Great Games, Bad Frames

Elden Ring has descended upon the gaming world like the giant Gaping Dragon, hitting the public consciousness with a slam attack that has drowned out almost everything else. Selling 12 million copies in just a few weeks is no small feat either!

And yet, for all the gushing over this magnificent game, there appears to be one blemish: the frame rate.

Alas, it appears that almost no console can run it at 60 frames per second, even the most powerful PCs struggle with it. Meanwhile a 30fps cap does little to remedy things, given bad frame pacing is kind of FromSoftware’s calling card.

After numerous videos from the gurus at Digital Foundry, coupled with the fact that I still haven’t beaten Dark Souls 2 and not even started the third, I decided to hold fire on Elden Ring until its issues had been patched out.

But then I began to wonder: Are bad frame rates really a deal breaker? I’m sure I’ve enjoyed games with bad frame rates before.

John Linneman posted a poll around how much people are affected by frame rates, and hands up, I do notice them, and sometimes they really can ruin games.

But what I’ve found is that it depends on the game. So below I’ve listed five games with bad frame rates that I absolutely love!

Daytona USA (Saturn)

In the excellent DF Retro Daytona video (which, if you haven’t seen it, you should absolutely check out), John Linneman makes the compelling argument that Daytona USA was where he realised that frame rate mattered. As much as I respect that view, my own interpretation couldn’t be any more different.

Daytona USA runs at a lowly 20 frames per second on Saturn, a third of the arcade, and even less than that on PAL systems. Yet somehow it still plays like a dream. Indeed, it was my favourite version of Sega’s arcade classic until the 360 port, and even then, I still go back to it regularly.

Despite the low frame rate, the handling is the closest of any home port. So close in fact, it eradicates the refresh rate advantages of the CCE, CE and Dreamcast ports in my mind. Indeed, contrary to the opinion of the DF Retro sage, the original Daytona USA on Saturn is where I realised frame rate doesn’t always matter.

Star Wing (SNES)

Sorry, but Star Wing was a cooler name than Star Fox. Just saying.

Anyway, this Super Nintendo classic blew our collective minds with it’s use of polygons in 1993. Going back to it now, you may find the flat shaded poly’s and frame rate which hovers around the mid-teens less than impressive. However, whenever I pick up that SNES controller to play this, the low and erratic frame rate barely registers. I still find Star Wing a blast to play today and one of my all-time favourite SNES games.

It’s another where the control feels responsive, satisfying and consistent despite the low refresh rate, and it’s still a game I play regularly.

Sega Rally 2 (Dreamcast)

Rushed to market in 1998, the DC port of Sega Rally 2 failed to match the success of the Saturn port of the original. The Dreamcast, as powerful as it was, was always going to have a rough time translating games from the insanely impressive Model 3 arcade board, and so a £200 box mimicking £30,000 arcade hardware would. But still, the Sega Rally 2 port should have been better.

In a way, the frame rate problems are worse than Saturn Daytona. At least the Saturn game ran at a more consistent 20fps, Dreamcast Sega Rally is all over the place.

However, that aside, I still think it’s a great game. Once again, the handling model shines, much like Daytona, and while the drops are irritating, like FromSoft games they don’t ruin the experience, at least not completely.

Wipeout 2097 (Saturn)

So far, three examples of games where control trumps frame rate. No game embodied this for me more than the Saturn version of Daytona. Until this game.

Wipeout 2097 was created specifically for Playstation hardware. It was tailor made by Sony first party studio/publisher Psygnosis who not only made games for Sony’s first console, they also had more than a hand in shaping the tools and hardware itself.

And yet, and yet, I’d argue that the Saturn version is superior.

Okay, lets get the obvious out of the way. The soundtrack lacks the licensed Music of the PS1 original, the graphics are of a lower resolution, transparencies are replaced by the uglier mesh solution and most pointedly, the frame rate runs at two thirds the PS1 original at 20fps.

With that out of the way. Let’s tackle what the Saturn does have: Analogue control. This was a revelation on Saturn, pre-dating analogue support on the series for PS1 by years, all the way up until Wip3out. And even then, using the triggers on the Saturn’s 3D Controller as air-brakes was something that would not be matched until the PS4 graced us with the sumptuous Omega Collection.

Keep your Prodigy (the CoLDStorage soundtrack is superb anyway) and frame rate, the Saturn port has the better control and therefore remains the definite version of this classic for me.

Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PC, PS3)

To bring this list full circle, we have the game that popularised the Souls series. Demon Souls was a massive sleeper hit, but the original Dark Souls turned the series full blockbuster.

At the time, I’d moved away from consoles to PC and was excited to pick up the Prepare to Die Edition. I was in love.

Given the widely acknowledged frame rate issues on the PS3 and 360 versions, I thought I was onto a winner on PC.

However, the PC port was pretty atrocious. Image quality capped at 720p and frame rate at 30fps.9

And even then, my decent (at the time) rig chugged when I got to Blight Town. Even when I modded the (un)living hell out of it for higher resolution and a 60fps cap, it would still perform terribly, and even when it didn’t, the bad frame pacing would be apparent.

But it didn’t ruin the game. In fact, it became part of the ebb and flow of the experience, and I accepted it as I plunged over 100 hours into the quest for Lords Souls.

So that’s just five. There are many more such as Saturn ports of House of the Dead and Die Hard Trilogy, or the Mega Drive port of Virtua Racing. I could go on and on and on.

However, it really does depend on the game. I find the uncapped PS3 version of Sonic Unleashed borderline unplayable for example. And for fighting games, anything below a solid 60fps is unacceptable to me. Going back to Soul Blade/Edge now is extremely rough.

Given the amount of Saturn games I’ve mentioned, my tolerance for low frame rates could be traced back to that. There were a number of titles that delivered great gameplay despite the low performance. But the exception on the console was always fighters, where Sega's first party brawlers in particular never delivered anything less than 60fps after the ports of original Virtua Fighter.

The bottom line is frame rate is just one measurement among the countless other factors that decide whether you’ll enjoy the game. You’ll need to experiment and decide your own tolerances that will be specific to you. I’ve shared a few games that I love despite poor frame rates, I’d love to hear some of yours.