I'm not at all surprised that this conversation has been distilled to this:
"The PCE can't do transparencies."
"Yes it can, with flickering, just don't play if you are epileptic and you'll be fine."
"Well, those look like shit."
"Well, I never liked real transparencies anyway. They are cheap."
The perfect defense of a console's inability to do something; "I never liked that anyway".
While you may have preferred actual animation to a Metroid super bomb, the reality is that most people thought that was cool as hell when they saw it. Sure, its not critical to gameplay, but it is somewhat intertwined. The main use of a super bomb is to reveal breakable blocks or hidden items, and the way the circle expands out does this in a way where...well, I'm not sure it would be as cool with animations. Would the smoke and fire obscure the items the bomb would reveal until they disappeared? It wouldn't have the same "reveal" to it. I mean, if George Lucas made Star Wars with a 16mm camera, used black and white film, and paper airplanes flung through the air instead of state of the art models, would it be as good of a movie? Considering the plot is weak I'd say it wouldn't be as valuable of an artistic contribution. Does this mean that it was crap all along, and the FX were just blinding us? Maybe so, but it doesn't change the fact that nobody would have given a shit about the series if it wasn't (for the time) cutting edge. Would Citizen Cane be the same if it were shot on a PXL2000?
As for Mode 7, I seem to remember Super Mario Kart outselling virtually every PCE racing game ever made combined (do not take that literally) so while Mode 7 is "cheap and tacky" to hard core PCE fans, the reality is that it allowed for a gameplay mechanic that obliterated all the Pole Position/Outrun systems that had been in use since Night Driver when the power (and expertise) didn't exists to do polygons in a usable manor on home consoles. Mario Kart was vastly more playable and competitive than any racing game ever made up until that point, and its very nature simply cannot be duplicated on PCE because it had you actually moving around a map, instead of just showing you an animation of what might be a single point of view from what might be a map. SMK was to racing what SFII was to fighting games. In fact, Super Mario Kart easily remained the best/only competitive home racing experience until Ridge Racer was released for PS, and that required two consoles and...still wasn't as fun...but I digress. Now, I'm not saying that Mode 7 alone made SMK what it was (Mode 7 made several lesser racing games go) but it was essential, and it cannot be duplicated on PCE.
I'm sure you probably think that Chase H.Q. or Outrun are just as great at being skill intensive two player racing games. I might point out that they are single player. This is where you will say that multi-player racing is a tacky cheat anyway. So, I guess there is just no convincing some people. If that's the case, then I'm talking to a fanatical brick wall, so f*ck it. I might as well be arguing global warming on the 700 Club's blog.
Here's what I think: PCE developers would have LOVED to have had access to Mode 7 and transparencies when they were making these games we love so much, and if they had you wouldn't be arguing against them...or if you were, you'd be doing it on a Mega Drive forum. If the guys who programed LoX could make that water actually transparent instead of spazzy flickering stuff they would do it in an instant and never look back. Maybe you wouldn't, but they would, and nobody would have complained.
