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Post by toei on Nov 12, 2017 14:04:48 GMT -5
We must burn the witch! But yeah, that's definitely something that isn't going to appeal to everyone. I have a soft spot for Lufia, but it's not exactly a must-play. Lufia 2 absolutely is a must play. The original, not the remake with the mind-boggingly terrible character designs. The first one's also solid in that early 16-bit RPG kind of way. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Nov 12, 2017 14:12:51 GMT -5
Guacamelee actually uses Flash and to me it's a great example for showing that Flash is not necessarily a "style", but a versatile tool. I Love the fluid and dynamic animation and bold use of color in that game. To be fair, I fully acknowledge that Guacamelee is well-done technically. I just don't like the art style! It's too "angular," which is something that characterizes a lot of Flash games. I'm all about smooth, curved lines in my character art, so the more angular, pointed, and squared-off the designs are, the less inclined I'll be to want to play the game. And Guacamelee is a perfect example of that style, unfortunately. Everything just looks like it was built out of hastily cut paper swatches! Another style I dislike, which I know will be a controversial one: free-moving first-person 3D. Literally ANY free-moving first-person 3D. It's because of this that I simply can't get into the Metroid Prime games (why couldn't they have at least included an OPTION for a third-person mode?! That's all I ask!), nor the Portal games. Oddly enough, when it comes to grid-based dungeon crawlers a la Wizardry, I'm totally fine with first-person 3D. It's only when you're able to freely move in 3D that enjoying the game is an uphill battle for me. -Tom |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2017 14:55:56 GMT -5
We must burn the witch! But yeah, that's definitely something that isn't going to appeal to everyone. I have a soft spot for Lufia, but it's not exactly a must-play. Lufia 2 absolutely is a must play. The original, not the remake with the mind-boggingly terrible character designs. The first one's also solid in that early 16-bit RPG kind of way. I have a giant stick up my ass, so it feels unnatural to play only Lufia II without having played the first one beforehand. Still, if you're only going to play ONE of those games, the second would be the one to go with. |
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Post by toei on Nov 12, 2017 15:03:32 GMT -5
Lufia 2 absolutely is a must play. The original, not the remake with the mind-boggingly terrible character designs. The first one's also solid in that early 16-bit RPG kind of way. I have a giant stick up my ass, so it feels unnatural to play only Lufia II without having played the first one beforehand. Still, if you're only going to play ONE of those games, the second would be the one to go with. Well, Lufia 2 is a prequel, story-wise, so I guess you could maybe make an exception? Actually, I played Lufia 2 back in the day, and loved it so much that I immediately started Lufia afterwise, and I regretted it, because it made the more dated elements really jump at me. This is about when I decided to always take a break playing another game of the same series, otherwise it's harder to take each game on its terms. So in the end, maybe that giant stick is right when it tells you to play these games in orders. |
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Nov 12, 2017 15:46:02 GMT -5
I'm also not a big fan of the "Newgrounds" style, as popularized by games like Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isacc. Overly thick outlines, choppy animation, and in the case of Team Meat's games, a generally really unpleasant style that makes me feel like I'm playing something made by an angry 14 year old. That's a better way of putting what I was getting at. Though I don't think Binding of Isaac is quite in the same category. |
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Post by nerdybat on Nov 12, 2017 15:48:59 GMT -5
On additional note, don't know if it counts, but I have a particular dislike towards games that use pixel graphics without really taking into account how sprite-based games really worked back in the day. Inconsistent palettes and sprite sizes, rotation and scaling of sprites, vector effects thrown in, etc. It's fine if everything's well-drawn enough, since you can pass that as something from from Playstation or Sega Saturn era (where stuff above wasn't unusal), but when the game exploits the look of NES/Gameboy titles, it just completely breaks the illusion, not to mention crosses the line between "developers trying to emulate a particular look" (which actually takes some effort to do convincingly) and "developers being too lazy/unskilled to draw something better".
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Post by toei on Nov 12, 2017 17:08:58 GMT -5
On additional note, don't know if it counts, but I have a particular dislike towards games that use pixel graphics without really taking into account how sprite-based games really worked back in the day. Inconsistent palettes and sprite sizes, rotation and scaling of sprites, vector effects thrown in, etc. It's fine if everything's well-drawn enough, since you can pass that as something from from Playstation or Sega Saturn era (where stuff above wasn't unusal), but when the game exploits the look of NES/Gameboy titles, it just completely breaks the illusion, not to mention crosses the line between "developers trying to emulate a particular look" (which actually takes some effort to do convincingly) and "developers being too lazy/unskilled to draw something better". Yeah, I hate that fake-retro look. NES-looking sprites with PC-Engine colors and SNES backgrounds all mismatched together. It's nostalgia aimed at people who don't actually play 8 or 16-bit games. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2017 17:47:56 GMT -5
What are some examples of that sort of thing? Kind of curious to see it in motion.
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Post by X-pert74 on Nov 12, 2017 17:54:09 GMT -5
I have a giant stick up my ass, so it feels unnatural to play only Lufia II without having played the first one beforehand. Still, if you're only going to play ONE of those games, the second would be the one to go with. Well, Lufia 2 is a prequel, story-wise, so I guess you could maybe make an exception? Actually, I played Lufia 2 back in the day, and loved it so much that I immediately started Lufia afterwise, and I regretted it, because it made the more dated elements really jump at me. This is about when I decided to always take a break playing another game of the same series, otherwise it's harder to take each game on its terms. So in the end, maybe that giant stick is right when it tells you to play these games in orders. I've yet to play a Lufia game, but I've heard some really heated debates on the internet between people who think it's best to play Lufia before Lufia II, and people who think it's best to play Lufia II before Lufia. I'm not really sure what I'd prefer to do, considering Lufia II is a prequel and all. I can tolerate some older RPGs, depending on how archaic they are (I beat Phantasy Star II, after all), so maybe I'd consider playing Lufia II first, for story-related reasons. |
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Post by toei on Nov 12, 2017 18:16:47 GMT -5
What are some examples of that sort of thing? Kind of curious to see it in motion. Well, the worst example (or best example of the worst, whichever) is probably Double Dragon 4 and it's ugly, clashing backgrounds, but that's the feeling I get whenever my gamer friends show me pics of some random upcoming indie game and rave about it. X-Pert: If order really matters to you, it's probably best to play Lufia first. Even though 2 is a prequel storywise, it was clearly created after and feels more "advanced" in every way. Besides that, the references to past events in the first Lufia work better as pieces of world- and story-building, then when you play Lufia 2 you can live the legend, so to speak. The only reason I would advocate playing Lufia 2 first is because it's just a lot better, just like Phantasy Star IV is so much better than II, but the first isn't bad either. As for the rest of the series, sad to say but you can probably skip it. I thought Gameboy Color game was decent, especially for Gameboy Color, but that GBA spin-off is really awful. |
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Post by nerdybat on Nov 13, 2017 3:30:03 GMT -5
What are some examples of that sort of thing? Kind of curious to see it in motion. The one particular example I can think of is an indie game "Bleed" - above average on its own, yet a real mess in terms of presentation. Like, here we have 8-bit soundtrack mixed with DOS-like graphics, lots of rotating sprites and transparent effects, as well as inconsistent scaling and constant zoom-in/zoom-out. Another one is "AVGN Adventures" - it tries to be kind of a homage to (shitty) retro games, but various parts of visuals clash with each other, which makes it look more like a flash game than something from NES era. Palette is especially all over the place, it's like they used default MS Paint colors to color the thing. I should probably clarify that I have nothing against "improper" pixel graphics as a whole, as long as they're used to either simplify the visuals and make things more distinguishable on screen (Terraria, various indie rogue-lites), or twist things around and create a completely new look (Hotline Miami, Binding of Isaac). It's just when games actively try to be some kind of a "8-bit homage", yet do a very poor job at it, is what really puts me off. |
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Post by aaa on Nov 13, 2017 3:41:21 GMT -5
Not a fan of all the anime art. It's cheesy and makes everything look like a Pokemon episode. Hard to take a game serious with that art style.
Didn't like when the Street Fighter series made that switch. That macho Americanized art of Street Fighter 2 and Final Fight look much better. Alot of those Capcom games had a cool look. Then they went 100% childish anime on everything.
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Post by wyrdwad on Nov 13, 2017 3:46:13 GMT -5
Man, a lot of hate here for anime art! Me, I absolutely love it. Give me cutesy anime art (especially chibi stuff!) any day of the week over... well, really, pretty much any other style out there! Though I will say, anime art has "devolved" a bit over the years. I definitely think anime art was at its strongest in the late '80s and early '90s, and then still pretty strong in the late '90s and early '00s. But ever since the mid '00s, "moe"-style anime art in particular has started to get a lot more homogenized and a lot less appealing to look at IMHO. Best way I've described it in the past is, the later in time you go, the less likely a fantasy anime is to include characters wearing massive spaulders. And as the preponderance of spaulders waned, the quality of moe art waned with it. Two very unrelated things, yet their decline most definitely occurred in parallel with one another!  -Tom |
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Post by aaa on Nov 13, 2017 4:04:01 GMT -5
Though I will say, anime art has "devolved" a bit over the years. I definitely think anime art was at its strongest in the late '80s and early '90s, and then still pretty strong in the late '90s and early '00s. But ever since the mid '00s, "moe"-style anime art in particular has started to get a lot more homogenized and a lot less appealing to look at IMHO. That's the thing. Shit like Demon City Shinjuku, Vampire Hunter D, and Ninja Scroll have some cool art and are really great films. That's when I liked it, when sci-fi channel was showing that stuff on Saturday mornings. What the hell happened? It looks so kiddie and perverted at the same time? Guys who look like females. Young girls with huge eyes and even huger tits. It all looks the same now. Videogames take that look and fly with it. I guess it's like hip-hop music. It done went soft. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Nov 13, 2017 5:15:11 GMT -5
I mean, I'm also talking about a lot of the kiddie-looking stuff from the '80s and '90s (and '00s), TBH. In fact, I prefer that -- the "badass" stuff is cool, but if you want cute anime girls, never were they cuter than in mid-school shoujo romance shows and comedies of the '80s and '90s. I quite like the ultra-cutesy look of anime, I just feel that it's all gotten very "samey" in the last decade or so. Cute anime characters used to be very distinct, spanning a range of art styles and character types -- but nowadays, there have literally been memes created around the fact that in a lot of shows, all the characters literally have the EXACT SAME FACE, such that if you removed distinguishing features like hair and clothing, you would not be able to tell them apart. And that's just kind of sad to see! -Tom |
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