Like you pointed out in the video the jump in visual quality from Smash 64 to Melee will always blow my mind. And the fact they were able to pull that off in a little over a year is miraculous
@@bobosmith101 The difference with Melee to Brawl wasn't because of what the different systems were capable of though. Brawl's drastic art style shift was because Sakurai and the development team didn't want the game to look to visually similar to Melee. So it's not really the same thing.
@@Marlotix No, I would say it is. There is a focus on much higher textures and backgrounds. Melee's are comparatively flat while Brawl's are much more detailed. The effects of moves, too.
I think the jump from NES to SNES is very underrated, not only in graphics but in scope and QUALITY. To go from Metroid to Super Metroid, from Zelda 1 to A Link to the Past. The 8 bit era still was for the most part very 'arcady', and then just think for a second how many masterpieces the 16bit era had.
@@fluffy_tail4365 i was born in 98, so I didn't experience it first hand, I just know that the SNES games I have played are way better in every way than their NES equivalents
@@fluffy_tail4365 I’m 14 and I know it lol mostly cus I was a HUGE fan of street fighter 2 and Megaman so I had a lot of time playing SNES and NES games and eventually played too many that I’ve loved retro games more than modern ones. Quarantine also gave me more time to play them since I played them during class (I somehow got A’s without paying attention but whatever) nothing beats classics and I’m sure glad pixel style games are still alive (stardew valley and omori are ones I like) I do like modern games but not as much as retro.
The poll results pretty much align with my feelings. It's just too hard to top the jump from 2D to 3D, though the gamecube generation still felt like a huge leap as well.
Generally? Phrased on technical achievement, I'd agree. But on AESTHETIC achievement? That's either NES to SNES/Genesis or N64/Playstation/Saturn 3D to PS2/Gamecube/Xbox 3D.
I would argue that the jump from Atari 2600 & co to the NES and SEGA Master System was even greater than 2D to 3D. Games went from looking like... things... to looking like a real world. Side scrolling, more than a couple of colours, actual stories... It can't be overstated how great that leap was.
@@jarerarebear1765they aren't talking about perspective though, they me a n 2d graphics to 3d graphics. You think going from a flat plane using sprites to full 3d environment was not a big leap in graphics? You can have a 3d game in a 2d perspective, and vice versa.
I was a hardcore N64 kid back in the late 90s and early 2000s - I can still absolutely remember the first time I booted up Luigi's Mansion on my GameCube and going "Holy F@ck look at these graphics, this is insane!"
@@KJ-su4ph Oh Yeah and Perfect Dark Blew my Mind Even more the Like 21 Different Death animations.... The Music the 50 Weapons with 2 Fire Modes i was Like this is Half Life for Consoles.
@@Buckeyes-pj8tr Oh Yeah i played The Demo of SSX Over and Over and Over again cause i couldnt believe the Snow Graphics. ONE of the Best Console Launch Games EVER. To Bad the SSX Series killed itself with the PS 3 Game. SSX 3 was soo good. Back when EA made great Games. I remember i couldnt believe the Graphics of Def Jam Fight for New York. and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.
See, If I were a kid with the n64, maybe I'd not have been as blown away by 3D. But I was a kid with 2D graphics. It was a long while before seeing a world that moved like real life.
Atari 2600 to NES. I guess you had to be there. Side scrolling, music, text, save games, bosses, games longer than a single session and endings. All of that was new, and it was mind blowing.
When I saw the title, I were really hoping you were going to cover the 3D refinement era. Everyone goes to the initial jump to 3D consoles but the refinement era of the 00s is just mindblowing. Thank you so much for covering this :)
You forget the N64 in your analysis. It is the N64 which brought the analog stick, as well as games such as Super Mario 64, Golden Eye and Ocarina of Time which basically set the standards of 3D gaming that mostly still applies today.
I know that wikipedia considers all of atari stuff to be one console generation but the 2600 saw the 5200 and Colecovision to the 7800, and the Colecovision games were about on par with NES titles at launch before mapper chips were introduced.
Glad you covered this, I think this is such an underrated discussion. Like how could your mind not be blown by going from Mario’s blocky hands to his fingered gloves in melee
BRO I was just talking about this with a friend, we both agreed it was 64/ps1 to GameCube/PS2. I can see the jump to 3D being an argument for sure, but what I think cements it for me is how… solidified it has felt since then. GameCube, for instance, was the era where the Mario characters got their designs they still have now. I know that’s a silly example… point is, everything since then has kinda felt like an iteration on that foundation of GameCube/PS2, just expanded and of course with more detailed graphics.
Saturn to Dreamcast also have lots of grapichal jumps and performance on the game, but they being forgotten because on how bad Sega marketing back then. Sega Dreamcast actually initiate the graphical jump before PS2, Gamecube and XBox participate in Golden era of Console Wars. However, they make the fatal mistake by making too many consoles in hope for taking lead before all of them join in. As result, there are lots of Dreamcast was being dusted in the shelf and thrown into scrapyard. I owned Dreamcast back in 2000 with PS2 in 2002 and I can feel the pain of how Sega pulled from Console wars forever because they keep making mistake after the success from Genesis like Atari 2600 with later generations. But, they still alive and healthy thanks to their games being popular in Arcade which is their best redemption from failure.
Started gaming in the 80's on a Commodore 64 and NES. Nothing will ever compare to the generational shift to 3D with the PS1 / N64 / SS era of games. It was truly a magical time to be alive.
Yup. I used both the NES and Commodore 64 for gaming. But even though technology marched on, I can't help but think there were some great games on both those systems that we may never reproduce. Great games like "Modem Wars" on the Commodore 64 or "Genghis Khan" on the NES had their time, but now are lost to the ages.
Tomb Raider in 1996 was incredible. Then FFVII a year later for different reasons (cut-scenes, epic narrative). Then a year after that Silent Hill gave us the first genuinely-scary horror game which could compete with the best horror movies.
I find it a bit baffling that so many people vote for the 32 bit generation. The graphics and art style of some 2D games on the SNES can easily be mistaken for 32 bit games. The early 3D games were either very pixelated or blocky.
I remember when I saw Star Wars Rogue Squadron II for GameCube for the first time and was blown away by the graphical leap. This is also the time I think back on as the last time it happened.
Yeah, back when the jumps in computational power between console generations was humongous, it felt amazing to think "So this is how games will look from now on!" when you popped in the first game for your new system.
Yes, loved those games. Now there's a series I'd like to see make an appearance on modern systems. If they can somehow get the Factor 5 team back together, that'd be even better.
If you look at it from 2 generations in 1988 came the megadrive/Genesis in 1998 the Dreamcast was released, only 10 years later, compare the graphics of Shenmue to something like altered beast/golden axe on the megadrive, its just mind blowing how quickly graphics got noticeably better. go 10 years back now, from 2023 too 2013, you can barely notice a difference
@@sonyx4500 I don't think they have "reached their limit" so much as the curve towards the limit offers much less space for that wow factor that we got moving from the 4th to 5th generation, or the 5th to the 6th generation. Games are still getting better and better in terms of graphics, but those differences while noticeable are not impactful. Moving from 2D to 3D was HUGE, and the refinement of 3D in the 6th generation with GC, PS2, and Xbox was pretty astonishing. On the other hand, things like Raytracing and HDR are pretty substantial when you stop to look for them, but they just don't make that much of a difference in the moment to moment gameplay. The other thing to consider is that often the implementation of these advanced technologies take massive teams tons of extra man hours and it means that you get diminishing returns when it comes to time spent vs budget allotted so most games aren't taking full advantage of all the power allotted to them.
Yeah, Street Fighter 2 and Soul Calibur, Sonic 1 and Sonic Adventure all released in the 90's. Madness! The 90's was the decade with the biggest changes.
i think the jump from nes to snes was the biggest leap BY FAR. games went from pc word software looking applications to full on realized worlds like donkey kong country and secret of mana. i think the proof for that theory is that games look exactly like snes games until this very day, it's a very popular art style especially for indie games. the same thing doesn't happen with nes and it happens way less with n64 era type graphics.
Awesome video! I always thought that the jump from Super Smash Bros 64 to Super Smash Bros Melee was the most impressive jump ever considering it's only two years apart. Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 also was unbelievable. You know the graphical leap was huge when even your grandma notices the difference between the two systems graphical capabilities.
how about the 3rd generation, NES/SMS and maybe PC Engine (could also be 4th gen) over the 2nd gen, that was an insane generational jump on consoles. From little squares and blocks to much better looking sprites and scrolling games not just using screen to screen.
This is my vote for the biggest jump. You move from stick figures to cartoon characters. The leap I'm colors and sprite size is incredible. Take your pick of 2600 games, and put them up against punch out. It is an astronomical big jump.
@@JustinJonesDuke Yes, Punch Out had huge cartoony sprites, even later NES games sort of had like "fake" parallex scrolling and some good animations. Also PC Engine was 1987 in Japan, technically a hybrid "8bit CPU, 16bit GPU", if that counts, thats an even bigger jump as it often looked on par with SNES or Genesis. But evne just the NES or SMS was a huge jump.
dayum i forgot about that. that was definitely the biggest leap by far. games went from pc word software looking applications to full on realized worlds like donkey kong country.
Especially because of the merger they got a biggerbudget. If you compare Dragon Quest V and VI to other SNES JRPGs and VII to other PS1 JRPGs woof. Dragon Quest VII is my second favorite but even if you only compare it to 2D sprites on a 3D background Grandia,Breath of Fire III,Breath of Fire IV,Xenosaga,Wild Arms 2 and Shining Force III it still looks rough....despite Dragon Quest VII coming out after all of them.
I’ll never forget Christmas 2001 when I got a Gamecube with SSBM. Could not believe what I was even looking at and that I could actually move these characters in this world
I remember going to my friends house to finally see what the GameCube was like, and I remember seeing Link in SSBM doing his spin attack in 60fps and him looking extremely detailed and way more detailed than from OoT, it blew me away It’s like we went from polygons to Pixar style quality. Insane
I calculated the compute factor in graphics processing and found that the jump from the PS1 generation to the PS2 generation was the largest (around x200 in compute) with the SNES generation to PS1 generation closely behind (at around x100 compute). The PS4 generation to PS5 generation jump was the smallest (at around x5 compute).
Awesome video Jon! You're so good at just keeping a good flow throughout the entire video, it kept me glued to the screen all the way through. I personally voted for the PS3 Xbox 360 era, simply because I remember how impressed I was as a kid with the jump from PS2 to PS3. But watching this video, I have to agree with the 39% that the jump from PS1 to PS2 was unmatched, and we'll possibly never see such a big jump again. Keep up the amazing work my friend!
I couldn't agree more. The jump from Ocarina/Majora to Wind Waker/Twilight is staggering. So is the jump from Mario 64 to Sunshine. Sunshine's lighting and seawater effects still blow me away today, even at 30 FPS. Meanwhile, 64 had transparent water and a few bubbles. And Nintendo was wise to let Metroid skip the N64 generation. Going from SNES to Gamecube's Prime was also mindblowing.
I'd also make a case for the jump from Skyward Sword to Breath of the Wild, but in that case the latter game really, REALLY pushed the Wii U to its absolute limit (I still remember the screen freezing during Moblin's death animation).
The N64 was more capable than what most games let on, watch what some people have managed to pull off in recent years on real N64 hardware with full understanding of the console. Even better than some GameCube games in some ways.
@jezzar4696 I used to always imagine a Xenogears Remake with Xenosaga 2/3 graphics and yeah a fleshed out Disc 2 campaign.👍 Come on Square. It doesn't need to be a total rehaul. Just update the graphics and retain the battle system.
I think it's interesting growing up with the different generations of 3D hardware and playing them when they were new, thinking "these graphics are so realistic, how can they possibly get any better than this?" And then we look back at them in modern times and can see the flaws, the low-resolution textures, the edges of character polygons, the low bitrate audio samples, the smaller and emptier worlds we explored, so on, and wondering how we put up with it. Younger generations will never get to experience that feeling, as everything has always been high definition and high-fidelity for as long as they can remember. Anything past 10 years ago looks ugly and primitive to them, and the only future upgrades they have to look forward to are under the hood.
Yeah man for like the last 15 years evolution in games has mostly been skin deep attention to graphics. Like I literally call me ps5 a ps3 3.0 because it just feels like the same old same old. The passion is gone. It's all corporate now
I remember when my brother borrowed a PS1 with a bunch of games. Seeing that graphics after Mega Drive was mind-blowing. Resident Evil 2 looked like a movie to me. I begged him to buy a PS1 as he was collecting money for a Dreamcast. I could hardly believe there could be anything better looking than PS1 games. In a few months, my brother came home with a Dreamcast and 10 or 12 games. He knew I was a big fan of Sonic games, so he started showing Sonic Adventure 2. It literally felt as if I played a Pixar movie. He also showed RE Code Veronica, RE2 could not compete here. I still remember almost all the games that came along with the console: Dragon Riders, Draconus Cult of the whyrm, Sonic Adventure 2, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Soul Calibur, Sega Marine Fishing, Half-Life + Blue Shift, Rainbow Six + Rogue Spear, Tomb Raider Chronicles. I was so happy he hadn't listened to my whining and bought a Dreamcast in the end.
@@max-fastwalkerI mentioned in my comment the exact same thing lol The jump from PS1 to Dreamcast was honestly crazy especially if you had one Christmas of 99 I wasn't lucky enough personally but my cousin's boyfriend bought one and brought it round at Christmas and wow seeing Sonic adventure, blue stinger and power stone blew away my 7-year-old mind lol
Exactly, I think the next generation will just be more smoother running, probably polish things up a bit. The last of us part one remastered remastered edition on ps6 will probably be a bit more clear and that’s it.
I remember looking at magazine previews for the PS2 and the graphics just blowing my mind. Stuff like the PS2 being able to do the FF8 waltz scene in realtime. The change from mostly 2D to mostly 3D felt too apples to oranges to really compare, but PSX to PS2, Saturn to Dreamcast, and N64 to Gamecube were such straight comparisons to see how far things were jumping.
I disagree with you. The N64/PS1 jump was astronomical. You are kind of disregarding the jump from 2D to 3D when it's a total game changer. That feeling of playing Ocarina of Time, MGS1 and FF7 will NEVER be recaptured.
For me the biggest graphical leap was Rogue Leader for the release of the GameCube. It looked so close to the movies, and it felt HD even though it was still 480ii.
I'd say that the voters who responded aren't old enough to know earlier generations of gaming. Yes, I agree with the highest ranking choice as leap to 3d was massive - Mario 64 was literally overwhelming at the time. But how many of those who responded also remember the huge jump from 8bit to 16bit... Or even earlier?
True but to remember the leap from Atari to nes the guy should have over 40 something. And let's be honest most of the gamers of that time lost interest in video games long time ago.
While we may never have another graphical jump wow factor, its nice to see the current generation of consoles with so much QOL features like Near 0 loading times, more stable frame rates, and Quick Resume. That's to say who knows what will really define the next generation.
Yeah this gen blows the previous one away. As a fighting game fan its so nice not to have to wait a minute in between matches because the loading times are so bad. We are midway through the gen and that's when I expect things to really start getting pushed.
It’s wild you could have went from being used to playing the SNES in January 1995 to playing the Dreamcast just less than 5 years later, and the GameCube/PS2 a year or two after that. Compare that to the fact we’ve been able to play the PS4/Switch/Xbox One for over a decade and we’ve not had anywhere near as notable changes.
SNES to N64 - that blew me away. seeing Mario 64 at Target, the Jolly Roger stage and its great soundtrack will forever be the bar of "wow , this is the future"
The fact so many sixth generation games held a stable 60fps is mind-boggling. I know the Switch gets a bad rap from some people for performance (despite being a trailblaser and a powerhouse for what it is, but that's a topic for another video), but even today PlayStation and Xbox can struggle with 60fps, even to the point that games advertised as 60 end up releasing at 30 with promises to add support for 60 later... and here the Gamecube and PS2 were just doing that perfectly out of the box.
Developers back then had to work within a ton of limitations and very good at it but that also limited scope allowing a more polished product. Now the ps5 and Xbox are so powerful in comparison they can be lazy a lot of stuff and they kind of have to because the scope of games are so much bigger now a game of similar quality takes around 6 or 7 years to make now it seems
@@Bargate That's not true at all. Bad games are the result of many factors such as: Mismanagement, crunch, overambition, budget contraints, team size constraints, time constraints, hardware limitations and bad scoping, not laziness. Also only a handful of developers were creative with hardware limitations back then. Most developers at the time went overambitious and made terrible games hindered by the aforementioned problems.
@@kevinvandorstearly PS2 games definitely If you had a dreamcast and DVD player in 2000 you didn't need a PS2 for me personally I'd say the PlayStation 2 didn't really hit stride until 2001 with games such as final fantasy X, devil may cry, and GTA 3
I think the jump from 6th gen to 7th gen was the biggest with an asterisk. The launch Xbox 360 didn't have HDMI support and not everyone got an HDTV right away. Many early PS3 and 360 games when played today on a HDTV display looked like they were their own HD Remasters like Kameo Elements of Power,Enchanted Arms or Tekken 6. If you were to compare games from very late in the generation like Tales of Berseria, Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn,Persona 5,Metal Gear Solid V,Rise of the Tomb Raider or Soulcalibur V to their 6th gen counterparts counterparts they blow them out of the water.
I’ll never forget the day I played Tony hawk 3 for the first time! It was incredible going from the n64 to seeing that on the GameCube was mind blowing 🤯
Plsying my first ever 3d game: Mario 64 after 10 years of 2d starting on nes absolutely blew my mind. Changing camera angles, varying the speeds u could walk, things getting smaller in the distance. Will never forget that feeling
Resident Evil Remake on GameCube is the most baffling I've ever seen in my life. 6 years to go from walking polygons to characters that look very realistic even to this day if someone updated their shaders.
Another thing to note is that the ps2 xbox GameCube generation, there was also a huge audio quality increase. We went from having compressed "dolby pro logic" at best to full on dolby digital dts digital surround sound, the likes of which havent been upgraded until the most recent with sudo atmos support.
@@The_MEMEphis NES to SNES is a big improvement just like N64 to Gamecube or Ps1 to Ps2, it's not need to be a 2D to 3D to be a big jump or invalidate the improvements ...
@@mothius238 yeah but the whole debate here is which generation is the biggest jump not what generation is a big jump because every generation is a big jump
Aw man, you can't just hit me with the Nier feels like that out of nowhere But yeah, I agree. At the time especially growing up, the jump from SNES to N64, and then from N64 to GCN, were both AMAZING and haven't really been matched since. While there's nothing wrong with more polygons, bigger resolution, bigger textures, more stable framerate, more realistic lightning, those things are all small incremental game-by-game changes and on a game by game basis. They are appreciated and impressive when done well, sure. But I don't think we'll ever see another LEAP like we did before again.
After 2000/2001 there really was biggest jump on 3D -gaming, but why? Actually, it's because there was no jump on resolution. GameCube games did run on same 640*480 resolution as Nintendo 64 Expansion Pack enhanced games. But this really opened doors to have virtually infinite use of polygons, especially on character models. Also 60fps was actually easy to achieve, as those consoles were "over-powered" for 480i. I think it was great to see that happen. Just for characters sake and for high texture - quality all around. Unlike on PC during early nineties, when it was all about resolution, not so much about texture mapping. Those games looked bland. Sadly, on XBOX360/PS3 generation we were back to barely 30fps gaming. Textures also are sometimes inferior even these days than on Dreamcast. But you can always point your finger on those flat screen displays. After all 640*480 is only 307200 pixels, while 1920*1080 is 2073600. Thats 6,75 times as much pixels to draw. Now, imagine someone creating XBOX 360 -game on 640*480P. -It could have so many polygons and special effects that graphics would look like a real film-footage. Great example of something similar, is Panzer Dragoon Orta on original XBOX. It runs below 480i, but o' boy it is smooth and full of life. Don't get me wrong. I'm really into high resolution gaming. But i would not had sacrifice framerate, textures and special effects just to run game on 4K or 8K or something. As for handheld gaming, 3DS is still freaking amazing.
Strongly agree. I lived through seeing 3D become normalised over 2D games with the 5th generation of consoles, and it was a massive leap forward, but the 3D was still very obviously impressionistic. The 6th generation was a massive leap in giving us detailed 3D worlds you could get lost in. The training wheels were off, and devs practically learned to fly in the 6th gen.
For me it was the jump from PSOne to Dreamcast/PS2/GC/XBox, the graphical leap in terms of quality was absolutely huge to me. Though one can't deny the evolution from SNES & SG to PSOne/Saturn/N64 was very groundbreaking, the successors took what was great about those three and honed it to a finely tuned edge. I miss the Dreamcast especially though, so many great games released in such a short time. Sega exited the hardware industry with a bang.
I like how you showed that beginning part of ffX when you said they likely won’t have that wow moment again. I remember that, Christmas morning loading it up was so crazy!!! I was sad they didn’t have a world map in that game, and I kept waiting for it happen the same way ff7 did (where you play in one big area for along time and then all of the sudden BAM! A huge world map opens up and you realize the game has just begun 😢, good times. Damn that game was good, the way you stand at the exit to midgar for a bit and your party talks to eachother and stuff before they leave for the world map, so amazing
How so? it was Power PC. Also, Multi-Core/Thread CPUs existed prior to that so it was inevitable to go that route. Besides, I would argue PS3 CPU is what really pushed developers to learn how to program on multicores CPUs.
@@ahmedp8009 Uh no? The GPU is not PowerPC. And the PS3 with its asymmetrical core (if you can even call SPEs cores lol) design is not what pushed devs to learn multithreading, as it was an enormous pain to code for. The 360 had the very first unified shading GPU. Every modern GPU adopts this design because it's much more efficient than the old split vertex and pixel pipelines on the PS3/Wii/older GPUs
@@johnbrent7644 Xenos (360 GPU) was the first ever GPU to feature unified shading. Rather than having shaders that can either only process vertex shaders or pixel shaders, they all can run both tasks. It's a massively more efficient design than pre-unified shader GPUs You might also know them by the name "CUDA cores" which is Nvidia's term for unified shaders
I think part of the issue with recent generation jumps is that many games have had to be cross gen or support a wide array of hardware, Horizon Forbidden West or Forza Horizon 5 both look amazing on PS5/Series X respectively, but its mostly a refinement, pushing out details, increasing resolution, not fundamentally looking like a next gen game over the previous consoles as the underlying tech is still last gen. But as you pointed out the jump from the PS1/Saturn/N64 to DC/PS2/GC/Xbox in terms of polygon counts allowing developers show faces correctly is really the key, that opening scene in Shenmue where you can see actual emotion on the characters faces still blows me away, and the jump between RE1 on the PS1/Saturn vs the Gamecube version...... WOW. The fact is that game still holds up even today it was such a huge leap. One question I would pose though, I have recently gone back through and played Detroit Become Human and as its not an open world game it has a level of graphics that most PS4 games could not reach. Do you think part of the issue is that because of many games being open world, they do have to pull back on graphics etc, that actually graphics in the constraints of more linear games, actually have seen a bigger jump? For example the faces in Horizon Forbidden West have incredible animation and vs Zero Dawn they are a generational leap, however, because I like many others have played games like Detroit Become Human, it doesn't jump out as much? I mean look at say Soul Calibre on Dreamcast vs Shenmue, or MGS2 vs GTA3 on PS2, is this part of the issue? If you compare GTA 3 to GTA 4 I would say its almost as big of a jump as RE1 to RE1:Remake in overall terms, but the issue is we had games like RE1:Remake on GC meaning that the character models in GTA 4 dont seem as impressive, because we have seen that before?
Been waiting for a video like this and I totally agree with the PS1 - PS2 era jump. One side note 5:34 - the backgrounds in RE1 remake are actually also pre rendered but with a lot more detail and moving parts. Incredible!
The thing about jumping to 3D is that you're essentially comparing 2 different types of graphics entirely so its hard to compare directly. SNES games like Yoshi's island or Mother 2 still looks georgeous even when comparing it to 2D games of today. But comparing early 3D to current 3D is very different due to how complex it is. I do wanna mention that I still weirdly love early 3D and I think its super charming to see people attempt low poly games today without restrictions of the past such as using 2d sprites for certain models.
And early 3D consoles had really ugly graphics that were a huge downgrade from the previous generation in terms of quality. 16-bit was the pinnacle of 2D. Those graphics have stood the test of time, and people are still making games in that style. Nobody's trying to make games that look like PS1. I think the move to 3D was certainly a huge deal for gameplay, but not graphics.
Metroid Prime looks amazing, and it’s over 20 years old. Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy 7, Mario 64, and MGS by comparison look pretty ridiculous now, and yet these are considered masterpieces. Metroid Prime has aged a lot better.
Graphics have gotten so good it's now become about load times and the speed of showing the graphics, more than the fidelity of the graphics themselves. My biggest wish for a game is a game like Oracle of Ages or Chrono Trigger but looking like FF7R, where you jump between two time periods (or more) in real-time - a whole, explorable world that instantly snaps between time periods in mere seconds no matter where you're from
I think the reason why the jump from PS1 to PS2 eras was so huge was because with the PS1 and N64 developers didn't really know how to make 3D games yet. Hell FF7 doesn't even have textures, but FF9 almost looks as good as a PS2 game (in the cutscenes, anyway). So the combination of better hardware and developers having some trial and error under their belts led to a massive change in overall quality.
To me, there’s really no difference other than slightly better resolution and frame rate, from this generation compared to the last. At least so far. I remember when I got my PlayStation 2 , I was so amazed compared to my Nintendo 64.
Honestly, the biggest jump I ever remember was easily from the PS2 to the PS3 at the time the graphics truly felt like real life I was like completely blown away
I didn't like the graphics of PS3 era games, especially the color palettes felt so off and together with the bad lighting it made everything so muddy. I really liked the jump to PS4 style games later on again, but PS3 is the "dark age" in terms of graphics for me ;)
@@wurzelbert84wucher5 I’m not talking about how they aged over the year I’m talking about when it came out. I remember being a little kid and being blown away how good resistance, and the game motor storm looked . I think I was like 9 then. I grow up with the N64 and then the PS2 so I could notice the jump up. Also again look at metal gear, solid three versus four basically look like real life at the time. Also, it wasn’t just me that thought this most of my friends when we talk about gaming thing pretty similar things from that time.
I agree with you man, from PS2 to Xbox 360/PS3 was absolutely mind blowing. Thats when consoles started to reach near PC level graphics. I recall visiting my friend who had just got an Xbox 360 and after playing it for a bit, I could never play my PS2 the same again.
Something I don’t see many people talking about is the during-generation advancements. Compare Super Mario 64 to Conker’s Bad Fur Day, or Grand Theft Auto III to Shadow of the Colossus, or Sonic 06 to Sonic Generations. As more developers get used to the hardware, they can really take advantage of everything that hardware can do and push it to its limits. To me, that’s just as impressive as generational jumps.
This is an excellent point. It’s easy to distinguish early PlayStation games (95/96/97) from the later ones (98/99/00) because-as you said-developers had more time to familiarize themselves with the consoles, & the tricks they could utilize that could get the most out of them.
I remember the first time I saw Soul Caliber on Dreamcast. It was the first time seeing anything on Dreamcast after years of playing PlayStation. My jaw was on the floor.
I always felt that the hump to HD was the most impressive because of the clarity it added to game play, you no long had to get right up next to an object to see details. It also feels incredible easy to go back to games from the 360 PS3 era. Wail PS2 and OG Xbox are harder to go back to.
The thing with Playstation, I didn't notice the leap because I was both very young, and I played Quake and Doom on my father's Windows 95 before I got the PS1. The best graphics on consoles at that time were ofcourse on the N64, GoldenEye was the go-to game. When the PS2 launched, I could not believe the graphics I was seeing, Silent Hill 2 looked like real life, F-Zero GX on the Gamecube looked amazing and it still holds up today. I also remember the leap from PS2 to Xbox 360, I remember seeing videos of House of the Dead 4 in arcades and Dead Rising on the 360, the graphics were superb, I had never seen anything like it. With the Xbox One, well I got that one day, played games like Killer Instinct, yeah the graphics were cool but nothing too spectacular compared to last gen, my PC could handle similar games. With Series X, I got what I expected.. the wow factor definitely has gone down.
Had a bit of the same experience, I played Doom II or Tomb Raider on Windows 95, so the N64 looked good, but not that much compared to PC. But the games were amazing and felt big (Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye...). But I could really feel the difference with the 6th gen power when playing Mario Sunshine at a Toy Store. Not only the details, lightning, render distance, frame rate were better (couldn't really tell at the time, just feel it), but I was also really impressed by the physics and rendering of water in the game, it really felt like a huge leap. At realease 360 games looked very nice, even on cathodic TV's. But that's really when Gears of War I/II and Assassin's Creed came out, and could be played on HD TV's that the Gap was trully felt with the prior Gen. Hell you could perfectly tell the difference between a game that ran on Wii (last Gen Hardware) and a game like FFXIII realeased on PS360.
Is it weird to say I actually feel like 8th gen to 9th gen is a more noticeable jump than 7th to 8th? 9th gen has had a lot of dual releases holding it back, but I've actually felt more impressed with it than 8th gen tbh. GTA VI is blowing me away (assuming the trailer is reminiscent of what the game will look like) Early on, 8th gen games really felt unimpressive visually, it wasn't until like 2015 with the Witcher 3 I truly felt like I was playing a next gen game. Maybe I'm not thinking hard enough? I don't know I just kind of feel this way.
GTA 6's trailer didn't impress me graphically. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations, but it is just nowhere near as impressive (in relative terms) as the first GTA V trailer from 2011.
Robocop on the PS5 and PC has made me rethink the future of video games. There were many many moments when I played Robocop that I felt like I was freaking Alex Murphy, that I was the man himself Robocop. The graphics are so stunning but even more than that just being a cop and living in that world was a true escapist experience. Going through the precinct and dealing with the public woes or giving tickets to a bad parking job. I mean, if you haven't experienced it yet then you need to. Plus the combat and shooting is so awesome. You're a big tank that just kicks ass and it was pure bliss.
One negative change in the jump from the 6th generation to 7th generation was performance where 30 fps was the norm for most 7th generation games instead of 60fps.
metal gear solid 1 on the ps1 still looks great to me. i love old looking graphics. they pushed the ps1 to the limit. and the rain in metal gear solid 2 was so impressive and still looks better than most today
Ive been playing games for over 35 years now. We've had a lot og big jumps. Artari to NES was insane but i definitely feel like PS3/xbox 360 might be close biggest.
As someone who's gamed on PC since 1995. I kind of feel like I missed out on this experience. Games were always pushing hardware limits, but you were also always having to upgrade every year. I'm actually kind of glad things have kind of leveled off. It was definitely a crazy time to be alive and watch computer power double every six months or so, but holy crap was it hard to keep up. With current handheld PC's out on the market, it should give people a good indication of what kind of graphics they should expect from the next Nintendo system, albeit maybe trimmed down a little to keep the price affordable. Handhelds are definitely in a really cool spot at the moment and I'm excited to see where this all goes. Great video!
I will always say that SNES games look better than N64 games. Super Nintendo titles had more style and thought put into their visuals. You can appreciate the elaborate spritework more than the early 3D models of a 5th gen console.
Agreed. Nothing against the N64. But I feel like visually and presentation wise, the SNES looks better than alot of the N64 games. I even enjoyed there gameplay perspective more than most of the N64 ones.
The N64/PS1 era showed what 3D gaming could do. The GC/PS2 era made it actually look good. (No offense to those with nostalgia for N64/PS1 graphics. I lived through that era too, but I wasn't a fan of them at the time and I still don't think they've aged well. Personal taste.)
The Tomb Raiders, Gran Turismos, Ridge Racer Type 4 still look very good to me. Banjo Kazooie, Zelda OOT, Zelda Majora´s Mask, Mario 64, still look really good if you play them in a crt tv.
This is why realistic graphics impress me less as time goes on. The jumps are becoming less substantial and as you mentioned it's just become the norm. Games that push more unique artstyles easily catch my attention.
I have a huge fondness for the jump from ps2/gamecube/xbox to 360/ps3/wii … I got a 360 at launch and a ps3 and Wii the following year and I will always have great memories from that gen and experiencing it at the beginning . I loved the way the graphics looked in those early days . 360 especially I thought had a great look to the graphics
Right after my Playstation 1 my parents bought me an Xbox with Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. You cant even fathom the gap between a 1994 tekken 3 compared to dynamic lightning, insane game physic, insane AI in a real time wide Opened level from Splinter cell !
4:07 the “bits” have little to do with this graphical changes from Saturn and PlayStation to the Nintendo 64. After all, 32-bit PC’s can run Crysis. The reason the N64 looks better is because of its memory bandwidth. Its higher memory bandwidth allowed it to have a z buffer for perspective projection. While the textures were smaller on the N64 due to cartridge storage limitations, the textures did not wobble like they did on the Saturn and the PlayStation. Z buffers are not an exclusive feature to 64bit CPUs. It’s not the bits, despite what Atari’s and Nintendo’s marketing departments would have you believe.
I truly believe after playing half life: Alyx that there is still big jumps to be made. That game feels like a massive jump in gaming when it comes to graphics and immersion!
One interesting aspect from the first jump to 3D was that, since there were still considerable limitations the developers had to be very creative in their solutions, specially considering the gameplay as you already knew how much you could push on graphics. That created some kind of building block such the refinement 3D era that came after could properly realize those well thought ideas, providing so many masterpiece games. Let's not forget pc as well, around that era there were some pretty incredible companies doing their best, with also many console games ported so having a pc for gaming was getting more popular; steam as well, multiplayer games as a whole. What a journey it was.
I’ll always remember the jump from the N64/PS1 generation to the PS2/Xbox/GC being mind blowing. We’re talking about going from the character models in Goldeneye to Halo. Captain Keyes looked photo realistic to me at the time when I saw him a few hours after shooting Oddjob in the face.
