History Main / FinaleProductionUpgrade

** The very last official game for the UsefulNotes/Commodore64 was ''Mayhem In [=Monsterland=]''. This takes the graphical and musical capabilities present in the system and turns them up to 11. The game boasts color-efficient and detailed sprites, palette shifting, layered [[MotionParallax parallax scrolling]] in some scenes, and humongous worlds on the level of Sonic and Mario, thanks to a [[GoodBadBugs bug]] discovered in the VIC-II chip.

** The very last official game for the UsefulNotes/Commodore64 was ''Mayhem In [=Monsterland=]''. This takes the graphical and musical capabilities present in the system and turns them up to 11. The game boasts color-efficient and detailed sprites, palette shifting, layered parallax scrolling in some scenes, and humongous worlds on the level of Sonic and Mario, thanks to a [[GoodBadBugs bug]] discovered in the VIC-II chip.

*** ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand3'': used “pseudo high-resolution mode”, a graphics mode that is only widely known to have been used on this game.
*** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'': Although not a finale to the Mario series at-large, this can be considered Nintendo’s big swan song for the console, as 32-bit video game systems such as the UsefulNotes/Playstation1 had already been released, and Nintendo’s next big product, the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, was in-production and highly anticipated. The game boasted large, expansive worlds, an array of unique enemies, colorful graphics, a memorable soundtrack, and its main selling point, backgrounds AND sprites and objects that could be distorted, scaled, rotated, shaped, and even turned 3D, with the Super FX-2 Chip. Even the ending soundtrack evokes an orchestral feel. For its time, the game was also the last 2D ''Super Mario'' game (and thus the last one from the old-school era that started in 1985), as Nintendo would then focus on 3D ''Mario'' games and [[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros the next 2D platformer]] wouldn't arrive until 11 years later.
*** ''VideoGame/StarFox2'' was originally intended to be ''the'' most advanced software product for the SNES, but it wasn’t until well past the era of that system that this game finally saw the light of day in the 2017 SNES Mini (and later still in the SNES catalogue of the Nintendo Switch Online). If it had been released in 1995/1996 like it was expected to be, the game would have taken the system’s graphical capabilities to its absolute limit: real-time complex texture mapping (even more than ''VideoGame/StarFox'' or ''VideoGame/StuntRaceFX''), and Free-Roam 3D (albeit not on the level of 6DOF.); as well as its game logistics ability, including real-time strategy, [[note]]as in, one would have to forfeit fighting forces on one planet to defeat an imminent threat against Corneria, or to destroy a hijacked defense system.[[/note]] in-progress battle merging. [[note]]As in, while fighting one foe, another en-route would join in the battle in-progress, so one would have both to contend with[[/note]]

Because most of these examples are about increasing the quality and dramatic story elements of TV shows for finales, '''''all spoilers will be unmarked.'''''

* Possibly one of the [[TropeCodifier Trope Codifiers]], this usually happens in reality television (i.e. ''Series/{{Survivor}}'', ''Series/AmericanIdol'', ''Series/AmericasGotTalent''), when the final winner from competitors of a series is expected to be picked; the host(s) and judges (and maybe even the competitors) are all dressed in their best attire, the final venue may be a gigantic amphitheater with a 2000-plus-attendee audience to match, the final performances by the competitors may be their greatest and most complex yet, and the stage may be decked out in its best decorations this side of the season!

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'''s final season sees more CGI usage, harder-hitting stories, and an alternate future where the U.S.S. Voyager has returned to the Alpha Quadrant, at the cost of some of our main crew, and our main future where Janeway seemingly defeats the entire Borg collective, a force to be reckoned with for 13 years, and averts the ChrisCarterEffect by getting Voyager home permanently in the process.

** The Super Bowl (end-of-season competition for American Football) and World Cup (the final event of a four-year cycle for international football/soccer) are side-by-side in terms of venue (usually a jam-packed 80,000-plus-attendee stadium), competition stakes, multiple memorable and creative commercials, and advertising for the event out the wazoo!

* In a sense, New Years' Eve is like this. Regular people, companies, and television production corporations spend money on the best celebratory items (ranging from expensive champagne to exorbitant amounts of food for parties) and decorations (ranging through confetti, poppers, fireworks, and even displays) to help oust the old year, and ring-in the new year.

* As time went on, MS-DOS games for computers that expanded on the IBM PC architecture (286/386/486/Pentium) required ever-more complex and faster systems. In 1997, when the architecture was already 16 years old, and most users had moved on to solely Windows 95 (and Windows 98 the following year), ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'', released in 1997, required 16MB of memory (Other games like ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' required VESA-based high-res graphics modes, as well as 32MB of memory), but boasted so many new 3D features and abilities over its predecessor ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D''. Other 3D-based games around the same time were even able to interface ''directly'' with 3D-accelerated cards, without going through Windows 95 or 98. Unfortunately, in 2000 (Windows ME and Windows 2000) and 2001 (Windows XP), MS-DOS was all but completely dropped, the ability to play games in Windows’ Command Prompt was severely limited, and impossible to boot into DOS without a boot disk.

'''Geordie Too:''' Aye, but they're here anyway and wearing some fancy outfits like.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' was intended to be this for the original cartridge-based Famicom hardware, representing the pinnacle of what could be achieved on the system; Nintendo assumed that, following the release the game, most developers would shift their focus over to the Famicom Disk System (FDS), whose higher capacity floppy discs would allow developers to create games that were more impressive than cartridge based ones. However, thanks to advances in mapper chips and ROM capacity, this ended up not being the case, with later cartridge-based games able to match or exceed what FDS games could do. Because of this, in addition to [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil rampant piracy]], the popularity of the FDS faded, to the point that it was [[NoExportForYou never released outside of Japan]].

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' was intended to be this for the original cartridge-based Famicom hardware, representing the pinnacle of what could be achieved on the system; Nintendo assumed that, following the release the game, most developers would shift their focus over to the Famicom Disk System (FDS), whose higher capacity floppy discs would allow developers to create games that were more impressive than cartridge based ones. However, thanks to advances in mapper chips and ROM capacity, this ended up not being the case, with later cartridge-based games able to match or exceed what FDS games could do. Because of this, in addition to [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil rampant piracy]] the popularity of the FDS faded, to the point that it was [[NoExportForYou never released outside of Japan]].

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'': When it was first released in 1988, the Famicom was beginning to lose ground in Japan to the PC Engine (aka the UsefulNotes/Turbografx16), and Sega was ready to start UsefulNotes/The16bitEraOfConsoleVideoGames** with its Mega Drive (aka the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis). ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' was meant to be the last word of what the 8-bit hardware was capable of, presenting a sprawling adventure with dozens of levels, powerups, tons of secrets, and some of the best graphics the NES had to offer. Indeed, it was the last game Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto and his EAD team designed for the system, before beginning work on the launch lineup for the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]],

*** Averted, but included here for completeness’ sake, in the case of ''VideoGame/StarFox2'': It wasn’t until well past the era of the Super NES that this game finally saw the light of day in the 2017 SNES Mini. If it had been released in 1995/1996 like it was expected to be, the game would have taken the system’s graphical capabilities to its absolute limit: real-time complex texture mapping (even more than ''VideoGame/StarFox'' or ''VideoGame/StuntRaceFX''), and Free-Roam 3D (albeit not on the level of 6DOF.); as well as its game logistics ability, including real-time strategy, [[note]]as in, one would have to forfeit fighting forces on one planet to defeat an imminent threat against Corneria, or to destroy a hijacked defense system.[[/note]] in-progress battle merging. [[note]]As in, while fighting one foe, another en-route would join in the battle in-progress, so one would have both to contend with[[/note]]

** ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'' was this for the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, arguably featuring some of the best graphics and animation on the system, as well as other production values that weren't common on the console, such as full voice acting.

** December 31, 1999 even brought a whopping '''''28-hour''''' world-wide and international televised effort towards the new millennium to highlight humanity's progress, music, art, culture, hopeful future, concern about Y2K, and celebrations in the ''2000 Today'' collaboration, where several (and we mean 100+) countries and their highlights were broadcast all over the world on their respective authorized television channels. ''[[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHBSA-Wg6P1oMbk33nVFWQohb79TkIsY6 ABC 2000]]'' was the United States' coverage of the event, hosted by the late Creator/PeterJennings.

** ''VideoGame/KirbysAdventure: the Famicom/NES hardware was considered long-obsolete by 1993, but this game ups the ante on even ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' by presenting a beautiful color palette, animated backgrounds, and even some rudimentary 3D effects.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'' was originally planned for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS, presumably as a sprite-based game; however, series creator Yoshio Sakamoto wanted the GrandFinale of the mainline ''Metroid'' arc, started in the first game in 1986, to up the ante in terms of presentation, and thus he put production of the game on hold for two console generations until he decided to produce it as a high-definition, TwoAndAHalfD game for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3'' launched on the Wii after the first two games were made for the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube. While the Wii didn't have the same jump in graphical capabilities that its competitors did, this did make ''Metroid Prime 3'' the best-looking ''Prime'' game. Aside from that, ''Prime 3'' features a noticeable increase in scope in comparison the previous two games, which took place on a single planet while the third game took place on multiple ones; while each of the planets in ''Prime 3'' planet weren't as big as those of ''Prime 1'' and ''Prime 2'', it does make the game feel more expansive.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': When the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games' graphics were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game. The games' success [[SubvertedTrope subverted this trope]] since it gave the SNES a boost in popularity allowed it to hang on for a few more years, resulting in some of the later games in this list pushing the boat out even further on what the console could achieve.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': When the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games' graphics were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game. The games' success led them to avert this trope by managing to give the SNES a boost in popularity allowed it to hang on for a few more years, which resulted in some of the later games in this list pushing the boat out even further on what the console could achieve.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3: When it was first released in 1988, the Famicom was beginning to lose ground in Japan to the PC Engine (aka the UsefulNotes/Turbografx16), and Sega was ready to start UsefulNotes/The16bitEraOfConsoleVideoGames** with its Mega Drive (aka the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis). ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' was meant to be the last word of what the 8-bit hardware was capable of, presenting a sprawling adventure with dozens of levels, powerups, tons of secrets, and some of the best graphics the NES had to offer. Indeed, it was the last game Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto and his EAD team designed for the system, before beginning work on the launch lineup for the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]],

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3: When it was first released in 1988, the Famicom was beginning to lose ground in Japan to the PC Engine (aka the UsefulNotes/Turbografx16), and Sega was ready to start UsefulNotes/The16bitEraOfConsoleVideoGames** with its Mega Drive (aka the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis). ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' was meant to be the last word of what the 8-bit hardware was capable of, presenting a sprawling adventure with dozens of levels, powerups, tons of secrets, and some of the best graphics the NES had to offer.. Indeed, it was the last game Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto and his EAD team designed for the system, before beginning work on the launch lineup for the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]],
''VideoGame/KirbysAdventure: the Famicom/NES hardware was considered long-obsolete by 1993, but this game ups the ante on even ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' by presenting a beautiful color palette, animated backgrounds, and even some rudimentary 3D effects.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' was intended to be this for the original cartridge-based Famicom hardware, representing the pinnacle of what could be achieved on the system; Nintendo assumed that, following the release the game, most developers would shift their focus over to the Famicom Disk System (FDS), whose higher capacity floppy discs would allow developers to create games that were more impressive than cartridge based ones. However, thanks to advances in mapper chips and ROM capacity, this ended up not being the case, with later cartridge-based games able to match or exceed what FDS games could do.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': When the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game. The games' success made them led them to avert this trope by managing to give the SNES a boost in popularity allowed it to hang on for a few more years, which arguably resulted in some of the later games in this list pushing the boat out even further on what the console could achieve.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': When the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game. The games success made them led them to avert this trope by managing to give the SNES a boost in popularity allowed it to hang on for a few more years, which arguably resulted in some of the later games in this list pushing the boat out even further on what the console could achieve.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': While the SNES still had a few years of life left in it when the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon at that time, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game. The games managed to give the SNES a boost in popularity allowed it to hang on for a few more years, which arguably resulted in some of the later games in this list pushing the boat out even further on what the console could achieve.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': While the SNES still had a few years of life left in it when the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon at that time, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game. The game's reignited interest in the SNES, allowing it to hang on for a few more years, which arguably resulted in some of the later games in this list pushing the boat out even further on what the console could achieve.

*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': While the SNES still had a few years of life left in it when the first game launched in 1994, 32-bit consoles such as the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn were on the horizon at that time, and Nintendo and Rare made the games with the intention of showing that even their aging 16-bit console could still host visually impressive games. The games were entirely created using pre-rendered 3D graphics to show people that they didn't need to buy new hardware to play an impressive looking 3D game.

** ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd'', which is the GrandFinale of Nathan Drake's story if not the ''Uncharted'' series as a whole, came out for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 instead of the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 that hosted the prior games, allowing the series' famously high production values to be taken UpToEleven.