Games that push Cores and Consoles to the MAX!

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MadDog
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Games that push Cores and Consoles to the MAX!

Unread post by MadDog »

Full honesty: I love testing out the MiSTer more than I like playing games on it - just to see how it compares to real hardware. Most cores are 1:1 - incredible! The people behind this project really know what they're doing. I'd love to learn one day, but I don't think that'll happen. I digress...

The only noticeable differences I've come across is a game or two here and there, and consistently the controls feels more... I dunno... "real" on the real console, but I chalk that up to potential differences because of USB lag.

ANYWAY, I've been on the lookout to stump the Cores' power, but in my searches, I've found that what stumps a Core, typically also stumped the console in its day.

What are the games you've come across that have pushed the console to its limits, and made life difficult for Core developers? Whether it's extra chips in a cartridge, or pushing the 68000 to overheat!!

What future games will challenge Core developers on the possibility of a PS1, N64, or Saturn core (reality or not)?
MadDog
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Re: Games that push Cores and Consoles to the MAX!

Unread post by MadDog »

The ones that come to mind:

NES:
Castlevania III (Japan) - extra audio chip (VRC6) for added pulse wave and saw wave channels
Kirby's Adventure - massive game, with 'rad' graphics that were insane for the NES, no extra chips to my knowledge

SNES:
Star Fox - SuperFX chip (easy one)
Kirby's Dream Land 3 - SA-1 chip - another Kirby game to end the system! Huge game! Beautiful graphics!
Yoshi's Island - SuperFX2 chip - the scaling, the small details in the foreground and background, the sprites and all their glory!

GBC:
Shantae - just... wow! Massive game. Beautiful. Came out after the GBA, and really pushed everything out of the GBC!

My list is nooby, so tell me what gems you've got that crushed the consoles and cores!
jdsilva
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Re: Games that push Cores and Consoles to the MAX!

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Zesty
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Re: Games that push Cores and Consoles to the MAX!

Unread post by Zesty »

On SNES, Vortex is an impressive 3D game that uses the SuperFX chip. Can't say it's an amazing game, but pretty unique.
Stunt Race FX is similarly impressive and is a bit easier to learn.

On Genesis, Treasure was great at pulling off impressive effects. Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and especially Alien Soldier have lots of stuff flying around the screen at once. For a similar style from a different developer, try The Adventures of Batman & Robin.

EA produced three 3D flight combat games for Genesis (F-15, F-22, and F-117) along with two fully-3D driving games (Race Drivin' and Hard Drivin') but all of them suffer from unresponsive controls and a very low framerate. They're mostly impressive due to how ambitious they were.
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