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.
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"). Starting from 0, it causes every even column to display the sub screen and every odd column to display the main screen. The sub screen is the left column in each pixel pair. Because composite television signals had limited bandwidth, this could result in a smooth horizontal blending of the columns, 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 the tilemaps to be used at double-width resolution.
PPU register $2133 SETINI can also enable interlacing, causing the scanlines of every second frame (field) to be offset downward by half a line. In mode 5 this allows a double-height tilemap resolution, but at half the frame rate, and with the other visual compromises of interlacing.
| 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 in the cockpit view when crashing the Epoch ship into Lavos (modes 7 and 1). This may have been used as an intentional temporal-blur and jitter. (After the Epoch gains its wings, but before Lavos' head is defeated, send the Epoch to 1999 AD. (Save #12 slot 2) |
| 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. |
