Vectorman

Vectorman is an action platformer for the Sega Genesis that was developed by Blue Sky Software, & published by Sega in 1995. This game was Sega's answer to Donkey Kong Country. Nintendo said that the digitized 3D graphics from that game couldn't be done on the Sega Genesis, with this game being made to prove them wrong.

Plot
Earth It's 2049 and Earth's cities, forests, and icecaps are fouled with toxic sludge. Humanity has escaped to the stars, leaving mechanical "orbots" to clean up.

Disaster One powerful orbot, Raster, oversees the clean-up through a powerwide ComNet. Tragedy strikes when, in error, attendants connect a salvaged nuclear bomb to Raster's master control circuits.

New Order "WarHead" is born, and he stands for tyranny, hated, and oppression. By WarHead's decree, Earth is forged into an instrument of death for the returning humans.

Vectorman VectorMan lands his space barge after delivering a load of sludge to the sun. Unhindered by evil mind control, he will not rest until WarHead is defeated and the Earth is again free.

Why It Proved Nintendo Wrong

 * 1) The game has superb digitized graphics that accurately portray the futuristic settings of the game, & are seemingly inspired by ReBoot, which came out the same year as the game this is an answer to.
 * 2) * The title screen starts off with a psychedelic scene starting to function one by one, only for a bunch of green orbs to fly towards the scene, exploding on contact with the wall reflecting the scene. Some of those orbs explode to spell out the game's title, & a couple of them explode together to form a giant orb with a couple of V-shaped edges sticking out. Once that happens, the scene fades to darker colors until becoming gray when the ball stops spinning. The background wall then starts to break away piece by piece until only the logo is left. The logo then fades out. All done in real time by the way!
 * 3) * The first day, Terraport, features flags moving smoothly, & realistically; sometimes they're even striped, making them all the more impressive! Some buildings have little details such as broken parts alongside parts colored in red, pink, yellow, blue, etc., & even some impressive use of fake transparency!
 * 4) * Day 2, Metalhead, is similar to that of the mine railway levels from Donkey Kong Country, but with an top-down view, & you having to shoot out the Metal Head blocking your path. The train track sways from side to side, often times changing the perspective from top-down to isometric without interrupting the action.
 * 5) * Day 4, Absolute Zero, takes place underwater, & features stunning ice platforms that look as if they were lifted from a professionally made comic book, & they blend really well with the digitized graphics. Not to mention unlike Donkey Kong Country, Vectorman becomes a shade darker underwater than he is above water, which is an unneeded, but cool addition.
 * 6) * Day 7, Rock n' Roller, plays with the top, & bottom of the background by using simple, but effective wavy techniques to make it seem that the floor is slowly becoming unstable at the bottom while making the top look as if it's being loaded, & prepared for use by the protagonist.
 * 7) * Day 11, Stayin' Alive, has a disco floor that constantly changes color all the while the boss is in the middle with its cool bullet-like head spinning around at a stiff, but neato way. Sometimes, he even changes part of the disco floor into electric waves of energy!
 * 8) * Vectorman himself has many really well made animations, some of which are only seen in one level while others are idle animations. The most well known one is the victory pose where he throws his hands up in the air cris-crossed.
 * 9) Really good gameplay that is a well crafted mix between a platformer, & a run-n-gun, complete with multiple weapons in the platforming stages, a double jump in the form of Vectorman using his boosters on the bottom of his legs, different styles of gameplay in some of the levels, & even a few fun boss levels. The controls are also very smooth, responsive, & well done for the most part.
 * 10) * You can actually use the boosters on his legs to kill some of the enemies if you know your timing, which is a clever feature that gives the boosters more use than just double jumping around.
 * 11) * The levels are somewhat short when just going from point A to point B, but you can also explore around, finding bonuses along the way, which the game rewards you for doing so. It even has counters for how many photons you collected, & how many TVs you have destroyed at the end of each day, which is further proof that they cared about players who want to take the time to explore.
 * 12) * There are even bonus stages where you play as an orb, & you shoot a bunch of enemies with tiny yellow, & purple orbs. While you can't move your big green orb, it is still a fun bonus stage regardless.
 * 13) Difficult, but fair challenge in all difficulties so that anyone could play these games without feeling like it's too easy, or too hard.
 * 14) Great music tracks composed by Jon Holland using the underrated GEMS Sound Driver that have a techno feel to it all the while each sounding unique on their own.
 * 15) * The introduction music is a good way to keep the player reading the story introduction with its slow, but cool beat, alongside it being over a minute long like your average cartoon intro at the time that would be made to hook the audience right in.
 * 16) * The first day's music starts off with some simple "wheewwsss" before transitioning towards the main part which lets you know that things are going to get awesome.
 * 17) * The music used for days 3, 12, & bonus stages is a really good track that makes you feel like you're in the water while still giving you some feel of the techno setting.
 * 18) ** Heck, it even sounds good on an Atgames console, which is something that can't be said for most Sega Genesis music!
 * 19) * Days 5, & 9 have a track that is slower than the usual, which fits with the rather dark atmosphere of the latter day, & the depth of the former day.
 * 20) Nice voice samples that are used throughout the game that are robotic in a good way.
 * 21) The story as seen above is surprisingly decent, & is intrestingly similar to WALL-E, which came out 14 years later.
 * 22) When you boot up the game, you get treated to a really cool sequence where you see Vectorman fall onto the Sega logo.
 * 23) * Even better is that if you are quick enough, you can gain control of Vectorman, & play around within the single screen. No, seriously!
 * 24) ** You can even earn a secret level skip inside this screen!

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some of the bosses, while still great looking as usual, can be a little boring to beat, such as the 1st boss which is just shooting at the bottom of the plane when it's open while dodging its attacks.
 * 2) Some of the days just use palette swaps of the background from day 1.
 * 3) * This however can be interpreted as either different cities that just look alike, or the city getting attacked over, & over again, making it a revisited location.
 * 4) The bomb powerup is useless most of the time as the only thing you can do is slowly move around until you explode.

Videos
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