Topic: Games that took full advantage of the systems they released on

It almost certainly had to be challenging, if the sequel to ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR GAMES OF ALL TIME, needed the soon-to-be president specifically to add this content in. This implies to me that no normal programmer at Gamefreak, if not Nintendo as a whole, could've done it, despite Pokemon almost certainly being their number 1 priority at the time.

X on the GameBoy. It really shouldn't have been possible.

Elite on the BBC Micro. Again - it shouldn't have been possible. That no-one really though to do it again with modern technology until No Mans Sky is astonishing. Aside from the graphics being far more impressive than anything else on the BBC (and other home computers of the time) the game is massive with every solar system having its own economy but everything had to be packaged into a tiny amount of memory. My avatar probably uses more memory than the original Elite did!

R-Type on the ZX Spectrum. Remarkably faithful on a machine that shouldn't have been able to do that.

Donkey Kong Land on the GameBoy. It looks awful to me now and I know it uses the same pretty basic tricks as Donkey Kong Country but it's still amazing that it exists.

Zelda on the Famicom Disc System. It exploited every function of that system. Obviously it allowed for game saving (which wasn't possible on the vanilla Famicom at that time) but it also used the built in microphone in the second controller to attack the big eared rabbit heads. I'm amazed that Nintendo always replicates this function in some way or shape whenever they re-release the game in Japan.

Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii. There were plenty of games that used just about every feature of the Wii-motes but often one or two would be restricted to the odd little mini-game that might have been part of the core path but which effectively took you out of the experience. Metroid Prime 3 didn't though and neither did...

No More Heroes on the Wii. Or Zack & Wiki.

Payback for the GBA is pretty impressive, a top down 3D GTA clone. It's just not that great as a game.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story has a great use of all of the DS's hardware: Some battles happen in both screens at the same time, extensive use of the touchscreen and even the microphone.

Jett Rocket for the Wii has great graphics, even more impressive if you consider it's just a 40MB WiiWare game.

Nintendo Land had overall the best use of the gamepad on the Wii U. It was one of the only games that could only be done on Wii U, and couldn't be ported easily to the 3DS like Super Mario Maker.

@StuTwo Excellent shout out for Elite - it was pretty much my first thought too.

Staying in the 1980s home computer vein, The Bard's Tale on the Amstrad CPC 464 had an insane amount of content. Spent hours staring at that screen...

On the Master System, I'd vote for Phantasy Star (the 3D dungeons still look butter-smooth today) and Populous - which was actually bigger and better in 8-bit form than the earlier releases on 16-bit platforms.

On my old Game Gear, nothing really jumps out. Maybe Land of Illusion, which was visually impressive, pretty sizeable, and packed with secrets.

On the Amiga, programmers got pretty clever towards the end. Syndicate really pushed the hardware hard, IIRC, and it was an amazing game.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption used the Wii tech to create the best first-person shooting controls to date and was one of the best looking games on the platform with intricate, diverse environments filled with all manner of beast.

Final Fantasy IX really pushes the PlayStation graphical power to its limits, It looks years better than VII

Metroid Prime Hunters - literally used all the features on the Nintendo DS. It made use of both screens, with even cutscenes that stretched across both screens. Touch controls were there and the game may have used every button on the system in the respective control mode. It made use of both local wireless and online features for its multiplayer, and even had voice chat present in the lobby for the latter. That's something that Nintendo seems to have a problem with implementing now and yet it was there in the early days of Nintendo WiFi.

WarioWare Touched! and Bowser's Inside Story - While Touched! did not use buttons iirc, it made extensive use of the touch screen throughout its microgame selection and probably had the most creative mic use of any game with Mike's collection. There were also a number of microgames that utilized the two screens in various ways as far as presentation goes. Bowser's Inside Story was pretty much the same story, except that it also made use of buttons and had multiple instances of using the DS in a notebook/sideways position for those giant Bowser battles.

Metroid Prime 3 - This gets the nod over Metroid Other M for looking better and making use of the nun-chuk. In my opinion, it has the best use of motion controls on the Wii and raised the bar in terms of how first person games should play on a Nintendo console. Its credit/friend voucher system also made use of the Wii's online service.

Super Mario Maker - Great use of the Game Pad was a rarity on the Wii U, but I think Nintendo got it right with a couple of games, especially with Super Mario Maker.

Nintendo Land - The game that was being used to show off what the Wii U offered in terms of gameplay through the Game Pad I think turned out to be the Game Pad's best showing for Nintendo. This may be biased, but I think Metroid Blast used every feature of the Wii U, aside from making use of online features (unless it did and I don't recall the implementation).

From my personal experience:

Nes: Gargoyle's quest 2, Batman.

Game Boy/ Game Boy color: Link's awakening, Gargoyle's quest, killer Instinct

N64: Ocarina of Time

Playstation: Soul Reaver

Game Boy Advanced: Golden Sun 1 and 2, Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, Meroid Zero Mission, Shaman King Master of Spirits 2

Gamecube: Windwaker, Metroid Prime 1 and 2

Playstation 2: Okami, Metal Gear Solid 2, Zone of the Enders: The second runner, Shadow of Colossus

DS: Okamiden

Playstation 3: Metal Gear 4, Uncharted 3, Last of Us

3DS: Monster Hunter 4, Stories (this one could be the best looking title) and pretty much every entry, Pokemon Sun and Moon.

Playstation 4: Yet to see for myself but Anthem looks like a strong contender... Many gorgeous looking titles but they aren't really putting the system to it's limit. Oh, FF15 from what I've seen.

Game & Wario is certainly in the same boat as well.

I'd like to Submit Link's Awakening for the original GameBoy and Shantae for the GBC.

@Octane @KirbyTheVampire IMHO I haven't noticed many sparse fields, the areas I've went to so far in the game haven't felt empty. They obviously aren't packed but then again no open-world game is. I loved how there's random secrets and unique things hidden across the world. Granted many of them led to just a shrine which is something to improve in a future game, but otherwise I was impressed with how varied the game was (along with its graphics, physics engine, etc.). And it's native 720p, which most games (bar Smash Bros, the Zelda remasters and a couple others) on the Wii U were.

Hmm...I'd argue that, because Ocarina of Time didn't utilise the extra RAM of the N64's Expansion Pak accessory, it didn't take full advantage of the system it was released on (ie. didn't use every available resource) ..the Expansion Pak gave quite a few games a bit of a performance buff - but Majora's Mask, Donkey Kong 64 and Perfect Dark really used it to the fullest effect (squeezing every little bit of performance out of the console) - of those, I'd say Perfect Dark is the better game, so I'd nominate that as the game that truly took full advantage of the hardware.

Ocarina of Time was a masterpiece - arguably the best game in the consoles library - but, had it used the Expansion Pak (which I think released at roughly the same time?), it maybe could have maximised the potential of the system a bit more..? (better textures, resolution etc?) ..Perfect Dark, on the other hand, really felt like it was squeezing every bit of juice out of the ol' '64 (high res, co-op campaign, multiplayer bots etc) - and, in those terms, wouldn't really be bettered/surpassed until the next generation of consoles came along (..or, at least that's how I see it! )

The Trauma Center series for Wii and DS. The motion controls made the game possible, and took full advantage of the precision in the DS.
Now that we've moved away from the motion generation, the series is dead.

I like Shadow of the Colossus for PS2, but I'd also throw in God of War 2 and, perhaps above all, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The jump from GTA3 to San Andreas on the same console is still amazing to me.

For the Wii U, my vote is Game & Wario. I still play it when I have friends over.

Please do not R E V I V E threads that have been I N A C T I VE for over 6 months unless they are discussing a specific game or console.

SNES- Chrono Trigger (best graphics on the system, incorporates diagonal movement which makes exploration more enjoyable, which was a big deal when there was only a D-pad)
PS1- Final Fantasy 9 (best graphics on the system)
PS2- Shadow of the Colossus (best graphics and most advanced game mechanics in existence at the time)
PS3- Last of Us (best graphics on the system)
Wii U- Xenoblade X (best graphics for an openworld game on the system, whilst using the gamepad for a good reason)
3DS- A Link Between Worlds (awesome graphics, 60fps performance on a handheld, uses the 3D depth well)
Xbone - Forza Horizon 4 (possibly the best graphics of the entire generation and it's on the weakest console)

@Octane @shadow-wolf

Breath of the Wild seems like a bad example to me, given that they removed the gamepad mini-map, which would've been a perfect use of the Wii U hardware for that game. It ended up just being an inferior version of the Switch game.

Street fighter alpha 2 Super Nintendo

Street fighter 2 sega master system

I didn’t even know these games were out or even playable in these systems

1.Dance Dance Revolution Extreme Japan PS2. more than 110 songs, Edit Mode, Can support DDR MAX 6th Mix and DDR MAX 2 7th Mix, the BEST DDR on PS2 ever.

2. Final Fantasy XII PS2. Full 360 degree camera angle, Brilliant Gambit system and Wonderful Choirs as Battle theme.

3. K-1 World MAX 2005 PS2 Japan. Great Kickboxing games on PS2, complete with Career mode with character customize, training and some Death blows. Also, we can use the Edit characters for Versus play. I really miss a Kickboxing games like K-1 on modern video games nowadays.