Postby Oltobaz » May 18th, 2015, 1:59 am
Some Mega Drive games looked so good they were ported into the arcades: Thunderforce 3 became Thunderforce AC, yet most people refer to the original console game as the superior version. Thanks to separate attachments (32X...), it was eventually possible to run "pre PS1" tech, for lack of a better word.
DKC on Super Nintendo was a technological achievement, whether you like its aesthetics or not, this tech had an impact in arcades,as pointed out already. Starfox/Starwing looked amazing, considering:
A console with enough horsepower to run Virtua Racing, Cop and co back then? As pointed in other threads, cost would have been way to high for anyone to afford. Commercial failure. More powerful systems did come out eventually, they were still technically inferior to the arcades, and the majority of their games didn't have that arcade flavor, most of these games being Japanese anyways. That's why the Megadrive/Super Nintendo and Pc Engine are the best systems from that era when it comes to arcade gaming, thanks to Capcom, Sega, Taito... between legendary arcade ports and or creations that matched and sometimes even surpassed the arcades (I mentioned Thunderforce 3, how about Super Ghouls'n'Ghosts on Super Nintendo, a better looking sequel to Ghouls'nGhosts? It looks so good Capcom usually includes it as part of arcade compilations on more recent systems such as the PSP for example).
The PC Engine was an 8 bit system originally set to compete with the Famicom, yet games there are just as good looking as what you'd expect from a Megadrive or a SNES! Thanks to various attachments, it's home to the best Neo Geo ports from this era, and Sapphire, a rare, expensive shmup, looks so good you'd venture to say it came out on something like the Saturn!
The system pioneered CD Rom gaming, and arcades eventually embraced that kind of tech (Naomi games being prime examples).
And, of course, the Neo Geo AES was available as an home console version of the Neo Geo MVS arcades if you could afford it. A great system, great looking arcade games, the superior 2D console existed. It cost too much to compete with Sega and Nintendo, nor was it meant to be. But the superior 2D console existed, with games released well past this era (still to this day even, if you consider the -expensive- homebrew scene, I'm looking at you, Duranik).