tokumaru wrote:FrankenGraphics wrote:But one thing i reacted to as a kid was that NES games could often be more pretty, beautiful or distinct (subjective, i know) than snes counterparts because they were obsessed with maximising the use of colours in smudgy gradients.
I agree. A lot of SNES artists were just using more colors because they could, without stopping to think whether they should.
I cringe every time I compare
Return of the Joker on the NES against
Revenge of the Joker on the SNES. It's incredible how the 8-bit version of the game is better than both 16-bit versions (I'm including the Genesis version here) in every possible way!
This is exactly what fascinates me the most about 2D retro systems. The way in which stringent technical limitations inform the creative decisions of artists and designers, and them figuring out the "best" ways to work within those parameters. Every individual decision and component of the visuals, audio, or even game design being the way it is for a very deliberate reason. Return of the Joker has that very distinguished "NES Noir" look that Japanese developers gravitated towards near the end of the system's lifespan, since that was a proven way to convey moody and more "complex" visuals with the limited palette. When you get so much more headroom to work with inside a similar (insofar as 8- and 16-bit development zeitgeists being somewhat close to eachother) framework, that whole aspect driving the creative vision risks getting lost. That's pretty much why I tend to find NES and Genesis games to be more visually fascinating in their color usage to reach certain aesthetics, in spite of the SNES being objectively better on an exponential level in that regard.
The same philosophy extends to audio as well. I'm actually not that big into the NES expansion chips (nor the PC-Engine, for that matter) where you're tacking on a bunch of extra voices. Since they're still just basic, static waveforms, it remains very "chiptuney", but the larger headroom afforded by the channels also tends to erase the distinct way in which stock 2A03 music in composed, and that's at least half of the fun for me. Stock 4-5 channel 2A03 music has a very tight, focused sound I enjoy that leans more heavily into counterpoint to convey harmony. Compositions made using the extra chips just tends to sound very... diluted to me and yields the same reaction as when you compare those 16-bit ports of Retun of the Joker.
Pretty much the same reason I'd also prefer listening to a SNES orchestra compared to the same thing done on a rompler of the same era with 32mb of memory compared to 64kb. Both have a very obvious early "sampler-esque" sound to them, but there's a lot more interesting optimization tricks and choices on the SNES that makes it more fascinating.
I actually this kind of problem with the music in the Titan (both 1 and 2) demos as well. Strobe's entire style is based on heavily leveraging the single channel PCM playback with lots of sounds/instruments baked into the samples as the foundation of the entire track (probably explains why the ROM is so big in the first place), with the actual FM being used more as a complement on top of it. I mean, sure, it sounds cool and all, but I don't find it an all that interesting use of the sound chip.