[ekianjo]

Sonic being the exception

[vunderba]

And Rocket Knight Adventures - which is quite colorful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Knight_Adventures

[zedr]

Another: Thunderforce 4. IMHO the finest horizontal shoot 'em up ever made on any system.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Insane. I wished the SNES had the MD‘s CPU, with transparency and SPC700 this would have been even better.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Right! That one looked cheerful.

[gryson]

Doesn't that mean it's not the hardware's color limitations, but rather how color is used by the artists?

There are plenty of gorgeous games on the Mega Drive in terms of color. 61 colors on screen at once is more than enough.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Thats not how exceptions work.

[gryson]

If it's a hardware limitation, there are no exceptions. Which is it?

[ekianjo]

Exceptions mean few people manage to work well with the constraints of the system. This issue is not found on the SNES where a lot of games look nicer.