|
|
Post by akumajobelmont on Nov 13, 2017 6:01:14 GMT -5
Or indie games that look like 00's flash games. Or at least in style look like them. Like Super Meat Boy, but often worse. OH, YES. VERY MUCH THIS. I still can't bring myself to play Guacamelee for this very reason. I've heard it's a fantastic game, but I absolutely HATE the art style. Like, I find it completely unappealing in every way, because the characters just look SO MUCH like they're from a flash game. -Tom I have to concur. I have purchased Guacamelee a couple of times now, hoping it would click, but I can safely say that there is nothing about it visually that makes me want to play any more than five seconds into the game. Games with that swap actual animation with that bendy/warping stuff is gross. ___________________________ OK, so let's do this. Styles I appreciate (mostly), but can't get past 95% of the time. There are exceptions to everything I'm about to list, but generally, I find none of the following appealing. 1) Collect-a-thon Rare-style platformers. And Rare-style anything, really. I loathe the character designs in almost every Rare game I've played, so anything going after this aesthetic turns me off hardcore. As for the games themselves, I hate the gameplay, hate the graphics and despise the music. And speaking of music... 2) Mario music pre-Super Mario Galaxy (with exceptions, of course). This is purely subjective, but the melodies in Mario games generally don't do anything for me whatsoever. There's nothing melodically that I'm drawn to and I find them grating. They're distinctive and iconic yes, and I really love that the Mario games have such distinctive music. I just can't dig them. This goes for Crash Bandicoot too. I love the games, but hate the music. 3) Super-realistic Driving sim/sim-cade graphics. The more 'realistic' these games look, the more boring they are. Completely void of any artistic vision, it's just shiny cars and bland, static environments. Gimme chunky SEGA/Namco polygons and blue, blue skies any day of the week. 4) Anything straight-up Military. As a lover, not a fighter, I respect the sacrifices of those in the past for helping shape our way of life today, but I am no fan of war. Modern-day army recruitment shit with cringey dude-bro dialog turns my stomach. I have enjoyed some of these games in the past. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and CoD 1/2/4:MW were great games despite the setting, but generally, I'll give them a wiiiiiide berth. **As a side note, this video is worth watching. It covers mostly movies, but games are mentioned a few times. 5) NES and NES-style indie games. This is purely based on my own nostalgic preferences, I think. I was a SEGA kid, so the NES colour-palette and sound are not something I'm drawn to, or that tickles my nostalgia bone. There are quite a few exceptions to this rule, though. Or maybe it's not nostalgia? I never owned a SNES, N64 or a Playstation back in the day (or an Amiga, for that matter), but I really dig those platforms, their libraries and their unique visual styles/sound. 6) JRPGs. I generally dislike them a lot. That said, I love the Grandia games (at least I and II, I've not tried III yet), and I'm really looking forward to Octopath Traveler. It's a genre I really wish I could love more than I do, but I don't. |
|
|
|
Post by silentstorm on Nov 13, 2017 6:41:07 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 Yeah, i was defending Moe at one point when i realized that, holy shit, they do look alot samey except for the outfits, particularly their face, i still don't hate it as much as some people do, but alot of artists really are lazy regarding this sort of thing. But yeah, also on the camp of liking the more kiddie or cute looking stuff from anime art, probably helps that i don't like some "badass" anime like Hellsing, Ninja Scoll and others(with rare exceptions like Hokuto No Ken, which is as good and as awesome as people say) nearly as much as some people do which probably helps with that. Anyways, digitized sprites like the old Mortal Kombat games and their clones is something i hate. And Minecraft and it's clones, i really just hate how blocky and cubey everything looks and i can't stand playing them because of that. Most attitude era platformers that were ripping off Sonic just come out as trying way too hard for my tastes. |
|
|
|
Post by GamerL on Nov 13, 2017 8:16:17 GMT -5
4) Anything straight-up Military. As a lover, not a fighter, I respect the sacrifices of those in the past for helping shape our way of life today, but I am no fan of war. Modern-day army recruitment shit with cringey dude-bro dialog turns my stomach. I have enjoyed some of these games in the past. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and CoD 1/2/4:MW were great games despite the setting, but generally, I'll give them a wiiiiiide berth. Unless it's a historical setting like WW2, I tend to shy away from modern day set military games as well if they're too propagandistic, I like military themed games to be more self reflective like Spec Ops: The Line or the Metal Gear Solid series. It's not an ironclad rule, I love Command & Conquer Generals, I also enjoyed the Splinter Cell series back in the day (though that's more secret agent than military) and I was always curious about Sony's SOCOM series as that was supposed to be pretty realistic, but I didn't have online at the time, if you're going to do a non-self reflective military game then at least make it realistic because then that's kind of interesting, but these unrealistic "ooh-rah" shoot 'em ups like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare are just real tacky to me. |
|
|
|
Post by kaoru on Nov 13, 2017 9:32:45 GMT -5
Debating the order in which to play the Lufia games is kind of moot, because Lufia II is the only one worth playing at all.
|
|
|
|
Post by nerdybat on Nov 13, 2017 11:04:26 GMT -5
3) Super-realistic Driving sim/sim-cade graphics. The more 'realistic' these games look, the more boring they are. Completely void of any artistic vision, it's just shiny cars and bland, static environments. Gimme chunky SEGA/Namco polygons and blue, blue skies any day of the week. I dunno, I think there are a lot of car sims that do a great job at making everything look fun and appealing despite doubling down on realistic gameplay. Both Race Driver GRID and DiRT series have fantastic presentation - with first person "interactive environment" menus, bombastic electronic soundtrack, lots of fun touches here and there, and overall they do their best job at making everything feel bright and arcadey, despite the games still being legitimate driving sims. Same for Forza or Gran Turismo - both games make up for lack of wacky cars with energetic soundtrack and beautiful views that can sometimes send shivers down your spine  |
|
|
|
Post by wyrdwad on Nov 13, 2017 11:05:57 GMT -5
5) NES and NES-style indie games. This is purely based on my own nostalgic preferences, I think. I was a SEGA kid, so the NES colour-palette and sound are not something I'm drawn to, or that tickles my nostalgia bone. There are quite a few exceptions to this rule, though. Or maybe it's not nostalgia? I never owned a SNES, N64 or a Playstation back in the day (or an Amiga, for that matter), but I really dig those platforms, their libraries and their unique visual styles/sound. While I do love NES-style indie games, I totally get where you're coming from, as there's something conceptually similar I simply don't like, and that's indie games for the ZX Spectrum or in the style of ZX Spectrum games. A lot of people (primarily British) have a whole lot of nostalgia for that old computer, but as someone who never even heard of it until he was an adult, I can honestly say: I don't get it. AT ALL. The ZX Spectrum just was NOT well-suited to gaming IN ANY WAY, and most Spectrum games are downright unplayable for me these days -- and even those rare few that ARE playable tend to look and sound absolutely AWFUL. Between the slow processor speed, the limited sound hardware, and the color clash (Dear Lord the color clash!), the ol' "Speccy" is just... bad! And it's not like I haven't tried to get into it. A lot of ZX Spectrum games were straight-ported to MSX on cassette tape, and I've played a fair number of them. I've even really liked a few (Head Over Heels is DAMNED good!). But in every instance, I can only lament that the game was on the Spectrum, and not released for some other, better platform, as I feel the Speccy most likely held it back from its true potential. The budget status of the Speccy makes a good case for why the system was popular in its day -- I do understand that. But the fact that there are still indie developers today who celebrate that system with games either for it, or in its style, is kind of mindblowing to me! I'd think that would be a chapter of gaming best forgotten. -Tom |
|
|
|
Post by Bumpyroad on Nov 13, 2017 11:50:55 GMT -5
But the fact that there are still indie developers today who celebrate that system with games either for it, or in its style, is kind of mindblowing to me! I'd think that would be a chapter of gaming best forgotten. I've been wanting to try L'Abbaye des Morts for quite some time now, but that's about the only one really  , the system is hardly impressive for sure. |
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Nov 13, 2017 12:28:27 GMT -5
I'm definitely not into the realistic military shooter thing either. Though I'll admit I played the hell out of Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer just because all my IRL friends played it and it was the thing to do. I only played one mission of the campaign before deciding it wasn't for me. Pretty
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 12:40:36 GMT -5
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. Ah, that's pretty jarring, for sure. Any retro-style game really needs strong art direction, and not just some guy throwing a dozen ideas into a pot and stirring. |
|
|
|
Post by wyrdwad on Nov 13, 2017 13:08:58 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree. When it comes to retro homages, I think games like Shovel Knight and Alwa's Awakening are pretty much perfect: they retain most of the limitations of the original hardware, but not ALL of them, creating what I like to call the "rose-colored goggles" effect -- these games basically exist as you remember NES games being, rather than how they actually were.
And of course, I love when a game uses the actual full limitations of the original hardware, as with the original freeware version of La-Mulana.
Too often, though, I feel these "retro revival" titles simply adopt some random traits of the 8-bit era to cover up the creator's lack of ability to do any better.
-Tom
|
|
|
|
Post by Snake on Nov 13, 2017 15:02:16 GMT -5
First-person shooters. Just not my thing. I get 3-D sickness very easily. The last few I may have played semi-seriously consisted of N64 Golden Eye and Duke Nukem on PC. I have Destiny 2, but only because it was a pack-in game with the PS4. All my friends play it. I tried my hand at it for about an hour. Just can't get into it.
|
|
|
|
Post by silentstorm on Nov 13, 2017 15:21:48 GMT -5
But the fact that there are still indie developers today who celebrate that system with games either for it, or in its style, is kind of mindblowing to me! I'd think that would be a chapter of gaming best forgotten. I've been wanting to try L'Abbaye des Morts for quite some time now, but that's about the only one really , the system is hardly impressive for sure. Even then the Amiga version(because of course there is one) looks better:  As they gave that port newer graphics to look a bit more 16-Bit. Which were taken from the Linux version which has both 16-Bit and Spectrum graphics, with the Spectrum graphics apparently also being better in that version:  So if you have an Amiga or a Linux computer(it doesn't seem like the Windows and Mac versions were ever updated into having this mode) you can actually play this game without the Spectrum graphics. |
|
|
|
Post by Bobinator on Nov 13, 2017 15:23:40 GMT -5
First-person shooters. Just not my thing. I get 3-D sickness very easily. The last few I may have played semi-seriously consisted of N64 Golden Eye and Duke Nukem on PC. I have Destiny 2, but only because it was a pack-in game with the PS4. All my friends play it. I tried my hand at it for about an hour. Just can't get into it. That's less of a style and more of a genre, really. |
|
|
|
Post by Snake on Nov 13, 2017 15:29:34 GMT -5
That's less of a style and more of a genre, really. Ah, true. Certainly. =) -A style of game, not that I "dislike," but I have trouble playing are laser disc games. Like Space Ace, Dragon's Lair, and Escape from Cyber City. Maybe that's more of a niche genre too. But the control style always threw me off. |
|
|
|
Post by backgroundnoise on Nov 13, 2017 19:04:26 GMT -5
The only visual style I ever had a problem with was ASCII, simply because I don't find it readable at a glance. I'm not really in the mood to guess whether I am looking at a knoll, kobold, kenku, kuo-toa, kelpie, khaasta, kopru, kraken, kigrid, krenshar or kuldurath.
|
|
, the system is hardly impressive for sure.
