Old console tricks that fooled your eyes, ranked by cleverness

A tier list by abafa · filed under Gaming · published 26 September 2026

My opinion: the tricks old consoles used to look better than their hardware allowed, ranked by how clever they were. Explained in my video "4 Tricks Old Consoles Used to Fool Your Eyes" on YouTube (Abafaboy). Rank it yourself!

S tier

  1. Dithered water + blurry TV = fake see-through
  2. Mode 7: scaling every line for fake 3D

A tier

  1. Sprite flicker: characters taking turns
  2. Fog hiding how little is drawn

B tier

  1. Parallax layers for fake depth
  2. Elevators hiding loading screens

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