07-21-2014, 03:02 PM
-I second Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, at least until Konami got lazy and essentially flipped the castle upside down and tweaked some palettes here and there for the second half of the game.
-The Samurai Shodown series, particularly IV, V, and V Special. There's a great deal of variety in the stages in the series, even when IV-Vs started to shamelessly recycle and recolor stages. Compared to sister series Last Blade, SamSho tends to have far more colorful and varied backgrounds.
-The Last Blade series; what I like about the environments here compared to Samurai Shodown's are that these feel more authentically 18th/19th century Japanese (which is when SamSho is also supposed to occur).
-Fatal Fury 3. Sure, Mark of the Wolves had some well-sprited stages, but I'm a sucker for FF3 and how its environments were colorful, varied, and to a degree interactive: despite there only being about a dozen different stages in Fatal Fury 3, the game takes you through every nook and cranny of Southtown and there are often tons going on in the background. Some stages had elements that could react to certain actions being performed in a certain location (e.g. making a turtle in Joe's stage jump when pulling off one of Sokaku's moves), and having certain matchups will alter certain stages (Geese's stage will be circled in flames after the first round if fighting him as Terry/Andy/Joe). The icing on the cake is how you could finish an opponent and knock them flying towards the "camera" or far into the background depending on the stage. Such a pretty game for 1995 (and criminally underrated for that matter).
-You know what? How about post-1995 SNK fighters in general. There; saved myself a bunch more typing.
-Super Mario Galaxy (far moreso the first than the second IMO). Say what you will about whether or not the game is too linear, but it's a fantastic looking experience through and through; the major worlds reeked of creativity and (perhaps illusory) grandeur.
-Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The faux watercolor aesthetic of the game is brilliant (even if sometimes the Wii's hardware didn't quite render it fully well at times).
-The Samurai Shodown series, particularly IV, V, and V Special. There's a great deal of variety in the stages in the series, even when IV-Vs started to shamelessly recycle and recolor stages. Compared to sister series Last Blade, SamSho tends to have far more colorful and varied backgrounds.
-The Last Blade series; what I like about the environments here compared to Samurai Shodown's are that these feel more authentically 18th/19th century Japanese (which is when SamSho is also supposed to occur).
-Fatal Fury 3. Sure, Mark of the Wolves had some well-sprited stages, but I'm a sucker for FF3 and how its environments were colorful, varied, and to a degree interactive: despite there only being about a dozen different stages in Fatal Fury 3, the game takes you through every nook and cranny of Southtown and there are often tons going on in the background. Some stages had elements that could react to certain actions being performed in a certain location (e.g. making a turtle in Joe's stage jump when pulling off one of Sokaku's moves), and having certain matchups will alter certain stages (Geese's stage will be circled in flames after the first round if fighting him as Terry/Andy/Joe). The icing on the cake is how you could finish an opponent and knock them flying towards the "camera" or far into the background depending on the stage. Such a pretty game for 1995 (and criminally underrated for that matter).
-You know what? How about post-1995 SNK fighters in general. There; saved myself a bunch more typing.
-Super Mario Galaxy (far moreso the first than the second IMO). Say what you will about whether or not the game is too linear, but it's a fantastic looking experience through and through; the major worlds reeked of creativity and (perhaps illusory) grandeur.
-Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The faux watercolor aesthetic of the game is brilliant (even if sometimes the Wii's hardware didn't quite render it fully well at times).