

That’s not legend, but common knowledge

[@jasonblalock4429]

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.

[@aboriginalmang]

@@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.

[@johnp8587]

It took me a minute to get the joke. Lol

[@davidaitken8503]

@@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.

[@jasonblalock4429]

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.

[@MizfitZer0]

The megadrive will always be my fav console of all time

[@feliscorax]

Mine, too. I’ve still got my original plus games. Just love it.

[@Fools_Requiem]

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.

[@icedlain]

For a 1990 game, Star Cruiser is a graphic beast with real 3D polygons, awesome music and colorful graphics.

[@ultralowspekken]

And a whopping 5fps Jokes aside it's marvelous and not very good at the same time

[@heilong79]

the Wolfenstein demo on the megadrive is really impressive.

[@igorpoco2420]

I think Jimmy White's Snooker 'Whirlwind' deserved an honorable mention on this list.

[@RetroSegaDev]

Fab video 👌 underrated channel!

[@Sharopolis]

Glad you think so!

[@rustymixer2886]

You are legend

[@glyph241]

I’m Gonna Subscribe. This Is Tight.

[@djdedan]

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

[@ultor7654]

Amazing documentary, truly breathtaking channel. Thank you so much Sir.

[@Sharopolis]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@greenaum]

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.

[@philgoodson7754]

Really enjoyable videos mate, i've been loving this series. Keep up the good work sir.

[@cireza_]

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.

[@andrewsprojectsinnovations6352]

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.

[@CommodoreGreg]

In more cases than you realize the verbiage is correct and the failure is our education systems.

[@TheWarmotor]

This channel is great, hell Larry Bundy is a fan! Sub numbers are criminal, proud to be one of the first 10k!

[@nigelhighlands3131]

I laughed my ass off at the end of this video, top stuff. Your channel is amazing and one of my favorite unexpected finds in recent memory. Love me some hardware pushing games and you break things down in an intricate, yet accessible manner with great delivery to boot. Keep up the great work!

[@NinjaNezumi]

Megasis is now a thing. I approve.

[@PeteOliva]

I'm actually surprised no one had thought of it before, but this is brilliant.

[@ukmikey846]

It'll always be the Genedrive to me.

[@zyriuz2]

Megasis sounds.... Mega sissy 😅

[@twiff3rino28]

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.

[@ukmikey846]

@@twiff3rino28 They're more into prog rock.

[@Hologhoul]

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!

[@GotNextVideo]

the Vectorman games always busted out a lot of flashy limit pushing tricks.

[@chamchamtrigger]

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.

[@verficationaccount]

Panorama Cotton looks awesome! I really like your joke / trivia ratio!

[@stevenmoore120]

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.

[@MaxOakland]

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

[@MaxOakland]

@@themeangene How does it do a vertical interrupt? I know it's barely possible on the systems I know more about (NES & SNES)

[@BeeBN]

virtua racer destroys anything the super fx could ever dream of accomplishing

[@coolshtmagazine3732]

Great to see a new video in this series. Great to see Ranger get some love, an incredible game that too few people have enjoyed.

[@tecnologiaeretro]

Great video. The opening for the Sonic 3D Blast I also consider a well done too.

[@atomicskull6405]

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.

[@maroon9273]

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.

[@fungo6631]

Even Toy Story draws two strips at a time in the 3D section.

[@Matteous_YT]

Awesome vid mate good to see you're on the mend 🙂

[@aurel102001]

zero tolerance was impressive also

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

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.

[@maroon9273]

And 32x doomed and out sega into deeper hole which led to their demise.

[@captaingastronomicon8974]

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_

[@pnsmexico]

with your input i never found anywhere else, definitely subscribed and bell notified.

[@trzy]

Is that shadow/highlight mode I see in Kawasaki Superbike on the windshield?

[@lolfunacount]

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.

[@Typhoonbladefist]

Great analysis of the technical work being done in these game. Thanks!

[@DjNikGnashers]

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.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

Oh man..... Gloom 😁 Played that game to death on the 1200. Can hear the sound effects distinctly to this day lol It was great :)

[@mxggo9046]

thanks for this video. Sooo interesting to see what is going on in the 'background'

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

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.

[@bweeptabop3944]

The end of this video was too funny!

[@LeoStaley]

Wonderful. Loved the shout-out to gamehut

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

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

[@XBladenoJutsu]

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.

[@Green-yp9ix]

Sago Mega Pudding? I almost fell off my chair, very funny my friend.. Great documentary...

[@pettttson]

The only time recommended videos gave you something good to watch. I subbed!

[@JeanQPublique]

Your parallax example was backwards. The distant layer should appear to move more slowly than the nearby layer when the camera translates side to side.

[@Dirk1Steele]

Superb video. Pleased to say I own most of these including Panorama Cotton (plus that tea cup).

[@Sharopolis]

Hang on to Panorama Cotton its not going to get any cheaper!

[@johngavalas712]

Ranger X Alien Soldier Gunstar Heroes Thunderforce IV they nailed it in the graphics and gameplay department

[@SomeBlokeOrWhatever]

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.

[@lordadk31]

The misadventure of flink and thunderforce 4 should be included in this video.

[@martinh4982]

Mode 7 for me will always be teletext mode on the BBC Micro.

[@damienlobb85]

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.

[@Wasabialt]

The idea of ​​Ranger X reminds me of Hover Attack.

[@SomeGuy712x]

In the video description, I noticed that "Panorama" is misspelled as "Panorma", just after the "23:29".

[@Sharopolis]

Well spotted, thanks! I've changed it now.

[@JoseSilva-ep2ww]

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.

[@tristanwegner]

at 2:40 showing the different background speeds, you moved the far layer faster than the close layer, leading to an implied rotation, instead of horizontal movement like in the game, where the back layer moves slower than the close layer

[@Sharopolis]

Yep, you got me. I just did the easiest thing in the editing instead of working out how it should really look.

[@yuvraj01]

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...

[@ikke1981]

Love the enthousiasm in the video