If a GPU was a dedicated to pushing sprites instead of polygons...

[Flux]

I have similar memories of Super-Nashuan power in a certain other game.

whats this game?

 

[Shogmaster]

I have yet to try this one.
Is it single player friendly, or is it meant to be played in co-op to be any good?

Single player is fine, but multi co-op is where it's at.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Well, technically the most powerful 2D sprite-based GPU ever was the Atari Jaguar's. When doing 3D graphics, most Jaguar games tried to fit in clever framebuffer/blitting effects to jazz up the otherwise primitive images.

I believe Jaguar was capable of a few hundred sprites per line with little to no slowdown.

Other than that, though, you can always "pretend" you're rendering 2D by using pairs of triangles parallel to the camera lens and making the "sprites" textures... in which case you're limited by overdraw and fillrate, but you could probably squeeze out a few thousand sprites per line, possibly tens of thousands, before really breaking down, on a PS3 or 360.

the Saturn with its SH2s, and VDPs crushed the Jaguar in 2D sprite pushing.

 

[crystall]

the Saturn with its SH2s, and VDPs crushed the Jaguar in 2D sprite pushing.

BTW anyone remember "Nights"? That was an excellent mix of 3D and 2D stuff, really cool game... Now that I think of it I should dig it and play it again soon