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It never ceases to amaze us how far modern-day developers can push retro hardware. From elaborate tech demos to fully-fledged ports, programmers are willing to push vintage systems to the absolute limit, forcing them to produce visuals that, back in the day, would have been unthinkable.

Take the work of French developer @upsilandre, who has managed to create a clone of Konami's Axelay on the NES, complete with the cool 'barrel' perspective on the horizon.

The developer is keen to stress that this isn't a 'game' as such, but it does play on real hardware (you can even download the ROM and try it yourself, via either an emulator or a flash cart) and it runs at 60fps. In fact, it looks as visually impressive as Axelay itself, which runs on more powerful hardware, lest we forget.

What will they think of next, eh?

Thanks to Sam Dyer for the tip!