Poll of the Day > GameTok with Lok: What are your favourite special effects in older games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm doing a thing on special effects?

What's a special effect? It's teh non-artwork* related GWAAAAFIIXX! Particle effects, Mode 7 shenanigans, parallax weirdness, clever transparencies, procedural layering or whatever, y'know?

*Asterisk: obviously artwork is involved, but I want to differentiate from things like basic spell animations (such as the amazing ones in FF6)

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Anyways, for some starters

Let's open with split-level parallax!

This effect was done to great effect in pretty much only 2 games... Donkey Kong Country 2's underwater ship levels and Adventures of Batman&Robin (which also features rotational parallax, something that I've not seen in any other game)

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Here's also a short vid from GameHut featuring some Genesis effects, I particularly like the procedural water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEBDwP9DRds


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Still remember when 'Mode 7' was a thing (scaling and rotation) in the SNES...such bleeding edge Game Tech back in 1991...

pionear posted...

Still remember when 'Mode 7' was a thing (scaling and rotation) in the SNES...such bleeding edge Game Tech back in 1991...

As a factor of processing power, it's still technically more powerful than modern 2D processing (since modern 2D processing is exceptionally weak)

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I'm a big fan of jiggly boobs.

It's day time~!

...i remember in my QBasic days everyone was obsessed with plasma field effects

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It's non-visual, but I loved the sound of clotheslining someone on Smackdown! 2

And the physics of that game were hilariously awesome.

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I was a big fan of the effects that were used to indicate taking a hit in Starfox 64. I couldn't pin down anything specific, but the whole package of sounds, visuals, and the then-novel rumble feature meant that taking a major hit felt delightfully visceral, something SF Assault really struggled with (the number of times I only realized I was missing a wing in that game because of the drift...).

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That was cool in the original Starfox as well, getting hit would be all CRAASH, and then hit again would be a louder crash, then a wing break, a louder crash, then the low-health siren

And then

https://youtu.be/sm-hKjxq2vk?t=12

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Running in water in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu1HU0QGsWg

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The water level 3D effect in DKC2 is a good one.

I'm also a fan of just the classic red-screen when you take damage, especially in FPS games.

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darcandkharg31 posted...

Running in water in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu1HU0QGsWg

Without question, this is the first time I wasn't just impressed with graphics, but actually blown away.

Spent so much time running and jumping in that water.