Uncommon graphics mode games
A list of games that use less common graphics modes.
BG Mode 0
BG Mode 0 is somewhat uncommon, but provides 4 independent layers of 2bpp graphics.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Super Mario Kart | For the layered "Choose your driver...." screen with separately scrolling text and ground. |
| The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare | Used during gameplay. |
| Yoshi's Island | The title screen uses BG Mode 0 for the upper portion of its title screen. 6-8 "King Bowser's Castle" has a room for Kamek with 4 layers of parallaxing pillars: video |
BG Mode 3 8bpp
BG Mode 3 is uncommon, but provides 8bpp graphics. BG Mode 3 Direct Color cases are listed below instead.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Donkey Kong Country | Used for a palette animation drawing the green lines of the Rareware logo at boot. |
| Ms. Pac-Man | Used for the title screen. |
| Secret of Mana | Used for the title screen. (Image appears to use a lossy JPEG-like compression technique.) |
| Sim City 2000 | Used to display the city itself - the interface uses the 4bpp layer. |
| Toy Story | Used for many high-color screens throughout. |
| Yam Yam | Used for the title screen. |
| Zoop | A single 8bpp layer is used for gameplay. |
BG Mode 4 8bpp
BG Mode 4 provides 8bpp graphics on BG1 with Offset-Per-Tile.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Bust-a-Move / Puzzle Bobble | 8bpp graphics are needed so that all combinations of adjacent bubble colors can be accommodated on the tilemap. Also uses vertical Offset-Per-Tile to shift the playfield. |
BG Mode 7 EXTBG
While BG Mode 7 was very popular, BG Mode 7 EXTBG was not very common.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Contra 3 | Used on the second level. |
| extbgtest | Test ROM for BG Mode 7 EXTBG. (BG1 vs. BG2, Indexed vs. Direct Color.) |
| Super Mario World | Used during the Bowser fight to move the Koopa Clown Car around on a pseudo-3D stage, occasionally overlapping all the other elements of the screen. |
| Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts | Used to put the level over the player's feet on a rotating level. |
| Super Turrican 2 | Used for a boss fight. |
| Tiny Toon's Adventures | Used on the title screen. |
Direct Color
See: Direct color
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Actraiser 2 | The BG Mode 7 overworld map uses Direct Color. |
| Aerobiz | The title screen uses BG Mode 7 Direct Color. |
| Romance of the Three Kingdoms II | The title screen and introduction sequence use BG Mode 7 Direct Color. |
| Secret of Mana | The spherical world map uses BG Mode 7 Direct Color. The flat world map uses BG Mode 3 Direct Color. While riding Flammie, press Start for the spherical map, then press R to switch to the flat map. |
High-Resolution and Interlacing
PPU register $2133 SETINI can enable hi-res mode, allowing a 512-pixel horizontal resolution. This causes every even column (assuming a zero-based column index) to display the sub screen and every odd column to display the main screen, i.e. the sub screen pixel is the left one in a pixel pair. Outside of BG Mode 5, this is usually used as a way to do a 50% blend of the main and sub screens (a.k.a. "pseudo hi-res"). Under composite, this resulting blend can look somewhat smooth, but through S-Video or RGB the vertical stripes might be clearly visible.
In BG Mode 5, hi-res is automatically forced, and the main and sub screen are automatically overridden with alternating columns of the BG layers, allowing an effective double-width resolution.
PPU register $2133 SETINI can enable interlacing, causing the scanlines of every second frame (field) to be offset downward by half a line. This allows an effective double-height resolution (especially useful in BG Mode 5), though at half the frame rate and with combing artifacts during movement.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Bishoujo Janshi Suchi-Pie | BG Mode 5 and interlacing for some high resolution graphic screens when entering a location. |
| Chrono Trigger | Switches to interlacing mode when crashing the ship into Lavos. |
| Donkey Kong Country | After the Rareware logo shrinks and moves to the bottom right corner, it uses BG Mode 5 to make that small logo higher resolution. |
| Jurassic Park | The HUD overlay and a notification box during gameplay use pseudo hi-res for a transparency effect. |
| Kirby's Dream Land 3 | Uses pseudo hi-res for a foreground transparency effect. |
| Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday | BG Mode 5 is used in an introductory room for many levels, giving a high resolution scene one screen wide. |
| PPU Bus Activity Demo | Demo by lidnariq which includes BG Mode 6, among other things. |
| Radical Psycho Machine Racing (a.k.a. RPM Racing) | BG Mode 5 and interlacing for high resolution graphics throughout the game. The Japanese release replaced the high-resolution gameplay with low-resolution mode instead. |
| Street Combat / Ranma ½: Chounai Gekitou Hen | Has interlacing enabled, likely by mistake. Not used for any higher vertical resolution content. |
| Two Ship Demo | Demo by rainwarrior comparing BG Mode 5 + interlacing against BG Mode 1 graphics. |
Hi-res Japanese text:
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Dark Law: Meaning of Death | BG Mode 5 for text boxes, menu screens and status bar during gameplay. |
| Desert Fighter / Air Strike Patrol | BG Mode 5 and interlacing for high resolution mission briefing text. |
| Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima | BG Mode 5 for text boxes and menu screens. |
| Moryou Senki Madara 2 | BG Mode 5 for text boxes and menu screens. |
| Rudra no Hihou | BG Mode 5 for text boxes and menu screens. |
| Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2) | BG Mode 5 for text boxes and menu screens. |
| Shinseiki Odysselya II | BG Mode 5 for text boxes. |
| Syvalion | BG Mode 5 and interlacing for text screens at the beginning of the game. |
| Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de | BG Mode 5 for text boxes and menu screens. |
Links:
- Forum thread - CRT photos of various hi-res effects.
Offset-Per-Tile (horizontal)
The horizontal version of Offset-Per-Tile is especially rare, since scanline horizontal scroll changes can already do a smooth horizontal offset, and this hardware feature only provides a coarse one.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Chrono Trigger | During the introduction, this is used for a "shimmering" effect on the Black Omen ship. |
| Super Genjin 2 | Used for a screen transition effect on the title screen, when the intro animation isn't skipped. Uses BG Mode 4. |
| Super Mario All-Stars | Used in Super Mario Bros 2, for a screen transition between title screen and character select. |
Offset-Per-Tile (vertical)
See: Offset-Per-Tile
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Aladdin | Used on the final boss fight. |
| Axelay | Used for large vertically moving obstacles on the second level. |
| Battletoads in Battlemaniacs | Used for a wavy effect on a flag in the game's intro. |
| Bust-a-Move / Puzzle Bobble | Used to make the playfield shift downwards without affecting the fixed frame at the sides. This game also uses BG Mode 4. |
| Chrono Trigger | Used to apply a vertical waving effect on the word "Trigger" at the title screen. |
| GT Racing | Uses BG Mode 2 for a waving flag on the title screen. |
| Prehistorik Man | Used on stage 21 (Icebergs) to simulate rotation on the ice platforms. |
| Star Fox | Used for the slight rotation effect on the background behind the SuperFX graphics. |
| Super Turrican 2 | Used in the fourth area of the first level. |
| Tetris Attack | Used for independently shifting columns of gameplay. |
| Timecop | Used for a wobbling effect on the time machine during the introduction. |
| Yoshi's Island | Used for the 1-7 "Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy" effect, and moving platforms in 6-4 "Tap-Tap The Red Nose's Fort". |
Overscan (239 lines)
PPU register $2133 SETINI can choose either 224 or 239 lines of visible picture. Most games used 224, allowing a significantly longer VBLANK period, and the extra lines weren't normally visible on contemporary NTSC televisions.
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Rendering Ranger R2 | NTSC (Japan), often manually blanks several lines at the bottom. Only rarely uses the manual blank time for PPU uploads (e.g. rotating ship at end of Stage 2). |
| SNES Test Program | Immediately switches to overscan mode, even on NTSC consoles. |
| Super Mario All-Stars | PAL version only. |
| Super Mario Kart | PAL version only, but with some "manual" letterboxing. |
| Super Mario World | The launch PAL release did not use overscan, but a later PAL revision did. |
| Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss | NTSC (Japan). |
| Super Tetris 3 | NTSC (Japan). |
| Tetris & Dr. Mario | Both NTSC and PAL versions used the overscan area. |
| Tom & Jerry | NTSC and PAL. |
| Yoshi's Cookie | NTSC and PAL. |
