What Do You See In Sonic The Hedgehog's Waterfalls?

"I don't really recall it ever looking like this"

by Damien McFerran 2:30pm

What Do You See In Sonic The Hedgehog's Waterfalls? 1 — *Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension*

Given this site's retro gaming remit, it's fair to assume that most of you reading this will have played a video game on an old-school CRT or PVM and will be aware of the subtle but important differences between them and modern-day LCD and OLED screens.

Developers making games in the '80s and '90s were keenly aware of the unique properties of CRT screens, and would use these properties to create unique effects which, when viewed on modern TVs, are sadly absent.

In the case of the Genesis / Mega Drive, which lacked the ability to make objects transparent, special tricks were deployed to give the impression of transparency when viewed on a CRT television. It's possible to get modern emulators to replicate this using filters, as indie developer @aisunina has recently discovered with Sonic the Hedgehog's mesmerising waterfalls:

This discovery has prompted a wave of reaction from retro gamers, with many claiming that the filter used in this particular example is too aggressive and that the rainbow effect – whilst present – isn't as pronounced:

Others have taken this a step further and claimed that the rainbow effect isn't present, at least not to them.

What we potentially have here is an example of how each CRT TV back in the day offered a different experience for the user, and what a game looked like on one TV set wouldn't necessarily be the same as on a TV from another brand.

Also, you need to take into account the type of connection being used; we had RF, S-Video, SCART and Composite available to us back in the '90s, and each would display the image in a slightly different way.

Finally, there's always the fact that memories have a funny habit of being wrong, especially after a few decades have passed.

Do you recall seeing rainbows in Sonic's waterfalls back in the day? Let us know by voting in the poll below.

Damien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media's sites from an editorial perspective. He's also the editor of Time Extension, the network's newest site, which – paradoxically – is all about gaming's past glories.

1
Cyber_Akuma
2:43pm

Isn't this not really an effect of the CRT itself, but the low fidelity RF or composite connections? CRT screens could be pretty sharp (look at monitors) and while I know that CRT TVs were interlaced while CRT monitors made around this time no longer were, they could still produce a rather sharp picture with a good quality input (like those videos of people modifying old CRT TVs to have RGB inputs)

2
Razieluigi
2:51pm

I definitely remember seeing some faint rainbow colors as a kid, but it certainly wasn't as pronounced as whatever that filter is doing. CRTs produced all sorts of color fringing artfiacts like this, and they'd vary in severity depending on the TV and the quality of the video connection.

I definitely break from most retro enthusiasts when it comes to CRTs, however. Even as a kid, I wanted to see crisp, perfect pixels. Media like Nintendo's wall calendars (and the "black box" era cover art) leaned hard into that aesthetic and I loved it. I remember my dad upgrading our Genesis to an s-video cable, and being disappointed that it didn't resolve the inherent fuzziness of our tube TV.

So for me, seeing these games displayed with every pixel clear as day across a ginormous 4K screen is finally the realization of what I always wanted. I'm in my retro gaming glory.

3
nocdaes
3:31pm

There was definitely a faint rainbow effect on the waterfalls. The examples above are just silly - it never, ever looked anything like that.

4
Sketcz
3:54pm

Aww bless, the youngins have discovered how us old timers used to game.

You don't get this using a Mega Drive through RGB SCART on a CRT. The pixels are crystal clear. There is a sort of blending, inherent to CRTs, as opposed to LCD, but you don't get the transparency. It's difficult to articulate, but as pointed out by @Cyber_Akuma , CRT doesn't mean blurry unless you're using RF or composite.

RGB SCART, S-Video, and VGI, are all sharp on a CRT.

Comix Zone benefitted from the transparencies so I actually completed it last year using an RF cable. Shadows look correct. Liquid is transparent. There's fantastic "texture" to the visuals befitting the comic book style. I hate RF, but it genuinely made the Comix Zone experience so much better.

5
Bonggon5
15m ago

I absolutely never saw rainbows playing it on at least 6 different CRTs.

6
Bonggon5
13m ago

@Razieluigi I used to feel like this until I played on a real sharp late CRT over component. That’s the best way imo.

Do you see rainbows in Sonic's waterfalls when playing on a CRT TV? (71 votes)

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