Support NeoGAF

[Rykan]

That's more of a leap in terms of the scope of games. I don't think that's necessarily a "visual" advance which is what the question asked.

So you're right if it's about the development of gaming. But not necessarily if it's about the biggest leap in how impressive graphics are.

I don't agree that it's not a visual upgrade. To go back to the Zelda example again: If you enter a castle or a building in Zelda: ALTTP, you had to look from it top down, by nature of it being a 2D game. The only alternative was to show the scene sideways. This has all sorts of "issues" with it. You can always only show part of the scene and the size of objects are all wrong. Trees are too small, characters too large, buildings have strange sizes etc.

In 3D Zelda, you can walk into a room or a building and see the entire scene. A hall in a castle actually looks the part. You can look at every aspect of it. The roof, floor, walls,door, Objects That is a huge visual jump.

 

[Haggard]

2D->3D and SD->HD

 

[Manji Uzuki]

PS2, Gamecube and Xbox were mindblowing jumps. Just check how certain sagas visuals compare between those generations. Some great examples are MGS to MGS2, Silent Hill to 2 and 3, Resident Evil 1,2 and 3 to 4 and Remake...

 

[Ozzie666]

Not in the poll, but Dreamcast was the biggest leap from one generation to the next. Hands down.

This is criminal. Soul Calibur was an amazing visual experience and crushed the PS1 and N64. I'm not sure if I'd vote it as my top one, but it's one of the most memorable advances for sure. Dreamcast gets no love! This was the first 3D to next gen 3D really.

 

[RoboFu]

You guys are too young. Nes easily had the objectively best improvements. It literally had better carts with better hardware inside that expanded capabilities and went from single screen Atari old arcade style games to super Mario 3.

 

[Hunnybun]

I don't agree that it's not a visual upgrade. To go back to the Zelda example again: If you enter a castle or a building in Zelda: ALTTP, you had to look from it top down, by nature of it being a 2D game. The only alternative was to show the scene sideways. This has all sorts of "issues" with it. You can always only show part of the scene and the size of objects are all wrong. Trees are too small, characters too large, buildings have strange sizes etc.

In 3D Zelda, you can walk into a room or a building and see the entire scene. A hall in a castle actually looks the part. You can look at every aspect of it. The roof, floor, walls,door, Objects That is a huge visual jump.

I agree but I meant it's not necessarily JUST a graphical advance. It's probably important first of all to distinguish between N64 and PSX/Saturn.

The N64 was like a generational jump BY ITSELF. When people rightly remember how astonishing Mario 64 was, they forget that the PlayStation was already well into its first year. Technically it wasn't even a generational jump, let alone the most impressive one! N64 games have aged well because they looked clean, even though the PlayStation was itself very capable. But basically every 3d game on it - with very few exceptions - was ugly even at the time, and basically hideous in retrospect.

So if we just forget about the N64, as impressive as it was, and forget aboit relative computing power, and compare something like Tomb Raider to something like Yoshi's Island, and simply ask "which looks better?", then I would say Yoshi's Island, because it's beautiful, and because Tomb Raider is ugly.

And then I'd ask how exactly can a generation where one of its more impressive titles looks uglier than that of the previous generation, also represent the biggest upgrade in graphics?

 

[KiteGr]

The 5th gen went from 2D to 3D, something that the last gen could hardly do, but tbh those early 3D graphics aged horrybly, and the few 2D games in the newer generation didn't show any major improvement besides having more disk space for assets and sound. Poligon graphics where all the fuss, but in the long run, they wheren't nessessary better.

The 6th generation on the other hand!... It also used poligon graphics, but the jump was insane.

Beyond that, in the next generations they where mostly rising the resolution, demanding from you to get new monitors. Otherwise the changes, especially in the most recent generation, where barelly noticable.

 

[crackajack]

The move to 3D was the biggest leap since the inception of gaming on IBM mainframes and magnavox or whatever itself. Starfox might have given a glimpse to 3D on console, maybe Mode7 itself too even if it was just a distorted plane, and the gen thing becomes a little weird when PCs exist anyway, where evolution is always less abrupt, but 3D-gen, i think Gen1 according to EAs counting, is huge, even 3D-TVs or VR is just a small increment to that.
ALL the games today could be done on those machines, as demakes, and gameplay barely evolved since then, much was just a conversion of 2D to 3D anyway but now we mostly get refined ideas, new stuff is only seldomly created. Which is still great, but no improvement today is really mind boggling anymore. HDR, 4k, 120fps, megatextures, nanite, global illumination all good of course but I'd rather have them focus on stuff not always visible in screenshots, since we are already in the good enough phase in the graphics department. Physics; explosions, desctruction, cloth and AI behavior; eg proper coop with a talking AI or NPCs with a proper daily schedule, not just running or standing around and also pathfinding (still!).

 

[lyan]

I don't agree that it's not a visual upgrade. To go back to the Zelda example again: If you enter a castle or a building in Zelda: ALTTP, you had to look from it top down, by nature of it being a 2D game. The only alternative was to show the scene sideways. This has all sorts of "issues" with it. You can always only show part of the scene and the size of objects are all wrong. Trees are too small, characters too large, buildings have strange sizes etc.

In 3D Zelda, you can walk into a room or a building and see the entire scene. A hall in a castle actually looks the part. You can look at every aspect of it. The roof, floor, walls,door, Objects That is a huge visual jump.

On paper, in reality the hardware is already at its limit with some low res walls, barrels/plants and a few characters on screen. In terms of spectacles the early 3D we got couldn't even beat those cliff views in say FF6 / Seiken Densetsu 3.

 

[BlackTron]

I had two major jumps that I consider being revolutionary. First I went from 16-bit Mega drive to 32-bit Playstation and was just blown away with games like Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy 7.

My next console was Dreamcast and that was truly a unprecedented generational leap. Soul Calibur, Code Veronica, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi. It was nuts how good the games looked on the DC. When Sega went up in flames I settled with a PS2 but it wasn't nearly as exciting. In fact, the death of Dreamcast ruined that generation for me.

I also tried to be into PS2 but having already played the hell out of DC, I couldn't help but be like "this is it?" I know everyone loves it but it seemed kind of shitty compared to GC and Xbox. Didn't help that I massively upgraded my PC that era either lol. Insane exclusive game lineup of course (in time) but it would have shone brighter on the other hardware available.

In any case....yeah the change to 3D was the biggest change BY FAR. The second biggest change was 2nd gen 3D that kicked off with Dreamcast, no doubt. Everything since has been incremental.

It just now feels like we are reaching the point in 3D games where we were at with mature 2D ones at the end of 4th gen/beginning of 5th. Yoshi's Island, SotN. When it came to 3D titles, the N64/PS1 were like an Atari.

 

[Orta]

Dreamcast. It fixed all the shortcomings from the Saturn, N64 & PS era.

 

[ahtlas7]

Atari to NES, easy win.

 

[Ozzie666]

Dreamcast. It fixed all the shortcomings from the Saturn, N64 & PS era.

Other than the crap controller, the custom cd rom media and leaving the boot strap boot code for normal cds, pretty much. Even with it's fault, it was a good step up graphically.

 

[MightySquirrel]

I went with Ps1/N64/Saturn. Going from this;

To this;

Was just an absolutely crazy jump.

I can't be the only one with a notion that the top pic looks miles better than bottom.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I think we can all agree that graphics post 7th gen = diminishing returns (visual jump decreased).

 

[Sybrix]

Going from PS2/XBOX to PS3/360 was the biggest leap visually, going from SD to HD is something we haven't and will never experience again on that level.

Everything post PS3/360 hasn't had the graphical leap that the previous generation had.

 

[GametimeUK]

The PS1 to PS2 era is certainly up there for sure. I chose the PS2 to PS3 era because I never had an OG Xbox. I forget how much the OG Xbox shits all over the competition in terms of visuals so I will say the PS1 to PS2 era is the best from my point of view when the Xbox is accounted for.

However for me personally going from PS2 to 360 / PS3 was just such a gigantic leap due to how clear things looked on my HDTV in comparison to previous generations. It's was a thing of beauty at the time.

 

[small_law]

PS2/GC/Xbox. The original PlayStation, Saturn, and N64 introduced 3D polygonal graphics, but it felt like proof of concept stuff. The Saturn wasn't even designed to do 3D rendering well; it was primarily designed for 2D graphics. I remember thinking at the time that this is all well and good and it works, but it's ugly as sin. Because it was. Gran Turismo and Metal Gear Solid were marvels, but the artifacting and low polygon counts didn't go unnoticed. Neither did the lack of draw distance in 3D environments on the N64.

Then the PS2 comes along and after that Xbox and GameCube. That felt like the future. It was seamless. It didn't feel clunky or weird. I mean some of those games still hold up. It was kind of a breathtaking leap forward.

 

[radewagon]

PS3,Xbox gen...the HD upgrades to me were the biggest jump I experienced. Seeing Gears of war the first time was mind blowing.

Agreed. The jump to HD was something special. The fact that it coincided with a major tech advancement in home televisions made it a perfect storm. We were getting image fidelity that was up till that point unfathomable. I still remember loading up Motorstorm (came with my PS3) and thinking that I immediately needed to buy a bunch more PS3 games.

 

[German Hops]

It would have to be the jump to 3D.
I'm still waiting on that 4D jump, though.

 

[DaGwaphics]

2D to 3D was a huge transition for console gamers, completely changed the type of games that could be built, thus I'll say the PS1/N64 was the biggest shift of all. With the next two bringing big enhancements to 3D. PS1/N64 > Xbox/PS2 > PS360 as far as generational leaps go.

 

[64bitmodels]

4th to 5th gen was such a massive jump that idk how anyone could answer anything else. Even for graphics you can't make that much of a good argument. I certainly wouldnt say FF6 looks better than FF7 even with FF7s godawful looking overworld models. That being said, 5th to 6th was gargantuan and 6th to 7th was also big (not as large, though)

 

[CeeJay]

Going from a SNES to a Nintendo 64 was pretty mind blowing... but early 3D wasn't amazing. Blurry imagery, terrible frame rates, miniscule polygon counts. Our imaginations were doing the heavy lifting. However, the jump from the N64 to the original Xbox was when 3D proved itself.

Going from Goldeneye 007:

To Halo 2:

I doubt we'll ever see a jump that monumental again.

An Early N64 game to a late Xbox game?

Maybe Perfect Dark to Halo 2 would be more representative?

If you go one step further and compare Perfect Dark to Halo Combat Evolved its not so much of a jump

Spoiler

Edit: I voted for the same generation option as you did

 

[Rykan]

I agree but I meant it's not necessarily JUST a graphical advance. It's probably important first of all to distinguish between N64 and PSX/Saturn.

The N64 was like a generational jump BY ITSELF. When people rightly remember how astonishing Mario 64 was, they forget that the PlayStation was already well into its first year. Technically it wasn't even a generational jump, let alone the most impressive one! N64 games have aged well because they looked clean, even though the PlayStation was itself very capable. But basically every 3d game on it - with very few exceptions - was ugly even at the time, and basically hideous in retrospect.

So if we just forget about the N64, as impressive as it was, and forget aboit relative computing power, and compare something like Tomb Raider to something like Yoshi's Island, and simply ask "which looks better?", then I would say Yoshi's Island, because it's beautiful, and because Tomb Raider is ugly.

And then I'd ask how exactly can a generation where one of its more impressive titles looks uglier than that of the previous generation, also represent the biggest upgrade in graphics?

To address the last point you've made first: There is a very big difference between the questions of which generation aged the best and which one was the largest leap. The 16 bit era certainly aged much better, and I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. That's sort of the same situation with the NES: A lot of these games haven't aged gracefully in terms of visuals, but that doesn't mean that the NES wasn't a gigantic leap over the Atari consoles that came before.

I very much disagree with the sentiment that every 3D game on the PS1 was ugly. Yes, by today standards it's ugly but I don't feel that was the overall sentiment at all. Graphical leaps need to be placed into context: Seeing a 2D Barrel is nice. Seeing a 2D barrel with better textures in a more detailed environment is even better. But seeing a barrel in 3D for the first time, being able to look all around it and observe it in an actual 3D environment? That is a feeling that no other generation replicates. That generation was the first generation where people could observe and interact with an environment into a somewhat realistic scale.

 

[PendekarRajawali]

PS3,Xbox gen...the HD upgrades to me were the biggest jump I experienced. Seeing Gears of war the first time was mind blowing.

This. No contest.

 

[synchronicity]

Definitely PS2, Xbox, Cube.

I remember thinking I'd forever be satisfied with visuals if they never improved from that point. And I still feel that way, even if I do appreciate the progression of tech. In fact, gaming overall would probably be in a healthier and more interesting state if development was more restricted in terms of pure tech and forced to innovate in other ways as a result of those limitations.

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

NES- Trying to think back, I remember being a little spooked out with Friday The 13. We played this at parties back then. Spy Hunter was really cool looking too, and of course Super Mario Bros.
Snes/Sega Genesis- Donkey Kong Country looked crazy. The animations like the emotes is what I remembered most about it at the time. All Stars (Super Mario World) is another one, the colors I remember being blown away by. Vectorman I seen at Toys' R' Us through the glass cabinet display, the synchronous movement of animation on the characters/objects/background was really cool to see back then. Sonic and also Ecco The Dolphin, the animations and the actual sense of speed was dope.
PS1/N64/Saturn- I don't remember a PS1 game blowing me away visually, same for the Sega Saturn. The N64, it's a long story but I'll make it short, this is one of those you had to be there to see it because words can't capture those moments at all; I went to Toys' R' Us, I walked to the entrance and got on the escalator to the 2nd floor (we're in NYC). I got off the escalator and made a right turn and the floor was fucking packed with people all looking into one direction. I'm literally confused as to what was going on. I squeeze through the crowd looked up and there it was Super Mario 64 being played, straight crazy.
PS2/Xbox/Gamecube/Dreamcast- GTA III to MGS2/Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 to GTA SA I remember being cool on the PS2. Halo CE was dope. Splinter Cell especially Chaos theory was so dope. Conker Live and Reloaded was another one, crazy. NBA 2K5 and NFL 2K5 are some others, visual monsters (animations, presentations literally everything). Project Gotham Racing 2, super crisp through and through. The Xbox at the time was so far above the other consoles with actual videogames to support the technology. Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube was dope. Sonic Adventure, Ready 2 Rumble and Crazy Taxi looked crazy on the Cast. Soul Calibur 2 on all the platforms, animations (this game had cloth and hair moving back then!), colors, this game was on another level and still look overall more convincing and pleasing than some videogames out today!
PS3/360- The PS3 was fucking trash, I was hyped for this thing too. MGS4 and Killzone 2 looked crazy only in the trailers. I'm not even going to continue, the PS3 is the most disappointing console, ever. Gears to Gears 3 on the 360 obviously. This generation I remember being just overall dissapointed, and the lying from publishers and developers was horrible man.
X1/PS4- You mines well include Xbox Series and PS5 in this one, nothing stood out to me. And the blatant lying from companies is at an all time, just horrible, fuck. I think Arkham Knight was the only honest work that I seen and it looked dope as fuck still to this day.

 

[Mung]

Debatable of course, but it's between PS1 and ps2 gen for me.

Recently replaying ff6 on original snes hardware reminded me of what a massive leap ff7 and ps1 level hardware was. It really was mind blowing at the time.

On the other hand, gt2 to gt3 makes an excellent case for the ps2 gen.

 

[ACESHIGH]

If you don't answer 4th to 5th chances are you just weren't there at the time. Besides, 5th gen wasn't just about 2D to 3D, it was also about 2D to arcade like 2D specially on the Saturn.

 

[HofT]

It's a toss up between:

Introduction of 3D (New dimension and playstyle)

or

Introduction of HD (Visuals were selling point of this era. In-game graphics stood out and felt like a cinematic experience)

 

[Captain Toad]

16-bit to PS1, N64 changed how we think and play videogames forever. But, at the same time, those 16-bit games feel more playable today than most of those early 3D games.

 

[Guerilla Munch]

DC, GC, Xbox, PS2 have 3D games that still look and play amazingly well today, so I went with that

 

[bentanchorbolt]

Dreamcast & PS2 era

NES to SNES was a big jump for 2D for sure, and PSOne and N64 after that really showed that 3D gaming was viable --- but the first game that ever blew me away was NFL2K for the Dreamcast, because it was the first time the sport of football stepped into the modern era as we know it now. Beforehand it was either sprite based of crude 3D modeling, but NFL 2K was a major cut above. As much as Mario 64 impressed, it didn't "wow" me the same way NFL 2K did, or Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec did. GT3 was mind-blowing, the first racing game that really started to down that path towards photorealism. NFL 2K and GT3 may look archaic now, but when they were new it was obvious how next-gen they actually were.

 

[Astral Dog]

i think it was pretty much N64/PS1 -> PS2/Xbox/GC

for 2D obviously NES ->

other generations may have been bigger leaps, but the sixth(i think) was a revelation. since character models framerate and lightning improved dramatically from rough, crude 3D,into real proportions and visual art i still find games from that era impressive both in gameplay and visuals,for the time of course.

HD started strong with Xbox 360 but dragged on for so long some developers started taking less risks, and by the end framerates wre painful on consoles

 

[TheBROgamer]

i think it was pretty much N64/PS1 -> PS2/Xbox/GC

for 2D obviously NES ->

other generations may have been bigger leaps, but the sixth(i think) was a revelation. since character models framerate and lightning improved dramatically from rough, crude 3D,into real proportions and visual art i still find games games from that era impressive both in gameplay and visuals,for the time of course.

HD started strong with Xbox 360 but dragged on for so long some developers started taking less risks, and by the end framerates wre painful on consoles

That gen really did drag on, lol.

 

[Self_Destructive]

But virtually every game on those platforms was ugly as sin. Whereas most 16 bit games actually looked pretty nice.

Hell no! lol Those graphics were revolutionary at the time... Gran Turismo looked photo realistic for crying out loud.

Super Mario 64 was simply just on another level. NOTHING compares. Zelda OOT... people were gobsmacked at the visuals at the time. GoldenEye... MGS1...

People were really seeing the future for the first time.

16bit games looked great, no doubt... but going from 16bit on tiny carts, to 32-64bit on CDs and massive cards was an entirely new world.

PS1 gen to PS2 gen was also another massive leap when you look at games like MGS2. I'll never forget seeing that trailer for the first time.... but as awesome as that was... as far as generational jumps.. it was 16bit to 32bit for me.

I don’t like to compare consoles not meant for 3D with consoles that were made for 3D. I assume you’re comparing things like Star Fox (SNES) to Crash Bandicoot?

That's fine. I'm not limiting myself to that. We're talking about which generation had the biggest visual improvement over the last.. and that includes all games. It's crazy for me to imagine anyone around my age who had experienced 8bit with the NES all the way through to now.. to think that anything other than 16bit to 32bit was the biggest revolution and generational jump.

Games changed forever that generation.



I hope you guys realize I'm not meaning to be combative. Everyone experiences these things differently. Some generations can be special to people for a multitude of reasons... like the period of time in your life, friends, experiences and things like that. We all get introduced and experience these things differently. For me the 32bit gen is #1 and 16bit gen is #2.

 

[Hunnybun]

Hell no! lol Those graphics were revolutionary at the time... Gran Turismo looked photo realistic for crying out loud.

Super Mario 64 was simply just on another level. NOTHING compares. Zelda OOT... people were gobsmacked at the visuals at the time. GoldenEye... MGS1...

People were really seeing the future for the first time.

16bit games looked great, no doubt... but going from 16bit on tiny carts, to 32-64bit on CDs and massive cards was an entirely new world.

PS1 gen to PS2 gen was also another massive leap when you look at games like MGS2. I'll never forget seeing that trailer for the first time.... but as awesome as that was... as far as generational jumps.. it was 16bit to 32bit for me.



That's fine. I'm not limiting myself to that. We're talking about which generation had the biggest visual improvement over the last.. and that includes all games. It's crazy for me to imagine anyone around my age who had experienced 8bit with the NES all the way through to now.. to think that anything other than 16bit to 32bit was the biggest revolution and generational jump.

Games changed forever that generation.



I hope you guys realize I'm not meaning to be combative. Everyone experiences these things differently. Some generations can be special to people for a multitude of reasons... like the period of time in your life, friends, experiences and things like that. We all get introduced and experience these things differently. For me the 32bit gen is #1 and 16bit gen is #2.

I've already clarified that I more or less exempt the N64 from the charge of ugly games. Mario 64 is indeed still the biggest wow moment gaming has ever given me, and almost certainly always will be.

But imo almost everything on the PS1 and Saturn was very ugly. Even at the time - while I knew that it was technically impressive and really exciting - I thought the games were a bit hard to look at. *Especially* because quite a few of them were ports of games that I'd already seen looking WAAAAY better in the arcade.

Also, the idea of it being this revolution in games - I'm not sure how true that really is. The revolution was Mario 64 and the analogue stick. That's when worlds became properly 3d and immersive. What came before? I think Tomb Raider might be the only one tbh. I assume that was out by then, anyway?

From memory the vast majority of games were racing/fighting and other stuff that could technically be done in 2d but just had hideous 3d graphics instead. By the time GT came out with the dual analogue sticks the generation was almost over.

 

[Icymanipulator]

The jump to SNES from NES was huge
The only other big jump was from PS1 to PS2

Since then nothing has been as impressive as we’ve been stuck with incremental improvements every generation.

 

[Celine]

in term of a purely visual impact I'd say from 8 bit gen to 16 bit gen due to two concurrent trends:
1) expansion of the rom space which permit storing higher quality 2D assets.
2) the introduction of tools that enabled developers to create 2D assets with higher details than pure pixel art by hand (digitization of hand drawn assets, photorealistic assets, computer generated assets).

 

[Lady Jane]

6th gen (Xbox/PS2/Gamecube) and it's not even a contest for me. We went from polygons to full models. Ever since, it's just been a dick waiving contest for hair texture.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Chose the ps3 and 360. They made huge steps forward.

However, the ps2/Xbox generation probably saw the biggest jump in power percentage

 

[Wildebeest]

No virtual boy option?

 

[Falc67]

Who voted PS5 and Series X

 

[TheBROgamer]

6th gen (Xbox/PS2/Gamecube) and it's not even a contest for me. We went from polygons to full models. Ever since, it's just been a dick waiving contest for hair texture.

LOL, so true.

 

[ZehDon]

An Early N64 game to a late Xbox game?

Maybe Perfect Dark to Halo 2 would be more representative?

If you go one step further and compare Perfect Dark to Halo Combat Evolved its not so much of a jump

Spoiler

Edit: I voted for the same generation option as you did

Perfect Dark looks nice in retrospect, but it was blurry as hell and it ran like absolute shit - and all but required the expansion pack - back in the day. I've never been a fan of its original presentation, and greatly prefer the Xbox 360 remaster. Goldeneye 007, on the other hand, was among the best on the N64 in terms of overall visuals imo (scale, performance, and details). It looks clean, ran decent enough most of the time, and had a good level of detail considering the hardware. Halo 2, for as good as it looks, didn't trade off clarity or performance in substantial ways, unlike Perfect Dark. It was a "best of" FPS comparison in my eyes, not necessarily about the age of the games within their respective console generations.

 

[OZ9000]

To be honest every console generation had a big jump, besides out current one.

PS1 -> PS2 was huge (think MGS1 and it's low-resolution blocky visuals vs MGS2)
PS2 -> PS3 was also supremely impressive (introduction of 720p, Gears of War, Uncharted 2, MGS4, Killzone 2, GT5 etc) - Gears of War was my first 'HOLY SHIT' moment when it came to 'next gen'. It made all PS2 games look like garbage.
PS3 -> PS4 was also very impressive. Killzone Shadowfall looked miles better than anything on the PS3.

Sadly, going from the PS4 -> PS5 has been a very, very small improvement. Most games look like 4K60 PS4 games and slightly better effects.

 

[Soodanim]

My instinct was PS2, and I see I'm not alone in thinking so.

The reasoning is simple enough: PS1 brought technological upgrades, but 3D was in its infancy. PS2 perfected that in a way that was more noticeable than anything before it, and after has been much more iterative. Things have come a long way, but PS1-PS2 feels like the biggest jump.

Having said that, my current judgement is somewhat clouded by non-CRT output and a valid answer is that the 2D to 3D jump is the true winner. But it is hard to measure against anything because it was unique. If you pretend that nkarafo posted 2 Starfox screenshots instead of letting everyone down by choosing a Mario 64 one, there is a clear and direct comparison of two generations and that's a pretty big difference.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

ps1/saturn/n64 was probably the most exciting time/jump.

followed by e3 ps3... but that never actually materialized.

 

[PUNKem733]

5th gen move to 3D was HUUGGEE, but the refinement in the 6h Gen was bigger to me. Lighting, textures...etc was so good , even though 3D went mainstream in gen 5, it was many a times janky and super pixelated, low res crap.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

People are greatly underselling the jump from PS2 to Xbox 360, I think some people may have just forgotten how big that gap was and how lines for the first time were never longer in gaming history for next gen consoles at that point. Even early PS3 had some graphically impressive stuff far beyond the previous.

You only fell short if you brought a Wii.

NES. The sprites and scrolling stages were quite a leap over the ten or twenty rectangles Atari could handle simultaneously.

But not the Colecovision.

I think the people saying NES are forgetting that NES was originally the same gen as CV and then people decided to put all the next gen consoles with the 2600 because they liked reading tabloids I guess.

It was one of the most incremental leaps based on the current commonly used generation listing. Also, many of the best looking NES games can't actually run on an NES, but have additional power provided by what's put in the cartridge. So it's not even a fair comparison to the Atari VCS (1977), but Atari wasn't even the strongest of it's gen anyway. Also Atari had several games with scrolling stages.

You guys are too young. Nes easily had the objectively best improvements. It literally had better carts with better hardware inside that expanded capabilities and went from single screen Atari old arcade style games to super Mario 3.

Comparing a game the NES can't handle that needed a late generation addition to an Atari VCS is a rather strange comparison. I though we were talking about Jumps, as in the first year or so of the new gen during the transition, in that case the NES would be 1983-1984 when SMB3 didn't exist.

Op seems to be talking about gen to gen. Not best late games of one gen compared to games from the previous. if we are doing that, than Halo 4 compared to GTA III on PS2 is the biggest jump in gaming history lol.

in term of a purely visual impact I'd say from 8 bit gen to 16 bit gen due to two concurrent trends:
1) expansion of the rom space which permit storing higher quality 2D assets.
2) the introduction of tools that enabled developers to create 2D assets with higher details than pure pixel art by hand (digitization of hand drawn assets, photorealistic assets, computer generated assets).

Lol, what is up with people comparing early previous gen games to late post-gen net gen games.