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[Tizoc]

The other day I was lurking Youtube watching various videos of Genesis games and it hit me at that point: are there any 80s console games that had really good animations and visuals (in terms of color)?

One game that comes to mind atm is Metal Storm

This game had some really nice animation for the movement of the mech.
Consider using that as a base and working from there.

I'll have the first post updated over time.
EDIT: Oh and you can mention Game Gear and even Famicom Disk System games too.

The List
Nintendo Systems
Bucky O'hare
Kirby's Adventure
Little Samson
Super turrican
Falsion
Recca summer carnival 92
Moon Crystal
Metal Storm
Crisis Force
Batman: Return of the Joker
Journey to Silus
Batman
Blaster Master
Gimmick/Mr. Gimmick
River City Ransom
Ninja Gaiden
Battletoad series

SEGA Systems
Deep duck trouble
Land of illusion starring mickey mouse
Wonderboy III the dragon's trap
Phantasy star (especially the first person dungeons)
Power strike
Dynamite heddy
Space harrier 3d
Sagagia
chuck rock 2 son of chuck
Alex kidd in shinobi world
Road rash
Aladdin
Gunstar heroes
Ristar
Shining force ii sword of hajya
Gg aleste ii
Tails adventure
Sonic triple trouble
Mortal kombat ii
Tempo jr
Jurassic Park GG and Master System
Lemmings
Smurfs
James Pond 2
Daffy Duck

 

[BennyBlanco]

Kirby's Adventure always looked so clean to me. Great animation work too.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Crisis Force looked pretty impressive for a NES game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cl2yizTrgQ

EDIT:
Oh, didn't notice the nicely animated part. Prince of Persia maybe for the NES?

 

[Teknoman]

Batman: Return of the Joker NES

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

Sunsoft thread incoming. This game blew my mind when I rented it back n the day, the music and amount of animation seemed a notch above everything else:

Sunsoft's NES Batman remains one of the very best Batman games ever made, the animation was so smooth:

And of course, who could forget Blaster Master?

The vehicle you rode around in had so much life and personality.

 

[ReddishGUI]

Mr. Gimmick for sure

 

[Krejlooc]

Deep duck trouble
Land of illusion starring mickey mouse
Wonderboy III the dragon's trap
Phantasy star (especially the first person dungeons)
Power strike
Dynamite heddy
Space harrier 3d
Sagagia
chuck rock 2 son of chuck
Alex kidd in shinobi world
Road rash
Aladdin

Fuck it, im naming game gear games too, because its a master system

Gunstar heroes
Ristar
Shining force ii sword of hajya
Gg aleste ii
Tails adventure
Sonic triple trouble
Mortal kombat ii
Tempo jr

 

[vala]

Little Samson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34ZZUArDk90

 

[Krejlooc]

And for the nes:

Super turrican
Falsion
Recca summer carnival 92
Batman: return of the joker

 

[Phediuk]

Batman: Return of the Joker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Ivxnpbd5Y

 

[UncleSporky]

Mr. Gimmick for sure

Yeah. Quick and dirty googled images:

Gorgeous pixel art and use of color.

The best looking games on NES picked clean cartoon art styles that fit the console perfectly. This includes games like Mario 3 and Mega Man as the series wore on, Mega Man 6 was among the best games on the console:

 

[Phediuk]

Moon Crystal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Hkpc0h_gw

 

[Tizoc]

Crisis Force looked pretty impressive for a NES game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cl2yizTrgQ

EDIT:
Oh, didn't notice the nicely animated part. Prince of Persia maybe for the NES?

Actually Crisis Force looks good! Was it published by Konami or developed by them?

 

[UncleSporky]

Moon Crystal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Hkpc0h_gw

Moon Crystal looks pretty great but I was always most impressed by its cutscenes which were head and shoulders above most anything else on the NES, really detailed anime-style characters.

Moon Crystal also pulled off some cool effects like parallax clouds in level 2.

 

[Nosgotham]

I feel that Little Nemo fell into these categories. Beautiful game

 

[alf717]

I'm going to say Castlevania. I really enjoy the look of the first title and the third titles. Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy are good lookers as well but maybe lacking in the animation area. Gonna add in both G.I. Joe titles as well.

 

[UncleSporky]

I'm going to say Castlevania. I really enjoy the look of the first title and the third titles. Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy are good lookers as well.

It's always up to personal taste but I feel like in general Castlevania went for too realistic of an art style and suffered because the console couldn't do it justice. Like, this would be good, if they could've fit in a few more details...

Look at how blocky the rock ceiling is, cave sections really suffered in CV3 and they used some pretty "loud" unfitting colors at times.

 

[Tizoc]

Seems Sunsoft released games for the Famicom Disk System as well, would it be safe to assume that the FDS ver. of their NES games featured better colors and animations?

 

[Krejlooc]

Seems Sunsoft released games for the Famicom Disk System as well, would it be safe to assume that the FDS ver. of their NES games featured better colors and animations?

No, because the fds has no extra hardware for more color.

 

[Tizoc]

No, because the fds has no extra hardware for more color.

So am I to understand that the Famicom Disk System, at best allows for better audio?

 

[Krejlooc]

So am I to understand that the Famicom Disk System, at best allows for better audio?

Yes, there are pins in the famicom cartidge sloy (and basically every retro system, including sms, snes, genesis, and msx) that carry audio lines directly to the audio out port on the console. There isnt an equivalent video passthrough, which is why stuff like the 32x has to physically feed the genesis video signal into the 32x as a single background layer that the 32x video hardware cant interact with directly via the av port on the back of the genesis. You cant do it through a pin in the cartidge slot.

 

[GaimeGuy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Ivxnpbd5Y

 

[Noogy]

Hehe, I read the title and was going to jump in to mention Metalstorm. Seems the OP was way ahead of me. That game also did some really clever pseudo-parallax effects.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

 

[Krejlooc]

Hehe, I read the title and was going to jump in to mention Metalstorm. Seems the OP was way ahead of me. That game also did some really clever pseudo-parallax effects.

Give the turrican games a go, fhey do the same thing

 

[Tizoc]

Don't just post pictures, I've never seen this game before, I have no fucking idea what this game is, why does the color pallete look like poo? Is this a Megaman 2 romhack? Is this a ripoff Megaman game?
Did you just post this GIF because you made it and you wanted to show off your GIF making skills?

Come on mate, just post the name of the game AND the GIF, not everyone played games you have played before.

 

[Vee_One]

Kirby was the best the NES had to offer
The stages where the tower rotates as you climb it blew my mind when I was a kid. Some funky programming there

 

[sir_kevith]

Don't just post pictures, I've never seen this game before, I have no fucking idea what this game is, why does the color pallete look like poo? Is this a Megaman 2 romhack? Is this a ripoff Megaman game?
Did you just post this GIF because you made it and you wanted to show off your GIF making skills?

Come on mate, just post the name of the game AND the GIF, not everyone played games you have played before.

Calm down you can always google the image

 

[Nimajneb]

Come on mate, just post the name of the game AND the GIF, not everyone played games you have played before.

I think it's Little Samson. A rather obscure and rare NES game.

 

[sir_kevith]

I think it's Little Samson. A rather obscure and rare NES game.

He has the game in his own OP lol

 

[Tizoc]

Calm down you can always google the image

Not everyone's google-fu is strong :v
Plus u got any idea how irritating using Google on an iPhone's like @_@

At any rate, a good list of games, some of those mentioned have fantastic animations indeed.

 

[sir_kevith]

Not everyone's google-fu is strong :v
Plus u got any idea how irritating using Google on an iPhone's like @_@

At any rate, a good list of games, some of those mentioned have fantastic animations indeed.

Haha yeah i forget that im on android sometimes. You do have the game mentioned in the OP though so i understand why he might not have posted the title.

I appreciate the thread too btw and the SNK one you did.

 

[KevinCow]

I can say with certainty that the best-animated game on the NES is Treasure Master, despite the fact that the only thing I know about the game is the main character's walking animation:

 

[L95]

Calm down you can always google the image

To tell the truth, I didn't know Google was good with gifs, though finding the exact gif wouldn't be a problem, I guess.

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

Gargoyles Quest 2 was the best looking nes game imo

 

[sir_kevith]

To tell the truth, I didn't know Google was good with gifs, though finding the exact gif wouldn't be a problem, I guess.

Yeah, it's all good i shouldnt have been that harsh myself I just knew the game and saw it was mentioned in the thread already so the post rubbed me the wrong way. Ive definitely been annoyed by unlabeled gifs in the past myself.

 

[petran79]

Jurassic Park on the Master System was one of my favorite platformers, though rather short

Still it demonstrated the hardware's potential very well since it appeared late in its life cycle

 

[Teknoman]

Wow...that actually looks pretty cool! Alot better than any of the other JP games.

 

[Phediuk]

Jurassic Park on the Master System was one of my favorite platformers, though rather short

Still it demonstrated the hardware's potential very well since it appeared late in its life cycle

This was better than the Genesis game imo.

 

[OnPoint]

Beautiful NES games?

Super Mario 3
Super Mario 2
Batman
Batman: Return of the Joker
Castlevania (the first specifically)
Mighty Final Fight
Ninja Gaiden (1 and 2)
Mr Gimmick

 

[Quaz51]

NES

NES

NES

 

[Krejlooc]

Wow...that actually looks pretty cool! Alot better than any of the other JP games.

Its far and away the best jp game.

 

[Oyashrio-Sama]

River City Ransom

 

[Femmeworth]

Jurassic Park on the Master System was one of my favorite platformers, though rather short

Still it demonstrated the hardware's potential very well since it appeared late in its life cycle

Oh man, I haven't thought about this game since I was a kid. I would play it on my Game Gear and I don't think I ever beat it.

 

[Teknoman]

So the GG version is pretty much the same huh?

 

[TheMoon]

Everyone postings pics and gifs without names should be slapped with a dirty wet sock. Seriously. Every time in these pic threads.

 

[KevinCow]

So the GG version is pretty much the same huh?

Wasn't the Game Gear literally just a portable SMS? I know they shared a lot of the same games.

 

[dadjumper]

Came here to post Journey to Silius and Mr Gimmick.
Well. Uhh. Dragon's Lair had some pretty wild animations. Similarly, there was a port of Prince of Persia on the NES, huh?

 

[baudelinog]

Some examples for the Master System:

Daffy Duck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3LrIg2nv44

Lemmings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ1YfxbcL3o

Smurfs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1BHUtMgs3A

James Pond II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU8ykCre-OA

 

[IrishNinja]

great thread so far, needs more SMS gifs!

Wasn't the Game Gear literally just a portable SMS? I know they shared a lot of the same games.

much larger color palette - GG can play SMS with a mere adapter, other way around doesnt work (without hacks)