I love Earthworm Gem. So underrated, it’s a real hidden jim

What sucked overall for me was the lack of SPEED that many games lost when converting to 3d.

The early 3D era was the wild west, every developer was making their first steps into uncharted territory and some projects ended up as failed imitations of their 2D originals. Still, incredibly nostalgic...

Legacy of Darkness is fantastic, movement is much tighter and it doesn't feel like you're walking on ice the entire game like in C64, plus you can adjust the position of the camera using the up/down buttons on the d-pad for way better views. And of course the restoration of the colossal amount of content that was planned for but left out of C64 because of time constraints including a ton of music, stages, bosses, enemies, Cornell and his campaign, Henry's bonus campaign, primary and sub-weapon upgrades, etc. etc. It's a great game.

It would be nice to see a third part of the series with the redeeemed series, the ones with bad first3D titles but with great second attempts. This has come to my mind precisely with the first two games, as you mention, The Sands of Time was great, and Neo Contra is another amazing game.

The Metal Slug transition is really a shame because the Ratchet and Clank series showed how 3d 3rd person shooters should be done and I imagined that style is the path SNK should have taken.

I had no idea Metal Slug had a 3d entry. What a horrible idea.😅

I loved Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness. Yes, they were a little rough around the edges, even for the time, but both games were a ton of fun, and had some genuinely cool and memorable moments. The difficulty goes a tad off the rails toward the end though, especially in Cv64.

Imagine a modern 16:9 Metal Slug remake that includes all the content from 1-7, with handdrawn 30fps animation running at 1080p 60fps, featuring online co-op and maybe even a roguelite mode. Done right, it would be the ultimate run & gun.

Blaster Master on PS1 played a lot like the dungeon exploring in the Mega Man Legends game for the same console. I enjoyed it for that aspect & I appreciated the effort of voice acting when some games got lazy at the time & just had you read along. A hidden gem for me 😂

I recently found your channel and love your upload cadence! Thanks for putting out quality content

Earthworm Jim 3D sucks but the 3D model of Jim himself was top tier for the time. He even had individual fingers. I remember being impressed with the fluid animation of his hands as he looks left and right.

Another example of a video game series that had a very rough transition from 2D to 3D is SimCity-its first† jaunt into 3D with SimCity 64 (2000) had an exceptionally limited release, SimCity Societies (2007) was criticized for its small scale with high performance demands and its simplistic and unorthodox mechanics, like SimCity 64 but less severely its third 3D entry SimCity Creator for the Wii (2008) never really went beyond a niche audience, and when they finally decided to go all in with the mainline series in SimCity 2013, you know... †SimCopter (1996) and Streets of SimCity (1997) were built around 3D-rendered SimCity 2000 maps, but didn't allow you to actually build a city. SimCity 3000 (1999) was originally intended to be fully 3D with the same engine, but was redeveloped to use 2000's isometric/dimetric perspective, and while SimCity 4 (2003) had 3D terrain, vehicles, and animals, the bulk of the assets were 2D sprites or "billboards".

You have to admit, the actual animation in the Dragon's Lair one is really good... it looks like the hand-drawn cartoon. Thanks Lordster! SEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Now we just need a best 3D to 2D series! 🙃

After seeing this video and that Contra 2D to 3D bit of the video, I was thinking of a topic for you to cover. I don't know how to name it, all I can say is that where Contra 3D failed, "ONE" and Apocalypse for PS1 tried the formula and showed em how it's done. I hope this gives you some ideas, Sega Lord X.

Going back to the castlevania games on n64, they're nowhere near as bad as some might think. The atmosphere is good and that's down to some great audio and music. I can see why it's regarded way less than the best of the 2d games.

Brother, I love your videos! Each one feels like a quality documentary ❤ I grew up with Nintendo but you’ve gotten me to check out so many Sega bangers!

I had no idea the developer behind Bubsy 3D was also responsible for Syphon Filter! That's one of my favorite original Playstation games, and a true highlight on the console, IMO. It's crazy the jump in quality between the 2 games. SP is still very fun and playable, but Bubsy 3D is such a mess, it's hard to believe it ever got greenlit for a retail release.

I really wish they were able to finish Castlevania on Dreamcast. That leaked build looks much more polished than they had time to do on N64.

Joe from gamesack gonna be devastated with that blaster master inclusion. I'm pretty sure blasting again is one of his favourite games next to craig stadler's pebble beach golf.

I knew Castlevania would come up. Yeah, Castlevania 64 was rough…but Legacy of Darkness was actually enjoyable. The PS2 games were much more technically proficient, but boring as hell. Legacy of Darkness is ironically the only 3D Castlevania from this era worthy of the name “Castlevania”.

man those Final Fight Revenge moves where you break your opponents bones really reminds me of the X-Ray moves from modern Mortal Kombat

Castlevania 64 isn't that great, but Lament of Innocence is seriously one of the best entries in the entire franchise. And it's way more like what Castlevania would've been in 3d, as a nice mix of the classic action and the exploration styles of later entries.

Rainbow Cotton is getting re-release soon. Let's hope it will get some refinements instead of being a straight port.

Castlevania 64 is rough by today's standards. However, they did try to stay faithful to the atmosphere of the Castlevania series (aside from skeletons on motorcycles showing up way too early in the timeline). Not to mention it has a pretty decent story.

I always have a desire to defend "Mortal Kombat 4" due to how much nostalgia I've had playing the game when I was a teenager growing up in the early 2000s, especially since it also included my go-to characters to play as in the Mortal Kombat series, Johnny Cage and Raiden, both of whom were completely absent from the roster in "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3", making it my least favorite title in the series.

So much of this is devs going from something they had mastered to something they’re still finding out how to use.

I bought Castlevania 64 and played it until I beat it. Enjoyed every minute!

Rainbow Cotton is actually getting an HD remaster by ININ Games. 60fps, widescreen, better controls/targeting system, restored art, etc.

SLX must have only put 2 minutes into Mega Man X8 to say it's "not much better" than X7. It's a huge improvement in gameplay since it sticks to 2.5D, although it does have a couple of bad but short 3D stages: the ice stage, and the city stage. The rest of it is a blast to play through. Mega Man Legends should also never be on a list of anything but "the best PS1 games." I get that it's not a classic Mega Man game in 3D, but it's still a really good 3D Zelda game in the Mega Man world.

I actually loved Street Fighter EX. Played it to death back in the day. 😊

You really didn’t get into MK4?! It was dope. Throwing objects. Weapons. When you combined it all together it made a unique combo system. The main issue is that the game was playable without using the new features. I remember having Sega Lord X’s reaction at first. But, that all changed after a couple of hours of repeat plays and updating my fighting style to match the new system. The new finishing moves were also a reason to own this title.

Castlevania 64 got a decent upgraded version. Its pretty decent, you can play as a wolfman

While you're right about Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness you're dismissing by association. Yes it's still 3D, yes it's not as rapid fire fast, but it's 3D, and in an environment like that one it really can't so it's designed more to mix exploration and combat. But despite that, it did fix the actual technical and bug problems of the first. Back in the day EGM ratted out Konami for shoveling CV64 because it's part of a game, the game LoD was supposed to just be alone less than a year later, seemingly done to appease japanese stock holders to make a yearly(quarterly?) margin. The bad camera that turns and can turn enough to detach you from a ledge, broken physics where 2 jumps can't land in the same space(great over pits with posts to land), collision that kills where you're not touching stuff since it's offset, and other stupidity are repaired with other enhancements. Sadly or not, it's the best of the 3D Castlevania experiences but should be openly tried at least once.

Controversial pick of my own: Doom 3 was the first Doom game to take place in an actual 3-D engine, and while its a decent survival horror game its no Doom! Doom was all about blasting through enemies, discovering secrets and traversing levels at breakneck speed. Doom 3 is slow, methodical and constantly has you fending off monster attacks with severely nerfed weapons. So it should come as no surprise that it's entire storyline was excised from the new canon when Doom 2016 came out.

1:33 Yeah, Prince of Persia 3D was bad, BUT the Prince of Persia series got a much-needed second chance with The Sands of Time in 2003. The 3D graphics in that game were amazing, and the smooth combat and time manipulation controls were easy to master. That last part would especially come in handy when solving the many deadly puzzle traps if the player made a mistake. All they had to do was "Rewind" if the Dagger of Time had enough sand.

I came in here with Bubsy 3D and Earth Worm Jim 3 on my mind. Glad you nailed them both.

My brain says Fade to Black should be on here. It was the original sequel to Flashback, and doesn’t play anywhere as well along with aging far worse But it has a place in my heart because it lit up my imagination when it came out because I was at such an impressionable age, so I can’t put it on such a list

Lol, I knew when you released the previous video that Bubsy 3D was bound to get a mention. Still remember, as a Saturn owner, flipping through game magazines of the time comparing press photos of Mario 64 to Bubsy 3D(when it was still slated for Saturn), trying to convince myself they'd be comparable. Wishful thinking😂

21:49 These days, people remember this game for the laughably bad English voice acting for Hyenard and his infamously constant screams of "BURN TO THE GROUND! BURN!"

The game ONE on PS1 is probably the closest you'll come to a 3D Contra from that era done right. It's not perfect, but it's a much better game.

I kind of liked and enjoyed lots of these games. The Castlevanias on N64 had a nice "horror" feeling unlike Simphony of Night, Blaster Master Blasting Again gets fun and interesting when you learn how to navigate the maps, even Bubsy 3d can be enjoyable when you learn the controls and start looking for secret areas. Sure they are not perfect games by any means. I think if you´re not that picky you can get some fun out of these games.

Final Fight Revenge added the element of opening crates and using weapons like in the previous games, so it wasn't your typical fighter. similar to how Power Stone wasn't your typical fighter. But I do agree with you on being a lackluster transition to 3D from the iconic series.

I'm one who thinks castlevania 64 was pretty good at the time. I had a lot of fun with it. back in '99, it wasn't a worn out level design format either. I could see how anyone playing it in the last 15 years or so would think it doesn't hold though Most N64 games haven't held up well, bare bones 90's 3d was ancient looking by the ps3 era.

So many retrogaming videos give me a nostalgia for being young and excited about when the games were new. This one's like, meh, yeah, those games did get released, I guess I had forgotten most of them. Now I can forget them all over again.

I actually have some good memories with the 2 castlevania n64 games lol they were capitalizing on the tomb raider style games the same way the 3rd person Duke nukem games did lol I kinda like these

Legacy of Darkness fixed a lot of the problems Castlevania 64 had. It was great. Different than that 2D games but I kind of liked the more ambient atmosphere

Not sure if this was intentional, but back then, my brother and I found MK4 on the PS1 so hilarious we played it and we could hardly play a single round without laughing hard, from the character voices, the exaggerated movement, comic and over the top violence and weird victory poses. The MK series was a bit more serious but MK4 was basically a satire in our eyes, but again, if it was intentional or not, I can't tell.

Damn that's a terrible shame about Rainbow Cotton. I mean look at those graphics! it's absolutely gorgeous :(

No wonder that Metal Slug game never made it over to the US

> Video about worst 2D to 3D games > immediately opens up with Sonic Heh

I will still defend MK4. MK Gold not so much but it was last game that John Tobias did. It still had that dark MK atmosphere ( just ignoring the cheesy FMV endings) that seems to disappear in the most recent games.

Yes, "Castlevania 64" isn't a great game, especially one to carry such a great legacy into 3-D. I may be in the minority, but I really enjoyed this one regardless of its flaws. Yes, it does have a game-ending glitch in level 4 that will require a reload of your save file if you improperly mixed the ingredients. Yes, that very same game-ending glitch is part of a very "explosive" puzzle. Yes, the game requires an N64 Game Pak for saves. However, it does have (what I feel is) one of the greatest Dracula boss fight in the entire series - fully in 3-D! Imagine fighting Dracula as you would in most Castlevania games, and turn that into a 3-D battle.

Blaster Master Blasting Again had some things that evolved the series in smart ways such as the multi health bar bosses that you could in effect target certain points to weaken and disable some attacks. The music was great as well. The look of the tank and Jason was a good upgrade from the pink white suit of the original. Yes the game had flaws, but that didnt stop me from loving it.

Something about EWJ transitioning to 3D is particularly offensive. The whole point of the original games was the hand drawn animation. Art style was a huge part of its appeal, and they threw that all in the bin for the sake of keeping up with the latest trends. Ray Man proved that what you could do with 2D on 32 bit consoles, and hinted at what EWJ could have been.

I'm actually a fan of Mega Man Legends, but I can understand that many people were probably disappointed by this entry in the series. Other than that, it seems interesting to me how wildly the quality differed in these early 3D games. They may have been clunky, but they sort of had a unique charm to them.

The best part of Bubsy 3d was the KZfaq that ulillillia made talking about the secrets of level 2 after playing 500 hours. That video was amazing at the time.

It’s funny, but I love most of these games! The nostalgia of janky and low-poly 3rd person games brings me back to the wonder of this era when I was a kid. I find joy in these broken games! 😂

Rite on time once again.

Bubsy 3D is terrible but I can't get too angry at it because it started Life as a 32x game. I cannot imagine the chutzpah needed to make somebody think they could make a 3D platformer work on the 32x.

I really loved Prince of Persia 3D, the amazing graphics and music, the gameplay from the first one where you have to be carefull walking slowly for traps, the combat wasn´t that good but the ambiance was incredible. Years later, on Internet, everyone was calling it horrible.

I just knew Bubsy would make it to this video as soon as I saw the title. In fact I'd give it a big thumbs down otherwise. Great video as usual, SLX.

The transition from 2d to 3d was pretty awkward to most games. They lost a lot of their former charm.

I got to disagree....I owned Dragon's Lair 3D for the Gamecube, and was blown away by how close it looked to the original! I thought it played fine, and all the music, and voices are intact, but we all have differences in opinions.

Another awesome video, Sega Lord X! I would love to see more in this series. Your commentary is hilarious as always

The Contra 3D games were such a shame, and that game "Contra: Attack of the Stupid Pandas" didn't help convince fans that Konami was interested in anything except Pachinko machines.

the systems back then have just not been designed and build for 3d gaming, most of these games are just wannabe half 3d emulated with 2d chipsetsbut this changed a lot since the first real 3d systems showed up. some of the re- and modern designed 2d games look so amazing that i still prefere them over any 3d games. cheers 👾👾

Whaw I never knew that a 3D Metal Slug even existed, what were they thinking??

I agree with most of these, but Castlevania 64. I thought it was a good experience. I it’s not for everybody I understand.

I wasn't even aware that Metal Slug had tries the transition to 3D. Now that I've seen it, I cannot unsee it?

FF Streetwise got its ass kicked by Yakuza the same year!!!!!

Saw the title for the video and Mortal Kombat 4 immediately came to mind.

I think Rainbow Cotton looks like a good rail shooter. Sure it looks rough around the edges, but I wouldn't say it's a bad jump to 3D.

I once checked out Final Fight Revenge to see how bad it was for myself; And honestly, although it's not a great game by any stretch of the imagination: I actually quite enjoyed it for a bit when playing with a friend of mine

That metal slug commentary was so damning 😂. I don't think I've heard u so frustrated before lol.

It didn’t help that contra legacy of war wasn’t developed by Konami themselves formed out to a lowly third-party western developer disreputable one at that. What’s funny about Bubzy was that Bubzy wasn’t even good in 2-D, so it’s no surprise that Bubzy 3-D sucked.

Just got off work thanks

The weirdest aspect of Hang On GP for me is the "bees in a tin can" engine sounds. What were they thinking?

I absolutely love the Castlevania N64 games. They definitely had a lot of issues but the atmosphere and story telling was a head of its time. I would love to see a remake of these games, fixing all of the issues like the camera and jumping stuff. I would describe it as a flawed masterpiece if that makes any sense.

The digital control schemes they used were the worst part of many of them, especially with no camera control, it just felt clunky even in the better games. In my opinion, it wasn't until the early PS2 generation with dual analogues being the norm, that these more 3d games became bearable on consoles at least. The games that played to the strength of the controls were usually better by far, or those that just played like 2.5D games.

My fave retro channel right now. I would love to get some sega hardware but it’s getting expensive

Contra: Legacy of War was one of the biggest wastes of time I ever had in my entire life, having got it for Christmas of 2005. Hell, that mistake alone was one of the reasons why 2005 was one of the worst fucking years of my life.

Golden Axe should’ve been here, Beast Rider was bad, also I’d argue Mega Man Legends was the first 3D Mega Man and I know many people who like that but it just never clicked with me personally.

Having owned Bubsy 3d back in the day I can pretty much agree.. though there is something to it's aesthetic that does keep me booting it up every once in a while.

I have to ask,did anyone here try final fight streetwise? it is the most misunderstood and under rated game ever in my opinion, it was a great,smooth beat em up and I really think if you either havent played it or played it in awhile give it another shot, at the time people dissed it because of the unfinished final fight seven sons

I hope Final Fight makes a comeback, considering we're having somewhat of a beat-'em-up renaissance lately with Streets of Rage 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Toxic Crusaders (there's a show I can't believe I missed out on in the 90's), and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (another one with the great Tee Lopes gifting us his magical 80's retro-inspired touch). All we need is Final Fight and Golden Axe next.

Can't agree with Rainbow Cotton, it has some view issues but isn't a bad game IMO.

Fun fact: Contra is a saturn US exclusive (regarding the overall saturn library i mean)

Prince Of Persia 3D started on the PC two years earlier in 1997, the Dreamcast was the updated version. Mortal Kombat 4 on PS1 was awesome..

Great video! I can agree with these! I play a lot of games on many older systems which I still have the consoles and games and play them today, it is interesting to see how even as the technology took strides many games just did not turn out good at all,

I agree with you on the fact that Blaster Master: Blasting Again was a weak 3D entry for the Blaster Master franchise and it doesn't help that it doesn't even have the original NES game as an unlock able for beating the game.

Technically Mortal Kombat Gold is an updated version to MK4 home consoles. That was only released on dreamcast for some reason

I agree with everything except Saturn's Hang-On GP, it's super fun with the 3D pad and has 2 player support!

Maaaan that Contra game on PS1 was such a letdown. I remember renting it from Blockbuster feeling hyped to play it, especially after playing Hard Corps on the Genesis. I fonally played it and was just like 'WTF?!'. Hurt my soul.

The 3D "remake" of Golden Axe on PS2. Not Beast Rider (which is also terrible), I mean the crappy "remaster" from Sega Classics Collection.

With the slight exception of Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast only), almost all 3D Sonic games from the past 2 decades can fill this list. Even Castlevania learned how to do go 3D after less than a decade.

Flashback => Fade to Black

When people forget that Bubsy 3D existed, we get that ridiculous half-assed Bubsy 2018 or whenever it was that semi-recently came out. We must be ever vigilant and keeping the scourge of Bubsy 3D from resurrecting.

For important matters the worst video game jump from 2D to 3D that should've been on the list is C:The Contra Adventure and it's the worst Contra game ever played.