Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[FinalBaton]

But the SNES has such a ton of really superb, probably lesser known titles, that you could wring several more years of play out the machine... I encourage you to go on an odyssey and discover the undiscovered.

Same on the Megadrive. I also encourage you to seek out the hidden gems on MD. Lots of great games to be found.

[Skykid]

But the SNES has such a ton of really superb, probably lesser known titles, that you could wring several more years of play out the machine... I encourage you to go on an odyssey and discover the undiscovered.

Same on the Megadrive. I also encourage you to seek out the hidden gems on MD. Lots of great games to be found.

I did it when you were in daipers.

[Sumez]

Same on the Megadrive. I also encourage you to seek out the hidden gems on MD. Lots of great games to be found.

Please name some. There's a bunch for sure, but on the SNES I still today continue to discover interesting games I never heard of, and more than anything else that's my own subjective reason for preferring it to any other platforms. It's just a treasure chest of 16-bit goodness.

[Xyga]

A tie ? let's look at the figures for real.

The SNES library is almost 3 times that of the MD (about ~2500 vs ~900).

The MD saw sustained releases of games from the end of 88 up until 97 (then only yearly edits of sports games and a few TecToy things in Brasil until the WM 'revival') although realistically past 95 only a handful of worthy releases. A nearly 9 years life with 7 really active.

The SNES started end of 90 and was discontinued in 99 in the west and only in 2003 in Asia, nearly 13 years, its last great year though was probably 96, therefore about 6 worthy years.

Finally the MD sold about 35 million and the SNES 49 million.

Figures aren't worthless; they show that in a similar period of time the SNES sold more, faster, and had significantly more games made for it.
It was a little more modern hardware that attracted the most people, investment and development effort.

@FB; you may have perceived the MD as something 'crazy' where you stood at one point in time, but for real it's the SNES that was. No way the library was going to be any weak under these conditions.
Honestly I remember when I saw F-Zero and Super Mario World for the first time; I knew immediately that my still-shiny new MD was behind, which was rapidly confirmed with the likes of Super Castlevania, Super GnG, Contra III, Axelay etc
Every new released title beginning with 'Super' in it was a potential mood destroyer for MD owners, even if we weren't really honest about it, of course. But the war was only beginning.
I think the real commandable performance of the MD hardware and SEGA behind it, has been to hold it for so long and so well against such fierce competition.
Sure with it we've had a couple titles if not more in several key genres that would stand at the top if not beat their counterparts on the SNES side, like that, at times the MD library won peak victories in quality with the iconic games we all know.

The SNES though...the SNES...could have maybe 3 times more games in the same categories, and definitely far from being all shit, sometimes 10 times more in a category like RPGs. YUGE. And it was just unbeatable where its 'mode 7' applied, shit like Mario Kart and the '3d' overworlds in RPGs were never going to happen on the MD, or not nearly as well even with massive investment from fucking clever devs. We've seen brilliant examples of beautiful visual tricks on the MD, but kinda late and obviously not as practical to the point we could have had entire games based on those.

Note for RPGs; of course only a handful of the best were translated at the time so the massive dominance was much more real in Japan. Sure we got the likes of SoM, CT and FFVI though, enough to make the console the champion of the category, but it's only much later with emulation that most gaijins could finally play the likes of Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean and DQ. So localization made a difference for the various markets of course, we can readjust our opinion in relation to that, but personally when talking about a system I think global, we were buying tons of imports after all.

[FinalBaton]

I did it when you were in daipers.

Wow, personnnal attacks thought you were better than that. Looks like it's not the case...

You ok bud? You look pretty rattled

(I'm 33 by the way. So your attack doesn't apply to me)

[FinalBaton]

A tie ? let's look at the figures for real.

The SNES library is almost 3 times that of the MD (about ~2500 vs ~900).

The MD saw sustained releases of games from the end of 88 up until 97 (then only yearly edits of sports games and a few TecToy things in Brasil until the WM 'revival') although realistically past 95 only a handful of worthy releases. A nearly 9 years life with 7 really active.

The SNES started end of 90 and was discontinued in 99 in the west and only in 2003 in Asia, nearly 13 years, its last great year though was probably 96, therefore about 6 worthy years.

Finally the MD sold about 35 million and the SNES 49 million.

Figures aren't worthless; they show that in a similar period of time the SNES sold more, faster, and had significantly more games made for it.
It was a little more modern hardware that attracted the most people, investment and development effort.

@FB; you may have perceived the MD as something 'crazy' where you stood at one point in time, but for real it's the SNES that was. No way the library was going to be any weak under these conditions.
Honestly I remember when I saw F-Zero and Super Mario World for the first time; I knew immediately that my still-shiny new MD was behind, which was rapidly confirmed with the likes of Super Castlevania, Super GnG, Contra III, Axelay etc
Every new released title beginning with 'Super' in it was a potential mood destroyer for MD owners, even if we weren't really honest about it, of course. But the war was only beginning.
I think the real commandable performance of the MD hardware and SEGA behind it, has been to hold it for so long and so well against such fierce competition.
Sure with it we've had a couple titles if not more in several key genres that would stand at the top if not beat their counterparts on the SNES side, like that, at times the MD library won peak victories in quality with the iconic games we all know.

The SNES though...the SNES...could have maybe 3 times more games in the same categories, and definitely far from being all shit, sometimes 10 times more in a category like RPGs. YUGE. And it was just unbeatable where its 'mode 7' applied, shit like Mario Kart and the '3d' overworlds in RPGs were never going to happen on the MD, or not nearly as well even with massive investment from fucking clever devs. We've seen brilliant examples of beautiful visual tricks on the MD, but kinda late and obviously not as practical to the point we could have had entire games based on those.

Note for RPGs; of course only a handful of the best were translated at the time so the massive dominance was much more real in Japan. Sure we got the likes of SoM, CT and FFVI though, enough to make the console the champion of the category, but it's only much later with emulation that most gaijins could finally play the likes of Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean and DQ. So localization made a difference for the various markets of course, we can readjust our opinion in relation to that, but personally when talking about a system I think global, we were buying tons of imports after all.

I just find it hard to declare the SNES the clearcut winner when :

1-The MD had just as big an impact on gaming and

2-The MD sold extremely well. It sold a couple millions less of course, but it's still great selling figures at the time.

Also you mention technical aspect, but you omitted that most MD games run at an horizontal resolution of 320 vs 256 for the SNES. It gives more detail to MD games and helps make them look great

[Xyga]

I just find it hard to declare the SNS the clearcut winner when :

1-The MD had just as big an impact on gaming and

Remember: I don't deny the impact in the area of quality/importance of the games individually. The MD's library had practically as big an 'aura' as the SNES's, but that was thanks to a more restraint yet iconic number of elite titles, not because of many good titles (in comparison to the droves the SNES had I mean)

I 2-The MD sold extremely well. It sold a couple millions less of course, but it's still great selling figures at the time.

???
About 14 million less by the official figures.

Also you mention technical aspect, but you omitted that most MD games run at an horizontal resolution of 320 vs 256 for the SNES. It gives more detail to MD games and helps make them look great

Did it help at all ? No. The SNES had waaaaaaay more colors to display which is perceptible thoughout the entire library: that counts a lot more more in terms of graphics quality. Anyone can tell the superiority of the SNES in that area. iirc they were saying it's rather the low clock of the main CPU that limited things like the number/size of sprites at once or fast scaling effects. But it had things like the fantastic 'mode 7' to make up, we were all drooling over it. You know all that, seriously you're trolling a bit there.

PS: I also liked many bgms from the MD's library, comparatively the SNES ones often offered muffled with twangy instruments, BUT, it was more sophisticated and could spit something using more channels like the godly bgm's of Seiken Densetsu 3, impossible to play on the MD.

[FinalBaton]

???
About 14 million less by the official figures.

It's still great figures. And the MD did dominate in many countries. (This last part is not the be all, end all, I know, but it 's still an indicator of performance nonetheless).

Did it help at all ? No.

I absolutely helped in making the many great arcade ports on the system

seriously you're trolling a bit there.

Not at all, I truly believe that the MD is every bit as good as the SNES

[Xyga]

How many of the MD's arcade ports use the 240p mode though ? I though the library was massively running in its 224p mode.

[BIL]

This is why nobody should take Youtube pundits seriously. ;3

[FinalBaton]

How many of the MD's arcade ports use the 240p mode though ? I though the library was massively running in its 224p mode.

Nope. The vast majority runs in 320 mode

[Xyga]

Don't you rather mean 320x224 ? you know generally people quote the vertical resolution. Whatever, even with a broder horizontal that's no big deal it...doesn't change that we have eyes to tell which console offered the best graphics.

@BIL: come on we're having a manchild battle here ^( ￣(●●)￣)^

[null1024]

Did it help at all ? No. The SNES had waaaaaaay more colors to display which is perceptible thoughout the entire library: that counts a lot more more in terms of graphics quality. Anyone can tell the superiority of the SNES in that area. iirc they were saying it's rather the low clock of the main CPU that limited things like the number/size of sprites at once or fast scaling effects. But it had things like the fantastic 'mode 7' to make up, we were all drooling over it. You know all that, seriously you're trolling a bit there.

Genesis' wider resolution allows for more detailed sprites and for a larger amount of viewing area.
not to mention that square pixels are significantly, massively easier to work with, there's a bunch of SNES games that are basically always running in the wrong aspect ratio on hardware because the devs didn't care to account for the fact that the SNES's output is stretched to 4:3

The SNES's low CPU clock would be competitive with the 68k... at the full 3.5MHz. SNES games generally don't run at that rate, they run at 2.68 MHz when accessing ROM and RAM [and for very brief moments, when reading the controllers, they run even slower, but that doesn't matter]. The better IPC of the 5A22 doesn't really overcome that.
also, the 5A22 kind of sucks when writing C -- games written in C on either platform kind of sucked anyway and you wanted to write directly in asm for performance reasons, but the 68k is a much better fit for the language

Mode 7 is cool as fuck, although the most interesting use for it was making a big rotating 3D playfield.
But man, I fucking loved F-Zero as a kid.

The one thing that truly murders the Genesis is the lack of color -- 512 addressable colors [ignoring hard to work with shadow/highlight fiddling that no one really bothered with anyway] can't really do anything compared to a full 32768. You flat out can't have the same kind of nice, subtle gradients, which lead to Genesis games adopting either a shiny, metallic sort of look, or by just looking flatter.
Everything else could really be worked around, but the raw lack of addressable color was the most important factor in how SNES games looked better.

[BIL]

@BIL: come on we're having a manchild battle here ^( ￣(●●)￣)^

ye I know I'm enjoying it ;3

[Xyga]

@null1024; yup thanks for the details, that's what I meant asking if it helped, in the end the SNES was always advantaged by its greater number of available shades, also greater displayable at once iirc.

Few MD games gave a feeling that they were breaking the 64 over 512 colors barrier, like Flink for instance, which supposedly used some palette tricks (did it though?)

[Skykid]

I did it when you were in daipers.

Wow, personnnal attacks thought you were better than that. Looks like it's not the case...

You ok bud? You look pretty rattled

(I'm 33 by the way. So your attack doesn't apply to me)

How was that a personal attack?

(Or an attack at all?)

And if you're 33 forgive me, I got you all wrong based on the Japanese Idol fanaticism.

[FinalBaton]

Japanese Idol fanaticism.

Huh? mind explaining that one to me?

I think you got me confused with someone else...

[null1024]

Feeling hungry for no reason.
Damn it stomach, I didn't eat that long ago, fuck off.

@null1024; yup thanks for the details, that's what I meant asking if it helped, in the end the SNES was always advantaged by its greater number of available shades, also greater displayable at once iirc.

Few MD games gave a feeling that they were breaking the 64 over 512 colors barrier, like Flink for instance, which supposedly used some palette tricks (did it though?)

I dunno if Flink does, I'm pretty sure that's just really nice color design.

Some obvious answers for more than 64 colors are literally any Genesis game with raster effect water [which can change the whole palette mid-screen, doubling the colors on screen -- although you can't do it all in one scanline, you can see it taking a couple lines in Angel Island in Sonic 3 if you look closely, the flickering water effect that's attached to most other water in the series is intended to cover that up].
IIRC, Vectorman uses highlight/shadow mode for a few more colors on screen.
Some games use shadow/highlight mode for transparency effects [like Ranger-X, and there's a bit in Ristar IIRC], too.
Toy Story on Genesis uses raster palette changes for high-color stills.

IIRC, it's also possible, although I dunno of any game that does on the Genesis because of the relatively low number of shades available, to change a palette entry every line for things like sky gradients [this is really, really common on the SNES].

[FinalBaton]

Toy Story uses the highlight and shadow layers in like the whole game I think? Correct me if I'm wrong null1024. Also, I think Batman & Robin(great looking game, lots of cool effects and animations) uses the highlight layer sparingly.

[Strider77]

I must be weird because over the years I have found I actually prefer the MD's second and third tier games over the SNES titles in those ranks.

They are flawed titles, like Midnight Resistance for example. It's not really the greatest game. But man I have a blast playing it for some reason... the audio is epic. Maybe it's the MD's sounds... actually I know part of it is the sound. I have well over a hundred MD titles and I guess around 40 SFC games.

I even ditched my MD shortly after the SNES back in the day. But I started buying back all my old consoles in the 32 bit days. Over the years I've just found I wound up playing the MD more and more. I missed out on those titles that were released during the last half of the MD's life span. Discovering those was a game changer.

It's funny because I remember turning my nose up at Contra Hard Corps back in the day.... I thought it looked corny compared to Contra 3. Today though I vastly prefer it. Contra 3 is great but those top down stages bring the game to a screaming halt. They don't flat out suck... but seek and destroy is something I'd rather not do in a Contra title. I'd much rather begone those top view stages and replace them side scrolling ones.

Then their are things like Alien Soldier and Ex Ranza that are titles that totally wowed me on the MD when I got them MUCH later. Alien Soldier knocked my socks off right from the power switch being flipped on. Ex Ranza took a few times of playing and setting my mind on figuring it out and.... once I did, a fantastic game had been on my shelf all along. Rocket Knight had totally slipped my radar as anything major.... but it was indeed major. It wound up being one of my favorites period.

GnG vs SGnG.... I just prefer GnG at the end of the day. I see the argument for both but GnG just seems like the more classic, timeless and poster child for the series out of the two.

Technosoft.... owned on the MD. Elemental Master is even one of their less spoken about titles compared to TF3&4 (both of those are known for a reason though) but it's music, brisk gameplay and presentation are fantastic.

Super Shinobi 1, 2 and Shadow Dancer.... I don't even need to elaborate.

The test of time has taught me I most certainly prefer the MD now easily, no nostalgia just flat out preference. Having said that I vastly prefer more arcade and action like titles that aren't overly/super long.... and I just don't enjoy playing RPGs regularly anymore (and a huge draw to the SNES for alot of folks are the RPGs).

Even in the RPG arena I find myself more drawn to the MD and PCE in that camp. I prefer Ys, PS4 and Lunar over the bulk of SNES RPGs. I don't even really care for FF4 at all.... it's solid but even when it came out I found it solid but nothing special. FF6, yeah that one is epic, great title. So is Chrono Trigger but I never play it anymore. Same with Secret of Mana, I don't really care for those titles much (the Mana games). I see they are high on quality but the atmosphere and presentation just doesn't do much for me.

The Ys series and Phantasy Star (4 in particular) just grab me.... I dig the smaller/cozier Ys world and killing stuff to that rocking soundtrack along with it's pacing. PS4 was just an awesome conclusion to that series. I dig the world and seeing what had changed after all those years. That intro music kicking in and the opening giving you the low down on what's been up... it just sucks me in. I totally get that PS4 is simpler in ways, but I don't think a game that is simpler with it's mechanics roster automatically equals inferior. Most the time for me, with an RPG, it's the world and atmosphere that will draw or attract me to it; does it spark my curiosity, make me want to know more about it or just make me want to visit it and run around in it.

On the flip side, I won't lie..... Super Metroid is one of my favorite games period. Exactly because it DOES have OUTSTANDING atmosphere and totally sucks me in and makes me want to get lost in it. Amazing audio, incredible sound that completely gels that whole package together. Assault Suit Valken is one of my favorites on the console also. The OST is a little lacking (but still above just being serviceable) but the controls, presentation and weighty mechanics are just top notch. Macross is great shooter based on a license I really like.... and doesn't suck (holy shit). It surprisingly has a great OST also.

Castlevania 4 is the weaker one out of the 16 bit titles for me.... but it also has an incredible OST that makes me scratch my head why so many SNES OSTs are so damn weak. Again, I love the atmosphere the game throws at me. It' slower paced and drags sometimes. The whip mechanics often get touted as some huge leap in progress but I found them pretty disposable in ways. I personally thought Dracula X on PCE made far more progress as far as adding new worthwhile elements to the series, namely in game structure and just..... extra shit that adds up quickly (this post is already way to long). Having said all that I still dig Castlevania 4 on the SFC quite a bit.

BUT.... MD wins out for me. My holy trinity is my PCE, MD and Saturn at the end of the day (yes, that includes the CD drives for both the PCE and MD as well).

[Sumez]

Castlevania 4 is the weaker one out of the 16 bit titles for me.... but it also has an incredible OST that makes me scratch my head why so many SNES OSTs are so damn weak.

Funny, I always considered CV4's music a great example of all the weaknesses in the SNES soundchip. I often hear people vastly preferring the MegaDrive soundchip to the SNES one, which I completely get, even if I'm not sure whether to agree. The problem with it just is that a lot of developers had no idea what to do with it, and for some reason ended up with horrible sounding music, and at the same time you can't really argue that the SNES had a way more advanced sound chip which really made a huge difference at that point in time.
That said, while the SNES has the advantage of sampled instruments, they all have a tendency to sound extremely muffled due to the low compression, with very few developers able to even approach the clear and crisp sounds from the MegaDrive. Castlevania 4 is one of the worst examples of these problems, and it's genuinely confusing to me that people keep praising its soundtrack the way they do. Stuff like this is just painful for me to listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzXtYhCoTpM

On the other hand, the soundtrack does have one really great moment for me - the build up to the dracula fight, especially combined with Simon's Theme blaring for the battle's final "form": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C683GA8gSYU
That's right up there next to the high points from Chrono Trigger.

[Durandal]

Stuff like this is just painful for me to listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzXtYhCoTpM

You... don't like smooth jazz? That bass is one of the smoothest things I've ever heard, especially on the SNES.

[Xyga]

Oh yeah the SNES can definitely output great sounds, but the overuse of the worst samples (like those muffled instruments played from inside a tinbox indeed) has plagued a massive portion of the library.

Worst SNES audio-rape in my SNES memories: http://youtu.be/j-SHxrNXF4o
PWAP PWAP PWAPWAPWAPAAAAAAAP!

To be fair a fuckton of MD games use those abominable screeching/scratchy whatever-they're-supposed-to-sound-like-maybe-guitars samples that can simply make your ears bleed with high-pitched spikes.
Also digitized voice samples sucked.

[Sumez]

Some MD games have a tendency to drop far into the range of notes that just come across too loud or abrasive to be pleasant to listen to, and it can really ruin a song. I don't know if the YM2612 is that much more worse than the YM2151 used in many arcade games, but I've never heard that stuff on the latter. Even otherwise excellent soundtracks like Streets of Rage and Shinobi 3 tend to drop into that for at least a couple of tunes. Though I've talked to many people who never noticed it, and I consider this an entirely objective "physical" issue, not a question of taste, so there might be a difference in how people perceive this stuff. The Sonic games manage to completely avoid these sounds, and the music in all three/four games is amazing.

Some of the best tracks ever created on a SNES manage to work around its shortcomings, and yet they would never be possible to recreate on a MegaDrive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmSA9AY49rU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyiFm3Ta5vk
In particular I love how David Wise embraces the low compression along with reverb for sounds that he intentionally want to sound more "roomy" and are allowed to blend together while carefully picking out sounds that he know will come out clear to carry the lead melody.
On the other hand, I would love to hear more SNES games going for the digital "sound chip" sound, which appears to be absolutely possible on a SNES, just very rarely used.

[Xyga]

Here's what I think is an example of how the SNES could shine;

http://youtu.be/Sz07wNL1plU?t=45m39s

First time I've heard it I was really floored.

[Skykid]

Japanese Idol fanaticism.

Huh? mind explaining that one to me?

I think you got me confused with someone else...

Sorry, I remembered a guy talking about being in love with a Japanese Idol (or similar - could be an AV star) and having completely impossible fantasies of meeting that (honestly non-existent) girl. I thought that was you, but if I've gotten you mixed up with someone else I apologise, my bad.

On topic I genuinely believe you're not seeing clearly when it comes to graphical prowess between the two consoles. The SFC is obviously superior in terms of detail, of course helped by the must more accomplished colour palette. The MD had its moments (Gunstar or Panorama Cotton for example) where it impressively defied the odds. But not on any grand scale. I love the MD's gritty look anyway. Games like ESWAT, off the top of my head, are better for the Detroit Grey colour styling and wouldn't look as good in candy vision. But when the SFC put that clarity to use - which was often - it marked some of the 16-bit's highest points aesthetically. Legend of the Mystical Ninja still looks good enough to take a bit out of the TV screen.

They are flawed titles, like Midnight Resistance for example. It's not really the greatest game. But man I have a blast playing it for some reason... the audio is epic. Maybe it's the MD's sounds... actually I know part of it is the sound. I have well over a hundred MD titles and I guess around 40 SFC games.

Midnight Resistance, if we're to call it a second tier title, has the same charm as all other MD games: fluid, gritty, arcade-like. But SFC second tier is absolutely abundant in quality. Karurah-Oh (Skyblazer), Xandra's Big Adventure, DoReMi Fantasy, Magical Pop N', Daea Tonosama Appare Ichiban, Shounen Ninja Sasuke, R-Type III, Majuuoh, The Firemen, Nosferatu, Hammering Harry, Hagane, Go Go Ackman... the list goes on and on. A lot of these are lesser known but spellbindingly good titles.

Nearly everything you mentioned on the MD are well known titles, from Shinobi to Elemental Master. Nobody is denying they're good games worth playing - I'd cite Undeadline and Twinkle Tale as two lesser known gems for the system.

But the SFC library is literally more vast, more varied, and of a higher general quality level with it.

[Xyga]

And the reason the MD managed to stay afloat is because of peaks of quality in its library, not consistence.

Simple example: the SNES's beat'em up library crushes that of the MD... but it doesn't have Streets of Rage 2.

[stryc9]

What amazes me is that there is so many examples where the MD port has better music than the arcade: Snow Bros, Slap Fight, Zero Wing, Midnight Resistance, Gauntlet, Strider, Double Dragon 2, Vapor Trail etc.

The machine has a rockin' sound setup, and unless something like the GEMS or Sound Images drivers were used it's usually safe to crank it up. That FM bass is so pure and Godlike, even the next gen 32-bit stuff seems canned in comparison!

[Skykid]

The FM is godlike. And not enough mentions of Granada here either.

[Sumez]

Any Wolf Team/Sakuraba, really. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzHOxyDw2Wg