I've read in several places that the mine cart ride out of the Magitek Research Facility is quite possible the ugliest thing ever in a video game. When I look at it, the modus operandi seems pretty obvious: it's basically a stop-motion sequence that uses Mode 7 zooming effects to give the impression of moving forward through a tunnel. I chalk the garishness of it up to low resolution images that are zoomed in way too far. It has me wondering if there isn't a way to improve the quality of it. I mean, just take any other image from anywhere in the game, put it next to an image from the mine cart sequence, and note the huge variance of quality. I can make out every single pixel of the mine cart image because those pixels are roughly four times larger than they should be.
Two options come to mind for how to improve it. One is, there has to be some way to make higher resolution images for the mine cart ride without having to expand the ROM. The other option is, I wonder about replacing the stop-motion images with Super FX-rendered graphics. I mean, stop motion is one thing, it's effective if you do it the right way (which Square obviously didn't), but if you really want to show a 3D tunnel effect, Super FX might be the way to go.
Am I the only one thinking that someone out there could improve this, or would they just be biting off more than they could chew?
We have EVEN MORE themes now, but some old ones are gone...