This Mario 64 one is my particular favorite. I think it’s so funny that Metal Mario has a reflection of what looks like open land and clouds. Pairs well with the fact that in-game his texture was some flowers and a cloudy sky.
Who else remembers seeing images like this – that would’ve taken a few seconds to a few minutes to render even on high-end graphics workstations of the time – presented in gaming rags as examples of what PS1/N64/Saturn and later PS2/GameCube/DreamCast/XBox were “going to be capable of producing”?
Relevant Mario 64 mod https://retroaesthetics.net/render96/
Render96 is legendary. Felt like I was playing a version of Mario 64 I saw in my dreams once lmao
I think part of what makes it special is how it shows gamers what the potential of 3D offered. With the blocky polygons and blurry textures of the N64, Nintendo gave high-res renders to show gamers the future. Almost like a “See how far we’ve come? This render is where we’re headed so jump on board!”
Anyone else remember the “Ultra 64” preview screenshots of “Final Fantasy VII” that made the rounds in magazines like EGM before Squaresoft moved to PlayStation?
I wonder if that’s lost media at this point (don’t care enough to Google it).
Nice!
