I'm trying to base this off of games I can still put into my system today and be impressed by, so certain titles that looked amazing for the time aren't going to cut it.
Street Fighter III (Series)(CPS3)- Released in 1997, SF3 is still the best-animated 2D fighting game to date, and has yet to be topped in this area.
Metal Slug (Series)(Neo-Geo)- So much carnage goes on-screen in this action-packed shooting series started by Nazca for SNK. The games are all well-animated, and still so much damn fun to play.
Scud Race/Super GT (Model 3)
Virtua Fighter 3 (Model 3)
Daytona 2 Battle On The Edge (Model 3)- Model 3 games still look amazing to me with their clean, bright visuals and smooth frame rates. It's a CRIME that Scud and Daytona 2 never saw home releases, and sorry, but the tracks in Outrun 2 just don't cut it.
Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (PSX)
Tobal 2 (PSX)
Metal Gear Solid (PSX)
Vagrant Story (PSX)- The visual "cream of the crop" for the Playstation. Out of all of these, MGS is CLEARLY the most aged, but it can still impress. SOTN still looks great, and playing Vagrant Story on a PS2 with the filters turned on is all you need to do to make the game look amazing.
But Tobal 2 is still the most impressive 3D title on the PSX to me. It was hard to believe this was a PSX game when it came out in '97; it came out alongside Starfox 64 in Japan, back when the N64 was seen as the most amazing piece of hardware ever, and was so much more impressive than Starfox ever was. It's a CRIME that this game never saw a U.S. release. Where were companies like Atlus and Working Designs when you needed them?
The Ridge Racer games don't make the list because the cars always lacked so much in detail. I could never play in 3rd person view just because of how damn ugly they looked, never mind that it never "felt" right.
