When a game console gets further on and nears the end of its life before the next one arrives, several games push what the system is capable of. Some games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess or Breath of the Wild even come out on both the next-gen system and the current one.
However, others may come out early in the system's life and test what the box can truly do. These games can struggle with performance, can be technical marvels considering the system, or simply be visually impressive for an old device.
8 Ninja Gaiden 2
The 2008 action title Ninja Gaiden 2 was built from the ground up on Xbox 360 hardware. Using features like the vertex-processing capabilities of the device, NG2 allows dozens of enemies on screen at once. However, Team Ninja pushed it a bit too far. So many enemies appear on screen that many fights can run in slow motion since this is one of those old games where the framerate is tied to the game speed.
The infamous staircase fight originally had an uncapped amount of enemies at a time, but that was later patched. NG2 received pretty good reviews at the time but nowhere near the acclaim of the first game, and the performance was one of the commonly cited issues. Thankfully, the game runs at a solid 60fps on Xbox Series X due to backward compatibility.
7 Shadow Of The Colossus
The original Shadow of the Colossus on PS2 is one of the most ambitious games on the platform. With a big sprawling world to explore and massive bosses, it truly pushed the PS2 as far as it could go. When fighting the many colossi, the game takes a notable hit in performance. However, it isn't necessarily distracting to you, and the performance sacrifice was worth it.
Fighting these bosses offered a completely different feel than any other game prior. It just had that grandiose atmosphere that made Shadow of the Colossus a one-of-a-kind. The performance was improved in both the PS3 remaster and the full-blown PS4 remake, but the original PS2 version is still impressive, considering the hardware.
6 The Last Of Us - PS3
One of the final big PS3 exclusives to drop before the arrival of the PS4 was Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. Releasing just five months before the PS4, Last of Us pushed the PS3 hard. It's incredible the game has that quality of graphics coming from seven-year-old hardware. Naughty Dog and Sony could, if they wanted to, push the game to release on the PS4 and be that system's first big must-buy game.
Nintendo and Microsoft have both done that a few times with Zelda and certain Rare games. However, Naughty Dog toughed it out and released it on the PS3, only for the game to get a PS4 remaster just over a year later. The PS4 version was like night and day to the original, making the development efforts on the old PS3 even more impressive.
5 The Last Of Us Part 2
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Similar to the first game, Last of Us 2 was one of the final big PS4 titles to release before the PS5. The technological jump between the seventh and eighth generation of consoles, at the end of the day, wasn't what was expected.
The Jaguar cores in the new machines weren't great in the long term, and this was the first generation in a while to have an upgraded system in the form of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. This makes the visual quality of The Last of Us Part 2 even more impressive. At release, it ran at 1080p 30fps on base PS4s, and it was jaw-dropping to see this old hardware still putting out graphics at this high a level.
4 Street Fighter Alpha 2 - SNES
A lot of fighting games got put onto the SNES since the 90s was the era of the early fighting game boom. Street Fighter Alpha 1 wasn't ported to the system, but Alpha 2 did. Since Alpha 2's arcade version is 224 megabits, it was going to be a Herculean task to get this game onto the Super Nintendo with only a 32-megabit cartridge. However, it was done.
Alpha 2 impressively managed to get compressed to the 32-megabit limit with all characters included and most of the stages. You can see how much Alpha 2 is pushing the system with its odd and frequent loading. Noticeable loading in cartridge games during this time was very rare, so it sticks out.
3 Duke Nukem 3D - Sega Genesis
Brazil definitely has a spot in gaming history regarding obscure console ports. There are many Master System and Genesis titles released exclusively in that region, and Duke Nukem 3D for the Genesis might be the most bizarre. You might think there is no way the actual version of Duke 3D can be crafted for the Genesis, and you'd be right.
The levels are entirely remade and more akin to something like Wolfenstein 3D with its simplicity. Various enemies and weapons are taken from the original game, though, and Duke's voice is still intact. Despite the cutbacks, it's still one of the most impressive games for the system, and incredible it even exists at all.
2 Resident Evil 2 - N64
A big sticking point in the console war between PlayStation and N64 was the use of CDs or cartridges. CDs offered much more storage, and games like Final Fantasy 7 simply can't be gone on an N64 cartridge. This makes the N64 port of the two-disc PS1 game Resident Evil 2 even more impressive.
The developers at Angel Studios somehow managed to put the entire game plus additional content into one N64 cart. There are no cuts besides one missing music track. All of the classic FMV cutscenes are included, just heavily compressed. RE2 is one of the most impressive games on the N64, and it's not surprising that the developers would later make Red Dead Redemption.
1 Mortal Kombat 11 - Switch
One of the biggest tests for the Nintendo Switch was Mortal Kombat 11. MK11 is a fighting game, and that genre is one of few that basically requires a full 60fps when in gameplay. Many thought before release that the Switch version would run at 30fps, but Ed Boon repeated that it would run at 60. This was quite a task for the developers, but it was somehow done.
In the story mode, the cutscenes are pre-rendered instead of running in real-time, similar to RE4 on the PS2 and Dead Rising's Wii port. Once you get into the action, the visuals are really rough, but it surprisingly runs well. You can tell they had to lower the graphics a lot to get to 60fps, but it just works.